Problem with AO long but i think good..

[_______________Cyber]

Hello there i would like to start off by saying i love AO but theres one major problem IMO that i would really like to see addressed..
Forgive my english its not too good .But i think i can get my point made.
im talking about Balance and what exactly does that mean in AO and any game for that matter.
now im not talking about my character should have this or that because so and so has it .. or every class has to be balanced.nore am i a newbie whining because Super twink killed me in one shot
im talking about
Super Twink... Twink.. and poor old joe that doesnt have much time to play or cares to um find every "feature"
and i dont want to be just as powerfull as the twinks either they worked for it they deserve it.. the Problems starts when u have SUCH A HUGE Gap between the 3....
ok for example
1."Super twink" lvl 18-20 useing QL 55-85 "depending on how many "FEATURES u happen to find/Use"..
2."Twink" Same but doesnt want to um ya know so hes useing 35 lvl gear
3"poor bob" barely can afford his nanos useing QL 25 MAYBE and thats a more maybe of a thing than u relise .

let me ask u this HOW in the HELL did u ever even THINK for one milla second u could balance that ?
or even come close to balanceing it??
i have heard what AO plans to do about this.
but IMHO i have a MUCH better idea...

1. REMOVE totally and completly all QL of armor and weapons ..ok bear with me for a second before u go crazy..
2.make all armor and weapons based on Title lvl ONLY.. if u have the title lvl u can wear it plain and simple..
next is"optional" but IMO needs to be done.
3.make implants and clusters MUCH MUCH rarer and hard to find ..
iImplants shouldnt be on every tom dick and harry with a knife in his hand, no matter how far in the furture this game is..
"if nothing but for ease of balance and The thrill it creates when finding that kickbutt cluster u been looking for..there should be NO clusters or implants under title lvl 2 or around lvl 20 NONE not one anywere in the game IMO.i have proven u can play this game and get to a fair lvl with no armor at all and no implants at all.. dont believe me?i have personally made 3 characters and got them to lvl 55 without any..now im not talking about tanks they need armor. so dont be silly.
4. again optional make armor and weapons cheaper to get and make as a trade skill.
BUT also make them decay and need repairs after use or over time.
u allready have it so your items are basically blessed unless u dont save .. and what dumnass doesnt save when going to a PvsP zone?
what this does is make the game MUCH eayser to balance and make a real economy.
"good points" u NEVER haft to worry about someone debuffing u out of your armor or weapons..
Then u make your skills mean more damage should be based MORE on skill than QL of armor .damage for weapons. and so on.
someone debuffs u .u do less damage but u can atlease still use the damn thing.
i mean come on, i know this is a game but im useing a weapon one second and your telling me someone drops my skill 50 points when i have 300+ and now i cant even swing the thing? YA RIGHT..
i believe theses changeing will really make AO a Much better game..IMO.
and for the love of god fix apps were i can have more than 10 items .. and a freaking chest to hold stuff.
hell i should have my very own bank in my house right? this is the furture..
well this is getting long i have many more
reason i could give why this would be good for the game as a whole.. but this is allready getting too long. so feel free to add ideas or flame mine as u wish
thanks

Cyber

[_______________Jinya]

I like most of your ideas, unfortunately at this stage in this game, several of your ideas, ie; the wearing down of items, would require an almost total rewrite of the engine, and so, probably would not be feasible... Though, putting all of your ideas into use in future games might be more appropriate. But changing the way the game works entirely would be met with such resistance as to quite possibly make most of the current subscribers quit.

[_______________Cyber]

actually this game isnt as hard to change as u might believe..
the way this game is set up being data driven.
and some of the other cool things most people dont know about.
"that they havent really used to there fullest"..i mean they can at will swrink u to the size of a mouse right before your eyes.or make u 100 feet tall.or even taller if they wished. really think that one over .
Then compare it to other games u have played and what u could really do with such power..
believe it or not they can create mountains ..rivers were there wasnt one before all without rewriteing the game " all right before your eyes ."i actualy think they can do the lastpart not 100% sure"they may haft to take the server down for a patch to make major changes but atlease they can do it .
i dont know of many games that can do that "if any"..they could make theses changes without totally rewriting the engine.. they could even once they patch it were we can change back and forth between servers ..
slowly start to make each world different. adding this to that world but not the other .. slowly over time adding and takeing away till u have two totally different worlds.. all without u haveing to buy any CDs whatsoever.. think about that for a min.
then make a middle world for nothing but houses and trade were people from all over can come and set up towns have vendors and sell land do all kinds of stuff..another of my ideas for the game.
Cyber

[xbmspec]

If they can make a hurricane appear infront my eyes, like the game Sacrifice. Ill be totaly impressed.

But the best weather effects we have is um.. blinding red sand.

[_______________Raxle]

Although your ideas would remove what I like most about this game, they are good ideas. They probably would be best suited for a new game, rather than this one. Your ideas take the traditional RPG approach, where your lvl determines how much skill you can have, as well as what gear you can use. Typically RPG's will allow certain gear at certain lvls, and then the dmg the weapon will deal is based on your skill, which is limited by your lvl. This type of system would make buffs an effective way to temporarily increase damage.

I like it, yet what I like about AO's current system, is the fact that there are gaps. If you claim you can get to lvl 50+ without armor or implants, that proves that you don't need to be more than a casual gamer to succeed in AO. It'll just take you a lot longer than someone who takes advantage of the over equipping aspect of the game, which in my opinion, is the most fun and rewarding part of AO. It's why I continue to play this game. After all, the story is almost non-existent, the mobs are repetative, the dungeons/missions look the same, and so on. The ability to "twink" and customize your character to be more successful, is all that this game has left.

There are some problems with twinkers that I would agree on. This includes the players who took advantage of a treatment exploit to create an incredible gap in their super twinked character, versus casual players and reasonable twinkers. This also includes the twinkers that used treatment implant stacking to put in ql 200 implants before the 14.0 patch. Since they will be allowed to keep them, the rest of us will never be able to be as powerful as they are at lvl 135, we'll have to wait until 165 or so. Yes, this gives you something to work for, but I can definitly see myself getting very bored with this game by that time. Unless Funcom gives me something else to do other than twink for fun, I can only see myself playing AO for another month or two.

14.2 is a patch that will make or break the game for me. Since I'm a trader, 14.2 will make playing AO different, but also quite decent. I really don't think it will help the game though, I feel sorry for the people who are all for it. They're trying to make AO something it isn't and never will be. The game is fun and seems complex at first, but after a while it's repetative and very boring. OE at least offers some insurance against crappy game bugs killing you, giving you more confidence in your ability to kill a monster (which you've fought about 1000 times).

Your ideas would make a great RPG in a wonderful world, with an involving story line, more interesting gear, more interesting monsters with AI, better missions/quests, and an overall more enjoyable game work well. But for AO, which is basically a text MUD with not all that flashy graphics, lack of diversity in character and monster types, and a non existent story line.......Overequipping is all that this game features that is any fun.