Can Funcom post what has been changed or is looking to be changed?

[Snackel]

All I have been seeing throughout trolling all the forums are just the whining and pouting of people because FC is taking away all of our toolsets or strategies. What I want to know is "What is actually going to change? Why are they doing this change to a certain profession? How will this effect the play, and will I be able to make a new strategy in killing players/mobs?"

I think that we need more information for what is going to be changed and why. Mostly to help all of the people QQ'ing about their profession.

Also, I would like to note that mean's should play World of Warcraft for a day or two to get a grip on how a stable server/MMO is made and maintained.

I personally think that Means should roll back Anarchy Online to the classic version, before LE. Once that is done he should continue on and refurbish LE and then re-put it back on. I feel like this would bea good start. But I know no one will read this post. :P I know I am rambling on, but if this game was rolled back, new graphics engine installed, and maybe add a recruit a friend to add a double XP for players that were recruited, Anarchy Online would get up and running like it once was back in the day.

Maybe a big balancing act is not the right angle to go to fix this game?
Maybe try looking at how players are reacting to different implements of the game, and fixing them so everyone is happy.
Maybe taking a step back in looking at some small changes before the large ones.

For nano wise:
I'd take out GTH or lower the time it is active on the player. As if you kill the trader who GTH'd you, you will most likely die from the next person you run into, because it will still be draining your nano! Removing GTH from traders would drastically balance traders back into gameplay.
I would leave the way Doctor's heal, and other profession's handle their nano. I would however nerf NT's a little bit by making some of their blinds/roots a longer cast and recharge.
For crats I would keep the same roots and such, just shorten the long root, no one needs to sit there for 5mins+.
For fixers, I would give them 1 buff for FA/burst/fling and another buff for SMG. Maybe let them have shot gun mastery, but thats only if I was nice. :P

For PVM and PVP:
Maybe Funcom could add in some new quests with new sounds/new content and have some new tier sets that could take the place of the old ones. The tier 1, 2, and 3 sets are just a waste of time, so I would say, throw in a very interactive quest that have the player gathering, hunting, and exploring non-boring area's such as Scheol. Tier 1,2, and 3 can be level locked so players would have the oppertunity to do their quests to get their armor peieces.
Such as:
Tier 1: Requires level 50 to start quest. You go to the quest giver and you need to accomplish different objectives that revolve around the quest, to recieve the end reward of the different parts to make the armor. Also, there should be 5-7 different chain quests or just 5-7 different quests that give the different armor pieces. (Making new modifiers to the tier sets will make people actually get these armor peices. This could also be a viable option for new players as they wont have the money to buy the high end peices of gear that float around.

Tier 2: Requires level 150 to start quest. Make it the same as the Tier 1 quest, except make the player travel to a different location, killing different monsters and different objectives.

Tier 3: Requires level 200 to start quest. Make it the same as tier 2 quest, except make the player travel to a different location, killing different monsters and different objectives.
(I know people would freak cause they wouldn't be able to equip T3 on their 150, but if FC actually made the armor modifiers decent enough to use, this would balance the useage of the items).

As for items in-game:
I would look at all the items in game and get rid of most of them. I would say about 75% of the items in the game are either useless or never used by anyone. Then I would refurbish / make new weapons/items that would actually benifit players more at lower levels as well as higher levels. I think that doing this would save some Hard Drive space and time looting pointless items.

I would like to see more players using more weapons of choice. Seriously. Not every profession using all one weapon, and don't tell me for one second they don't.
All I see is:
Advy's weapons: Upgraded Beast weapon (1HE or Pistol). for lower levels, they only use the chirops/Sword of Wonder or the jobe pistols.. or Alien Axes/alien pistols.

I am not going to go into all of the professions, because, they are all mostly like this. Using only the 7 different weapons of choice, in which you are only pistol or melee. The reason is because all the other weapons in the game are worthless / suck. I mean seriously, is there only 7 different options that I have when I am leveling to actually be able to kill stuff in a decent ammount of time? Come on FC, look at what is happening here, sure, the perks need a bit of work, but the smaller thing like weapons and armor are way far more important!
As for armor, don't even get me started... I see through rubika and SL that a person who is rich uses 1 set of the few Alien Armor sets, or the poor people that get the crap armor that uses carb/CAS/predator armor.

All I am saying is that there NEEDS TO BE MORE OPTIONS to pick from, like seriously. I don't enjoy running around and looking at players who are the same profession who have all the same armor on, not because they wanted to be twins, but because it's the only good armor to have.... Same with weapons, weapons are worse, everyone uses they same weapons over and over, it's just plain annoying to see, and annoying to use.

Once that is done, you should go to perks, because once the weapons are changed, you can test out the perks with the weapons, to see how over powered some are and how under powered some are.

Another thing is, when balancing, make professions able to defend and offend against it. For example:
AMS: AMS is a soldiers good deffense, but the problem is, that FC only made 1 profession able to counter it, that is NT's..

That is balance.

As for the balance of the Market on AO, I think that the city shops should still be there, but they are added into one big market of items. Kind of like an AO internet that is accessible from the 3 main cities. As this is in the future, it can be shipped to you mailbox / bank. So it would look sort of like the GMS does now, but would be accessable by all players(not including froobs, cause they couldnt access this originally), yes, I am talking about Clan and Nuetral and Omni. This would boost up the economy big time, and would help players get what they want, faster.

That is mostly all I have thought of so far... I will definetly post more when I have t he time.

This little bit of feedback could drastically change / balance Anarchy Online. I am sure many people will agree, and some will not. But I just miss the way the game used to be.

Thanks, I hope some GM's and Mean's crew or Mean's looks at this.

- Jon
____________________
An old school player.

[Aethyrguard]

Bravo excellent post. However, to correct a few things in the start of your post. I know for a fact Means has actually played WoW and had a couple of lowbie twinks as well. He is quite aware of the differences and it is not his intent to make AO "like WoW" at all, however, being aware of what other MMO's are offering is a good thing I say.

For the most part I agree with your post, especially the doing away with SL/AI/LE expansions overall, I agree with the allowing for more specializations and so on. I have to say overall I loved reading your post and it makes me feel better knowing I am not alone in having a "braodened" view of MMORPGs as a whole and while not trying to make any one like any other one, at least learn from others mistakes and triumphs how to best enhance your own game and product for a competing market. One of my biggest things is lacking profession quests and quests that direct you from one point of exploration to another without using a 3rd party resource to do so. There should be more in game tips and little things that can be found that do the job of the 3rd party tools / websites such as items that drop that actually give away some sort of secret tactic needed to beat a boss etc.

There are quite a few things I disagree with in your post on some point or another but are to minor to nit pick really. Overall nice post and thanks for taking the time to put this much effort into a well thought out post. Feel free to search around for a few of my posts and I think you will find a bit of camaraderie here.

[Snackel]

I agree 100% with you buddy. I made a couple new posts in the Game Suggestions, for stuff like this. I hate that if you do not have 2 account's these days, you cannot really do anything ingame. The 2 accounts being a 210+ outside tank, and the other being the toon your leveling. I feel that it's time for some solo experience, that will still level you at a rate that is decent. As for profession quests, I love that idea, I wish there were some.. and I am not talking about the Fixer quests. :P
As they take 4 hours to complete. lol.
Just ones that would require you to go slay 15 Filth Flea's and Gather 4 Hound Dog tails.

There should also be more into professions within professions. Such as there are tradeskills right? Well make them so you get the choice to do 3 or 4 of them, and the more you combined stuff, and the more you use that profession, the better armor / items you can make or combined.
This would add quite a bit of challenge, instead of the just /sit... /level.../sit../ding 150 and then up the tradeskills.

- Jon
___________________
An old school player.

[Hacre]

I would however nerf NT's a little bit by making some of their blinds/roots a longer cast and recharge.

I was going to bravo your post until I read this and realised that you probably have a maximum of 2 professions on your account at TL7, neither of which are casting professions.

Blinds. TL7s can get 60% blind resist as a no brainer and 110% blind resist as a slight sacrifice.

Roots have a 4s recharge at least.

NTs have a single threaded combat system. So fundamental tools with more than a short (read 1-2s) recharge are serious problem options. Because anything that takes longer than that to cast, results in an NT being stuck in recharge when they need to cast an emergency defense like NBG, or NS2 if a defensive oriented NT.

Your post was otherwise pretty good. Please keep yourself to posting about things that you're knowledgeable of instead of blanket posting about things of which you have no clue.

PS Crat root recharges are also long enough as they are, as Crats are also a heavy casting profession. If a Crat isn't casting or in recharge, they're not PvPing.

[Technogen]

Grats you described what FC is exactly doing... Already...

[shamenOTC]

For nano wise:
I'd take out GTH or lower the time it is active on the player. As if you kill the trader who GTH'd you, you will most likely die from the next person you run into, because it will still be draining your nano! Removing GTH from traders would drastically balance traders back into gameplay.

If you think taking GTH out of the equation for traders will balance them out, try rolling a solja and take him to endgame and see how you fair against a newly dinged 220 atrox trader who can easily drain/root/blind and Borrow reflect you to an easy death.

IMO untill there is a feasible way of stopping this from happening balance will still be a joke.

Another thing is, when balancing, make professions able to defend and offend against it. For example:
AMS: AMS is a soldiers good deffense, but the problem is, that FC only made 1 profession able to counter it, that is NT's..

That is balance.

wrong, lets see what counters to ams are there?

1. NT's piercing reflect as you said.
2. Traders BR (borrow reflect) -100% reflect
3. Engies NSD (Null Space Disruptor) -48% reflect
profs. which rip ams when up.

Proffs. which stop ams being casted.-
4. MP's Nanite Enhanced Nano Shutdown -3000 to all nano skills
5. Enfos stuns
6. Shades stuns

as a endgame solja myself it's Traders which i get emo about, any gimp trader can kill an endgame solja. Traders are pretty much everyones nemesis, I'm waiting to see how they change this proff. as to whether the balancing is worth the paper it's currently being writen on.