Takes 20 people and 2 docs to do anything "new" or worth the time in AO now

[Mercatura]

1 or 2 true "tanks".

1 - 3 competent docs.

The rest could just be 40 people with weapons...and they don't even have to be at the keyboard.

Try running a 131 wrangle on a dozen people for 2 hours, while keepings drains up on a grey mob that all the mindless idiots automatically shoot unless you hold thier hands and explain it to them 1 by 1. Oh and try to land an 85% nano with over 1200 nanoskills that still only lands 1 out of 30 tries. Did I mention all of those only last 3 minutes?

Sure it "helps" but god d*mn it sucks. Rather log on extra characters, drag them out to the spot and press Q while I go out for pizza. I could probably get 4 damage dealers out there, though FC would get mad at me if I did more than 2

Any nano that isn't a long term buff is basically worthless. NTs, cast humid on everyone then log any alt with better attack rating...crats don't log because need 1 of you to run HM and another to run the crit speech since the mas never buff everyone and it saves NCU. Oh and your pets can help, they might hit 1 in 20 times. Same goes for MPs, stick healpets on the tanks and stick demon on the mob...check back every 15 minutes in case pets drop for some reason. Be sure to refresh mochams on people, but don't bother giving NTs one since their nukes won't land regardless. I'm sure they can fit it in between commercials or doing laundry. Engys do the same, run an aura for grins too.

[engelstein]

I'm gonna make an Agent and join Storm. Sounds like fun.

[Naraya]

Originally posted by Mercatura
Any nano that isn't a long term buff is basically worthless. NTs, cast humid on everyone then log any alt with better attack rating...crats don't log because need 1 of you to run HM and another to run the crit speech since the mas never buff everyone and it saves NCU. Oh and your pets can help, they might hit 1 in 20 times. Same goes for MPs, stick healpets on the tanks and stick demon on the mob...check back every 15 minutes in case pets drop for some reason. Be sure to refresh mochams on people, but don't bother giving NTs one since their nukes won't land regardless. I'm sure they can fit it in between commercials or doing laundry. Engys do the same, run an aura for grins too.

LOL. I'll go give everyone HE, then I'll go pull grey mobs for traders to drain, then I'd chain-layer the enforcer but they don't seem to like that too much, then I'll go pick flowers from the rosegarden nearby, then I'll go get a manicure & pedicure, then I'll go shopping for a new dress, then I'll come back and refresh HEs, leave in for 60 seconds, rinse, repeat as desired....

With a name like FunCom, you'd think that there'd be something fun to do in-game.....hmmm..

[Brueskie]

Yeah, went out with some buds to kill that general and eel guy at the secondary base in Avalon the other day. While I'm always happy to help my friends - and would do it again - it was one of the most utterly boring experiences I've ever... er ... experienced. If I remember right, seems like it took three teams a little better than three hours - probably closer to four - to take them both down.

I would simply like FC to answer why they're going down this road. I don't believe anyone thinks this kind of thing is fun, and this IS a game afterall, isn't it? What's your reasoning? Well? Hmmm?

[____________Alantria]

I also would like to hear their explanation, i think its simply to few resources and lack of creativity, but I could be wrong.

[Centurion3]

Originally posted by Naraya


LOL. I'll go give everyone HE, then I'll go pull grey mobs for traders to drain, then I'd chain-layer the enforcer but they don't seem to like that too much, then I'll go pick flowers from the rosegarden nearby, then I'll go get a manicure & pedicure, then I'll go shopping for a new dress, then I'll come back and refresh HEs, leave in for 60 seconds, rinse, repeat as desired....

With a name like FunCom, you'd think that there'd be something fun to do in-game.....hmmm..

Hehehehehehe, we should team some time.

[________________Enri]

Originally posted by Bhaaz
Yeah, went out with some buds to kill that general and eel guy at the secondary base in Avalon the other day. While I'm always happy to help my friends - and would do it again - it was one of the most utterly boring experiences I've ever... er ... experienced. If I remember right, seems like it took three teams a little better than three hours - probably closer to four - to take them both down.

Hey, at least we can do that one-handed. Nothing that some good porn and a box of Kleenex can't fix.

[Maximilian]

or, he (Gaute) is just following his line.

from Soloing and Teaming (the conclusions), 08 Feb. 2002

Originally written by Gaute
...We wanted the soloing ability to extend as long as possible, hopefully all the way to level 200. ...

Without the urge to get too much involved into this debate, I have to state:

The variety of solo activities is reduced with each patch.

The individual powers are capped further and further down. Ok, I might not be the most experienced player (leveling awfully slow and not member of a big guild), but I am trying to see as much from the AO world as possible, and I am around since launch. Is there anything of worth left in solo mission (besides tokens)? Neither you can gain XP at a decent rate, nor you can gather decent equipment. The only thing that is left there is: cash (woot). What static dungeons are there to be soloed besides the Subway, maybe. Quests, ok. But either low level (<50) of high (130+) and then I didn't hear of somone soloing Jack.

Sure, full support to the fact, that teams are more effective than solo players, maybe even much more effective. But I remember a time, when 3/4 member teams where viable and fun to play. I don't think, this hold true any more.

So long,

Max(imilian)

[ethernal3]

My only thing that I have a distaste for on these "20-50 people trying to kill something" is that it's for one or two pieces of loot... It should have at least something more like the minimum number of people required to kill it (around there..) and then put that in half. Like the person who drops the Azule armor, it should drop a full set (7 pieces) instead of 1 piece of armor..
~Chris

[_____________Abunari]

Originally posted by Bhaaz
I don't believe anyone thinks this kind of thing is fun, and this IS a game afterall, isn't it? What's your reasoning? Well? Hmmm?

Funcom has stated, when nerfing the drop rates and buffing the hitpoints of tarasque, that they don't want these mobs killed often/ever and that they don't want the uber loot to be available to more than a handful of players.

If you want a game where players use tradeskills to make weapons that do 30% - 50% MORE damage than those looted anywhere (albeit only for a period of time, so that tradeskillers can keep making more), then head to NEOCRON or ASHERON'S CALL 2 (where the developers seemed to have learned from the mistakes of earlier games).

AO is just repeating all the steps taken in the development cycle of EQ, except that AO appears to have developers who truly excel at taking camping to a new levels.

This IS supposed to be a game, not real life. I go out and work for everything else, and with my few hours of "free" time, I pay Funcom to entertain me. Give everyone cookies for 3 hours of effort.

Well, I could flame myself for saying all that, but I leave that to Miir.

[_____________Abunari]

Originally posted by Megabio
My only thing that I have a distaste for on these "20-50 people trying to kill something" is that it's for one or two pieces of loot... It should have at least something more like the minimum number of people required to kill it (around there..) and then put that in half. Like the person who drops the Azule armor, it should drop a full set (7 pieces) instead of 1 piece of armor..
~Chris

It should drop as many pieces of loot as possible for a mob to drop (max for a team mission boss) - and the stuff should be tradeable, so that it can be distributed to people.

And spawn rates should be 20-30 minutes max.

And it shouldn't take more people to kill it than can be in one team, the team might need to be specialized, but that's fine.

And it shouldn't take longer than 20-30 minutes for that team to kill the mob, since it takes about that long to set up the team, and about that long to deal with and problems, adds, deaths, etc.

I'm just tried of this forced economy of uberness. Let's get the loot and move on to the playing of the game: Notum Wars. If you want to make rare things, then make some rare hats, t-shirts, dresses, umbrellas, etc. that people can run around with to show they did something cool (those should be the nodrop reward items), and they shouldn't buff a darn thing.

[Brueskie]

Yup, sad to say, there is nothing at all original about AO. At least initially they had some original ideas. I guess these ideas proved too difficult for the devs to pull off, so now they're taking the easy route by duping EQ.

I guess when you're in as dire financial straits as FC is, you can't afford to take chances and be original.

[_____________Abunari]

The other problem with the current design is that whenever I log into AO, I find myself surrounded by people who are one or more of the following: frustrated, sad, mad, furious, depressed (retired mains with 45+ days of play time/pet pathing), and/or greedy/avericious.

I log into AC2 and find: happy people teaming up for vault quests on the fly, happy people making items for others for free, happy people playing music and dancing or otherwise goofing off.

I love AO. I prefer the AO character design and Ragnar's vision for the encompassing game-world. Why do I log in to be with people who aren't happy? Why do I log in to a game where people spend more time in materialistic pursuits than in the stated objectives of the game?

AO isn't about the fate of a planet, a species, and the universe. AO is about loot: bought, sold, traded, twinked. And the unhappy griping after the fact that only 1 person get the item from among the 70-80 who attended.

While this pushes out subscription rates (in theory), you actually lose more players to the frustration and from those exposed to that frustration (especially when alternatives are viable).

/me imagines all the unguarded towers when the announcement comes: tara3 is up.

[Jynne]

Long spawn ubermobs that require any more than two full teams to take on, and that take over 30 minutes of continuous combat for those two teams, are simply pathetic.

The 'big boss' mobs should spawn at least once per hour. All but the very toughest and most special should be killable in 20 minutes of continual combat by two decently built teams of 150+ players who don't have very much in the way of 'uber' gear.

The really special bosses like Ian Warr should be tougher, of course.

And the idea of a special "QL 251- QL 300 team mission" where some of the unique/rare loots drop, and special unique-to-player quests, are both excellent ideas. I'd run out and badger my friends to start playing if either or especially both of these were added.

[_______________Elria]

Originally posted by Stah


Least EQ was fun and had high level content.

ah, yes. I have been with AO since june '01, but still, when I look back, my best times in an MMORPG were in EQ :\
The interesting places for campers and powerlevelers were well known. A side effect of that was that many other areas/dungeons were deserted. I had a lot of fun doing dungeon-crawling with either one friend, one group, or sometimes two groups in in all those deserted dungeons of Antonica and Kunark. The generalization of raids only came along with their second expansion (Velious), imho.
The content designers for AO could surely use some help and inspiration...

[__________Wraith God]

Originally posted by Naraya
Yeah....that is a problem whenever static elements are introduced into the game. All it takes is someone to post instructions and there went the mystery....

This is why the introduction of dynamic elements should be forefront in FunCom's mind.

Absolutely. There is simply no point having quests that you can go to a web site and get a walkthrough for. In my guild people get the pieces before they get the quest, so its ready to go. BAM. Finished.

Part of the problem though, is that the design of the quests are so convoluted, and often there are no clues as to how to complete the current part. How anybody figured some of these out for the first time escapes me. Congratulation, you gotta have the patience of Jove and the IQ of a Mensa member.

This is silly. I don't mind taking the time to complete interesting quests that involve some analysis or exploration. But things that are completely open ended, or hyper competitive simply bore me. Searching around endlessly is tedious, as is camping for hours amongst 20 twinks who are gonna to beat you out for the item anyway. Why bother?

So yes. Randomize quests so all the details aren't known beforeand is important to avoid the mindless camping and competitiveness. But before you can do that, the quests have to be rewritten so they involve interesting activities, and can be completed in a modest amount of time without being or enlisting a hyper twink.

[____________Meligant]

I only have a few minutes to post some thoughts so here it goes:

1. Agreed with others: Where is the story?

2. Special Team "quests" that come right out of the terminal

3. Solo missions "tailored" to the proffession taking the mission.

Done.

[Brueskie]

Bumping because I really want an official response to this. What FC said at AO's inception and their actual actions since then have been two very different things.

[_____________Arithus]

bumping because this is what I thought I came to AO for only to find out that it's so much like EQ. At least it's Sci-fi eq... stupid elves.

[_________MonstaJugga]

I like kinkstaah's idea:

Getting 30 - 50 people to kill one unique mob so ONE person can get that item is ridiculous. Give us tough 6-man missions or something instead.

It is seriously not fun if u're there with 50 other people killing this insane mob for 2 hours, and you already know which popular/well-known/"uber" person is going to get the loot that YOU want. It's just not fair, simple as that.

I would rather not have these items in the game at all than have to bear with this crap. FC should put in toned down versions of these insane items and make em more available, but just not obtainable this ridiculous way.

Remember in the beginning when the mission-booth concept was so revolutionary? THen FC slowly deviates from it and makes it another clone of the reason why we left other MMORPGs to play AO in the first place.