Exploiters, overequipping and the rest.

[_______________Orkan]

What a well thought through set of changes Gaute.

Personaly I like the way you have begun communicating your ideas to the community. That is very nice


Keep up the good work - we love your game more and more day by day

Cya all ingame

[______________Lictor]

Originally posted by Xombie
My thoughts:
I don't think that armor should be included in the "equipment effectiveness" changes. Not because of any gameplay reasons, but because it just wouldn't make sense if it was.
You don't actually "use" armor. Armor is just something you slap on, and it stops damage. You don't turn it on, trigger it, or whatever. Its one and only "action" is when you put it on. And that's when you should have the skill check.

I agree it doesn't make much sense in game to lower AC...
But... Just read the description of cyber armor :
"The Cyber Armor is lightweight, made with the Homo Nano in mind. It is built as an exoskeleton and pretty much carries its own weight, which makes it comfortable to move in. Also, the protection it provides depends on nanobots and sensors, connected to the nervous system of the user for highest possible data transfer rate. The higher quality versions of the Cyber Armor can also gather and use information directly from the user’s Senses. High psychic ability is needed to keep the suit operational, and high intelligence is required to be able to actually utilize its functions."
Not to equip it, to use it... But the AC is just physical property... It would be more logical to give some other kind of penalty. Like, if you don't meet the reqs, you're too busy managing a too complicated armor : penalty to all inits (range, melee, nano...) and evades...

[__________BestDealer]

Originally posted by Linta


Let's do some math...
Well, first, Agent case... Max Agility : 480. General Bonus : +12. Feline Grace : +25. Total is 517. You're 34 points short. But remember the 20% rule? You can wear armor with an Agility req at 620, provided you keep the general buff and feline grace running all the time... So, no problem for your agent...
Now, the solider. His naturally buffed agility is 492. With the 20% rule, that's 590. Again, you're well whithin the allowed over-equipping ratio to get full benefit from your QL200 armor...
You will be able to wear it a little later than an optimized breed, but that's already the case... If you want to wear it sooner, you can still use implants...

I've already had to jack out my range increaser for lack of NCU space, so they'll need to throw in NCUs as mission rewards again for me to have on agi buffs to be practical. If the armor is effective if I'm 20% below the reqs, the min I would need then would be 440 -- great, I had that much 2 levels ago (144), too bad I only got 271 str which is an ability that only benefits one of my nano skills with a 20% dependancy (SI). Still, a character with maxed abilities for breed ought not have to over-equip in that fashion, imho.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by Vegan
Lucid stop crying. You are the typical person who gets mad that you won't be a twink anymore. To all over equippers that feel they have to overequip for mobs: Gaute stated this in his article -

Won't be a twink anymore? Why don't you look up "Gunsei" in the people lookup and tell me how the one and only character I play can be a twink?

Or click here. http://community.anarchyonline.com/c.../1/name/gunsei

Reduce the fighting capabilities of monsters somewhat at mid-high levels - to make soloing more viable.

You should be comtributing to this like giving ideas on how this can be accomplished. I am so surprised by the lack of reading a whole post.

I have read this. You know as well as I do that the problem with the high level game isn't mobs HP and damage though it is ia little extreme. While not soloable, it is doable in groups. The ONE AND ONLY reason Funcom is making these changes is for PVP complaints. So what do they do? They reduce the damage done in PVP by half and then effectively reduce it in half once more by changing the overequipping requirments.

Traders - will still be very valuable just might be getting more tells then before. I kind of feel sorry for them now since I know that a lot of them use the afk command to keep people from bugging them.

No, wrangles will essentially become useless. Why? Because think about it. Even if used in battle sort of like a 3 minute "Challenger" to any other class, with the reduction in the Traders OWN skills (it costs the trader skills 3 minutes to wrangle you if you didn't know) it will now leave all his nano skills below what he could be using, but it will also reduce his weapon below 80% and effectively shut them off for the duration of the wrangle.

Not only will wrangles be thrown out the window for money making, but they will be useless in battle as well.

I suggest nano resist be more effective in PvP and PvE. As it is now there is no type of resistance in PvE and as for PvP I am not too sure since I haven't faced too many traders. But if Lucid claims they will be gods then nano resistance should be the leading factor to tame that. A trader shouldn't be able to debuff you anytime he feels like it when facing a player with high resistance.

Deprive skills is 100% resist, and Ransack (stacks with Deprive) is 190% resist. It does take awhile to land a Ransack but it will happen. It DOES happen. Just think about it. Right now Traders can pretty much nullify any NT because they cannot overequip and use overequipped spells. Would you want a Trader to be able to stop ALL chars from attacking? Damage is halved for Trader yet their Health Haggler lines of nanos return full healing back to them. They can damage you and heal you in the same attack AND stop you from attacking.

I might play my Trader again. I'm just pissed that Funcom even has the nerve to SUGGEST incomplete solutions.

The problem isn't Trader, the problem is everything. Why do Soldiers have Rifle Mastery? Why do Fixers have Green burst skill yet Soldiers have Riot Control? Why do Doctors have Iron Circle? There are plenty of reasons and ways to overequip from other classes buffs because that is what makes the game fun. Right now every character has one advantage over another and lacks in other departments. Buffs are useful because not everybody has them. Yet after this, there won't be any point in them because they aren't self sustaining and literally there isn't enough NCU in the game to sustain the average Soldier or Enforcer that is JUST COMPETING.

[_____________Camlost]

For you that get the efficiency of your equpment lowered, please keep in mind that mobs will be easier to fight as well...

That being said, my only worry is about Trader PvP. The trader will be so powerful... reducing the other classes to 50% of their usefulness

solution: do a 50% on the deprives... pvp damage is 50% less now (or whatever the percentage was) Do the same ting to deprives and you are on your way to a good solution. in addition: increase resist chance (for instance make the skill nano resist useful...) increase interrupt chance and so on...

As for the other things, IP reset and especially making mobs aggro range less to encourage exploring ( I love exploring ) and the best of all: increasing concealment effectiveness! woot ... (yes, I am an agent)

Looking forward to this.

/sarcasm on
Oh, btw. I am so sorry that you über twinked, rich, spoiled brats that overequip beyond the believable are getting nerfed. Of course you should be able to kick everyone's ass.<sniff>
/sarcasm off

[____________Pacifica]

I think that the voluntary one time only IP reset is a great idea, and the reduced effectiveness of overequiped weapons is a great idea to. I think we are well on our way to a balanced game.

Looking forward to the future of Rubi-Ka

Pacifica.

[__________BestDealer]

.

[___________killahsin]

oh wait let me get peoples logic here, this will damage traders because now they will be getting more tells than any other class? Allowing them to make more money than any other class, because people will want their buffs more often. This is going to kill traders how? I hate it when people read the first few lines of an article and don't even read the rest. It shows how little trust you guys have in FC. This is the first time that Fc has done sweeping moves to balance out the game as a whole, yet every cry's their prof will be effected by this. EVERY proffesion will be, the twinks will be on the same level as the non twinks, agents think they will be nerfed more, but in reality more classes will be lowered down to agents level. As well as mobs, creating more semblance of balance. As usual people don't read whats written they read one line and assume everything has gone to hell. The only way this patch is going to kill a profession is if you twink 80% above your level. And god if you do that you should be level 200 now because soling anything in the game shouldnt be to damn hard. An 80% twinker at lvl 20 can solo to 100 so why not just go for the level 100 mobs. A 80% twinker at level 100 can solo a hell of alot of things. so why not jsut go for the gusto. These SUGGESTED CHANGES (guess yall didn't read that either) will help to balance out all the professions together. It's not going to ruin an agents life, it's not going to hurt traders, but it WILL help them ALOT. Traders will become the most sought after profession to group with. People need to start thinking before they jump to conclusions.


Nano-resist works first of all, secondly guess now people are going to feel what professions that couldnt uber twink their weapons have felt like since day one, getting debuffed, yes it sucks, but WE HAVE HAD to deal with it. Debuffing is PART of the game, you guys ahve been bypassing it for to too long.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by killahsin
oh wait let me get peoples logic here, this will damage traders because now they will be getting more tells than any other class? Allowing them to make more money than any other class, because people will want their buffs more often. This is going to kill traders how?

I don't know a single player in this game who will pay Traders every 3 minutes to buff them when it takes 30 to get from place to place anyway.

[_____________Demetra]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why nerf something that works fine? Overequipping isnt the easiest thing to do. You must spend lots of money, time, and ip to efectively do this. It takes hard work and know how to successfully overequip stuff, often resulting in headaches. Why create any more headaches? Why introduce even more possible bugs? why not focus on bugs that already exist in the game?

Not only is this going to nerf damage. It's also going to nerf the economy. People who make money off of buffs, and selling high level equipment, will no longer make the money they once did.

20% effectiveness rule? Is this going to be applied to weapons, armour, implants, and Nano Programs. If implants are nerfed than those people who use treatment suits to get an implant in are going to have wear there treatment suit all the time in order to receive they full effects. Not to mention that the implant modifier values don't increase that drastically therefore it may not even matter if you are wearing a ql30 or 50...you may receive the same effect. Making it even harder to overequip.

Oh yeah now think of this, A trader is going to become the most effective overeuipper and biggest damage dealer in the whole game because of the fact that a trader can ransack and deprive during combat and keep there skills at maximum level therefore they will never really feel this nerf AND will soon become the best class to play. Who's going to want to play another Class when a trader can effectively deal SO MUCH MORE DAMAGE THAN EVERY OTHER CLASS?

Don't let Funcom nerf anymore. Even with overequiping its still really hard to solo effectively. This is there excuse for trying to level even slower. As Gaute said in his last article:

"If I thought that mindless running through dungeons to reap tons of cash and xp would be fun in the long run, I would let it be one of the many main features. Hey, we could even put it on the box as a feature: "Become a max level player without any risk at all!"

This is not so. It quickly becomes boring, but the satisfaction of rising fast in level seemed to outweigh it! If this was the way forward, it would become unfair to the players not "using" this repetitive system, and people stop playing -> Funcom goes out of business -> Rubi-Ka becomes but a distant memory."

Leveling IS inherently repetitive anyways. We all spend hours everyday, killing the same mobs, doing the same missions, over and over again. Yet are we bored in doing this. If we were then we wouldn't play this game.

Funcom just wants us to have to pay them more and more money by changing already established rules and nerfing enginuity.


Not looking forward to this change,
Katsuri

[___________killahsin]

demntra you also forgot to realize that over equiping is only possible by certain professions. So its NOT BALANCED and it DOES NOT WORK

Lucid flow maybe now you will stop abusing traders and let em join your group? so they can buff yah np, maybe this will help traders get into more groups, maybe this will make the professions that CANT be twinked to hell better....lol...everyone wants theirs theirs and more for them, never do they think about the balance as a whole.

"Not only is this going to nerf damage. It's also going to nerf the economy. People who make money off of buffs, and selling high level equipment, will no longer make the money they once did. "

lol, no now they will make more money....

"20% effectiveness rule? Is this going to be applied to weapons, armour, implants, and Nano Programs. If implants are nerfed than those people who use treatment suits to get an implant in are going to have wear there treatment suit all the time in order to receive they full effects. Not to mention that the implant modifier values don't increase that drastically therefore it may not even matter if you are wearing a ql30 or 50...you may receive the same effect. Making it even harder to overequip."

Guess you didn't read the article eh? lol...implants wont be
effected

"Oh yeah now think of this, A trader is going to become the most effective overeuipper and biggest damage dealer in the whole game because of the fact that a trader can ransack and deprive during combat and keep there skills at maximum level therefore they will never really feel this nerf AND will soon become the best class to play. Who's going to want to play another Class when a trader can effectively deal SO MUCH MORE DAMAGE THAN EVERY OTHER CLASS? "

Heh the non twinkable professions have had to deal with this since day 1.....debuffs are part of the game..

"Leveling IS inherently repetitive anyways. We all spend hours everyday, killing the same mobs, doing the same missions, over and over again. Yet are we bored in doing this. If we were then we wouldn't play this game.

Funcom just wants us to have to pay them more and more money by changing already established rules and nerfing enginuity."


Guess thats why verant went out of business as well, they work with the same mentality.

[Silverrobe]

I like Gaute Godager's suggestions 100% and hope they are implemented. ESPESCIALLY the plan for the voluntary IP reset.

[______________Lictor]

Originally posted by Barakon
Stop trying to turn a game of chess into a simple game of checkers...

Common, AO rules are extremelly simplistic... I wouldn't compare them to chess or checkers... Monopoly maybe?
Reading all these people commenting on how long a time they had spent on figuring out how to over-equip and so on was pretty funny actually... I mean, if it took you more than a couple of hours to figure it out, you should really consider playing pacman or something easier... Over-equipping is not an achievement of extreme intelligence, it's just knowing how to put a+b properly, searching stuff on the web and spending an hour planning stuff... And having the mindset of the players who will mini-max their characters in regular RPG games....

After a LOT of rerolling, the only profession I have any interest in playing anymore is the Engineer, I use only self-buffs, never had a wrangle in my life, only use implants I can find/buy/make myself. One of the fun things for me is to see how strong a bot I can make by pushing my equipment to its limits, if you make it so my bot stops responding just because it is too high QL.. bleh.

You should read Gaute's article before posting... It's *not* a QL vs level check. It's *current* skills vs req check... So, if you can self buff to summon that bot, all the better for you, things will not move a single inch for you under the new rules... Only people it will apply to are the level 20 getting high level external buffs to summon that level 50 bot...

It seems like most of the ppl saying these are such great changes are just newbies who havent learned the game yet or whiny NTs who are bitter about losing their ability to equip 2 pillows. You people just want to change AO into communism! Everyone will be the same, there will be little incentive to try making yourself better in this game because by the laws of the game you will always be made 'equal' even to those who are still playing there first char with its thousands of wasted ips and its bad choice of weapons etc...

I will leave alone your political opinions...
But, if you did spend your IP wisely, you will be better than the people who didn't... You will be able to use higher QL nanos, you will be able to summon higher QL bot... The only difference is that you will be better than the people who bought million of credits on e-bay to get uber level buffs just to cast this one time pet and equip that weapon 100 QL above their level... I don't see how this can hurt you

I am guessing most of us live in democratic countries(if you live in a communist country you probably wouldn't have access to this game), walk down a city street, see some ppl have nice clothes, nice cars, some have less nice clothes, less nice cars, what do you do if you want nice cars and nice clothes? you strive toward getting them, plain and simple.

Mmm... We don't live in the same world... Usually, guy with bad clothes walks up to guy with nice clothes... Says "Hey, dude, you got nice stuff", pulls off his gun and now he's the one with the nice clothes

I didn't agree with the pillow nerf, if you had done beta-testing properly you would have seen how stupid it was to give them such big bonuses in the first place! Point is this all should have been done in beta, its too late to change the game now because it isnt going your way.

This is an MMORPG... The basic rule of this kind of game is that things keep changing throughout the life of the game...
As for the pillows... Well, always found them looking silly... I mean *pillows*! Why not giant ice-cream for Enforcers and pies as throwing weapons?

[Noe]

Originally posted by MSag
Guys think about this before saying its a good thing, when its introduced you'll regret it even if you dont overequip. Debuffs IS extremely powerful today:

This is what high lvl ppl will face, maybe from lvl 150 or so, against mobs:

Divest Skills (Advanced)
Desc Lowers all attacking and nano skills of the target by 204 points, transferring 170 points back to the caster.
Plunder Skills (Advanced)
Desc Lowers all attacking and nano skills of the target by 211 points, transferring 178 points back to the caster.
Draw AC (Invasive)
Desc Lowers all the ACs of the target by 1098 points, transferring 1067 points back to the caster.

For a lvl 200 char with 1000weap skill that means he can be debuffed to 585, meaning he will take 50% penalty from using a lvl 200 weap requiring 950skill in addition to loosing 40-45% damage from the atk loss.

And if you solo a mission and get debuffed by some trader mob, you might end up having no option but to zone and wait for debuff wears out, then go in and hope you dont get debuffed on next attempt. I don't think this will do anything but make this game incredibly tedious and frustrating.

Welcome to "our" world then.

this is what currently occurs to NT's

do i feel sorry for you if this was to be implemented?

not one bit, maybe you might meet more friends outside the mission entrance waiting off debuffs. currently, you only will see NT's (and other DD dependent classes - although i cant think of any other) sitting outside missions.

like i said, welcome to our world....that is what a debuff does, friend, forces you to either be less effective and possibly die, or go find safety and wait it out. *edit - maybe a pet class if they lost their pet and need to cast it again, otherwise, the rest of you are jim dandy.

So, instead, you should be able to wield (whatever you favorite currently insanely over-equipped gun - also, not saying you personally, i mean the generic "you") your gun w/ same or a tiny amount less of effectiveness while NT's are neutered?

sorry, that's the whole point. you day has come, the comeuppance is here. give it up, its a losing fight, and you only make yourself look sillier by fighting it. the amount of cash it took you to get to prominence is easily outweighed by today's current economy, so the only thing you loose is effectiveness, which again, is the whole point.

Will it work? will it provide balance? probably not, when has any RPG got it "right?" never, not yet. but will it at least force people to have "sane" fights w/ only some minor balance problems between them....lets hope so.

[___________killahsin]

gardner dont forget us ma's ;p we feel the plight of the debuff everyday! :P

[___________Xenoberon]

Both of the main ideas listed in the article are very well thought out plans but may seriously hurt the diversity level of the game.

IP Reset:

Not only do I believe you guys will get yourself into a major headache with the multitude of things that can go wrong with this idea, I also believe this will definately kill some level of diversity we see in AO right now.

This will cause everyone to just switch to weapons or character configurations they believe to be the best, and perhaps even throw all the IP of a second character into all nano skills and use him as a "buff mule" of some sorts.

Over-equipping 'balance':

This game is designed to give the ability of the player to customize and tweak their character in many different ways to be optimal in whatever it is trying to do. This can be seen from the effects of implants and many different nano buffs and how they increase skills.

It is a very nice idea to balance over equipping but also make sure of some things NOT to do:

1: Make the over equipping penalty to the point where a level 50 with a higher level weapon (QL 100 for example) is penalized down to the ability of a level 50 with a QL 50 rifle

The level 50 with the QL 100 weapon should have some bonus over the level 50 reguardless if he/she has 0 buffs on.

One main thing I love about AO is the ability for classes of the same level/class to have such ability to be drastically different, please do not ruin this aspect too much in the name of balance.

[____________dixlexia]

I don't completely like the idea. you are absolutely screwing the trader AGAIN. you already took away the ability to buff comp lit other players which took away one of our ways to make money and now your talking about totally destroying the purpose of the wrangle which is our main money maker now. ( and for KILLAHSIN it destroys the trader becasue what is the purpose of gettting a wrnagleto equip a higher QL weapon if the person cant even use the full effect of the higher QL weapon. no sense in paying money to a trader to wrangle if you cant use it to its fullest extent yet )
I also feel that what makes the game fun is trying to be better than other poeple in the game as far as getting a better weapon and getting higher QL armor and see no harm at all in doing so. The only poeple that have objections to this is the ones that dont have the credits nor the patience in trying to get the better items.I think if you do the cap the way your are talking about than you are going to lose ALOT of customers(players) to another game becasue you would have taken a big part of the fun out of the game. It is by no means an exploit to over-equip if you are doing so from a buff or an implant(which you already stated that over implanting is not a big deal since you have the added 100 to the treatment center) it is only an exploit if it is done my a means that is not supposed to be available for ALL players. Also you contradict yourself when you say your going to cap items but yet in the same breath say that you are going to make Higher level items easier to get and have the as loot more often(if you are trying to avoid over-equipping than why would you make it easier for everyone to get much higher level items) MAKES NO SENSE TO ME AT ALL,it should be the complete opposite affect if anything. you should make very rare to drop a high level item(thats the way to help eliminate some of the problem)
I DO LOVE THE IDEA returningth ips 1 time to re-do them the way you want
thanks for listening

[__________Revalation]

that last post by camlost had to be the most ignorant thing I have ever heard...

"For you that get the efficiency of your equpment lowered, please keep in mind that mobs will be easier to fight as well..."

Umm, no they wont, only thing that will be dont to mobs will be reduction in aggro range...

"That being said, my only worry is about Trader PvP. The trader will be so powerful... reducing the other classes to 50% of their usefulness"

not really, they would reduce classes to about 0% of their usefullnes since they would be shooting for less than minimum dmg...

"solution: do a 50% on the deprives... pvp damage is 50% less now (or whatever the percentage was) Do the same ting to deprives and you are on your way to a good solution. in addition: increase resist chance (for instance make the skill nano resist useful...) increase interrupt chance and so on... "

Normal Trader
vs
Soldier with max nano resist.

Trader: casts deprive skills on soldier.
Soldier: resists deprive skills
Soldier: hits trader for 200 points of projectile dmg
Trader: casts deprive skills on soldier.
Soldier: resists deprive skills
Soldier: hits trader for 200 points of projectile dmg
Trader: casts deprive skills on soldier.
Nanoprogram executed successfully.
Soldier: hits trader for 3 points of projectile dmg
Trader: Haha I R0X0R j00 n00b
Soldier: hits trader for 3 points of projectile dmg
Soldier: hits trader for 3 points of projectile dmg
Soldier:/terminate

"As for the other things, IP reset and especially making mobs aggro range less to encourage exploring ( I love exploring ) and the best of all: increasing concealment effectiveness! woot ... (yes, I am an agent) "

Whoohoo! we can explore! right... and how much of your /played time is this going to take up when all is said and done? what are the other classes going to do?

"Looking forward to this. "

Im sure you are...

"/sarcasm on
Oh, btw. I am so sorry that you über twinked, rich, spoiled brats that overequip beyond the believable are getting nerfed. Of course you should be able to kick everyone's ass.<sniff>
/sarcasm off"

/realism on
Perhaps you may have noticed that the majority of "twinkers" are experienced players, many of them have actually worked hard to get their equipment on, and perhaps they even put a little thought into their character in the long term when they rolled it? oh yes, and even "the common folk" or "you" will be hurt by this... how many people are going to want you in their group when your only dealing 100 dmg at lvl 70?

[Thac0]

I'm saying up front that I have very little experience in this game so far. Just over two weeks I think. But I do have a opinion at this early stage. I am a solo player. I like groups but the fact is I enjoy exploring all by my lonesome.

I like the thought that goes into overequipping. I think that has what made me get into this game.. what fun to to read and experiment and try to make my character that much better then a player that doesn't spend the time and effort in thinking his character potential through.

However, as a solo player I don't want to (later at high levels) spend time and cash trying to get some super buff from some other player, just so I can continue soloing. I want to be the one that is responsible for the strength or weakness of my character.


Meaning I want to be able to solo easy missions regularly equipped. But to do the harder missions and get the better rewards, I want to be able to.. using implants and buffs.. make myself strong enough to handle missions that I wouldn't be able to otherwise.

I don't want the only way to achieve that to be by sitting in a city spamming "Need a buff" in chat so I can do harder missions. I want to be able to do it on my own. Does that make any sense?

I guess what I am saying is keep the overequipping but keep it within reason. The example someone said about using their best gun as early as halfway through leveling just wouldn't be fun or fair. But if there was a cap of how much you could overequip and you could achieve most if not all on your own through work and thought and without relying solely on who you know for a buff, well that would keep me interested for quite awhile.

The IP wipe.. I really don't know. Doesn't effect me really. But if it gets rid of exploited IP's then I'm all for it. I like that you said it would be a one time thing only. That is a major thing and not something that should be allowed more then once in a games life span.

Like I said I'm a noob and I might have missed the whole point or even more likely, be speaking about something I don't fully understand yet. This is just my 2 credits worth on the matter.

[___________killahsin]

god people forget that this 'over-equiping' cannot be done by all, so it leaves certain professions 'uber' while others fall to the wayside. Which in turn takes out the 'diversity' of the game anwyays. at least now this will bring some of the people in this game off, their mental clouds. its a dmg point decrease based on percentages, not a dequip like the past attempt, this is a fair attempt at balance, the best one so far. Fc seems to know what their doing this time.