Overequipping- Live with It Funcom

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Originally posted by Wonton

One argument I keep seeing raised over and over is that MA's can't overequip their fists, and that NT's can't overequip their NF. MA's can carry a bow, and they are easily overequippable. I know MA's who have wrangled a high level bow on. In fact, would seem to me to make sense for a MA to use a self equipable bow for ranged damage, and then use their attacks in special.

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I'm surprised you know an MA that seriously uses a bow; knowing more than 1 is really unusual; there don't seem to be many. Considering that bow special attack is borked, zoning with weapons equiped is borked, and many bows requires ip into blue skills in addition to ranged inititive puts off the vast majority of MA's. The Punching Bag has a great deal of discussion of what to do to overcome the minimum damage problem and bow isn't the answer that MA's come too...its hammers. For that matter if you want to have ranged damage just buy a low ql Vektor; only 1 dark blue skill instead of a green or two and several blue skills.

I guess that one answer to not being able to over equip fists: use weapons. Enforcers with some healing NFs or Adventurers without the morphs :)

BTW the overequiping trend among MA's is to overequip low light scopes to get extra %'s for crits. That way instead of 8 out of 10 hits being minimum damage only 1 out of 4 is minimum damage :)

I appreciate your worries about adventurers but I don't see bows as the solution to MA's problems.

Jujitsu, you know more about MA's than I do, as I've not developed a MA character. I pointed out the bow solution as an alternative given AO's current rule set. A bow plus VS plus a low light scope is quite a potent combination. Perhaps something to consider. I can recall seeing 2 MA's with bow recently, and one is an ingame friend of mine and he does great damage with it. Putting IP into dark blue skills is something most classes have to do at some point or another, and in many cases careful use of implants can circumvent <some> of the IP cost.

My whole objection to the overequipping nerf is based mainly on the fact that high level characters have been developed based on one set of rules, changing it will negate much of the effort many players have put into the game. Sure, MA's and NT's do not benefit from overequipping as much as other classes, but I see that as a choice one makes when choosing a character. And again, there is no reason why a MA or NT can't raise shotgun to wield a vector, and those are massivley overequippable.

Finally, after you reach level 100, you get 40K of IP to spend each level....giving lots of opportunity to balance your character in new ways. Trying new things is part of what is fun about the game, at least for me.

I got a quick question in regaurds to the overeqquiping change FC has proposed. There are a lot of people against the overequip and they have good points as to why. But I am sitting here thinking about the big picture and here goes my question.

Say you are a weapon weilding class, and by level 130 you have all qty 200 gear. Armor you buffed into, weapon, acccessories. So there you are with the very best the game has to offer at lev130. Correct me if I am mistaken on this but considering that a lev 65 trader can buff into a qtylev165 shotty I think I am pretty close to the mark on the qty 200 gear to level ratio for most classes.

What are you going to do now? Your ability to increase your damage output and ac is gone. The mobs are still getting harder. And you have 70 levels of play left with no way to advance your char? Curious what you see yourself doing then. Every day I see posts about how high level play is really bad. I wonder why that is? I am not flaming or suggesting anything. I am hoping that someone can answer my question. I would not play for long once I got the best stuff and realized that I could no longer play cause as everything was getting harder I was staying stagnet.

Help me out with this one.

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Originally posted by Wonton


My whole objection to the overequipping nerf is based mainly on the fact that high level characters have been developed based on one set of rules, changing it will negate much of the effort many players have put into the game. Sure, MA's and NT's do not benefit from overequipping as much as other classes, but I see that as a choice one makes when choosing a character. And again, there is no reason why a MA or NT can't raise shotgun to wield a vector, and those are massivley overequippable.

Finally, after you reach level 100, you get 40K of IP to spend each level....giving lots of opportunity to balance your character in new ways. Trying new things is part of what is fun about the game, at least for me.

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I must say I like the idea of a scaled change to overequiping as outlined in the article ONLY if it is accompanied by the promises given along with it i.e. an IP reset so that decisions made before fundamental changes were made to the game mechanics [and those have already occurred] can be remade and a a toning down of insane mob ac and hp. If those happen then higher level characters won't have their efforts negated [although some may lose the effective use of equipment they've paid dearly to purchase]

I hear you about the 40k of ip at lvl 100 :D What I really look forward to is the new title though. I'm close to hitting the title cap at 82 and the thought of 18 levels where the only change to damage output is some upgrading of implants really chills my blood.

If they leave over-equiping in they should double fist damage at all levels. They should also half nano cost to casting classes and make Inits effect recharge too. That would be a nice trade off.

It would be better if they changed the combat system 100% tho.

If base damage was based on attack rating, and weapons became % modifiers that enhanced damge at a 1% per 10ql and had unique crit, recharge, attack and armor type damage stats, and evades worked to reduced the chance of a successful attack and armor absorbed 5% of it's total value in the damage type of the attack, you would have a simple and fair combat system that would reward skill over equipment.

No one could cry nurf, because basically it would be a whole new combat system.

Minimizing the ability to overequip or even getting rid of the ability all together could work but ONLY if FC lowers the abilities of the mobs while keeping the same experience they give now.

Overequiping wouldn't be an issue then because the difficulty of killing a mob wouldn't change. At the same time, those who don't have the ability to overequip well no longer have as much trouble fighting the mobs of their level. Everyone would be on even footing while gaining experience remains the same if not easier.


Psyphen

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Originally posted by ULTRA1
No one could cry nurf, because basically it would be a whole new combat system.

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I would like it if damage was based on skill and ac worked on a % basis but, as you say, it would be a whole new combat system. Look at the continuing glitches in the combat system they've been working on all along. I shudder to think about what things would look like if they started over. Aimed shot that made agents wave their arms like bow special attack...

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Originally posted by MrPendent
This really is an honest question--I've seen players and (apparently) Funcom upset about overequipping, but what I haven't understood is this:

If Funcom didn't want us to overequip, what is the trader class there for? Isn't that the whole point of the Trader?

If not, don't flame--just explain. :)


Mr Pendent
lvl 39 fixer

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I have to argree with this reason being anyone can overequip all it takes is management i dont see what the bigg fuss about unbalancing is everyone can do it that takes the time to plan for the future....I cant help it you dont know how to equip implants and make sure your comp lit is high enough and so on learn to play the game overequiping is a part of every major MMORPG at least funcom has some requirements unlike EQ.

I say if they kill it they will lose over 50% of all players lvl 75 and higher...


GL

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I have to argree with this reason being anyone can overequip all it takes is management i dont see what the bigg fuss about unbalancing is everyone can do it that takes the time to plan for the future

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*sigh*

Once again, when someone can show me how to wrangle into a new set of fists, I will join the "leave overequipping the way it is" camp. Until then, I will continue to think that overequipping is unbalancing.

There is no way for an MA to equip QL 200 fists at lvl 80 like weapon users can do with their weapons.

Fact: My enforcer outdamages my MA. My enforcer is 25 levels lower.

Fact: My Agent does comparable damage. My Agent is 40 levels lower.

The reason: both my enforcer and agent are highly overequipped.

This is the problem with overequipping.

Her it is: overequipping need to be fixed. If you dont have skill to use weapon - you should have penalty. Very little penalty for about 20% skill difference (this still leave outside buffs like traders buffs or switching implant still usefull) but for more then 20% difference the penalty must be pretty heavy... This way it will be much more easer to balance things for FC. We all become better game... And remember, this IS a SKILL game, not lvl game or QL game. You have skill - you can use item. No skill - no use. This must be applied to armour too....

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And let me put it this way... I imagine you will complain about your fist damage until one punch from fist = 1 hit from rifle. I also assume that you don't ever stop to take into account. you fists are approximately 1sec attack and 1 sec delay, while my rifle is 2.5 second attack and 2.5 second delay.... and your fists come with Brawl/Dimach/MA attacks. ........

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Firstoff let me say I don't think overequipping needs to go away. I do however disagree with your little rant generalizing that MA's want this. Also, At higher levels almost all weapons are hitting as fast as fists. Also you have root.

Thomasin pretty well hit the nail on the head here:

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Fact: My enforcer outdamages my MA. My enforcer is 25 levels lower.

Fact: My Agent does comparable damage. My Agent is 40 levels lower.

The reason: both my enforcer and agent are highly overequipped.

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But then he went on to say:

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This is the problem with overequipping.

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And I have to disagree. This problem is not due to overequiping, it's due to the fact that fists do minimum damage because of the way AC works in this game. MA's should be given much higher minimum damage given that speed becomes a non-issue when everyone's init is way up there. Speed at lower levels was our balancing factor, but it is no longer the case at mid to high levels. I think it's even justifyable on a RP level, because MA's would be doing crippling blows. We don't just punch you in the [read as: armor] helmet with bare fists, we wrack your vulnerable spots with our armored and nano-enhanced fists and feet.

So the solution for MA's isn't to get everyone else gimped, it's just to be given damage output in line with what we are, lethal masters of close combat. Up close we should be scary as hell. We should be taking that shotgun or rifle and shoving it where the sun doesn't shine. As it is, we're like annoying sparrows pecking at your armor with the potential to get in a lucky brawl. Yes dimach is nice, but it's every 30 min. Shen is every 17 min. I literally cannot fight another duel until those come back, as that damage is the only significant damage I do.

We're kinda like soldiers in the respect that once we use our alpha strike (shen + dimach) we're left with crap hits. Only our alpha takes 30 min to come back. With the PvP half damage we're just gimped. I do half of minimum, which in some cases is literally less than the damage shield of the person I'm hitting. So I'm hitting for say, 65 and getting hit for 70+ from reflected damage. Adventurers kick my ass with that.

Overequipping is fun and cool.

And for whoever mentioned bows, you have to realize that if we go bow, we go bow exclusively. There is no overequipping weapons for an MA unless they plan on going without fists, as fists get bugged whenever our MA skill changes for any reason with a weapon equipped. Conisider also we cant use MA special attacks, i.e shen, BwT (our bread and butter) with a weapon up. And then of course there's bow special attack which /waves to your opponent, and costs a ton of IP for nothing.

Ming - Bumping up the minimum damage for fists would help MA's but what about other professions that don't use weapons to deal damage? I would be happier because my main character is a Martial Artist but it seems to me that you have a profession specific fix to a broader problem. Am I correct in seeing four ways of dealing damage: weapons, nano formula, pets, fists? Weapons can be overequiped with wrangles. Engineer pets can be overequipped and MP pets, well never mind. You've got a potential fix for fists. What about nanotechs or [/me blushes in embarrasment] bureaucrats?

I once met a lvl 70 agent with a lvl 200 shotgun...that is overequipping! and not fun !!.. lvl 70 peeps with lvl 120 weapons or lvl 120 with lvl 170 weapons i can live with...:-)