Discussion of Suggestion Thread

[Awikun]

DEFLECT ???

I think the whole idea behind it is BAD.
You are duplicating a mistake you did with procs.
AO was always a game of skill and twinking and should remain like this because it is unique and a lot of players appreciate it that way.

Introduction of procs was already a bad design because of its randomness. It is bad especially in pvp and duels when outcome of a fight depends on some random factor rather than skill.

Deflect as it is described now it is another random factor which will push AO in the wrong direction of another "game of luck" rather that "game of skill".

[Cyberleet]

For now, we are just doing this for 18.7.

eta on patched btw?

[Psikie]

Is there a reason asp of titaniush does not have nanofocus? I mean you get it with Esa shield anyway? But it allows a more offensive melee posture with dual wielding scepters instead of shields.

[JustinSane4]

Is there a reason asp of titaniush does not have nanofocus? I mean you get it with Esa shield anyway? But it allows a more offensive melee posture with dual wielding scepters instead of shields.

Pretty sure this is intentional unfortunately. Devs don't want nanofocus to be possible when using SoZ.

[lainbr]

Pretty sure this is intentional unfortunately. Devs don't want nanofocus to be possible when using SoZ.

If it is intentional, I dont like it Nerf Dual Asp just because they dont want nanofocus on SoZ is bad.

[Psikie]

Pretty sure this is intentional unfortunately. Devs don't want nanofocus to be possible when using SoZ.

That has to be about retarded...It's not hard to cast nanofocus programs and swap weapon.

I regularly swapped Redfire staff and Zset during combat while soloing depending on how much I was getting hit. I don't see any change in that strategy honestly. Just means Tut scepter in one hand to perk then swap it for +nuke dmg shield while perks recharge. A little extra work but same result.

[Gargle]

Question: Will you hire The Joker from The Dark Knight to come up with new funding for AO?

[Louderer789]

DEFLECT ???

I think the whole idea behind it is BAD.
You are duplicating a mistake you did with procs.
AO was always a game of skill and twinking and should remain like this because it is unique and a lot of players appreciate it that way.

Introduction of procs was already a bad design because of its randomness. It is bad especially in pvp and duels when outcome of a fight depends on some random factor rather than skill.

Deflect as it is described now it is another random factor which will push AO in the wrong direction of another "game of luck" rather that "game of skill".

Why is deflect the end of the world when we already have things like evades, nanoresist, AS multipliers, crit chance that are "luck based"? I don't see why one more stat will effect much. All MMORPGs rely on a combination of skill and luck in combat, AO is no different. I think if you look closely you will find that it's the removal of luck in combat that are the most imbalanced and complained about - Aimshot and sneak attack not missing, Mongo Rage + perkroll, NR debuff + triple, etc.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

@louderer

your sig is the best on forums.

Everytime I see you post, I look at your sig and I stare at it for a while.

I chuckle, click the X in the top right and go back to work.

I'm really happy that AO is still around, despite the plethora of broken promises and billions of missed opportunities for small, meaningful changes/patches the Dev's could have done over the years.

[Traderjill]

Why is deflect the end of the world when we already have things like evades, nanoresist, AS multipliers, crit chance that are "luck based"? I don't see why one more stat will effect much. All MMORPGs rely on a combination of skill and luck in combat, AO is no different. I think if you look closely you will find that it's the removal of luck in combat that are the most imbalanced and complained about - Aimshot and sneak attack not missing, Mongo Rage + perkroll, NR debuff + triple, etc.

I'll just give my opinion from a PvM standpoint. The issues I have with deflect being introduced (in no particular order):

* It is going to make long fights that much longer. We don't need longer PvM fights in AO.. we need fights that are more interesting and are more than tank and spank (think more like DB3 and less like Beast).

* It is 100% luck based without the illusion of any counter. When someone tries to run a hostile nanoprogram on me, it checks against my Nanoresist. I can reduce the chance of a crit landing on me by increasing my critdecrease, etc. Granted there is still a RNG factor but I can make an active choice to raise skills to reduce the chance of something landing. As far as I can tell, deflect doesn't check against anything and I suppose that from a game experience standpoint I don't care for that. I deal with it in other games but AO has always taken a different approach in that our decisions regarding IP expenditure seemed to matter. Deflect takes that away.

* The luck factor is really out of whack and, in some cases, so badly balanced that the feeling of progression is gone. I should be able to log my soldier and annihilate mobs in Nascence (grey) and the fights should become progressively harder as I head north in shadowlands. As it stands now with deflect, that really isn't the case. My full autos seem to be just as crappy in Nascence as they are in inferno. I've killed quite a few mobs with my soldier and I can't seem to calculate any noticeable difference even in the deflect % of mobs as I go from a lower to higher playfield. If I went to Nascence and my full autos were hitting for 15k 100% of the time then in Ely it was 95% then Scheol 90% all the way up to Pande at 70%, I still wouldn't like it but at least it would make some sort of sense. But me missing on Full Auto or hitting for non-15k hits on silvertails in Nascence doesn't make any sense, not even in a fictional online universe.

* Deflect kinda spits in the face of twinking... at least for me. I mean really what's the point? This is a game where we go through major pains for that extra bit of dmg. We do it because we like to see our toons perform at their maximum. Honestly, deflect really has the potential to deflate people's motivation to twink their toons (especially in PvM). Go through a ton of trouble to twink out a full auto toon, at any level, just to watch your gun hit for 1k full auto? Yeah.. no thanks.

I don't think PvM needed deflect. What they could have done is removed all parry/deflect from mobs and made the skill completely irrelevant in PvM (i.e. player hits don't get deflected and mob hits don't get deflected) and then just made deflect a PvP skill. I also wouldn't have minded much if Deflect was some sort of perk, activated when your deflect skill is over X points (sorta like backstab gets activated for shades and advys). That way you can choose when to use the perk/special attack and it becomes part of a larger strategy when playing your toon. Even without a direct counter or skill to check against it would still be more skill based than just luck as you'd have to choose the right time to use it. And yes, I like choices but do we really need another skill to IP at this point? It would've been better off as a perkline (4 to 6 points) or increase IP. I was looking at my 220 enforcer's IP and maybe I can cut a bit off on multi-melee and perhaps a few points off comp lit but it seems like I'm going to have to cut down on weapon skills in order to be able to IP deflect. And that's on a melee toon... it probably won't even be worth the effort to bother with on my ranged.

[Awikun]

200% right Jill, and I love the way you explained it.

[revenant342]

The deflect on even level 5 mobs does seem high, but then again it's capped at a minimum of 5% chance. It seems like more in most cases, though.

Suggestion: Put the low end at 0%, keep the high end (15%) where it is, give mobs a flat %/level except in special cases where they're supposed to have deflect (evades mobs, etc.), and have deflect include an attack rating component.

[Psikie]

I don't mind the idea of deflect...so much as the implementation of it.

There should be some sort of skill check to make it work, not just random auto roll. It should require IP from players because it seems extremely powerful. It should not be inherent ability for all npc/mobs. If it is, the percentage should not be more than 1% per 10 lvls so a 250 ace mob would have 25% deflect while a lvl 300 mob would be 30%. As it seems now a lvl 1 mob has 70-90% deflect!!! That's retarded and makes most soldier want to change from Anger of xan , to dual Rhat'Ata. Does that even sound right? Soldiers primarily using SMG instead of Assault rifle?

Backyard leets should not be able to deflect any 220 soldier's full auto when they can't dodge it!!!

[Tryptophy]

Does that even sound right? Soldiers primarily using SMG instead of Assault rifle?

Beyond RP, given that there is something like 15b difference between the setups means nobody can play a soldier unless they're swimming in cash. As I refuse to buy into the luxury yacht trade of supple armors I would have to retire mine

[orochi3]

Forum admins., please make a thread where everyone can only post 1 issue.

It would give a better representation of what concerns players the most.
Because atm even the most mundane opinion is viewed the same as something that is a serious problem to everyone.

[Tomium]

Forum admins., please make a thread where everyone can only post 1 issue.

It would give a better representation of what concerns players the most.
Because atm even the most mundane opinion is viewed the same as something that is a serious problem to everyone.

Ya know, I think this is the first time I have ever seen someone advocate actually limiting feedback.

The system we have now seems to be working for Michi.

[Caloss2]

I'll just give my opinion from a PvM standpoint. The issues I have with deflect being introduced (in no particular order):

* It is going to make long fights that much longer. We don't need longer PvM fights in AO.. we need fights that are more interesting and are more than tank and spank (think more like DB3 and less like Beast).

* It is 100% luck based without the illusion of any counter. When someone tries to run a hostile nanoprogram on me, it checks against my Nanoresist. I can reduce the chance of a crit landing on me by increasing my critdecrease, etc. Granted there is still a RNG factor but I can make an active choice to raise skills to reduce the chance of something landing. As far as I can tell, deflect doesn't check against anything and I suppose that from a game experience standpoint I don't care for that. I deal with it in other games but AO has always taken a different approach in that our decisions regarding IP expenditure seemed to matter. Deflect takes that away.

* The luck factor is really out of whack and, in some cases, so badly balanced that the feeling of progression is gone. I should be able to log my soldier and annihilate mobs in Nascence (grey) and the fights should become progressively harder as I head north in shadowlands. As it stands now with deflect, that really isn't the case. My full autos seem to be just as crappy in Nascence as they are in inferno. I've killed quite a few mobs with my soldier and I can't seem to calculate any noticeable difference even in the deflect % of mobs as I go from a lower to higher playfield. If I went to Nascence and my full autos were hitting for 15k 100% of the time then in Ely it was 95% then Scheol 90% all the way up to Pande at 70%, I still wouldn't like it but at least it would make some sort of sense. But me missing on Full Auto or hitting for non-15k hits on silvertails in Nascence doesn't make any sense, not even in a fictional online universe.

* Deflect kinda spits in the face of twinking... at least for me. I mean really what's the point? This is a game where we go through major pains for that extra bit of dmg. We do it because we like to see our toons perform at their maximum. Honestly, deflect really has the potential to deflate people's motivation to twink their toons (especially in PvM). Go through a ton of trouble to twink out a full auto toon, at any level, just to watch your gun hit for 1k full auto? Yeah.. no thanks.

I don't think PvM needed deflect. What they could have done is removed all parry/deflect from mobs and made the skill completely irrelevant in PvM (i.e. player hits don't get deflected and mob hits don't get deflected) and then just made deflect a PvP skill. I also wouldn't have minded much if Deflect was some sort of perk, activated when your deflect skill is over X points (sorta like backstab gets activated for shades and advys). That way you can choose when to use the perk/special attack and it becomes part of a larger strategy when playing your toon. Even without a direct counter or skill to check against it would still be more skill based than just luck as you'd have to choose the right time to use it. And yes, I like choices but do we really need another skill to IP at this point? It would've been better off as a perkline (4 to 6 points) or increase IP. I was looking at my 220 enforcer's IP and maybe I can cut a bit off on multi-melee and perhaps a few points off comp lit but it seems like I'm going to have to cut down on weapon skills in order to be able to IP deflect. And that's on a melee toon... it probably won't even be worth the effort to bother with on my ranged.

I agree on every point there Jill and to confirm that last point, I ip'd into deflect on a fixer and it did absolutely nothing but rob ip from other skills, it had next to no effect at all, as it currently is, it's utterly useless for fixer/soldier/keeper even with green deflect skill on the keeper in PVM.

On a positive note Mich is taking in the feed back received and changing things around, but having to remove it or rescale it on mobs was always going to be a nightmare; exactly as I was saying back in February, and when I compared it precisely to the last time parry was enabled.

Though this like so much other feedback has come to light since AUTO was introduced and people where able to test 18.7 seriously, instead of scraping around to 220 the hard way.

[User1337]

Ya know, I think this is the first time I have ever seen someone advocate actually limiting feedback.

The system we have now seems to be working for Michi.

I would take that guy's idea and shift it a little bit. Instead of limiting people to one opinion, simply add +/likes to posts. I made that recomendation a while ago, and I'm 99,9% sure I'm not the only one to have done it.

And also, I know it's not FC's property, but perhaps you could have the vBulletin people change that for you guys. I'm sure they, and the rest of their clients, would benefit from this.

Another option would be to have a faster way to do the "what would you like" threads, but have user's opinions be voted by other users (us, that is).

[Tomium]

I would take that guy's idea and shift it a little bit. Instead of limiting people to one opinion, simply add +/likes to posts. I made that recomendation a while ago, and I'm 99,9% sure I'm not the only one to have done it.

And also, I know it's not FC's property, but perhaps you could have the vBulletin people change that for you guys. I'm sure they, and the rest of their clients, would benefit from this.

Another option would be to have a faster way to do the "what would you like" threads, but have user's opinions be voted by other users (us, that is).

Sorry to get back to you so late (Had a big ole Expo to work)-

Yes, these are all things we have considered. For the moment- this is how Michi wants it. What the Mich' wants, the Mich' gets.

[Psikie]

After doing several testing sessions I can say deflect is not as bad as I thought it would be. I saw a good portion of attacks deflected by my keeper and MP on test. (Inf dynas, inf hecks, Albratum, and IS testing) Yes it will make fights longer in pvm but especially pvp which imo is a good thing. Pvp will be more about long term strategy in a fight as opposed to MR hotkey perk chains fling, AS alpha.

Meep I disagree that it should be flagged not in combat. That's is the whole point of emergency escape derp derp. If you want to put a cooldown on it fine, but a better option might be just not usable while pvp flagged. So u can use it to emergency escape pvm battles but not while flagged.