Low Level Trader(s) Drains

[bitnykk]

separating nano/weap is interesting idea but as a trader player i find it a bit complex to deal with, especially in PVM/Twink where the system is totally fine like now. & that would multiply the number of our drain nanos by 2 ! messy !

in the end that would only partly solve things, while to me the real issue is the final amount of skill/aao trader can ladderdrain in PVP, not the fact trader can drain nano+weap at the same time.

i say it again : i'm all to let traders (& agents) twink CL like haxxorz & get insane AR by pre-draining mobs around a NW field ; the only problem i got is when they get any decent twink totally OE in 7 seconds.

worse example : 42 sloob trader casting nanites on a 38 opponent. that's senseless. drains need a cap according to what every title can reach in AR.

[Pomidor]

I had in mind such idea:

Why trader can take what player dont have? I mean, drains can take -250 pts of certain skill, but if it would be build around amount of target skill?

I.E:

I got 80 MC skill
Trader casts -125 drain
and receive only 80 to himself and takes mine to 0.

That would balance things, especially weapon wise. If I am soldier and I use AR, trade use shotty, he wont get much to his skill - this would cause building character much more diffrent, then it is now done...

[Vgman01]

Don't confuse most people taking the easy route and having OBs as that meaning the Trader toolset is worthless without them. Other profession's tools really are that garbage, aside mainly from Enforcers, at the levels being discussed here.

Ob's more or less are the reason low lvl traders are op. My enf has never lost a duel to a non ob'd trader simply because by the time they get the drains off they are sitting at 30% hp or so and cant kill me before I knock off the last little bit even with only hitting for 100 dmg apposed to 250. I suppose I can't comment on the toolset of most other classes being as I haven't twinked, or even considered, most of them but for enfs the toolset is fine its just the ob's that are making them crazy.

[bitnykk]

build around amount of target skill?

that idea is nice but hard to deal with for a trader :

having pre-drained a mob a trader buffed with mochies (& eventually wrangle) will come with the highest drains he can throw. i see nothing wrong with OSB, wich is an interesting part of getting ready for NW (and the main goal of twinking CL/NCU).

now different ideas posted around :

- if he only debuff & receive what the opponent got left in skills, that might not equal the pre-drains he got in NCU, plus that doesn't solve the case where the opponent is completely OE on his weap skill. that makes PVM really complex to deal with & that's a hell to implement for devs ...

- if he debuff & receive a % of opponent skills, that's totally unreliable for the trader : debuffing one target or another would make a completely different buff in trader NCU. same hell to implement, headache gameplay for the trader + possible exploits debuffing an high PVP range volunteer (aka twinked/buffed mate) or high mob with OST.

- if he has to choose nano or weap laddering like proposed recently, the trader will start nano type(or come predrained with nano type) then throw on highest weap type for certain profession that'll still finish OE like usually. so that makes nothing solved & all drains nano doubled (more shortcut, icons, etc ...).

- if, as i proposed, drain line got a PVP limitation according to opponent level/title, his pre-drained NCU ain't replaced (3 minutes of insane AR max), the target keeps a reasonnable part of weap/nano efficiency (balanced between nowadays crippling target & trader naked without drains). easy to implement, efficient, goal reached.

[lusthorne]

Why not simply have a cap on the total amount of debuff a target in a certain low level ranges can receive and leave the benefit portion alone?

For example:

Lets say that some lowbie trader who is ob'd to the hilt has laddered up to nanites (and lets face it, at very low levels you'd HAVE to be ob'd to pull this off).

The trader casts the nanite drain, still gets the same buff from the drain as per usual, but the target only receives a debuff to a certain % of their skills based on their level, lets say a global cap between 50-75% scaling to level range. Perhaps even a tiered approach to the caps, like level 10-20 can only be debuffed a total of 50% skills regardless of how high the drains are, maybe 50-75 jumps to 60%, etc.

This way, no matter how big the drain used on them is, they'll never go literally into negative nanoskills/weaponskills, yet are still impaired, retaining the usefulness of laddering drains, while simultaneously dealing with the current issue of high drains vs low level players.

The percentage cap could even be split between the 2 drain lines, so maybe the divest line can't exceed 25-37% of the player target total skills, likewise with the plunder line, making the global cap of 50-75% only achievable by landing both drains.

[sultryvoltron]

- if he has to choose nano or weap laddering like proposed recently, the trader will start nano type(or come predrained with nano type) then throw on highest weap type for certain profession that'll still finish OE like usually. so that makes nothing solved & all drains nano doubled (more shortcut, icons, etc ...).

Make the drains lock each other out, and not overwritable.

i.e. if the Nano Drain is running, the Weapon Drain cannot run. It has to be canceled or run out first. Thus, there would be no stacking up nano drains to use a high weapon drain.

[lusthorne]

People supporting the idea of separating nanoskills/weaponskills in the drain line are forgetting a very important fact about traders. Drains don't just give traders their weapon AR, they also give traders their NANO AR (you know, to do things like, say, LAND MORE DRAINS, or other offensive tools in our toolset?).

Splitting the 2 drain lines into 4 drain lines is a terrible idea from the start. First off it gives traders even MORE nanos to have to deal with in the active toolset, it screws them unnecessarily in pvp and pvm by cutting the power of drains in half both offensively and as a self buff (that's right, if you need weapon AR AND nanoskills you've just been screwed by this design idea as you'd have only 1x of each drain type active).

Even beyond that, the possibility of landing drains just got harder under this idea as if you need to land weapon drains, you're screwed since you cant have nano drains to give more nanoAR to your casting attempts.

While splitting drains like this might sound appealing on the low end, particularly to some who haven't really thought it through, it exponentially screws traders on the high end.

Saetos: Have you seriously thought the idea of splitting the drains like this through? Really? Saying this is a good idea is like saying that shooting yourself in the foot is an act of pure genius. Yes it *could* work, but it *would* screw every high end trader in the process for pvp, and EVERY trader for pvm. I would think that you of all people, as a trader professional, would be saying "Not only no, but HELL NO."

There are much better ways to deal with balancing out drains in regards to lowbie pvp (I've even brought up a perfectly viable solution here without resorting to such unnecessary (and dare I say badly thought out) nerfs to the toolset.

[Saetos]

Saetos: Have you seriously thought the idea of splitting the drains like this through? Really? Saying this is a good idea is like saying that shooting yourself in the foot is an act of pure genius. Yes it *could* work, but it *would* screw every high end trader in the process for pvp, and EVERY trader for pvm. I would think that you of all people, as a trader professional, would be saying "Not only no, but HELL NO."

It does indeed have its flaws and you do bring up a valid point I didn't catch (with all my apologies). How else do we fix drains, however, without absolutely screwing us over? Is it really the drains that are a problem? Why aren't we more asking for a fix to PVP mechanics? I'd like to go into further detail on this, but if the thread is going to be derailed by people blindly wanting drains nerfed because they happen to "cripple" their character (as they should) then no progress will be made.

There are much better ways to deal with balancing out drains in regards to lowbie pvp (I've even brought up a perfectly viable solution here without resorting to such unnecessary (and dare I say badly thought out) nerfs to the toolset.

Alright. How do we check if what we're draining will deplete skills past your threshold, though?

[lusthorne]

Alright. How do we check if what we're draining will deplete skills past your threshold, though?

One approach could do something like this:

If the drain amount of the nano is greater than the cap% of the highest affected skill irrespective of current debuffs on the target, than the target gets affected skills debuffed by 25% instead of the full amount of the drain. In the case of a lower drain debuff being present, the lower debuff gets overwritten by the higher one.

It is worth noting that the skill check would probably be best served by checking against skills irrespective of outside buffs (so base + selfbuffs/gear)

In other words, if I were to ladder up to nanites, and cast it on you at say level 50, if the value of the single drain cap% of the targets highest affected skill (ie; skills a drain affects) is lower than the total possible amount of drain debuff on the nano, all affected skills on the target are debuffed by the cap% rather than the full power of the nanite. Otherwise the full debuff of the drain lands.

As for the AAO debuff portion of the nanite drains, those can be set on a flat tiered scale based on level.

[Genie]

The simplest solution is always the best solution. Just level lock the entire divest and plunder lines. This will resolve the problems at lower levels without screwing with the higher levels. Opponents will still be crippled but not to complete uselessness. And end level traders will retain all their abilities.

The game mechanics for all this is so screwed up that any solution that involves complicated percentage caps and checking of opponents skill vs attackers skill etc, are just bound to cause a pletora of unresolvable bugs. It always does when funcom tries to implement such changes, because noone who works there fully understands how the code works.

Keep it simple. Dont mess around to much. Give a little. Receive a little.

[Saetos]

The simplest solution is always the best solution. Just level lock the entire divest and plunder lines. This will resolve the problems at lower levels without screwing with the higher levels. Opponents will still be crippled but not to complete uselessness. And end level traders will retain all their abilities.

No.

This will make lowbie Trader PVM performance a laughingstock again. Unless we're given better Shotguns and better team nanos to compensate, I will not support an across-the-board locking of drains.

[haavarst]

Remove lvl lock across the board then. Every single nano comparable to traders drains.

[Yesiamstoned]

Use team based tactics under the current rule set to to manage extremely offensive(annoying ...whatever) classes instead. Level locks are artificial and pointless. Same with hardcaps, however it's all in how you decide to look at it.

[bitnykk]

i'd like to make people a little recall of HOW draining works :

- the trader select a target (any fightable mob or player in his PVP range)
- he push the button of any debuff
- 1st is checked if the trader have the nano requirement for it
- 2nd is checked if the target have an higher debuff already running (same line)
- all ok, now the nano loads, there's a roll to see if it landed to target NCU
- 3rd is checked if the trader has an higher buff already running (same line)
- 4th is checked if the trader has enough NCU for the new buff
- now the friendly part land to trader NCU erasing lower buff or refreshing same buff

you got to keep that in mind for any change to drain line or the gameplay might become impossible for a trader, wich generally need his own drains plus OSB to ladder high enough in PVM/Twink (wich is all okay) or PVP (wich goes to high @ lower titles).

[Saetos]

Remove lvl lock across the board then. Every single nano comparable to traders drains.

Any sensible removal of level locks, even for other professions, would make me a happy guy. Especially NT Cyberdeck nukes (and yea I know they're going to be replaced by the nanoweaving concept, but still, a guy can hope amirite?)

[bitnykk]

no level lock ...
to me level lock is also a way to balance the game in PVM as much as PVP.
on the other hand i like to push the limits, and AO is one of these rare games where you can.

for a long part this debate was to agree if drains were OPed @ low titles or not. hopefully we now might be on the next step : agree on a way to solve it.

in this precise case, no matter how i look into the issue, i feel the trader might be able to cast any drain (cause i like my traders) but NOT on PVP opponents for balancing reason. that's why i'm for a limit on drains if the target is a player, but no limit in PVM like always. i'm still waiting a better solution to be convinced.

[Hacre]

for a long part this debate was to agree if drains were OPed @ low titles or not. hopefully we now might be on the next step : agree on a way to solve it.

You and 2-3 other people claiming that drains are overpowered, with myself and 2-3 other people claiming that they are not, does not an agreement make.

Those of us who feel that drains are fine have given proposals for changes because we've seen FC's track record lately when it comes to pandering to the whiners. It's called damage control should the dummy sucking whiney brats get what they're stamping their feet and flailing their arms for.

[Saetos]

would be great to see CL buffs lvllocked and no beneficial skills on trader from drains.

Say what now? o.O

The point of draining is that we get something back. Again, this would butcher our PVM performance at low levels; our weapons are slow and our nanos costly and slightly slow, so we need the extra nanoskills and weaponskills in order to do comparative damage and use good health plunders and hagglers.

[Hacre]

whoever worked on a lowbie trader know good that is all based to NCU.
getting OSBs is what it makes trader do high drains,NCU being a must have tool.
would be great to see CL buffs lvllocked and no beneficial skills on trader from drains.

Yeah....no.

I do wish people who are clueless about actually playing Traders and twinking Traders would stop deciding they know exactly how to "fix" Traders.

[Genie]

This will make lowbie Trader PVM performance a laughingstock again. Unless we're given better Shotguns and better team nanos to compensate, I will not support an across-the-board locking of drains.

It is the best solution to balance out low levels. The original skill lock which AO was based around is shot to hell because skill levels have escalated to godlike proportions. A level lock is needed to control the level of power available at low levels.

Any attempt to mess with the way drains work like so many suggestions out there are bound to have disasterous side effects. It will complicate things even further.

If you think locking drains will hurt PvM abilities at lower levels, then fight for better weapon choices and team nanos, but dont use that as an excuse to hang on to a PvP situation that has been hoplessly unbalanced for years.