So combined supple based armor is now 1b per piece

[Cariadast]

I did 8 raids and got 1 275 supple. Please tell me the droprate is 1.6% again, I'll go play the powerball.

Also, where did you even come up with that stat? When I was raiding 40 times/week I got at least 1 supple a week.

You got WAY Lucky!!!!!! Im so tired of farming my city, I could puke! ONE Supple in the time since the Merge, and well BEFORE that if we're being honest.

When you get another anytime soon, come back and Ill apologize but until then...

Joo

Gotz

LUCKY!

[Cariadast]

Well you had no luck. Point were that supples do drop but as most people do farm grounds there aint many 240 ones for sale.

Theres nothing in between 240 and 205 either... lol reach to like 178 and you see some. Currently there are NO supples over 211! This points to an issue in the drop rate PERIOD, not that we are doing ships, not doing ships, have full teams, dont have full teams.

We had a team of 4 2 nights ago and got 261 Ground General.. he dropped crap like every other generals. The Ship General dropped crap...

The point here is... Its the general rate of drop OF supples/bots.. Period!

Get you're mind away from ships, ground raids and teams, and SLIGHTLY less than 240 QLs of supple bots... they make the same "desired" stats with a few ACs off. NOT the POINT. Stop thinking like that and the numbers are pure fact. You cant change that with nonsensical "Well, I got them to drop" arguments. Good on ya I wish I was you.

You have tons of friends who are uber and team and do the ship, or help you get what you want. You're uber, you get higher Gens. You're lucky. Most of us.. aren't! The stats on drops is ridiculously low based on the needs of the armor.. CANT CHANGE THAT!

[Cariadast]

honestly it's not rocket science. whoever designed ofab obviously forgot that a "sidegrade" needs to be good enough for people to seriously consider using it instead of ai armor. if 90% of the ofab pieces weren't a complete joke we wouldn't be seeing the prices we currently see for ai armor. the only 2 profs that have somewhat decent ofab are keepers and soldiers. almost everyone else gets 1, maybe 2 pieces that can be used and the rest can be safely disregarded. why design an armor set that nobody is ever going to use? why waste dev resources on that? i just don't get it. just make ofab relevant armor and the ai armor problem pretty much solves itself.

I know Ive said this before.. Im used to not being listened to... But Ive suggested in the past, and when it first came out and everyone was ohhhing and awwing over it ...(I wasnt AS impressed with my 1 HE Enfo set up)...that it would have been better to make the Ofab upgradeable and more customizable armor.

With a simple OFAB armor piece base, and by allowing different clumps with different skill sets to upgrade it to the 2/3 tier level it currently becomes, with in limited reason, ofc...it would seem more useful than some of it currently is.

The clumps would still need to be farmed but if I wanted a 200 Enfo chest as an example. I don't want 2HB...Im 2HE on one, and 1HE on another Enfo I play, and it helps me very little to have a current Enfo Chest on either of them, other than than teh Stamina, which I can get elsewhere.

If it were to be a SEMI-BLANK base piece of OFAB Armor (ACs and/or ability stats), that I have to buy with VP and then be able add or change the skills with clumps it might make it useful to me.

Again, with in reason ofc! You dont want to be able to add a pistol/fling shot type clump to the same piece of armor you just added 2HE to... and obviously there are some issues with it that I never bothered to address... BUT.. instead of "nerfing" AI armors, or making it SOOO easy to get, OR continuing to pay 950M a bot, perhaps the original idea of mixing and matching might be useful in regards to utilizing customizable Ofab instead of ALL AI armor set ups.

Just a thought Ive had for like I dunno.. 4-5 years now when OFAB and LE came out. *shrug*

[Unkfix]

You got WAY Lucky!!!!!! Im so tired of farming my city, I could puke! ONE Supple in the time since the Merge, and well BEFORE that if we're being honest.

When you get another anytime soon, come back and Ill apologize but until then...

Joo

Gotz

LUCKY!

I don't believe it is entirely luck based. Because noone is THAT lucky all the time.
As has been stated in other threads about this topic, there are several factors that play a role in determining your chances to loot lead bots from the gen. Given that I'm always looting on my toons, and you're always looting on your toons and I get alot more bots than you do, I'd say its got more to do with the specific factors than just plain luck. After all, computer science deals with science, not luck.

[Cariadast]

I don't believe it is entirely luck based. Because noone is THAT lucky all the time.
As has been stated in other threads about this topic, there are several factors that play a role in determining your chances to loot lead bots from the gen. Given that I'm always looting on my toons, and you're always looting on your toons and I get alot more bots than you do, I'd say its got more to do with the specific factors than just plain luck. After all, computer science deals with science, not luck.

The vast majority of opposing experiences, facts and statistics to the contrary... would say differently, and if its not.. It STILL goes to the point that bot drops are FUBAR'd in some form or fashion...scientifically speaking n all

[Gorathon]

idea

So, what I'm hearing you say is that - instead of using different leadbots to modify basic armor - you use different clumps to modify OFAB armor. I don't mean merely upgrade, but modify.

And why not have 1HE and +pistol on the same armor piece? It's not like you could wield both at once so the drawbacks would be limited.

This would seem a very elegant solution.

[Cariadast]

So, what I'm hearing you say is that - instead of using different leadbots to modify basic armor - you use different clumps to modify OFAB armor. I don't mean merely upgrade, but modify.

I think the value of AI armor is intended and justified (within reason). Currently I think its ridiculously over valued but do not believe in devaluing it completely. I think ruining its value by using something to modify blank leadbots to obtain a desires type of bot is abhorrent, yes.

While it may not seem it, there is much more work and effort that goes into obtaining any type of leadbots than there is in gaining the VP we use to buy Ofab, and that work should hold a greater value than being able to visit Bazzit and ultimately devalue the effort..

And why not have 1HE and +pistol on the same armor piece? It's not like you could wield both at once so the drawbacks would be limited.

This would seem a very elegant solution.

Mostly because it doesnt address and may even create some serious imbalances and OP issues for classes and individuals. I remember a Keeper who liked to switch, on the fly I might add, from 2He to a bow with aim shot. Adding both to one clump, MAY serious effect the ability of fair play, making it way easier to do this thus causing OP situations, and causing more imbalance to the already out of wack system.

Think of it as creating Armor in the same way we create Imps. Each armor piece would have a pre-set # of slots (say 3-4). So arms might have 4 slots, feet 3, chest 4, head 4, legs 3, gloves 3 that could be filled by single OR combined clusters (Ill touch lightly on that in a sec) and using this system a player could totally modify the original Ofab piece or DESIGN his own armor.

Using this you could customer several or all pieces of Ofab armor and could change out/switch pieces as wanted/needed to fit your needs, play style, etc. And since the player is making it... would have nothing to complain about when he wasnt happy with his own creation. You could mix and match skills by mixing and matching clumps within armor pieces, and armor pieces with in the set, all in staying in the Ofab class of armors if you wanted. I personally LIKE wearing full sets of an armor (Pred, AI, and Ofab as an example), and this way a desired set of skills could be matched in one armor type using just a full set of Ofab OR if you find different and better combos, enhance other pieces of armor like AI.

This is kind of where I stop thinking about it in detail because no one wanted to hear it, but basically we would then have to pick what we wanted in those predetermined number of slots. Such as weapon skills slots, nano skills slots, body skills slots, etc. Not all clumps would have to be a single skill either.

Again, I havent thought TOO far into this at this point yet.

For instance for Speed:

You could choose from say a LE clump ql 200 that Modify Evade-ClsC 80 and Modify Nano resist 20

OR a LE clump ql 200 that Modify Duck-Exp 25, Modify Dodge-Rng 25, Modify Evade-ClsC 25,

OR a LE clump ql 200 that Modify Add All Def. 25 and Add All Off. 25

Weapons:

Then a LE clump ql 200 with Modify Pistol 150

OR a LE clump ql 200 with Modify Pistol 80 and Modify Fling Shot 45

OR A LE clump ql 200 Modify 1HE 130

Or a LE clump ql 200 Modify 1HE 90 and Modify Fast Attack 50

Ive even tinkered wit the idea of being able to combine actual clumps with different, but related skills to get the desired (Pistol/fling shot as an example) sleeve/leg/etc. That way they could have a 3/4 slot armor system similar to the Imps where we just combine the desired clustered with the desired armor piece for the end results. Using this "mix and match, build an armor set" method would hopefully result in a decent self designed armor set up. Again, within reason ofc.

Even if they limited say Speed to feet, and legs, and weapons to armors and chest, that would leave enough room for extra that everyone wants and often finds in a FULL set of AI.

There's still a lot I havent bashed out.. (yesdrop vs Nodrop, remove the Profession requirements?, etc). It was an idea I gave up on long ago, but with not getting any bot drops in so long.. Its been creeping up in my head again..

[Hell]

Getting credits in AO is way easier than it used to be. I personally don't have any problem with paying up to 1b for a piece of AI armor and I cannot say I'm rich, I don't have over 50m most of the time

[Wyoming]

Add a solo APF with a droprate for TL7s. Like, add 'em to some Arid bosses.

[Emergenzee]

Maybe supple wouldn't be so expensive if they actually rebalanced professions like they said they would four years ago and melee had tools to close the gap on ranged profs.

As of today, melee attacks ranged user, ranged user runs and waits for specials to recharge while melee root grafts/preys for lag.

Could this be the reason why supple is so expensive because people keep rolling ranged toons thus the demand for supple becomes much higher than its strong counterpart?

get on your job FC cuz im done with these shenanigans

[Wyoming]

Melee uses CC.
Same price as CSS - ranged have no other option.

[Psikie]

Melee uses CC.
Same price as CSS - ranged have no other option.

.....Scouts, Officers, Paramed maybe?

[Emergenzee]

.....Scouts, Officers, Paramed maybe?

its pretty hard to tell a 220 doctor to use scouts now when they need a full suit of supple to equip their top tier pistols

[ilengineeru]

That does sound like a pretty damn awesome idea. Equipping a character in this game is WAY too tedious by today's MMO market standards. While I agree that part of AO's charm is its old school somewhat hardcore-ness, that's going to lead to nothing but its continued decline. It's not attractive to new people, and there aren't enough vets for long term sustainability (escpecially when considering FC's current condition).

I have been playing on and off since around the end of 2005 and just fired up my 3 paid accounts again with about 300MM creds total. My toons are not rich nor will they ever be and the prices of armor continue to spiral out of control. I was never a hard core player and do not have the chance to collect all the parts for Alien armor. I would love to have a set but with the increased population due to the merge getting a set looks more and more unlikely.

The drop rate for items need to change in a major way or this game will go down the tubes for good. As it stands the water is circling the bowl and we are all hanging on for our lives. I was crushed when SWG was shut down. AO is the last of the old school MMO's and is as much of a one of a kind game now as it was in the beginning. I am not asking FC to dumb down the game just make the drop rates more reasonable.

[ilengineeru]

You can easily do 1bil/week without to much of work now...
For example I have sold some dynaloot nanos for 100-150m piece. And these nanos weren't even that rare, sell db infusers 15-20m piece thats 150-200m for 5 runs.

Please send me a PM and arrange a time to meet me in game so I can learn how to do that first hand. I have been poor way too long.

[Gimpynoob]

Please send me a PM and arrange a time to meet me in game so I can learn how to do that first hand. I have been poor way too long.

Very easy and extremely tedious.

Your first toon will be your crap farmer. For your first year or so farm all kinds of shopfood and sell it in the Miy's shop (Miir). Turn all monster parts into blood plasma, farm PB patterns and pearls from grey mobs till you puke and keep at least a few pieces of basic armor and every nano that is worth anything on GMI. Spend as little as possible as you level. When you reach 220 you continue farming crap all over the place and buy loot rights until you cry.
When you have a toon that can farm Penumbra and ql 250 Dynas and RK missions without problems it becomes time to get serious. Roll 2 more toons, a crat and a doc or enforcer. You spend literally zero monies equipping these toons as you level. Powerlevel the crat by buying a spot on the usual afk powerleveling spots. The second one will be slowly leveled by doing only BS or Notum miner missions, you can reach about level 150 in less then a year still wearing the gear you farmed in Noob island.
The crat will probably reach 220 long before that. Keep farming crap with your first toon to feed endgame gear to it. By your second or 3rd year your crat will have good enough gear that you can finally start to see some endgame far... playfields. Continue working on the 3rd toon, it will become your alternate toon for when there are to many crats in team already.
Now you are set, in a couple more years you can start to powerlevel and equip with endgame gear as many toons as you like without having to play a single one of them or be cool and make PvP toons to take revenge for all the countless times your leveling toons were used to enlarge somebody else's virtual dingaling.

[Gorathon]

I would laugh and mention Steam, except, well....

(and it's Miir shop, fwiw)

[Gimpynoob]

zing...

(and it's Miir shop, fwiw)

Dang it there goes my whole argument

[Psikie]

Very easy and extremely tedious. SNIP

Kinda sad but that is the route many players have taken...although might make correction that in todays game the time tables used in above example should be in weeks and months not years.

[Sempermalus]

The problem is everyone thinks they have to have alien armor. There is absolutely nothing that requires you to own it, and if you absolutely have to have it, join a raidbot, farm points, spend it on supple from s42, bam CC for free.