14.2 - Profession Changes

[_____________Wallece]

Originally posted by FunFixer


How would you like it if SG/VS and all your nice nanos and MA stuff would be dropped only from Boss MoB´s?
Or sold for 300 mil creds...
Profession fixes should NOT be droped from Boss MoB´s!
Wasnt this game supposed to be solo friendly?

Well at least i didn't mean that the agent stuff should drop like the nullity sp. or the gird armor. And i would also prefer to get a complete crystal and not this disk ****! There should "SURLY" be a much higher droprate and not like that rare stuff which goes for 300mil.
I just like the challenge.

Maybe i should go more into details next time! :P

[___________Comador64]

Yea, I just think this new stuff should be available to all Agents,
and the only way I see that happening is, if its in regular missions and shops.

[Myga]

Originally posted by Flapsie


*Agents are now able to learn and use all the agent-specific nano programs (except for the False/Assume/Mimic profession line) when in a false profession. Essentially you can now execute nanos from two professions - the Agent nanos and the ones from the false profession.

*Agents: added two new lines of self-only critical hit increase buffs - Concentration and Sureshot. Check out the boss monsters in team missions, they might be carrying one.

Now u can use Agent nanos while FP'ing...
And where do it say u loose the critbuffs ??? It sure look like it is ADDED MORE...

And why should you be worrying about that u can't use the MA critbuffs ? You are AGENTS...

Read this:

Check out the boss monsters in team missions, they might be carrying one.

This means we are WITHOUT crit buff until we either done a unspecifieced amound of team mission bosses and somehow end up getting the nano if it drops - which I do not take for granted, enough greedy ppl in this game who want to take it instead and sell it back to agents for ridiculous amounts of money. Since we had the ability to cast MA crit buffs on ourselves before 14.2 and 14.2 is our "fix", its ridiculous that we have go through such an ordeal to get something which is *ESSENTIAL* for agents to survive. No agent rifle does any useful damage without crit buff, hell most dont even with crit buff. Imagine if they removed all MP pets and made new pet nanos dropping from boss mobs that would make the MPs happy wouldnt it? This is my biggest objection to this patch, if they just moved it to solo missions and shops (lower QL version) I'd even like this patch.

And we can use nanos while FPing, yes. But if you think thats a big issue then you obviously dont even understand the basics of beeing agent. Who cares if I can cast ruse 2 while in FP with 10sec extra cast time and for 2.5times the nano cost? It last longer than FP anyways so we always refresh it before casting FPs. Only thing which can be useful is the roots while in mimic, however most useful mimic is trader who has roots anyways even aoe version.

[______________Jennii]

Originally posted by garzini
um, this is probably the dumbest idea in a long line of dumb ideas.

if you don't know why, then try doing a team mission once. better yet, try doing a team mission where you can actually gain a bit of xp and not have to waste hours killing green mobs just so you can go into the boss room and not die instantly!

Bump... The idea that we can only find our new nanos from boss mobs is lame.

1) Boss mobs are too hard. I go on team missions with up to level 200 people and we hardly try to kill the boss anymore, because it is almost impossible for a 6 person team to kill a high QL Boss Mob. The boss hardly ever drops any rare or unique loot, so who cares. Sure they drop some QL 200 stuff that you can go sell, but many of the people I mission with are so loaded, that they would rather go to the next mission, than risk loosing all of the XP they gained in that mission for a lousy 56k in XP you get from the boss. Bosses are not worth the effort or the risk. Might as well go solo Tarasque.

2) At high levels, your main focus when doing missions is to get XP. It is very hard to find a group that will want to help you do a lower QL mission to find that nano you need. Especially since it will be a random drop. This means doing many many missions to find the new agent nano you are looking for, and for the most part, your group will not want to waste their time... I totally understand this.

Funcom.... If we don't have these nanos, or they are made rare... all of the Agent fixes that you speak of will be nerfs. We don't want to be fixed with a nerf.

What are we loosing?
1) The ability to cast a crit buff for your teamates. What benefit do we have in a team besides going crat for the XP buff?

2) The ability to cast high level pets for those occasional times when we want to solo. We will not be able to solo anymore.

In return, what do we get?
1) A new damage line of nanos and crit line of nanos that are found on boss mobs only. I seriously doubt that these new crits will come close to the LMA and UVC as we know it. Funcom gave us these because our rifles suck.

2) The ability to cast Agent nanos while in FP. I assume that the same penalties will apply when casting the Agent nanos, as the FP nanos. This means that this ability will not help Agents until you can mimic profession at level 160 or above and you have 1000 nano init.(I'm almost there)

3)Team concealment buffs. What team will want to waste NCU on being concelaed. At my level, we "blitz" missions. We run from room to room killing anything in our paths. Our healers are chain healing(which breaks sneak), and everyone is shooting constatntly. I do not have the time to sneak to use aimed shot, so who else in a team even needs this. I use a gluegun in missions just for the fling shot special. Who else has a special that requires you to be concealed? I will say that the only benefit to this nano is in PVP, which you hardly ever team for anyway. This nano is basically not worth the effort to find.

4) Hey... we get a new clothing line. w00t. We can look like agents now, instead of a mushroom headed MA with a rifle.

When 1st looking at the new changes I was kind of excited, as there are some good stuff coming to our class, but last night I was reminded when I shouted LFG, and then I was asked "Can you cast LMA? After I responded "Yes" I recieved an invite to the team.

Hmm... No future solo game, and now less of a chance that someone wants me to team with.

In summary. This looks more like a nerf to our class.

[_________________Mor]

Hmmm why are agents crying? They have just become a god and don't even know it yet (they will know it in PvP after patch 14.2). In fact, I'm not sure WHY people have ignored what the effect of concealment will be in PvP. Example: You can move around and not be seen, attack when and *who* you wish, come out of hiding and start shooting, kill a target and go back into hiding. Agents are becoming what archers are to DAoC.

You have to try and look at the overall picture here. Perhaps I'm just thinking to much about PvP rather than PvE...

[___________Comador64]

Originally posted by Mor
Hmmm why are agents crying? They have just become a god and don't even know it yet (they will know it in PvP after patch 14.2). In fact, I'm not sure WHY people have ignored what the effect of concealment will be in PvP. Example: You can move around and not be seen, attack when and *who* you wish, come out of hiding and start shooting, kill a target and go back into hiding. Agents are becoming what archers are to DAoC.

You have to try and look at the overall picture here. Perhaps I'm just thinking to much about PvP rather than PvE...

I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP!

Who cares about PvP????
How about beeing able to play this game and having some FUN!

[______________Jennii]

Originally posted by Mor


You have to try and look at the overall picture here. Perhaps I'm just thinking to much about PvP rather than PvE...

The PVP changes are a definate welcome. I spend about 25% of my online time in AO doing pvp now.

I am definately looking forward to this, and I may be spending more time in the PVP element.

The only thing I am concerned with is our PVM experience, which happens to be the bigger part of my game at the moment.

Our solo capabilities are getting crippled with this patch.

Other teams will not have the need for an Agent in thier team anymore, except the fact that they can shoot a gun. Might as well get an MA who will be able to cast the lousy crit buff on them.
We have nothing to offer a team anymore, so who will need us?

[Flapsie]

Originally posted by MSag


Read this:

Check out the boss monsters in team missions, they might be carrying one.

That will meen that u suck as much as us NT's

[_________________Mor]

Originally posted by FunFixer


I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP! I DONT PVP!

Who cares about PvP????
How about beeing able to play this game and having some FUN!

Fighting other players is better than monster bashing anyway. And after they remove twinking, even more so. Heck... the battle of Omni versus Rebels is the VERY STORY OF THE DAMN GAME.

Ok so you don't do crap for your side... GOOD FOR YOU, but some others do.

[__________starknaked]

Very few people pvp in this game, because pvp sucks in AO.

[____________Draracma]

Why do pets use so little nano to create?

Think about it, for a sec... wouldn't the world be so much better if a slayer bot could only be created when you were at least lvl 150 and had about every nano pool cluster in, nano pool capped and a trader lend nano prgram running?

This Would also fix MP pets, agents (with their painful nano cost increase) would not be able to cast very good pets and would have to upgrade to assume or mimic which would lower their skills. Instead of removing their last pets (screwing over high level agents and still letting low level ones be uber) this would effect them equally at all levels.

This makes sense, this solves some problems. Under the circumstances of atrox MP's and engies... well... screw'em, they should have picked a nano mage.

[___________Comador64]

Originally posted by starknaked
Very few people pvp in this game, because pvp sucks in AO.

BINGO!

[___________Zeroshift]

Originally posted by Graxxus
People have been biased against the agent for a very long time now. And lets get this straight right here and now we were fine as a profession before 12.6. The majority of the agent profession were very happy. We did not complain we had no need to. Playing as an agent was fun. We were no more "uber" than the MP or the trader is now. Prior to 12.6 we played our characters as agents. We used alternate profession line nanos only to supplement our core agent abilities. Our aimed shot was powerful so we tried to start every battle with it. We lived and died depending on the strength of the mob and how high our aimed shot was.

Many other professions did not like the fact we were having fun playing our characters. They didn't like the fact we didn't have to kill every freaking mob we came across in a mission in order to get the mission item. They didn't like getting killed in PvP areas by aimed shot. Never mind the fact that it is the single most hardest special to actually get to even fire in the game due to it being tied to conceal vs perception checks in PvM. The best critting aimed shot weapons however were assault rifles and soldiers don't even have to put one point of ip into conceal to use it.

When a class is actually fun to play everyone wants to nerf it. After 12.6 every core agent ability was systematically nerfed one by one until there was nothing left. Further "fixes" and further nerfs every damn patch since. I can't remember the last patch we weren't nerfed. Our identity as a profession is gone and has been gone for a long time now. Since 12.6 we've been having to rely on other professions buffs and pets in order to survive. Being able to survive on buffs usable by the actual class normally 5 levels below us sometimes more. We have low hitpoints and low evades. We don't have any usable tradeskills for cash and the ones we would use like weapon smithing and elec engineering are either dark blue or blue.

I don't understand why people actually enjoy to see our class suffer? If we get aggro we die unless we have a heal pet on us. we don't have HOTs we don't have any usable heals and what ones are available not only can we not use them in battle due to extremely high nano init penalties(-2000) and nano cost penalty(150% for reference nano cost penalty of using nanos while wearing tank armor 100% is less than the penalty we get for using false profession). Once we discover a new way to survive the angry nerf mob gets jealous that we can survive the other nerfs so they nerf us again and again and again. And people wonder why agents *****.

People say we're not a combat class yet we aren't a support class either. A support class has buffs that will actually help the team like the trader, or they have a bot to tank for them, or they use mez in combination with roots to help withh agro management. In actuality the play style of an agent is more closely associated with that of a NT. Except that an agent's nuke is an ammo based aimed shot only usable prior to being attacked. Nts are in very much the same situation that an agent is in. We suffer from some of the same nerfs that they have been yet at the moment their viability is dependent on uber rare nanos that are near impossible to find. And with this patch we will be somewhat similar in that regard as well.

yep

[_______________Cicif]

Originally posted by synchronic
I guess what I don't understand is why agents are so upset about losing "their" pets. They sound like MP's. Hm. I think what Funcom is doing... and rightly... is making the agent more dependent on his agenty stuff. This cannot be but a good thing. You will find a better way to play. Didn't you become an agent to sneak around, snipe people off, gather info from the other side? I know I did. And I know I stopped playing an Agent when I found I couldn't do those things... Now, I'm gonna bring her back. If you didn't choose an agent for these things (or other agenty stuff that I haven't mentioned) then I'd say you chose the wrong profession. If I wanted to be dependent on pets, I'd have chosen a pet class. If it so happens that this game still isn't realistic for agents, or worse because of the taking away of the high level pets, funcom will certainly hear about it (agents are some of the more vocal players) people will quit, and eventually, they'll get around to fixing it once again. Hopefully, it won't come to this.

All in all I'm excited to see the changes.

good things are happening in Rubi-Ka

Synchronic

um...yeah. most agents became agents to conceal and snipe. since funcom nerfed the holy crap out of conceal and aimed shot, we cant do that. So most agents have to adapt and use another professions area of expertise. i think its gay they are taking away our ability to make high lvl mp pets and give us team conceal. yeah thats REALLY usefull. unless its gonna buff them for 800 or so points of conceal, and here is why. if you have a team, you will most likely be fighting reds. If a mob is red i have about a 2/3 chance of getting an aimed shot off on him with 1700 conceal. what other class can come close to that? so unless the team conceal buffs a serious amount, it will be totally worthless.
Anyone taken a look at the agent DOTs, theres a joke. Agents get to swap sides without penalty. This is kinda kool...not real practical though. Most agents i know over equip the hell out of their gun, its all they can do to keep alive in this world. they are taking that away from us too. yeah THANKS ALOT for the agent lovin funcom...with friends like you, who needs enemies? I would appreciate it if your game devolopers serperated their "crack smoking" time from their "game devoloping" time and give something useful to the class that has recieved the MOST NERFS

[einexile]

Originally posted by Saille
Think about it. While you are sitting at the coffee shop drinking your latte, a sniper up on a building could easily put a bullet in your head. The only reason you are safe in real life is because you aren't important enough and troublesome enough that someone wants you dead. Funcom is not going to let you 1-shot in PvP. Everyone will scream unfair play and ask for a nerf.

Well said, but it doesn't have to be this way, and the alternative need not be so very complicated.

The alternative is we opt into it.

The crybabies who sucked at Quake, got ganked left and right in other mmogs and like to dream up excuses for every loss in an arena - let them do their business in the artificial safety Funcom has to provide in order to keep their faces from turning purple.

Those of us who'd like to be open to assassination, give us a nice little reward for it and save us the trouble of flying 200 miles out into the damn desert.

Duh.

[__________griemdaall]

Originally posted by Bionitrous
The fact that every player above 110 or so is bored out of their skulls has them trying to take the easy route of keeping players from getting to the level where content and Story matter.

I take issue with this. Why should content and story only matter after level 100?

[Meetloaf]

Speculation. All speculation and whining.

To everybody whining: Where you in the testing? Are you so sure the changes will make [insert my character here] unplayable? Half of you can't form complete sentences yet you are sure the changes won't work.

If you were really concerned, you'd wait to see how the changes go, then you'd offer CONSTRUCTIVE criticism based on reality, not your pot-induced hallucinations. But the fact of the matter is, you losers just like to whine.

[______________Jennii]

Originally posted by starknaked
Very few people pvp in this game, because pvp sucks in AO.

PVP is a blast. I think to many people don't pvp because they are scared to die. Who cares.... that's what they make reclaim terms for. You won't loose anything except maybe your ego, and that will soon go away after you get a few kills. And quess what? The more you pvp, the better you will get, and the more kills you will get. Sure there are many tough players out there that are probabaly more uber than you are... I know Im not very tough when it comes to one on one combat, but that's where tactics come into play. If you expect to walk up to another player, hit Q and win the fight, then you will loose every time.
And yes I die. Everyone does. Even the uber players die.

It is way more challenging than any mission will be, and is a good way to get your heart rate moving a little as well. It is quite a rush when you kill another player of a higher title level than your own. It's a rush just killing another player period.

For those of you who refuse to PVP, all I can say is, that you are missing out on a very fun part of the game.

[Bionitrous]

PvP sucks in this game because there is no purpose behind it. There is absolutely no reason to kill another character. PvP sucks in this game because combatants can kill non-combatants with impugnity. PvP sucks in this game because it encourages 1 vs 1 'duels' rather than battles between factions. PvP sucks in this game because the 1 vs 1 PvP 'duels' have led to nerf after nerf after nerf as particular professions complain about the power of other particular professions rather than looking at their 'role' in a true battle. PvP sucks in this game because there is no lasting effect of death beyond some ganker getting a title. PvP sucks in this game because if you do manage to find someone who doesn't run to a zone the minute they get close to dieing it all comes down to the random number generator deciding who wins. PvP sucks in this game because a lvl200 character can attack a lvl75 character. PvP sucks in this game because there is no way to opt out.

PvP sucks in this game.

All I can surmise is that the designers added it in as a way to have some events to help move the storyline along. Then some jerks decided to kill each other over and over and over and over up in MMD last July and all of a sudden the 'PvP Scene' was born.

PvP should have a purpose. Phillip Ross should proclaim that an area must be secured and send the troops to do it. Random ganking is assinine and senseless. The whole planet should be 75% except when a military exercise is going on. Those who want to go to war would then sign up and head out for battle.

People should get PvP titles for being present at particular battles as part of the Storyline.

Arenas should be reworked to make the battles in the ring are if not fair, equal. Their should be an insurance terminal in each corner where people can kill themselves to prove their integrity before entering combat. People who fight in the Arena should NOT get PvP titles but rather Arena Titles.

If people want to have a 'virtual paintball' type of PvP like the current ganking up in Mort, then FunCom should set aside newbie Junkyards and Holoworlds where these PvP afficionados can hunt each other.

PvP sucks in this game right now. And you wonder why people don't engage in it. It's purposeless.

[Grupert]

Originally posted by Mor
Hmmm why are agents crying? They have just become a god and don't even know it yet (they will know it in PvP after patch 14.2). In fact, I'm not sure WHY people have ignored what the effect of concealment will be in PvP. Example: You can move around and not be seen, attack when and *who* you wish, come out of hiding and start shooting, kill a target and go back into hiding. Agents are becoming what archers are to DAoC.

You have to try and look at the overall picture here. Perhaps I'm just thinking to much about PvP rather than PvE...

You are thinking to much about PvP, which is not a concearn to about 97% of the players of this game.
>>You can move around and not be seen, attack when and *who* you wish, come out of hiding and start shooting, kill a target and go back into hiding.<< Not really, with 1 good shot, no crit buffs running, unlikely that would happen. On the other hand, you should fear the soldier with the alpha strike and high conceal.