rebalancing stuff

[Towerblock]

--Engineers:

GERNAEDS!!1!

Buffs: Buff cast times will be decreased for all professions. Potential combination of pet-buff nanolines to decrease time spent getting pets battle-ready.

Team Blockers: Change functionality, look into creating a more 'active' system of refreshing blockers on team-mates/self.

Reflect Shields: Remove reflect shield prohibition in Shadowlands, remove double-reflect shields from pets on RK.

Pets: Rebuilding pets from ground-up to rebalance pet viability across all level ranges.

More Pets: Look into possibility of creating newer pets which serve more specialized functions. Most likely as an alternative to the mechdog pet line.

Cyberdeck: Potential 'weapon' which allows the Engineer to vastly increase pet efficiency at the sacrifice of personal damage.

Tradeskills: Increase functionality for tradeskill-based Engineers - Potentially new weaponry along the lines of the Remodulator, new tradeskill items/gadgets for combat use.

Snares: Duration decreased, faster casting, increased functionality in Shadowlands (goes for all professions).


***Grenades - Knock my socks off, or don't bother. Your competing with pistols and pistol perks. If you can balance those two, then i'll be interested. But, devs raised the bar on pistols to the point where it would take some serious effort to make grenades worthwhile, for PVM and PVP. I don't wanna sound too apprehensive, but I've seen too much fail from grenades to be piqued by this.

***Buffs: Shortened. Good news. Condensing. Good news. I'll withhold further comments till I see it in action.

***Blockers: Aside from what other people have said, I see the word 'active' and thats ambiguous to me at best. Give us a little more detail, and then let us rip it apart.

***Reflect Shields: Interesting, but not really a balancing improvement. If Kintaii says it was a bug, then we put that on the 'Fix this' shelf. Don't pass it off as an improvement. Removing the SL lockout makes me wonder if that is really a balance thing either.

***More Pets/Improved Pets: Excellent. About the best thing I've seen. Now, we will have the chance to choose between an allotment of buggy pets in dubious circumstances. I am eager, but apprehensive at best. I wanna feel secure that the main pet is gunna be fixed, before I even wish to see new prototypes in fail.

***Cyberdeck: You're asking for quite a bit, for engis to give up their main stream of weapons. If you do such a thing, there better be gold at that end of the rainbow. Its bad enough that options OTHER than pistols aren't really all that useful. I wanna see some huge support for this, or see the door marked "Grenades"

***Tradeskills: In combat. Interesting. Again.. if its more tricks and traps, i'd say its a welcome addition. However, that being said... cyberdeck/grenades... knock my socks off, or dont bother.

***Casting of Snare auras: Okay. But the snares sucked anyway. Does this mean that Snares will be useful anywhere other than RK? If so, how?



Overall, I am not sure how this information is supposed to be really helpful. I realize this is the tip of the iceberg, and the effect was more than likely meant to tease us into future stuff. But, this forum especially is constantly talking about future ideas. Innovation, thy name is engineer.

And if this 'balance' is supposed to mean anything, the real test is PVP. After what I have heard what other profs are getting, its hard to be giddy about whats posted here. It looks to me, here, that you're asking for a huge token of faith on our part. I am not sure this is the best place to be asking for that. Granted, things need to change.. but realize that Engineers are the battered wives of the AO world. It'll be a tough job to get back into our pants again.

[Solidstriker]

Also, also, the added ease to which people will be able to kill pets, namely now perk professions on top of the usual killers, coupled with the fact that pets are going to be much more important if these changes come in, makes the future seem less bright and more..cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

[Mountaingoat]

Also, also, the added ease to which people will be able to kill pets, namely now perk professions on top of the usual killers, coupled with the fact that pets are going to be much more important if these changes come in, makes the future seem less bright and more..cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

I'm assuming this is going to be part of reworked pets, and if it's not it ought to be (!!!). High damage professions can kill a pet faster than we can even cast a freakin shell to replace it, much less rebuff it and trim it (and ofc, while kiting it!).

[Technogen]

I'm going to push for the SL pets to have the same cast time as the RK ones, doesnt make sense for pets to be long cast like that.

[Philty]

I would like to say that the cyberdeck thing increasing power of our pets and pushing engi himself to the background, looks for me as an unacceptable concept.
I like to have pets around, but they have their limitations which wont be changed ever despite all efforts to improve pets (i am pessimistic...).
Anyone can say anything about better pathing ..bla bla bla...but still pets must be avoidable somehow ..guess why...due to balance again. As really good devastating pets would mean to be back in pvp style...send pets..win and it will be whined by around community to the very end. So I do not believe that pets would be that great ever...
Furthermore large depending on pets would mean that personal boosts, equip etc would have small impact on combat output...and that is just against whole spirit of this game. Its hardly something challenging (ts just about to encourage people to actually put some effort to built their characters...).

And it would be lame and boring.

So I would call just for personal tools for engi to help pets to reach their target. To utilize pets better within some reasonable limit. Nothing more.

Maybe I am wrong in uderstanding the concept, but from what was written I came to my feeling about that thing...


Other things are ok for me except active casting of self blockers -> this is also something what is hard to swallow.

[IHaveHugeNick]

All in all reading about so many weapons makes me a lot more worried then excited, and it either shows you have not been reading this board or that there is some communication problem, because the voice from this forum over the last couple of years did nothing but ask for one-two consolidated, focused, engineer specific weapon solution well supported throughout our toolsets.

And the response seems to be MOAR GUNS GO PEW PEW LOLZ.

As for self blockers - i'm playing a guessing game here, but if it means i have to actually execute blockers on myself when under attack, be it through nano or perk action, **** no. Especially since i don't see Kintai saying anything about more defense. The entire concept of this profession defensively is that we can only survive by combining passive defense through blockers with our absorb shields. If i have to activate blockers before they do anything it means before that i have no evades, nano resist, no high hp , no runspeed, no root/snare resistances, and thus i'm completely vurnerable to special attacks, regular damage, nano damage, crowd control, and have no means to heal up incoming damage apart rom BR each 5 minutes (whoopidoo).

Matter of fact is, Engineer without blockers is fastest going down profession in existance, so if you want to send us out to the battlefields blockerless until we execute something: **** no.


About pets being better and impossible to kite: i'm optimistic to the fact they even try, but i'll believe it when i see it. I also see there is a lot of contradicting concepts flying around, which makes whole thing hard to believe. So they will be unkitable and then rebalanced and then improved due to loss of reflect and then customizable to be improved even more and then can be improved a little bit more through cyberdeck? At least you don't say pets will have nipples. Yet.

Coming up with idea for cyberdeck and TS weapons shows that Tradeskill Totem concept is still strong with FC, despite the fact whole community has been campaining against it. I think we all like to see develompent focus shifting back to pets, , but not if it means we just get to stand back and press Q.

[Technogen]

Nick, let me attempt to clear up a little of that for you.

Pets -

Expect to see two types of pets come out of the pet changes, a PvP and a PvM pet. Their weapons would be much like mechs, they would check if the target is NPC or PC and do damage appropriately to them.

PvM pets would hit hard, have high hp, and have higher cast requirements.

PvP pets would have high ar, medium Hp, lower cast requirements and be "immune" to some of our buffs as they reach the proper level of skills on summon.

Weapons -

Grenade - Getting reworked this is known, how idk but will be comparable to pistols.

Pistols - Idk, this is Ellar's area i'm not doing all the work

Tradeskill/cyberdeck - These are a new extend range line of weapons, while being low damage the grant us and our pets new abilities.

__

Over all, it would work like this; a player has a primary weapon line they use, either pistol or grenade. This weapon line is mainly used in PvM but would also work in PvP like it currently does. Then EVERYONE (if they chose) would have the secondary line of TS/CD weapons. These would be a support roll weapon but doesnt have to be just team support; they could support our pet's land/attack rate, support our offensive debuffing abilities and so on.

So, players would swap pets and weapons depending on the content they are doing if they were so inclined to swap, this would separate PvM and PvP for the most part letting the devs grant us higher abilities in one with out worrying greatly about the effects of the other.

[Amickson]

I do not think that the "cyberdeck" thingy will be any good. FC tried this on MP's (creation buffing weapons) and fail horribly. The buffs to pets have to be extreme to even consider using it. Tradeskill weapons fall in the same category, non usable for pvm and only semiusable in pvp (team only). Swapping is out of question, for several last years engineers want one weapon usable in pvm and pvp as every other profession have.
If FC really want to have some use for grenade/tradeskills, let us build some gadgets usable like MA specials attack, with attack skill = grenade/tradeskill. Mines, grenades, poison clouds, traps, etc.

[aramsunat]

More weapon choices - yay this is cool as long as there is a REAL choice not just a Hobson's choice (I passionately oppose the past tendency to make every profession a cookie-cutter, with the absolute ubar weapon, absolute ubar perk setup, absolute ubar gear and yay absolute uber breed. atrox shade with deceit anyone?)

snare cast time reducing - yay this is cool, snares land with a much better rate when casted (i dunno why, it just works this way, go and check if you dont believe)

more pets - yay this is is cool anything that brings in versatility is good by default. hope the mesh wont be another white slayerdroid XD (I'd personally like some alien-themed pet, but whatever looks cool and works cool is good for me)

self blockers - CANTTOUCHTHIS

team blockers - /care? (one more remark though: whatever nerf will happen with it, do not let it overwrite our personal blockers thx)

tradeskills in combat - whatever... if its competitive, then some peeps will use it, otherwise its just not worth coding

cyberdeck - weird but if something useful comes outta it, I wont object. dont make it too good tho, as it would become the nobrain engi weapon choice

[MassDebater]

--Engineers:

GERNAEDS!!1!

Buffs: Buff cast times will be decreased for all professions. Potential combination of pet-buff nanolines to decrease time spent getting pets battle-ready.
just make recharge on buff nanos 0.0 secs

Team Blockers: Change functionality, look into creating a more 'active' system of refreshing blockers on team-mates/self.

$!@%@#% i seriously cant put this into words......NO


Reflect Shields: Remove reflect shield prohibition in Shadowlands, remove double-reflect shields from pets on RK.

hmmm, increase mid lvl pvm soloability in sl(woohoo), while nerfing tl7 soloing on rk, not to mention pets being very killeable in pvp again. why not just make it 48% in sl/rk....

Pets: Rebuilding pets from ground-up to rebalance pet viability across all level ranges.

how vague.

More Pets: Look into possibility of creating newer pets which serve more specialized functions. Most likely as an alternative to the mechdog pet line.

or just make one pet useful in all situations, how many profs swap weapons for different mobs?

Cyberdeck: Potential 'weapon' which allows the Engineer to vastly increase pet efficiency at the sacrifice of personal damage.

lame, nts sucked due to deck, lets not make the same mistake

Tradeskills: Increase functionality for tradeskill-based Engineers - Potentially new weaponry along the lines of the Remodulator, new tradeskill items/gadgets for combat use.

you add things useful in pvp, you instantly make it "needed" forcing people to ip tradeskills, now if you could utilise lower versions for skill lvls around base skill lvl= a small ip investment maybe......MAYBE

Snares: Duration decreased, faster casting, increased functionality in Shadowlands (goes for all professions).

make it a proc in pvp plus an aoe snare in pvm, there problem solved.

[Genele]

Matter of fact is, Engineer without blockers is fastest going down profession in existance, so if you want to send us out to the battlefields blockerless until we execute something: **** no.

I just want to inform you that self blockers will stay self refreshing. Blockers are the one very unique engineer specific defense and we are not taking this away from you.

However, when you provide blockers to your teammates, you need to work a bit more to keep them alive.
Team blockers will most likely change. (Yes I say most likely because nothing is written in stone yet). But! Blockers will not be something you have to spam every second, the changes will come with a local cooldown (meaning you can't cast this nano again for a certain period of time, but it will not put you in recharge). The blocker buff will last for a while, so unless someone get hit, you don't have to refresh them. Casting time will be instant.

[MassDebater]

However, when you provide blockers to your teammates, you need to work a bit more to keep them alive.
The blocker buff will last for a while, so unless someone get hit, you don't have to refresh them. Casting time will be instant.

Just no. Honestly your going to turn me into some kind of low damage, debuffing/casting class.

People asked for team blockers to be either a) removed or b) changed to something completely different.

Because they are a) lame and b) overpowered.

Your response:
MAKE IT SOMETHING WE HAVE TO RECAST.


At least currently we can leave it running in NCU and make sure teammates are in range every minute, but after the changes......jesus.

[Genele]

Just no. Honestly your going to turn me into some kind of low damage, debuffing/casting class.

We have not said anything about nerfing your damage, we are going to give you better weapons, we are going to improve your pets and we are going to improve your perks.

You will not get more debuff nano programs than you already have.

People asked for team blockers to be either a) removed or b) changed to something completely different.

Because they are a) lame and b) overpowered.

What role do you want to have in a team if we remove team blockers?

[IHaveHugeNick]

I just want to inform you that self blockers will stay self refreshing. Blockers are the one very unique engineer specific defense and we are not taking this away from you.

However, when you provide blockers to your teammates, you need to work a bit more to keep them alive.
Team blockers will most likely change. (Yes I say most likely because nothing is written in stone yet). But! Blockers will not be something you have to spam every second, the changes will come with a local cooldown (meaning you can't cast this nano again for a certain period of time, but it will not put you in recharge). The blocker buff will last for a while, so unless someone get hit, you don't have to refresh them. Casting time will be instant.

Nice, thanks for the info , the OP was a bit misleading about self-blockers then. I like the general idea about team blockers , though there are various possible implementations i could think of.

Just no. Honestly your going to turn me into some kind of low damage, debuffing/casting class.

People asked for team blockers to be either a) removed or b) changed to something completely different.

Because they are a) lame and b) overpowered.

Your response:
MAKE IT SOMETHING WE HAVE TO RECAST.


At least currently we can leave it running in NCU and make sure teammates are in range every minute, but after the changes......jesus.

Well team blockers were/are overpowered presicely due to the fact they are in form of passive aura.

I mean (this is a true story) once i came home completely drunk at 4am and there was a tower war going but i was passing out on the keyboard so they put me into most important team i set myself on /follow and i went to sleep. I bet they went through a lot of effort not to lose me. That's how absurd it got. If you have to actively cast it or perk it or some other implementation, then its whole different story.

[aramsunat]

I welcome the reduced cast time on them though

but if it has to be recasted every once in a while, could we get lower nanoskill reqs on it? Otherwise I doubt ppl would bother casting it

[MassDebater]

Oooooo MassDebater cant be an inanimate blocker totem anymore..... hooooow sad......

I welcome the reduced cast time on them though

but if it has to be recasted every once in a while, could we get lower nanoskill reqs on it? Otherwise I doubt ppl would bother casting it

The proposed change will stop you from pvping MORE than currently, how is that a good thing? Especially given your evident dislike of doing practically nothing.

Id call standing around spamming blockers more inanimate than having the freedom to play as I do solo.


IHHN:
"Well team blockers were/are overpowered presicely due to the fact they are in form of passive aura."

True, but as with all important buffs/actions(w.e you wanna call them) in ao, if they give a large boost to your team, you are seen as required to cast it, the only diff between now, and later will be more stopping to cast buffs. I already stop to cast isotos/mb/ashs/cps and everyone is whining about LESS buffing, and then bam we get....MORE in-combat buffing, thats just genius!


7x team blockers are OP on teammates in pvp, whether we are standing around in arith recasting them or if we are running around enjoying pvp(within team range admittedly) nearly singularly effects how much fun we have, not how OP this nano is.





Genele:

We have not said anything about nerfing your damage

AS nerfed plus nerfed perks as below

, we are going to give you better weapons,

Better than my current aMep+onehander setup? I sincerely doubt it

"we are going to improve your pets "
By removing the 48% reflect, by seperating pets into different types, either pvp/pvm or some other way. (I notice a proposed pvp pet has LESS hp than pvm version.....nice one there)

I have not seen any worthwhile suggestions to improving pets.
more hp
more resist
more ar
less kiting

no instead we get specialised pets with less hp and reflects.


"and we are going to improve your perks."

Pistol mastery perks are getting nerfed
Shotgun mastery perks are getting nerfed
Chem blindness is getting nerfed
attack check on COXX is getting nerfed
demolitions perks are getting removed except for grenade weapons(which totally suck)

How you can say our perks are getting boosted with a straight face is beyond me.

"Better Weapons" =grenade weapons and wacky ideas about debuffing target...
AS is getting nerfed



You will not get more debuff nano programs than you already have.
Maybe not nanos, but how about:
Medallion
Cyberdeck weapons
"fortress ideas"
Perk changes that include root/snares/weird debuffs

all of it points towards some weird slow low damage casting/debuff class.


What role do you want to have in a team if we remove team blockers?
How about good pvp damage.

Why dont solds have to recast rrfe every 1min-5min rrfe is quite powerful, why dont etc etc.....if all powerful team buffs had a small cooldown pvp would consist of people buffing each other.

[Forek]

I just want to inform you that self blockers will stay self refreshing. Blockers are the one very unique engineer specific defense and we are not taking this away from you.

I assume that you mean "were" very unique until someone decided they should be very unique to MPs as well?

We have not said anything about nerfing your damage, we are going to give you better weapons, we are going to improve your pets and we are going to improve your perks.

You will not get more debuff nano programs than you already have.

Our professional stated that in order to cast the new pet buffs we would need to equip a 1-1 cyberdeck. If that isn't nerfed damage, I don't know what is!

If we get a cyberdeck, we turn into an nt without the nukes! Our job will be to hide behind objects jumping out to cast heals or buffs on our pets from time to time. Besides the fact that pets suck at killing anything that moves, I don't want this to become the engineer profession.

[Towerblock]

I assume that you mean "were" very unique until someone decided they should be very unique to MPs as well?

They are being removed from SS. Keepers on the other hand...

[erozc]

I assume that you mean "were" very unique until someone decided they should be very unique to MPs as well?

Think SS is gonna go though.

[Kintaii]

As Eroz and Bubba both said, Sacrificial Shielding will be undergoing a lot of changes (as with pretty much everything else XD) and may well see the blockers either removed or their implementation heavily altered.

It's important to note that there are points where the implementation can make all the difference in the world, as the design behind the system can lend itself to a completely different feel/use dependent entirely on how it's implemented into the game - Things like blockers may end up in that same arena as we go forward.