And the gifts were good....

[___________Obergeist]

In the begining of Rubi-ka...

12 children were born. The parents bestowed unique gifts on each of the children...

"Adventurer, you are given the task of being the jack of all trades, the yardstick by which all others are measured. You shall have heals, and the option of using ranged or melee combat, but excelling at neither. To add to your cool factor, yee saw have morphs."

And it was so.

"Agent, thee shall be the shadow of rubi-ka, blending in though out, being noticed by none, the silent creeping death. You shall have the almighty aimed shot, a true snipers gift. You shall always be bestowed the ability to mimic other classes, thus furthering your own strengths, at a cost."

And it was so.

"Bureacrat, you will be the leader of the battle field. Only a few other children will be able to even come close to the power you shall over the mobs. You will charm your enemies to become your own sword, and those that you cannot, you will simply ease the hate they have. You will also be given your own bot to amuse yourself as well as for combat. You will also be given powerful nukes."

And it was so.

"Doctor, you shall be the healing hands. Other profession will have healing capabilites, but none to match the life saving tools at your fingers. Hence forth, you shall have HoTs, Team hp buffs, temp hp buffs, direct heals and team heals. To aid your poor weapon skills, you will be given init debuffs as well as powerful DoTs."

And it was so.

[___________Obergeist]

"Enforcer, you shall be the loved of the tanks. There will be other tanks, but you shall be king. To aid you in your mission, you will be given single and area taunts. Your area taunt will bless you with great hp as well as a HoT to assist you. You will be given a good variety of weapon buffs as well as powerful hp buffs."

And it was so.

"Engineer, you shall be given a two fold mission. You shall be a maker of not only items, but of powerful robots of war. While you will lag the power to increase your skills, you shall recieve a much larger reward for it, your bot will be the strongest of all the pet professions."

And it was so.

"Fixer, you shall be among the agents in the shadows as a speed thief. Nothing will stand between you in your gift of blitz. You shall be given the almighty burst, as well as enough tools to keep your opponets away. You will be a master of transport, not only by land, sea and air, but of the grid. You will be hard to hit and will be long gone before your opponet reloads. Direct combat is not your strength, but prolonging and kiting your opponet is."

And it was so.

"Martial Artist, you shall be the master of unarmed combat. You shall do the best damage over time, and shall have access to throwing weapons, as well as bows. You will be poor with the current techonology of the day, instead relying on the teachings of the past."

And it was so.

"Meta-Physicist, you will be the ulitmate puppeter. You will be given the strength to turn your own emotions into a enity to do your bidding. To aid you, you shall have unique nano skill buffs and your pets will do good damage, and excellent healing over time."

And it was so.

"Nano-Techician, you will be the cutting edge of the nano. You will be given a large arsenal of tools to use in combat. You shall have layered protection, powerful nukes, some DoTs, the ability to blind your foe and rob them of part of their AMS causing them to do less damage, and a root should you need to escape, or make yourself breathing room."

And it was so.

[___________Obergeist]

"Soldier, you shall be the master of ranged weapons. No profession will ever out gun you. While you will lack any form of offensive besides your weapon, you will be granted a reflection shield, to offset damage done to you, and return part of the damage back to your opponet. You shall also be given the gift of Total Mirror Shield, a nano that is both a strength and weakness."

And it was so.

"Trader, you shall be given a unique status, not that of a shop keeper, but that of a merchant, one that trades not only goods, but skills as well. The talents you will have are many, and what you can offer your fellow children of Rubi-ka is vast."

And it was so.

[___________Obergeist]

But hark, did the children grow envious of their siblings gifts. It was not long before the children spread through out Rubi-ka, bringing many seeds, but not foresight. The children did begin to plauge each other with their gifts, the Soldiers being the first...

"Hey, that soldier is using is TMS to kill that Slayerdriod! It's doing more damage to itself then him!"

"What the hell? I got hit in PvP with Full auto for 6k damage?!"

"Soldiers are too powerful!"

The parents heard their childrens pleas and acted quickly:

TMS was changed. Damage in PvP was halfed, and a 40% health cap was added. Burst and Full auto nerfed. The complaints did not end there however.........

"Agents can cast my profession buffs before I can!"

"Agents can sneak any mission they want!"

"Ow, I died to an Agent aimed shot!"

Thus, the nerfs were handed out again:

Conceal and Aimed shot nerfed. FPing was changed.

The whines did not end there.......

"Hey, that engie is using his Slayerdriod at 120!"

"Hey that NT is nuking me from a mile away!"

"Hey, that Trader is too uber!"

"I can't kill that Doctor on one on one PvP!"

Each nerf brings about it's own little death.

Each profession was given gifts, and many of them are long gone. Please don't undermine another professions attempts for a fix or a change. You're free to comment on 'balance', but lets abide by some rules...

Level reqs are bad in a skill based system.
Don't put 'class balancing' nanos in BOSS loot.
If we have a skill system, don't slap on profession requirements on weapons (nanos are fine along with armor)
Please, for the love of God, stop the nerfs.
Camping is bad, don't put uber loot in static spawns. Make it random, or better yet, tradeskill.
As gamers, I think it's safe to say we all like AO and want it to work. Thoughts, comments and flames welcome.

[__________LostBoyJim]

Nicely said, nicely done.

jim

[_______________Vydas]

bump

[Reprimand]

Heh.. whatever.

I remember how much it completely SUCKED after the few few weeks of release to step out of the Grid or Whompa into Stret and be dead from a one-shot kill before your client even had control. Wooo that level 127 clan Agent musta really gotten a thrill out of one-shotting my level 71 Engineer... Grid camping sucked big, big, bigtime.

And TMS *was* way overpowered. Sodiers could solo things that balanced teams of their level without a soldier could hardly dent.

Problem was back in those days we just wanted to be able to zone. 250 people sitting in Entertainment (which we used to call the Roach Motel since "Players zone it, but they don't zone out") waiting for the zoneline to start working again had a higher priority than fixing Agent dmg output.

This isn't real life where natural selection insures some form of balance; this is a game created by humans that make mistakes. And while I suppose I agree with the spirit of the post to not cry nerf whenever you feel a twinge of class envy, I disagree with the tone that things are balanced and that complaints all stem from class envy.

Zemti

[___________Obergeist]

Wasn't here at the time so I won't comment. I'm just saying that nothing has really changed. We went from on uber situation to another. Alpha+TMS was probably uber. My friend who got me in this game was grid camped too.

I'm simply saying that FC has/is going OVERBOARD on their nerfs. There is no rhyme or reason to what their *master vision* is.

Hell, all professions can get their own TMS now (2 bracers +RRF). Nothing has changed, just the focus on whatever 'uber' profession there is.

I don't think there should be balance between the professions. That negates any reason for getting one profession over another. Instead, I'd rather see a hunter/prey system. Such as, Doctor owns Soldier, Trader owns Doctor, Fixer owns Trader, etc. until things come full circle back to whatever profession owns the soldier. That would be the start of getting rid of the '1 vs 1' mentality and title hunting that's far too damn rampant in the game.

Your opinion and mine are just that, opinions. I posted mine, and you disagreed. I can understand your views, hopefully, you'll see where I'm coming from now.

[FireC]

Well said Obergeist, all of it.

[Bionitrous]

What FunCom is doing to its game is illegal in 49 states.

[___________Obergeist]

What FunCom is doing to its game is illegal in 49 states.

lol what's the 50 state think?

[Ashuras]

Sometimes... I think some nerfs are good

Imagine.. if TMS was not nerfed... and u were fighting this mob in your mission and it cast TMS on itself.

U would have killed yourself

[____________Hitokage]

Originally posted by Zemti
Wooo that level 127 clan Agent musta really gotten a thrill out of one-shotting my level 71 Engineer... Grid camping sucked big, big, bigtime.

Hmmm... allways thought lvl 75 kicked of the free-for-all.

[Nullifax]

Originally posted by Hitokage


Hmmm... allways thought lvl 75 kicked of the free-for-all.

Wasn't always so.

[Silverrobe]

Originally posted by Obergeist


lol what's the 50 state think?

Nevada!

[___________Zeroshift]

This would be place to mention this article I found I nerfing

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=32686

I would also recommend looking into Asheron's Call 2.

www.ac-2.net

Turbine (makers of AC) have a successful non-nerf policy. They have only nerfed a handful of things over their 3 year run and only as an obsolute last resort.


The problem with nerfing: It's a slippery slope that never ends. Once you start the nerf ball keeps rolling. Balance is never truely achieved, but a lot of people are pissed off in the process.

Has all the nerfing since release really made us any better off? Instead of agents and soldiers being the king of PvP (The two professions who you would think should be best at PvP anyway), we now have traders and docs being the king of PvP (Ironically, the last two classes you would expect).

Balance is never achieved. The power is just shifted from one class to another.

[_____________Chaingu]

Originally posted by Zeroshift

...

I would also recommend looking into Asheron's Call 2.
...
[

Zero,

We are all aware AC2 is coming out, so please, you can stop mentioning it in every one of your post now.

Personally, I played AC for well over a year, and to tell you the truth, FOR ME it sucked. As the game progressed everyone was forced into the same two or three templates to compete. It lacked diversity, even to the monsters and world setting.

That said, yes, Turbine does have an awesome customer service team and some talented devs, but in my opionion, so does Funcom. Hell, as Obergeist pointed out above, we call for nerfs, and they nerf the hell out of us. Sounds like customer service to me.