Good and Bad points with next patch:
Mobs can cast pets:
Good - a little added variety, I guess.
Bad - Where to begin? First off, they are unmezzable due to spamming of commands by their owner. If attacked so much as once, they continue to attack you after the master dies. Mob pets are many levels above the mob caster, thus totally defeating the purpose of mission difficulty setting (yellow mob, red pet). MP mobs in particular were always a nightmare anyway due to very high chemical damage they do, and their extreme inits. 3 pet mobs in the first room spells impossible mission. All this adds up to a repeat of 12.6: mob difficulty isn't challenging, it's frustrating. Frustration leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to folks ditching the game.
New Items:
Good - Ph4t l3wt to make all the power gamers happy. New items make uber people even more uber. It also gives the power gamers something more to do since they are all level 200 and the treadmill has finished for them.
Bad - All the new items are gotten through either camping or team mission bosses. Camping is bad. Camping is the devil. Not one person that has ever lived can honestly say they ever enjoyed camping in an MMORPG. Static quests all require camping because Funcom seems to think that certain things in AO should be rare. Their method of making something rare is to require someone to stare at a screen for 4 hours and wait for it along with 37 other people. Is it any wonder why this makes players angry? Why would it be a bad thing for people who want to do the quest to be able to? Why would you even want something to be rare in the first place? Does Funcom really hate the players that much that they don't want us to get the items? Here's a simple, unoriginal, yet valid concept: if a player goes to do a quest, they should be rewarded without having to wait. Waiting does not add challenge, it does not add fun, it does not even add rarity, because no matter what the spawn rate is, powergamers will always get an item they want. As for the team mission thing, players should never be forced to team.
New Lowbie Dungeon
Good - new content! Yes, this dungeon gives lowbie players something new to do that is fun and exciting. From what I hear there is an upper level limit, preventing powergamers from camping this dungeon. Honestly, that's a wonderful idea. If a powergamer wants to roam the dungeon, they should just make an alt.
Bad - the level limit may anger some.
New Arrival Hall/Creation Area
Good - People seem to like it. It looks very nice and interesting. It's also much less confusing than the old creation area. Better and less confusing character creation means new people won't be turned off to the game. More people playing is always better.
Bad - Nothing bad about it that I can see. It only affects 10 minutes of your life though, so it isn't really that important.
New Atrox HP, New Nanomage NP
Good - Finally some breed differences. The new hp for Atroxes helps to balance slightly the negatives of such low caps for Int, Psych, and Sense, as well as their low nanopool. Likewise the new nanopool for Nanomages should have been in since the beginning.
Bad - Some Solitus may scream nerf and some nanomages may scream that nanopool is worthless. The truth is, the breed changes are good, but not enough. An additional change should be made which relates to "dribble down." In another thread which I believe Psiraven started, a suggestion was made that green attributes should get 150% dribble down and dark blue should get 50% dribble down. This would make Opifex better at sense/agility skill and poor at stamina skills, nanomages would get the much cried for boost to nanoskills and tradeskills while getting reduced weaponskills, and Atrox would gain affinity to Strength and Stamina skills, while being worse at Int, Psyc, and Sense skills. Also, the Atrox caps for Int Psyc and Sense need to be raised another 40 points or so. 400 is far too low.
Increased XP on outdoor mobs
Good - they finally seem to be understanding some of the concept of risk vs. reward that they love preaching about. This is a step in the right direction towards decreasing that steaming heap of hipocracy over at Funcom. Put a ton more loot on outdoor mobs, and increase the cash. Oh yeah, and that XP bonus should be closer to 50%, but still this is a step in the right direction.
Bad - this isn't enough. The XP bonus needs to be more like 50% and there needs to be a dramatic increase in loot. Hunting should be where you go for loot and XP, and missions should be where you go for dynamic content and tokens.
Well, that's my take on the current patch issues. My next post will include some suggestions that would really be nice to include in the next patch or maybe a patch in the near future. Most are suggestions that do not actually change current gameplay, merely add to it.