issues with NPCs casting nanos

[Inyuendo]

I'm posting this thread in the mechanics section since it's not an overt "bug", but I believe it's something that could use some looking at.

When playing AO, my character runs a lot of missions. Invariably, these missions contain NPCs that at some point or another cast an offensive nano program.

Usually, the nanos belong to either one of the root/snare lines (if fighting an agent/fixer/crat), or deprive/divest lines (if fighting a trader), or doctor DOTs.

My main problem with all this is twofold.

On the one hand, most of these programs last a long while at the higher levels (> 5 minutes for snares, ~ 3 minutes for divest/deprive and DOTs).

On the other hand, the NPCs cast these nanos somewhere near the end of the fight (usually when they are under 40-50% of their max health), sometimes even as the last thing right before they are killed.

The combined effect of these 2 things is that you suffer the most (in a needless fashion, and for an inordinately long amount of time) after the fight, *not while fighting the NPC*.

My suggestion is to make NPCs use nano programs similar in effect to the ones they currently use but with significantly reduced duration, that they would cast near the beginning of the fight (even as an opening move). This would make things a bit more "realistic" and remove some of the notion that "I'm just fighting a dumb MOB".

To compensate for what would be an apparent increase in difficulty in the eyes of some, I suggest foremost decreasing most MOBs' hitpoints to be more in line with that of a player character.

As it stands, most MOBs' offensive nanos serve only to annoy the player in between fights. They do not really make the game more challenging or interesting (IMO).

Note that I am speaking from the vantage point of a level 65 character. This is the behavior I have observed up to this point, and that I assume will continue up to level 200. If these mechanics do indeed change at some point at higher levels, please disregard this post.

[____________Intrepid]

problem is that funcom lets mobs with 30k hp use nanos on players with 3k hp which were designed to be used on mobs with 30k by people with 3k hp.

Last night i got killed after we completed a mission because right before the last mob died he cast wrack and ruin(sp??) on me. 876 damage per shot coming pretty quick. I tried to sit down and heal but i had the lag damage bug so not only was i getting hit buy the DoT i was taking lag damage and was unable to heal because i was "still in fight" So yep i ended up dying 10 seconds after we killed the last mob because mobs can use nanos designed to kill them on players with a small fraction of the HP. Lost 3.4mil which was almost 1/2 a level to me and over a hours work.

Yep i haven't logged in since that event. not sure i will again either. Takes the fun outta it when you are essentially killed for no reason. next thing you know funcoms gonna come out with a autoterminatoin feature. When you add your token to your token board it will give you a 10% chance of termination. or if you get warped into grid and LD you auto terminate loosing all Xp from mission. Yep all to "slow down leveling"