Community answers - part 6

[Beryllina]

Originally posted by Nepentheia
Perhaps the appearance of the missions could be addressed?

I can agree with this point of view. I for one have started to get a little tired of the 'generic office building' missions that are so common that I've started to be able to partially memorise layouts frmo missions to mission. If I'm going to start memorising these layouts, at least the environment could look more interesting.

The occational 'sewer-type' missiosn I sometimes see are nice, the water breaks up the monotony.

I would hate to invoke this game in this situation, because it isn't a true MMORPG, it's more like Diablo 2, but the example inside of it is perfect. The second cave level in Phantasy Star Online is a perfect example of a basic idea behind what Nepentheia is talk aboout. Sure, the floors were flat because PSO was terrible at terrain, but the walls and ceilings all looked like natural structures and were visually stimulating.

And when you got into a waterfall room and everything opened up above you.. it was simply breathtaking the first time you saw it.. as if you were coming out of a cave into bright light after a long time in darkness.

[Caduceus]

Originally posted by Sean Roach
Looks like someone elses suggestion of wiping out a newbie mission and using it as a meeting area is the better itea after all, which is too bad because I thought that place would be perfect for tradeskill-oriented guilds to meet. Soda fountian, couches, parts and instruction manuals. Sort of what would happen if Starbucks merged with Radio-Shack.

CZ, can you see about making some way that a large group, (read guild), can force a shop to admit them all into the same playzone?

er, why don't you just use a bar? My guild has used, The Cup, Reets, and the Happy Rebel for meetings with no trouble. Also, there are rooms in Tir and Borealis that we use to meet in (doors you can go in with tables and chairs, but nothing else). Meeting in shops could get a little messy with all the traffic while you're conducting guld business, so the long table in the happy rebel works well . . . (course, if you're omni I have no idea where to meet)

However, we could solve all this with a much cooler idea . . . Guild Housing!

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

The big question on my mind right now is: Why did you hire a rocket scientist?

-quote deleted to remove spam-

Is Trond holding you all hostage with a few missiles and demanded that you hire him or something? Computer games arn't rocket science, people have said that for a long time (literally), so why did you put one in charge? Wouldn't someone with a degree in Business Admin. be a bit better, or someone who knew how to program?

[Bionitrous]

Let's just hope this guy uses his obviously analytical mind and bent towards the engineering disciplines to root out the horse crap that has been put into this game lately.

Perhaps he will be more 'hands on' and realize that this game has less of a future the more 'kill, level, kill, kill, level' nonsense that gets put into it. Andre seemed to think that everything was fine as the game went more from interesting passion that one attempted to master with each successive character to a mindless connect the dots game with every step of your character's development absolutely spelled out to you the minute you enter the training grounds.

90% of the drastic changes to gameplay have simply made the game more homogenous and boring as it becomes more 'working as it was intended'. That doesn't keep people who want to think in the game.

My hope is that direction from the top that encourages gameplay where the players are encouraged to seek out and explore alternatives and discover various successful strategies will inject a new sense of life into the game.

Perhaps he will even fire the idiot who first suggested level-requirements on nanos and items and hire someone who understands the concept of 'character development'.

Or maybe it's just me and my engineering background who simply can't get enough of being presented with a riddle or set of conditions and being charged with working my way to an elegent solution. The way AO is headed, there is no satisfaction at all in making any decision regarding your character. If FunCom had their way they would have taken away the chance for that MP who summoned his first Demon at 115 to bask in his own glory for a few days by putting a 195 level requirement on it.

Likewise, they would have taken away the ability for a lvl30 player to blitz missions at lvl 30 to be able to afford a Yalm and proudly fly around the city as 'it was never intended for a character of level 30 to own a plane'.

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

Yeah, Im mostly joking about the situation, and hold nothing against rocket scientists in general btw.

FCs first mistake was making the game so diverse and buffs as large as they are, a skilled lvl 50 guy should be able to kill a lvl 60 'n00b' in the arena once in a while if they have the same buffs and stuff. The lvl 50 guy has no chance though, he will just get slaughtered by the OE'ed Div 9 on Mr. N00b.
Then, lvl reqs were put in while the skill system isn't balenced (w00t! my pet skills are blue! Im gonna whine about that for a long time..). Anyway, FCs 'balencing' policy is making one profession overpowered then nerfing them, instead of making them average-ish and working on other proffesions

[Sean-Roach]

Or maybe it's a sign of things to come.

Now that FunCom has put an Engineer in charge of the company, (and one that has QuantumFT and Elec. Engineering raised to pretty high levels to boot), maybe tradeskills will get some more much needed attention.

I hate the EQ tradeskill system. Putting all the ingredients into a box and pressing <Combine> and out pops a Brand New "Shovel of Ponz (r)" is not realistic. The AO system is far superior to it, and the skill limits to make different QL's makes sense in this regard as well. All I really want added to AO's tradeskill system are a whole lot more recipes.

I also think it's quite reasonable for FC to develop a simple tool to partially automate the development of recipes so one guy, given near free-reign, could turn out A recipe for every weapon in the game without asking for any new custom-built content, (new items, that don't have a (step n) behind the name), and with minimal requests for this custom-built content, (vehicles construction kit, HUD construction-kit, deck-interface construction-kit, general construction-kit, then some named ones for later, (Pythagorin Deluxe Construction Kit, Picard Construction Kit, (Great for any adventurer/explorer gear that wouldn't use a different kit, as the Picard family has produced numerous explorers, (And I don't mean Jean-Luc, I heard they lost the non-stop balloon circumnavigation race though,) name-of-AO-history-NPC-Here Construction Kit,) for things that don't fit in any of the other pre-defined, (and obvious natured), construction kits.

How much effort would it take to make a program that would take in a completed recipe, with a stated range, of N steps, and turn out N incomplete items, (automatically ommitting any that already exist, read up until some separation develops between two similar recipes,) based on the construction kit model(s), (with that red-yellow-green bar beside it.)

How much effort would it take to make a program that suggests the right number of random components to make QL(n) item, of set final price X, with primary components actual price X-Y, so the extra components adds up to Y? Nano-paste, and nano-pylons could be the cards that are assembled to force the price to the desired level.

This almost seems to be on par with certain programs others have written, presumably solo, to aid in AO play, such as Nano-Nanny.

Well, my This Could Be Good News for us tradeskillers post turned into a rant. I'm posting it anyway.

[____________IronTide]

*Nod* @Bionitrous

Organizational engineers also have a role in making sure all the pieces of a project fit together, on-time, at low cost. They have to be able to spot when a supplier (programmer/department in this case) is falling behind or producing inadequet components.

It's all about problem solving, really.

[______________Serena]

Originally posted by Nothinman
I understand not all proffesions are supposed to be the best at PvP but at the moment it's kinda silly.

the strongest pvp classes are doctors and traders. then in no order, martial artists, enforcers, Fixers, agents, Nt's. then there are the really really crappy classes in pvp. soldiers (please read the word soldier... it saddens me to think merchants and doctors completly and totaly destroy a soldier) and mp's and engineers and crats.

In my opinion in the order of strongest overall pvp classes it should be like this

Tier 1

-martial artist
-soldier
-enforcer

because they are combat classes with combat nanos, they have HP evades and damage, just by reading the name of the proffesion you can deduce they are someone to be feared in combat. (aka bruce lee, Rambo, and some giant dude with a stick)

Tier 2

-Nano techs
-Fixers
-agent
-doctors
-meta's

because these classes can output damage, though not as effectivly as Tier one players and have substantially defensive capability's.(roots heals etc..) and though a doctor would seemingly lack in damage compared to a mp with a demon and a weapon.. they make up for it by being the master of healing. The nano tech can be extremely deadly, but if caught off guard is easily killed.

Tier 3

-Engineers
-Beurocrats
-traders

These classes are designed around tradeskills (the crat is not but atm his skills to not really apply in the pvp world) they are not combat classes, and thus cannot stand toe to toe with wiht a tier-1 type of player because they lack the health and defensive capability's to survive. In order to be effective at pvp they have to strategise and use cunning. the trader can debuff and be a help to the team.

now this isnt saying at all that soldiers, Ma's and enforcers should dominate pvp. but when your at the character selection screeen do you choose a trader (read merchant) for pvp? no you say to yourself i want to kill people, im going to choose the badass soldier martial artists or enforcer.. while playerB doesnt like pvp he chooses a engineer or a crat.

this still allows all classes to beat other classes. but it might be harder for an engineer to beat a martial artist or a trader to beat a soldier. enforcer...

just a thought : )

Hmm guess Adventurers don't exist.. wow wonder what happened to us...

Yes im offended we didn't even make it into your post

Originally posted by MORB
*is starting to believe that "selecting mission reward" (aka clicksaver) is a rather unsettled and complicated problem for the devteam*

No just to bullheaded to realize that with the 2 second delay and the strain taken off of the server there is no excuse to make everything under the sun team only and leave what no one wants anymore for the regular mission rewards.

[__________Lucid Flow]

Originally posted by Nothinman
I understand not all proffesions are supposed to be the best at PvP but at the moment it's kinda silly.

the strongest pvp classes are doctors and traders. then in no order, martial artists, enforcers, Fixers, agents, Nt's. then there are the really really crappy classes in pvp. soldiers (please read the word soldier... it saddens me to think merchants and doctors completly and totaly destroy a soldier) and mp's and engineers and crats.

In my opinion in the order of strongest overall pvp classes it should be like this

Tier 1

-martial artist
-soldier
-enforcer

because they are combat classes with combat nanos, they have HP evades and damage, just by reading the name of the proffesion you can deduce they are someone to be feared in combat. (aka bruce lee, Rambo, and some giant dude with a stick)

Tier 2

-Nano techs
-Fixers
-agent
-doctors
-meta's

because these classes can output damage, though not as effectivly as Tier one players and have substantially defensive capability's.(roots heals etc..) and though a doctor would seemingly lack in damage compared to a mp with a demon and a weapon.. they make up for it by being the master of healing. The nano tech can be extremely deadly, but if caught off guard is easily killed.

Tier 3

-Engineers
-Beurocrats
-traders

These classes are designed around tradeskills (the crat is not but atm his skills to not really apply in the pvp world) they are not combat classes, and thus cannot stand toe to toe with wiht a tier-1 type of player because they lack the health and defensive capability's to survive. In order to be effective at pvp they have to strategise and use cunning. the trader can debuff and be a help to the team.

now this isnt saying at all that soldiers, Ma's and enforcers should dominate pvp. but when your at the character selection screeen do you choose a trader (read merchant) for pvp? no you say to yourself i want to kill people, im going to choose the badass soldier martial artists or enforcer.. while playerB doesnt like pvp he chooses a engineer or a crat.

this still allows all classes to beat other classes. but it might be harder for an engineer to beat a martial artist or a trader to beat a soldier. enforcer...

just a thought : )

Not only did you forget Adventurers, but you obviously have NOT played some of the Classes you seem to be able to tier off so damned well... especially the Crat.

I don't get your absolute uninformed tiers. You claim a Strength of a NT is his nukes, the Strength of an MP is his Pet, ant eh Strength of Fixers and Agents is their Roots and snares.

Crats Have:
The best Roots
The Best Single Target Snares
AOE Snare
AOE Root
1,375-3,211 Damage Nuke
Robots that can be Trimmed
With Speech, the Second highest Evades
Better attack Skills then an MP (Same as NT)
Better Evades then Doctors..
I can go on?

To me, you can't easily just tier off professions like that. To do so would be royally STUPID and would make professions strengths POINTLESS.

To me, there should be defined ROLES that have strengths and weaknesses as such. I believe Funcom had this in mind as it seems it already fits in this way.

Damage Dealers:
Strength: Damage
Weakness: Defense

Martial Artist
Nano-Technitian

These professions sacrifice most everything they have for high damage. NTs with reliable damage and MAs with high base damage and high Crit%. Martial Artists have weak heals/ac and NTs have Weak protective Layers/acs but these are almost negligable. **Side Note: I think Martial Artist love has given this profession too much damage with very little weakness especially since they can have very high evades.

Combat Professions:
Strength: Defensive Skills
Weakness: Nano Skills

Soldier
Enforcer

These professions are battle hardened. They don't do as much reliable damage as the damage dealers, but they have much better ways to ward of or take damage. Soldiers can deflect large amounts of damage away from their body while enforcers can arguable take the most punishment due to their insane amounts of HP. Their weakness is their nanos skills are almost purely defensive while having very weak offensive nanos, usually only to augment their weapon.

Stealth Professions:
Strength: Stealth (duh!)
Weakness: Damage

Agent
Fixer

These professions use the stealth they have to do what the above professions accomplish naturally. They are able to sneak or run past most enemies without being hit. They both have Roots/Snares to help try and avoid attack as much as possible while having different methods of sneaking. Agents use False Profession to enhance their skills by using other professions nanos but at a severe disadvantage to themselves. They rely on Concealment for 1 big hit at the start of a fight and usually find themselves in trouble when they fail at that. All of their skills are honed for that one Faithful shot. Fixers use their incredible speed and great Evade skills to stay away from the swinging sword. They also rely heavily on bursts of damage from their Machine Guns (ideally, but Burst is way nerfed. I think Fixers should get extra damage to Burst that no other profession can benefit from). **Note: I think Agents have gotten so much love that they really have super high damage and not many disadvantages right now. I dont think it's right.

Pet Professions:
Strength: Pet
Weakness: Attack Skills

These professions put all their hopes and dreams into their pet, whether hand made or mind made. The Meta Physicist is able to create metaphysical forms of his own anger and manifest them into living breathing creations. All his nano skills are honed perfectly to enhance his angered creations, and he even has ways to enhance his nano skills to do this better. As a result, his attack skills are some of the worst. The Engineer tries to do the same thing but with Man made objects of iron and steel. Rather then to hone his mental skills to do this, the Engineer has honed his TOOL-WORKING skills to enhance his bot (since his bot is nothing more then a tool is it not?). To augment the lack of attack nanos, the ability to use tools well has given the engineer decent (but not wonderful) attack skills. Both these professions have problems in evasion skills. ** Side note: Currently I think MPs have all the benefits of an Engineer profession while the Engineer are left with pretty much nothing. I believe Engineers should have ENGINEER ONLY trade skills to enhance their bot better in a more perminant way. I don't think Trimmers are enough. I believe Engineers need ways to change weapons they use, to change the damage their bot does and to further enhance their bot actions thru trade skills.

Jack of all Trades:
Strengths: Diverse
Weakness: Nothing is ever as good or specialized

Adventurer
Bureaucrat

These professions are the jack of all trades. Advents have heals and weapons skills that serve him well but are not as good as the above stated. He is able to sneak but not as well as the sneak professions. A Crat has the Bot skills of an Engineer but weaker bots. They have nukes like an NT but not as powerful or diverse in damage type. They have the roots/snares as a Stealth profession but no stealth. While these professions have no real defining point, they do excell in one area. The Advents ability is to morph into creatures they are surrouned with. A Crats ability is to sway enemies to do his bidding through charisma. They also have the ability to stun and Mez a target like no other.

Here is where I think Funcom goofed. You now have 2 of every diverse type of profession and given the above, what I should think is that there should be 2 healing professions. There isn't.

Doctors
Strength: Heals
Weaknesses: Damage

The Doctors ability to heal is unrivaled. It will unboubtably be able to heal better then any other profession and is geared to do this to a wider audience. The problem is they aren't there to fight up front. The Doctors only defense is poisons which they are adept to using. Unfortunatly, they take time to do. This is augmented by the Doctors ability to heal himself.

To me, there should be 2 heal professions, but there isnt. Instead, theres a profession that doesnt fit ANYWHERE in the scheme of things.

Trader
Strengths: All
Weaknesses: Cost to itself.

Traders are the class that don't fit. They have everything that every profession above has. They have very high attack rating and therefor very high damage compared to the damage dealing classes, but only get it for a short amount of time. They have the high nano skills of an MP but for only a short amount of time. They have the high defense of an Engineer but only for a short amount of time (which actually in turn allows them to do more damage). They have the roots of an Agent or Crat with no penalty to themselves. (before the nerf) they could heal like a Doctor but at the cost of life to themselves. Traders even have pets to do their bidding but at the cost of all control of their own body. Everything for a Trader comes at a cost to something else. They also have the best Trade skills in the game.

That just doesnt fit to me.

But as you can see, this isn't tiered off so terribly as the above list. It clearly shows ideal strengths and weaknesses of professions that SHOULD be implemented in the game as such. However, Funcom has borked this all up.

[secondkenlon]

Cz: This may, or may not be the right place for this, but what the heck.

Do MOBs have AC's that vary? IE, lowers against some damage types? Some people say yes, some say no.

If so, does the visual appearance (What the Mob seems to be wearing, armor-wise) indicate it's weaknesses?

Is there any chance of getting a scanner-tool that would report the enemies AC in game? Or at least on Test so we could check and see if MOB AC's are working as intended?

Oh yah, and while I'm at it: Why do the models for the weapon and the picture shown in the shop terminal/mission reward/inventory vary so wildly? Is there a chance we could ever get this fixed? (I was disapointed when I picked up a PNG Tactical Revolver for my NT and instead of looking all black and silver it looks like a Kolt Magnum 58. Blah.)

[Cz]

Tsuneko, the Martial Artist advantage is probably the best damage over time of any profession, and heals (one of the three healing professions), imo.

And I would think a Bow buff is set for the same time as a Bow SA buff, i.e. no ETA, but planned.

Scorus, I'll bring the toxic water issue to the world designers. I think I saw a discussion on it somewhere else too.

Tetra, nice list.

Vydas, the no XP thing with damage shields sounds very much like a bug. I'll look into that one.

Nepentheia, world designers have plans for missions, both on looks and layout. I won't say too much about that now though, as it's still a bit into the future.

Maxtor 1-7, I doubt we will give a change to the targeting system very high priority, but I'll check.

Sean Roach, shops are not meant as gathering places, (even though we have a bar there now), so I doubt we're gonna up the character limit on them. It's simply to prevent crowding.

Best thing I can suggest if you really want to have all your members in there, is to get an Engineer to warp them in, one by one.

AstroCreep2k, actually, I don't think the key was intended for targeting enemies. It is intended for targeting any creature with a different affiliation than yours (affiliations are, I think: Omni-Tek, clan, neutral, monster).

Kenlon, MOBs have a certain amount of set AC, and also use armor giving them some variety. So, yes, if you see a MOB dressed in a full suit of Nano Armor, pull out that Chemical damage weapon to get that extra damage.

Scanner tool for AC? Highly unlikely.

I'll check on the weapon icons. The icons are supposed to be renderes images of the weapon model, so they should be identical.

---

[secondkenlon]

Originally posted by Cz
Scanner tool for AC? Highly unlikely.
[/B]

Note, I only want this for the Test server, so we can verify that things are working as intended.

I have noticed that some enemies seem to have ACs that match the armor shown on them, but some seem not to.

This has confused me greatly.

[Unit99]

AstroCreep2k, actually, I don't think the key was intended for targeting enemies. It is intended for targeting any creature with a different affiliation than yours (affiliations are, I think: Omni-Tek, clan, neutral, monster).

Nice cop out. It would appear yet one more of AO's many design flaws will be blantly ignored. When you target a TEAMMATE instead of the mob that is trying to kill you with the same key, something is worng with the system and needs fixing. Also good going on completly ignoring the fact about the macro spamming ARKS. I must say when I was hit with your visual IP reset bug and had to use all my remaining IPR's to fix my character I really apreciated your macro spamming support system.

O well keep it up. Like I said it will just give future gaming companies perfect examples of what not to do.

[_______________Tiran]

Astro, you miss the point that you aren't SUPPOSED to team with the 'enemy'.

If you team with enemies, expect your HUD to continue to consider them 'enemies', and act accordingly. Their transponders still ID them as 'foe', not 'friend'.

This is, in PvP, an Us vs. Them game, not a free for all, designwise.

[Jayde]

Originally posted by Tiran
Astro, you miss the point that you aren't SUPPOSED to team with the 'enemy'.

If you team with enemies, expect your HUD to continue to consider them 'enemies', and act accordingly. Their transponders still ID them as 'foe', not 'friend'.

This is, in PvP, an Us vs. Them game, not a free for all, designwise.

This is flawed logic.

I am neutral. I can tab-target Omni and Clan. They are NOT my "enemies". That's the point of being neutral. Duh. =P

One thing is you were talking Clan/Omni teaming...but neutral is the real problem. Neutrals ALWAYS cross-team--its part of the advantage to being neutral. However, tab targetting is always a pain.

Problem #2

Neutrals cannot tab-target "neutral" human MOBs. This is silly. They are not my friends. They show up in missions I roll (unlike Omni missions not having Omni, Clan missions not having Clanners), and aggro me just fine. I *cannot* tab-target them.

Funcom needs to work on this, but they're too busy doing other things to care. Never mind that it's a major gameplay element that makes battle difficult day in and day out.

-Jayde

[_______________Zepto]

That is not a MAJOR game play issue. If you look at the stats there are a very small minorty of peeps that are Newt compared to the rest. Also, you have a work around. If you want to be effected with major changes that effect the majority, then pick a side.

[Jayde]

Originally posted by Cz

I'll check on the weapon icons. The icons are supposed to be renderes images of the weapon model, so they should be identical.

--- [/B]

Hehe...check pistols and you'll see quite otherwise. =)

Blue icon similar to BBI often yields the "generic" pistol model in-game. (Same as the Solar-Powered)

Many of the black/silver icons yield the same "generic" pistol model instead of the black/silver Freedom Armsish model. (PNG Tactical Revolver is an example)

I've seen icons go the opposite as that, as well...being the Desert Reet and/or Silver icon (Solar Powered Pistol) but using the black/silver model.

Unfortunately, there is a huge lack of pistol models. There is basically one pistol model you see over and over and over again, on almost every available pistol: that being the "generic." This applies to matter what the icon looks like. (Which is funny...since the "silver" icon used in the Solar-Powered, HSR Explorer, River Seasons XP, etc. doesn't look anything like the "generic" model...that model seems to match the Desert Reet, Kolt, etc. much better--but they all use the same model anyway.)

Not sure how this applies to melee weapons...but on pistols, it's pretty "normal" to have icon/model mismatches. I just assume every pistol is the "generic" and have rare surprises occasionally. =P

-Jayde

[__________Maxtor 1-7]

Thnx, and what will get us suspended acording to that tweaked filter? I believe Gaute put some stuff in one of his anouncements which might violate that, and will it just kick out leet speak or am I no longer allowed to say the variation of LOL and ROFL?

Will there be any punishment for making a series of *s?

[Sean-Roach]

I just read the newsletter and all I can say is GREAT!, When's the download or what's the UPC so I can hurry up and download/order this thing?

Oh, and that thing about claimable real-estate? I, and others, posted requests for things similar to this. Is this "Great minds think alike", or "An infinate number of monkeys, banging on an infinate number of typewriters"?

Will engineers be able to summon the robot-service towers? Will they be tradeskill built? (Please answer yes to one of these. I relish the idea of a team of gankers creeping up on an engineer, commenting to one-another, "do you think he's got one of those towers in his inventory? I don't want to mess with him if he's got a tower in his inventory.")

[Brad, STL/MO]

Keep your excitement in check. They don't even have renderings to show you. They answered every question about it with "we're trying to do (fill in the blank)" or "we haven't made up our mind about (fill in the blank)" or other variants that all add up to, "We're not coding it yet, we're just announcing it."

I asked, "Is this 'Next Patch,' 'In Progress,' or 'Envisioned'?" They didn't take that question. (Cz, maybe here?) So I'm assuming that the optimistic answer is "Envisioned."

Let's put this in perspective. From when they first showed renders of the Fixer Grid to AO-Fixer until it showed up in the game was about six months. And all it took to create the fixer grid was to create one playfield, code up a generic teleporter square, plunk about 80 of them into the new playfield set to 80 nearly-random spots, and script about 10 or so NPCs for the quest itself.

There is almost no part of the game code that this "booster pack" won't touch. Combine it with the (not even hand-waved, let alone specified) graphical and sound upgrades promised for the same package, and you've got a programming effort comparable to the OE patch, and then some.

In the absence of any additional data from Funcom, my guess is that you'll see it in about a year. Will you still care then?

And given the long history of people being ticked off at them over things that are promised but take forever to deliver, what could possibly have prompted them to pre-announce this so, so far in advance? I have two theories. Either the new CEO said, "Do something, anything!" Or else, it's not a coincidence that they announced this three days before Neocron beta4 goes up for unlimited download.

I'm not advocating you jump ship now. But if you were going to jump ship before this announcement, ask yourself how long you're willing to wait. If the answer is "less than a year," then changing your mind because of this announcement shows that you're the kind of sucker that has made the software industry what it is today.