Soloing and Teaming (the conclusions)

[Hildegaard]

I agree with DiL wholeheartedly. Docs are not supposed to be fighters. My doc doesn't even carry a weapon.

But docs have been F*CKED HARD repeatedly by Funcom's changes.

[_____________Kwangju]

Geeeezzzz, here we go again! You nerf-herder-whinners are never in short supply "Don't fix the other characters, make them as crummy as mine."

Publius says: Sorry, guys, but no way would it be right to improve the healing abilities of any class other then the one that is DEFINED by healing, The Doctor.

The MA IS defined as the second best healer, second only to the doc. I'm just trying to fix it so that the MA is a good healer, a doc should OUT HEAL AN MA ALWAYS. And I do believe that's true, my MA is a lousy healer. If you think you can do a hard mission with only an MA to heal, your'e gonna be sorry. MAs assist the doc from complete healing overload, they can nver replace a doc. But an MP can replace an MA, their pets heal better and fast, and the damage pet does more damage then an MA.

But I never cry "Nerf the MP", I say fix the MA to be better.

In other words, if my doc needs help, screw the others. Gee, what a good idea that is. If FC makes the MP pet a damn good healer and a Trader can out heal a doc, THEN FIX THE DOC!! Not let MA and the Adventurers suffer more with inadequate heals.

FC changed the hate list of the mobs, do the hate melee fighters, but gave us nothing to offset this. An eight second rcharge rate for my MAs heals is not what I would call "the second best healer in the game".

[__________Mindswayer]

1. "What we never wanted to do was to make soloing more fun, more rewarding, and easier than teaming."

I don't think the reverse should be true either. Teaming should not be more fun, more rewarding, and easier than Soloing. This should come down to preference. If you make out equally either teaming or soloing, everyone is happy. Those who rather solo and those who rather team.

2. "What I think I will do is up the chance of not being detected by lower level monsters based on level difference."

That just seems "wrong". Why should one level 60 Agent with 400 concealment have the same success rate sneaking as another level 60 Agent with 30 Concealment? The way you have it now sounds right.

[__________Mindswayer]

Another dynamic change you should seriously consider implemented is the way AC reduces damage. Change it to a percentage based reduction instead of a flat value reduction. This is the only way to make high-rate-of-fire/low-damage weapons usefull.

Look at all the weapons in this game, yet only about 10% are being used by players. The AC calculation has a LOT to do with it.

[Lynkz]

Hello, I am Lynkz the angry fixer. *evil glare*

[______________Ciraco]

OK, I REALLY liked the positive feedback!

The Bosses being the majority of AI improvement, and changing little of the AI for "run-of-the-mill" monsters is a very save and favorable idea, and I love it! Especially if different lvl creatures have different complexities of AI (200 lvl creatures should be smarter than 100 lvl creatures)

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Changing XP values for creatures with varying attack-on-sight values is also a very neat idea. Also the Short term memory idea is pretty good. How about this though: Instead of "cousins" attributing percentages of agro, how about allowing an AI to determine POSITIVE and NEGATIVE agro? Allow nearby creatures to develope FEAR or even CHARM instead of agro if the battle is too onesided!

Say for instance, A team is beating the snot out of a group of BotHackers in Pleasant Meadows. A higher AC and HP nearby cousin might want in to the fight, and would begin to grow agro (make a triger point so they don't auto add to the fight. Make them get mad, then madder, then fight. Also include PROXIMITY as a percent modifier on agro) Say another humanoid is also nearby, and sees the team kill 2 or 3 bothackers now from a distance. It also knows that it's cousin the Thug joined the fight, and is loosing, and knows 2 more Thugs are about to join in. Say this Monster (a Hardened Criminal?) is lower AC and HP, and is Scared and stays out of it entirely. Maybe if attacked later, it would simply run away (or better yet, CALL FOR MOMMY!)

In a different scenario, maybe the Criminal decides to HELP the team, cast a few heals on the party, or a few debuffs on the targets (but not directly get involved) in order to lead the team into not attacking that "cousin" THIS WOULD BE VERY COOL!

A rather simple mathematic structure could run server side to account for this feedback between monsters. A "Help, I'm about to die" triger could be added to the monsters list of available actions. Hearing too many calls for help is a condition to run. but hearing a lot of answers to that call could be a condition to simply stay out and see how the battle goes. Hearing calls, and watching bodies fall fast could be a condition to help the player team.

This could also bee "cousin" or "brother" independent. As humans turn sides on their brothers, so should criminals. That would be fun! Attacking a group of BotHackers might draw 3 to the battle right off. 2 die, and 2 more agros in. 2 more in the vicinity see 1 more die (3 of 5 dead) and the party is in good health! They begin to think they may be next, so they ATTACK THE REMAINING AGRO'D BOTHACKERS! (ie: charmed without becoming pets) To initieate this, simply ignore the fact that monsters reatc to names at all. Make them react to cousins, and in different amounts depending on the generation gaps and proximity.

Nearby unassociated creatures and wildlife should react ONLY to the fact that there is action nearby. Aggressive creatures like woodwolves should runn to battle to see what's for dinner, and attack things at random (on both sides). Defensive creatures that might normally agro if you get too close, should run instead when a battle is nearby.

If you still have any processor power left after that... how about MvM? Wolves prowl... in packs even! And in the process, gain XP, allowing them to perhaps gain lvls (change names is easier to record and takes less CPU and RAM in the AI) When a pack get's too high lvl, eventually it will become a nice roaming target for a higher lvl team! (and be culled at the same time)

I hope you followed that!

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I also like the idea of adding threads for the professions. I'd even like to see general forums for feedback for each profession. Until that happens however, I still have 1 MAJOR complaint about Doctors healing agro.

It seems to me that Team Healing agro is not being computed properly. In fact, in a test i performed, healing in general does not record agro properly. In a fight with a team, I (as the doc) can accrue agro by healing somone who IS NOT HURT (thereby actually accomplishing nothing) This is VERY BAD when you considder TEAM HEAL. If I have a perty of 6, and only 2 are hurt, I should only agro a percentage for what I ACTUALLY HEALED instead of what energy was actually infused into nanobots to heal players. Currently, I heal for 445 max on the team. If I heal 1 person for 300 and another for 225, I should not recieve the agro equivolent of healing for a possible 2,670!!!

Also, Monsters that have yet to enter combat should not acrue 100% healing agro. It seems to me in trials that they do. Every time I am in the process of casting Team Heal, and a new add joins the opposing side, he immediately goes for the doc. How about this: Healing agro is only accrued if the monster is actively attacking the SPECIFIC target healed, and accrues a small percentage otherwise. This would be especially important if my above ideas were to be implemented into the AI. (If a monster is fighting on my behalf, healing should not agro him, but add to his will to fight for us!)

Thanks for your time, sorry I'm a little verbose!

-Sandbags

[Cerber]

As a MA i don't really want a better healing ability, what for? If
i only do small amount of dmg against a mob, heal no matter
how good it is, will eventually eat up my nano and i'll die in
front of a green anun slasher with 75% of remaining life ...

I think FC should concentrate on other nanos for MAs, we are
MAs we suppose to be THE best in evades and speed. What we
have now is just not so working green evade skill.

As for the damage, perhaps you can make as as fast as those
chickens on steroids (Anuns) or some of the Snakes...

So as a conclusion, we need couple more evade and speed
oriented nanos (replace those useless 'Give' line of nanos) with
several levels of availability. Special self only crit nano along with existing crit line of nanos, and of course new special attacks based on a different skills, and i don't mind if you will do some of the Really rare to find ...



Thanks.

P.S. What is up with a MA suite armor? I don't think anyone above lvl100 wearing one and where is a helmet or gloves for it?

[runt]

With regards to healing, I think that at higher levels, Docs need the most help. As someone else pointed out, Traders by FAR can outheal a doc with their Team Heals. Here's an example:

The highest level doc Team Heal (Not counting Alpha & Omega, since the 12 second recharge makes it completely useless) is Conglomerate Health Plan, which heals 485-970 points on each team member, with a 3.29/4.88 attack/recharge.

The highest level trader Team Heal is Premium Delayed Health Payment, which heals 920-1144 points on each team member, with a 2.8/3.8 attack recharge. Oh, and it adds a puny -169 dot to the trader.

Ohhh-kay. So the trader is almost guaranteed to do more heal, and can do it a lot faster than the doc, and the DOT can be ignored, because the team heal heals yourself as well. So the trader can potentially heal up to 6864 (1144*6) points and they are "paying" for it with 1352 points of damage to themselves over a minute. The min/max differences here are also very large for the doc and very small for the trader.

Let me go back to an earlier level heal and compare there:

Circle of Renewal (req 704/632 bio/mat met) heals 423-802 with 3.05/4.14 delay.

Greater Delayed Health Payment (req 702/630 t&s/bio) heals 700-800 with 2.7/3/7 delay, and -136 dot.

This time, the trader doesn't max heal for a lot more, but the min/max differences here means the trader can still far outheal the doc, and do it faster as well.

Things that I think would help:
1) Either a) reduce recharge times for doc heals across the board
or b) make nanoc init affect recharge times somehow

I realize the 2nd isn't likely because it would probably make NTs be able to chain nuke too much, so how about the first? Most of my time in a party is spent waiting for my heals to recharge and hoping I can get the next one off in time and that it won't be a minimum heal.

2) Raise the bar on higher level Doc heals. Both the minimum and maximums don't go up enough for each successive heal nano that I upload, while the damage the tanks I'm trying to heal takes as I go up in level increases by quite a bit more.

3) Reduce the min/max ranges. A max heal does almost twice as much as a min heal, and that makes it very hard to plan out how much I need to heal who when.

4) Make single heals worthwhile to cast. The highest doc single heal (again other than Complete Heal, because the recharge time makes it nearly useless. Not as bad as A&O, but 8 seconds is still a very long time) does 693-1283 points. Not only does the team heal do almost as much to more people, but it recharges faster as well. This means that the only time I will cast a single heal is when the battle is proceeding at a somewhat leisurely pace and only one person is being attacked.

For the time that I spent up through level 70-80, the Doc was easily the best healer. The nanos haven't scaled up as well as they needed to beyond that, not to mention the fact that another class passes the Doc up in healing ability at these higher levels.

I don't want to whine "nerf traders" but if Doc heals aren't upgraded, a Trader (who also does far far far more damage than a Doc could, not to mention all the debuffs) is a better team healer than a doc. I would far prefer to see the Doc boosted than the Traders reduced, because I always like to have someone who can help me heal in the team, I just don't really think I should be helping someone else heal, since I really can't do much else.

Jaenelle
116 Nanomage Doc RK1
www.aorealms.com

[Tjohei]

Any word u can share with us soldiers Gaute?? Seems like that is not propper in any way. And I am know u transer char.. not only from test to live. But also from Rub2 to Rub1. Sometime I wounder why I does pay a monthly amount. So long my main is a soldier. I guess it is so my son with his MP is so happy with his char.

På godt norsk. Har dere vegring mot å svare på noe rundt soldtaten?? Hva er galt med dere? Får vel beskjed her også, at dette er ikke rett sted å poste sånne saker.


Aimabel - Soldier Rub2

[Whiterrabbit]

Originally posted by Defildae
Spacegipsy

JohnMclain
Wants to Take area effect snares away from the Fixer. These changes would really take away from the Bureaucrats domain.

Crap, what a winner, shut up. Crats root, shoot, mez, nuke and have a back up set of duel Homearms Defenders. So don't begrudge the tidbits FC tosses to the Fixer.

johnmclain plays a fixer. christ, i know every fixer in the game, both of them. his post should be considered in context which was, as long as the single target snares are improved, and then goes on to list some very good ideas for doing so.

the fixer has been fixed? lol, how many posts here, and this is a fair sample, from other classes say "fix the GD fixers!!!"

new nano idea:

obtain clue MKIII <--- castable by the dev team
i know you guys have serious issues, mostly because this game was released too early, corportate pressures, etc....

please, fix the classes before you move on. arguing for NT a little here too

[Lynkz]

Does your community friend Thomas ever go in to the fixer message boards? Has he noticed how low the morale is in there? Every third post is someone saying that they are either quitting their fixer or quitting the game. Why don't *you* go to the fixer forums instead of hearing it second hand. One would guess that Thomas plays an agent. I've had the whole day to digest this information and I'm still pissed. I spent half my day looking for someone with ridiculously high break and enter, and of course no one had it. No one raises it higher than about 400 because that's all you need up to level 200.
Adventurers
Fixers
whoever else

THAT should be the order. Go ahead, do advents first. But Fixer had better be next! *evil glare*

[Whiterrabbit]

i did a little experiment, went through every prof board, looked at the first 5 or so threads in each... now let me say that if gaute thinks the agents have been slaughtering them, then he forgot the fixers existed. plus they have been using coherant arguments, backed up with reasoning and evidence. fixers are dropping like flies... its sad, i think ive lost 80% of the people i considered friends since release. and at least 50% of the fixers i know have switched to another class or quit, and i know a lot of fixers.

but, fix the agent first! most important that.

[__________JohnMclain]

Defildae - Here's a thought. Go the the people page and look up Johnmclain.

John

[__________JohnMclain]

Gaute:

Additional feedback in response to your ideas for root/snares.

The reason they're currently not used, thus making the professions good at them not desired is they break instantly. I fail to see how adding a debuff to them help them any? Who cares if it debuffs them when I break it with one shot??

I really don't understand why this seems like a good idea? The debuffs that are currently in the game that break instantly aren't even used (read doc debuffs). Maybe some players have them uploaded because it overlaps skills, but I've never had a player in my team use them.

From what I can tell, your solution to a lacking nano line is to give it the properties of an even more lacking nano line.

Just make them do what they say they do, even if its for a shorter duration. There is no point for a 20 minute snare that breaks the first time you shoot it. Give me 10s of a snare that sticks. At least THOSE 10s will be useful.

John

[______________Fizzel]

I would like to begin by saying thanks! It was a very informative article. Not only did it explain what Funcom is considering doing, but also how alot of things already work.

I agree the Fixer class does need some tuning

I disagree that the MP heal pet should be nerfed. (I love my healing pet!)

I really like the idea of "short-memory" aggro.

I however am a little concerned with the boss mobs.. Are they going to be at the same camp everytime? or random camps?
Being an Ex-EQ addict.. I worry about people or teams "camping" spawns. Dodga for instance at "rising sun" is already camped most of the time. I logged on the other morning at 2:00am and there was 4 people waiting on him. At 4:00am 2 people.. ect

I found that "camping" issues in the other games caused a social distrust of other players and a general negative backlash. The group or people who got the item(s) felt bad and the people who didnt felt bad too.. unless of course, you were the type of player who was unfeeling. and those were the ones who usually ended up with the phat loot.

Anyway, keep up the good work Funcom!

and thanks again!


Fizzel 75 MP
Mizdeztinee 45 Fixer

[MrBunny]

Originally posted by Aimabel
Any word u can share with us soldiers Gaute?? Seems like that is not propper in any way. And I am know u transer char.. not only from test to live. But also from Rub2 to Rub1. Sometime I wounder why I does pay a monthly amount. So long my main is a soldier. I guess it is so my son with his MP is so happy with his char.

På godt norsk. Har dere vegring mot å svare på noe rundt soldtaten?? Hva er galt med dere? Får vel beskjed her også, at dette er ikke rett sted å poste sånne saker.


Aimabel - Soldier Rub2

Gaute. Tell us you are going to do some changes for soldiers.
I think one of the sources of your problem Gaute, is that you've not taken any psychology classes or played many pen and paper games. You have to realize, people no matter what class they are always want the best class so that they can become uber. People want to succeed. That is why they spend credits, time, and effort into developing their characters into the most deadliest character on rubi-ka. Don't try to fool yourself, people want power. No one is interested in the story because there is no story to speak of. At best we are just an audience in a slide show. The only ones who are interested, are split into two categories. The hard core players. and the Ignorants.

That is why in the beta phase you had alot of frigging soldiers. No one wanted to be the worst class. And the best class everyone knew and calculated was the soldier since the soldier was a decent tank and could dish out damage like nothing. Then you freaked out Gaute, and in your flawed wisdom decided it would be in the best interest of balance to maybe redirect changes for AO by nerfing soldiers and upping other classes. Well guess what Gaute? Although your algorithm for weapon calculation is a bit cryptic the one thing that people figured out was that one of the better classes was the MP. So what happened? People become MP's. Then if you decide to give some "love" to MA's guess what? People will then switch from MP's to MAs. And when you give "love" to agents people will want to become agents. Do you see what the problem is Gaute?

The problem is your game revolves around hack and slash. Theres nothing for advancement other than exp gaining. And the only way to gain exp is to find sh!t and kill it. You need to f|_|cking get a clue Gaute and read up on www.dragonrealms.com even though its a non graphical interface, (oh no! no pictures?! cmon people. Lets do a little more reading. I mean damn, wtf is this suxx0r and r0xx0r sh!t ? Is FC run by 9 year old script kiddies?) it has alot of ideas that are way beyond its time. In short its everything you could ever want in managing a game. The only thing it lacks is your skeletal storyline.

Your attempts at fixing soloing and teaming and over equipping, should be secondary to making AO a more diversified game. That will fix your problems. Making skill reliant on actual experience. It solves two problems. Character Uniqueness, and Character leveling. People at high levels actually mean something. But I guess I am just wasting my breath. Cause like last time and time and time again, you've not really listened to the community of AO. But really just wrote an article containing things you thought it should contain while at the same time, playing your character for 30 minutes of the day, and reporting things you've probably never seen. (i.e level 16 agent doing 4,000 aimed shot damage) all in the guise of making it a better game. Well its not a better game till you actually start LISTENING to the people who want the game more balanced. Believe it or not, not everyone is a 15 year old who wants to make their class more uber. So put down the pen and delete that level 31 character youve been playing, and start listening and responding on the boards!

SO WHEN THE HELL ARE SOLDIERS GOING TO GET FIXED?

[Whiterrabbit]

Originally posted by MrBunny


The only ones who are interested, are split into two categories. The hard core players. and the Ignorants.

way to insult lots of people!

Originally posted by MrBunny

SO WHEN ARE THE SOLDIERS GONNA GET FIXED?

after agents, mas, advents, nts, several bug fixes, but before the fixer.

[______________Takuan]

First let me say I'm sure you other prof's need loving. MA's need some loving NOW!! I personally have been waiting for MA loving since beta 4 7 months ago and haven't seen it yet. What have we got so far, MA weapons, that suck.

As far as healing goes we do need some tweaking but not as much as you would think. As a 163 MA I can soley heal a group at my level in QL 200 plus missions. The reason for this is that the total damage output of the group tends to be really high so we drop mobs fast. On the flip side of that we are supposed to be the second best healers in the game and our healing recharge rate hinders that greatly. I watched a trader guild mate of mine cast heals that were comperable to mine and a bit faster. A doc at my lvl is hands down a better healer so there is a little room to fix MA's. Advents also heal faster then we do, unfortunately I only know of 2 advent's my level in the game period.

Damage wise we definitley need some work. Min damage is the bane of our existance in pvm, I have proven time and time again that I can not hold aggro in a group off damage alone. PVP is a different story. The current state of pvp does not lend itself in the least bit to damage over time classes. You either kill the guy in 3 shots or forget it, hence the reliance on crit buffs by every proffesion in the game. I'm sure Gaute you guys noticed how many people that play AO all happen to use weapons that Crit well. MA's do not crit like a Vektor, Nova or any good sniper rifle so in essence we tend to die quickly to the very high critting player.

As someone pointed out earleir and shamelessly plugged his guilds size there are alot of MA's in the game. It isn't hard to get a group as a MA, everyone wants a crit buff. With the lack of advent's and Docs in the game you do see alot of MA's as healers in groups, especially at my lvl. MA's also do make a a good solo class in certain situations, I can at 163 solo some orange vets still but only because of BWT and SHEN (which I keep reading are gonna get nerfed).

Bottom line, MA's need help and we have been needing it since beta. PVP is now pointless unless you are grouped. Don't just fix the min damage and think that's it cause though that might help PVM it doesn't help PVP at all. You have alot of MA's out there like myself, Aberic, Solarance, Celestiness, Shani etc... that have been waiting 7 months to see you guys finally do something.

Please do it and ask our advice, we know the game and we know our MA's strength's/weakness's pretty well.

P.S. And for God's sake give us some 2HE MA weapons Samurai and Ninja were MA's you know.

Takuan
163 MA
Storm

[Darkbane]

Originally posted by EvilGlitch
Another dynamic change you should seriously consider implemented is the way AC reduces damage. Change it to a percentage based reduction instead of a flat value reduction. This is the only way to make high-rate-of-fire/low-damage weapons usefull.

Look at all the weapons in this game, yet only about 10% are being used by players. The AC calculation has a LOT to do with it.

Simply raising the minimum damage of faster weapons would make a big difference without changing the dmg/ac calculation. You might still be doing minimum damage, but that would be a lot more than it is now. Also adding other special abilities to some weapons might make them more attractive, ie 1h swords get evade-cc bonuses and pistols evede-ranged.

But yes, weapon diversity is currently almost non-existant, and fixing this would help a lot of classes.

[lilnymph]

two little requests. Firstly please let us Fixers know what is happening with our class. have we been fixed like you said (if so I guess a lot more will be leaving)? Or are we still inline for our fix, and super duper fixer fix? if this is the case, where are we in the queue?

Secondly, please DONT nerf anything else, if some class is over powered, give the others slight increases to make up for it. For the New abilities you add, please test them so you dont have nerf them the next day, like you did with the Stuns (yes, before I get flamed for this, I know the stuns werent "New" as they had been in the game, but just didnt work)

lilnymph