Monthly Development Update - September 2014

[doctorgore]

Well that thing about raids is on another plate opposed to your arguing about gaunt, collector and db3 and from my point of view I can only say it would be disastrous if every class would be able to handle the same things since it would bring AO a lot closer to wow. Class diversity is actually something really great and should be kept if not extended. On your argument it would be nice if class diversity was needed for raiding since that would really open up the field for every class to be of a greater use than to just be healer or dd...

wow has 15m players for me to team with ao has none. I can get a team in wow in under 5 minutes for almost anything in ao its 7hrs to eternity. All the class diversity isn't going to do a thing to help. If wow can handle it and fc can't it just shows you funcom is trash. MMOs operate on the trinity/quad principle maybe except for EVE. Going against that creates the situation we have in ao. Its liek saying to someone you own a car that only has two wheels like a bike its one of a kind and unique. A friend asks you on holiday and you tell him you can't go over 5 mph or it will flip over and kill him.. It can't do the needed task of getting from a to b quickly. Its unique and diverse and a piece of trash....

[Pafpuf]

Well that thing about raids is on another plate opposed to your arguing about gaunt, collector and db3 and from my point of view I can only say it would be disastrous if every class would be able to handle the same things since it would bring AO a lot closer to wow. Class diversity is actually something really great and should be kept if not extended. On your argument it would be nice if class diversity was needed for raiding since that would really open up the field for every class to be of a greater use than to just be healer or dd...

Err, what's wrong with being just a healer or dd ? You draw comparisons to WoW, despite having a few classes fulfill the same role they're not at all similar in design nor gameplay, in fact they're pretty diverse.

[Iorekzix]

No, those are just the problems you read about on the forums and they're actually balance issues and not general pvp problems.

The real problems with pvp are:
1.) There's no incentive to pvp because there are no rewards -at all-
2.) Heavily uneven numbers in absolutely every encounter and no mechanic that ensures a fairer fight
3.) Notum wars, tarasque and battlestation all have terrible and very outdated design

These are global problems that affect everyone, unlike AS pistols, mongo rage etc. which are problems in their own right but on a smaller (profession/breed/level specific) scale. Just like it is with pvm, people need motivation to pvp and there's no better motivation than being rewarded for your efforts. Anyone who disagrees with me for the sake of argument imagine if all XP and item rewards were removed from pvm encounters; how often would anyone do any pvm content in this game? For most it would be between "never" and "ok I'll try it once" and that's exactly how it is with pvp in AO. For those of us who prefer pvp to pvm this game doesn't offer anything; by strictly pvping you can't even self-sustain a single character (considering the price of heal stims and kits), let alone improve it in any way or build new ones. This is a huge fundamental game design flaw.

I sure have to disagree on this one since PvP was never designed to reward you in the same extent as PvM does. It is much more something you can do after you have geared for battle via the PvM.
As of AOs PvP rewards there are some for it that you can not gain via PvM such as Titles, Towerfields, Armor.
To me personally the NW tower wars has always been very entertaining and if it would not have been destroyed by MB it would still be fun to do!
You actually get very nice rewards from NW especially since it is something you really need o care about not just once but over time.
I do agree though, that some kind of balance in it would be nice and deffo wouldn't say no to some more NW improvements on the tower stuff.
Tara has been kinda balanced after the server merge and I remember having great fun with the battle that both sides -clan and omni - won from time to time. Just it was discontinued as soon as one side was winning instead of gathering more folks. So I am pretty sure there is sufficient reward for PvP as long as both sides have the will to make it happen!
BS is been a mix ever since I know it and maybe it would be possible to separate 220s from 215-219 and maybe do such things for other TLs but since I don't play them I can't state on them...

[Iorekzix]

Err, what's wrong with being just a healer or dd ? You draw comparisons to WoW, despite having a few classes fulfill the same role they're not at all similar in design nor gameplay, in fact they're pretty diverse.

Personally I strongly dislike the way WoW has gone in terms of class design when making them all similar in the roles they fulfill since it has made the game boring to me. I like diversity in roles over the possibility of every class being able to do anything really.

On the topic of car with two wheels you prolly got me wrong! I didn't mean to say classes should stay as they are. They might need changes a lot and since long time but I would still keep the unique stuff every class has to offer and make it count more in raids if any change would be needed.

If you waste 7 hrs of waiting for a raid I don't understand that since the raids really do not take too much to start! Iraid might not be a good example here since they are made to carry many people along but if you have some friends or a good org raiding really isn't anything to worry about much!

[Traderjill]

in ao its 7hrs to eternity.

What time do you usually play the game?

[Pafpuf]

I sure have to disagree on this one since PvP was never designed to reward you in the same extent as PvM does. It is much more something you can do after you have geared for battle via the PvM.
As of AOs PvP rewards there are some for it that you can not gain via PvM such as Titles, Towerfields, Armor.
To me personally the NW tower wars has always been very entertaining and if it would not have been destroyed by MB it would still be fun to do!
You actually get very nice rewards from NW especially since it is something you really need o care about not just once but over time.
I do agree though, that some kind of balance in it would be nice and deffo wouldn't say no to some more NW improvements on the tower stuff.
Tara has been kinda balanced after the server merge and I remember having great fun with the battle that both sides -clan and omni - won from time to time. Just it was discontinued as soon as one side was winning instead of gathering more folks. So I am pretty sure there is sufficient reward for PvP as long as both sides have the will to make it happen!
BS is been a mix ever since I know it and maybe it would be possible to separate 220s from 215-219 and maybe do such things for other TLs but since I don't play them I can't state on them...

Okay seems to me like you don't understand the concept of video game design at all. They are supposed to attract players, and the more players they manage to attract the better off the game company and the game itself will be. Your opinion of unrewarding PvP as a normal thing is highly illogical and damaging to any game since pvpers are, believe it or not, a majority of the gaming playerbase. They're just not in AO for reasons I previously listed. You're right, pvp was never designed to reward in AO, which like I said is a huge design flaw. AO is a game that supports pvp but only to the point of being able to attack other players which as result makes pvp very stale for most people. Lack of motivation leads to lack of participation. Even from a roleplaying perspective AO's story line is a conflict of two sides, not an endless pvm grind. What kind of players do you think a storyline like that will attract the most? What do you think any pvper will do when they realize that pvp in this game is completely unrewarding, unbalanced and as of a few years back an actual rare occurrence and that the pvm grind just never ends ? That you have to do the same boring raid, boss, same instance for the thousandth time just to support your pvp habits? That's right, they'll quit without giving it a second thought because there's lots of mmos out there that actually support those players' preferences.

I knew someone would fall for the obvious trap of calling titles and towers rewards. They're not. Titles are absolutely meaningless as they're just a grind, a stupidly scaling one at that and only matter to the biggest of narcissists. You can't do anything with a title. Towers provide bonuses only to those who actually plant them and the space is very limited, even with today's low playerbase. One could do NW for hours, days, even years without ever getting to have a tower, even if you do it's an imbalanced bonus since one side has it and the other doesn't even stand a chance of getting them. They would make sense if everyone had the opportunity to benefit from them, if they changed sides on a regular basis not once a year, two or three. It's clear you don't know what you're talking about because if you did you would have mentioned org contracts instead of titles or towers because they affect more people but even then they don't affect everyone involved. No you do not get any rewards from NW, you only get small temporary buffs, if even that.

On the point of tara being "kinda balanced", I have to say that's a pretty ridiculous statement considering how rare contested tara spawns are. If it was truly balanced don't you think people from both sides would care to participate more often ? And not just for the promise of bot points ?

Battlestations were the closest thing to good pvp this game had to offer. Upon release they were hugely popular to the point of being epic regardless of unbelievable design flaws like spawncamping, cooncapping, teleporters etc. It ran 24/7 and during primetime you'd have to wait through 3 rounds just to get in through the queue. That was because of the reward factor that I previously mentioned, one you disagreed on with me right off the bat. Ofab armors and weapons were popular, some more some less, motivating people to participate. Problem is the amount of loot victory points provide is just a drop in the ocean that is itemization of a character in AO, coupled with the factor of time and the stores never being updated (except for a few cheap nanos), and the ability to trade once nodrop items means there is no more incentive to go to battlestations. That's why they're dead nowadays.
What's especially funny is that funcom are reverting the 3x bs daily because they also think that will revive battlestations. No it will not, furthermore it's a cruel joke that what's supposed to be a pvp zone is reduced to a "gonna do something else while I wait for this bs round to end for my 3x capped xp reward" afk mode leveling field (exactly the same as sitting at ely kite hill) with little to no actual pvp.

[Cyberleet]

I don't understand why Tara don't kick players out when it is not enough players for a fight. They should try get this raid to work too.

[Traderjill]

I don't understand why Tara don't kick players out when it is not enough players for a fight. They should try get this raid to work too.

They could try it but it wouldn't work. People would just log opposite sided alts.

[Iorekzix]

Okay seems to me like you don't understand the concept of video game design at all. They are supposed to attract players, and the more players they manage to attract the better off the game company and the game itself will be. Your opinion of unrewarding PvP as a normal thing is highly illogical and damaging to any game since pvpers are, believe it or not, a majority of the gaming playerbase. They're just not in AO for reasons I previously listed. You're right, pvp was never designed to reward in AO, which like I said is a huge design flaw. AO is a game that supports pvp but only to the point of being able to attack other players which as result makes pvp very stale for most people. Lack of motivation leads to lack of participation. Even from a roleplaying perspective AO's story line is a conflict of two sides, not an endless pvm grind. What kind of players do you think a storyline like that will attract the most? What do you think any pvper will do when they realize that pvp in this game is completely unrewarding, unbalanced and as of a few years back an actual rare occurrence and that the pvm grind just never ends ? That you have to do the same boring raid, boss, same instance for the thousandth time just to support your pvp habits? That's right, they'll quit without giving it a second thought because there's lots of mmos out there that actually support those players' preferences.

I knew someone would fall for the obvious trap of calling titles and towers rewards. They're not. Titles are absolutely meaningless as they're just a grind, a stupidly scaling one at that and only matter to the biggest of narcissists. You can't do anything with a title. Towers provide bonuses only to those who actually plant them and the space is very limited, even with today's low playerbase. One could do NW for hours, days, even years without ever getting to have a tower, even if you do it's an imbalanced bonus since one side has it and the other doesn't even stand a chance of getting them. They would make sense if everyone had the opportunity to benefit from them, if they changed sides on a regular basis not once a year, two or three. It's clear you don't know what you're talking about because if you did you would have mentioned org contracts instead of titles or towers because they affect more people but even then they don't affect everyone involved. No you do not get any rewards from NW, you only get small temporary buffs, if even that.

On the point of tara being "kinda balanced", I have to say that's a pretty ridiculous statement considering how rare contested tara spawns are. If it was truly balanced don't you think people from both sides would care to participate more often ? And not just for the promise of bot points ?

Battlestations were the closest thing to good pvp this game had to offer. Upon release they were hugely popular to the point of being epic regardless of unbelievable design flaws like spawncamping, cooncapping, teleporters etc. It ran 24/7 and during primetime you'd have to wait through 3 rounds just to get in through the queue. That was because of the reward factor that I previously mentioned, one you disagreed on with me right off the bat. Ofab armors and weapons were popular, some more some less, motivating people to participate. Problem is the amount of loot victory points provide is just a drop in the ocean that is itemization of a character in AO, coupled with the factor of time and the stores never being updated (except for a few cheap nanos), and the ability to trade once nodrop items means there is no more incentive to go to battlestations. That's why they're dead nowadays.
What's especially funny is that funcom are reverting the 3x bs daily because they also think that will revive battlestations. No it will not, furthermore it's a cruel joke that what's supposed to be a pvp zone is reduced to a "gonna do something else while I wait for this bs round to end for my 3x capped xp reward" afk mode leveling field (exactly the same as sitting at ely kite hill) with little to no actual pvp.

Well... Seems like this convo is gonna go on for a while

I would call myself rather experienced in video games and especially in mmo(RPGs) as I could prolly say I have played most of them over the past 15 years. I have played some for long and some just short if they did not satisfy me.
Bringing up the reward system -personally- I don't think you need one neither does it improve the PvP on other games. Let's take WoW for example since it is the most known Game to others reading this as I assume. You got a reward system in which you have to farm points to be able to get hands on specially designed PvP gear and the real PvP players complain a lot about it as it really is boring as hell but required to do since you can not participate in competitive PvP if you don't match the gear. So it's just another grind that you do instead of PvE grind. Also in wow the goal for PvP players is rating in arenas and rated battlegrounds and surprisingly they do not have real rewards aside from titles that you earn. And before you step up to tell me I forgot something -like you did with the contracts- I will say: yes you get a mount for gladiator and one for rated battlegrounds won as well as some item skins. That's about it.

So what I am mainly trying to say is that rewards like you seem to think of would not improve your PvP experience in AO. Maybe it would make more people join BS or whatever PvP content would offer them, but those would not be the kind of PvP players you seem to miss.

On the Tara theme I would like to point out that I said it was kinda balanced around server merge and to point it out even further it was for a few weeks after merge and was a ****load of fun. It was discontinued due to one side stopping to contest it - even though it was not one sided.

BS is something I honestly can't say much about as it took me a very long time to even get kinda close to PvP in AO wich I would say is because of the complexity of this game. But with all the flaws it has I do like the PvP and would love to see it getting improved in terms of balance in class, NW and stuff like Tara but I do disagree with you on the rewards still

[Pafpuf]

Well... Seems like this convo is gonna go on for a while

I would call myself rather experienced in video games and especially in mmo(RPGs) as I could prolly say I have played most of them over the past 15 years. I have played some for long and some just short if they did not satisfy me.
Bringing up the reward system -personally- I don't think you need one neither does it improve the PvP on other games. Let's take WoW for example since it is the most known Game to others reading this as I assume. You got a reward system in which you have to farm points to be able to get hands on specially designed PvP gear and the real PvP players complain a lot about it as it really is boring as hell but required to do since you can not participate in competitive PvP if you don't match the gear. So it's just another grind that you do instead of PvE grind. Also in wow the goal for PvP players is rating in arenas and rated battlegrounds and surprisingly they do not have real rewards aside from titles that you earn. And before you step up to tell me I forgot something -like you did with the contracts- I will say: yes you get a mount for gladiator and one for rated battlegrounds won as well as some item skins. That's about it.

Exactly, you have to grind pvp armor via pvping. That's the idea. The armor is a reward. Then you move onto arenas and rated bgs. The rating is also a reward as it grants you the possibility to team with better players and fight better players > it's a pvp oriented goal that's achieved only through pvp and nothing else and nurtures the player's desire to improve.

AO on the other hand has none of that. Battlestations are 25% gas afk leveling areas. Notum wars are the most ridiculous pvp concept I've seen in any mmo, most of the time you either attack a defenseless base (which is practically nothing other than mindnumbing pvm) or you wait until the defending side has enough players to run you over or make you meep.

So what I am mainly trying to say is that rewards like you seem to think of would not improve your PvP experience in AO. Maybe it would make more people join BS or whatever PvP content would offer them, but those would not be the kind of PvP players you seem to miss.

What makes you think they would not improve my pvp experience? I mean have you even read my paragraph about battlestations and why they were popular? It's a solid example of why what I'm suggesting is 100% correct. They failed over time because funcom fails at properly keeping this game up to date. What kind of people do you think I seem to miss other than the ones who quit in mass over the years because of stale game design?

On the Tara theme I would like to point out that I said it was kinda balanced around server merge and to point it out even further it was for a few weeks after merge and was a ****load of fun. It was discontinued due to one side stopping to contest it - even though it was not one sided.

You're confusing the terms balanced and active. It was never balanced, far from it because of poor area design (ridiculously tiny choke points), no number limit meaning one side could and often did heavily outnumber the other, the fact that one side spawned right outside while the other had a 10 times longer trip, and a harmless mob that dies in 5 seconds and drops 3 froob items that froobs can only dream of acquiring.

BS is something I honestly can't say much about as it took me a very long time to even get kinda close to PvP in AO wich I would say is because of the complexity of this game. But with all the flaws it has I do like the PvP and would love to see it getting improved in terms of balance in class, NW and stuff like Tara but I do disagree with you on the rewards still

You seem unable to grasp the fact that people will refuse to repeatedly participate in an activity unless they're properly motivated to do so. Few people have the tenacity to repeatedly do the same thing with no goal other than their own personal satisfaction, those who do are most likely subject to some form of autism disorder.

Thing is you are unable to see the big picture and think unrelated little things can fix big, fundamental problems. Your roof is leaking and your tooth hurts, will going to the dentist stop your roof from leaking ? No it won't, just like "balancing stuff" won't fix the fundamental errors AO has, such as properly motivating people to participate in repetitive content. Reward is the prime motivator in everything we do in our lives, not just video games, and taking that into consideration I can't help but wonder how on earth can you claim that rewarding people wouldn't help in overall activity. Your claim is both against logic and against human nature. It just makes no sense whatsoever.

[Xootch]

take it easy, paf. you make it sound like there was never any fun at towers or tara or on the stations. after all he's just a claner that - judged by his signature - presumably bows to girls. so reveal yourself!

[Traderjill]

take it easy, paf. you make it sound like there was never any fun at towers or tara or on the stations. after all he's just a claner that - judged by his signature - presumably bows to girls. so reveal yourself!

"Why are you Spartan women the only ones who can rule men?"
"Because we are also the only ones who give birth to men."

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Paf has a good point and it's the same point I repeatedly make:

There's no game without sufficient incentive.

If at any time you log in, you look at your toon(s) and you think to yourself "what do I feel like doing"

and the answer 99/100 is what you FEEL LIKE.

So, the obvious logic states, what activities make you WANT to do them?

Simply, those with the best incentives.

If your toon has BoC, and beast weaps, stellar star and whatever, do you think: "gee I feel like beast today" - you might, but if you NEEDED beast weaps and BoC, you will be far more inclined.

In contrast, if you have already completed your three BS dailies, and you're in levelling gear and don't really enjoy doing BS and you don't need Ofab/VP, you might go sign up for BS, but there's a FAR greater probability that you'll do something else.

Incentives are all there are, in life, in game, everywhere, period. Incentives are what keep us at/force us out of work, what keep us from/lead us to cheating on our partners, and what stop us from buying/incline us to buy a round of shots of tequila at 5 minutes before closing time. The incentives are obvious, pervasive and completely real. If there are insufficient incentives, you WILL do something else, and that includes turning off AO to watch TV, ring your GF, or go outside.

So, until BS, NW or will to fight or Tir/Omni arena have some better incentives.... they will stay as empty as they have been recently.

And just to pre-empt the pedantic whiners, yes, FUN is a sufficient incentive for a whole host of activities.

[Iorekzix]

take it easy, paf. you make it sound like there was never any fun at towers or tara or on the stations. after all he's just a claner that - judged by his signature - presumably bows to girls. so reveal yourself!

thanks for pointing out that there has been fun times! also you made me smile

what i was trying to explain to paf was not the fact, that i though AO's pvp was balanced or whatsoever but rather that i feel the "big change" is not to be about this game. if the pvp that has been entertaining for 13 years more or less now disappoints you there might be changes, that would help in terms of going to the dentist but the whole big system is not gonna be changed. and again from my point of view i dont see why BS with people hunting for some armor would be more fun than BS with people enjoying to measure eachother.

Paf has a good point and it's the same point I repeatedly make:

There's no game without sufficient incentive.

If at any time you log in, you look at your toon(s) and you think to yourself "what do I feel like doing"

and the answer 99/100 is what you FEEL LIKE.

So, the obvious logic states, what activities make you WANT to do them?

Simply, those with the best incentives.

If your toon has BoC, and beast weaps, stellar star and whatever, do you think: "gee I feel like beast today" - you might, but if you NEEDED beast weaps and BoC, you will be far more inclined.

In contrast, if you have already completed your three BS dailies, and you're in levelling gear and don't really enjoy doing BS and you don't need Ofab/VP, you might go sign up for BS, but there's a FAR greater probability that you'll do something else.

Incentives are all there are, in life, in game, everywhere, period. Incentives are what keep us at/force us out of work, what keep us from/lead us to cheating on our partners, and what stop us from buying/incline us to buy a round of shots of tequila at 5 minutes before closing time. The incentives are obvious, pervasive and completely real. If there are insufficient incentives, you WILL do something else, and that includes turning off AO to watch TV, ring your GF, or go outside.

So, until BS, NW or will to fight or Tir/Omni arena have some better incentives.... they will stay as empty as they have been recently.

And just to pre-empt the pedantic whiners, yes, FUN is a sufficient incentive for a whole host of activities.

this is the point i was trying to make before. to me it is not about the rewards the pvp gives to you in terms of gear - and even if you would like it to be - it isnt in wow. people that really want to pvp move to the turnament server where you just shop the gear that you would usually grind yourself with battlegrounds or arenas.
the rating point is something that i do accept to count in terms of measuring yourself with petter players but you could as well do this with duels in AO. I dont want to say, it is even close to wow's arenas where you can do 2v2 3v3 5v5 but yet you could have something like that implemented into AO... i did see that proposal beeing made long time ago.

the fact is that you would like to whole pvp system changed whereas AO is struggeling to move at all so why wouldnt small things that are realistic to happen encourage you to go on instead of asking for a trip to the moon?

there is a lot of people that enjoy the pvp as it is because they are aware of the pace in wich things change in AO and you stand there telling us it was unenjoyable as it is... thats false. but there is a lot of room for improvement - on the first and most importand step: playerbase.

[EmperorOfMAnkind]

how much reward will these new inf missions will give exactly? i think you should take a look at research caps too while you are at it..

[Pafpuf]

what i was trying to explain to paf was not the fact, that i though AO's pvp was balanced or whatsoever but rather that i feel the "big change" is not to be about this game. if the pvp that has been entertaining for 13 years more or less now disappoints you there might be changes, that would help in terms of going to the dentist but the whole big system is not gonna be changed. and again from my point of view i dont see why BS with people hunting for some armor would be more fun than BS with people enjoying to measure eachother.

BS is about "people enjoying to measure eachother" right now and has been for some time now, how well is that working out ? Give people a reason to go there and they will, I can't believe that such a simple concept is so difficult for you to comprehend and that you keep thinking people pvp with no goal set. They do, problem is in AO there's no beneficial goal to pvping at all that's why pvp in AO is in complete shambles. Balance isn't the problem, anyone can roll a stronger profession and play it if they really wanted to.

As for pvp being entertaining, endgame pvp right now consists of maybe 20 people on each side and at least half of the ones I fight against are notorious aomh cheaters/bug exploiters. Oh how entertaining it had to be to degenerate to that level, although I'm sure you'll disagree with me again and claim it's all hunky-dory.

[Freor]

Rewards and incentives are all good and would likely help to bring NW back, but not without fixing boxing first. And at lower levels the level ranges as well. People can't exactly enjoy pvp much if they (or their field) just get instaganked by a boxer or 207 attacking tl5.

[Chewy1]

Love the changes so far Michi! It would be nice for rk missions to give better xp though.

[Redtricks]

If memory serves me correctly AO is what's called a mmoRPG. Get that RPG- ROLE PLAYING GAME. Not Tank battles or Call of duty which are primarily pvp games. This is a ROLE PLAYING GAME. In fact pvp was an after thought of the ROLE PLAYING STORYLINE of AO. Notum Wars came way after release, and while different devs have tried to make AO more pvp friendly and accessible AO is not primarily a pvp game. Therefore progression is NOT pvp based it is pvm based to follow along the RPG storyline.

This.

I like your way of thinking, yes I do. The storyline of AO and -- if you read up on AO's development it was always about crafting a really huge sandbox with a lot of lore and NPCs that are actually interesting. Sure there are mistakes, but personally, I fell in love with the atmosphere of Rubi-Ka instead of being ubar in PvM or PvP.

[Cyberleet]

Giving back 3x-dailies might work but isn't the best fix. Adding vp-points to itemshop is selling power and it makes battlestation less populated. Whats best is to add more pvm-phatz to vp-shop and more vp-unique stuff to pvm. Pvp start-up gear would also be good.

If memory serves me correctly AO is what's called a mmoRPG. Get that RPG- ROLE PLAYING GAME. Not Tank battles or Call of duty which are primarily pvp games. This is a ROLE PLAYING GAME. In fact pvp was an after thought of the ROLE PLAYING STORYLINE of AO. Notum Wars came way after release, and while different devs have tried to make AO more pvp friendly and accessible AO is not primarily a pvp game. Therefore progression is NOT pvp based it is pvm based to follow along the RPG storyline.

PvP been as much an integral part of AO as pvm since beta. Thats a fact that will remain. If a player aid his own side and attack the opposing side in pvp than that is indeed adhering to the storyline-aspect of the game. IE, roleplaying.

Love the changes so far Michi! It would be nice for rk missions to give better xp though.

or make new ones w upgraded lootfolders