Exploiters, overequipping and the rest.

[____________Phonokol]

Well this is just friggin great!
I have seen 99% of rubi-ka.
I have done a billion missions
I have gained a ton of levels
I have hunted every place from here to the moon

Suddenly one day I realized that this was all boring and so I rerolled. I made a brand new soldier on whom I could use all my money and gaming experience. She is twinked to heaven beyond and thats all the fun. All the fun for me is to press as much power as I can out of my little solder.

I dont understand all this talk about balance. Why is it, that everything should be equal for everyone? If I can afford to buy and equip the best armor, weapons and tools then that means that I'm a successful player. Why should I be equal to the average player? If my character is suddenly average, then what is my goal? This game is sadly lacking of any other types of goals.

Another thing about balance. It seems strange to me that PvP should be balanced for all classes. Is it not logical that if pvp is in your interest you make a typical combat class, i.e. a soldier, enforcer, MA etc. I dont see any logic whatsoever to why a crat should be good in pvp. This is a role playing game, but the roles are gone.

Judging from the threads around, the root of the problem seems to be pvp. Its not in my interest to go to tir arena and smoke innocent n00bs. If pvp is the problem then change pvp, and not the entire game.

[________________Shen]

All my posts get deleted. Including the one that said Hi Xombie.

Oh well...Hi xombie. It's Meth. Catch me in game as "Caishen". Hope you read this before the mods erase it for no reason.

[____________Greystar]

Originally posted by rorthron

Some classes dominate and have 3 times as many players as some other classes. Some players reroll into better classes,
while others stick to the one they have, hoping that Funcom will balance them in the future (like they are promising now).

-Filik.

Sure there are concentrations on some classes, but the only classes that are pretty much extinct right now in higher levels are Fixers and Crats.

Crats are better now, we will have to wait and see what happens when the new ones reach higher levels.

Fixers, well they can summon ammo at level 30, so no need to play those chars longer.

The only ones benefitting from this change are NTs, MAs, Metas and Trader. They are not really in danger of extinction I would say and even now live in the upper half of the food chain.

[____________Greystar]

Originally posted by Shen
All my posts get deleted. Including the one that said Hi Xombie.

I think you are mixing up the threads, there are two now with nearly the same topic, in the other are several posts from you

[________________Shen]

weird...

[MaDezzie]

This is in response to Firewater's post about MA's being godly and just fine they way they are.

You said you had your MA to lvl 62.

Get your MA to lvl 100+ then come back here and say its still uber and still has a huge advantage over other professions.

MA's are a lot of fun to lvl 60 or so. Then you get hit with the minimum damage deal, our MA weapons are broken, our MA attacks don't get the job done in higher levels, some are even broken past a certain QL while others have been broken since the game began. Almost forgot to mention that anything above a light orange will resist our MA attacks, rendering it completely useless anyway.

Yes we have SG, VS, etc. Yes we have heals, but I did not create an MA to play doctor.

In the high level game as it stands now, overequipping is the answer to solo survival. It should not be that way. So yes any class that can overequip has the advantage over MA's. Many things in this game need to be fixed and I think this plan for overequiping is a damn good start, assuming mob power will in fact be lowered at the same time this change goes through. And a huge thumbs up for the IP reset. Now all the IP I spent to use Blessed with thunder (parry) can be used toward something useful.

-Dezzie, 105 MA
-Aikera, 68 soldier

[Denzity]

Relating to the amount of hours you have to spend on this game to keep up you should be able to do a IP reset once a character.

It took me about 25-30 lvl´s to fully understand how to play a specific proffesion and i spent a lot of IP´s on crap just becouse i did not know better.

Now on lvl 40 im thinking of starting a new character with the same proffesion just to be able to spend my IP according to what i now know (the same as doing a IP reset but with a waste of good game time). Why would a reset of IP be wrong?

Give thoose who want, one chance a character to reset their IP.
If not, we just start new characters and race throu the game until we get to our previous lvl.

[gnuman]

Originally posted by Shen
All my posts get deleted. Including the one that said Hi Xombie.

Oh well...Hi xombie. It's Meth. Catch me in game as "Caishen". Hope you read this before the mods erase it for no reason.

Could it be because this is highly off topic?

[Denzity]

Oh by the way.

I dont care what other changes you do.
I never overequipp, so whatever.
I never cheat or exploit bugs, Thoose who does should get banned from the game.

I just play the game according to the rules as the are from time to time. A part of playing a community game is CHANGE. The real world changes around us as well and we have to adept, get over it and stop crying about it. AO is only a game and a game should be fun to play.

[Sormllam]

As I see it, overequipping is one of the really good things about the game. You can get your hands on some equipment that you bearaly can fit and then you have to socialize with fellow Rubi-Ka citizens to get a super-duper buff of some sort. It becomes a personal mission that is more fun than killing green monsters solo'ing in missions that are alla like.

This is part of the roleplaying! ...and removing this possibility would make the game less fun. I saw some thoughts somewhere on the subject and I liked them. It was something like:

You need the skills to equip the item (weapon, nano, or armour) and when equipped you can use it, but when the buff wears out the effect would be reduced with say 50% of the overequiping effect (not 100% as people would then not care about it in the first case).

/Malmros aka Sormlam (leader of Northern Shadowrunners)

[_________Firewater58]

Ill post this in both threads for the heck of it - read it and have fun - only took 10 min to type (so spare me with the "I dont have a life posts") - post similar ideas since the topic of over-equiping and ip wipe is already over with - the paper work has already been sent to the developers of AO and this thread probably wont be read by Funcom.

Matica:
>This is a role playing game, but the roles are gone.
---------
BINGO! Add content to make each class have a "role" and your problems with overequping and player balance vanish. Nobody will care if a trader overequips a shotgun if their profession can do fun things others cant - VARIETY!

Ideas: (bump if they matter to you - and none of these ideas are really all that drastic - ie Funcom could impliment most quite easily since they modify existing AO rules and code)
============

Adventurer:
Skilled in movement, swimming, adventuring, running. (acording to funcom)

Why not add missions that take Adventurers to islands that are only accessable by swimming or boats. The islands are protected by gun turrets so planes have a difficult time going there. And obviously think of creative rewards for when the Advn does finish the mission. Ive never played this class in AO but id consider an Adven if something like this was there for me - solo artists would LOVE this. Give them xp for their "quests" so they dont have to group all the time. Imagine coming back from a LONG swim to a sunken ship or deserted island with a treasure chest of sorts thats worth a lot - or some sort of ancient Rubika artifact that had mystical powers (boost Advns swimming, runspeed, new creatures to morph into !)
=============

Agent:
Trained in industrial espionage and "black ops." (acording to funcom)

First off I played an agent well above lvl 100 and didnt see a darn thing that made an agent an agent. They are opiflex soldiers with fast guns and low hitpoints imo. BLAH!

Slow down Agent guns. Rifles should have range and good damge but very slow speed. An agent that "snipes" should be deadly - but only for that one kill and then swoosh - they sneak off like the wind. Give agents missions to bases to assasinate leaders of apposing factions - they are rewarded (with whatever - tokens, xp, money, items, gadgets) if they DONT harm civilians and get additional bonuses if they finish the kill totally undetected. Stealth will become valuable to this class!

And where are all the 007 gadgets for agents? Perhaps this is the wrong kind of agent for Rubika but everytime I meet a newbie agent I see them with 8 different weapons and all their gun skills maxed - they think they can buy a weapon for "different encounters." Sad. Cuz these people quit after they realize that Funcoms version of an agent ISNT the 007 jack of all trades type. Once they realize they are gimped above lvl 50 or so - they take their cash and leave AO. Sad.
=============

Bureaucrat:
Corporate troubleshooters, and excellent dealing with merchants and NPCs a great noncombat class for roleplayers.(acording to Funcom)

These guys are the "leaders" on and off the battle field. Most of their nano line should be designed to add combat effects to the players a Bureaucrat is teamed with. A "motivation" nano would boost shooting speeds of soldiers and hitting speeds of enforcers. Other nano lines would do more to turn mobs against each other (make it once every 30 min or something so people dont exploit) since Bureaucrats are the masters of psychology.

Off the battle field Bureaucrats should get more bonus's for their role in guilds and government positions - ie xp bonus for signing up a certain # of active players for a "vote" of Rubika "petition" or "law" they are trying to pass.

Let these guys have control over certain land areas - ie a Clan Bureaucrat might work to get a law passed (simple as passing out a "vote" form) that prohibits Omni from tresspassing over a specific hunting spot. The longer that Bureaucrat maintains that spot the more xp/money he or she gets. Omni Bureaucrats would then have to work hard to "get more votes" to regain that land area. Obviously "some" Bureaucrats might become somewhat powerfull in what they own or control - but thats kinda the point (ie real life). Nothing could impact the AO story more then something like this.

Bureaucrats would be featured on websites and become celebrities for their efforts away from the battle field - trust me, people would play this class for the money and fame even if they never picked up a pistol. Id play this class if I could gather millions of credits for my campain and have a "pimped out" (term acording to the childish language of Funcoms own Gaute Godager) office or headquarters.
================

Doctor:
Not so great in combat yet have excellent nano programs to heal. (acording to Funcom)

Do these guys really need to have weapons? Actually I guess they do since the only way to get xp or a token from a mission is to "KILL THINGS" - ya that makes sense for a doctor to spend their time doing. BLAH!

Ok I stole these 2 content ideas from a post made by another girl (who has since left AO - disgusted with its lack of content) a few months ago. Doctors should get xp and bonuses in a variety of ways - simply healing a team member so that "they" can kill shouldnt be the point of this profession. 2 things can be done to ****e up the Doctor profession.

#1. Make certain mobs cast radiation or poison nanos that cling to players for 6 or more hours! Obviously make the damage these nanos do very minor - something like a slow down in run speed, or a reduction to a players carry weight, or a limit to all their weapons range (vision is impared). These nanos will be cast only rarely by certain mobs or zaped onto a player if they hang around a certain "radiation" area too long. And players with greater nano resit will be more imune obviously.
Imagine having to come back from battle with an awefull case of radiation poinsoning or vision imparment that ONLY a Doctor could fix. Docs could heal and get xp for each player they help out. Shops (like appartments) could be open to the public that these Docs would set up - and heck, they could charge a certain price for their services (real life) and make decent money while they are at it.

#2. Missions are awefull for Doctors - plain and simple - I know a lvl 108 doc that hasnt done a SINGLE mission - he refuses to go and KILL for an item like a token or piece of armor. Good for him. Why not have a mission for a Doc that takes them to the wilderness and lets them "heal" a member of Rubika wildlife. Imagine running out to the depths of Omni Forrest as fast as you can to "heal" an animal. The danger would come from the fact that the animal might still be aggressive and you would have to sedate it before you could administer treatment. Simple and easy to add to AO - but it gives Docs a purpose!
==================

Fixer:
A shady type who skirts the edges of lawfull society - uses skills to get ahead of the game. (acording to Funcom)

Ok these guys NEED help bad - worst nano skills of any profession in AO - ya soldiers and enforcers have an easier time raising various nano stats then a Fixer - its sad. But worse then their nano abilities is the fact that these guys have so little purpose in AO that its not even funny.

Fixers should be able to hack terminals/shops for special items/bonus's. The more "failed" attemps at hacking a shop/terminal the higher the "warrent" for the fixers death would be - something to the effect that any player could hunt and kill the fixer for the reward. The OmniBroadcasts or Clan Voice of Freedom would post something like "Attention Rubika - ThorMan49 is wanted for hacking insurance terminals - reward of 14,000 credits issued to first citizen to elimiate him/her." Etc. And the fixer would "lose" x amount of credits or items if they were eliminated.

All the game play elements are already in place for such an exciting element. People can recognize guilds by shift/leftclicking on each others chars, and now they can see if the fixer has a warrent out for their death. Think of the "roleplaying" aspects this could add. What if you dont want to kill that fixer and you find him first. Warn the fixer that if he/she doesnt pay up or you'll end his/her life. The fixer will have to be very carefull where he/she shows their face - ie they will be "skirting on the edge of lawfull society" like Funcom originally intended.

The other excellent suggesting I have read was to let the fixer hack terminals/shops for special "illegal" items/guns etc that only the fixer could get access to. These "illegal" guns/items could be sold to other players etc and would be extra powerfull - (ie a NovaFlow with double the fire rate or a larger clip - A secret MA throwing star that had unlimited range or an Engineer pet that would dish out 4 times the damage but would be "rogue" and run the risk of attacking teammates if they got too close!) In order to prevent game ballance issues they would expire or "break down" after a set number of hours of use.

And these items could only be traded "outside" of Omni or Clan cites - kinda like going to the back alley with a Fixer and doing an "illegal" deal. Heck, make Clan and Omni guards shoot you on site if your weilding these illigal items in plain view. Put some "risk" into owning a powerfull item. Funcoms own "cartoons" they are using to vault AO's stroy were loaded with the selling of illegal items - now put that into the actual game!

Add these content ideas and bingo - the fixer has a purpose! Trust me, no fixer will care that they wont be able to fight as well as a soldier if they can make massive amounts of money and be "in demand" by soooo many other players.
=================

Soldier:
Weapons and armor expert - perfers long-range heavy weapons. (According to Funcom)

Sounds good right? Till you get above lvl 100 and you realize that soldiers lack content as bad as any class in AO imo. Funcom messed up the entire AO economy and destroyed any chance a soldier might have of "being a soldier" when they tweaked with TankArmor / BattleSuit reqs. Now you see soldiers wearing those "armor coats" that go for millions on the shopping channel. Nothing is more hillarious and stupid then an Atrox soldier charging off to battle in a DRESS! And to quote someone in the soldiers forum "I hate to even go into 3rd person perspective for fear that I might look at myself!"

Soldiers need MASSIVE soldier armor. Make those battlesuites and tank armor have higher ac stats then coats - leave the coats to the fixers and agents, the agile opiflex breeds (dont nerf the coats Funcom - thats not what im saying). It will help control AOs economy, add variety, and give soldiers a bit of a "uniform." ie you see a guy running down Omni Ent in tank armor - youll know hes a soldier ready to defend Omni.

Remember that there are 4 basic ways to defend yourself during battle on Rubika. You must have at least 2 of the following 4 or youll get owned by mobs and other players. ARMOR - HIT POINTS - EVADES - HEALING. Soldiers are usually Atrox or Solitus and have decent bodydevelopment/strength stamina and will generally have high hitpoints (like enforcers). But soldiers cant heal and our evades are very dark skills - tough to keep up over time. Which leaves us needing what? ARMOR! Give soldiers uber armor and let them tank the front lines along with enforcers.
Weapons - very few soldier guns matter in AO. How many lvl 100+ soldiers use anything other then a NovaFlow? BORING! Give us more weapon variety thats "viable" to use.

Remember that unlike Pet and Nano based professions - the only special effect or change most soldiers see while going from lvl 1-200 is a slight increase in the damage they dish out - THATS IT! Boring!

And what about all those "HEAVY WEAPONS" that Funcom gave soldiers special skills to use? The Flashpoint (dont nerf - just add more) is equal to all those guns that require the heavyweapons skill. We need area of effect mines, rocket launchers, and nukes (one huge blast every 30 min that might cost lots of credits but does massive damage to an area or mobs).

This idea for Soldier content was posted by Ultra1 in the soldiers forum:

Kamakazi nano for soldier:
Turns him into a human bomb, 15 second countdown, where he flashes so everyone knows he's gonna blow, then at 0 if he's still alive, he does his full energy AC in damage to all in the blast radius, say 15m. Think about how much fun it would be standing by the whompa in 2ho 9, 8, 7, 6, Zone.... Boom.

Make another and call it CannonFodder Nano. Imagine your in a large group hunting in the middle of nowhere and you just hit your next level. All of a sudden your teams Doc gets mobbed and hes is about to go down. SAVE THE TEAM ! Cast the nano on your self and charge the Doc and mobs 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 -1 BLAM! 5 or 6 Mobs down and the Doc is saved.

(obviously for game ballance issues it can only be cast once in a long while or people will take down stuff too often)

You spawn at the reclaim terminal to the cheers of your teamates who urge you to rejoin! FUN!
=============

Anyway bump if this kind of stuff matters to you more then some silly "he uses a ql 150 gun at lvl 75 talk." Add content and AO will balance itself out. Nerf content and or waste time talking about overequiping and Rubika will end up without anyone playing.

Have fun!

[____________Ejeckted]

The IP wipe must be mandatory. no /command.
You log on after patch XX.X and you are wiped
with a full IP pool for a character of your level.

Knowing that there are duping exploits in any
game like this, and added an item like an IP ring
was just asking for trouble.
There are characters in game who are able to max
every skill at every level because they have a vitually
limitless IP pool. That is the very worst, most imbalancing
exploit that has ever happened. It must be fixed.

I feel sorry for the legit players who found or bought
IP rings and used them as intended but there are
really no other options. I'm pretty sure most of those
players would not argue that the sacrifice must be made.

If map nav cannot be included then .. ok .. the exploiters
get all the map upgrades .. not exactly fair but not anything
like the uber advantage they have now ..

But those suggesting only certain skills be avaiable to
be reallocated are not taking the above into consideration,
making the programming of the wipe much more difficult,
and opening up an awful debate about which skills should
and should not be allowed to be changed.

pistols .. pillows .. those are the most famous mistakes ..
but there is also 1) concealment: aggro worked differently
at release .. greys would aggro if they saw you .. and other
professions besides fully buffed agents could use conceal to
sneak missions .. 2) nanoline changes: new fixer grid armor
requires a skill they never had to raise previously .. adding
a 6th dark blue skill their nanos use .. obviously choices must
be made as to which lines to focus on and which to neglect
and the fixers that exist now dont have that choice.
MPs got all those great new summon weapons that use
1HB and 2HB .. MPs were previously raising other weapon skills
and suddenly now they find they have invested in the wrong ones.
3) starting a nano program now interrupts casting.
previously my trader had his nano init and ranged init
set to perfect speed to get a shot off inbetween my casting
of a health funnel .. now i have to choose to shoot or funnel,
making my funnel line pretty useless and the points i spent in
that speed wasted .. im sure many other players/professions
have had similar problems .. 4) lowlight scopes had their crit
chance nerfed, meaning those that spent a few IP in
weaponsmithing/elecengineering to equip a low QL one now
arent getting the same effect and may not have made that choice
(and taken the hit to inits) if they could examine the modifiers as
they now exisit.

. . im sure there are more . .

and this isnt even getting into 'ignorant' misallocations
where it wasnt exactly a change or a nerf but there are
a lot of useless skills (adventuring/swimming/etc) that
a lot of early players (me included) thought were
another neccesity just like 'running' ..

and how about now that we know how AC works,
and that choosing any fast/lowdamage weapons is no
better than choosing any of the other useless weapons?
fair that professions born with pistols find out at level100
that they are gimps for taking the suggested route?

now, for new players, who come in after the wipe
they at least have the ability to talk to other players,
get advice, read these boards, check out the fan sites.
have all the info they need to make informed decisions.

the 'veteran' players who started with just the crappy
empty manual shouldnt be at a disadvantage to the new
guys who have all the guides now available to them.

[Denzity]

Firewater58 has a point, adding content sur would make the game more appealing. Im not sure that all of your ideas are good (like the human bomb -Hey you have to be kidding, right?) but something has to be done or players will leave AO for maybe www.projectentropia.com??

[______________Hodaka]

I agree. Instead of continual nerfs to make the classes more and more like each other, there need to be differences that define the classes. Why do you think people are equipping high level stuff? To do the same things over and over... mission, hunt and maybe PVP..

I'm an agent. If I could do sneaky things without ever having to fire a gun, I'd do them. Shooting someone would only mean that I screwed up and *had* to defend myself.. I'd much rather be carrying a camera or place a "bug" in someone's room than blasting my way through a mission to find the QL30 left wrist implant someone misplaced..

Much of the complaints about "overequipping" would just go away then.

Then, you can fix PVP, which is a whole different issue and should not have any relevance on balancing issues for PVM.. (i personally think the balance issues discussed here are mostly related to PVP anyway.. not many ppl care what a person does in PVM.. in fact, the better you are, the more they want to hunt with you..)

Originally posted by Firewater58
Ill post this in both threads for the heck of it - read it and have fun - only took 10 min to type (so spare me with the "I dont have a life posts") - post similar ideas since the topic of over-equiping and ip wipe is already over with - the paper work has already been sent to the developers of AO and this thread probably wont be read by Funcom.

Matica:
>This is a role playing game, but the roles are gone.
---------
BINGO! Add content to make each class have a "role" and your problems with overequping and player balance vanish. Nobody will care if a trader overequips a shotgun if their profession can do fun things others cant - VARIETY!

Ideas: (bump if they matter to you - and none of these ideas are really all that drastic - ie Funcom could impliment most quite easily since they modify existing AO rules and code)
============

Adventurer:
Skilled in movement, swimming, adventuring, running. (acording to funcom)

Why not add missions that take Adventurers to islands that are only accessable by swimming or boats. The islands are protected by gun turrets so planes have a difficult time going there. And obviously think of creative rewards for when the Advn does finish the mission. Ive never played this class in AO but id consider an Adven if something like this was there for me - solo artists would LOVE this. Give them xp for their "quests" so they dont have to group all the time. Imagine coming back from a LONG swim to a sunken ship or deserted island with a treasure chest of sorts thats worth a lot - or some sort of ancient Rubika artifact that had mystical powers (boost Advns swimming, runspeed, new creatures to morph into !)
=============

Agent:
Trained in industrial espionage and "black ops." (acording to funcom)

First off I played an agent well above lvl 100 and didnt see a darn thing that made an agent an agent. They are opiflex soldiers with fast guns and low hitpoints imo. BLAH!

Slow down Agent guns. Rifles should have range and good damge but very slow speed. An agent that "snipes" should be deadly - but only for that one kill and then swoosh - they sneak off like the wind. Give agents missions to bases to assasinate leaders of apposing factions - they are rewarded (with whatever - tokens, xp, money, items, gadgets) if they DONT harm civilians and get additional bonuses if they finish the kill totally undetected. Stealth will become valuable to this class!

And where are all the 007 gadgets for agents? Perhaps this is the wrong kind of agent for Rubika but everytime I meet a newbie agent I see them with 8 different weapons and all their gun skills maxed - they think they can buy a weapon for "different encounters." Sad. Cuz these people quit after they realize that Funcoms version of an agent ISNT the 007 jack of all trades type. Once they realize they are gimped above lvl 50 or so - they take their cash and leave AO. Sad.
=============

Bureaucrat:
Corporate troubleshooters, and excellent dealing with merchants and NPCs a great noncombat class for roleplayers.(acording to Funcom)

These guys are the "leaders" on and off the battle field. Most of their nano line should be designed to add combat effects to the players a Bureaucrat is teamed with. A "motivation" nano would boost shooting speeds of soldiers and hitting speeds of enforcers. Other nano lines would do more to turn mobs against each other (make it once every 30 min or something so people dont exploit) since Bureaucrats are the masters of psychology.

Off the battle field Bureaucrats should get more bonus's for their role in guilds and government positions - ie xp bonus for signing up a certain # of active players for a "vote" of Rubika "petition" or "law" they are trying to pass.

Let these guys have control over certain land areas - ie a Clan Bureaucrat might work to get a law passed (simple as passing out a "vote" form) that prohibits Omni from tresspassing over a specific hunting spot. The longer that Bureaucrat maintains that spot the more xp/money he or she gets. Omni Bureaucrats would then have to work hard to "get more votes" to regain that land area. Obviously "some" Bureaucrats might become somewhat powerfull in what they own or control - but thats kinda the point (ie real life). Nothing could impact the AO story more then something like this.

Bureaucrats would be featured on websites and become celebrities for their efforts away from the battle field - trust me, people would play this class for the money and fame even if they never picked up a pistol. Id play this class if I could gather millions of credits for my campain and have a "pimped out" (term acording to the childish language of Funcoms own Gaute Godager) office or headquarters.
================

Doctor:
Not so great in combat yet have excellent nano programs to heal. (acording to Funcom)

Do these guys really need to have weapons? Actually I guess they do since the only way to get xp or a token from a mission is to "KILL THINGS" - ya that makes sense for a doctor to spend their time doing. BLAH!

Ok I stole these 2 content ideas from a post made by another girl (who has since left AO - disgusted with its lack of content) a few months ago. Doctors should get xp and bonuses in a variety of ways - simply healing a team member so that "they" can kill shouldnt be the point of this profession. 2 things can be done to ****e up the Doctor profession.

#1. Make certain mobs cast radiation or poison nanos that cling to players for 6 or more hours! Obviously make the damage these nanos do very minor - something like a slow down in run speed, or a reduction to a players carry weight, or a limit to all their weapons range (vision is impared). These nanos will be cast only rarely by certain mobs or zaped onto a player if they hang around a certain "radiation" area too long. And players with greater nano resit will be more imune obviously.
Imagine having to come back from battle with an awefull case of radiation poinsoning or vision imparment that ONLY a Doctor could fix. Docs could heal and get xp for each player they help out. Shops (like appartments) could be open to the public that these Docs would set up - and heck, they could charge a certain price for their services (real life) and make decent money while they are at it.

#2. Missions are awefull for Doctors - plain and simple - I know a lvl 108 doc that hasnt done a SINGLE mission - he refuses to go and KILL for an item like a token or piece of armor. Good for him. Why not have a mission for a Doc that takes them to the wilderness and lets them "heal" a member of Rubika wildlife. Imagine running out to the depths of Omni Forrest as fast as you can to "heal" an animal. The danger would come from the fact that the animal might still be aggressive and you would have to sedate it before you could administer treatment. Simple and easy to add to AO - but it gives Docs a purpose!
==================

Fixer:
A shady type who skirts the edges of lawfull society - uses skills to get ahead of the game. (acording to Funcom)

Ok these guys NEED help bad - worst nano skills of any profession in AO - ya soldiers and enforcers have an easier time raising various nano stats then a Fixer - its sad. But worse then their nano abilities is the fact that these guys have so little purpose in AO that its not even funny.

Fixers should be able to hack terminals/shops for special items/bonus's. The more "failed" attemps at hacking a shop/terminal the higher the "warrent" for the fixers death would be - something to the effect that any player could hunt and kill the fixer for the reward. The OmniBroadcasts or Clan Voice of Freedom would post something like "Attention Rubika - ThorMan49 is wanted for hacking insurance terminals - reward of 14,000 credits issued to first citizen to elimiate him/her." Etc. And the fixer would "lose" x amount of credits or items if they were eliminated.

All the game play elements are already in place for such an exciting element. People can recognize guilds by shift/leftclicking on each others chars, and now they can see if the fixer has a warrent out for their death. Think of the "roleplaying" aspects this could add. What if you dont want to kill that fixer and you find him first. Warn the fixer that if he/she doesnt pay up or you'll end his/her life. The fixer will have to be very carefull where he/she shows their face - ie they will be "skirting on the edge of lawfull society" like Funcom originally intended.

The other excellent suggesting I have read was to let the fixer hack terminals/shops for special "illegal" items/guns etc that only the fixer could get access to. These "illegal" guns/items could be sold to other players etc and would be extra powerfull - (ie a NovaFlow with double the fire rate or a larger clip - A secret MA throwing star that had unlimited range or an Engineer pet that would dish out 4 times the damage but would be "rogue" and run the risk of attacking teammates if they got too close!) In order to prevent game ballance issues they would expire or "break down" after a set number of hours of use.

And these items could only be traded "outside" of Omni or Clan cites - kinda like going to the back alley with a Fixer and doing an "illegal" deal. Heck, make Clan and Omni guards shoot you on site if your weilding these illigal items in plain view. Put some "risk" into owning a powerfull item. Funcoms own "cartoons" they are using to vault AO's stroy were loaded with the selling of illegal items - now put that into the actual game!

Add these content ideas and bingo - the fixer has a purpose! Trust me, no fixer will care that they wont be able to fight as well as a soldier if they can make massive amounts of money and be "in demand" by soooo many other players.
=================

Soldier:
Weapons and armor expert - perfers long-range heavy weapons. (According to Funcom)

Sounds good right? Till you get above lvl 100 and you realize that soldiers lack content as bad as any class in AO imo. Funcom messed up the entire AO economy and destroyed any chance a soldier might have of "being a soldier" when they tweaked with TankArmor / BattleSuit reqs. Now you see soldiers wearing those "armor coats" that go for millions on the shopping channel. Nothing is more hillarious and stupid then an Atrox soldier charging off to battle in a DRESS! And to quote someone in the soldiers forum "I hate to even go into 3rd person perspective for fear that I might look at myself!"

Soldiers need MASSIVE soldier armor. Make those battlesuites and tank armor have higher ac stats then coats - leave the coats to the fixers and agents, the agile opiflex breeds (dont nerf the coats Funcom - thats not what im saying). It will help control AOs economy, add variety, and give soldiers a bit of a "uniform." ie you see a guy running down Omni Ent in tank armor - youll know hes a soldier ready to defend Omni.

Remember that there are 4 basic ways to defend yourself during battle on Rubika. You must have at least 2 of the following 4 or youll get owned by mobs and other players. ARMOR - HIT POINTS - EVADES - HEALING. Soldiers are usually Atrox or Solitus and have decent bodydevelopment/strength stamina and will generally have high hitpoints (like enforcers). But soldiers cant heal and our evades are very dark skills - tough to keep up over time. Which leaves us needing what? ARMOR! Give soldiers uber armor and let them tank the front lines along with enforcers.
Weapons - very few soldier guns matter in AO. How many lvl 100+ soldiers use anything other then a NovaFlow? BORING! Give us more weapon variety thats "viable" to use.

Remember that unlike Pet and Nano based professions - the only special effect or change most soldiers see while going from lvl 1-200 is a slight increase in the damage they dish out - THATS IT! Boring!

And what about all those "HEAVY WEAPONS" that Funcom gave soldiers special skills to use? The Flashpoint (dont nerf - just add more) is equal to all those guns that require the heavyweapons skill. We need area of effect mines, rocket launchers, and nukes (one huge blast every 30 min that might cost lots of credits but does massive damage to an area or mobs).

This idea for Soldier content was posted by Ultra1 in the soldiers forum:

Kamakazi nano for soldier:
Turns him into a human bomb, 15 second countdown, where he flashes so everyone knows he's gonna blow, then at 0 if he's still alive, he does his full energy AC in damage to all in the blast radius, say 15m. Think about how much fun it would be standing by the whompa in 2ho 9, 8, 7, 6, Zone.... Boom.

Make another and call it CannonFodder Nano. Imagine your in a large group hunting in the middle of nowhere and you just hit your next level. All of a sudden your teams Doc gets mobbed and hes is about to go down. SAVE THE TEAM ! Cast the nano on your self and charge the Doc and mobs 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 -1 BLAM! 5 or 6 Mobs down and the Doc is saved.

(obviously for game ballance issues it can only be cast once in a long while or people will take down stuff too often)

You spawn at the reclaim terminal to the cheers of your teamates who urge you to rejoin! FUN!
=============

Anyway bump if this kind of stuff matters to you more then some silly "he uses a ql 150 gun at lvl 75 talk." Add content and AO will balance itself out. Nerf content and or waste time talking about overequiping and Rubika will end up without anyone playing.

Have fun!

[Meetshield]

What the people who constantly call for enhancement over nerfing dont take into consideration, is it leads to the same things as nerfing in the long run. Class A gets beefed up, and now they are on par with Class B and C, but Class D is still in need of some improvement, so they get beefed up, and one of the enhancements makes them pretty uber, but you cant nerf em, so you gotta beef up the other classes, but the previous balance that existed is back now, and Class D is once again lagging behind, so they get some more attention, etc... it just goes on and on until you are left with Godlike classes and mobs that are unbeatable as a result.

You cant look at game balance by looking at what individual classes need. You have to look at the big picture. How does changing this class effect the game, and how does it work with other classes, etc...

Balancing for PvP is simple... paper,rock,scissors. You have classes that have strengths over others, but weaknesses against the rest. MAs and Enforcers take out the Nano based classes, Agents take out the MAs and Enforcers, Nano based classes take out the Agents and Soldiers have a reasonable chance at taking everyone out (Adventurers do also to a lesser degree), but are at greater risk against the close combat classes, etc... MAs and Enforcers should be pretty even against each other, with the HP difference made up for by the MAs healing ability. Soldiers and Adventurers should be pretty even, with the difference again made up by the Adv's healing ability.

That said, I think any MMORPG that tries to be a PVM and PVP game is doomed. EQ was so successful cause they said screw PVP and just concentrated on PVM. Also on that lines, and looking at the successes of other MMORPGs it looks pretty clearly like PVP is a small minority of the players. If I were Funcom, I would look at the polls theyve done which said fixing missions was the biggest concern to the players, and the successes of PvP games compared to PVM games and put PVP to the side for a while and fix the PVM game.

The reason why people whine about class balance is cause God classes either exist, or they want their class to be one. When one class clearly overpowers the others, a nerf is absolutely necessary. What is easier, with less chance of messing the whole game up; nerfing one class? or beefing up all the other classes?

Well Im just rambling right now... pardon the babbling

[________Dealingdeath]

Great ideas which I fully support

However, it is imperative IMHO that MOBs be balanced out against this change at the mid to higher levels.

Also debuffs must be significantly reduced or the game will not be rebalanced but rather just shifted in favor of debuffers.

In addition, rifles are among the weakest weapons in the game hence the need to over equip with buffs to remain competitive.

New rifles need to be added that have good damage output. If rifles are not tweaked up then after IP reset I imagine you will see alot of shotgun/assault rifle wielding agents.

I am looking forward to the IP reset!

Kudos FC!

L110 Agent Dealingdeath RK1

[_____________Tiphany]

Originally posted by Odeen
Firewater58:
I am not complaining about MAs, except for hitting min dmg they are fine. And i would like to meet that MA of your thats so "uber". Some overequipping im for. But ppl can overequipp wons damn 3times their lvl. Ex: lvl 70 agent can equipp a ql190 rifle. Theres something mission in the mid lvls.

But if you thin its right that ppl equipp wpns 2-3times as high as their lvl, i dont think we are on the same level on this issue.
The class i feel most sorry for must be fixers, their wpns truely sucks and i hope they get some better wpns if this happens.

But the problem with Agents is not going to be fixed by this change. Agents are able to over equip to that degree because of FP to Trader, and they obtain the deprive/ransack line. That on top of all the other stackable buffs and you have over-equiping to 3-4 times their level.

Agents should have decent guns, and then make it so all these buffs don't stack, or have level requirements, so they can't cast before a certain level has been attained.

[__________Specialone]

The problem with the game lies in the attempt to balance PvP. To try and make Crats equal to Soldiers in PvP is just plain stupid. Twinking a chr after you're already played through the entire planet seems to me like a valid "reward" for not cancelling your account.

The game is boring. Pretty, but really boring.

What I initially saw to be richenss and depth quickly became repetition, the same thing over and over with slightly varied numbers...

IP reset is a bad idea as well. It will surely resort to a sudden appearance of Uber killers and a whole new batch of "EXPLOIT!!!" cries. Everyone will make Shotgun Trader and Shotgun Doc PvP killers that crit like mad and then everyone else will reset IP to blast their Duck-Exp evade and then....

[_______________Xente]

There should also be a bonus if your skill level is signifiganty higher than the requirements of the weapon - this would round out the system and make it realistic

--Xente

[__________ChrisF0001]

Good changes, I like this. It's not quite as drastic as what I might have hoped for, but it should get the job done...

I have to say a couple more things, though.

Many people seem to find drastic over-equipping fun. Well, that's up to them: different people like different aspects of the game. However, I really hope that I'm not alone in believing that AO should really be fun for everyone, or at least for as many people as possible.

These changes don't make it impossible to over-equip. They make it less effective to over-equip, and that will allow FunCom to rebalance and finally stabilise the rest of the system. This in turn will allow those of us who don't want to over-equip to actually play the game. It's not just that over-equipping takes time, thought and effort... Some of us don't find that fun. Some of us find it incredibly tedious, and highly damaging to suspension of disbelief.

Sure, massive powergaming is a perfectly valid type of game, and when done properly it can be entertaining (as in, say, Nethack...). This side of AO, though, appears to be either largely accidental or very badly designed, and either way, it's not the sort of game that I want to play. I don't want over-equipping rammed down my throat, and if it remains the case that we have to over-equip to keep playing the game, then AO is not the game that I thought it was, and I might as well leave.

So, please put these changes in. They will save the game for me, and I think for others as well. For those that enjoy it, over-equipping will still be possible, and for those that don't, it will no longer be essential: and that's the way it needs to be.

Thanks for your time.