Why we are adding level requirements on all future nano formula

[_______________Vydas]

Come Shadowlands, put this stuff in, if it makes sense to do so.

But doing so now virtually guarantees that a number of people will never subscribe long enough to see it.

In all the slapping of the forhead, ah I understand it now, thank you so much for the explanation posts, I have seen not one person who understand why this should be put in production now.

[_______MartinDeShade]

Like I posted on the the 14.4 patch forum. If FC is so all fired up on putting level requirements, then put them in right. I think we can agree that just about everyone of the nanos, can be cast earlier than the level req. If not for that, nobody would care in the least about some level req. But NOOO. You put in these inflated level requirements. And in the process you ruined:

1) the Nano breeds advantage
2) the reason to team with an MP
3) the ability of the player to decide if they will sacrifice something else to get that nano early(ie player choice)

So, you can talk about new things in your expansion pack all you want. But I say YOU ARE LYING, if not to us, then certainly to yourself. You put the level requirements in, in some type knee jerk reaction at creating balance. You weren't even trying to balance just the unbalancing nanos, you just did it across the board. I also think this patch was rushed to get out the door before the outcry could truly build against the level requirements. Instead, you have fundemently hurt a large portion of your customers.

So, the question is are you going to leave it like this or are you going to do something about it, you have 3 choices:

Leave it as is, and continually put out new nanos that effect and displease a growing larger amount of you customers.

Remove all level requirements on all nanos.

Reduce the level requirements so that it meets 1 2 and 3 of the things that you are ruining.

If there is no change at all coming, then consider both of my accounts closed, and I am sure many others.

Martin

And for the record my reasoning cancelling would be because you have limited my freedom to design my character the way I wanted to. (ie player choice)

[______________Scorus]

Originally posted by Cz
Why? Because in the first post you called somebody a moron. We will take the liberty to delete any such name calling
...
The second post was removed because it was off-topic. Yes, a very bad excuse

Yes, but when SO, SO many posts in these forums that either call someone a name or are off-topic are ignored, then you know what kind of impression your actions give. Selective enforcement of rules IS censorship.

Scorus

[______________Kabral]

Weather or not the lvl reqs are a good thing or bad thing I wont say as I havnt had enough time to test it out...

Cosmiks explanation about the whys of it was good and I am willing to take him on his word...But...

This explantaion shouldnt have come after the patch went to live, it should have come several weeks ago. This is a big change from what we have known for a year now and even if there was no chance of this changing it should have been known in advance and an explination should have been given once these changes hit the test server.

So many times your players have valid concerns and questions and you seem to ignore them for weeks until the players get all angry and stuff. A little bit of communication could have fended off the anger and frustration of the past week but you dont seem to realize this.

This is Funcom's game, not ours but alot of us play/played it because we fell in love with the ideas and promises that we were given by Funcom. But very few of these promises have appeared.

Time and time again Cosmik or Cz promises us better communication, better customer service only to disapear from the boards for weeks on end (That post by Cz up there was the first one I have seen in a couple of weeks)

Lack of communication/customer support linked with the fact that Funcom seems to be continually doing things to attract new subscribers but ignore long time players like myself is the reason I first canceled my accoung about a month and a half ago. My account is due on the 12th of July and so far, even with the cool things added in the last couple of patches, I cant see myself renewing it again.

I've said it before and probably will again, but customer service and communication are the most important parts of a game like this. I'd put up with buggs, sweaping changes and a lack of a storyline if only Funcom gave us that customer support we keep asking for.

1) please make a big presence on these boards, the only person posting here now seems to be Cosmik and then not very often.

2) Stop doing things that are only aimed at new subscribers. There are thousands of us here playing now who have been here for a year now and we would just like a little respect. Releasing a Special Edition of a game that is less than a year old, then not allowing your current subscribers the benifits of it is a blatant grab for new subscribers and a slap in the face of current subscribers(by benifits I mean the free month that comes with the purchace of the SE)

3) Announce big changes like lvl reqs in advance, and tell us why you are making this change. We are mostly decent people here and can take changes, we just want to know why these changes are necessary.

These are the three changes in Funcom I want to see. Even if you dont add anything to Anarchy Online till the expansion as long as these 3 items are adopted by Funcom I would stay playing till then.

I dont see it happening before July 12th so I'll most likely be gone. Once gone I'm not coming back, there are too many new games coming out in the near future for me to pay a company to anger and frustrate me as much as Funcom does.

[____________Meligant]

Originally posted by MartinDeShade
Like I posted on the the 14.4 patch forum. If FC is so all fired up on putting level requirements, then put them in right. I think we can agree that just about everyone of the nanos, can be cast earlier than the level req. If not for that, nobody would care in the least about some level req. But NOOO. You put in these inflated level requirements. And in the process you ruined:

1) the Nano breeds advantage
2) the reason to team with an MP
3) the ability of the player to decide if they will sacrifice something else to get that nano early(ie player choice)

So, you can talk about new things in your expansion pack all you want. But I say YOU ARE LYING, if not to us, then certainly to yourself. You put the level requirements in, in some type knee jerk reaction at creating balance. You weren't even trying to balance just the unbalancing nanos, you just did it across the board. I also think this patch was rushed to get out the door before the outcry could truly build against the level requirements. Instead, you have fundemently hurt a large portion of your customers.

So, the question is are you going to leave it like this or are you going to do something about it, you have 3 choices:

Leave it as is, and continually put out new nanos that effect and displease a growing larger amount of you customers.

Remove all level requirements on all nanos.

Reduce the level requirements so that it meets 1 2 and 3 of the things that you are ruining.

If there is no change at all coming, then consider both of my accounts closed, and I am sure many others.

Martin

And for the record my reasoning cancelling would be because you have limited my freedom to design my character the way I wanted to. (ie player choice)

MartinDeShade captures my feelings perfectly. This is exactly how I feel about level reqs. If they were low reqs that were just in place to "prevent a level 20 from getting buffed 6 ways to Sunday into a QL 190 Nano" then fine but a nano that has reqs and EFFECTS that are in line with the IP investment of the nano should have a level req on them that reflects this. Instead the level reqs are inflated and become the DRIVER to being able to use the nano instead of a secondary req. THAT is the heart of my problem with the addition of level reqs.

PS - How many of these "new" nanos can be cast in False Prof? Hmm.. yeah. let's keep nerfing FP too while we are at it. /sarcasm off

[Kanatach]

I believe it is pretty obvious, come Shadowlands, we will see one or more of the following changes:

a) I think lvl range for players will be extendede to 250, at least.

b) I think nanos and equipment included in expansion pack will not have lvl-reqs, but skillreqs not attainable with present buffs, items and implants.

c) The level-reqs we see now will be removed and new high skill-reqs put in place. Currently, this is not done, prolly in an attempt to keep secret the expansion. Bad attempt, too.

Talk of a new "skill budget" strongly suggests there wil be major expansions in this area, also the talk about going beyond the games initial scope is an obvious indication that lvl 200 will not be the end of AO, anymore, lvl-wise.

What it does NOT explain is why the nanos that were supposed to help profs are given lvl-reqs. Supposedly this will all work out in the end. Can we please get that end, soon?

Well, anyway, I'm just bored at work a friday afternoon and I'm rambling I notice. Have fun, rock on!

[Warlock]

Originally posted by Kanat
c) The level-reqs we see now will be removed and new high skill-reqs put in place. Currently, this is not done, prolly in an attempt to keep secret the expansion. Bad attempt, too.

I dont think they will.

What the core of the problem is is simply this:

A low level 'shadowlands' character will be able to use the new 'uber buffs' to upload and cast the 'normal' (but higher level) nanos from the original game at a much lower level than currently possible even with the best implants and outside buffs (although I assume the level restriction will apply to shadowlands nanos to prevent the same problem)

However rather than control the use of the 'uber buffs' FC have decided to restrict the nano crystal use to a certain level thus preventing OE (ala 14.2 but with nanos) thus 'working around' the problem but completely ignoring the cause. Its doesnt take a huge step to then extend the level restrictions to the existing nanos AND all the items as well since these 'uber buff' would enable you to OE on them as well (ok the weapons/armour would be less effective as per 14.2 but if they are high enough they will still be better than what you would be currently able to equip).

The upshot is that those who dont get Shadowlands are un-neccessarily restricted by the same mechanism regardless of the fact that this mechanism is totally uneccessary until Shadowlands comes out anyway!

It would be much more sensible to control the use of the 'uber buffs' by possibly having a caster and/or target level restriction on them or by only level restricting items within the Shadowlands database (since I suspect they will have to support 2 versions of the database at this point anyway).

Of course no one at FC is actually paying any attention to any of this

[__________HardBoiled]

I think FC has been buying(getting) advice from Verant on following topics:
1. customer service.
2. game vision.
3. management practices.
I was rooting for FC before, I think I understand that in their dire financial position they must do something. But...
Funcom: HEAR THIS YOU ARE KILLING YOUR BRAND!
That is right! Now AO is on the straight highway to nothing more then sci-fi flavored EQ.
You have lost your guts, capitulated to the bankers/financiers or whoever is breathing down your necks.
I PITTY YOU. The original game had truly great vision: to empower the player, in the greatest traditions of liberty, to choose his/her own path to development. Now that vision is shattered under the pressure from the only god on this planet , the almighty US$.
Screw 1984 crap! I go play my Tribes2, in that game even though most have same equipment the skills of the user do make the difference. In AO all the subscribers will become is just money milk-cows that just placidly buy prepacaged toons and move them around in the prepacaged way.
One last thought:
If AO had some more variety this could have been only half as bad. Now AO subscribers will have really no Choice!
UNLESS FC REVERSES ITS DRIVE TO CONFORMITY I WILL BE QUITTING AO.

[Warlock]

Originally posted by Warlock
Cz since you and Cos are obvioulsy reading the forum perhaps we can get this one small piece of info from you

<begin Jingle>
Nobody's listening, Radio 3
<end jingle>

And they wonder why people are getting upset

[___________ispiusmus]

well, FC noone likes the way you want to handle this(well maybe a few die hard fanboys and some devils advocates who just wanna stir the ****)
did ya ever think maybe lvl reqs on nano's should be handled a different way to make things more reasonable?
i mean, do not penalize the caster who worked hard to get the needed skills.
put level reqs on WHO the nano can be cast on.
no uber buffed low levels.
this makes way more sense to me and i have felt this move would help 'balance' the game for ages.
no low level engi's with pets 60-100 lvls over them as they are to low for mochams and 132 wrangles to be cast on them.
try giving this idea a lil consideration and see if it doesn't make sense to you FC.

oh engi's i love ya just used yer class and pet as an example
i think all nano's should have lvl restrictions on who they can be cast on.....you ever take yer lil lvl 10 to the arena just to be ganked by some cat who has essence of godallmighty and so many hp you could never hurt them????

[Waffen]

Originally posted by Chaingu:

"On the contrary, think about it this way. You have a QL 150 nano right now that you can buff into at 100. Not really a bad thing. BUT, come shadowlands, someone could possibly buff you into it at level 20. That is a problem. And that simple example is why level restrictions are NECESSARY. Desireable, NO --- Necessary, YES."

By this reasoning, you would have to apply level restrictions to all nanos currently in the game.

If Shadowlands does indeed do this, then how fair would it be for a Soldier to be able to cast Riot Control at some extreme low level, while the new Fixer buffs are level-locked artificially high?

Makes no sense unless you do them to all.

And Cz, I won't be back again and won't buy your expansion pack. You had a second chance after 12.6, and you blew it. You must see by now how many "old-timers" like myself are doing exactly the same.

[BGumble]

This is so funny.

On re-reading the developers post I'm reminded of a paper I had to produce justifying a poor and incomplete software test strategy for the company I then worked for to present to their customer. No matter how hard you try to make it sound sensible and logical people will keep coming back at you with proofs of why you are wrong.

The explanation may as well be printed on toilet paper. There are enough good arguments in this thread for any sane and rational company to rethink their plans. Sadly recent evidence suggests Funcom is neither sane nor rational anymore and has entered headless chicken mode.

Put level restrictions on the TARGET of the new uber buffs - its not hard, its not even a complex idea but it sorts out every problem in one move.

Funcom:-
1. Your levels are wrong - your designers obviously can't do their maths or dont play the game
2. You are effectively removing any skill specialisation
3. You are effectively removing any breed benefits
4. You have put level restrictions on nanos that clearly dont need them since other non restricted nanos exist.

None of this is even vaguely necessary. Just bite the damn bullet and put target restrictions on new uber buffs, you have 6 months or more to make a relatively simple software change to support this concept.

[Nullifax]

hey, CrispyChicken, not sure if your reading this, but...


534.437

All your fat, spearthrowing island dude are belong to us.


....and for my constructive addition to this topic:

how about putting OE restrictions on any selfbuffed nanos? By this i mean that if you have a SELF-ONLY buff active and do not currently meet the 20% OE reqs, then the buff becomes inneffective until you can get back to the old level. This means that you have to keep those mochies going in order to keep your buff. Mochies hog NCU like nobody's business so I feel this is an adequate disadvantage to compensate for the additional buffage. Isn't that the whole point of limited NCU anyway? So you can only hold a certain amount of buffage. This is may be viewed by some as a nerf, but how can it be since by the time you meet the level req for the new selfbuffs you will be able to cast without buffs or implants. By making them subject to OE, you still allow for casting using buffs, but if the player does so, they have to keep that Mocham going. As for difficulty of implementation, this should only be done for self-only nanos. Obviously there is no way to check for OE on targetted nanos, but self-only can only have one caster/target, yourself.

As I understand it, currently self-only nanos are handled exactly the same as targetted ones, with the exception that the target is defaulted. There are a number of ways however that you can add code which will put in the OE checks without mofifying the way this fundamentally works. Simply put, to test for OE, when you check for other OE, check the active nanoprograms too. In the active programs, on each check to see if the nanoprogram is a self-only (hopefully this data is available and you didn't just store some pseudo dataholder for the result of the buff rather than the complete buff info) nano. If it is, then test for OE on that nano. If it is currently OE'd then disable it (that would be preferred to simply terminating it, but if you are really lazy you can have it terminate). I think many people would agree that this is a fair trade for the level reqs.

[Dhurdahl]

Well, I can't what the big fuzz is about?

So they added another req for some of the new nanos? So what?


I've started a new Adv when 14.2 hit test so that I could test the new Adv stuff that was going to be added in 14.4-6...
And when when 14.4 hit live I had reached lvl77 with that char (pure solo, no boosts or other stuff).

And in my view, those lvl restrictions isn't a big problem... or even something to shout about (at least those up to the lvl75 ones)

Sure, at lvl35-40 you could get the skills for the first nanos that have a lvl50 req on them, but you would be very very hard pressed to reach the last ones.
The same goes for lvl65-70, then you could just get into the first lvl75 nano if you got external buffs...

So what happen in reality is that you get access to those nanos in steps when you team up and get buffs... aka when you hit 50 you get access to all the lvl50 nanos and so on...
BUT thats only with external buffs..

The lvl190+ ones looks strange though... but I can't really say anything about that.


Furthermore, to me is this an excelent way to hinder that exploiters and cheaters get an unfair upper hand...
A good example would be those that used treatment/implant exploits to get into very high ql implants at low level... that kind of exploiting wont do them that much with a system like this.


To the subject of Shadowlands... I don't think we have enough info to even form an opinion about it...
The only thing we know is that it will bring a new skill pool and there will be items and nanos with much higher reqs. What does that mean?
Will the new skill pool just be more points or will it bring new skills to be raised?
It doesn't say anything about the lvl limit beeing raised.. so that would mean that new items or nanos that buff skills would be added to enable players to reach those new high req items.


To many people whine instead of playing and having fun.
Change is always fun (even if its a huge nerf), it's allows you to adapt and find new ways to be successfull.
And many with me like that, it's a chalenge, not just following an old proven pattern.

[_______________Vydas]

Originally posted by Dhurdahl

To the subject of Shadowlands... I don't think we have enough info to even form an opinion about it...

I know enough about it to form an opinion on how it should apply in the production game today:

- it is an additional product, above and beyond this current production game that people may or may not elect to purchase;

and far more importantly

- it is some months away.

I do not mean they should not plan for it - of course they are obliged to do that. But, they should not be 'rolling out' the elements of it at this time.

[___________Chlamydia]

Level reqs are a bad idea, period. How long before you have to be level 195 to wear QL 195 armor?

I never thought I would say this, but Im going to log into some UO tonight...

[___________Evilspork]

Originally posted by Warlock
Dont treat the players like mushrooms (explanation on request)

Heheheh.

Originally posted by Emiko
Funcom is trying to make a game that is expansive for players and lets them have a voice, but your incessant whining isnt helpful.

Hah. Haha. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Now that's teh funnay stuff.

[______________yankoo]

Ok, I can live with that explanation.

But why the hell... If it'll be possible to raise skills to ludicrous heights after expansion... then why the hell are the level reqs too high by today's standards?

As in, say, a nano with 150 level req that char could use at 120 in the present game, and dunno, at 100 after expansion. So why isn't the lever req 120? After the expansion, no matter how high the skills become, the nano would still not be castable before 120 - the normal level for that nano by today's standards...

Could someone explain me that?

[Routeen]

Earlier Cosmik, you alluded that this thread would help answer people's questions. So far, the only interaction that you and CZ have had seems to be a bit of censorship, well-deserved or not...

There have been a number of arguments on this post, and several attempts to pose direct questions, including my own. Now I realize you cannot respond to each and every post, but do you (or FC) intend to respond to any? To the topic at all?

Could you at least tell us what we can expect on this front?

This thread currently serves as a place to vent concerns, but nothing more than that. Those of who are interested in the health of the game, and in having a meaningful discussion w/ FC about the direction the game is taking, really need to know at least what type of interaction you envision.

I think it is only fair that you give us some idea of what lvl of interaction we can expect here.

[______________Kaskin]

Originally posted by Helsinki
I never thought I would say this, but Im going to log into some UO tonight...

Heh, I am off to go play on a MUD, I refuse to patch this game beyond 14.2 until the level requirements are removed.

And for those that are going 'whats your problem? I'm level 25 and I roxxor' - thats not the point. Get to level 150. do the math. THINK. Level reqs mean j00 is exactly the same as the next clone.

And here I thought one of the plot points was that cloning was not possible.....