In return for nerfing Traders..........

[Moofroggy]

It's been a tradition with Anarchy Online to nerf a profession, and 5 or 6 patches later give that profession some love back in the form of new nanos, armor, etc.

May I suggest that in return for eliminating the Trader's status as a healer, and the MA's critical hit/low light scope nerf (which will primarily affect the high crit shotguns that traders wield), that the following class repairs be done at the same time.

Entire line of Trader charm spells: Totally useless. Not sure why someone thought it was a good idea to turn a person to stone for up to 30 minutes, but casting this nano will almost always get the Trader killed from other mobs, spawns, run-away pet, etc. Even if it doesn't, who wants to stand in place for half an hour unable to move or cast or attack?

Fix: Make the freeze duration (and pet control duration) 3 minutes just like most trader spells, OR keep attack and nanos frozen while allowing the trader to at least move, OR keep all the durations the same, but change the spell to non-hostile so it can be removed (and the pet released as well).

Relentless slayer: Obviously broken. Like Balanced Striker & Fine Tuning, it should give the user a bonus to ranged init. Instead, it gives the user -200 to ranged init. When you compare this nano to guard convoy, it's clear that this is an error.

Fix: Put Ranged init back to +200 so we can use this spell again.

Tradeskills: This has been a sore subject for a long time, but i'll mention it again. GIVE US SOME WORTHWHILE WEAPONS TO BUILD! What might have been the most interesting and enjoyable aspect of Anarchy has been turned into endless backpacks of never used trade skill items. PLEASE give this area some attention.

Fix: Allow us to create just ONE gun or melee weapon that cannot be bought or found on missions that someone actually WANTS.

That's it. Nothing outrageous or unbalancing, just a few fixes that in my opinion should have been done long ago. It's a fair exchange that should keep traders happy.

[_____________SpyReet]

So what, you got a slap on the wrist and now you think you deserve justice? I laugh in your face! Agents, Fixers, and NT's have been nerfed beyond belief, agents especialy. AS is now worthless and with 14.2 rolling in, I guarantee there will be 5 agents at most on each rubi-ka, they're practically deleting the class, and you selfish, godlike class has been flicked? My god man, you are a great example of the power of the trader class, selfish and arogant.

Now if your with me please post, everyone with a heart wants the agent class back. All they are now are paperweights on the shelf of our accounts.

Oh and the agents percs coming? Funcom, I laugh at you. You want to express your ideas to a class that is practicly extict. Fix the agent class. Do it. I don't care if it means stopping everything in your lives because you've wasted months of ours.

[Moofroggy]

SpyReet, I tried really hard to find a point in your post, but didn't find one. Certainly nothing that pertains to the next patch. However I know there are lots of nice people in Rubi-Ka and no doubt there are a few who would listen to you sobbing about agents.

Back on topic. The first two nanos are broken and should be fixed. The tradeskills issue affects all classes and should be made a dynamic part of the game instead of filling up the planet with unlooted spare parts.

[____________Customer]

#1 priority for us after the nerfs IMO is to fix our health funnels.
(or preferably in the same patch)

They were fine when weapon and nano timers were seperated,
but now that you have to choose between shooting and casting,
they are never worth using at all.

Charms and Damage Buffs dont really fit the Trader playstyle
(charms were an addon thrown in after release and seem to
be more of a joke/roleplay nano than something intended to
be useful) and I would much rather FC focus on the give/take
'trading' concept. Leech skills. Give skills. Leech nano. Give nano.
Leech life. Give life. etc

Due to the changes in our team heals that will do lots of damage
to us over a very short period, we will desperately need some
way to recover HP and fight the DoT. For the unaware, 1 team
heal will rob us of about half our life within 15 seconds. Scary.
If you ever expect a Trader to cast this, he had better be
confident that it wont mean suicide, since heals = aggro.
Fast hard DoT + aggro = dead Trader.

I have enjoyed playing substitute doctor when a real doc
wasn't available, and I know that with the proposed changes
I will never be able to fill that role again. However, I would
still like the chance to save a teammate now and then
without seeing a booth with my name on it 15 seconds later.

[_____________Xed LRK]

I agree with Spyreet; Fixers, Agents and Nano-tech's have it far far worse than Traders - Traders have been far too powerful (in PVP) for far too long, don't complain now that its slowly leveling out.
Please stop acting like a group of spoilt children. I agree that your charm and "Relentless Slayer" nanos should be fixed, but don't moan about not being able to heal (a Trader does not double-up as a Healer) - if you want to heal, become a Doctor - not a Trader.

[___________Zeroshift]

Let the crats have their charms. The traders have enough crowd control going for them. I doubt the trader charms were ever suppose to be very good, they were just something unique and interesting.


I will BUMP for tradeskills though. This would make the engineers feel a lot better too.

[Cosmik]

Ideas/issues noted. But yes, the Trader charms were not meant to be as good as the Bureaucrat ones. Some good suggestions about charm alternatives there, though.

[_______________Garzu]

Bah, Traders arent really nerfed yet, just wait and see

[Moofroggy]

I agree that the Trader charm spell shouldn't be as good as the crat nanos, however they are utterly unusable as they work now. I've never met a Trader yet who even bothered to upload most of them because using it will either kill you, or take you out of the game for an extended period of time.

"Oh I'm sorry team, but since I used charm, we all have to sit around for 20 minutes while I'm frozen."

Actually I wouldn't mind if the entire line was deleted if it would mean fixing the other two.

[____________Customer]

Originally posted by Xed LRK
Traders have been far too powerful (in PVP) for far too long, don't complain now that its slowly leveling out.
Please stop acting like a group of spoilt children. I agree that your charm and "Relentless Slayer" nanos should be fixed, but don't moan about not being able to heal (a Trader does not double-up as a Healer) - if you want to heal, become a Doctor - not a Trader.

I couldnt care less about PvP. 90% of the planet doesnt care.

Both of the traders startup nano are heals.
Most of the nanos in the Trader booth are heals.
We were supposed to be healing class.
I have played a healer in teams for almost a year.

Traders were always the second best healers in the game
as long as they kept their drains up and made the right
implant choices. PvP whiners are getting me nerfed.
I hate that Funcom listens to the most immature 10% of the planet.

It's not my fault Funcom broke the damage part of our heals,
and left them broken for months. I petitioned it. I posted about it.

So now I am getitng my damage nerfed
(can't get a good scope anymore and MAs cant offer good crit buffs)
and my team heals nerfed. So why will any team want me now?
I can area-root, but in tiny mission rooms that's pointless.
I have individual mez's, but in 'oh %#&@! ADDS!' situations,
a crat that can area-mez is much more desirable.
(plus they have XP and crit buffs and a pet)
Docs, Adventurers, MAs, (and soon Fixers with improved HoTs)
are better healers than me. So what's left?
Wrangles? useless in combat. only good for buffing.
Is anyone going to invite me to a team just for a pre-buff?
No. They'll shout "paying 100K for a wrangle" and then
go invite a teammate who can actually contribute for the next hour.

/flip to every ahole who's responsible for this.

Fix my Health Funnels Funcom.

/me waits for some PvPer to ignore all of this
and flame me because a trader killed him and
now the whole class needs to be punished.

[Moofroggy]

I agree with you that pvp gets far too much attention. I suspect that the "I will expoit the bugs as much as possible so I can kill you and say 'yer owned'" crowd will not be satisfied until they can simply camp and shoot non-pvp people like ducks.

I think they are needed because an element of danger in this game makes it very interesting. I also think that for the most part, they should be ignored until the game is FIXED. Balance isn't important to anyone else.

[ViralBotzz]

The charm nano is something i dont care much to see fixed. It is a crat nano and a LARGE characteristic of a crat. Roots, Mezzs, and Charms (pets are a balance tool). If Traders want to have all the crats nanos working for them and plus there over the top other buffs then we need some balancing issues. I agree with the other things but lets keep charming a Crat thing ...

[_______________Vydas]

Originally posted by daymeon
The charm nano is something i dont care much to see fixed. It is a crat nano and a LARGE characteristic of a crat. Roots, Mezzs, and Charms (pets are a balance tool). If Traders want to have all the crats nanos working for them and plus there over the top other buffs then we need some balancing issues. I agree with the other things but lets keep charming a Crat thing ...

Think about what you are saying! You are of the belief that something broken for another class from the beginning is better left that way?

There are really two acceptable alternatives - remove it or repair it.

When people make profession choices they often do so by looking at the lists of nanos. The idea that it's just too much overlap with another class just doesn't seem to justify leaving something in a state of uselessness.

[Razzitazz]

Originally posted by Reclaim



I couldnt care less about PvP. 90% of the planet doesnt care.

Both of the traders startup nano are heals.
Most of the nanos in the Trader booth are heals.
We were supposed to be healing class.
I have played a healer in teams for almost a year.

Traders were always the second best healers in the game
as long as they kept their drains up and made the right
implant choices. PvP whiners are getting me nerfed.
I hate that Funcom listens to the most immature 10% of the planet.

It's not my fault Funcom broke the damage part of our heals,
and left them broken for months. I petitioned it. I posted about it.

So now I am getitng my damage nerfed
(can't get a good scope anymore and MAs cant offer good crit buffs)
and my team heals nerfed. So why will any team want me now?
I can area-root, but in tiny mission rooms that's pointless.
I have individual mez's, but in 'oh %#&@! ADDS!' situations,
a crat that can area-mez is much more desirable.
(plus they have XP and crit buffs and a pet)
Docs, Adventurers, MAs, (and soon Fixers with improved HoTs)
are better healers than me. So what's left?
Wrangles? useless in combat. only good for buffing.
Is anyone going to invite me to a team just for a pre-buff?
No. They'll shout "paying 100K for a wrangle" and then
go invite a teammate who can actually contribute for the next hour.

/flip to every ahole who's responsible for this.

Fix my Health Funnels Funcom.

/me waits for some PvPer to ignore all of this
and flame me because a trader killed him and
now the whole class needs to be punished.

Ok wiseass, this is the problem. And I will exclude every PvP reference because you god damn Traders seem to forget the remaining 10% are using these "cool nifty things" against the rest of the world.



Now,

You can suck away the skills from any mob (I know it resists alot, but as a NT who DDs an Ace how many times he gets countered, fumbled, etc) better than any profession.

You can heal better than any profession. Don't lie, don't give me crap about yoru drain. Your team heals work better than a doctor, that sucks, shouldn't be. Nerf you down to MA's.

You attack better than what? Almost every other profession? Add to that the crit buffs that happen right now and a TRADER (read: trade skill) even if they don't work, is outdamaging a soldier, enforcer, NT, MA, etc. That is so silly.

You crowd control, outside of a mezz, just as good as a fixer, agent, NT, crat. WTF is this. Lets see what else you got.

OH YEAH! The things you should have, wrangles. One of the best ways to get money and the damn thing doesn't even keep your skills away that long. The **** should last 30mintes.

TRADERS ARE OVERPOWERED!! UNDERSTAND THAT!! THESE CHANGES AREN'T GOING TO TOTALLY DEMOLISH YOUR CLASS, YOU JUST WON'T BE THE BEST IN THE GAME ANYMORE. DON'T CRY ABOUT, SHARE THE WEALTH.

[____________Scarlito]

I must be dreaming.
Post 14.2, you trader guys will be able to turn every single opponent in a PvP perspective into a friggin' target, just depriving him for 100 points lowers your opponent's damage by 25%, and gimps his nano skills to an almost non-usable state. While you'll still be able to OE a supa high QL Ithaca without suffering from the OE penalties, as you can just back these penalties up with ransacks/deprives. Add healing, rooting, slowing, mezzing (PvM) abilities to this... Sounds damn good for a single profession which is aimed at owning the Trade skill aspect of the game (unless you call them Terminators, Killers, Cyborg Warriors or whatever.. but not "Traders"), isn't it ?
The fact that only 10% of the player base cares about PvP is not an excuse about not fixing the way traders are unbalancing the PvP interaction, to a certain extent.
Is this uber-combat profession was intended to work this way from the beginning ? I don't think so.
You traders should masterize the Trade Skill aspect of the gameplay, agreed on that.
Should you masterize the Combat aspect of the gameplay ? No, no, no. Definitely not.
You got my point.

[______________Saruzi]

I agree, Traders are too powerful. I waited a long long time for traders to start complaining, just because it meant hell froze over a weeek ago.

[aaronb]

Originally posted by KKrylon




Ok wiseass, this is the problem. And I will exclude every PvP reference because you god damn Traders seem to forget the remaining 10% are using these "cool nifty things" against the rest of the world.



Now,

You can suck away the skills from any mob (I know it resists alot, but as a NT who DDs an Ace how many times he gets countered, fumbled, etc) better than any profession.

You can heal better than any profession. Don't lie, don't give me crap about yoru drain. Your team heals work better than a doctor, that sucks, shouldn't be. Nerf you down to MA's.

You attack better than what? Almost every other profession? Add to that the crit buffs that happen right now and a TRADER (read: trade skill) even if they don't work, is outdamaging a soldier, enforcer, NT, MA, etc. That is so silly.

You crowd control, outside of a mezz, just as good as a fixer, agent, NT, crat. WTF is this. Lets see what else you got.

OH YEAH! The things you should have, wrangles. One of the best ways to get money and the damn thing doesn't even keep your skills away that long. The **** should last 30mintes.

TRADERS ARE OVERPOWERED!! UNDERSTAND THAT!! THESE CHANGES AREN'T GOING TO TOTALLY DEMOLISH YOUR CLASS, YOU JUST WON'T BE THE BEST IN THE GAME ANYMORE. DON'T CRY ABOUT, SHARE THE WEALTH.

First, the game should not be balanced based on 10% of the player base. I find it difficult to believe anyone would attempt to argue this rationally, which you clearly didn't.

The debuff line does not work on mobs, which means any profession can match our debuffing abilities on mobs (since we'll all be using general inexpertise nanos to do it).

Our profession revolves around three minute exchanges. The reason we can outheal doctors is because we are maintaining our skills higher than normal with divest and plunder. So it's not "crap" we're giving you about our drains -- it's a legitimate (and significant) period of downtime to maintain them. Frankly, I don't see any reason we shouldn't be able to outheal doctors with team heals if we are sacrificing both more nano and our health to do so (the latter part is what it broken and SHOULD be fixed).

Yes, we will outdamage other professions while maintaining our skills higher than normal with divest and plunder. Again, there is downtime associated with the drains. And have you ever seen our damage output without divest and plunder running? It's almost humorous since our primary attack skill is based on shotgun, which isn't even a green skill.

Yes, we are a bit overpowered. This I will agree with, though I don't believe it's the result of any one of these things. The reason we are overpowered is because we can ladder divest and plunder. Noer states a while back that this was the main fix that was needed to balance our profession, and I have to agree.

Your arguments, like many of the others that non-traders present, indicate a complete lack of understanding of our profession. This lack of understanding is what will destroy the trader profession, not this single nerf (which does, in fact, hurt very badly since many of us rolled traders specifically to be of value to a team).

Enjoy your witch hunt.

[_____________Mr Bean]

People Forget so quickly


Trader=Shotgun
Shotgun=Crappy Min Damage Huge Crits
Without Crits Traders Don't Do damage(Ooooooh 250 damage in PVP big woop aginst anyone with 4-9k HP)

Sure he can divest/Ransack the hell outa of you but

Skill Drains Don't Touch Specials

What is PVP?
Ganking
Outside Buffs
Specials
Otherwise why arn't Traders running around in PVP with Vektor's and Home Defs?

Traders Avarage Uncrit Damage=250 towards the high end(Or 150 with Ithica or Krutt)
While he/she is draining you have time to blow the crap out of him/her as they are not doing any damage(14 seconds of free shooting if they slap both of them on you)

PVP is not about base damage and Specials are not effected by Skill Drains
Without Crit buffs Traders will be worse off than anyone else in PVP and more so once that Heal Nerf Comes through(Team Heal=No Heal)

[aaronb]

Originally posted by Sentenza
I must be dreaming.
Post 14.2, you trader guys will be able to turn every single opponent in a PvP perspective into a friggin' target, just depriving him for 100 points lowers your opponent's damage by 25%, and gimps his nano skills to an almost non-usable state. While you'll still be able to OE a supa high QL Ithaca without suffering from the OE penalties, as you can just back these penalties up with ransacks/deprives. Add healing, rooting, slowing, mezzing (PvM) abilities to this... Sounds damn good for a single profession which is aimed at owning the Trade skill aspect of the game (unless you call them Terminators, Killers, Cyborg Warriors or whatever.. but not "Traders"), isn't it ?
The fact that only 10% of the player base cares about PvP is not an excuse about not fixing the way traders are unbalancing the PvP interaction, to a certain extent.
Is this uber-combat profession was intended to work this way from the beginning ? I don't think so.
You traders should masterize the Trade Skill aspect of the gameplay, agreed on that.
Should you masterize the Combat aspect of the gameplay ? No, no, no. Definitely not.
You got my point.

Once again, claiming that we are a tradeskill profession has been dismissed not only by us, but officially by funcom. All professions are combat professions, and our method of combat involves exchanges (or "trades"). Suggesting that traders should be any worse than any other profession in combat is purely a form of "profession griefing" since this game revolves entirely around combat.

[____________Scarlito]

First of all, to the guys who said yeah Traders shotties are nothin' with out a crit buff bla bla. Sure thing, I agree. The lil detail you forgot to mention here is that every damn profession sucks big time without a crit mod. You know as well as everyone posting here that in PvP, the dude with da best crit mod wins, and that's true for everyone. And err.. Ithaca got specials. You want more specials ? Burst, full auto ? Ok, just use another weap, and gimp yourself with the IP sink in there. This argument just doesn't make sense.
As for Aaron, sure man, I agree 100% with ya that all professions are combat professions, and that you trader guys should have some special stuff to compete with. But please, don't give me this bull**** about "trades" or "exchanges" (=debuffs) as a specificity of the trader profession. Being able to gimp a dude in a fight by lowering his damage output by at least 25% while upping its own damage output in the same time makes the Trader profession pretty damn powerful. If you had only debuffs, man I say ok, no problem about this. But you got heals, you got health funnels, you got way too much of a load**** bunch of stuff to compete with.
I don't mean traders "should be any worse than any other profession in combat", using your own words, I just mean balancing and fixing some ridiculous stuff out.