Hello,
I have a small idea, and perhaps it will make things a little more even for all players involved in AO.
One major unbalance in the game is the opportunity to "over equip" your character with higher than level weapons and combat nano's. I have seen a lvl 70 agent hit for more damage than a lvl 100 enforcer. Seen lvl 50 NT's make more damage than a lvl 90 crat.
This should not be a possibility no matter which way you slice it.
Don't get me wrong I'm all for putting better equipment on your character to give it an extra edge, but this kind of situation seems to be leaving a lot of people out of the game.
While making a group to hunt critters very often you'll see (as an example) a dual wielding adv sitting on the ground of some outpost simply because the game unbalance has made that character a not so viable part of a team.
As that player at a higher level how might you think this game would appeal to you? If you do not make one of the generic, easily over equipped characters that has little originality in the character, and it is based purely on the fact that it can create high damage.
I feel sorry for people that want to explore other parts of the game, like using an axe instead of a hammer or beam. Perhaps someone that wanted to dual wield something, and now finds they can't wrangle the nice high ql weapons as their same lvl co-role-players can equip. Eventually these players will most likely stop playing the game based on the pure unfair nature of this fact.
here's my idea to average damage output.
(1) make damage output more relative to character lvl not so much in weapon ql. This will ensure that almost all players are created equal as long as they have a close to lvl weapon/combat nano. If a character wishes to over equip a weapon then so be it. That character as a bonus for doing such an action will then in turn not have to upgrade it's weapons, and perhaps add say another 1-3 points extra damage per however many ql's the weapon is above said character. Of couse some players will be able to equip better weapons purely based on their skill advancements as is (ie. green, blue, darkblue).
(2) make a new shop (perhaps a master store) or higher ql items in the superior store. Roughly at level 100 ish due to the over equipping nature of this game close to all store bought items for armor, weapons, and implants become useless. Higher level players will find themselves begging on the shopping channels or bothering other players to see if they have the item they need to equip to compete with other players in the world or Rubi-ka. The new ql items could be something like ql 130 - 175, while ql 175+ items will still be hard to find, and making them a valuable commodity.
Here's an example story to try and shed some light on the situation.
A lvl 100 adv sits at an outpost waiting for a group to hunt with. This lvl 100 adv is wielding a pair of ql 125 Rider swords. These are the highest ql swords that a player can find in a Superior store, and has had to use implants to equip them.
The lvl 100 adv gets into a group with 5 other lvl 85 - 90 players since the higher lvl players seem to ignore the character due to the fact that dual wielding riders is now known as a bad idea since wrangling on high ql swords is not possible as is for other weapon selections.
The players swords fall off when zoning, and Brawl, Heavy Wep, Dimach are skills untouched by a wrangle buff.
In this group the lvl 100 player watches the damage output by all characters. In the fight he notices an agent hitting for 1K + hits, an NT nuking for 1K+ hits, a trader blowing things away for 1K+ hits and so on. The only comfort that player has is in the fact that the other sucker character, an enf 10 lvl's lower than he, is hitting for the same crappy damage because that player has unfortunately chosen the same weapons that have caused this trouble in the first place.
To fix this problem the lvl 100 adv decides to obtain some higher ql riders. Worked out properly perhaps this character can wield maybe ql 150 swords, and actually participate in the damage dealing as his fellow characters do with their generic, lame, easily buffed weapons/nano's characters. Three weeks pass and still trying to find perhaps just one sword of ql 125+. However success in this area looks very bleak indeed. The player gives up because he feels he is a useless member of a team, can not lvl further due to the low damage output for both missions and team play (lets face it, making a lvl is a big part of the game.....without leveling you can't use the cool things the game has in store for you)
The simple fact that a lower lvl character, by as much as 20 levels I've seen, that can out damage someone so much higher is ludicrous. This is based purely on the fact the game is biased to certain combat choices. The true nature of variety to this game seems to be very low. to prove my point here's a small example.
NT = matter creation implants, and pillow's. top lvl nano's for combat.
ENF = Hammer or Beam. Implants for the skills associated, and a nice hefty wrangle to get on ql's up to 100+ lvl's higher than the character. (yes I know many lvl 95ish enf's wielding ql 200 hammers and beams) ridiculous.
Trader = Vector, and Krutt shotgun. 50 - 100 ql's higher than lvl. and so on and so on and so on.
Every day in this game there's very little variety. Anarchy Online has turned into a game where a player must "use what works" cause most things don't.
I'm hoping one day AO Dev team will re-think their damage output system, and figure out a way to better balance the playing field.
Thanks
Some guy.
