More health for the Atrox, and more nano pool for the Nanomage

[Letah]

Originally posted by Sjoko


Is that your best ?

I mean come on. I'm being ignorant for asking what's so wrong, you're being ignorant if you leave those things out of the equation totally. As I see it those items aren't there to balance the breed out, but rather to empower them.

If you read my post correctly, it's not all about those items either. If you noticed, I only mentioned those items, said they weren't impossible to get. I didn't hint at anything, if there's something I hint about that is that atroxes should get something to balance them out.

The way I see it nanomages are balanced out already, unless someone comes up with a good reply to why the nanomage breed needs balancing.

Our "problem" consists of 2 things:

- Nanopool: We differ 68ish nanopoints with sol at lvl 200
- Skills: Between lvl 1-156 we differ only 1 (ONE!) nanoskill with solitus. Between 157-167 we catch up to a differnce of 9 skills at 167. This stays all the way to 200 (the 9 difference)

I'm truely glad they fixed the first, but the second is still a tad off. At most 0.1% of the population has Shades/Vest so no, I'm not adding 20 skills and 50 int to these calcs.

156+ is seen as high lvl game, kind of sad that before that lvl nanos have less HP and no better skills nor nano (I dont see 68 as a lot diffence at 200, I'm sure you agree).

This is a nice step into the good direction, but it shouldnt be the last one.

About the totals of skillpoints; you cannot just add them all up as one ability is worth more to a prof then another. Give me 250 max str and I still dont care - as doc. Also IP spent? That isnt an issue really, as IP isnt scare in this game in the end.

[_________Lexusstreak]

As a mage I can't say that more nanopool is that much of a whoop, it just means to me that more people can beg for mochams before I sit to recharge. i agree with the earlier posts, at higher levels we mages need more hitpoints over nano, now before some of the earlier flamers show up throwing the guide at me saying how I made my choice as a mage and that I was supposed to take fewer hitpoints than everyone else..I know that already, but in an ideal world it would balance out, but this is ao we're talking about, we all know that at higher levels mobs hit for insane amounts, and it's stressful on the doctors, at level 146, with ql 200 health imps, maxed body dev, maxed stamina, 400 point token board health bonus, my health comes to around 2900, which is a drop in the pond for most monsters I fight. and since demons are poor at keeping aggro, health means a lot more to me. i know what you're thinking, summon one of those nifty mp weapons that boost hitpoints...sure..I will..just give me the ips to raise the dark blue 1 hand blunt skill.

I say nanomages should have divest nanopool to lifepoints, now that would be something. but I'm not flaming funcom's work, I think it's nice that they are trying to differentiate the breeds, but the system still needs work for the high level cause..hitpoints=lifesaver, nanopool (unless you're a doctor) means waste of time. As for the solitus standing around whining and going "what about me what about me?" I played solitus on mostly all my characters, also tried atrox and opi, solitus has nothing to say, they are uber in all class types just about, so go tan your pink skin or something.

[firefox2008]

Sheesh...

Who knew this was such a big deal...

I mostly play Opifex myself. Atroxes have more hp...Mages have more nanopool. I'm pretty such any baka could do that math since I did...

I think it's a good change and just some teaking would be needed to make it a good "fix".

Everyone chose what they wanted having a pretty good idea knowing what they would be like. If you wanted to take a few more hits...well...there are quite alot of Atrox NT/Docs out there. As there are many so-called "gimped" combinations people are quite happy playing like I am.

It's good to see some of the players out there will get some sort of a benefit out of this...even if it's not exactly what they would like. I'm happy for those of you that are glad for this change, but pity those that just want to sit back and whine about it.

With some positive input...I'm sure the deciding factors and people who make the choices will understand.

Kudos for the change!!! (yes...I'm not angry Opifexes didn't get anything related to this...I'm very happy for the tough as nails Troxes and the mindnumblingly powerful Mages!)

[_______________Sjoko]

Originally posted by Routeen
It is simple, it is just the health. Comparing Atrox to Nano is the wrong way to go, since Atrox is also way gimped. Compare nano to Soli.

Until Title 5, the stat differences do not show up, really. But the health differences have been there all along. So for the first 150 lvls, you are getting much less health, with little to no compensation.

Even after they show up, w/o some extremely rare gear, the difference btwn Nano and Soli is like 9 pts. in nanoskills, and trivially more pool.

So, the problem NMs have always had, is they are strictly worse than Soli for almost every profession.

So, the issue in the post is, what compensation should NMs get for taking the health hit?

Getting pool, for most professions, simply does not seem like enough, given the relative values of health and pool.

Ok, thanks for a non-flaming answer (goes for letah too) I did compare NT atrox and NT nanomage where the difference in hp was about 900. 900hp doesn't sound like a lot. The difference in nano was way more tho, around 1200 or 1400 if my memory serves me correct.

So the only thing FC should do it those cases is to increase the hp bonus so you get about 400 more between each title level and it'll help every nanobreed class. From both my level 200 studies it seems like 900 is about how much more atrox get in hp vs atrox.

However if that happens, Atroxes should get something quite special. Breed balance is the basis of everything the way I see it. Getting the breeds somewhat balanced is something that will help balance the game a bit more, at least it's a start.

If you ask me, atroxes should get a boost in both int, sense and psy. Or get a lot more to sta, str and agil.

If atroxes get 544 to both sta and str and also 512 to agil their baseskill average will increase to 466.67, still a 12-14 point average behind the other breeds.

And add some shades or shoulderpads and vest for atroxes too, so they get a + in nanoskills and int. Make it just as hard to get as the van horn vest. That would be balancing out the atroxes a bit more imo.

I just have one more question tho, which breed should we compare atrox against ? Because every breed atrox is compared to they are major "gimps".

Just my 2 cents.

[hhj]

Originally posted by Sjoko
And add some shades or shoulderpads and vest for atroxes too, so they get a + in nanoskills and int. Make it just as hard to get as the van horn vest. That would be balancing out the atroxes a bit more imo.

In my opinion Atrox shouldnt get any nano abilites enhancing items, remember they were build for combat (Hp, Ac). With the low inteligence they shouldnt be able to execute sophisticated nano programs.

On the other hand the nano mage was constructed for dealing with nano - technology and nano bots. Lack of hp, defensive skills allows this breed to control nano bots better then any other.

My idea to ballance the hp != nano debate was to allow Nano Mages to execute Nano - Programs without Fumbles.

What should the Atrox get... Maybe a minor natural AC buff?

Remeber this game is mainly about hit points... you live with 0 nano points but not with 0 hp.

Finally, you should have noticed that the game is over-run with Solitus based characters. Atrox due to the Hp boost will be now iven more common, thatway im asking for a change to let the Nano mage live up to its description and that is controling nano - bots .

[Letah]

Compare to Solitus because they are supposed to be the average character, and they are; (almost) all abils cap the same.

[_______________Sjoko]

Originally posted by Demona66
In my opinion Atrox shouldnt get any nano abilites enhancing items, remember they were build for combat (Hp, Ac). With the low inteligence they shouldnt be able to execute sophisticated nano programs.

On the other hand the nano mage was constructed for dealing with nano - technology and nano bots. Lack of hp, defensive skills allows this breed to control nano bots better then any other.

You do have a great point there, but remember this, nano is what is used to enhance every single profession, including the soldier and enforcer profession. Atrox enforcer is the only profession where you don't have that great disadvantages by being an atrox. In the other professions you see that nanoskills are so far behind, and this goes maybe specially for soldiers, I don't know, but that's the profession I know this is the case. I can pase from another post, where you can see which skills are crashing.

AR Shining crashes with F.A.
AR Bright crashes with TS / MC
AR Faded crashes with TS / MC

RE Shining crashes with all nanoskills (RE shining goes in head)
RE Bright crashes with PM / SI
RE faded doesn't crash with anything.

FA Bright & Faded doesn't crash with anything.

For a level 200 atrox soldier, you can now theoretically (I'm not 200 yet and haven't asked someone who's level 200 if this is correct, but I have done some research with skillemu) have enough skills to cast OS and TMS X. The only reason is poetic stretchband or augmented OT rings x2. If you have that you can do both, with having implanted AR 3 times.

Still it means that we can't implant head RE, to get the same advantage that a single weaponskill weapon has.

Since soldiers are preferred as atroxes (just check the new character creation system on test, where it says worker (enforcer) and soldier is especially mentioned on the atrox breed.

As I said this might be the cases for other professions as well, I'm not going to turn this into a prof specific thread, at least I hope I don't.

My idea to ballance the hp != nano debate was to allow Nano Mages to execute Nano - Programs without Fumbles.

What should the Atrox get... Maybe a minor natural AC buff?

I'm not so sure that 0% fumble for nanobreed and 5(!)% fumble for atrox is the best way to go. I mean Atroxes have really a great disadvantage already. I mean they are dumb, but not mentally disabled.

And we both know that atroxes must get high natural AC to even make up for anything like that. I mean AC doesn't mean that much, and if you get 1k ac more at level 200 as a natural bonus, so friggin' what ?

What was meant to happen with atroxes I believe is that they would have a natural hot in a way (or healdelta if you like). Like they regenerated a lot faster than normal breeds. The problem is to find a number that balances it out, healdelta isn't exactly that efficient and they need to speed up the healdelta on atroxes to make it worth while. Let's say atroxes were to sit down for 1 minute and could get all their hp back in that time.

Remeber this game is mainly about hit points... you live with 0 nano points but not with 0 hp.

Yes, that is true, but the thing is, you only have 900 less hp than atrox as a level 200 NT or level 200 MA. (if you were to compare lvl 200 nt nano v.s. 200 nt atrox or 200 MA nano vs. 200MA atrox). And 900 hp isn't an incredible amount. (the way it is now that is)

However a doc might disagree with you, if the doc has 0 nano left, he might as well start prayin' (ok it was a joke)

Finally, you should have noticed that the game is over-run with Solitus based characters. Atrox due to the Hp boost will be now iven more common, thatway im asking for a change to let the Nano mage live up to its description and that is controling nano - bots .

I'm not sure the hp boost will help too much. I mean what good is hp when you can't execute nanos without sacrificing your supposedly best skill (goes for soldier, maybe for others).

And as I see it you should be able to create any breed as whichever profession you want and still do an equally good job at it, but in different manners.

Unfortuneately I know the soldier profession best and can only tell how bad an atrox is suited for that profession compared to nanobreed. Ask firerose (Letah's char) she's doing a great job at being one.

It got too prof specific, hope you can forgive me for that, however I still hope I have some valid points in there.

(also nice that we can have a non sarcastic, non partially flaming discussion and actually agree some for a change )

[Bionitrous]

Fumble rate doesn't have anything to do with your intelligence. It has to do with slipping your fingers and you are coding a nanoprogram on the fly. If anything, Agility would affect fumbles most of all.

Perhaps the fat fingers of the Atrox might be a disadvantage. But, I'd assume their nano coders are made extra large to compensate.

[firefox2008]

If fumble rate is dexterity...

Then Opifex should hardly ever fumble

[Bionitrous]

That would depend on their Dexterity though, wouldn't it. =P

Still have to spend the points.

I would like to see something I could invest in to decrease my chances of making a syntax error while executing a nanoprogram. Finger slipping and hitting ']' instead of '['.

[speardancer2]

you live with 0 nano points but not with 0 hp.

that's very true..... if you walk away from combat with 1hp and 0 np, you're still walking away...

if the combat is over, and you ended with 0hp and 1np, you're sitting at a reclaim terminal.

There is nothing accualy wrong with the fix that is currently being implemented, as long as funcom doesn't truely think they're done when this fix hits....

This does well by the Atrox, for any class. Alot of nanomages in the low and mid levels will be helped by this, expecialy NT's...

but this still doesn't give the nanomage breed a true "advantage" yet.. something with nano skills or fumbles or SOMETHING else will be needed to accomplish that.

[Blackwing]

it is there.

if you plan long term because the attribute boons only come into play past 165ish when the soli caps then you HAVE to include the nanomage racial items.

the supply did not dry up.

when you are lvl 170 and do not start an alt every month by that time raising 30 million to just buy one of the stupid things is not a problem.

more realistically we are looking at a difference of about 12-30 pts depending upon how well the nanomage is equipped.


yes it was a clumsy fix introducing these items .....
and yes camping is bull**** .....

but they are in game now so they have to be taken into the equation when you discuss high level nm vs soli.

and they ARE available to you at the levels we discuss here. face it if at level 170+ you cannot make a million or two a day to set aside and save for buying shades or vest then you need to adjust your game style.

[_____________Meurgen]

For the record, it's less there than you seem to think.

Take the shades for instance. They drop once every 18 hours minimum. Lets do some math.

That's 1.25 drops per day. If they had been dropping the past year (I can't remember when they were implimented but I don't think it was a year ago) that's 365 days, and 1.25 drops per day.

365*1.25= 456. Adjust for server resets and minutes wasted before folks get the kill... you're probably sitting at about 450 sets of shades in existence.

How many high level nanomages do you think are out there? I think it's more than 450. Should they ALL be considered as having shades of lubrication, just because the shades exist?

[Blackwing]

how many lvl 180+ nanomages ARE out there?

according to auno http://auno.org/ao/char.php?breed[]=nano&offset=100&t=ag

128 as of today.
(edit not limited to ONE dimension as your calculation for the shades were!)

ok the stats are outdated.

ok it only counts people who once were guilded (it is reasonably safe to assume that people who played to this level once were in a guild though).

and the most important thing you do not need to be 180+ to equip the items so alot will be stashed for the twinks.

still the point remains that if you are a nanomage at that level and really really want the things your odds at getting them are pretty good.

*edit: keep in mind that these things are not no drop no give ... in other words they will have a price at which they can be bought as opposed to say a gaily painted hood.*

[Demetria]

I r Atrox Enforcah!! I LOVE having more HP

[_______________Sjoko]

Originally posted by Blackwing
how many lvl 180+ nanomages ARE out there?

according to auno http://auno.org/ao/char.php?breed[]=nano&offset=100&t=ag

128 as of today.
(edit not limited to ONE dimension as your calculation for the shades were!)

ok the stats are outdated.

ok it only counts people who once were guilded (it is reasonably safe to assume that people who played to this level once were in a guild though).

and the most important thing you do not need to be 180+ to equip the items so alot will be stashed for the twinks.

still the point remains that if you are a nanomage at that level and really really want the things your odds at getting them are pretty good.

*edit: keep in mind that these things are not no drop no give ... in other words they will have a price at which they can be bought as opposed to say a gaily painted hood.*

You have a very strong point there, I just checked and according to the link (I had to do a search but still) every one above level 156 could have one if we use Meurgens calculations. And the list contains many names that doesn't play anymore.

Unfortuneately, it doesn't drop each time, so lets say there are about 200-250 vests out there. (shades drop almost everytime from what I have heard)

I believe there are fewer GA MK IV in the game (currently) because of the price, but that _might_ also be the increasing number of fixer alts that is out there. (More demand = higher price, lesser demand = lower price, kinda selfexplainatory).

Anyway the way I look upon the item isn't that it is a breed balancing item, more like items that boosts nanomages into being the best average baseskill class.

Anyway let's not discuss those items as they wouldn't be available to all if every breed had 25% of the playerbase each. I mean if there was 25% atroxes, 25% solitus, 25% opi and 25% nanomage, every nanomage couldn't get those items if that were the case.

And another thing, it kinda takes up your breastplate and head spot, which could be used for other armor (even tho I have yet to see items that can match those, must be the hood instead of shades).

And to athelsan well HP doesn't hurt, but I'd rather have better nanoskills, but you live you learn and if I will reroll a soldier later (which I doubt), I will most certainly not make it an atrox.

[firefox2008]

Teehee...I know all my enforcer buddies, Atroxes at least...are going to LOVE this! For some reason I don't know nor seen a Nanomage Enforcer above level 20...

[_______________Vydas]

Whelp, here you go:

http://www.anarchy-online.com/charac.../1/name/asynja

[________Nynaevesedai]

I would just like to say that this proposed change is only making these breeds the way they were supposed to be. It doesn't matter if we want something else. This is only returning these breeds to how they were supposed to be from the start.

I play Nanomage characters because i thought they best suited the professions i was going to play. I now know that picking Nanomage was the best breed from a role play point of view, but not from a game environment point of view. But i digress...

We all picked our breed for different reasons...that is why there are 4 breeds...for variety. That's something i like about AO, u can choose to be different in many ways, there is no set way to do things. Sure some ways are better...but do we want individuality or a couple of things cloned?

The point some people seem to be missing is that this is not a major change, it is simply fixing something that has been broken since release.

Nice one funcom! Nice to see something come out that doesn't nerf anyone...this just makes the breeds slightly more different than they currently are. It by no means balances the breeds...but it makes it a little easier to choose nanomage or atrox rather than solitus.

Ok i've had my say

[Letah]

Originally posted by Rhina
Teehee...I know all my enforcer buddies, Atroxes at least...are going to LOVE this! For some reason I don't know nor seen a Nanomage Enforcer above level 20...

Pfff i bet you say the same about soldiers ? check my sig!

AO has all classes/breed combos and none suck, its just what you prefer.