Consolidated IPR Thread

[Iolanthe]

Great points Luci.

I don't like being pessimistic about FC's actions, but I would like to have some sort of a stance or statement beyond the usual gibber gabber that the majority of any dev in any team spits out to ease the mobs of irratable customers.

I think that any benefit coming from some sort of added IPR's or what have you or the ability to buy them or whatever... totally outweighs any negative impact that it could have on the game.

[Elucidate]

I can't think of a single negative impact that could be garnered from giving the players either MORE IPR, or a way to continually replenish IPR (at cost, or via a simple game mechanc).

Can you?

[Iolanthe]

Not off hand, no I can't.

But again, they have made a statement about the topic, and that statement is "No plans"

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=377785

Last post, and it was locked.

[Wizardkiss]

I can't think of a single negative impact that could be garnered from giving the players either MORE IPR, or a way to continually replenish IPR (at cost, or via a simple game mechanc).

Can you?

When they've spoken about it in the past what they've said is basically: (paraphrasing) "We won't add renewable reset points because then everyone would just reset their skills to use the best weapons and then everybody would have the same weapons." Their term for this is "flavor of the month." What they've never explained is how that would be much different than what people do already. In fact, it seems to me that if people had the option to experiment we would see a lot more variety in high levels rather than less.

When people run of of reset points and become gimped they often tend to just quit so there doesn't seem to be any financial motive to their actions. In fact, if there were reset points that renewed very slowly on open accounts it would encourage people to keep their accounts open a lot longer than they otherwise would to get more points to play with, or to ungimp themselves. It would also bring back a lot of people who've left in the past.

I personally have plenty of reset points on all my characters but I always follow this issue because their position seems to be utterly nonsensical and financially self-destructive. Yet all they do is drone "There are no plans to add IRPs..."

[Czarina]

Is so true snow...

One of the best NT's in game Mickbinda no longer plays his NT due to IPR and the gameplay changes as seen in his signature..

Fortunately for Funcom he has the patience and time to level another character to 220... I for one could never do that, so I guess it's over when its over unless funcom fixes this problem for me.. Any major gameplay change could completely break my character at this point... would be painful to have to suck up 3 1/2 years over something so nonesensical as a "we can change the game, but eventually, given enough time, you won't be able to move with the changes anymore" policy.

[Elucidate]

I personally have plenty of reset points on all my characters but I always follow this issue because their position seems to be utterly nonsensical and financially self-destructive. Yet all they do is drone "There are no plans to add IRPs..."

Exactly. If they stopped droning and started explaining, maybe we would be more accepting of the stance. I have a distinct feeling they don't REALLY understand the advantage extending a system of renewable/purchasable/earnable IPR, nor how it would benefit them monetarily. I'm scared of a company that doesn't look at monetary gains/customer loyalty/renewed/regained customer loyalty as a bonus, and a chance to extend their business.

Who doesn't like more money?!

[Iolanthe]

FoTM solves itself through something FunCom already does--- its called nerfing, and optimist call it balencing. :-P

Why in the world would you want to have the same dreary skills for 3 and a half years, I wouldn't know - and why would you WANT your customers to be stuck in a system where they could not change...and thus force them to quit or reroll... I still don't know. Its a rough stance, and silence on the real topics at hand shows... well, consent to the opinion. :-/

Which is unfortunate, because I am an optimist.

There are no real disadvantages... that are game breaking...that will come from adding IPR's or a system to allow one to buy IPR...

It can be likened to the ability to now change your face. Relatively minor. And its basically a money sink which is a GOOD THING with the constant availablity of cash.

So... Funcom.

Your customers are talking to you. We are rational and have given you reason to be concerned and have shown a significant need for this change. We show you all the benefits and we talk about the false disads not really being a true disad.

Are you going to attempt to communicate with us on this topic, which is extremely important to us (and in turn, you) or are you going to ignore it as whiners whinning about mistakes made in their character or the distaste of having FoTM type things occuring?

I think we deserve an answer beyond what has been given.

[Gilladrad]

Its such a breath of
fresh air in wow, how if you want to use a weapon you just put it on
and use it, the more you use it the better you get, only way you could get
this kind of freedom in ao is to implement some kind of way to atomatically regain
ip resets, so your char never grows stale, just posting because i dont want
to give up on ao yet, would rather its made better

[Zebular]

I feel that all Characters who were created Pre-Shadowlands should recieve 7 more IPR.

I also feel that when a player upgrades to Shadowlands, they should instantly gain 7 more IPR on all Pre-Shaowland Characters that they have.

This would even things out for those of us who started playing, but then later upgraded, on the free accounts and/or from the original cd version without any expansions.

The gods know my pre-shadowlands adventurer could use those missing 7 IPR, as I wasted quite a few before I realised more about them.

--

For anyone not understanding why I am wanting 7 IPR for Pre-Shaowlands Upgraded Characters, it is because of this:

My Pre-SL Adventurer only started with 2 IPR.
Where-as, all my Characters since I've upgraded, have started with 9 IPR.
That is a differance of 7 IPR that Pre-SL Characters do not get.

[Ikarus]

I understand it when the Devs say that they didn't plan that IPRs where always available.

I don't understand that there's hardly an answer from the Devs concerning this, in my eyes important and popular, issue.

90% of the ones posting here want to save themselves from being gimped just because some issues in the past ( I made some IP-Mistakes in the youth of my main for myself ) or because they try to use the full potential of the game, which means trying different templates for their chars, and mostly this is not the once so bad fotm-issue with Caterwaul and maybe Manex. In this case, the designers learned and made more balanced Weapons - and unfortunately more weapon choices.
See, for example some soldiers skilled RE and Pistol to get away from the ugly blue thing called SPB. In my eyes the damage increase there is a minor thing, especially when getting near 220 when there's hardly a difference anymore.
Look at all those other neat AI weapons. You simply can't get away from your profession skill anymore since you have only X reset points and the past showed that there's no garantuee that Weapon lines now available will get extended.


When we are talking about a regenerative IPR system, like Perks, we talk about a major additional game feature, which will lead to a gameplay with more fun for the players and less worry if the char they are actually playing is a dead end of evolution just because Melee Energy Weapons won't be implemented in the next Expansion pack. Just edged and blunt weapons.
Another one:
Look at the perk system.
Now imagine the perk system with only 25 perk resets.
Would suck.

Is there any balance problem when someone can switch his Perklines once every ten days?
No.
Is there any balance problem if someone could change his template every lets say two weeks?
Hell no.
If everyone is running around with the famous pre-patch JAME then its NOT a fault of the Players! Its a fault of the devs ( sorry! but true ), and why are the players, who try to play the game in the easiest/fun way, punished.
Try to think about it from the promotional aspect.
Another new feature in AO!



And, mostly the more important, more satisfied players.



In addition:
I don't think that posts like "I will cancel if y00 won't give me teh IPRs" will bring us on, since it sounds like some blackmail attempt
And if I'm confronted with such behaviour in rl, mostly I switch to stubborn-mode

[-Plexor-]

Agree on all you say Ikarus.

As far as people quitting goes, what most people said was not "give me more IPR's or I will quit." As you say that is making threats and likely to cause FC to not take it seriously.

it was "if I run out of IPR's on a 220 character that it took a lot of time and effort to build, and find it gimped because of a game change, I will quit. Why should I have to remake a character because of a change in gameplay and a needless limitation on IPR's." This is a very different thing, and something the developers should take notice of.

[omniteksnipe]

yea im a huge fan of rewarding the loyal. Players that have been with the game every 6 months get some ipr's.

[corinthians]

In addition:
I don't think that posts like "I will cancel if y00 won't give me teh IPRs" will bring us on, since it sounds like some blackmail attempt
And if I'm confronted with such behaviour in rl, mostly I switch to stubborn-mode

If, in real life, you are confronted with a situation where you are a customer, say, at a retail store, and you are justifiably disatisfied with the service offered or given, then I assure you that 99% of professional businesses won't allow their employees to clam up and walk away with their hands over their ears when you point out their shortcomings, and explain that you will take your business elsewhere if you are not satisfied.

I think ego's are involved here, and the bottom line isn't being looked at as a result.

[Ikarus]

But, in RL you can't go into a fast food restaurant and urinate on the tables after ordering a Coke shouting "I'm the customer here, I pay your loans! Now let me do what I want."

To stay on the bottom...
If you pay for something in a store and you aren't happy with it, you can walk in there and demand your money back. Mostly, you will have success.
But you can't walk in there and say "I don't like this XYZ you sold me. I paid for it and I would rather see it with ABC. Make it this way! I am king customer and therefore you have to lick my shoes and say 'thank you' afterwards. And now hurry on! Quick!"

Unfortunately , you didn't pay for the game, just for a time-window to use the software on Funcoms servers. And you also click "Ok" every time you start it acknowledging that you do not have any right for refunds and that Funcom may do what they want with your Account etc pp.
So, you can't really compare it with usual shopping.

Besides, I won't say that FC doesn't care about this thread. I would rather say that there are major and more important issues to care for - although I would love to see the change we are discussing here. Always look on both sides.
And in the end, we all do not have the experience the AO game developers have in game designing and player wishes have always to be treated with extra care, since the inner desire for tactical nuclear warheads for [insert your profession] still keeps routing in your forehead while posting game Suggestions


To point it out, I agree with everyone saying that IPRs are needed and that the game is not worth playing anymore when you run out of IPR at lvl 220 since re-rolling a 220 toon is not doable for most people without starting to get pissed of etc.
Just try to do not base your argumentation on the "threat" of players quitting - I don't think it will change the opinion of the devs.

[Comis]

Moved by request

I think thats very harsh since a good portion of recently added content has been aimed at our higher level and veteran players and these new Shadowlands quests with instanced areas will benefit them as well

Whilst any given patch will never keep 'everyone' happy we always strive to ensure that we balance the additions between new, veteran and mid level players as much as we can do. Is that balance always perfect? Probably not, but there is deliberate 'bias' against any section of the playerbase at any given time

First you need to build a reason and possibility to achieve this new content and features, it doesn't help to add on this that isn't possible to reach when the base foundation of reaching this is more or less impossible dude to lack of possibility to change this foundation.

Like with AI out a lot of weapon lines for different professions changed and also with the special attacks fix as well.

The blur intentions of some perk attacks on AI is still not taken care of for professions not able to achive such attack dependencies relay on the foundation to adapt your character to the content added.

If your not able to adapt to these changes and might have just started all over again, what use is it to add content and changes when the base foundation for this is completely forgotten?

I'm guessing a lot of players that actually has for example 2500+ tokens on a character, actually gave up their character or even the game cause of the base foundation for changing and adapting to the changes and/or improvement to different aspects on the skill subject - is simply impossible to this date.

I have a hard time understanding that this is not something thats important factor of the evaluation of change to this system.

As we all know, everything in this game is based on skills, so this makes the base foundation for the evaluation of changes and possibility to reach and adapt to the additions made by content, but some how this doesn't add up.

Some suggested readings are the post by Czarina which explains some of these base foundations that has had their meaning and continue existence in the game changed.
Read this article here

These are some of the situations we are actually talking about.

Cheers

[Iolanthe]

It doesn't matter what content they put in for veteran players if they cannot play their characters to begin with because of the problem of IPR's.

It has been stated several times: Limited IPRs = Limited Life of a character = Limited Customer

Its the same thing as to adding a life expectancy to characters, and ya know what? People like to have their illusions of immortality.

They also like to play characters they've put massive amount of time and energy into building and working on friendships, alliences, and ubern3ss. You grant a limited number of IPR's to a character, yet you constantly introduce new content that encourages FoTM attitude - You cannot expect people not want to try out new sparklies -- the very content they pay for.

In many other games, successful games, there are functions that allow you to reset certain skills that are defining of their character. Some have time limits on this - Some have RL money on this - Some have in game money charges on this.

Very much like the money to change the way your face looks, purchasing IPR's would be a nice, worthwhile, drain on the mass amount of credits floating around and rotting in people's alts, where they have nothing to truely spend it on.

Its a way to give Veterans a point to play... and to perhaps encourage many others to come back to try new content that you produce, and guess what, if you impliment something like this, they are more likely to come back, because they will much more likely to be able to enjoy their character without having to be in constant paranoia "OH NOES! I can't mis-spend IP! If I do, I'll not be able to play my toon in 2-3 years!". I don't mean to make this mocking, but you have to understand that not allowing a manner to put in IPR's does more damage than any perceived by actually putting a system in. :-)

[Lal]

All I would like to see is something that adds IPRs over /played time or/and RL time...

I would also like to get Map navi resettable because it just sucks I have wasted like 600pts in it...

and the map upgrader stuff system doesnt work that well, make a new window or soemthign where you can upload them instead of adding it to the personal data.

anyway the specialisations dont have ENTERs between them in the window and the Jobe set reqs neither

[Czarina]

I just had yet another Enforcer friend use his very last IPR point in order to keep up with the game...

I'd hate to lose another friend to finding his character unplayable, because balanced weapon choices of all weapon types have never been in game.

If any nerfs come along, he will be gone and be another customer lost to something that could be fixed..

And a fix too it, would most likely not cause the loss of any customers, while bringing quite a few back.

[Portulis]

I'd say add 4 iprs to all title level 7 players, that is a fixed number, and then do what has been done in the past, add a few with each expansion pack.

At some point however, too many IPRs actually harms those who have been more conservative with IPR usage.

Look at the docs who went Jame, then Gelid, then SoD, then MBC. I don't know how many IPRs that is but at some point you have to pay the piper.

I hate seeing friends with no IPRs, but I also hate FOTM in a big way when some professions are going way outside of their template and cry foul when that strategy comes home to roost.

Making IP allocation decisions should be an important thing, unlimited iprs just trivializes it.

But considering the changes since SL/AI (specials nerf, AMR cap, weapons nerfs), I think the 4 at title level 7 plus say 3 for the next expansion makes sense. I think with that number one of my toons would have 30 IPRs remaining, and I am quite certain it is going to be sufficient.

[Czarina]

I think with that number one of my toons would have 30 IPRs remaining, and I am quite certain it is going to be sufficient.

That's why I advocate a method along the lines of:

If player has less than 5 IPR, add one every 2 months... 5 is enough to fix a major game change... using all 5 of them, you will not have 5 again for around 10 months, so almost a year. Most weapon changes require 2-5 IPR alone.

So unfortunately 1 IPR doesn't equate to 1 nerf, which I think Funcom is currently viewing things as.

The specials nerf is exceptionally destructive to Support classes...

and I honestly feel that IPR is part of the reason that funcom hasn't done anything to balance aimed shot for support proffession and give other options so that there it's a "must have rifle to PvP requirement"