Please don't make any more "down time" as you call it...
For high level play (>100) I find that ONLY group missions are of any use.
For my 108 Trader the only missions that I group for are 175+.
I never have more time on-line for more than one of these.
Currently I spend a LARGE amount of time in team preparation...ie. finding remaining members, waiting for them, picking a mission, and buffing. That is PLENTY of time to chat and socialize.
I also play a low level MA (level 22 currently) and there is DEFINITELY not enough NCU for good bufs. Since you made Trader comp lit bufs self-only it is extremely difficult to fit enough NCU at low levels for decent bufs from other players.
Ahh...if you do 190+ missions you often get a...
Really Mean Crook...and they ARE really mean. I sure don't want to see anything harder than that in a mission anytime soon...especially when those level missions take so long and you often die.
Quote:
Originally posted by Erelius
The one thing you said about team missions getting a "boss" in the end sounds great. That way, you would make team missions more attractive...(at least for me, but I guess some others feel it that way too)
And about the "every class should get their own unique thing to add" thing woud also be a good improvement. As it is today, tanks (pets) and healers are the only thing that matters... Though I haven't got any clue on how you should proceed to make this improvement, I would very much like to see it in one way or the other... =)
Well...there ARE no "team missions" right now...
only individual missions with dupped keys. If you go putting boss mobs in them you'll kill solo missions. So this is a good idea for AFTER you install team missions AND get them working well. Just keep the boss mobs OUT of individual missions....please!
Quote:
Originally posted by Breogan
I think the idea of bosses in missions is good, makes it more interesting... but I envision a different kind of team mission, one that I dont know if it can be implemented, but bear with me...
Books and movies use a lot the "team of specialists" model. You assemble a team that mixes people with completly different skills, everyone is absolutely needed cause there is something she or he can do and nobody else can do (the driver, the thief, the silent killer commando).
Team missions in AO should be similar; there should be a reason why you need a particular profession in your team. Lets say we have multi-level missions (that would be a plus):
On getting the mission you will know that you need an Engineer of skill X to be able to fix the elevator to the lower level, where
a Nanomage is required to reprogram a nano-powered machine so it would be able to elaborate a particular kind of one shot weapon that only a Soldier can use to
kill a otherwise impossible to kill robot.
Thats my 2 cents.
Steward of the Ranger Prime Breogan
Clan Eye of the Nexus
The Problem here is clear!
Funcom,
First I would like to say "Thanks" for asking the opinion of the community. I would then like to qualify myself by saying that I have played "every" MMORPG that has been sold on store shelfs. UO and EQ being the ones that I played for years. I have to say that when I joined AO and passed level 10 the first thoughts that came to my mind is "Why does nobody group?". Coming from games like EQ where all you could do is group, the thought of no one grouping was foreign to me. Unlike some I prefer to group with people, I feel it is part of the enjoyment of a online community. I think after evaluating the game for awhile that the reason no one groups is because of several reasons.
A) Not many people know where to fight at their levels, let alone where to bring a group so they end up just simply doing missions.
B) Where are the Dungeons? I posted this question on the "Beginners Corner" and received only 1 reply by a high level who only knew of 3 Dungeons. And through all my research from websites and guides I can not seem to find one place that outlines the Dungeons and what level is good for them. Usually Dungeons make a awesome place to encourage grouping, infact in most games I would log my charecter at the entrance so that I could just log in and shout for a group in the Dungeon the next day.
C) What advantages do you have for grouping? People for the most part are not willing to go through all the effort to shout in a zone for 20 minutes to find a well-rounded group if their is no advantage to it. Forgive me for using this dirty word on the board but "Dark Age of Camelot" had a great idea of giving you "ALOT MORE" exp when fighitng in a group. And they also added bonuses for fighting argo mobs, which also encourages grouping because it is to risky to fight argo mobs by yourself, but if the exp is greater by say 10% its worth getting a group.
I would have to list my biggest complaint about this fantastic game it would be the "lack" of documentation to explain a complicated system. Lets face it this game is 10x harder to learn then the "Fisher Price style EQ". So with that we need more info, for instance in regards to guilds, their really is nothing more then a short document under FAQ that explains just the bare minimum to creating a guild and some basic commands, but nothing I found explains the different titles in relation to the different governing forms and what each title has the ability to do what vs other titles etc. Along with that would be the "not knowing" where to fight at what levels or where the dungeons or other special fighting area's are. Why not put together a map that has them all listed out with min and max levels for dungeons and zones.
Just a few suggestions. Again thanks for your time
Foxal, a 145 doc on rk2, responds
Aggro
There are about a dozen soldiers and enfs in my level range. The soldiers never have any chance of keeping aggro. I don't know if their aggro nanos aren't as good as Mongo, or if they just don't try them because they think that is the case, but they don’t ever get more than two hits. If I’m in the team, the mobs will go on me instantly with no enf. With the new doc aggro rules, the bad enfs can never keep me alive, and I end up tanking about half the time even with the best enfs. A good enf would be one that drains his nano pool with mongoes, without tank armor on, and then drains it again after I first-aid him back up another 627 nano points. That *sometimes* gets mobs off me while I’m healing and doing damage. Thank god the mobs do drop fast, and that I’ve had enough IP near the title to max my evades. The aggro situation is still a little odd (I can get flooded by “attacked by” messages when I step into the main room of a mission).
Healing professions have a purpose
Although near lvl 150 I am definitely not needed for or asked to teams as much as I was around lvl 100, healing is still necessary. Perhaps a good team can drop a vet in ten seconds or less, but if you happen to pull three, you are either going to need a calmer or a healer or a pet. Calmers are preferred over healers, obviously; it’s better to prevent damage then to repair it. Obviously, more professions want to be able to calm – soldiers especially seem to clamor for it. I think “calming” is a rather too godlike power for an RPG player, especially when it can be done over and over and over (or area of effect.) Not that I have a conflict of interest or anything – less calming means more healing >:) Pets are also very preferred, because the overequipping situation is so out-of-hand that engies compete to see how early they can get out their 200 bot. What is the record now, 120? 110? An engy with a 200 bot can solo anything but a pair of lvl220 mobs.
“Surprising” battle
Making battle more unpredictable would be beneficially realistic. Simply increasing random monster spawn is not a good way to accomplish this. Make mobs more intelligent. When I’m leveling with my friends, I’ve noticed that the enfs know to draw mobs with their presence and not by firing at them; firing at a mob in a room full of three will bring all three, but sidestepping around will bring only the one that notices you first. The mobs are still *idiots*. Don’t get me started on pathing.
Downtime
I must admit my ignorance of RPGs here when I say I have no idea what you are talking about. If we had to stop after every battle it would take weeks to gain a level. And so we would all quit.
Soloing and socialization
It makes for slow XP, and little socialization. It gets more difficult the higher you go in level. It’s not done very often (not that I’m saying it shouldn’t be). It’s simply that, with current game mechanics, there are no advantages to soloing unless you have a searing psychological need to be alone all the time. Personally, with the way the chat system is set up, I can socialize to a limited extent during battle: type a bit, hit escape, hit buttons for heal or special, hit enter, resume typing, etc.
Support / tactics
Only bosses / ‘named mobs’ take strategy to kill solo, but mobs en masse like high lvl borgs take skill to take down, so you don’t get 20 attacking you at once. Once again, a cautious enf can pull one at a time for fast XP.
More interesting monster camps
Oh, you mean there would be more than one place to hunt? At my level, the only mobs I see in a high enough concentration to get good XP from are borgs (of which I am extremely tired of). Enigmas are too varied in level and social far too much for safety, and medusas are far too hard after their patch.
My problems
AO has very little content. I have not and will not read the $20 book. I’ve paid a hundred dollars for this game, and I would like it to have some plot. Working NPC static quests. Mobs that don’t have to teleport around because they don’t have the AI of units in, say, Starcraft. Bug fixes. I have to say that the single thing that makes me the most angry is that the HP bars in the Team window STILL don’t draw right when someone enters radar range – I must select them to see their correct HP (which is higher than the initially incorrect value). I would say that several times a day I have a heart attack because I come into radar range of a teammate and think he’s at 70/7000 hp because I was too far away to heal him, only to select him and find that he’s at 70%. I remember this happening in beta. Am I the only one with this problem? Additionally, when I’m walking around Tir, the game can lag so bad that it freezes.
Please note I am sometimes prone to hyperbole. Everything I’ve said here is at least qualitatively true for me.
I assume that one of FC’s biggest problems is that people are leveling too fast. If you make us level slower, people will quit. Unfortunate, I think, but there are lots of other RPGs coming out and if people think they can’t beat the system, they will try to beat another.