A lot of Re-balance is needed (feel free to add more)

[Ctrlaltwin]

As I see the new rebalance with professions, perks, specials, and a cool new graphics engine...it really hits home all the things I believe are just as important, and are even needing (more at times) balanced as well.

What do I mean?

<PvP.> There are 14 professions, and not all of them are as useful or effective at all title ranges (some are just awful at certain ranges). Right now - PvP is about who can twink better gear on, afford billions of gear, and can find a setup that leaves very few holes to be killed. PvP is seeing positive light with aimed shot changes, but I feel this game is getting further and further away from balanced. I hear of rebalance, but then I see that this isn't really affecting a large problem with PvP...yet one of the current games largest target was rebalancing PvP/professions.

<Leveling.> I had a buddy in-game who got upset about how leveling is dumbed down. How it seems it is a rush to get 1-220, how the game is about wearing omni-med at kite hill waiting for kite teams, are from 160+ going to inferno missions. It seems leveling really is getting that bad. There is dailies, and they give roughly 1-2 levels a day (until roughly 170+). It just seems funcom really needs to have some sort of group missions or really nerf xp for kiting / devaluing these hardcore grinders who hit 220 in 2 weeks. Give incentives to leveling like more xp for the first hour, or give more dailies to interfere with the need to join that random kite team. Anything to where being level 220 is a feat, and is worked at. Not pointlessly obtained in omni-med suit.

<Items.> Ever heard of many of these odd name RK weapons? Countless weird armors that you can find at shops? Or even the odd tradeskilling tools that never really made sense. Items should have increased value. Make less items have crap damage/+more weapon stats, give increase stats to different types of armors to increase their usefulness and keep them semi-relevant, and make tools in the shops make sense. Say: "this tool is used for xxx purpose". Really make items count, not just added to an already large database of useless items.

<Teaming.> Right now, it would be nice to see teaming count. Say when you are leveling, you get 25% more increased xp if the team is contributing to damage. Give incentives, just like for raids and small teams to get more. Really show that just doing a 2-3 man groups is not where the heart of farming should be, but getting multiple people is rewarding. Ie (if you have 12 people in 12 man, more drops and naturally a higher increased chance of getting needed items)

<Useless skills. > Ever heard of Trap disarmament? Perception? Adventuring? Swimming? Heavy weapons? Map Navigation? Bring back these skills. Make traps blind/snare/root more, let perception see invisible mobs more often, let adventuring open more unique items, let swimming be an important aspect of this game, let Heavy Weapons give increased damage throwing making 'heavy' weapons a means to an end - like if you can carry a weapon weapon or not (heavy weapons > lighter weapons), make maps an important tool of navigating. We already know parry/riposte will someday see a fix, lets see all skills put to use.

More to come soon, as title says feel free to add more (or just comment). Thanks!

[Ctrlaltwin]

I wanted to reserve a spot if more thoughts come to mind. This was just the first rough draft, bring on the comments...and I really hope funcom sees this, and really takes to light how many other aspects of the game need balanced.

[Djiax]

<Leveling.> I had a buddy in-game who got upset about how leveling is dumbed down. How it seems it is a rush to get 1-220, how the game is about wearing omni-med at kite hill waiting for kite teams, are from 160+ going to inferno missions. It seems leveling really is getting that bad. There is dailies, and they give roughly 1-2 levels a day (until roughly 170+). It just seems funcom really needs to have some sort of group missions or really nerf xp for kiting / devaluing these hardcore grinders who hit 220 in 2 weeks. Give incentives to leveling like more xp for the first hour, or give more dailies to interfere with the need to join that random kite team. Anything to where being level 220 is a feat, and is worked at. Not pointlessly obtained in omni-med suit.

That one always been a joke imo. There is a lot more to a toon then hitting 220, in term of power. AXP, research, token, and most important one, the gear. We know since ages that you can't judge someone just based on his level, deal with it. I m part of the peeps trying to be efficient when leveling, but even if you could hit 220 in 2 week if you were doin only regular XP, it still takes months of hardcore playing to be end game, or "done". There is nothing wrong with leveling being quick seeing how much more you gotta do beside just lvling.

http://auno.org/ao/char.php?dimension=1&name=Dillindja3

This toon for instance i leveled relativly quick, gathered a lot of gear including a bow + 50%+ crit gear for PvM and an all out AR setup for PvP, but i know it ll be at least 2 other months to finish it, cause the last bits are hard and long (specifically, full alpha and custom made ql 300 implants + the rest of the hotswap gear i planned + AI 30).

All in all an endgame 220 twinked toon still takes several months and a relativly obcene amount of /played time to do.

Leveling in itself is just a tiny part of this whole process. People needs to stop to focus on this tiny part.

Edit : Btw "Balance Discussion" doesn't refer to the generic things you posted if i understood correctly, should ask to be moved to game suggestion or something

[Ctrlaltwin]

That one always been a joke imo. There is a lot more to a toon then hitting 220, in term of power. AXP, research, token, and most important one, the gear. We know since ages that you can't judge someone just based on his level, deal with it. I m part of the peeps trying to be efficient when leveling, but even if you could hit 220 in 2 week if you were doin only regular XP, it still takes months of hardcore playing to be end game, or "done". There is nothing wrong with leveling being quick seeing how much more you gotta do beside just lvling.

http://auno.org/ao/char.php?dimension=1&name=Dillindja3

This toon for instance i leveled relativly quick, gathered a lot of gear including a bow + 50%+ crit gear for PvM and an all out AR setup for PvP, but i know it ll be at least 2 other months to finish it, cause the last bits are hard and long (specifically, full alpha and custom made ql 300 implants + the rest of the hotswap gear i planned + AI 30).

All in all an endgame 220 twinked toon still takes several months and a relativly obcene amount of /played time to do.

Leveling in itself is just a tiny part of this whole process. People needs to stop to focus on this tiny part.

Edit : Btw "Balance Discussion" doesn't refer to the generic things you posted if i understood correctly, should ask to be moved to game suggestion or something

There should be more then just hitting 220. There should be time taken, there should checks and balances, there should true profession. This game puts a lot of emphasis on leveling. 220/30/70. That is not something meant to be rushed and end game should be a feat in itself, not just getting there to take the time to get gear.

Secondly, the toon you mentioned has no link (or the link is dead). So I am guessing you want me to look him up? Most links to characters struggle to get the URL properly.

Leveling is not a "tiny" process, as most people have no more then 2-3 220s and it's been over 9 years. I get you think it would cool to come in here and spout about how leveling isn't all that important, then link a guy and maybe tell a cool story, then to follow it up with "people need to stop doing xxx". It's not original, and that is classic trolling.

Lastly, balancing the things I mentioned isn't just something to "look at". This is mechanics that need dire improvement. I didn't always "suggest" things, and like I said I don't find these to be suggestions, but things that are important to the game and need improvements. It doesn't seem like ideas, but rather I would agree if it is based on "of upcoming balance changes to profession tool-sets." Some of it is the toolsets, some of it isn't. It could really fit in either.

[Djiax]

I guess 2 people talking a different engrish can't really expect to understand each other, we might as well stop there .

(or did you read my post at all ?)

http://auno.org/ao/char.php?dimension=1&name=Dillindja

Was just to point out i played this toon 2 months, yet the lvling part took 3 weeks/1 month, and i still need 2 more months to finish him. When i leveled i did my research too so the pure lvling part 1-220 could be done in 2 weeks. Considering it gonna take me approximatly 4 months to be "done", i m just saying the 2 week of pure lvling doesn't mean much (12.5% of the time invested into a toon is in lvling).

For instance you can do lvl 0 to 150 in 2 days, while at the same time you can spend 2 days in Albatraum and get unlucky till you finally find your bracer. Compare 150 level done versus 1 item slot found...

This means the issue isn't "leveling and OST and Kite team" alone. The issue is a lot more global and we should be able to spend more time at lower levels, but at the same time that this time spent at low level matter for high level. Ratios of time spent/reward beetween low level and high level are waaaaaaaaaay off.

[CppThis]

Hey kids, I don't post here much but thought I'd throw in my two cents after reading some of the rebalance documents. Maybe this has been covered elsewhere but they need to add some more "good" midlevel items a la what you can get from Steps of Madness, but for all classes and levelrange around 30 to 130 and preferably froob friendly. Maybe bump up the relative xp gain in this area a bit too. Daily missions help a lot but this range is still extremely painful to get through for most professions, and to be blunt a lot of the people FC is hoping to attract with the rebalance+engine are likely to be driven off when they reach this level range if it isn't *much* easier to reach high midlevel when you start unlocking the bulk of your prof's toolset and becoming able to take down high-end RK mobs with a small team.

[drainbamage]

Leveling is not a "tiny" process, as most people have no more then 2-3 220s and it's been over 9 years.

That's not because levelling in this game is a challenge. It's because levelling in this game is the antithesis of fun, no matter how objectively fast it is. To this day I wake up screaming from nightmares of endless hallways filled with leafy gorillas.