Overequipping and the IP reset: A follow-up

[Gearsmasher]

I find it halarious how all these people are cancelling there accounts, when this patch is kinda far away..and they havent event ested it out yet, ahh well, thats there own hard work down the tubes.

[Necremis]

Originally posted by Turin


I heard the 11'th. can I have your stuff?

( those of you who want to cancel the game, just do it. dont bother to inform the rest of us, we dont care )

I'll sell it to you, but you probably won't be able to equip it after 14.2

LOL, and the money will be useless becuase the AO economy will be in a recession..............

[_______________Cicif]

Thanks for the Ip reset. Its been needed for a while now. there are two things I didnt like about this game.

1. skill changes were permanent. Atleast in EQ (I hate to mention it) if you found you didnt like a certain weapon, you could train you skill in another area and work it up. In AO you just pretty much permanitly screw yourself and lose the ip forever.

2. I can't hunt anyway after lvl 100. My wife plays as an MP, and since we got screwed out of Mort, we have no place to go. Some ppl say to do missions in BS. BS has been so packed since Mort went 25 percent that I lag out 4 or 5 times trying to get acroos the zone. Getting through BS is like trying to get though a Jenny Craig meeting with a trey of cupcakes..just doesnt happen. Then when we get to a mission, her pets always get lost or stuck...usually ends in death. I would appriciate it is ppl over lvl 100 had places outside to hunt and get exp.

atleast you fixed one of my concerns. As for the over equiping, I never saw it as a big deal. If someone wants to go through all the trouble to raise there skills to equip an item twice there lvl. Let em. Its not all that easy to do, and it doesnt make all that much of a difference. You're killing your customers, when they get past lvl 100 they have no place to hunt...now you taking away their ability to make a twink.

I do think its kinda funny they made Eng as worthless as Agents.

Cicif lvl 100 Agent

You took my nanos
You took my ability to conceal
what the hell, take my gun too...

[______________Rez-SN]

Turin, don't flame other people who chose to take classes that are better at Soloing then a Doc. You are even worse off because you are a nanomage and they have crap for hitpoints.

Remember, YOU chose to be a Doctor. No one put a gun to your head and told you to make a Doc. If you can't solo thats your own fault because you may not take the time to take advantage of all aspects of the game like many of the other people do which allow them to so call "over-equip".

If you want to solo missions so bad you should have taken a class which is better at it like an Engineer, Crat or MP.

I've seen Atrox Doctors with a shotgun like a Krutt Assault Waltzing Queen rip through mobs like they were paper because they took the right race, weapon and took the time to find out how they can utilize everything in the game to the maximum.

Utilizing everything that was put into the game by Funcom to help you get that one piece of armor or weapon equipped is not cheating or exploiting. There is nothing wrong with it. These people (including myself) go through alot of trouble and time to find out which implants will help me get this skill higher, and to find out which gun will give me bonuses to this stat and how much to this stat this buff will give to get that item equipped or pet made. I for one sit there with a pen, pad and calculator and Implant designer to figure out how much of a bonus this potential implant I am about to create will give to my MC/TS to make my pet and what items I can find that I will boost up these skills for example a Nelebs Circuit robe and caculating how much my TS skill will go up if I bring up my Agility higher.

If you don't want to spend the time to do these things to advance your character don't ***** and moan and take it out on people who work to do it.

I'm sick of people complaining about well these people have this weapon at this level and this bot at this level. If you WORK for it and use all available features of the game to legal channels to get those items equipped or that pet made MORE POWER TO THEM. For all you cry babies, take some time to learn the aspect of the game and help yourself, no one is going to spoon feed you.

As I said before people like you are people who see other people having their cake and being able to eat it, and people like YOU think, well since I can't have my cake and eat it, i'll spoil it for everyone else.

oh and if people want to post here that they have cancelled their accounts they have every right to considering that this is a Feedback forum. Who the hell are you to tell them they can't? In my opinion actions speak louder then words and showing Funcom that you disapprove of this patch by cancelling is alot better then moaning about it.

[Snuble]

Painsmaiden

How in all known gods names can you take a ****ty leach company like blacksnow in defence? And using something like this to in your campaign against OE???

In my view you lost ALL integrity in further discussion on this board. I've seen a lot of b*lls**t on a thousand BB, but this is definately in the top 10!

[Painsmaiden]

Originally posted by Snublefot
Painsmaiden

How in all known gods names can you take a ****ty leach company like blacksnow in defence? And using something like this to in your campaign against OE???

In my view you lost ALL integrity in further discussion on this board. I've seen a lot of b*lls**t on a thousand BB, but this is definately in the top 10!

Where am I taking them in defense? I agree with most folks that they are dirty cheaters and deserve whatever they get. I am merely pointing out that this whole OE debate seems to be pointless, since all signs point to the fact that the patch WILL go through and no amount of protest will help. Even one of the devs thinks it is MORE sadistic than his plan, which is detailed in what I posted.

Don't you dare try to attack my integrity when YOU have jumped to a wild and baseless conclusion. Did you even bother to fully read what I posted? If not, I suggest you take a deep breath and read it again.

I am beyond even trying to sway anyone in the OE debate, since I now believe that any effort would be wasted. But people SHOULD know that they are not listening to us. They don't care what we want. Everyone should be aware of that. In these OE debate threads there has been a lot of conjecture from boths sides. Yet at NO time has any Funcom rep came in and said "Ya know, that's a pretty good point. We might have to think about this some more." or "We had no idea that you guys felt so strongly about this."

Many loyal dedicated customers have threatened to quit outright and take their entire org with them, they haven't even blinked. That just furthers my belief that they are going to do whatever they want without a single thought for what their financiers think.

If that makes me a Blacksnow defender in your eyes, then you are crazy and your opinion means jack to me. Sure I'm pretty mad at Funcom for screwing around with my game, but I still think dupers and sploiters should all be shot, always have. Even more than that though, I think that a smart company will listen to ALL of their customers and compromise to do what is best for all of them. I just happen to think that turning us all into clones of each other is a very very bad idea and I don't want that to happen. It is like that in DAoC. Do you want Dark Age of Rubi-Ka? That's what it will be. You can technically twink in DAoC, but the increase to your effectiveness will top out about 20& above "normal" ....does that sound familiar to anyone else?

[Snuble]

Where am I taking them in defense?

You are taking them in defence by using bringing them into the discussion in the first place. As I understand the case, the FunCom executive was playing his role in an atempt to stop the *fill in bad word here*.

You are using a quote out of context to create an illusion for support of your own view. A side effect is that you for all practical purposes also gives support for the point of view that blacksnow have taken. Rest assure, I read what you posted, I read the article you linked to (and that gave a totaly different approach then you used).

Yet at NO time has any Funcom rep came in and said "Ya know, that's a pretty good point. We might have to think about this some more." or "We had no idea that you guys felt so strongly about this."

After what I've seen Cz have been reading all the posts, and occasionaly written comments like "I'll pass that along to the design team." I guess that for every post he made he also passed on 20 other that he did not reply to. They are a norwegian company, and as that follows the norwegian tradition of actually listening. This is no big arrogan company, its a small upcoming "must give support to survive" company. They know and they do. The OE change should not come as an surprise, its a LONG time since Gaute first wrote an article about this issue...

Many loyal dedicated customers have threatened to quit outright and take their entire org with them, they haven't even blinked. That just furthers my belief that they are going to do whatever they want without a single thought for what their financiers think.

I've read all the pages in the first thread, and I've read a lot of the other threads around this board. I can't say that the "againts OE" seem to be very loyal. Dedicated yes, but loyal no... And to put it this way, its FC that know how many customers they have. Its FC that know how often and when the same customers are online. As a norwegian company they are at the bleeding edge when it comes to CR. As rest of the norwegian IT companies they where also hit harder then most by market drop. The financiers of FC is their share holders, and as a paying customer, you are not among them.

Sure I'm pretty mad at Funcom for screwing around with my game.

Its not your game. Its at best yours 1/30000 (or whatever 5 digit number they have now). Most likely the increased number of "leavers" is just a fraction of the fluctuation the normaly see in their customer base. Most likely they have already seen the impact of the patch... Have you noticed how many engineers that have already adapted (just an example...)?

I just happen to think that turning us all into clones of each other is a very very bad idea and I don't want that to happen. *...* You can technically twink in DAoC, but the increase to your effectiveness will top out about 20& above "normal" ....does that sound familiar to anyone else?

I think its a good idea. Instead of basing your use of a weapon on stats you had days/weeks ago, they will now base their use by your current stats. You might have to change only that bright strenght disc after equiping your armor, instead of dropping the shining and faded too... It will not bring all toons of a lvl within 20%, we will see a lot more difference then that. You still need a very good understanding of the game to get the money, skill points and contacts to equip a implant set of 20+ you level. And I guess that an implant set of 20+ your lvl is considered a little n00b... I've lead (or rather assembled...) some very interesting teams lately, and the most interesting people I've met where not in the OE category. And they most certainly where not clones, even if their damage output where not too spread...

A personal answer: Will you quit because of this patch? And if yes, are you still playing? And if no, why are you even bothering to post on the official BB of a game you do not longer support?

[________________Sent]

Originally posted by Painsmaiden


Read it and weep

I'm not weeping. Anything that makes the game tougher for scum like Blacksnow and more enjoyable for the casual player brings a smile to my face.

For the OE fans, everything you say seems to translate into "I'm exploiting game mechanics, don't fix them. Don't punish me, the intelligent player, because I'm so intelligent that I can read a web page telling me exactly how to cheat." It's exactly the same arguments people used for fixing Mirror Shield, Buff Stacking, AoE Nuking etc.

Get over it.

[_________________Zuh]

I just wanted to make some clarifications to make people against or pro 14.2 think twice.


25% malus every 20% OE means you will have some weapon with higher skill requiered doing less damage than a weapon with lower skill needed. This is clealry unacceptable : any player can one time equip a weapon that is 21% OEed without beeing an hardcore OEer. Especially at low levels.

So you will have to make calculation to know what weapon you can use without malus. This is very unacceptable. Casual gamer will have to make calculations where he don't have currently.


YOU CANNOT DEAL MORE DAMGE WHEN YOU ARE OE.

After 20% OE, it is just a loop between 100% damage and 125% damage.


So 14.2 OE rules will have one major consequence on gameplay. Please consider this before complaining, because I am upset of people whining about everything and anything.

Your weapon will no more be an important factor for your character. You will just have to stay within the 125% skill requiered. By doing so, every other skill becomes important. Nano program will become far more important for any class. This allow FC to balance class and mobs, no more agent with a ql200 stigma at level 80 so they can focus on agent specific abilities to balance.

So much of you were crying their specific class abilities were undervalued. Now this will change and that's good.


However I am against these rules. Why ? Because the maths involved are stupid, the damage deal by your weapon becomes irrational.

IF THEY STILL WANT TO MAKE THESE KIND OF RULES, THEY HAVE ANOTHER OPTION.

Make a weapon power decrease when you go past 20% OE. SO if you are 20% OE, you would deal slightly less damage than if you were 19% OE. A 39% OE gun would not be better than a 30% gun, and a 20% OE gun would not be worste than a 5% OE gun. Their current system is crazy, nothing is logical.

THIS IS FAR MORE LOGICAL AND WILL HAVE THE SAME EFFECT ON GAMEPLAY.

People would just be glad of these rules, unlike now.


Cz please can you answer ?

This solution stay in the same line than yours, is not harder to code than yours, is far more coherent and will make people far more happier. Please answer.


The same goes for armor.

As for pet users, why not make a pet not respons from time to time instead of just shutting down ? Leave any non-combat ability like walking work at 100%, and make the pet not response every time they use a combat related ability, like attacking or healing. So a player could still control the pet in any circumstances, but when fighting, the pet would not attack from time to time.

A big slayer droid use at level 100 would attack something like half of the time only. That's just an exemple of how it could work. I am not used enough to pet class to say precisely what probability a pet should have to balance the fact he is strongly OEed.


And for my part, not beeing able to OEed make AO loose freedom. Scumbug proposed a good scale for exemple. Why not follow this kind of rule ?

[Cenelia]

Maybe this has been stated before(didn't feel like reading 18 pages of posts ) but the nanoresist seem broken after the patch. I had a lvl 29 ma wich had at that lvl max nanoresist(didn't resist all, but i did resist quite some nanos, and had timed nanos end earlier too quite a lot). After the "more nano-reist patch"(if I readed right, nanos should be more resisted) I did not have a single resist anymore. I have more chars with(till 13.8) maxed nanoresist. none of the resist/end nanos annymore

maybe something went wrong with the patch</sarcasm>
but please try to look into that too, with the debufs/oe I think having the debuff wear off sooner is usefull then more then ever

Besides that, I like this patch already =)

---

Lvl 40 martial artist
Lvl 27 fixer
lvl 20 medic
lvl 18 engineer
lvl 11 adventuror

[_______________Evil1]

I can not stand by and not say anything...

It is, unless i'm mistaken, a part of the OE changes to even the play field. This will be done for the most part, but it is also opening the door even further for traders to over run the pvp aspect of this game.

With the debuffs that the traders have, far too many people will have little chance against them. in order to get anywhere in pvp there needs to be the efficient use of the best weapons, armor, and nanos. Now these debuff will too often take people below the OE limit, and will further the already existing disadvantage between other professions and traders.

Needless to say, if the current changes take effect as outlined one of the only things that will be accomplished is furthering the advantage of traders in pvp, and this aspect of the game will be useless to a great majority of the existing and upcoming players. My outlook on this is that if i can not play every part of the game with a fair chance, and with the characters i choose... then there is no point in playing the game!

Now you might ask what are possible solutions:

1) increasing the requirements for the debuff programs
2) reducing the amount of time/effectiveness of the programs
3) creating a way to counter the programs, other than nanite resistance(lets face it with many professions it's hard enough as it is to spread the ips effectivly)

of course any combinations of these sudjestions will work as well.

I write this not to disagree with the OE solution, (lord knows how that i have fallen under the gun of a lvl 55 agen with a lvl 200 stigma) but rather to point out a up coming problem that might have been accidently over looked

Thanx Evil1 >=] <------- hehe evil grin

[_______V.T. Stampede]

replying to selron, the n00b

"2) Are upset because they can't sell their Wrangles anymore"

heh, how else will a trader make money? soloing missions? tradeskill work? /me laughs . This is a whole line of nanos that will become useless.. Get it through your simple head that wrangles is what a trader is about to 90% of AO. If you nerf a ransaak/deprive then the traders are completely gimped. You only need to nerf one of those lines of nanos to gimp the whole proffesion.


"LOL so u ppl think we were buff machines b4 what will we be now ? in teams constantly depriving mobs if we can to cast wrangles so ppl can hit better what a joke." That sounds (again, to me) extremely selfish. ""

Appearantly you don't get mass msged when you walk by in tir for 132's. I have to play in afk mode most of the time. Also draining and casting will just waste time. LvLing past 130 you don't take 3min to attack a mob, you go from mob to mob asap.

"Traders claim their wrangles are worthless (post 14.2). However, all things aside (like wrangles not increasing damage as they should), wrangles were originally intended (afaik) as buffs for groups. "

Um.. more of the buffs are single - not team. They were meant to help people into better weapons. What else would a 3minute buff be for? all team nanos are more than 3minutes that are meant for team hunting. Get a clue.

"But the original poster scoffed at the idea of actually grouping with people and buffing them. "

I try not to group with pet classes because at my lvl their pet drags down the time of the team. We go from mission to mission. We don't want to wait for them to get their pet unstuck from a chair. Most of the time when this happends the team moves a long and never waits for the engie. we keep on hunting. (this is at lvl 140+ where no pet is needed to tank. )

"By the same reasoning, are team heals and nano's a joke? Casting them over and over just to give your group an edge?"

don't be stupid. a wrangle is not the same thing as a heal. You've been smocking to much crack eh? Thats the only resonable explanation to your silly logic. The closest you can comepare it to is a team hp buff, and even then the hp buff lasts for 30+ , not 3min.


-Meirda lvl 154 trader

[_______V.T. Stampede]

wait. They will make us wear self equiped armor but the mobs won't be toned down? I don't think armor should have the same penalty as weapons. instead of 20% for armor, make it 80%

so that it has to be more than 80% over equiped for it to be penalized

(well nnot 80% but certainly not 20%).

[______________Sernon]

... in this very thread...

... that it is indeed impossible to get a pet to truly take all attacks for you. Without notice or warning, the NPC's will find it in their hearts to deal out their skill depriving nano formulas.

This tend to happen in every large indoor mission. ( It does indeed happen without exception in any huge mission.) The NPC's shift their focus from the pet to the master, and then to the pet again. There is no more time needed for their casting, than that one shift of attention.

To get the pet to fully tank, is possible only by moving away from the room where the action take place. With this method, the pet will die rather quickly so the NPC's can turn to the master instead. Several rooms away, they still sniff him out. Attacking through the wall in rare cases. Sollution? Run all the way to the exit, and possibly zone out of the dungeon area. Not because it is desired, but because it is needed.

To initiate combat, the target must be within sight, already the pet owner will be within risk for attention from NPC's hidden behind a corner in that same room.

The pet MUST be supported in combat, because that is the only way a dungeon can be cleared within a 4 hour timeframe...

And what on earth is that DD nano formula for then? Of course the pet is used to take the brunt of the attack. But it can NEVER do well without CLOSE assistance.

Without support I need to create a new pet for each NPC, or several pets for each hard NPC. You may add the time spent running away from combat, because there is no other alternative left.

I predict that indoor missions will take so much time after this change, as to weaken the spirit and lower the initial drive that let you start in the first place. I find this borderline to be close already, without this marvellous new scheme.

Yes, I am quite opposed to this aspect of the proposed change. I can see the problems, and I sure do not like the answers.

Sernon.
Bureaucrat.
Ruby-Ka 2.
Level 86.

[speardancer2]

"If Funcom didn't mean for us to OE, why did they give us wrangles?"

"The only the wrangles are good for are OE'ing"

BAH!!!!!

If I hear/read one of these again, I think I'll be ill....

Let's look at the name of the classs "Trader".... hmmm, you have nanos that trade things from other people to you, and from you to other people,


So, what are those wrangles for? They were Designed to be used along with the Deprive/ransack nanos....

Trader cast his deprive/ransack on the mob, "trading" the skills from the mob to the Trader. The trader then "wrangles" those skills out to his or her teammates.

Now, I'm NOT going to say this is practical the way most people play this game, but this is what was being thought of when they were put into the design of the game, which is why they are so short.

[__________eliziaengy]

I am sorry, but could someone please explain exactly how mathmatically I figure my pet to be over-equipped? I have bad problems in math and I need someone to post an example of this formula. I had no idea a computer game could get so horribly technical to figure out.

Also, I have to bring up the fact that engie's have thier skills capped so badly post lvl 85 that the pets they can make within thier own abilities are not very useful at all. My pet right now that I can make alone with no outside help is yellow to me, so if I want to do a mission solo it takes a very very long time as I cannot kill even a green mob by myself (without pet help) and many times I am up against at least 2 adds. The skill cap in the areas needed to make the pet forces all engies to become the worst of the buff beggars ever seen and this is NOT so they can make an OE pet as much as even an effective pet for the mobs they are expected to face in a 50% solo mission. Our pets are supposed to be our most effective weapon and we have quite a tough time when pistol is the lightest colored skill and pistols, I hate to say, dont do hardly any damage compared to the incredible damage an NPC that's green to me can do with his pistol. I dont over equp my pistols and because I dont anyone else can out-shoot me anytime, killing me very quickly since I also have very low innate hp's. I probably wont get effected by this patch but I really need someone to giive me an examle of the math formula so I can know whats going on.

-the kid who didnt raise his hand in math class,
eliziaengie 92 engineer

[_____________Asmodan]

Originally posted by speardancer
"If Funcom didn't mean for us to OE, why did they give us wrangles?"

"The only the wrangles are good for are OE'ing"

BAH!!!!!

If I hear/read one of these again, I think I'll be ill....

Let's look at the name of the classs "Trader".... hmmm, you have nanos that trade things from other people to you, and from you to other people,


So, what are those wrangles for? They were Designed to be used along with the Deprive/ransack nanos....

Trader cast his deprive/ransack on the mob, "trading" the skills from the mob to the Trader. The trader then "wrangles" those skills out to his or her teammates.

Now, I'm NOT going to say this is practical the way most people play this game, but this is what was being thought of when they were put into the design of the game, which is why they are so short.

Go to the trader forum, there are several posts where I (and others) mathematically illustrate that most wrangles will make the team LOSE damage overall.

[Gearsmasher]

Simple solution, make trader debuffs nano only. Or better yet, make it so if a trader debuffs you it does not take you below OE...it just makes you hit for a bit less, or even more cool, poison all the traders cereal . Im just thinking here and a SERIOUS nerf needs to be done to traders debuffs when this patch goes live, I know ill get flamed, but i KNOW you see it...except you traders..who will lose there uberness, to bad so sad fall like the rest of us .



Its funcom's world...we just live in it, and it's strikingly similar to afganistan at this point :P

[____________Xeraseus]

Extend the time of wrangles.......for those of you who don't know, wrangles aren't like other buffs. They actually take more (a lot more) skills from us, the traders, than it gives to you. and for the duration of others having that buff, we are debuffed. That means that most of our useful nanos are gone, weapon will be much worse, and when it all expires, we have to restack all or divest and plunders to recast the wrangle.

Now if the time is increased, lets say to 30 mins. That means I'd be totally (just about) useless while the team gets a minor boost in damage and a nano or two extra avilable. I'm sorry but the weapon damage and usefullness of other trader nanos (team heals, damage buffs, ect) FAR outweigh someone doing 70 more points damage a shot or a pet prof having a pet 2-3 lvls higher. If wrangler times are increased to 30mins or so, I'll never cast a wrangle again. As I'm sure most traders would be in the same boat.


Xeraseus

Xeraseus

[__________WGMelchior]

I'm going to list some skill levels, and which equipment/bots you can use, based on the requirements.

50 -> 62
100 -> 125
150 -> 187
200 -> 250
250 -> 312
300 -> 375
350 -> 437
400 -> 500
450 -> 562
500 -> 625
550 -> 687
600 -> 750
650 -> 812


If you use a bot that requires 62 Time/Space and 62 Matter creation, you NEED to keep your skills (as shown in the SKL window) at 50 or above at all times, if you want the bot to work as normal.

If there is any specific bot you are wondering about, just post the requirements here and I'll give you the needed skills.

Note that you still need to buff into the required skills to cast the bot.