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Thread: In answer to some of the feedback to the 14.5 patch

  1. #21

    Way ahead of youre self.....

    Ok, yea this is all fine and dandy, but I'm sorry there are so many more issues that need to be addressed before you start thinking about uber-mega-high level camp attack tactics. Now let’s look at some basic fixes that need to be added. I would like to first point out one of the most picked on classes in all of AO, the Soldiers, these poor dudes don’t have anything but shields and some semi useless damage multipliers and health boost, and let me get this straight? You lowered their cuffs to 17%!? So you just gimped the most gimped class in the game even more. And now you want to take away their scopes? That’s just wrong, shame on all of you.
    Now, I’m going to get started on how mean you all have been to the 2he people. Do you think you could be any more just all out mean to the poor guys? The EoT is always Over Equipped, has insane requirements, horrible critts and almost the same damage out put of a beam. And this is currently the most rare item in the game?! Ugh. Ok, not to the surprise of any one but you also made the Queen Blade HORRABLE this sword is worse than a True Katana or a Long Moon. But its got a level 160+ level requirement and almost 500 more over all IP to equip than either of those?!! Generally when an item is more rare than another items it’s suppose to be "better" right? Was the pet pathing even looked at in this patch?
    All your tactics stuff should take back burner till you can actually fix just basic imbalances like these. And quit playing favorites!! Soldiers and Enforcers are people just like every one else, there is no need to try and gimp or pick on any of them. Was I the only one who noticed that the feed back on the pole was mainly bad? This means your patch was BAD, that means you didn’t fix anything and made things worse. Please get out of your own, personal dream land and look at some real issues.
    Last edited by Raven2501; Oct 2nd, 2002 at 19:33:19.

  2. #22
    its one of those things that just sounds good on paper but is never accomplished
    Don't underestimate your fellow players. These things will be figured out and tactics devised. There are players out there serious enough about their AO playing to sepnd the time, there always is in any MMORPG. New high end stuff will come out and people will say 'thats impossible' whe they get mashed the first few times.

    Some will give up, but a few determined guilds will stick at it and learn, and then they will monopolise the camp and start getting accused of things by those who couldn't be bothered to spend the time in the first place.

    It's happened so many times before it's not funny anymore...

    This is the correct way to develop things, make them more challenging, not just take longer by bumping HPs up. (It might take longer while you calm, root, charm, attack, counter attack and pull, but its a damn site less boring then chain healing and just charging.)

    This means your patch was BAD, that means you didn’t fix anything and made things worse. Please get out of your own, personal dream land and look at some real issues.
    What you mean is you didn't like it. I found the patch very good so far, added content that I have enjoyed and spent time doing so.

    Yes, there are still issues to balance and some classes need balancing (I wouldn't put soliders top of that list by a long chalk either btw, most I know handle themselves very credibly in combat, not saying they don't need some FC lovin' just saying a few others do to!) but this can be done hand in hand with new content.

    As someone who doesn't play Class X or Class Y I don't want to wait three or more patches before there might be something that interests me. Personally I think one general patch, followed by one profession patch is a good rotation. Sure the general content patches might not please those hell bent on getting their proffesion 'fixed' but they are welcomed by the vast majority of the player base.
    Last edited by Sillirrion; Oct 2nd, 2002 at 19:35:47.

  3. #23
    bring in the Nophex *narf*

    see the positive aspects - you can give out a good weapon and nerf it after ppl learned to love it

    Take it as a constructive feedback or not
    Quotation from a statement of Henry Radiman, official Clan Leader:
    >> "Action is needed," says Radiman. "Commentary is needed. Policy is needed. The Council is needed." <<

    ------------
    Marariella, once a Member of The Council
    ------------

  4. #24

    Angry

    I go along with what Bionitrous said about mobs warping to you. Playing an adventurer traveling in Reet form with 700 run speed I cant outrun anything. I get so far away from them and they warp directly to me hitting me 2 times in the back..ouch. Its not just certain mobs its every mob that agros me outside that does this. Which kinda makes reet form useless

  5. #25
    Right on the money, Bionitrous.

    The pathing has to be worked on, FC. Right now, the tiniest bump on the ground is all it takes to send range-fighting tactics helter-skelter to the winds.

    Just the other day, I spent nearly a whole day with my level 127 Fixer, doing nothing but testing outdoor combat with various mobs on various terrains. Overall conclusion = kiting is borked.

    In the end, the closest option I could find that didn't bork kiting outdoors was -- fight the mob on the flattest terrain I could find -- which we know is ultimately a silly notion for outdoors with all its lovely rolling landscape aka uneven ground.

    But yes, that's how my small team of 3 managed to defeat Trash King later that day - we snared him and ran him up/down the road - the flattest least-obstacle-littered terrain we could find in that vicinity. All the lovely open grassland to the left and to right of the road was utterly useless. And oh, even that road itself isn't all that flat either. Many times, TK would just warp right over to you if he just as much stepped near a tiny bump.

    So yes please, do look into the pathing issue.

    And do continue to read the feedback!
    Last edited by Inocybe; Oct 2nd, 2002 at 19:59:36.
    Ino
    rolling leet, crouching tiger, hidden dragon

    Pioneer rifle/crossbow Vanguard with a personal sidearm and a campstove
    Atlantean

    AO Adventurer Professional (2003-2004)


    Map design suggestion for mapmakers

  6. #26
    And oh, while we're on the subject of tactics and new mobs and bosses level 200+ and all that ...

    What about QL200+ Info Tools?
    Hope they were not forgotten in the overall plan of things?

    FYI, my posted suggestion:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=53103
    Ino
    rolling leet, crouching tiger, hidden dragon

    Pioneer rifle/crossbow Vanguard with a personal sidearm and a campstove
    Atlantean

    AO Adventurer Professional (2003-2004)


    Map design suggestion for mapmakers

  7. #27
    Originally posted by Sillirrion
    Bionitrous,

    Good points but some of it it harks back to the way players react to spawns. The reason there isn't set patterns to spawns in the wild is largely because players would camp the exact spawn point. In the example you gave I would put good money on that rhinoman convoy only leaving its camp once or twice out of ten spawns.
    But, that's my point. Who really cares if the Rhino foraging patrol is setting out for the Oasis? Why would you repeatedly wait an hour just to kill more Rhinos? Unless they would be so utterly stupid as to put special loot on the convoy. My point was that if you had a satellite view of Newland Desert from the sky, it would be a big mess of idiotic man-beasts wandering in circles aimlessly around the playfield.

    FunCom would do themselves a favor by implementing spawns in groups. Have them pop up in some random location, but include 4 fighters, 2 healers, two Mystics, a Scout, and even a few 'stragglers' whose only purpose is to wander close but not too close to his team and be a 'pickoff' target for soloists. But besides all that, the point is that these beasts just pop up all over the place like acne on a teenager's face. No rhyme, reason, or anything. Smasher here, Mother there, Mystic over there. Just wandering like idiots waiting to get killed. That's boring. Boring to look at boring to talk about boring to fight.

    The reason people camped the Trash King is because he dropped uber loot. If he dropped normal loot and wandered from Athen Shire across the zone line to Wartorn Valley to check on his buddies, he might be the target of an assassination attempt by an appropriately leveled group who happened to come across him. Put Title Level 6 reflect bracers on him and he's dead within 20 seconds of spawning. Boooooring.

    Do people sit on the spawn of the Lifebleeder in Lush? No. There's no reason to. Does it add to the Lore and enjoyment of hunting mutants? Yes. Just because we know that the Rhino foraging patrol is going to come circle the Oasis sometime soon doesn't mean we have to get out an Alpha Strike team and be the first to get our pelted monster parts with ivory.

    But .... if my team is feeling its oats and we've 'dinged' a couple times whacking brontos, perhaps next time them smelly buggers come looking for plants and water, we'll try our hand at skinning some rhino. And when that time comes, I expect the healers to heal, the nukers and rooters to nuke, and the 'runner' Rhino to go tell his buds about the hairless monkeymen who attacked his foraging party.

    I'm sorry if this thread was supposed to be about 14.5 and Static Missions and Outdoor Hunting. I just can't find it in me to cry about the Scope Nerf coming in six months or how bad Soldiers suck. Even when I go ballistic on a Nerf, I try to keep it in the threads pertaining to the Nerf. Go look at the MP forum to see me whine about how much my profession sucks to play after level 140. Not fodder for this thread.
    Last edited by Bionitrous; Oct 2nd, 2002 at 20:57:54.

  8. #28
    In regards to Crowd Control, the fundamental issue with many of these new camps is that they revolve around only a few mobs.

    For example, The One.

    Here we have a super boss with 5-6 worm minions who can't be charmed, stunned, rooted or calmed.

    Obviously, if all crowd control was allowed to work, this spawn would be a cake walk for 1 group.

    *Maybe* if the One spawned with, not 6 minions, but quickly summoned 20-40 minions of equal strength to the original 6, the story would be different. In designing these camps, Funcom placed their eggs in too few baskets...so to speak. The Obediency Inspector and General's Right Hand are basically 1 boss with 2 minions. Of course, you can't allow crowd control there.

    You can't allow *meaningful* crowd control abilities to work at these camps, because basically there is no *crowd* to control in the first place. These camps are designed defensively, meant to ignore Crowd Controllers....a camp designed to be offensive in nature would be designed to overwhelm Crowd Controllers.

    Basically, the difference is about 2-6 minions that FC can't allow to be Crowd Controlled...versus 20-40 minions of equal strength that does allow meaningful Crowd Control to be cast on them.

    I used to fly around Belail Forest and see hordes of mobs, upwards of 5 dozen in one small space. That is the kind of camp that a boss with super loot should be in...if you want Crowd Controllers to take their rightful place besides Tanks and Healers as effective members of a team.

    Take the mercenary camp in EFP - You almost are never fighting more than 3-4 primus/secundus at one time. Allow the Crat/NT/Trader to root or calm one and the camp has lost 25-33% of its threat. So what can you do? You cut Crowd Control out of the equation. Really, you HAD to.

    The only reason why this camp is "challenging" is because you placed all your eggs in too few baskets and therefore had to cut out meaningful Crowd Control from the equation of battle. Its an "artificial" way of making something challenging.
    Last edited by Psiraven; Oct 2nd, 2002 at 21:52:04.
    MP's should be FEARED.

  9. #29
    I think what Psi is saying is that she'd rather have her hands 'full' than 'handcuffed'.

    I get the image of the Sandworms being mezzed or rooted and the boss shazzaming up new ones every time one is taken out of the picture. Finally, I see it getting to the point where Psi can't keep up and is calming or rooting one worm while another is breaking out of it's daze. She's sweating her ass off trying to keep her group safe as they fight the guy who's summoning all the worms in the first place. That's a lot more 'enjoyable' than see a sign that says 'crowd controllers need not apply'.

    How about expanding on my above pleas for more reality and less obvious game designer shortcuts toward difficulty:

    Instead of simply summoning more worms in my above example, what if the Boss man had a version of the Doctor's Epsilon Purge? He could see that 5 out of his six protectors are rooted so he has a nano that he can execute to free them. He's got a way to detect that his protectors have been charmed and he runs a Motivational Speech that when the charms get within range of him breaks the charm. He summons not the players on a regular basis but calls his protectors back to gather 'round him. You lead him halfway across the playfield and he snaps his fingers and his 2 mezzed, 2 rooted, 1 fighting, and 1 charmed buddies appear in a circle around him. Get the timing right and it could be fun.

    Any of this could be done without relegating the crowd controllers to the seat behind the back seat.

  10. #30
    So...

    In order to be successful at these new camps, one has to camp there enough to memorize the spawn times and mob paths?

    I'm sorry, but that is too much camping to swallow.

    NERF CAMPING!
    .: Naraya :.

  11. #31

    Talking

    Its good to know that the dev's actualy read our feedback and adjust the game accordingly. Now about our reload button....
    Rk1- Sol Epsilon3

    -Gameover Man
    -Summoned, I come. I take the place which has been Prepared for me. I am grey, I stand between the candle and the star. We are grey, we stand between the darknes, and the light.

  12. #32
    "I think what Psi is saying is that she'd rather have her hands 'full' than 'handcuffed'."

    ------------------------

    You said what I wanted to say, except you did it in one sentence.

    I think the boss having the abilities to purge his minions of crowd control effects would be a nice touch if sheer numbers isn't an option. Nice idea.
    MP's should be FEARED.

  13. #33
    Thanks for opening the lines of communication. It's comforting to know that DEVs are responding to player complaints/issues. I'm glad to hear that you're working on a few of them. Its also nice that you guys let us in on some of your justifications for 14.5.
    Goode 200 Nanotechnician
    Ionsphere 166 Martial Artist
    DrHandy 154 Doctor

  14. #34

    Give us back the fear.

    Originally posted by Sillirrion The reason there isn't set patterns to spawns in the wild is largely because players would camp the exact spawn point. In the example you gave I would put good money on that rhinoman convoy only leaving its camp once or twice out of ten spawns.
    It is agreed by many that the best hunting in this game is at the north mine in Lush Fields and several locations around Greater Tir County. What makes these areas fun and causes them to command respect is the roaming aggros and unexpected social adds which range from extremely dangerous to impossible for players whose levels are appropriate to the location.

    The entire outdoor game could benefit from this and ought to, and it is how to protect not just the Rhinoman village but the IDEA of the Rhinomen, and how Bionitrous' Rhinoman hunting party can be a reality without Sillirrion's massacres at the village doorstep being a foregone conclusion.

    It is my opinion that every unpaved zone in the game should be modeled after southern Athen Shire:

    * At the lower range of levels proper to the zone, aggressive monsters to discourage idle exploring, to reward serious & well-planned exploration, and to serve as warning markers for what's ahead. In Athen Shire the Malles take this role.

    * Manageable concentrations of unaggressive monsters with social loyalties narrow enough to make hunting them possible (without taking long breaks) yet broad enough that one asks questions before setting out and scouts the area before initiating combat. In Athen Shire the Minibulls serve this function, although there is a more interesting situation in The Longest Road involving the Hammer Bull breed.

    * Challenging concentrations of aggressive mobs, with an ominous landmark serving as your warning to stay away. The junkyard at Cobol Sands.

    * A nasty conventional aggro peppered throughout the zone, his presence requiring people to be careful. In Athen Shire we have the noble Rollerrat. But more importantly...

    * VERY IMPORTANT. Roaming, aggros who rally the unaggressive mobs. For thirty or forty levels those of us who made our homes in West Athen feared and hated the creature we spoke of in hushed tones as the RED BULL. In his day the Virulent Minibull would transform his wandering, grazing brothers into a bloodthirsty army and put the fear of God into anyone who caught wind of the stampede. This was a beautiful thing, among the finest moments AO has to offer.

    * Something EVERYONE is afraid of.

    Does Athen Shire have such a thing? No, but it has what I think ought to be the model for a greater plague.

    I dislike robots as they give me a skin rash, so forgive me if I offend by forgetting the name of the baby robot out Cobol way. Trash King's Little Helper or something like that. To many of you I'm sure he's a snack, but he's dangerous enough to me that I think twice and look around very carefully before attacking any of the otherwise grey creatures in the ol' Junkyard.

    Rubi-Ka could use more of these sorts of creatures scattered about its countryside, only they should be feared and respected by *everyone*. Feel like hassling that Rhino party? Better check first to make sure they haven't got a Slayer Rhinoman with them or you WILL die. Regardless your level, regardless the size of your posse.

    Obviously this sort of an element would act as another disadvantage to hunting over mission slogging, but it's not as if the hunting situation can get worse than it already is, and the presence of these kinds of mobs - already tested and working nicely in certain locations at certain levels - on a wider scale would, I think, solve many of the problems associated with spawn camping and cheating monsters such as Bionitrous and Sillirrion have discussed above.

  15. #35
    Originally posted by Bionitrous

    Get it?

    That is NOT that difficult of an AI implementation task. Drop me some code snippets and I'll point to where to start adding flags, fields, and procedure calls.
    Great post, but I'd like to hear what the developers think about this statement.

    I always hear the fanbase telling the developers how easy it is to do this, that and the other thing. I'm sure its far from easy -- no matter if you tell me that you are an engineer or a programmer or whatever.

  16. #36
    I'll stand by my statement. If only because of my professional training. If they coded in C or C++, I could point to the module and structures to modify. Hell, even if it was Pascal, Basic, or Fortran, I'd point to the right locations.

    Not saying I would be able to code it. I never said that.

  17. #37
    Gah stop complaining people.
    This was a article by one of the designers working on these camps.

    Just because todays/yesterdays patch focused on that doesnt mean that the other devs arent working on all the other issues.

    This was just a nice article with some info about that particular part.
    I'm pretty sure that QA is working on 14.6 right now.



    Anyway. rockon FC, I want more articles like this.
    It feels so lonely not always knowing what ya did, are working on or planning to do.

    More articles like this I say, more feedback to us. hooot
    "AO is like the ugly duckling, slowly turning into a swan as time goes by."
    Lance Orbin aka Gridfan of GridStream Productions

  18. #38
    I'm quoteing from a posting on the bureaucrat message board regarding 14.5 and crowd control, or lack thereof.

    Originally posted by Scorus
    All,

    There is a new posting from a developer addressing some concerns about 14.5 on the main page. Unfortunately they forgot to run it through the newspeak converter program and therefore it is less ambiguous than most of their communications:
    http://www.anarchy-online.com/conten...articles/4741L

    A few points I would like to share.

    Therefore we are apparently intended to snare them. Disregard the fact that they will be lose after one teammate's hit and that with the range of even melee weapons in this game we will be dead as soon as we cast the nano anyway. They will be momentarily controlled and therefore bureaucrats are not useless. Right. At least he stopped short of saying that we are meant to fall back on 'Red Tape'.

    Perhaps you could assure us that you are working on it and it will at the very least be part of 14.6? I know you guys hate to make promises, but since we aren't asking you why you put it forward in 14.5 after three months of testing in its current condition, I think you are getting off easy.

    Hmmm, okay, so you know that it isn't working right and in fact you tell us that it isn't working as intended (a sure sign they forgot to run it through the newspeak converter), then perhaps I could make a modest suggestion that in the meantime why don't you TURN IT OFF! Does it really take a brain surgeon to say "Hmmm, this one boss ability is really working poorly, we had better turn it off until we get it fixed."? Isn't there someone in the Funcom thinktank that is responsible for making connections between knowing something is broken and not making their paying customers have to put up with it?

    And that doesn't even mention the well thought out scenario of having objectives from several different quests all drop from one mob that was already camped anyway. AO has had a rough time with very little competition, compared to what it is going to have soon. Answers like the ones above to questions that affect an entire profession are not going to keep you guys in contention.

    Scorus
    Charles 'Kithrak' Houston - Equipment
    Administrator, Omni-Admin
    Bringing the politics of Rubi-Ka to life!

    "He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster....when you gaze long into the abyss the abyss also gazes into you..." -Friedrich Nietzsche-

    "By denying support to the possibility of peace, the Council of Truth is guranteeing an outcome of war."-Administrator Houston-

  19. #39
    Originally posted by Atda Office
    Quote "I personally think nerfs are boring, very boring."
    jonhelgi / designer - AO

    So does that mean that like us all, you find the proposed LLTS nerf boring, very boring?

    In times like this it is very hard to be constructive with our criticism, as im sure you must be able to understand...and you are absolutely right - nerfs ARE boring, very boring, especially when they involve items which YOU as part of the development team promised to leave unchanged. Especially when they involve items which are publicly traded for 200 mill creds at a time...
    You've spoken my mind man!!

    First you broke ur promise with LLTS. And yet you said nerfs is very boring. Then why in the world are you still going to nerf it?? That didn't make too much sense, did it?
    Just the lil people, try to make their livings. - BI

    I am the one of nature! no really I am. No, I am not an adv, but can
    they charm critters?! - Grag
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Proud Unit Member of Phoenix Consortium

  20. #40
    Originally posted by Lance "Gridfan" Orbin
    Gah stop complaining people.
    This was a article by one of the designers working on these camps.

    Just because todays/yesterdays patch focused on that doesnt mean that the other devs arent working on all the other issues.

    This was just a nice article with some info about that particular part.
    I'm pretty sure that QA is working on 14.6 right now.



    Anyway. rockon FC, I want more articles like this.
    It feels so lonely not always knowing what ya did, are working on or planning to do.

    More articles like this I say, more feedback to us. hooot
    "More articles like this I say, more feedback to us. hooot"

    Uhh...I think thats what this is.......
    Kodiene
    Founding member of P.E.T.A.
    People for the Ethical Treatment of Atrox's
    PAINKILLR
    Mercenaries of Kai

    "I personally think nerfs are death in an emergency patch. It is very cool to admit that there are a lot of things we can do boring, very boring in-game. Your input is being adjusted in some Fouls. I want to especially thank the players who WILL die.
    Have Fun! And I'll be seeing you online
    jonhelgi, designer - AO"

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