From Andrew Griffin, nano designer:-
Anarchy Online is a skill-based game. Most of the players appreciate this fact, and this flexibility in the skill system is one of the drawing cards of AO. We hear and do understand that there is concern that this change might be perceived as arbitrary and altering the basic tenants of the system. However, in order to stop upcoming changes from trivializing the game, putting level requirements on nanos is something that simply must be done. Let me explain why.
One of the benefits of these types of games (MMOs) is that it can be an expanding system. Patches and expansion packs allow new dynamics to be added to the game, enhancing the playing experience. This can change the scope of the game beyond that originally envisioned. With an expansion pack, we can go past the original barriers in the game. However, we need to take care that these new additions do not end up swamping and destroying the rest of the game. It is for this reason that level requirements are being added to new nanos.
In the expansion pack we are going to be increasing the skill budget that we have by a very large amount. These extra skill buffs will come from new, better and higher quality level items, nanos, implants, modified skill caps, other unannounced methods, etc. This skill budget is important because we use that budget both for determining how much we can buff skills, but also the skill requirements that are used for nanos.
With these new skill levels that players will be able to reach sometime after the expansion pack is released, it will mean that using the current scale of skill requirements for nanos will make the highest level nano useable at a trivial level. Adding level requirements on nanos means that new nanos that are made before the expansion pack is released will still become available at the ‘correct’ level, rather than all the level 200 nanos being useable at level 100. Additionally, this will allow us to increase the skill budget even further later on, if that is something that we want to do.
Adding level requirements now means that, even though we know what the skill budget will be expanded to with the expansion pack, we do not have to start implementing the full skill requirements on new nanos right now. Without level requirements, we would need to either make the effects of the nanos trivial - essentially turning level 200 nanos into level 100 nanos - or use the new skill budget to determine the skill requirements. This latter option would result in people being totally unable to use the higher level nanos until some time after the expansion pack. This is obviously not something that we wanted to do - there is no point adding lots of new nanos that would be literally impossible for any player to use for a long time.
Since the release of Anarchy Online, the way the requirements on the nanos have been calculated has not been changed, even though more items have come into the world that buffs the nano skills. Additionally, the requirements were lenient, and did not assume that you always had 100% external buffs and 100% of the nano buffing items. 14.4 is the last patch using this old scale, and from 14.6 onwards the requirements will start to be higher than for existing nanos - although using the old skill budget, not the new budget, so will still be reachable using the current items and buffs. It is important to note, however, that it is not the intention that you will always be able to self-buff into the highest level nanos.
Anarchy Online is still a skill-based game in that you will need to invest in the skills to be able to use the new nanos. However, it is also a changing game, and this change will enable us to continue to make player-enhancing additions to the game without negatively affecting other areas.
The word is LIE
