The **** Oddities of AO.....

[Bionitrous]

I guess I'm just used to the image of a strike team being dropped into enemy territory and neutralizing the enemy's general (Agent Sniper team) followed by heavy bombing to weaken the troops (NT long range AoE nukes). Then an infantry brigade running in to mop up the rest (Enforcers and Soldiers). All the other guys doing support roles (Transport, Recon, Medic, Demolition, etc.).

If some yeeha decides to leave his group and run ahead and start shooting like an idiot, odds are he'd be courtmarshalled.

It's the fact that we have for the most part nothing more than an endless parade one person fighting one other person that has me so disillusioned with PvP in this game. It's this (IMHO) nonsense that has led to nerf after nerf after nerf as one player has a problem with one other player or profession and cries to high hell to have the other player's playstyle or profession nerfed down to their level.

Now, the babies are whining that they can't kill a Doc. Tell ya what. If I had 20 people under my command during an exercise, and I saw a Doc healing the enemy, do you think I'd send one Soldier over to kill him. No way. I'd expect the Doc to survive by healing himself. Makes sense. I'd send 4 people over to wax his ass.

That's what I was hoping PvP was going to be in this game. Organized armies. Battles and strategy. Teamwork.

Not one guy pissing and moaning on the boards that they can't kill one other particular guy because he has bracers on. Drop a squad of Soldiers on him. 5 Alpha Strikes and he's dead one way or another and waiting at reclaim to be warped back into the battle by an Engineer.

The biggest **** Oddity of AO is that the design team has seen fit to cater to the two people who are standing 4 feet away from each other shooting guns at each other's faces and in the process continuously disrupt the more popular PvM and Thinking Man's avenues toward enjoying the game and STILL not improving on the organized war aspect of PvP.

[ntrox1]

Well said Bio, I agree. Before playing AO I played Team Fortress Classic (Hlaf Life mod). It seems your team/character balance is similar to that: the engy goes in and builds defences, the doc heals the solder/HWG, agent sneaks in the back door etc. Now that would be great in this game, force decent teams and management within our environment, and mass PvP. Thats how battles are fought, not in an arena between 2 clanners and some ganking idiots.

[Mercatura]

Hahahah a good Medic can kick a heavies butt in TFC too. Before they NERFED stun jumping, medics were holy terrors of base-blitzing as well. On some maps, if the other team doesn't have a good medic, they can keep the whole base infected and in total chaos.

[alysanda]

Originally posted by Ulujain
To add to the weirdness:

Why do bureaucrats have light blue TS and MC skill when they're a pet class?

Because 'crats aren't a pet class... well they weren't meant to be. Their "unique" nano lines like calms and charms use Psy Mod, Sen Imp, and Bio Met which are green.

*loves her ninja droid anyway*

....*spam*

[_____________Kukulza]

Halfdeck- one thing you forget. If it was mayhem all over...or even political zone.......you'd have 1 big, expensive, expansive Unreal Tournament server. People would forget the story, and nothing would be getting done. (just in my opinion of course) Also, pvp wars would be HUGE. Imagine if clan invaded omni-1 and you took all your omni buddies there to defend. Every day. Here's a preview of what it would be like:

100 clanners grid to omni 1

omni 1 crashes

war over.

hahaah man that is so true lol

[______________Rogoff]

AO is supposed to be a TEAM game.

However, if you stayed in teams from 1-100 you would be the biggest gimp imaginable. Imagine what your gear would look like.

So, you have to solo - by design.

Yet most new nanos are going onto TEAM bosses.

So you should team.

Which will gimp you...

*head spins*

[Mercatura]

AO is a twink game. You level up one char and learn the game so you can grab nice gear to power your next char higher than him. Then you use him to power your third char even more.

By char number 5 or so you have great equipment (ql200 etc) and you can keep on going.

Better than leveling 1st char to 200 if you ask me. Especially before IP reset was an option, you could refine each char and choose professions/strategies you liked more.

At least thats how I came to stick on my second trader and probably last serious char

I wish more people did this, because I have to team with them and a fair number are lacking in tactics and equipment.

Is it too much to ask people to know how to pull a halfway decent BS mission and clear the rooms in an somewhat orderly fashion at title5? Is it too much to ask people to actually blitz a few 50% missions so they aren't lacking crucial nanos 10 qls below their level?

Hmm, I'm rambling again.

[______________Rogoff]

But, whether it's your 1st or 5th char, you are going to be spending a *lot* of time soloing. Not by choice, which is sort of my point.

Whether it's a main making cash for an alt, or blitzing missions for needed gear, or spending a couple hours waiting for QL60 cyber to show up on the shopping channel.

AO is set up such that you have to spend a fair amount of time on your own - if you want to be effective

The reason I think the bossloot thing is odd is that it implies Funcom thinks we *should* be primarily teaming. As if that wouldn't produce the lamest, laziest, most ill-equipped crop of players ever.

I'd love to see 6 people team to 50, hehe. QL12 pants, missing nanos (no cash), craptastic weapons etc. etc.

it's just odd (to me) that the designers don't realize that.

[ntrox1]

My 158 MP doesn't solo, he is team only. My MA and trader both solo all the time, they were made for that purpose. If there is no guild team forming I bring one of my alts on and solo. Simple.

[______________Rogoff]

Originally posted by Ntrox
My 158 MP doesn't solo, he is team only. My MA and trader both solo all the time, they were made for that purpose. If there is no guild team forming I bring one of my alts on and solo. Simple.

If you don't suck, you soloed. A LOT. You either blitzed for full suits or battle suits or female waitt or whatever. You ran solo missions in order to get implants, armor, weapons, etc.

Post 100 people level slow enough that teaming won't gimp you. But you HAD to solo before that. Teaming gives you exp much MUCH faster than it gives you cash and gear.

Now I don't know whether you soloed with char A to support char B's teaming. Perhaps your 3rd char is subsidized by your 1st 2. That's awesome.

But soloing is a *required* part of building effective chars. The cash/exp ratio of team missions makes that a foregone conclusion.

If your MP is team-only, then I'm 100% certain that another character supported him from levels 1-120 or so. A team-only character just isn't viable - without outside support.

So, it's odd that all this "team-oriented" stuff is being thrown in, when the game doesn't really support teaming (pre-120ish).

EDIT:
A friend reminded me about the 100k QL10 concrete cushions. So, to be fair, you COULD blitz for 2 weeks at level 10 and then team for the next 60 levels or so. However, I think most people would agree that the cushions are a flaw in the economy, not a design feature.

[ntrox1]

My Guild supported me. They are the reason he teams all the time. I see no benefit in soloing a lvl 158 MP. If I want to solo I use the other n00bs that are geared for solo. And believe me, Ntrox does not suck

At level 158 XP is so slow the only way to get it is to team with FAST teams. And ones you can trust. That is why Ntrox only teams with a full guild team or mostly guild team with known buddies (Highorbit, Florencce to name a couple. Hi!)

Ntrox has solo'd a lot in his younger days, primarily for cash. Now I can pick up a couple of million creds from a fast mission or two in a team, without resorting to looting everything. All that cash is then spent on the n00b alts, as Ntrox himself has all he could ever need. Bear in mind he has his best nukes, pets and armour already.

[Mercatura]

I remember before AOMD et al. when I could snag 1m for a pair of ql10s, and that wasn't being greedy either! I think my first two yalms came paid that way.

Once you have a high enough char, you can keep rerolling forever if you want. I had enough spare implants, armor, weapons etc to level a whole extra account now. If I wasn't only focused on my final char I wouldn't haven given it almost all of it away. I got a friend to make me a set of carbonum every 10 qls or so too thats a great investment for a chronic reroller.

I don't understand people who complain about money and gear...guess if you always beg at the food courts for it you never learn how to earn it.

Blitzing a mission for an item usually takes 1/10th the time to 'solo' it. My only problem is when some nano refuses to show itself even after letting clicksaver run 1000 times. (anyone got a spare Draw AC Invasive?)

[______________Rogoff]

Ntrox:

No, I am sure Ntrox doesn't suck . I didn't mean to imply that at all, I was exaggerating for effect.

/prostrate

Mercatura:
I quite understand how you might find money complaints odd. A million-cred cushion sale at level 10 might have that effect on me, too . Too bad those days are gone.

I'm not talking about how HARD it is to make money. I'm saying that it's easy, if you solo. Whatever you're doing with your 2nd or 4th or 8th character, your first one had to solo to survive.

So, back to my actual *point*, it seems Funcom has decided that Teams Are Good. Solo is Not So Good.

To paraphrase: "If you play this as a solo game, you will miss out on parts of it".

However, you HAVE to play it as a semi-solo game, for a good 50% of your (first) character's life. The mechanics of team exp versus team reward mandate a good amount of solo play.

They are forcing people into teams, while not addressing the viability of team play. Cart before the horse. It's that simple.

If an effective character has to solo (a lot) then what, exactly, is the point of bossloot nanos? Of course, I'm assuming the designers even realize that any soloing is required, heh.

[engelstein]

Soloing != Money

Blitzing = Money

Simple

[______________Rogoff]

Originally posted by Shubalubdub
Soloing != Money

Blitzing = Money

Simple

That's true. I suppose I consider soloing "playing the game by yourself", which covers blitzing, calming, sneaking and exping.

Same deal applies, though. According to Funcom:

maybe all people who want to team already do so, but then those who go alone make that choice and forfeit some of the good stuff they could get. If you really want to play the game as a single player game, you will miss out on some parts of it.

Yes, well, that would be great if you could actually AVOID playing alone. But you can't.

I suppose it irks me that the designers don't even realize that.

[_____________Kasimir]

There's all sorts of things the designers didn't realize. Now mind you, they can't plan for everything. That's just impossible and I wouldn't expect them to. but the team inviability of many classes out there is just ridiculous. And frankly, I remember picking this game up because they SWORE you could efficeintly solo to 200 without problems. If you call killing 1500 yellows efficient, I'm game.

[Ironoak]

Why do I have to run all the way through the levels of a mission to get out again? Why is there no FAST EXIT after the mission is completed?

Why do I have to spend hours on mission booths to search for a location and an item that is suitable for my level? Does anybody really suppose I'd run to Avalon from Trade to get that Tatoo?

Ironoak

[Dovve]

Why do agents get tokens for killing everything in a mission? Shouldn't they get a token for sneaking past undetected instead? Agent's should get at least a small amount of xp for sneaking past mobs over their level I think too (yes only once per mob). If you worked covertly for the CIA and went around killing entire enclaves of the people you went to spy on, calling lots of attention to yourself, you probably wouldn't be employed in that line of work for long.

Why is every class in the game really a soldier? Shouldn't Bureaucrats be able to talk their way out of a fight for xp? There are a lot of classes and descriptions but in the end we are all just meant to be psychotic mass murdering killing machines.

I totally agree with the tradeskills goofyness thing between traders and engineers. "Trader" is a class by description that takes from one thing and gives to another like a "tradeoff" class. Not a "tradeskill" class. Engineers should definately have gotten the green EE and ME skill as well as the maestros buffs for those skills seeing as the word "Engineering" probably most applies to...oh...say... an Engineer?

Why is it that armor and gun shops can't custom order a weapon for me? We are in an techno-advanced society that has insurance technology capable of recreating living and dead matter on command, but i can't get a full suit of matching armor from a shop?

[Kanatach]

Originally posted by Dovve
There are a lot of classes and descriptions but in the end we are all just meant to be psychotic mass murdering killing machines.

This is good, this is very good. But you say this like it is a bad thing...why?

(Just spamming, tired...need...sleep... Puttting this in my sig, too. ;P )

[Dovve]

Originally posted by Kanat


This is good, this is very good. But you say this like it is a bad thing...why?

(Just spamming, tired...need...sleep... Puttting this in my sig, too. ;P )

Hehe, well I for one would like to see some extra depth in the game that introduces RP elements a bit more.

The agent case is a great expample. People pick that class becuase the sneaky theif type aspects appeal to them. How nice it would be if when they went to a mission term they were actually given a mission suited to the RP of their class asking them to steal and object, gain information, or assassinate someone without being seen. And then actually gain xp and rewards for completing said mission. Given that they picked this class because they thought they would be doing this kind of work (if they are a newbie and dont know better) they would probably find the missions more fun and suited to their likes.

Instead no matter what your class... we all get one kind of mission, go to location, kill everything, repeat. The only reason to really choose one class or another is based on Hitpoints, damage output and what nanos you like to cast. The game doesn't reinforce or try to cater to the RP of the characters it has created.