Soloing and Cooperation

[_______________Xeome]

The most annoying thing is said before the buggs in the professions, like MA. MA is in the beginning quite easy and good, and after you pass a lvl at 80 or so it gets almost impossible surviving the attacks when you solo. My sugestion is as former ppl has said, plz fix the professions before adding more details in the game. And make the professions more unique, as give them more unique nanos or attacks, that are required in some situations; which will give more ppl a chance at teaming at higher and lvls.

/XeoMe

[____________eleetist]

Originally posted by Xeome
The most annoying thing is said before the buggs in the professions, like MA. MA is in the beginning quite easy and good, and after you pass a lvl at 80 or so it gets almost impossible surviving the attacks when you solo. My sugestion is as former ppl has said, plz fix the professions before adding more details in the game. And make the professions more unique, as give them more unique nanos or attacks, that are required in some situations; which will give more ppl a chance at teaming at higher and lvls.

/XeoMe

Woot: ideas

Fixer: Cell Scanner Hack (saves 1/2 of all unsaved xp)
Agent: Camoflage Technique (reduces the effect of a mobs aggro on target... essentially an aggro deenhancer that doesn't effect combat skills excellent for all support players)

[________________cson]

MP: 4th pet. Root pet.

[lauriel]

Originally posted by Scumbug

re: 2)

i go out flying/exploring all the time looking for alternative
hunting grounds besides the usual overcrowded spots.

and i've found many patches of monsters that would be ideal
for highlevel players to attempt if only they werent hanging out
with a bunch of aggro deep-dark-reds 30 levels higher than them.

I would definitely agree with this one. I have also done a lot of flying/exploring across over a dozen playfields beyond Lush, Galway, and Omni Forest. Places like Andromeda, SFH, Athens, Holes in the Wall, Pleasant Meadows, etc. as I am really fascinated with the game (with all its admitted bugs and frustrations at times)

I tend to be more of a soloist, than a group hunter/missioner. What I have been finding is the same thing that scumbug has....there might be some great places to hunt and explore, but on the ground (ie, not in the yalm) you probably won't live to get there. There are so many aggro [red or otherwise "colored" to me] MOBs (of different species) out there in the playfields (with exception of Athens and Holes, so far that I've found) that it is pretty much impossible to get around as a solo person...unless you have a yalm.

I can see where crossing these playfields in groups would be very challenging and fun...provided that you were in a group you knew you could trust. But try a mission to one of these playfields as a solo person, and it can be very discouraging. And at 50+, these playfields are the ones that are popping up in mission terminals most frequently.

I'd love to be able to hunt in those kind of places....and I don't expect a "no danger/challenge" hunt either. I've spent far more time hunting solo at NW Mines in Lush (from when all the MOBs where red to me) than I have in a group there. It's fun, challenging, and exciting. I had to be very careful about what I did, or I got myself killed.

Places get camped for reasons other than people just interested in leveling fast. Don't assume that every person, and or team, is hanging out in the same spot so that they can powerlevel. It may be the prevelant reason, but there's another. Those spots also offer some of the most decent risk vs. reward ratios. I expect to die. It is a part of the game, and makes actually achieving something that much more rewarding. I just don't expect to die 9.9 times out of 10. That is NOT fun.

My personal opinion is that the game should be fun first and challenging second. You don't excourage people by exhausting them with gameplay to no purpose (ie, they don't accomplish anything other than frustrating themselves). This is a GAME, the definition of which is to entertain....it should be fun to play. I am having fun, but I can forsee a time when it won't be because I will be so limited in my options.

And when i say fun first and challenging second, I mean that the fun should edge out the challenge as a general rule. The perfect picture of this for me, would be NW Mines in Lush at level 45-55 (solo or group) and the rocks by the south bridge in Arthur's Pass in Galway at level 15-25. There should also be those places where the challenge outweighs (and also FAR outweighs) the fun factor. A good balance would be 40% like NW Mines etc, 40% like Infestation in Lush, and 20% like Andromeda/SFH/Pleasant Meadows. IMO anyway.

And maybe to help encourage more cooperative team-play (since pickup teams may often have no "I know you, I like you, I hunt with you, I care about your experiences too" incentive), there should be a penalty to the group when ANY member of the team dies. Right now, there is no incentive to engage in teaming practices that encourages better team responsibility. There is NO penalty to a team member dying...unless by their death the team is no longer strong enough to take on the MOB they're fighting and everybody ends up dying.

You could make it a option like the loot option....like /team death penalty or something. Where it could be turned on and off, in part, so that teams that hunt well together could choose not to set that option. Just like I don't hunt in teams where they don't set the /team loot alpha (unless I dont care about the loot), I wouldn't hunt in a team (that I didn't know) that didn't want to set the death penalty option. Regardless, in the end, teammates not dying benefits everybody.

My 2 cents after playing game for 2 months....and having some really bad teaming experiences.

[_____________Marthos]

Just an idea on downtime...

The game Meridian59 had a really cool downtime method. You had a stat called "Vigor" that sped up the rate you regenerated HP and Mana (Nano in AO). By sitting down and resting, you could get it up to 100, and by fighting it would slowly go down. If you rested in a bar, you would regenerate your vigor twice as fast.

Now, the cool thing...the max value of Vigor was 200, and the only way to get it up that high was to eat/drink. After eating/drink a little bit, you would get full and you would have to wait to be able to eat again. It would take a while to get all the way up to 200 (unless you knew the best combination of food to eat). At 200 Vigor, you healed noticably faster.

The result of this:
When soloing, you would have about a minute down time every 10 minutes or so to catch regain your vigor (or you could fight without the regeneration bonus). That's not anything new in AO, as i sometimes spend one minute sitting and recharging.

The second result:
Everyone and their uncle spent alot of time in the bars to get their vigor back quicker. They also spent alot of time eating/drink to get up to 200 (100 was the max for resting w/o eating). While waiting to get hungry again, people would sell their loot, socialize, and have fun. It created a very cool atmosphere which no other game has duplicated.

I'd like to see AO adopt a similar system. It would make food have a purpose (and valuable, the best food in Meridian59 you had to find on monsters and helped out a ton) and give us a reason to socialize.

[Twillite]

one thing you mentioned was the doc agro and the seeming inablility of the tanks to pull it off them. This is an isue and I have a higher level doc to prove it. Many teams Im in are more than willing to help pull agro off but the fact of it is when i cast a heal for 700 then another for 700 then a team for 2000 no ones damage can add up to that please make the agro enhancers more viable

[rheena]

Lateely i see not much in the way of teams and certainly not alot of cooperation. How does the game developers feel about situations where a player is invited into a team only to be uninvited a few seconds after . Thats what i have experienced plus some members soloing within the team setting others up
to be killed by mobs. Now some members are cautious about this and no harm is done to team mates.Yet i have been on teams where a player has decided to solo and not wait -haste makes waist or in this context death to team members .

[____________Ejeckted]

no more downtime, please.
waiting for teammates to come back from LDs is enough.
i know FC would rather the reason be something they'd
implemented intentionally but the fact remains
players probably spend more time LFG, and waiting for
dead and/or linkdead teammates than they do fighting already.

if you want to socialize and RP in AO, it's easy,
and you get to choose where and with whom;
in teams, you grab whoevers there, and while
that player may do a decent job of contributing
damage he may not be someone you really
want to try to hold a conversation with ..

lol. you do know what most players are talking
about during downtime, right?
bugs.. crashing .. nerfs ... anti-funcom whines..
i personally dont need more of that.

[Lynkz]

Originally posted by Breogan

On getting the mission you will know that you need an Engineer of skill X to be able to fix the elevator to the lower level, where
a Nanomage is required to reprogram a nano-powered machine so it would be able to elaborate a particular kind of one shot weapon that only a Soldier can use to
kill a otherwise impossible to kill robot.

This is a good idea, I"m sure most of us agree.
If this were to be implemented, it would be nice if the mission would tell you what professions you would need to hire in order to complete the mission. (Example: To complete this mission, be sure to hire an engineer, nanomage, and soldier) You can't bring every profession with you every mission, so this would avoid disapointment.

Also, as far as each profession offering something valuable to the team, run buffs are simply not enough of a contribution to the team by the fixer.

[____________Ejeckted]

Originally posted by nanciellis



I tend to be more of a soloist, than a group hunter/missioner. What I have been finding is the same thing that scumbug has....there might be some great places to hunt and explore, but on the ground (ie, not in the yalm) you probably won't live to get there. There are so many aggro [red or otherwise "colored" to me] MOBs (of different species) out there in the playfields (with exception of Athens and Holes, so far that I've found) that it is pretty much impossible to get around as a solo person...unless you have a yalm.

I can see where crossing these playfields in groups would be very challenging and fun...provided that you were in a group you knew you could trust. But try a mission to one of these playfields as a solo person, and it can be very discouraging. And at 50+, these playfields are the ones that are popping up in mission terminals most frequently.

I'd love to be able to hunt in those kind of places....and I don't expect a "no danger/challenge" hunt either. I've spent far more time hunting solo at NW Mines in Lush (from when all the MOBs where red to me) than I have in a group there. It's fun, challenging, and exciting. I had to be very careful about what I did, or I got myself killed.

yup . .

here's the situation for me in my 90s looking for new spots.

imagine being level 50ish
all the mutants in NW lush cave are turning orange.
ok, now imagine all the mutants are aggro.
ok, now imagine than instead of 1 or 2 lifebleeders
there are 20 or more roaming around with the mutants.
*this is what all the level100+ wildlife is like*

: /

it's great to go explore and see new stuff n all, but you cant land.
by the time you could handle all the scary dark-red crap mixed in
with the yellow/orange mobs, the yellow/orange mobs are grey.

the problem with the highend game
is mainly mob level distribution as well as an
inadequate amount of places anywhere
within a 15-20min flight to either save
or look for more teammates when one quits.

[Bauxite]

Didn't have time to read the other responses, but I see problems at higher levels...

Right now for me it can take hundreds of yellow mob kills to level, and even with a **great** team of people I've been playing with for months, just one slipup kills us all, and means I better save every 10% to the next level.

So either we take on a fast spawn of nearly harmless greens (though greens are getting awful tough) or try to take out huge evil monsters at maximum level in full hard missions and save after *every single kill*.

Add to much randomness, and the probability of being able to level without saving 50 times per level will reach 0. When saves are 15 minutes away even by yalmaha, thats not something I want.

Also, on my enf, he has trouble aggroing. The enhancers don't do anything, I even used my trader to augment one with the jealousy from SoM. I feel gimped with maxed psychology, I'd rather put that IP back into my nanos or keeping my evade and dodge maxed. Also I can stand there and chain mongo bash all day long with a NT humid buff and they never come off the doc (or come off too late, since doc goes down 5 times faster than me).

From what I've noticed, there are only two things that cause aggro that work consistiently: Get a critical hit, or lay down a big heal, team heals guarenteed. I can hit for 1000-2000 regular damage every <5 seconds or so with some 500-1500 brawls thrown in, but a single random shotgun crit and all 4 mobs go straight for the shooter. My trader would like to bring her slider above full def one day.

As for don't need docs/healers...lmao, its almost suicide to form a team without a doc and mp these days, the mobs have 100 times my hp and first aids won't cut it.

Area roots and calms are good for when the team needs to run, but given lag (oh sorry, didn't see you calm that mob) and the short duration and resists, they don't help much in battle.

[______________Nelida]

Don't we ALREADY have a bug that causes unknown death? I've sure experienced it on more than one occasion. Maybe players should just randomly fall over dead more often...after all the result is the same as if a 120 mob spontaneously spawns next to a level 10 player standing in a shop. Why would that player find THAT interesting? Just because he saw some big hulking shape milli-seconds before dying?

Make missions and hunting more interesting YES but don't give me random situations that I have NO control over such as spontaneous-spawning, instant-death mobs. That's just NO more fun than a power failure.

Originally posted by Biocide
I have always thought they game should be more unpredictable.
When hunting, once you know how the mobs are, it becomes too cookie cutter.
I would like to see spontanious things like mobs aggro that dont usually, or an bunch of extra mobs spawn and attack a group sometimes.
Maybe find mobs where you dont usually find um. Have a couple pop into a shop every once in awhile. Of course some people would get pissed, but it would make the game more fun and lifelike for me.
The andrenaline would get flowing when you are sitting at the omni gate as a lvl 80 and not have a care in the world and all the sudden 2-3 lvl 120 mobs come rolling by.
Everyone would just have to save more often.

[___________Avatarius]

>Don't we ALREADY have a bug that causes unknown death? I've >sure experienced it on more than one occasion. Maybe players >should just randomly fall over dead more often...after all the >result is the same as if a 120 mob spontaneously spawns next

Sorry this is silly. The full quote said a level 80 is ambushed
by 120. Most teams at level 80 are usually fighting level 120s anyways, but certainly an aggro 120 when your alone and level 80 is a danger. But either way, this is not what Gaudete is discussing. Its in the major hunting areas [where people tend to camp]. I've not seen anyone *hunting* at 20k Gate or in the stores (as theres nothing to hunt of course).

The perfect senario has already appeared in a dozen posts including mine.

The NW Lush area spawns a LifeBleeder. Bleeders are about
10 to 15 levels highers than the rest of the Mutants. He is
a tougher foe that does radiation damage. Sometimes he
kills you, most of the time you kill him. Only time I've died is when
the timing was bad [fighting multiple aggro, etc]. But really
that is only 1 in 20+ encounters. But he is VERY beatable but
is tough enough to be FEARED. THAT is what is being discussed here, not a 50' spider spawns and kills 300 people. Funcom calls that "An Event".

Av.

[___________Avatarius]

Some of the teamplay, PvP and unique profession issues can be addressed with one major idea which appears in the Adv's forum top 10.

Adding the ability to lay down settlements in the wilderness, in the 25% regions; Where say an Omni Adv. can marker a
settlement and put up a reclaim. Then a Fixer can establish a Grid terminal. Then the 'Crat puts up a Bank and some NPC's, Trader does shops, Soldiers do Turrets, etc. All these items are destroyable [like turrets are now] and usable only by the side creating the settlements.

1) Provides excellent jumping points for deep woods hunt even those not blessed with Yals.

2) Provides incentive to PvP with real goals instead of just grid ganking.

3) Provides some cool new things for *all* professions to do.

Eventually a settlement if aged beyond a certain number of hours and gets a certain number of installed items it becomes a 75% or 100% gas area and the items become permanent. Hence incentive to protect and care for your settlement.

[____________Parlayin]

There are a lot of good suggestions and everyone represented their profession very strongly. I agree with others that ALL professions needs to be fix and higher lvls need to be looked into immediately.

But I since there were so many response and I didnt see any I guess I have to respresent for the TRADERS. Please explain to me our purpose. You dont want us "overequipping", we sux as a charmer, rooting as well as other debuff nanos that we have gets countered so much its not worth using. What?

Did you just wabt to have another a lot of professions and ran out of ideas? Trader mobs will debuff you in a sec w/ no probelms and you are hurt. Stuck. Cant do nothing. Hit you with a root. Stuck. No matter how bad you are hit. I mean I can go on for days comparing... but... this is your game. I just play it.

I dont mind asking for our opinion, if you like more I'm sure you can find a way to talk to me one on one. But I question you. What do you consider fun? Do you really think that this game is fun? Have you played thru all your chars to make sure each one is "fun"? Or is it even feasible to solo thru the game as you claim? If you play for a week as a lvl 100+ char what would you do for fun? Play that char for another week... month.. etc.. and see how many different fun things you do or can do.

Does Funcom wants us to play only for a month or to have us as longtime playing customers? If you want to hear the straight truth since you seem to be ignoring it, there is nothing to do but to level and be uber... of course meeting people in the process. You will hear people say that its really up to us to make the game interesting and fun... but do you really believe the majority believes that? The same people that were in AO went over to DAOC not because people have better ideas but because of the content, less bugs, stability, and all that other stuff they say.

Ranting too much... getting dizzy.. cant breahe... gasp! (rant off)

[speardancer2]

OK, I just don't have the time to read everyone's input, I hope that someone at Funcom does....

I just have a few comments, that add one more vote for a few things...

First of all, there are 3 main problems to fix.

1) Lag
2) Lag
3) Lag


This affects the GUI big time, me and my wife play side by side at home, and we are almost ALWAYS out of sync in one way or another. And this is on the same, shared DSL line, with nearly identical systems.

Creatures appear in different places, health/Nano bars for teammates are totaly off.

How does this affect teams? Hard to effectively team up when you don't always see the same creature in the same place, or even see your teammates in the right place. Don't know when to heal your teammates, if your screen shows them at full health, despite the fact they just fell down on the ground in front of you.

And while all roots need some beefing up, the tatics for roots are also affected by lag times....

Example. Caster #1 cast root on MeleeDude#1. Caster#1 backs up, to attempt to get out of Meleedude#1's incredible melee range, but continues to be hit. Root breaks (way too easy) and the Server updates the client on where it thinks Meleedude#1 is standing, and Caster#1 sees Meleedude#1 "teleport" 2/3rds of the distance to where Caster#1 is. No wonder he was getting hit by Meleedude#1's attacks, Caster#1 was moving the wrong way. The server knew where the Meleedude#1 was standing, but Caster#1 was reacting to where his computer showed Meleedude#1 was standing, which was out of sync with the server!!!

Which also brings to mind, fix the melee based mobs with attack ranges longer than ranged weapon attacks !!!


Next thing, on crowd-control nano's

About the only one that you might add at this point is a pre-combat agro-reducer, ala "harmony" from EQ. I think all the others (slows, roots, mezzes) are more than well represented. Sure, everyone would like to have everything, but if that were the case, make one type of character, why bother with all these breeds and classes. (And for those of you who may of missed it, that last bit was sarcasm)


Next point, poping up tougher mobs when a group is tearing thru the area.

This sounds like a great idea, with a few limits.... like making sure the creature that spawns is not so much higher that noone in the area stands a chance.

Also, making this sort of spawn random enough, that it doesn't get "camped". If players can predict when one of these "random spawns" will happen, it isn't really random, is it?

I'd also like to see these higher spawns annouce themselves, so those who don't care to deal with them, or simply can't deal with them, have time to run.

Example. Team #1 averages lvl 40, is doing a pull and run in areaX. Team #2 is an average of lvl 60, and simply standing there and killing anything they can target. All of a sudden, all the players in the immediate area see "The Leet Queen rises up, and screams in anger at the sight of her dead children"... the lvl 60 group may stand there and take her on, but the lvl 40 group only wants to know where this new mob is, so they can run the other way!!! (all names and numbers were pulled out of thin air, and do not mean to represent any sort of research)

I think everything else can be covered under the message boards for the individual classes, a little tweaking here and there is needed for most all the classes, I won't take the time to mention them here.

[Snakeyes]

Ok my 2 cents worth


Please put everything in that your are thinking about but please please please Fix the Npc Human mobs they are a killer to me they counter my nanos sometimes 3,4,5,6 times in a row and why when i have a maxed out nano resist can Greens still cast roots and other stuff on me? why cant i counter it?



I would just be happy if you could fix all the bugs and why do you make the Nt the weakest class in the game if the mob turns on the Nt (Most times) as soon as i hit him if im doing the greatest amount of damage i should have better armor and more Hp


Brisbanevi

[______________Hazard]

So far everyone is saying the same thing so I won't go to much into what has already been said. I'm am glad Funcom is finally trying to do something about the problems in game.

Now on to the statement someone said about what newbies say doesn't count. Well it DOES count. The game isn't full of only 100+ players. Both people from 1 - 100 and 100 - 200 are suffering from the problems. It is very pig headed to think that the concerns of 100+ players should count.

One of the main reason why people don't group and can't solo is due to the overequiping. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Now before people start complain hear me out. Sure a player can buff himself and wear implants, the game was design for that. Funcom you keep making the defenses and attacks of MOBs more powerful to deal with the overequiping people but what about the people at lower levels or people that don't or can't overequip themselves.

I'm not a powergamer and only play when I have time. I will admit I don't have a high level character yet but right now my main is a lvl 17 soldier. I have several other character near the same level. I don't have any nano buffs on my weapon or armor skills other then the few implants I've made(tried to make) and found. So that means I am using a ql13-21 weapon depending on what skills are needed. The same goes for armor.

It's a really pain when I try to do a mission only to find that a GRAY mob is hitting for the same as yellow to orange and has just as many HPs. Only to find I only get 1xp from it. And I don't have the setting up to high or to low. I aslo play a Doc.

I have grouped with people with levels lower then mind only to find them to be hitting for 100-200 or higher at the same rate I'm only for 20-60. When people in a group find this out they drop you right away.

STOP FIXING PVP. PVP is a joke. In the past few days I have hear several people around level 5 asking to PVP only to hear the same response from several people each time. "How twinked are you". Its insane that a lvl 5 doc should be able to use and wield a ql90 gun after the buff is gone. I have no problem with people using equipment of higher level while buff but after the buff is gone then the equipment(armor and weapons) should be dropped and they should not be able to use it.

I also play a Doc of the same level as my soldier. He too is also not overequiped. It's not possible to group do that players my level are hunting mobs several levels above them because of the weapons they use. Like someone said how can a Doc group when the groups are fighting monsters that high 400-500 on average and the Doc can only heal for around 200-300.

1. Fix the overequiping
2. Increase the AI of monster but drop the HP and Nano of them down to what a NON twink PC would have at that level.
3. STOP making MOBs harder to fight to deal with overequiped players. People that DON'T or CAN'T overequip are the ones that are suffering from this. At higher levels and at the lower levels.

Well that's it for my rant.

[________________Rafe]

The biggest change to the GUI would be to separate the talk/chat events from the combat/damage events - when you're in a spawn area, especially with a team (and this question was posed to enhance the group experience, IIRC), it's next to impossible to read what anyone (teammates, distant friends, and guildmates) are saying in the heat of battle, because they get scrolled off too quickly to register. . . unless you want to hamper your team-helping ability and toggle "other hit other" to OFF, in which case, you can't assist that poor Doc who got aggro'd, or what have you.

This is the one and only thing that DAoC has over AO, as far as I'm concerned. I realize it would probably be a coding nightmare to implement, but, hey, you -did- ask. *smiles*

-Rafe

[Pheonix2]

ummm ok......::scratches head:: you people like to type huh?