testlive changes

[gresh]

Meta-Physicist:

Reduced the ferocity of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 Rihwen
Tier 3 Rihwen has some natural root/snare resistance


Engineer:

Beacon Warp & Team Beacon Warps have slower execution casting time


OK so more changes catering to pvp. why even bother giving mp any changes in the first place only to take them away again. MP's were the gimpest profession for the longest time and after a short time of enjoying what other professions enjoyed (being finally able to solo some stuffs) you take it away. Why not just replace their pets for a chair so they can sit the game out?

I thought the changes that happened in the first rebalance effort were the first bout of changes that was to be followed by other changes to the other professions? It seems you just gave to take away?

There are more in the game that needs change.

Beacon warp and team beacon warp being extended again? they better not be longer than their original cast time.

Instead of changing many million pointless brainlerss changes.. just ban multiboxing in the way of addinga notice to teh eula stating that if anyone does it, they will get banned.

[Baby]

Reading about the MP Pets is a real bummer. I mean... really? Both Tiers weren't OP or close to OP at all, so reducing their performance is... meh.
*puts her MP back into the box*

[nanoforcer]

We need to know more about what kind of nerfs there are for the Rihwen, is it actual damage? (T1-T2)
speeds of his weapons?
AR ?
What what? A rip of testlive might give us some details. i can see some changes by doing /tell ttst !newitems but nothing in detail regarding this.

It's prolly these that are affected:
ID: 302261, QL: 1, Equip_Rihwen_SL_Punch
ID: 302264, QL: 1, Equip_Rihwen_SL_Lswing
ID: 302267, QL: 1, Equip_Rihwen_SL_Kick
ID: 302270, QL: 1, Equip_Rihwen_SL_Upcut
ID: 302273, QL: 1, Equip_Rihwen_SL_2punch
Added root/snare resistance (for T3) but no idea if it affects T1-T2 in any way or if those are separate weapons for T3 only.

[gresh]

After a month of working hard on the new game, Henry "michizure" Senger sits in his moderately comfortable high backed padded executive chair with his elbows resting on his desk. His hands palm to palm, in front of his face. His chin resting on his thumbs as his index fingers gently brush his lips as the tips of his fingers bounce off each other in a persistent drumming motion. He doesn’t even notice the pitter patter of the rain drops beating against the window. Lost in thought. "Ive done it again" The words escape from his lips. The words muttering out between his palms. Henry thinks to him self, back past the last month, thinking of all the excitement that’s been buzzing around his head with the prospect of being able to work on a new game. Through out the month, at the back of his mind, he’s had the thoughts flutter past momentarily. Leaving fleeting impressions on his otherwise preoccupied mind. "I better work towards the other titles, at least a little before the months out." he’s often said to himself. Quite often following such thoughts with "There’s still plenty of time, I’ll get something done." finishing off with thoughts such as "I'm the man", Thinking of the justifications he’s told himself over the month. "they are a gullible sad lot", "They will be a bit mad but they're used to it by now", "Who cares, if they were going leave, they’d of left long ago".

Michi lets out a little cough to try and clear his throat, not noticing the dark gloomy skies unleashing the torrent of rain water outside. He shifts his weight in his chair. Wishing slightly that he had just given the time to do a little work. "It wouldn’t of taken that long to do something, anything." ... Contemplating his options, michi wiggles his mouse and his computer screen sparks to life as it comes out of power-save. He loads up the browser and punches in the first few letters of the word forums and as the auto fill fills in the rest of the address, michi hits the enter key. As the forums load he absent mindedly picks up his cup of coffee and raises it to his lips and pours in a mouthful. Grimacing as the long ago cooled liquid hits the back of his throat, he winces as he swallows. As he places his cup back down, he extends himself to put it out of immediate reach to avoid a repeat of the cold aggy, unpleasant experience. As his focus returned to the matter at hand, Michi becomes aware that the distraction of the awful taste of the cold coffee was a welcomed break from the building dis-comfort he was feeling at the thought of facing the AO fan-base he had allowed himself to neglect, again, like so many others before him. "OK focus, what have I said I was doing" He mutters to himself as he pulls up his latest Monthly Update navigating to it directly to avoid accidentally falling across the previous months update which offers page after page of disgruntled fans complaining at the lateness of the then missing post. As the latest monthly update loads, Michi's heart sinks at the initial sight of the amount of words on the page. "Oh no, how am I ever going to accomplish all this". Michi shakes his head and corrects his thoughts. The small voice of his mother when he was young rises from within him "Think positively my sweet child, Negative thinking produces negative results". Stirred by the memory of long ago, Henry reads the monthly post he made.

Henry Senger scans over the post scouting for what changes he had actually promised and for the date he said he would release the next update and feels a surge of hope as he realises how vague he actually was. “I’m quite actually a genius” he smiles to himself as he starts to feel renewed strength in the task ahead. “OK, Lets see. Well I’m pretty sure there has been some people on the forums unhappy with agents, yeah I’m sure I’ve read something like that. Completely unaware of the lightening flashes momentarily illuminating the view outside his window. If Only I could remember what it was…” Michi raises his hands from the keyboard and rubs his temples as he tries to think back. Half wondering whether he should brave the shark infested waters of the forums to see if he can find something that he can change that might please at least some when it strikes him. “of-course”, “perks, they don’t like perks...” he cries aloud. “No wait it wasn’t that, what was it, something to do with perks”. His elbows back on the table, the fist of one hand in the palm of the other, resting his head, almost like a table for his chin. Michi staring at his monitor, past his monitor as if he can see straight through it, almost willing it to display the recesses of his mind. “Defensive checks!” He utters triumphantly. Feeling elated he says out loud “I don’t even know what I was worried about, This wont take long at all” a smile creeping on his lips as he toys with the possibility of leaving his office quite soon to go home and load up his beloved WoW profile. Michi shakes his head as he clears his mind and resumes to the task at hand muttering to himself “No, not yet. There is still more to do.” He looks back at the monthly update to rescan his words with a hope to gain some insight into what other small changes he can do in a short space of time to pack it out and make it seem like he’s spent more than the last 10 minutes of the month on AO. “Hmmm, Wasn’t something said about Engineers, something about their warps… Didnt somebody say we should stop them or … no .. hmmm.. Well I guess I could just lengthen the cast time… It isn’t really something that will look like a lot of work but it will be an extra change and if it ever comes up I can just say that I carefully considered it and it took a looong time to consider”.

Henry, feeling better already, considers what other changes might be best. “should I give or should I take, give, take, give, take…” Michi fires up the AO EULA wondering which prof he can change next. Aware that balance changes can be catastrophic if made without any real planning he apprehensively considers which profession to make the next change on. “I’ll be shark meat on those forums if I mess this up. I better be careful” he says absent-mindedly. He glances up at the window. Noticing for the first time the wet beads of water running down the pane. “Oh look, its raining.” He says with annoyance as the realization dawns on him of him getting wet as he makes his way to his car at the end of the day. Michi turns his attention back to his screen and accepts the EULA, he watches the familiar bar flash across his screen as it checks for integrity. “Integrity… hmmm, I used to know what that was”, he chuckles as the AO client flashes into view. He hits the play button and punches in his user-name and password and clicks the Log in button to load the character selection screen and chooses “new character”. He hits the escape key on his keyboard to skip the video he had seen a thousand times before and quickly just accepted the defaults on the character model and then sat there for a long while and just looked at the selection of professions. Starting at the top of the list, he stared at each profession in turn. “Hmmm” He works his way from the bottom, back up to the top. “Which one can I change”. Feeling a bit frustrated he closes his eyes. He can still see the list in-front of him in his minds eye. Behind his eyelids his eyes scan the list back down from the top and then up from the bottom. “How can I select something just off the top of my head” A thought starts to circulate round his mind, almost circling round the vertical list of profession titles before him. Michi raises his hand curls his fingers into a fist except his index finger, leaving it extruding out into a point. He guesses to where abouts the list is on the screen and jabs it out pushing the extended tip firmly onto the screen. “whichever profession gets hit is the prof that gets the change” he says defiantly as he opens his eyes.

Michi stares at his selection. His still extended finger pressing firmly into the screen. So firm that the finger is bending with the strain the colour draining at the knuckles and tip. The Liquid crystals wavering and rippling around the tip of the finger on the screen almost like a stone landing in a puddle. Regrettably Michi Lowers his finger. “Ive only just blessed the MP with much needed changes.” he says with annoyance. “Oh well, I am a man of my word” he begrudgingly sets his mind on changing the MP. “Well I cant bless them any more so at least the give/take dilemma is out of the way but what can I take from them???” he asks himself. Michi glances back outside the window. “Wow, that weather is torrential, I wish it was less ravenous, I am going to take a beating… Less… Ravenous… Hmmm.. Eureka!” He screams with delight. “There have been people moaning at the small difference between the top two tiers”, “I guess I could always tone down the lower 2 tiers” “The Metaphysacist community are the most Hardy of the lot, they put up with being a defenceless slug in a fighting bit of wild beasts for many years, even with a toned down pet, they should still be grateful”. “I” “AM” “THE” “MAN” Henry Exclaims as he shuts down his computer and bounds out of his office with World of War craft on his mind.

[Discipline]

Wow, aren't you an i***t.

[gresh]

Wow, I cant even tell what you're trying to say but it looks terribly off topic.

Dare I say a troll in the midst?

[Literary]

Interesting effort. Pretty good even but did you run into the ebil 24000 ( or whatever it is) characters per post limit? I know that makes it tough for formatting.

[immortalis]

finally a good reason to achieve the ability to cast the T3 rihwen.. as for now only the 7%~ what improvement from T2 to T3 wasn't reason enough to try to get T3 rihwen at all. I like that change.

[Raelil]

Hehe nice one Gresh. One could very well think that's how decisions are made at times.

[TheNilvarg]

As per usual, Funcom nerfs everyone because PvPers are crybabies. PvP has been nothing but a detriment to this game.

[gresh]

Reading about the MP Pets is a real bummer. I mean... really? Both Tiers weren't OP or close to OP at all, so reducing their performance is... meh.
*puts her MP back into the box*

Agreed Its bordering on insane cruelty.

Snip

Agreed, more information is needed I think justification or reasoning is also needed to stop me ever thinking this is just a silly stab in the dark fix.

Interesting effort. Pretty good even but did you run into the ebil 24000 ( or whatever it is) characters per post limit? I know that makes it tough for formatting.

Thanks, No I didn’t seem to have. Pasted it into word and its no where near 24k word count though. It is all in jest mind. I don’t seriously think this is the selection process for change. I would certainly hope there are more strategic methods for choosing what gets changed and why.

finally a good reason to achieve the ability to cast the T3 rihwen.. as for now only the 7%~ what improvement from T2 to T3 wasn't reason enough to try to get T3 rihwen at all. I like that change.

Of course there will be people thinking like you do. Some will enjoy the challenge and some will no doubt deep down be grateful for the change in the long run as it will give them a new found sense of purpose on an otherwise finished toon. It also stands to reason that there will be people making comments like that that have already gotten the Tier 3 pet and therefore being unaffected by the change and there will also be those people that make comments such as yours without ever having rolled an MP or have any intentions of doing so. Again being unaffected by the change.

My MP was created many years ago. It was finished along time ago. It became my main along time ago and I waited patiently in the hope that Funcom gave it the much needed love it so desperately needed as a profession. It was finished... Funcom gave it the love it needed but that meant major changes to my MP. That was all well and good because it was a means to an end. When the tiered pets came out, I tried for the tier 3, I needed a good few items that were not necessary before the changes. Items that meant sacrifices in set-up and also items that needed farming. I spent a whole month solid trying to farm a second bracer from Albe, much of that on my own, painstakingly soloing the mobs which killed my MP in 2 to 3 hits so constantly having to re-clear instances simply because this game has no playerbase and finding people willing to put aside their own goals to help is getting harder to do. After a month of farming for the second bracer and seeing many others getting the bracer after their first try for it or within a few short tries I decided I had farmed enough and I would no more sink pointless time into farming for it. It took along time to clear the instances, when the bracer doesn’t drop, it is all for no gain. A pointless exorcize. Tier two pet was good enough. On top of the bracer I also needed the alien raid Item (Cant remember name). I don’t have the tradeskills to put the item together and don’t have any IP left as my MP was finished along time ago. I have all my alphas in except the wrists (which I took out when the shield of Zset became duel wield-able and needing the Multi wield from the implants). I wont be re-equipping everything I have equipped because I don’t have the items needed to re-equip all the alphas and I don’t really tend to get a lot of time in the game these days. For all intents and purposes, my MP was finished. So to cut a long story short... for the second time in my MPs career, my MP was finished and quite happily capable. I wont ever cast the tier 3 pet and I don’t care about your opinion to care enough about what you may think of that.

Nerfing the tier 2 pet is nerfing my MP and pretty much taking it away from me because I wont go back to playing it in the hope it will get better. I have been there too many times and done that for far too long already. Fixers were nerfed too hard, Docs were nerfed too hard, there are many other changes that need to be made so I can not understand this change at all. Tiered pets came out, tier 3 got a nerf, now tier 2 and tier 1… why not just delete the tiers and go back to old rhiwen? If funcom want to make them **** again.. they should go full hog.

Hehe nice one Gresh. One could very well think that's how decisions are made at times.

Lol, yes it certainly feels it huh. I wish sometimes they would give reasons or justifications.

As per usual, Funcom nerfs everyone because PvPers are crybabies. PvP has been nothing but a detriment to this game.

Agreed!

[Ophiuchus]

Then make the extended cast time of the engi warps only kick in if someone in the team has a flag. Otherwise leave it the **** alone for the rest of us

[Rockdizzle]

Honestly the nerf to tier 1/2 Rhiwen means nothing if perma AI3 stays as you simply just hotswap on CS/Arith + DB + etc nano gear and self buff tier 3 Rhiwen which is mostly unnerfed (feels like it got a small AR debuff but would need to be confirmed).

+39 nanoskills from Apothieosis should allow Soli/Opi to self Tier 3 Rhiwen if it wasn't already doable and NM can get away with less gear.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Balance is a tricky thing. You need to make it difficult enough to achieve top performance that there's drive to complete content that will incrementally boost performance whether real or perceived, while still making slightly-less-than optimal builds relevant.

[Mountaingoat]

The casting requirements need to come down for T3 pets to say 2900 or so. 3045 is way to much swapping for how much pets die in pvm and WILL be griefed in pvp. 2900 is still plenty "top tier" without being ridiculously annoying with all the swaps. We shouldn't have to swap our way to reach near our theoretical maximum to use a common gameplay (and expendable) item.

[gresh]

Honestly the nerf to tier 1/2 Rhiwen means nothing if perma AI3 stays as you simply just hotswap on CS/Arith + DB + etc nano gear and self buff tier 3 Rhiwen which is mostly unnerfed (feels like it got a small AR debuff but would need to be confirmed).

+39 nanoskills from Apothieosis should allow Soli/Opi to self Tier 3 Rhiwen if it wasn't already doable and NM can get away with less gear.

I have to sacrifice a massive portion of my mp's hp for a pet that dies in a few hits from alot of the end game content. tier two pet gains agg alot of the time... when it dies.. that agg gets put onto me, tier three pet (I am guessing) will get agg more of the time for sure. The tier 3 pet does have more HP but nothing in relation to the hits of end game mobs. This is more likely to get me agg, surely, with even less HP? Id prefer to have the hp and the atk pet I have now than even less HP than is current and tiny bit better damage.

I have CO for the slots it is best in slot for except boots and would only get 5 more from the detention boots I have. I have buffing gear and without bracer nano controller unit and collatz (I forgot about Collatz in previous post) I am 50 short on MC and 40 on TS from selfing it so I could either go for 3 items that seem impossible for me to farm or one item I will never have the Trade skills to combine but its highly likely I will never use the pet. Even if I did, I wouldnt want to sit with the sacrifices needed to keep it out of OE. Why force me into a set up I havent had to have since tiers came in? why cut down the number of options available for end game set up? this just leaves one option for mp and makles the entire profession complete cookie cutter.

Admittedly I would need much less skills with the new research line but I wont be playing my mp when it only has a wet teabag to send in to fight. Tbh, as it stands with the proposed changes, it will probably never see research lvl 1.

Balance is a tricky thing. You need to make it difficult enough to achieve top performance that there's drive to complete content that will incrementally boost performance whether real or perceived, while still making slightly-less-than optimal builds relevant.

There is no such thing as balance. Even if there was... Your above quote is what we currently have.. for the extra challenge you can have better damage with a pet that can take better hits incrementally boosting performance while a slightly less than optimal build is relevant... what is proposed is not a likeness of your above quote.

The casting requirements need to come down for T3 pets to say 2900 or so. 3045 is way to much swapping for how much pets die in pvm and WILL be griefed in pvp. 2900 is still plenty "top tier" without being ridiculously annoying with all the swaps. We shouldn't have to swap our way to reach near our theoretical maximum to use a common gameplay (and expendable) item.

Exactly, Nerf all weapons massively except for the absolute best in slot for every type and push up those requirements to absolute maximum. Do same for engi/crat pets too. Demand every prof has complete suicidal setup to ensure keeping weapons/pets out of oe and put a timer on them where they de-equip forcing them to be re-equipped.

The proposal is not good.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

tier two pet gains agg alot of the time... tier three pet (I am guessing) will get agg more of the time for sure.

... but I wont be playing my mp when it only has a wet teabag to send in to fight.

wat

which one is it? A wet teabage or something that gains aggro in teamfights?

It can't be both. If your pet is dying too much, you need to:

* buff it better,
* manage your aggro better,
* teach your teammates about DPS,
* teach your tank about aggro tools

But saying that you won't use a pet because it's a wet teabag, when you've just complained that it pulls aggro is hypocritical.

[gresh]

wat

which one is it? A wet teabage or something that gains aggro in teamfights?

It can't be both. If your pet is dying too much, you need to:

* buff it better,
* manage your aggro better,
* teach your teammates about DPS,
* teach your tank about aggro tools

But saying that you won't use a pet because it's a wet teabag, when you've just complained that it pulls aggro is hypocritical.

Ofcourse it can be both. It pulls aggro as it is now, the wet teabag was a reference to after it is nerfed. See I can say both statements because they both reference different tier two pets, one pre-nerf and one post-nerf.

* How should I buff it better? please enlighten me. I buff it fully before it fights with every relevant buff I have with a slight variation depending on what im doing. The pets NCU isnt big enough for all the buffs so sometimes I buff it with the short buff snare at the expense of the cmochs otherwise I buff it with cmochs at the expense of the short buff snare.

* The pet pulls aggro despite what damage is done by team mates depending on toons... ie what professions are in team. quite often when im helping people with db quest for instance... because most people in team are lower underlevelled, under equipped... certain mobs wipe out my pet and then turn on me. (That is one single example... I could go on... I wont).

* That is assuming there is a tank... often the pet is the tank .. again depending on the profs in the team or the excersize thats done.

I know in your head you seem all smart and insightful but seriously... the more you talk, the more stupid you seem. Go back to Dota2, dont they have a forum you can troll instead? (I know that looks like a question but its not... its rhetorical)

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I'm hardly insightful, in fact, I'm thick as a plank. It just goes to show that you don't need to be smart to pick up on idiotic statements.

The point is, you're trying to get the pet to do something it's unable to do, then complain about it. You can call me whatever names you want, but it won't change the fact that your argument is proved false by my "stupid" "insights".

Thanks for explaining your rhetoric, I missed it, being stupid.

[Psikie]

Saruman! A wizard should know better! There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this treachery.


There was literally no reason to bother with tier 1 pet. Which is only used by MP's with no resources for buffs/items. Penalize the poor, non org folks?

Truth be told there was really no reason to bother with tier 2 pet considering it is 1 squishy pet comparative to engi-crat pets x2.

AI tech 3 is irrelevant, not all MP's have a pre farmed set of ai armor to swap on and off. Nor do they all keep a trader for wrangles on follow for when their pet gets popped.

I am so confused at this change because it makes no sense. Why would you nerf the least used profession? Why make it harder on the few remaining MP's to solo when they cant even get into teams???