Overequiping... realistic?

[______________Sicero]

First of all I've been hearing people talk about how since everyone is using overequipping in AO that it should be added as a game feature. Well, I hate to say it but this as well as every game in existance is at least fragilly bound to reality.

In reality one is not able to simply become good at something, put on a piece of armor or weapon, use it, and then when their skill level go down be able to use it. It is a falacy in any universe slighly rooted in reality, as I hope Rubi-Ka is. Personally, the idea that this can happen in any game model is pathetic. I feel that seing someone who is only at a beggining level skill be able to equip an extremely powerfull weapon/armor/implant simply ruins my experience. The fact that numerous people are doing it only makes my feeling stronger.

For the above stated reasons I wish to make all items equiped over someone's current skill level unusible and simply left in their equipment slots. Therefore one would get no stat or skill benefits from them.

I aknowledge that numerous people have put significant effort into securinh weapons well over the pperson's skill level and equipping them, but since this is an obvious exploit I, at least feel that it should be dissalowed and countered.

In order to allow such players the abitity to use their higher level friends/donators to their advantage the tutoring skill system could be expanded to allow higher level players to help lower ones.

Just a few thoughts.
Sorry for any spelling or gramatical mistakes.
Sicero 19th level Omni Doctor on Rubi-Ka 1

[______________Nelida]

1. Funcom has purposely designed NUMEROUS methods of temporarily increasing skill in nearly EVERY skill. What other purpose but to equip beyond your level would all these methods be? I specifically point to MANY nanos that do NOTHING more than temporarily increase skills.

2. I don't understand how other players play-styles affect you. Especially when ALL of us have EXACTLY the same capabilities. No single player has options that the rest of us don't have. If you CHOOSE not to overequip you can not expect to be as powerful as other players anymore than if you choose to use different and sub-standard types of weapons.

3. How is using the Tutoring system to TEMPORARILY increase skill ANY different than using nanos, implants, wrangles or any of the other current methods? Do you somehow imagine that the Tutoring system will permanently increase skill? I certainly hope not.

4. Again...Funcom specifically added skill enhancing nanos to the game. Some of these, such as the Traders wrangle, deprive, ransack, divest, and plunder line increases skills for a VERY short period of time. Please enlighten us as to the TRUE intended use of these nanos if you believe using them to overequip is an "exploit" and not indended by Funcom.

Your arguements, I'm afraid, do not make good sense.

[_____________Notomni]

Hear hear Zu!!

Good point, well said.

Late,
Notorian

LVL 115 Atrox Clan Soldier (RK2)

[______________Emmily]

Um, at level 40 I was using a QL88 shotgun with selfbuffs and QL50 implants only. I built the implants myself and put them in using only selfbuffs. I took hours to design and build them (try finding all the NCs you need, that takes forever). Are you saying I shouldn't be able to use my shotgun because you are too lazy to do the same? Are you calling me an Exploiter? Do not defame my name.

I spend more time than you working on my character. I am not racing to level 200. I am tired of all the people who are unwilling to put in the time to craft (yes craft, it takes time, thought, and a plan to make a good character) their character shouting 'Nerf'. If you wont make the effort to make an exceptional character, then live with a so-so one. Period. I think that Funcom is wrong to try and ballance the game for the weak players, but that is not my fault.

I wear and use all of my equipment with only my own buffs, and use equipment 10-45 levels above me. That is how my class is designed. Dont try and limit me by your own rules.

Emmily, level 46 Trader on RK2
"Events...um, we had a pool party a few weeks ago. Story, what story?" :P

[lovepills]

im so tired of people saying over equiping is unfair!!!!.
it is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO obvious that you are not only ment to do it but must, to get anywhere ..and i dont mean power leveling.
the great part of this gme is finding a buff/implant/ncu cost.. combo that lets u equip some great item.
i have tryed meny chars and it takes TIME to learn how..i have so much respect for high lvl chars because its not easy.
i now hve my best char yet ..at lvl 14 my agent is useing a ql29
blackend blaster..this took hrd work geting other players to buff me and makeing implants..please funcom understand this..its not a cheat..its how a good player has an edge over a lazy whiner

[______________hobbes]

Reality- come on. In the real world I don't need agility and psychic to put on a pair of pants.

These qualification parameters were set up as part of the gaming element, not to reflect reality. We use our given profession and species abilities to deal with these artificial parameters and equip the best equipment possible.

I can't wait till I'm smart enough to put on my lvl 65 pants! Right now I have no idea what leg goes in which hole. And the zipper- baffling.

[Ygglens]

Over equiping is cheating! The buffs are made with a time limmit! And what is I time limit? Oh, thats something that tells you how mutch time you have left to do something! And someone said "Everyone can over eqip".... NO! Casters have cant over equip! When you fier a nano it allways checks if you have high enough skills. Are you aware how anyoing it is to be slaughtereb by a lvl 10 when I my self is lvl 44? If, by some fu*ked reason, FC desides to make over eq. a part of the game, they have to change nanos so they dont check for skill lvl everytim they get started upp and they have to be faster!
And think of this... If NT were able to over eq. we could do thousends of damage at lvl 10! Would that be fair to you other profs? No it wouldnt! Thats why over eq. is cheating! Its realy unfair and the game isnt ment to be that way! You shouldnt be able to equip anything that is higher lvld than you! Now that I think about it I would like to be able to over eq. as a NT... I could probobly nuke a lvl 140 with my lvl 44 NT if I wanted to!
Let me say this again... Over eq. was nmot intended by FC, therefor it is an expliot, bug and/or cheating! and again... its not meant to be part of the game therefor cheating, bug and exploiting! And if you cheat you shouldnt be able to play! Noone likes cheaters! I hope you guys at FunCom read this!

Yme

[TheGeek]

Equipping weapons with ur own buffs and implants is not cheating!!

Example: if u equip a Q150 beamer with help from a trader with a wrangler 100+, u should be able to carry this. But if u die, u should loose ur weapon into inventory and then have to get a new wrangler! and no, I am not a trader.

cyas

[_______________Esmee]

Yme if you think that overequipping is exploiting then you seriously don't know how to play the game. it is an inherent part of the game and if funcom didn't mean for it to be than they seriously overlooked something lol.

Get to work. it seems like the people complaining are just lazy.

[roodawg]

I've been reading this argument regarding overequipping by you NT's.

First, we aren't overequipping. We are using the best 'quality' items we're able to fit into. The description for the items is QL--- quality level--- not PL--- player level. How old is that rifle? How much damage have those second hand pants had to absorb? Get it. It's the quality of the item not the level of the player.

Without using any implants, buffs or items that add to your skills we still are going to have different abilities depending on the path we choose for our characters. I'm an agent, without any buffs I can still use a weapon up to 10-15 ql's above my PL depending on weapon and where I spend my ip's at lower levels. All I need to do is max out the stats for my chosen weapon and armor and ignore my nano abilities, for example.

Secondly, please explain the purpose, as stated before, of an entire line of nano's in the game that last for only 3 minutes. Per your argument I will need to have that trader surgically attached to my hip to utilize his skills. Skills I pay for btw. The wrangle line only last for 3 minutes. It's only purpose is to temporarily raise a players skills long enough to equip a weapon, make a better pet or, in the case of NT's, learn a better nano. I realize you won't be able to use it after those 3 minutes but that leads to my next point.

Thirdly, provide this entire community with the following comparison. You aren't able to use a nano unless your stats meet the criteria 'when' you try to run it. Sounds fair. You're getting twisted all out of joint about my ability to continue using my rifle even if I don't meet it's criteria when I pull the trigger. So here's the comparison I'd like you to provide. Compare the damage output of your nano's per QL to our rifle per QL. You want to nerf several other classes, "again", because of QL issues. I'll agree to it if, and only if, you'll agree to make your QL50 nano have comparable damage output to a QL50 stigma rifle. Now that sound fair to you?

My point is that NT's are the biggest damage dealer's in the game but are whining because other classes are able to increase their effectiveness. Why? We aren't exploiting and we're not cheating. We 'are' doing the work to train our characters, to equip our characters and we're going through the pain and anguish to implant our character's.

The "exploits" that allowed persons to "grossly" overequip have already been fixed. The surgery clinics no longer allow stacking of treatment skill and the NCU's to get the huge buffs are no longer available. Without those ncu's you can't hold the buff btw. Not sure if you understood that.

So how about, for once, you people that whine about us other players just shut up and work on your own characters. It can be rewarding, not fun, rewarding to improve your toons. And you NT's ask for some buffs for your class that allow improvement to your class. Please stop trying to hurt other classes.

[______________Nelida]

Just last week after Thanksgiving here in the US I had to use;
1. Psychic just to FIND out where I had left my pants, and
2. Agility to get them on after over-eating my turkey dinner.

Originally posted by hobbes
Reality- come on. In the real world I don't need agility and psychic to put on a pair of pants.

These qualification parameters were set up as part of the gaming element, not to reflect reality. We use our given profession and species abilities to deal with these artificial parameters and equip the best equipment possible.

I can't wait till I'm smart enough to put on my lvl 65 pants! Right now I have no idea what leg goes in which hole. And the zipper- baffling.

[_____________Garnock]

My wife said I needed more stamina.


Does that count ?



Garnock

[______________Nelida]

Most casters CAN buf their nano skills by at least the general expertise amount and most by MUCH more than that.
I play a level 68 Trader and when I'm in missions I chain cast deprive/ransack and then KEEP casting the last ones on every mob so they don't run out. This way I can cast my best mez and health funnel line which are WAY beyond my unbuffed ability to cast...around 200 points beyond my unbuffed ability.

Originally posted by Yme
Over equiping is cheating! The buffs are made with a time limmit! And what is I time limit? Oh, thats something that tells you how mutch time you have left to do something! And someone said "Everyone can over eqip".... NO! Casters have cant over equip! When you fier a nano it allways checks if you have high enough skills. Are you aware how anyoing it is to be slaughtereb by a lvl 10 when I my self is lvl 44? If, by some fu*ked reason, FC desides to make over eq. a part of the game, they have to change nanos so they dont check for skill lvl everytim they get started upp and they have to be faster!
And think of this... If NT were able to over eq. we could do thousends of damage at lvl 10! Would that be fair to you other profs? No it wouldnt! Thats why over eq. is cheating! Its realy unfair and the game isnt ment to be that way! You shouldnt be able to equip anything that is higher lvld than you! Now that I think about it I would like to be able to over eq. as a NT... I could probobly nuke a lvl 140 with my lvl 44 NT if I wanted to!
Let me say this again... Over eq. was nmot intended by FC, therefor it is an expliot, bug and/or cheating! and again... its not meant to be part of the game therefor cheating, bug and exploiting! And if you cheat you shouldnt be able to play! Noone likes cheaters! I hope you guys at FunCom read this!

Yme

[_____________Garnock]

Originally posted by Zuleica
Most casters CAN buf their nano skills by at least the general expertise amount and most by MUCH more than that.

The only casters I'm aware of that can buff nano skills over the general buffs are MPs and Traders. I don't consider those 2 classes 'most'.


Garnock

[___________Satherial]

Buffs are obviously supposed to be in the game. The problem isn't the ability to buff but rather how much you can buff. It's too easy to stack different nanos + wrangler and all that junk. The only real way to fix this is by putting a full-time skill chec, making these 'buffing' nanos last about 30 minutes, or to reduce amount of buffing + disallow the ability to stack nanos.

Most casters CAN buf their nano skills by at least the general expertise amount and most by MUCH more than that.
I play a level 68 Trader and when I'm in missions I chain cast deprive/ransack and then KEEP casting the last ones on every mob so they don't run out. This way I can cast my best mez and health funnel line which are WAY beyond my unbuffed ability to cast...around 200 points beyond my unbuffed ability.

Ignorance is bliss. Only caster that can buff their nano skills is MP. I hardly consider Trader a caster, but whatever. NT's have 0 skill buffs for nanos, Crats have 0 nano skill buffs, Docs (I don't think) have no nano skill buffs, Engs (If you consider them a caster) have no nano skill buffs. Stop pulling 'facts' out of your arse please.

[Meetshield]

Today I got a bunch of new implants, buffed MA up real high, and put on a new set of fists that were way above my QL. Now when I lose the buffs, the fists will stay equipped and I will be able to do much more damage..... /sigh Not everyone can benefit from being able to buff into a weapon and then still use it when your sklills drop back to normal. This is why OE is flawed. It puts certain classes at a greater advantage over others. MAs are supposed to do the most damage over time, but what good is that if in pvm you only hit for minimum damage, and in pvp you dont stand a chance against rooters and over equppied agents, soldiers and enforcers who can drop you in seconds. Kind of hard to do much damage over time when you get blasted and are dead in seconds.

I saw someone who came up with a great idea for handling over equipping in pvp, since the biggest problem with it is with people who are at lower levels, heavily twinked so they can own at pvp. The way you handle pvp over-equipping, is when the check is run to see if you are in the level range to fight a person, it also checks your weapon and makes your pvp level that of your weapon QL (note this is only necessary for players under 75). So now that level 30 with the QL90 weapon, will be put in the 75-200 pvp pool, and wont be able to touch people near his level who he would destroy with little effort.

pvm is gonna be harder since the mobs are so hard now because of balancing against over-equippers. Thats a tough one and I dont have any clue how to handle it, but if they leave it alone Im sure you will be seeing a lot more of the classes that are the most able to over equip. They are already all over the place as it is. What fun is playing a game with 300 agents, 500 enforcers, 250 soldiers and 20 crats, 40 MPs, 10 Engineers, and 60 NTs? Thats how they appear to be steering this game.

I dont have any answers, and Im not even sure over equipping is all bad, but it does have some negative consequences for several classes who cant do it as easily as others. A lot of people argue that some classes should be stronger than others, but the fact is most of those people saying that are playing the stronger classes. Game balance is achieved when there is a good enough reason to play any class. Game balance is when no matter what class you play, life should be no more or less difficult than others, or you take away a lot of the reasons to play certain classes. Game balance is NOT when you have each class balanced on their own strengths against other classes weaknesses. You cant tune the game based on an over-equipped soldier or enforcer, which is the case in pvm, and say its balanced for a crat or MA also. Right now it isnt. Mobs have so many hp and hit so hard and fast that unless you can do as much damage as the over-equippers, you dont stand a chance. The arguement the offenders use is that we should all spend the time and effort to over-equipp like they did. That arguement would be valid if every class was capable of doing just that.... but they arent.

[_________________Xen]

Well I have no problem with people over equiping, it just shouldn't be permenant. Buffs running out and debuffs should affect your capability with equipment.

Zuleica said
1. Funcom has purposely designed NUMEROUS methods of temporarily increasing skill in nearly EVERY skill. What other purpose but to equip beyond your level would all these methods be? I specifically point to MANY nanos that do NOTHING more than temporarily increase skills.


Key word is temporarily. Yet now temporarily applies only to nano formulas and ma/brawl etc and not anything else.

This seems like an obvious oversite on FCs part that they attemped (but failed) to correct back in 12.6.

I will agree that overequiping is not and should never be considered an exploit, even now. Equipment should not unequip (like previous attempt) but simply become less effective until a new buff is found or a debuff wears off.

Why is that not fair?

[___________Lawbinder]

just a few facts about the NT

1. sure NT do inflict a lot of dammage but we are also the class with least hp (Body Dev is a dark blue skill), and I have never been interupted or fumbled with my Enforcer and Soldier.

2. We use Int/Psy Armor. Psy can be boosted above the +12 buff Int cant so we cant overequipt armor (or find it in shops for that matter)

3. We can only raise one nano skill with Impants (Mat. Crea) since all nano skill implants goes in the same implants (that includes NanoC Init). The same goes for nano pool and body dev. implants.

4. one of the more usefull items for the NT is the NCU Recompiler but sadly that has to be placed in slot6 and u cant find 6slot belts in the game since latest patch (u can get them on the shopping channel for like 20 mil)

5. the range cap (Im sure u all know about it os I will not go into it)

6. We dont have any buffs to increase any stats execpt the expertise buffs

well thats All I can come up with now, so Ill stop her.

Im NOT whining, I love playing an NT it just gets fustrating seeing most other classes gets boosted while NT gets nerfed with every patch
-------> RK2 <-------
Project9 - Lvl 44 NT
Stomesmasher - Lvl 56 Enforcer
Kimmuril - Lvl 103 Soldier (deleted)

[_____________Borrace]

there should be two dimentions.

in rubi-ka 1 we keep things like they are as far as equiping equipment. we have a variety of professions with their different strengths and weaknesses. we have buffs, and a variety of weapons and armor of different quality levels. those who want to take the time and resources and intelligence to figure out how to make their character use the best equipment will benefit and those who don't, wont.

in rubi-ka 2 we will have 1 profession with 1 type of armor 1 type of weapon and 1 type of nano. everyone will cause 1 point of damage. but there will be a lot of different clothes. all mobs will only have 1 hitpoint and give 10000 experience and 10000 credits. pvp is completely equal for all players and the only thing that is going to determine who wins a fight is who hits first. oh...there are infinite levels, but it doesn't matter because all of your stats are completely maxed at the begining of the game.

in rubi-ka 1...we have all people who enjoy the game. in rubi-ka 2 we hae all the whiners who complain about over equiping and game balance.

just a proposal! how does that sound?

[Ygglens]

1)
Buffs have a timelimitt for a reason!! If they were ment to stay on for ever they would'nt have a time limit, that sounds logical right?

2)
I would not complain about OvEqu. if everyone could benefit from it, but not everyone can, like most casters!

3)
FC are the desiners of the game and they agree that Ov.Equ. is cheating....

4)
The way it is now casters that cant over Ov.Equ. are useless!

5)
Did I hear someone say anything about NT do more damage? That would have been true if there werent Over.Equ. I pvpd a green character ones, he shot me 2 times and I was dead! My best nano that does allmost 600 dmg and 9 seconds to fier(there is allso a big chance of it not working at all) narely scratched him!
Thats what Im talking about when I say cheating, you cant say that that is fair!

6)
When FC fixes the Overeq. "bug" the people who use it will seriously feel it(I know they will fix it soon)

7)
Every class should have strongs and weaknesses! NT do lots of damage, but have realy litle hp... I dont know about the other profs.

8)
I say this again, you people dont seem to understand it anyway... Buffs have a time limit for a reason! THEY HAVE A TIME LIMIT!!!

9) If casters that are fully dependant on nano formulas were able to overequip they would use upp all the nanopool in 1 single shott that would probobly take 10 seconds to fier(we would alreddy be dead by then)

I could go on and on, but it would get realy boring...
One more thing, why do some of you lie to proove your point? That just prooves that you dont have a point!

Yme

PS. Im dyslectic, thats why I have so many typoes