Hmmm, will you stop breaking my chars, please, Funcom?

First I choosed an engi and 2 weeks after release, there was nothing to do for an engi than having the biggest bot. Pet pathing was crazy when the bot wanted to do something. There were no trimmers, no nano increasing ATR or bot init, no unroot/snare nano. 1 or 2 weapon smithing recipes was working for useless weapons, I trusted in Funcom that I could even make bots for others. Engi stuff.
I gave up.... I wanted to have fun.

I rerolled a MA 1 month after release, I rocked till reach level 50 where I hit the minimum damage problem, I tried the G-staff (2HB) and moonblades (1HE). You gave us bad weapons (taichis, wallblades, etc with low damage) and a fists revamp 6 month after release (long wait). I rocked with fists till I reached lvl 100 and was hiting again for minimal damage.
Tried the Taichis somewhat, loved the wallblades look but all these doesn't cut it, I was tired to hit for 110, 110, 110, 110... at level 100 on a yellow mob.

I experimented, rerolled a bow MA and 2He MA. The bow MA was really cool, using agent like approach, hiding, firing aimed, fling and punching in between... Geeee, I loved this toon, using her self equipped urban crossbow ('cause of an old bug), she was great with her ala cyborg fighting style. She leveled till level 70, damage was ok and hopefully was heading to an increase of minimum damage at 100+.
The 2He MA was using at first a Katana also selfequipping for punching in between hit, damn, she looked nice, hitting hard and fast, then around lvl 70-80, she changed for a longmoon to look like a oriental guard, still using a cyborg like fight style.. was great, I even managed to have freshman once during a big battle in Meetmedere. Fist was heading to minimum damage crap while longmoon was doing some cool damage.

Those 2 experimental toons were ok, I read from the board that they wouldn't change the cyborg fighting style without offering a counterpart so I was confident, I really had fun with them till.... Funcom removed the ability to dual fists and weapons if weapons wasn't stamped MA (taichis, etc) with the only conterpart of fists revamp (good revamp at least) and the West Wind Katana that people are still looking for nowadays.

That was 3 chars good for trash, 1st MA was so gimped with point everywhere (even in riposte), the bow MA was somewhat usable but It wasn't fun anymore, sneak, aimed the target, fling, de-equip and fight with fist but... wait.. i have no brawl, no parry, no special attack, just MA. The 2He MA was... well all the 2He capabilities were useless.

That was too much for me, the IP reset wasn't there, not even annonced, talked with GM, ARK, whatever, nobody wanted to do something for me, I quitted.

OE and IPR hit live 3 month later, friends were very excited, I said to myself, maybe it worth a look, let's try 1 month. I fully IPRed my first MA, she was ok but I was punching like every MA on Rubi-KA... not very exciting, jump on the mob, brawl, land Blessed with Thunder move then wait next brawl while sometimes hit the heal key. I teamed with other MAs (lots of MAs were running around at this time), they were jumping on the mob, brawl, landing Blessed with Thunder move then waiting next brawl while sometimes hit the heal key just like me. So we jumped on the mob, brawl, landed Blessed with Thunder move then waited next brawl while sometimes hit the heal key.... ok, 2 levels of this, I was bored. I was missing the exotic way I was playing MAs before.

I IPRed the engi, took it from level 50 to 80, tradeskill oriented, had some fun but tradeskills are only for rich guys with a 150+ toon and money pooring out of ears. So you can hack a mausser and make it a chemical one, good, 1 fully functionnal and usefull weapon smithing recipes 1 years after release. Then you can do armor but you need millions to put your hand on a PPoE to do armor. You can do jewelry, I was specialised in this, I was hoping for the Arul Saba bracelet, I had 3 stones to make one.... hehehe, I was still so naive. Funcom announced that they remove all the Arul Saba related stuff from the game.
My engi was specialised in a forever useless tradeskill.

I tried to get back on with the bow MA, IPRed her and went full bow path, new implants design, get her an old 5% scope, near OE urban crossbow, damn, in pvp, she was near great. I've never been a big fan of pvp, don't have time and dedication to compete with hardcore pvprs and i've been ganked 2 or 3 time in swimsuit during food fight, or ganked by a level 190+ toons because his friend midlevel trader couldn't take out our team, I also love the way some traders/fixers using primus stuff at level 50 come and ask you for a duel, it's not even funny anymore. honestly, for me, pvprs were stamped as big as******* because of this kind of incidents. But had a fun with her again, the urban crossbow was an ok weapon that suits my style. Funcom decided to change bow init on physic init and leave crossbow as it is, whatever, I like my crossbow and the IP I have to put in ranged init worth it.

At the same time, I began a crat because my engi was useless but i like the pet gameplay. Sometimes i need action, I play with the bow MA, sneaky, fast play style and sometime, I need a chilled play style and crat seemed to be good for that purpose and neutral because of the freedom that neutral have, they can go everywhere without being chased by guards.
Damn, crats are powerfull up to level 100, you kill red mobs using even more red charmed mobs, it's crazy, soloing 80-90% mission with a fresh charm is easy, whatever colour is your droid, anyway, it sucks. But the charms/calm, it rocks. Even now at level 100, she can charm mobs level 125 and with some time/luck, can solo a ql130 mission.

Was a great time, a nice bow MA, powerfull crat without any special items, I don't like the camping style the statics dunjons are based on. I managed to get my 2he MA toon back and IPRed her to 1hb, get her a parry stick as damage on this weapon's been increased to match the claw... she was great, nice.

And then here come NW, I don't care, I occasionally pvp when I'm really bored. I don't camp for existing uba items, I won't fight for a +10 bonus in whatever skill. I was ok to fight for control of 2HO or place like that, but for a bonus in 2hb skill or mat met, noway... But i logged my bow MA and i couldn't hit anything, my crossbow was 0% effective... hmmm why? i'been using it for 1 year now... Oooooh I need rifle. ?!...
Oooh, come on, it's the second time this char is broken (I dont talk about the little crossbow adv toon i have).
Let's use some IPR point and back to bows... no bows worth it. But managed to have a somewhat viable bow char MA
and paf, no crits in pvp. Ok, my MA pvp semi capabilities are not even more capabilities. I tried with my main (parry stick MA) to touch a smurf, during a short fight, I touched him for 100pts using.... brawl. Tried to hit some guys and was rooted in the middle of the fight.... the sadest thing is that nobody cared, I was rooted in the middle of the fight dealing some casual punch to whatever I could reach and they didn't even kill me, that was the biggest humiliation.

And you want me to buy NW? My bow MA is a badass even in pvm and my main is unable to do something in pvp... sorry, no NW for me.
Time to get back on my crat. Let's feel the power of crowd control... well if I survive long enough to land an sticky calm. Ok let's try a different strategy, snare it first.... if I can land a snare, root? same.
Ooooh, come one, can you stop it?
What did you do to my calm/snare/root? Did i asked for something?
If I understand well, the higher level a mob is, the higher its chance of resisting my calm is even. What I don't understand is why do I have to land 2 calms to get one sticky on a level 100 mobs when i'm using a 103 calm? All this meanwhile my droid is doing weird things to furnitures and my charmed pet is trying not to miss the door.
Did you do something on pet pathing since the last 3 or 4 patches?

So, i heard that you're going to revamp somewhat parry skill, hm? My main has 800 in parry skill with the parry stick, I parry even against big red mob at full aggro once or twice a fight... I worked hard to get that. Watch what you're doing. No more please or begging, it's just don't take out what I have left because I'm tired of reseting my chars again and again and again. IPR points are not an excuse, if you can't make change in pvp without affecting pvm, do 2 completely differents set of rules.

I'm not very concerned by pvp and NW at least while I'm not involved, I play AO, not NW. So here are a few things to watch :
* If you can't make any change in pvp without affecting pvm, do 2 completely different set of rules.
* don't kill hunting with 100% gaz supp, some boss camp or nice hunting ground are under 100% zone 'cause of towers
* about boss dynacamp, review them all, many of them are sitting on mission entrance and it's discouraging when you cross a hostile land to discover that your mission entrance is blocked by a full red boss and 6 or 7 of his minions.
* since the NW compatibility patch, the game is slower and I can recall you what the requirement are on the box version of AO, I won't buy a new computer to keep on playing.
* Wine is supposed to be a neutral city according to litteracy and box map, why is this controlled by clans?
* Why when i have 1000+ runskill, lvl 100- mobs can follow me from one side of a zone to the other warping every 10s back to my a**?
* Why do mobs still parry my arrows?
* Old Athen's old name is Omni-2, where can i find story about the clans assault to Omni-2? What is the story of the Camelot dunj and Tarasque? There is some background but you can go further on this point, you have a rich enough world for that. I want more life in streets, I really like the event on RK2 where a insurence terminal was malfunctionning.
* Side leaders are not in the street, I can understand but I'd like to see more political related stuff on the street like representatives, like some politics discussing opinions about leaders, decisions, sports, weather, whatever. the RPG part of the game is nearly dead and marginal, the game is taking a Diablo online turn I don't really like.
* Why is the skill system not enough that you re to put level req or profession/breed stamp on stuff? AO was supposed to be a skilled based system where everybody could use every items, just that some people are better to this or that than others, are we taking another direction about this?
* AC system has killed speed for damage, the only good weapons are slow high damage weapons, where are we going? everybody with manex/hammer like weapons?
* I'm tired of missions, can I do my own missions? no... not yet, 1 year and a half after release and it's on the AO box.
* Where are The Spurs, The Reck, Bay of Rome, Three Craters? I can buy the maps but I can't find the zones while I can't get Newland map up yet
* Implants were supposed to have a counterpart by reducing stamina/body dev, Why was it never put? we could have avoid a lot of overequipping/exploit problem with that.
* All the little things that make me feel the game is not finished 1.5 year after release.
* I want quality, not quantity

My biggest wish for the forthcoming year is that you stop adding stuff/camping content and set this game properly to a finished state.

a+
F.