Community answers - part 4

[_______________Tiran]

CZ, is Funcom ever going to fix shop stocking of armor and attacks? Or the multiple shops in trade for clusters, which all have the exact same contents, and so might as well not exist right now?

Been bug reporting this, test, and live, for several patches now.

Ignored by Funcom, other than one patronising reply that we're just not letting the stores recycle. Pardon, I can tell if it's recycling, it is. That's not the problem.

Armor shops do not sell all pieces of a given armor. No, this is NOT because they aren't restocking. They are. QL's change, but the pieces offered do NOT. Omni Superior store, you will see Flowers helms, and Flowers female bodies. ONLY. Ever. Steel Ribbed, you'll see SR sleeves, SR helms, SR boots, and Nadir SR Bodies. No pants, no variety of Nadir, etc, etc.

Attack shops are not stocking MA attacks, because they too are stuck on fixed lists of what they stock, that don't rotate. (Apparently)

Don't know about other shops. Cluster shops seem to rotate fine, other than that same cluster shop type in a trade section will have same contents exactly as other cluster shops of that type in same store.

[MORB]

Cz, any ETA on the anwser about what you noted back in the days of "community answers - part 2" as "selecting" mission reward ? (ie clicksaver and probably much more than that)

[Darkbane]

Heh, welcome back Cz, hope the break was good Still, back to work, and into the lion's den...

Still a few issues (heh!) awaiting some response, but I'd rather we got sensible and comprehensible answers after waiting than non-sensical sounding and mostly incomprehensible ones that were rushed.

Sometime this week will do

[Sean-Roach]

I have to agree with others who have mentioned that alpha-chest loot needs to be considered carefully.

Lockpick should work, but not necessarily open the chest, (if it's not that players turn to open it.) If alpha loot is implemented on chests.


There should be one or more of the following.

A loot message on no-drop objects, to warn the person that they're about to loot a no-drop object.
No auto-loot of no-drop objects, even if the profession-only flag is matched. There might be two of a given profession on a team, that specialized in different ways.
Allow no-drop objects to be put back in the chest, and keep the chest from decaying, so someone else can open it to get the listed item out.

Something that is probably too difficult, as they'd require additional data to be stored with the item in question. Making items one-time tradable. This would presumably mean a flag on the item to state that it hadn't been traded, or zoned, yet.

Open-trading among team-members, before it gets suggested, similary destroys all value of a no-drop flag. I want a no-drop suchnsuch, I team with the person who has one, and trade. Hence, bad idea.

Probably the easiest would be to make no-drop items, non-autoloot, and make sure chests last for the entire mission or the lifetime of the zone, unless truly empty, regardless of how many times they've been opened.

Another idea, in conjunction with the others, give the team leader the option to /flag chest loot-messages on and off. If the team leader is of the mind that ignorance is bliss, /chestmessage off, if the leader believes that trust is built through open communications, /chestmessage on. Of course, if you ever found yourself teaming with a player who turns /chestmessage off, and /chestloot leader...

In another thread I mentioned the needed additions to /org. Besides motd and list, I suggested a roster command, and one other. There are currently two advantages/restrictions coded into the game. They are a 1h blunt bonus, and the no-atrox allowed restriction. Could we get some more? For coding the bonuses, I'd wipe the one that exists and recode to allow some existing stat-booster to work instead. Nanoclusters come to mind. However, this might dangeriously imbalance the game, so should be considered carefully. As for restrictions, I think we need an even 18 restrictions. One restriction for each of the professions, races, and genders, (minus neuter, as that is already sufficiently covered by the no-atrox restriction.)

If you DO use nano-clusters to replace advantages, I'd recommend putting an upkeep based on the existing price, divided by some number, multiplied by the number of members, and maybe multiplied by the number of advantages in the box. I'd also limit the advantages so that like didn't stack with like. No 10-shiny 200QL SMG skill, not even 1 bright, 1 shiny, and 1 faded 200QL SMG skill.

As for /org roster, it should tell everyone in the org who's in, and who's on, and tell the top two membership levels, at least, when everyone was last on if they aren't currently logged in. This so the leadership can cull deadweight if the need arises, (taxes too high, only so many people ever show up.)

Finally, check out someone's idea for an income tax to supplement, or substitute for, the existing flat rate. With a flat rate, new members are discouraged from joining an organization as the membership fees are a larger chunk of their take than they are for someone with some levels beneath them.

[Vindispite]

Yeah NODROP items would be a problem if ONLY the person whose turn it is to loot could see the contents. One easy solution would be to only make their turn applicable the first time they open their chest. After they close the chest contents window, it could be made to be 'lootable' by anyone.

[___The Establishment]

The plastic surgery idea makes me sooooo happy!

You can see my rather lengthy post about this: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...errerid=202997 in the suggestion forums.

Docs are the ones who should get the advantage of doing plastic surgery. Heck...if you're a real doc like my Rxbunny character and have no combat skills, that's the only way to do it. I have never solo'd a mission and as times are changing, teams are the best way to go now. However, I don't think making the game a team-only game is very wise...but that's a different issue. Anyway....I digress.... docs should use a surgery kit to enable them to perform this function.

Fixers should be able to do plastic surgery as well. Ghostangel and I have talked about this at length. Her idea of "kitchen-sink surgery" is pretty good. But I think they need something similar to a surgery kit, if not the surgery kit would work fine. If they had their own version, it could be called a "chop-shop" kit.

The plastic surgery idea would add another depth to this game. And, those, like myself, could choose a new face because I made a mistake so long ago when I first started my character. =)

Thanks Funcom.... hope this gets implemented.

[______________Nietya]

Just a quick note...

I'm really really really glad to see the interaction between FC and the community here. It's wonderful.

Now add a vicinity emote to give looting messages, and I'm good to go. Well, also add some options to filter it to team only loot messages, no loot messages, and all loot messages.

[_______________Daeem]

Since people have multiple pets F7 wouldnt work well for pet targeting.

For people with only one pet it would work well.

Anyone who uses multiple pets however wouldnt be capable of selecting the proper one without some serious effort.

The auto targeter function would also have a negative effect on it.

My suggestion is the ability to /target "petnamehere" for a macro setup. It's easier to me however some people have 4 pets right now and targeting them that way would take 4 hotkey slots.

So, F7 would be a perfect cycle pets button for a startup. Let people try it out and see if they enjoy it enough. If it works out well enough maybe we should set up F7-F10 pet target commands with F8's current function moved to F11. (atm F8 is 3rd person/1st person view switching while F7, F9, F10 are relatively unused)

until later then.

[Sean-Roach]

I use F9 and F10 regulary. I don't see the need for both F11 and F12 though. Heck, move F11, and F12 to <print screen>, close enough to the function of the key in Windows anyway, and free them up too.

[______________Shatai]

Cz, any more word on 14.6?

Just a reminder that you have a thread with, shall we say, precious little info

All known and official info on 14.6

[___________Protogirl]

Cz, I would really like to hear an answer on this about apartments. During the first month of the game on these forums someone from FC responded to a question regarding item limits in AO being restricted to 10 was a bug and that many ideas were being talked about for improving apartments.

I would like to know why can't the item counts be increased? Is it really that complicated to change this?

(skip the next part ..it's only a dream)

FC missed the boat in offering more uses for apartments. They could of been a major part of the game. Imagine if players had a reason to retire to apartments at night because the suppression zones were turned down to 25% during a small part of the night each and every night. A klaxon would sound the alarm each night before it happened. But you could still chat on a apartment chat channel or listen in on the battle raging outside (or hang out in protected bunkers...a place anyone would be placed if they died and would of be sent to a reclaim in the city during the danger hour). New players could be protected in many ways (during the danger time no one could be looted under level 20..or 30 or whatever). Then improvements to apartments would have a reason to be and the war torn world could really be one. Thanks for reading.

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

Originally posted by LostBoyJim


Can we do that with monsters too? The person that does the most damage gets 2/7s of the total?

It's a team effort, the team should benefit. Making chests sharable like that helps PLAYERS feel like things are "fair". This increases teamwork, and the chance of a cracker being sought for a teammate. That's a good thing.

LostBoy
jim

Are you using that as an example of why chest xp should be split equally, or do you actually think something like that would be helpfull in any way?

I was simply putting in an option that satisfied both sides of the arguement, and the total xp amount would be increased. Damage, healing, calming, or tanking are required in a team, lockpicking is not. Lockpicking is an extra skill that a team can have, as chests can be ignored but a mission is completed (unless a rat wasn't killed and the mission ended at 97ish %, which I think is a bug..).
As I have already said, I prefer having the xp split equally for everyone but that option wouldn't be readily accepted by some people and be qualified as another nerf. So, my solution removes the 'nerf' part of it (if the total xp from the chest was increased) but gives the rest of the team xp. Got a better idea?

[Cz]

Tiran, I'm pretty sure the identical shop inventory, and possibly the armor shop thing, qualifies as bugs. Bugs will get fixed. I'll check the report system to see whether I can find a report on those, and report them if not.

MORB, no ETA. I need to get hold of a couple of people who have been away a while.

Shatai, I know about the thread, and it contains all the info I have.

Protogirl, the limit of 10 items is not a bug. Tha lack of a warning message or a way to stop you from putting down more than 10 items was the bug.

I'll check on increasing the item count for apartments.

---

Off again. Lots to do right now, so please don't jump me if I don't add a new thread the first few day.

[Tetra]

Originally posted by Maxtor 1-7

Damage, healing, calming, or tanking are required in a team, lockpicking is not. Lockpicking is an extra skill that a team can have, as chests can be ignored but a mission is completed (unless a rat wasn't killed and the mission ended at 97ish %, which I think is a bug..).

no it's not, you could blitz or sneak the missions... also a locked door is most definately something that makes lockpicking needed no matter the method you use to clear your mission out.

[___________Protogirl]

Thanks for the answer! I will be waiting to hear back about the item count. If they would improve apartments droves of people would come to AO for that reason alone. : )

[MORB]

Originally posted by Cz
MORB, no ETA. I need to get hold of a couple of people who have been away a while.

Hmmm... You know when their vacations are ending, right ? So here's your ETA ;)

[XtroXtreme]

Originally posted by Cz
[B]Protogirl, the limit of 10 items is not a bug. Tha lack of a warning message or a way to stop you from putting down more than 10 items was the bug.

Finaly it has been defined. 10 item is not a bug in the game, it is a bug in dev.

[secondkenlon]

Since it seems to be languishing in the depths of the Tradeskill forums, I'd like to point this out to Cz since he's here:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=39315

</shameless self promotion>

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

Originally posted by Tetra


no it's not, you could blitz or sneak the missions... also a locked door is most definately something that makes lockpicking needed no matter the method you use to clear your mission out.

I don't know about you, but locked doors don't seem to appear as often as before. Also, tons of rooms have more than one way to get in, so a good % of the time it won't matter.

You can try to pick a door a billion times then eventually open it, I believe chests are more likely to have good loot if you pick them once. Whenever I try to pick a chest at least five times it has either nothing, a tradeskill item, or a food item.
I'll check it some more, but chests are a bit weird anyway with their loot.

[Tentumbs]

WOW. I was taken compleatly by suprise that you actualy have got a feedback system thet works both ways. I had given up the forum a couple of months ago when I suddenly found a link to this forum. Anyway. I only got halfway thru the "officials" thread here, so bear with me if I repeat something that is mention the last couple of days. I also hope that this is not off topic....

I will NOT repeat what others have screamed for earliger that is needed to be fixed (I need some of those fixes badly, but I see that they are adressed). I have however some new suggestions that I want Cz or someother to take with them to the stratic meating/dev team. I am a proffesional programer my self so I know that some of those sugestions are NOT easy implemented, but I guess they are good enought to be considered.

Interaction / community
The first one is for the chat capabilities. I know that there are a lot of channels today, but they are actuallty way to few and they are wrong configured. (in my oppinion)

First:
I usualy turn on a channel when I need to sell or buy a thing. I do not want to spend hours in a public area just to have the channel active so I only get "glimse" of the channels content and is probably missing what I am after becouse I am on a mission or in the shop or something. The first thing that can be done is to widen the area that the channel works. At least in shops, but also out in the field. As a minimum it should be at a radius around the cities (and some base stations on outposts and such like)

Second:
Having the shopping channel open can be a test of will. It is a LOT of crap there that is not interesting and I switch it off as soon as I can and therefore missing out a lot of selliong/buying that I could have interest of. But if I have it on it will be HARD to other things that require my attantion in the chating window. (Like doing a conversation and so on.)

The next best thing would be to have a lot of new channels. This include proffesion spessific channels (Soldier shopping, Anventure shopping and so on) If I was loged on with my soldier I could have this channel on the hole time and hopefully only get the messages that is for the soldier only. The same for normal proffesion chats. Anyone should be able to join them and speak, but it would filter a lot of information. Today I actualy sell a lot of the new fixer only nanos and other stuff in the normal shop becouse I don't bother to try to sell it on the channel.

Third:
The best ting is to have a new command called /channel. (You almost have it today, team channels, org channels and so on. Just make it a bit more flexible) This is more complicated and would look more like IRC. The /channel command should work like this:
/channel list <type>: List all of a certen type. (Not team, org and so on) Types can be: Official (Put the abow mention in here), Private (Look further down), Public (This can be LONG so some more filtering is probably needed if it shall be there at all)

/channel join <channel name> [password]: Join a channel. The password is optinal, look below. (This is persistent, that meens you automaticly join it when you relog) When a channel is joined it will pop up in the channel window, but not until then.

/channel leave <channel name>: Leave a channel

/channel create <channel name> [password]

/channel members <channel name> [proffesions]: List online members of a channel, maximum 16 players. Mutch like /list command.

A channel created with password is automaticly private and survives for a week if not visited. This way I can make a channel for all my friends that we all can join regardles of what org we are in (I can't get all my characters into one guild (And I don't want to either)) and I don't have to have 40 names on my buddy list just becouse I have 8 friends with 5 characters each. (Which is a pain in the ass each time one of them creates a new one and I have to update all the other lists)

Mission rewards
Simply: Remove all the "rare" stuff from the normal mission reward window and add a button called: "Suprice me" If this is pressed you will ONLY get a rare reward (Nano, spessial items, high QL items (compared to you (You can get a QL80 semi rare item on a QL 50 mission)) and so on) but you will not see it untill you get the reward (Compleated the mission) and this reward (if the button is pressed) should not be given to you unless you get the tokin (To prevent blitzing)

Camping and respawning
When it comes to a camping this can be greatly redused if the monsters not poping up in the same spot the hole time. Lets say it respawn somewhere in andromedia. Then you would have to spend time looking for it, not staying in que (I know this will not solve the static dungeldon, but those have got a lot of other nice suggestions earliger) This would make some more on team effort to. Like: Lets go look for him, spread out and yell if you find him. Not: Lets stay in que and chat untill it is our turn.