Friday with Means - Sept. 23rd, 2011: Initiative Data

[Roswell]

I say screw it.. Bring the pain FC, AO on easy mode is boring.. Lets liven up this party.

oh and http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...8&postcount=56

[Siro]

Exactly why would you be ranting about pvp when the changes will only effect pvm aspects? Aren't crats busy enough AOE fearing, rooting, snaring, and occasionally nuking for 6k in pvp?

Oh, a new nuke, gief
The nuke "Worklplace Depression" what u are talking about hits for about 3-4k and only if proc Wrong Window (200% nanodmg, 8s) turns on. Usually something about 1-2k. A little difference to your statement.

But yes, PvE is too easy. We want to see some skilled docs/tanks and not those "I-click-one-and-the-same-button-every-four-secs-and-win" player

[Otansaanpas]

Oh, a new nuke, gief
The nuke "Worklplace Depression" what u are talking about hits for about 3-4k and only if proc Wrong Window (200% nanodmg, 8s) turns on.

i hit easily 10k in pvm with my crat, perhaps nanos are nerfed 70% in pvp instead of 50%

[Gatester]

Oh, a new nuke, gief
The nuke "Worklplace Depression" what u are talking about hits for about 3-4k and only if proc Wrong Window (200% nanodmg, 8s) turns on. Usually something about 1-2k. A little difference to your statement.

5k then, which is more than reasonable with those nukes Considering a 5% proc is likely to happen at least once every minute, that gives you the equivalent of 2 heavy hitting perks that just happen to land on and cap on evaders. I won't hear any garbage about how that 8 seconds of 200% nanodamage is not incredible for a crat, especially when I have my own.

If someone wants to complain about crats in pvp, then they need some really strong justification for it anyways. Crats are excellent mass pvp support just under engineers and doctors in usefulness.

[Gatester]

To Gatester thanks for the quote but that seem to be opposed to your post
"Means: Ranged professions enjoy a significant advantage everywhere and more so against pet professions."

Good point, since the ranged advantage against crats just so happens to be entirely dependant upon pvm initiative values.

FYI, a rooted ranged profession tends to lose its ranged advantage. Those "pet professions" Means referred to were likely engineers and MPs, not crats. Crat pet problems are terrible pets for pvp, not professions with ranged attacks.

[Josephina]

The hardcap that was removed, could have been a hardcap on the skill before calculations, and not that skillevels of mobs never went beyond that point. Similar to how you can have 3500 runspeed, but not run any faster than someone with 2500 runspeed. That would also explain why on some mobs smaller init debuffs alone did not seem to make a difference.

If the 1/1 attack/recharge weapon speed hardcap also applies to mobs, not much will change in practice if the hardcap was within the calculations. Pretty much all mob weapons since SL are 1/1 after all: on 50% agg/def, 450 inits are needed for 1/1; on 0% agg/def, 1050 init are needed. The difference between 1223 and 450 or 1050 is not that big compared to doctor or crat init debuffs.

If the 1/1 attack/recharge hardcap doesn't apply to mobs (it often seems like it doesn't), we could very well all be in a world of trouble, since the weapon speed calculation is linear with init skill: for 50% agg/def and a 1/1 weapon, 1050 inits are needed to make the weapon fire at 0.01/0.01. A weapon firing at that speed is ofcourse madness, so with the current formula, at some point mobs would have to be subjected to a hardcap too.




In my opinion a far better solution would be to make the speed calculation dev-proof once and for all. This by changing the formula entirely and making initiatives and the "resulting attackspeed" inversely proportional (instead of initiatives and the "increase/reduction of the attackspeed" being proportional).

An example of inversely proportial formula:
"weapon attack speed" = "base weapon attack speed" * (2400 + negative("calced initiative skill")) / (2400 + positive("calced initiative skill"))
"weapon recharge speed" = "base weapon recharge speed" * (1200 + negative("calced initiative skill")) / (1200 + positive("calced initiative skill"))
"calced initiative skill" = "initiative skill" + ("agg/def slider" * 600)


A few benefits of this kind of formula compared to the presently used formula:
1) No more need for any kind of hardcaps;
2) In pve there is again a point to raise initiatives beyond the current cap;
3) Because of 2), professions who get high initiatives, benefit from that once again (imo this is one of the main reasons that enfs can be good dps at the low levels, but not at 220);
3) Same as above: initiative buffs become useful again at tl7;
4) Same as above: the agg/def slider becomes relevant again for all professions at 220.
5) No matter how small the initiative debuff, it will always have some (proportional) effect;
6) Even large initiative debuffs won't break the game anymore;
7) No more need to "turn off" toolsets partially by adding immunities to some init debuffs to bossmobs;
8) With increasing initiatives, the damage increase from slow weapons will be the same as for fast weapons, so slow weapons could once again become relevant.


With some numbers:
A player/mob with 1800 initiatives and 1/1 weapons:
Full agro: 0.5/0.33 attack/recharge
Full def: 0.67/0.5 attack/recharge

A player/mob with 1800 initiatives and 2/2 weapons:
Full agro: 1/0.66 attack/recharge
Full def: 1.33/1 attack/recharge

A player/mob debuffed to -1800 initiatives and with 1/1 weapons
Full agro: 1.33/2 attack/recharge
Full def: 2/3 attack/recharge

And so on, compare that to the current in game situation where -1800 init reduce attackspeed by -3s and recharge speed by -6s ...

[Otansaanpas]

A player/mob debuffed to -1800 initiatives and with 1/1 weapons
Full agro: 1.33/2 attack/recharge
Full def: 0.67/0.5 attack/recharge

did i miss something or at fulldef your attack is 2x faster and recharge 4x ?

[Josephina]

did i miss something or at fulldef your attack is 2x faster and recharge 4x ?

That's a classic c+p error: I copied a piece of text without changing the values.

Other than that I'm glad someone read my post to the end, I should always put in errors in the last sentence of my longer posts

[madmax]

So, read from the MP point of view. In PvM solo we will die twice as fast?

[lainbr]

So, read from the MP point of view. In PvM solo we will die twice as fast?

yes :P

[madmax]

yes :P

Oh Crap!

Alien face palm

Wine face palm

[JustinSane4]

Yeah, I'm concerned how this will effect MP solo-ability too. Keeping the frog alive could be quite a challenge - not that keeping ourselves alive is likely to be easy.

[Gunfytr]

I say screw it.. Bring the pain FC, AO on easy mode is boring.. Lets liven up this party.

This.

Maybe ppl will work on their toons, instead of /follow.

[Mastablasta]

Maybe people will stop soloing so much then, that would be nice too.

[Gridpain]

This.

Maybe ppl will work on their toons, instead of /follow.

Try to make a new toon from scratch, without creds / support of your own toons/org.

try to find an org, try to level.

Then talk about AO being easymode.

[Mastablasta]

Try to make a new toon from scratch, without creds / support of your own toons/org.

try to find an org, try to level.

Then talk about AO being easymode.

I actually did that recently and it wasn't hard

[Gridpain]

I actually did that recently and it wasn't hard

Out of curiosity, up to what level ?

[Mastablasta]

178 before I got bored with playing an alt :|

[Aeliniyah]

You people should actually try this "Ridiculously easy AO PVM" with a toon that was made WITHOUT a sugardaddy and billions of credits. Maybe a toon that some actual newbie has to use to play this game. A toon that's wearing a bit lower QL implants that your normal alt would at a certain level. A toon that has a set of carbonum armor or maybe miy's. A toon that has to make a full day of hard work to earn ebough creds to buy one new nano.

Maybe then you can come here and say how friggin' easy this game actually is. (Yes i think it's easy too, but i don't consider myself new to the game).

Well of course starting from scratch will be easier for you with years of experience of the game, but for a real newbie there is NO SUCH THING AS EASY in this game. Unless of course you count in the new method of "playing" which only includes sitting on a hill, watching an NT running in circles. Or better yet some 220 enfo/doc/agent standing in the middle of a bunch of hecks.

You can't balance things around the veterans in full Combined armors and Alpha Symbs.

[Mastablasta]

Dude, AO pvm is so easy that it's not even funny. If you have put no IP into anything and attack a mob that's red, then OK, it's hard. If you go around on newbie island, then there's nothing that's actually difficult if you use your IP. Subway is easy too.