Here's how you fix overequipping without ruining the game

[________________Yzen]

Admittedly, I haven't been back in AO that long, but I've seen this issue being bantered back and forth forever. I see a solution. It would require some code changes, but I think the results would be well worth it. It may have been suggested before, but I've not seen it. It goes like this:

1. Allow anyone to equip any piece of gear, regardless of QL.

2. If you don't have the requirements listed to wield, it performs exactly like the best one you could use with your current skills.

That's it.

Wield your ql 115 nova flow with your level 60 soldier, but it's only going to perform like a ql 115 when you're actually buffed and grouped with a trader who is wrangling you. The rest of the time, it's only going to perfom like the ql 95 one you actually meet the requirements for self-buffed.

Fair enough?

[________________Miir]

Your suggestion would completely trivialize the item Quality Level system.


Your suggestion would ruin the already fragile ingame economy.


How would you suggest reworking the Implant system?


What about nanos? Should their effectiveness be based on skill as well? Should a level 20NT be able to upload Kels Plaything?


What about pets? Should an engineer be able to summon a Slayer at level 80 and have it perform on a level equal to their TS/MC skill?




Sorry Yzen, though your suggestion has the best intentions, it's not very well thought out.

[________________Yzen]

"Your suggestion would completely trivialize the item Quality Level system."

How so? You try to get the best items you can, just like now. Better ones are more expensive, and give no benefit whatsoever if you fail to meet the requirements. Sure, you could buy a QL 115 stigma, but it will only perform exactly like the QL 65 one you're using now, because you don't have the skills to use better than QL 65. There is a small advantage to buying a higher QL item in that you don't have to replace it as soon, and then there is the real advantage that comes up when grouped, more on that in a sec.

"Your suggestion would ruin the already fragile ingame economy."

Again, how so? Right now, you buy the best items you can afford and then overequip into them. Under this system, you buy the best items you can afford, and then equip them but only get the benefit for skill levels you can sustain. If what you really mean is "Your suggestion would ruin the already fragile prospect of Traders being able to gouge people for wrangles," you are correct. I'm not sure all of them will miss being hounded. Wrangling would be a grouping nano; having higher skills for 3 minutes in town would be useless.

"How would you suggest reworking the Implant system?"
I don't see any reason the implant system needs to be reworked. This system should just ignore treatment skill altogether, so you can still install implants using the benefits of the surgery clinic, without your treatment skill being checked afterwards to see if you meet the min reqs. If you don't meet the other requirements for the implants, they behave exactly like the best ones you do meet the reqs for, i.e. if you need 250 int for your implants, and you only have 150, the implants would work exactly like the best ones you could have with 150 int.

"What about nanos? Should their effectiveness be based on skill as well? Should a level 20NT be able to upload Kels Plaything?"

Why would this be necessary? This whole system is designed to limit the utility of overequipping; why even mess with nanos? The goal is to bring melee and ranged gear back in line with the intended damage tables, better balancing melee/ranged with nanos. Can an NT overequip that nano right now? Then why would you want to let them?

"What about pets? Should an engineer be able to summon a Slayer at level 80 and have it perform on a level equal to their TS/MC skill? "

See above. The idea here is to let you overequip items, but have no benefit from it above and beyond what you're currently capable of equipping. I'm not sure that got through.

------------------------------

Let me state it again: the idea here is to make it so that no matter what weapon/armor/item you equip, it doesn't perform any better than the best one of that type you currently meet the prereqs for. If the best weapon you can use now, with your own full buffs, is ql 65, equipping a ql 85 will cause the weapon to perform exactly like a ql 65 weapon. There is still an advantage to equipping a ql 85 weapon though, and it is this: when grouped with someone who can buff/wrangle your skills higher, you will be able to get more out of the weapon. Using a ql 45 weapon would still result in the weapon performing only like a ql 45 weapon.

This also lets traders use their deprive skills nanos to great benefit in PvP, without the problem brought up before where it caused weapons to leap out of your hands and into your backpack.

It also adds realism. Why can't I even try to use a better quality weapon? It's exactly like the one I'm using now, only in better shape.

This system would take the emphasis off "Is that weapon too good for me to use?", and put the emphasis on "Is this weapon outdated?" which is where it makes sense for it to be.

[________________Yzen]

To clarify, here's an example.

Say I have a QL 85 nova flow. When fully buffed/wrangled, I exceed the skills needed to use, and it looks like it always does:

Name Second-Hand Nova Flow - Mk IV
Desc One of the weapons in the well-known plasma series. This one can also be used as a small arms.
QL 85
Range 20m
Attack Delay 1.5s
Equip Delay 0.5s
Ammo/Energy 20
Recharge Delay 2.5s
Damage 1-157(203)
DefSkills Dodge 100
AtkSkills AssaultRifle 67
AtkSkills LR_EnergyWeapon 33
To Wield AssaultRifle 335
To Wield LR_EnergyWeapon 223
To Wield Burst 285
To Wield FlingShot 200

Now, I'm out soloing, and the best I can do with self buffs is only sufficient for a QL 67 nova. I look at my QL 85 nova again, and it shows me the stats as usual, but in red next to each stat is the actual stat in use, since the weapon is now performing as though it were QL 67:

Name Second-Hand Nova Flow - Mk IV
Desc One of the weapons in the well-known plasma series. This one can also be used as a small arms.
QL 85 [67]
Range 20m
Attack Delay 1.5s
Equip Delay 0.5s
Ammo/Energy 20
Recharge Delay 2.5s
Damage 1-157(203) [1-125(157)]
DefSkills Dodge 100
AtkSkills AssaultRifle 67
AtkSkills LR_EnergyWeapon 33
To Wield AssaultRifle 335 [264]
To Wield LR_EnergyWeapon 223 [176]
To Wield Burst 285 [228]
To Wield FlingShot 200 [163]

One of my skills isn't high enough to get more out of the weapon. Say it's my AR skill, which is only 265. Now, I run into a group, and they ask me to join. The group has a trader, who is wrangling the group members. We start to pull, and he wrangles me for 70; now I have plenty of AR skill to meet the reqs. However, my burst is still too low to meet the full reqs; it's only 250, which is still holding me back from using the weapon at QL 85, but now I'm able to use it as though it were QL 72, which I meet the reqs for, until someone comes along and buffs my burst skill, and so on, up to the max QL of the weapon.

[______________Wahoo.]

Well ,then lets just make a new cheat god mode.

/god

Now i can never die also i can kill everything.

[___________fancycrat]

yeah lets make this game real boreing. and then destroy the ip system
oh oh dont forget to make into a fantasy game with elves too


note sarcasm
your suggestion wasent thought out at all

[________________Yzen]

I seriously don't think the responders even read the suggestion.

This would make overequipping *less* powerful. See?>

[XoTech]

What would be the point then in trying to get a weapon over your lvl? There would be no incentive to team and run missions above your level because the higher QL items you'd be trying to obtain would be useless.

They mine as well just take the QL of items out of the game and just base items on your attack ability.

Now my overall opinion on overequipping is this... IT DOES NOT EXIST. Funcom put variables in the game in order to allow players to equip higher quality items then they could on their own. This game essentially relies on the buff system. But there are also other level based factor that effect dmg output such as attack rating and initiative. So the guy with the best stuff wont always win.

God forbid a player has to learn the RULES of the game to be able to play successfully. Buffing is a major part of the game. Getting the best weapons/armor you can is a main objective of the game. Where is there a problem here? You take that away and this game is gonna be boring as hell. What would be the point of anything? It would make this game even more one-dimensional than it is now.

[____________eleetist]

If you do this then the game becomes incredibly boring for anyone rerolling... why... they take their QL200 weapon... equip it at level 1 and now they have nothing to look forward to in terms of improving their weapon the rest of the life of the character. However if you keep the reqs as they are then you manage make paying for buffs to equip a higher QL weapon worthless... Also you make every single player in the game exactly equal to each other and that is stupid

Soldier 1 hits Soldier 2 for 95 damage
Soldier 2 hits Soldier 1 for 95 damage
Soldier 1 hits Soldier 2 for 95 damage
Soldier 2 hits soldier 1 for 95 damage

hmmm very exciting...

[________________Yzen]

Overequipping has been hamstringing this game since day one. It makes balancing almost impossible: e.g. how powerful should an NT's dd nanos be? Should they be powerful enough to compete with a same-level soldier with the absolute best Nova that is technicially possible to equip, twinked with implants and wrangles from someone 100 levels higher, or should the NT's dd nanos be competitive with a same-level soldier using the best Nova that can be equipped using only the soldier's own buffs?

You can't have a decent PvP game if there aren't fairly tight bounds on character abilities for each level.

AO is supposed to be a PvP game. The reason it isn't is because the balance is so whacked. Getting rid of excessive overequipping is part of seeking that balance.

[________________Yzen]

Eleetist...

If PvP in this game consists of standing toe to toe with another soldier and seeing what you hit for each time and hoping you spent more on your gear than the other guy, it's already really boring, only the winner is determined by gear.

Winners should always be determined by tactics - in BATTLE, not in OT-shopping. Gear should be important, but minor compared to tactics.

Have AO players forgotten that PvP is about fighting, not about shopping?

If you spend more time picking gear than picking fights, you have a broken game.

[_______________Garzu]

THis will NOT fix ANYTHING, it will only make the game more boring... overequipping should still be possible, but within certain limits...

[Sohjiro]

Yes Yzen, I agree and yet I disagree with your suggestions.

People don't like change. Especially in the form of a nerf. Let's say that theoretically your idea got implemented...

Let's say I have a level 190 Soldier. I decide I've done everything I can possibly do with him, and start up another character. All I would have to do for my new character is pass down all of my QL 200 equipment that my soldier owned, plus all the stuff he found in missions or off of monsters. My new character (assuming he would be using relatively the same weapons and armor) would never have to buy a new gun or piece of armor ever again.

Second, PVP would be level based at that point. Higher the level you are, the better skills you are going to have. Team PVP would be necessary to overcome dangers from gankers and opposing factions. Yes, implants would have an affect on damage output and healing abilities, but like most classes the majority of people will fall into template. Everyone at a certain level and class can be predicted what type of damage they will do and how many ACs they will have regardless of their gear. This would balance out certain issues with PVP, but in my opinion it would do nothing to improve it. Besides, not everyone in the game likes to PVP.

Third. The economy as it is now would crumble. True, wrangles would become useless (unless the duration was increased and used especially for PVM) and paying for a Essence buff, Enhanced Senses, Feline Grace, Riot Control, Any type of Mastery, and Iron Circle would cease. The only way someone would pay for these is if somehow PVP became appealing to 90% of the players and people started paying for outside buffs to kill people faster in a duel. Doing missions for Senpai Coats to sell to other players would be less desirable.

So yes it would fix PVP in some ways, but also screw it up in others. The economy is the way it is because there is NO DESIRABLE TRADESKILL system. It takes like 10 different items to create something thats worth nearly 1/10th of the cost of the parts seperately. The majority of the construction kits are broken. The only way for anybody to make money is to run missions nonstop, and frankly missions are boring. There is no depth, no interaction, and more importantly no sense of accomplishment. So to make money, what do players do for money? They run/sneak missions for Senpai coats, and sell off their buffs to other players.

I like your idea Yzen, but I think the ONLY way it would work is if a third dimension with these rules implemented went up where people could start all new characters.

Lets face it. This forum is used as a tool for complaining and whining. I don't blame anyone, it seems to be the only effective way to get changes made. One thing I have noticed is that the majority of the people who post on this forum partake in PVP and complain about it in one form or another. And with almost every patch, what does funcom attempt to fix? PVP. Coincidence?

I don't think the solution is in balancing PVP or overequipping. I believe the solution is in improving the stability and features this game is supposed to have.

In a way, your post was thought out carefully Yzen, just not in the way a lot of people were expecting.

[Darkbane]

Hmm, lets just face facts, the game mechanics are flawed and balancing
without major changes to them will be impossible. So, rather than
make these major changes, concentrate on making the game fun for
every class and every level.

This means, doing some tweaking of classes and giving each class its
own flavour (some classes are just too similar at the moment), but
nothing major to the actual rules.

It means balancing weapons better (this is possible), so that a wider
variety of weapons are useable. Making faster weapons have better minimum
damage and a small overall damage range, and slower weapons have lower
minimum damage but a larger damage range (and higher maximum damage) would
help here. I don't know how criticals work, but having say an 8% chance
of doing extra damage should give a 4% chance of doing twice that extra
damage and a 2% chance of doing 4 times and a 1% chance of doing 8 times.

It means balancing MOBs and missions better (not impossible, but not
easy either) - a better calculation of a MOBs difficulty to a given player
or players needs to be done to adjust their hp/ac/damage/level/xp. This
should be possible for missions, and should NOT be done for external MOBs -
what you see is what you get should be the rule there :-) Tracking how
many copies of a mission key exist (and better still, the level of the
players carrying them) should enable this to be adjusted dynamically -
but once the mission area is entered, no further changes should occur.

Add features for people over 100 or so, story missions, quest missions,
neat unique items as rewards, etc.

The only way that major game mechanic changes could be made would be on
a new dimension, and I'd rather see the existing ones improved.