Friday with Means - April 23rd, 2010 - Incoming

[Mastablasta]

For the guys who've beaten the Collector - Please forward me any thoughts/ideas you have on the encounter. As the principal designer behind the mechanics of the boss, it'd be nice to see what you guys think of it in terms of its flaws/weaknesses/strengths. =)

From the screenshots from that session I would like to add that the terrain is in bad need of some decoration :|

[Dagget]

Some new items on testlive with today's patch:

Spirit Shroud of the Infantry Unit

Spirit Shroud of the Artillery Unit

Hacked Omni-Tek Gunship (Clan)

De-Hacked Frederickson Micro-kinetic Sleeves (Clan)

Manex Adventuring Protection System (various body parts and styles)

========

I'm gonna guess that The Collector now has an active loot table (unlike last night)

[Klodovik]

@ Ocene :

Actually last i tried it there were some use for CCing in Collector, on top of giving engy/NT/trader a special added ability (enhanced knockback). The few times i tried it, i was like "Dam, well tought, looks like there might be a ****load of diff prof combinaison that could take this down".

Wait a minute... Hold on... Easy there...

Did I read this right? Engies/NTs/traders got knockbacks now?

[bitnykk]

Is there a particular time of the day where there are more people on Test than others?

idk at all ... generally i try around 20:00 European time (Paris, France = GMT+1 so should be 18/19:00 UTC depending on season shift for enery savings) several times in the week.

that's true it's hard to get a fullteam of various profs (tank, heal, baff/debaff, crowd & dd), but that can happen like last sunday or thursday two weeks ago. the more we'll go the more it would happen.

[wyldebeast]

Some new items on testlive with today's patch:

Spirit Shroud of the Infantry Unit

Spirit Shroud of the Artillery Unit

========

What's new with this one? Have the stats been changed or is this just to indicate, that the spirit shroud now drops from the collector too?

[NoGoal]

Coast of Peace and Coast of Tranquility playfields have now been hooked into the Grid.

This is nice but there could be more exits imho. From all these years I guess they could add a few more. Even F-Grid could use a few more.

And while you are at it, add a few stones in SL too. The first areas have a good amount of stones but after nascence/ely, you get 3 stones per garden iirc, that's not enough.

Worst example of this is inferno for omnis. All 3 stones for them are close together, it could be only 1, it wouldn't change much. It wouldn't be that bad if they weren't also located quite far away from everything players are doing in inferno. Sanct stones don't help much more.

[Deaconfrost]

Frankly, and as much as it pains me I have to say it: This thread is getting obscene. It is indecent how selfish people can rationalize, whine and detract when they ear of a feature that may put in danger one of the things that is destroing the game. Soloing and multilogging are some of the main reasons for the game to be sinking like it is now. It needs to be fixed and FAST. But most people prefer to be the big fish in a drying pond.

This new feature may or not be good, it probably will need some adjustments and exceptions, it may even be bad. We will have to try it and evaluate it. But what it intends is an essential step to fix the game. Each new toon needs to be played from beginning to end. And be developed properly along the way. This is a game that needs to be played solo, in small teams and in raids. Each type of game play should be viable. But each should be played in its proper place with an adequate reward.

Those who really dont have the patience anymore to play properly should try other games. Make space for some noobs. The game needs them more. Much more.

... So much to say, so little time. I barely even have the time to actually play AO anymore but still like to troll FWM to see whats up. This just screamed for a response...

1. "Soloing and Multi-Logging are sinking the game"... Quick response = LOL

Few facts for you champ, my MA was rolled on Nov 17, 2001 so I've been playing this game for almost 9 years now. The first year I played solo entirely, joined maybe 2 teams in that time because I was used to single player RPGS. I leveled my MA from 187-200 (back when that was a big deal lol) soloing PW dynas. Was I breaking the game lol?

One reason I'm still here is BECAUSE I can solo and multi-log. Thats why I have three accounts lol. I got tired of asking everyone for baffs and got a second acct and rolled my agent actually strictly as a baff dispenser to be honest. I got a third acct and rolled my keeper. So yes I can triple log in 3 220's and do stuff ingame. How is that breaking the game by me giving Funcom three payments instead of one?

Related Tangent: If Means would let us all use the transfer option to move characters to new/different accounts Funcom would probably get me to pay for 5 accounts in a game I barely play anymore. How is me wanting to give Funcom even MORE money than I already do breaking the game? (I love AO in case you hadn't figured that out!)

Lastly, and this will be referenced again later, its MY account. I pay for it and you don't. So if I want to solo from 1-220/30/70 and multi-log 3 accounts that belong to me what business is that of yours? Segue into...

2. "Each new toon needs to be played from beginning to end" ... LOLOLOL

Thanks for telling me how to play MY characters on the account I pay for and you don't. I'm very sorry Lusos but I'm really not going to level my 167 agent that I use to pull ql 200 mishes because you think every charcter must be rolled and then leveled to max. I'm going to continue to roll as many alts in as many profs as I want to, whenever I want to... much to the annoyance of some of my guildies (Hi Craized!!)

I'm also not going to level my 24 trader Subway guy, my abandoned 190 shade, my abandoned 192 Solitus keeper (just waiting on breed reset baby!!!), my sector 10 lvl 150 fixer and enf, my 219 semi-abandoned Adv, my lvl 60 Neutral Shop Searching Enforcer, My lvl 116 Spare mp on agent account, etc...

I thought cos I pay for it I get to do whatever I want with it, not whatever YOU want me to do with it, my bad. I have a 176 Sol and when the Name Cleanup happened and a name I like came up I rolled a new sol. How is that breaking the game?

3. Last but not least... "Those who really dont have the patience anymore to play properly should try other games" errrrr no lol

Where to even start on this one. How about something easy.

Please define "Playing AO properly". Do you mean play it the way YOU do? I didn't know there was a "proper" way to play AO , good thing I found this out now a mere 9 years into my playing experience huh?

Does "playing AO properly" mean doing stuff the way it was originally coded in the game? Well that means a hell of a lot of people are going to be veryyy disappointed when they log in and see that they didnt actually earn 220 "properly" and have had it taken away from them. I'm fine since I leveled my MA and Agent "properly" to 220 the "proper" way , with NO mish xp rewards and needing to run a ridiculous amount of Hard missions to acheive 220. Isn't that the "proper" way to do it?

Well obviously at some point Funcom acknowledged reality that the grind to 220 was NOT FUN. So they reduced it considerably with mish rewards. Were they "proper" the first time or the second time? I could go on in this vein with AI mishes, etc ... a whole raft of content has been altered from what used to be "proper" and was in fact just wrong and NOT FUN.

So is grinding Pande fun? No its not, and thats spoken as someone who earned his BoC the "proper" way (see what trouble this gets you into lol) by farming it for about a YEAR in raidbots like Beastnet. It's not "proper" that people can get a BoC without farming a year in a raidbot? That was a stupid waste of time... and you want to return to it?

Pande was put into the game with the SL expansion so back in 2003. Since then there was this other game you might have heard about that starts with a W and also ends with a W. Like it or not, this game changed the way MMOGs "work". You can say they "dumbed it down" (which they did) but they also streamlined and refined it. The quest leveling system was genius as evidenced by AO's adoption of the very same system. The old-fashioned dumb MMOG grind was based on people who I don't think understand their own genre. To put it into AO terms...

AO IS A GREAT GAME. FUNCOM SHOULD TRUST IN THAT, AFTER 9 YEARS I'M STILL HERE. MAKE THE GAME GREAT AND FUN AND YOU WILL GET MY $. DONT MAKE ME WASTE TIME IN A MEANINGLESS GRIND TO GET LEVELS AND STUFF, THATS WHAT MAKES ME NOT WANT TO PLAY.

So Pande is not fun because its an old-fashioned meaningless grind where to even get anywhere in the instance you have to kill a zillion mobs that each have a zillion hp each ... and dont drop any lewt!

Heres an idea... make the "trash" mobs at the back corners of the Pande drop useful items! So we actually WANT to kill them, not are FORCED to kill them due to old school MMOG mechanics of making ppl grind to keep those Subscription fees coming in. Mines coming in cos I like the game not cos I like the grind, keep that in mind when designing content please FC.

Now if people have found that Pande geography can be used to eliminate some grind... how is this breaking the game? The exact same geography in all over SL... for example elysium. Am I breaking the game if I use SL building mechanics to farm Spec 1 in Elysium lol?

What we need is new and powerful endgame items , not to put restrictions on getting old items or punish people for "not playing properly". My only complaint with Pande is now everyone has a BoC so its no longer quite as special... solution = new even more powerful/rare back item that the die-hards can spend time raiding for.

Sorry about the rant but your post annoyed me on several levels...

[Ocene]

Totally in agreement with you Deacon. There is no "proper" way of playing, people are here while it's fun.

The warp & root feature is not fun.

[Kintaii]

I'm gonna guess that The Collector now has an active loot table (unlike last night)

Loot table is *sorta* there-ish. I was in the middle of creating it when we made this latest build, so it's not finalized by a long shot - Tons of stuff still missing.

What's new with this one? Have the stats been changed or is this just to indicate, that the spirit shroud now drops from the collector too?

This was just a name fix, as noted in the big "Annoying small things everyone knows about yet have not been fixed" thread. Was one of the few things on the list I could fix easily without having to commit to long hours of pain and suffering. ><

[Aiken]

For the guys who've beaten the Collector - Please forward me any thoughts/ideas you have on the encounter. As the principal designer behind the mechanics of the boss, it'd be nice to see what you guys think of it in terms of its flaws/weaknesses/strengths. =)

Done. Wall of text delivered as requested

[Kittz]

Kewl froobies can enter city buildings.

Hmmm. What about the fix for the /org kick error that only the President can kick???

[wyldebeast]

This was just a name fix, as noted in the big "Annoying small things everyone knows about yet have not been fixed" thread. Was one of the few things on the list I could fix easily without having to commit to long hours of pain and suffering. ><

Love you I mean, some things should still be hard to get and I'd hate if this became the BoC that every bank toon would have.

[Leileena]

Hmmm. What about the fix for the /org kick error that only the President can kick???

As stated in -this- thread, it should be fixed when next patch hits live.

[Lusos101]

... So much to say, so little time. I barely even have the time to actually play AO anymore but still like to troll FWM to see whats up. This just screamed for a response...

Lotsa, lotsa stuff and then some more...

Sorry about the rant but your post annoyed me on several levels...

You just totally missed the point. Absolutly, no doubt about it.

My rant, and it seems obvious to me in the context of the thread, was about powerleveling toons and farming everything with a main. That is not the proper way of playing a toon. In fact it is NOT PLAYING A TOON. How does it break the game? Because it is so generalized that everybody, including new players are dragged into it. At the end, players with end game toons will have 220 toons that they dont know how to play properly and noobs reach end game as gimpy as possible and without knowing how to play their toons. And powerleveling is boring and repetitive. People who complain about leveling toons by themselves because it is boring are just being contradictory. There is nothing more boring then waiting on kite hill for the toon to reach the desired level. Add all this and you might have a better reason for noobs to leave the game then dated graphics or gameplay.

You are being silly in your emo rage, everybody soon learns that this is not a linear game. You presumed that i am such a noob that i did not figure it out. That is... presumptuous. Go play your twinkies all you want, level solo or in teams, raids, whatever. That is playing the game, that is good. New players will learn from that and do the same. Sit on kite hill and they will too, what do they know of the workings of the game? What they see veterans do they copy, until they get bored and leave, even faster then the bored veterans.

Veterans are one key ingredient in retaining new players, but it is not their obligation to play properly, it is in Funcoms own interest (if they want to revive the game) to put everybody playing properly (by now you must have figured it out by yourself that playing properly just means playing with the toons and not powerleveling and main farming) this will keep veterans interested and noobs too. How to do it? Big question.
Unlike what you presumed i am not an advocate of forcing players to play a certain way. Even kite hill may have its uses. I think that the donkey may go in the proper direction if beaten, but it certainly will go faster and more willingly if the carrot is placed adequatly. People are like donkeys, they react much better with positive incentives then negative ones. But they respond to both. And both should be used. The game needs to be changed so that all types of GAMEPLAY are supported and players are encouraged to play the game. The incentives should be proper xp/sk gains in different places and some worthwhile loot/creds to sweeten the deal. Good gains in teams and reasonable gains if the players dont want/cannot find teams.

But the worst excesses need to be cut or players will not change their ways. Powerleveling needs to be reduced ALOT, so does the possibility to farm everything with mains. Says I.

Oh and by the way, I have a nice house, an expensive sports car, a very sweet and sexy wife and a job that is prestigious and pays well. Not impressed with your many accounts.

[Deaconfrost]

You just totally missed the point. Absolutly, no doubt about it.

My rant, and it seems obvious to me in the context of the thread, was about powerleveling toons and farming everything with a main. That is not the proper way of playing a toon. In fact it is NOT PLAYING A TOON. How does it break the game? Because it is so generalized that everybody, including new players are dragged into it. At the end, players with end game toons will have 220 toons that they dont know how to play properly and noobs reach end game as gimpy as possible and without knowing how to play their toons. And powerleveling is boring and repetitive. People who complain about leveling toons by themselves because it is boring are just being contradictory. There is nothing more boring then waiting on kite hill for the toon to reach the desired level. Add all this and you might have a better reason for noobs to leave the game then dated graphics or gameplay.

You are being silly in your emo rage, everybody soon learns that this is not a linear game. You presumed that i am such a noob that i did not figure it out. That is... presumptuous. Go play your twinkies all you want, level solo or in teams, raids, whatever. That is playing the game, that is good. New players will learn from that and do the same. Sit on kite hill and they will too, what do they know of the workings of the game? What they see veterans do they copy, until they get bored and leave, even faster then the bored veterans.

Veterans are one key ingredient in retaining new players, but it is not their obligation to play properly, it is in Funcoms own interest (if they want to revive the game) to put everybody playing properly (by now you must have figured it out by yourself that playing properly just means playing with the toons and not powerleveling and main farming) this will keep veterans interested and noobs too. How to do it? Big question.
Unlike what you presumed i am not an advocate of forcing players to play a certain way. Even kite hill may have its uses. I think that the donkey may go in the proper direction if beaten, but it certainly will go faster and more willingly if the carrot is placed adequatly. People are like donkeys, they react much better with positive incentives then negative ones. But they respond to both. And both should be used. The game needs to be changed so that all types of GAMEPLAY are supported and players are encouraged to play the game. The incentives should be proper xp/sk gains in different places and some worthwhile loot/creds to sweeten the deal. Good gains in teams and reasonable gains if the players dont want/cannot find teams.

But the worst excesses need to be cut or players will not change their ways. Powerleveling needs to be reduced ALOT, so does the possibility to farm everything with mains. Says I.

Oh and by the way, I have a nice house, an expensive sports car, a very sweet and sexy wife and a job that is prestigious and pays well. Not impressed with your many accounts.

Rule #1 of Forum Trolling: If you need to reference how great RK4 is for you then you pretty much have no substantive ingame argument... not impressed by what you have on RK4 much, I got my own stuff there too but don't need to talk **** about it in an online game to feel superior lol

I <3 your summary, the Title ... LOTSA STUFF I DIDNT READ ... The End

Nice , Very nice

Seems that you are missing the point entirely so let me try another track here. Why are there 8 slots on the account? By your "logic" every single toon must enter RK alone and unaided by the "main" lol. So no creds or items then? Oh wait cred or items are ok but "powerleveling" and "getting lewt" isnt? Well what is "powerleveling"? A pocket team? Should 220's just not be allowed to enter Elysium or Ado anymore? I can't get a goat helm for an alt by killing supply master whoever? Can I give an alt a dyna nano thats profs specific? I mean seriously lol...

I cant use a character on another acct I paid for to help me on this acct? Why not? Besides you saying that I won't "understand how to play AO properly"...

Which brings me back to the wall of text you didnt read, here was a question for you (I see you answered none of them).

Please define "Playing AO Properly".

And as also asked previously, by "Properly" don't you mean the way "YOU" play? Isnt that a tad arrogant to assume that you are the final arbiter on how ppl should be playing AO?

I saw very little "emo rage" in my post, but thx for the laff. I saw me asking you to explain several rather extreme and militant positions on what constitutes the AO playing experience. Your response speaks for itself.

Once again, its MY account. I can powerlevel as much as I want to and farm items for my alts all day. The end.

Wait. you are complaining about the game needs more population...

then you want to take away powerleveling.

lol.

[Lusos101]

You shot your own foot with that rule number one. It was you who bragged about how many accounts you have.

I did read your post. You didnt read mine and just presumed what was written.

My conclusion is that YOU just want to troll and brag about how uber you, your accounts and your gameplay are. I want to discuss and suggest changes and improvements to the game. Since we dont have any common interests, there is no reason to continue replying to your posts. You are free to brag and troll all you want. Im free to ignore you.

HAEV A NICE DAY.

[Theribal]

The Daily Mission System:

The new Daily Mission System is now available. The first Daily Missions in this first release are available for Rubi-Ka only and will offer players of all levels an alternative and effective way to progress with significant rewards including XP, Victory Points, and Tokens. Daily Missions are available from sided agencies in Old Athens, Rome Blue and daily PvP Mission in a hidden location in Borealis.

Are the missions that give Victory Points not on testlive atm? I tried a few of the daily missions but couldn't seem to find one that actually gives vp, just tokens.

[shadowgod]

teaches him to look around more when wandering in that specific area.. Hags aggro-range isnt really that large you accidentally aggro her again if you know shes out there.

now who to blame... devs, hags or shadowgod if he goes there again to die?
without the 10 sec stun he still might die to the adds & nuke..

teaches me what? that sometimes lag causes you to fall off the end of the shadowlands, making you end up in some RK zone that might have mobs a tad bit higher for your char?

or does this teach me that players should not go explore new zones, otherwise they're have their ass %@*&^ outa no where by some boss mob, and thus causing more n00bs to cry about theres nothing for them to do in the game?


and its been forever since i've been in SAV. so i had no clue about this particular boss being out in the open, covieniently in my flight path to getting to a way out from where SL dropped me.

not to mention, i've been playing since before FC removed penalties for dying. so i still prefer to never die, if at all possible.

[Rktim]

teaches me what? that sometimes lag causes you to fall off the end of the shadowlands, making you end up in some RK zone that might have mobs a tad bit higher for your char?

or does this teach me that players should not go explore new zones, otherwise they're have their ass %@*&^ outa no where by some boss mob, and thus causing more n00bs to cry about theres nothing for them to do in the game?


and its been forever since i've been in SAV. so i had no clue about this particular boss being out in the open, covieniently in my flight path to getting to a way out from where SL dropped me.

not to mention, i've been playing since before FC removed penalties for dying. so i still prefer to never die, if at all possible.

Erm, dieing is not horrible in AO, getting pwnt by a 250 boss mob is nothing out of the ordinary if you fall/wander on to the wrong place, its a learning experience and getting pwnt at times is part of the learning..

[Hvyshadows]

First of all, I'm not on test so I have no idea how this root thing is going to play out. At this point, I don't even know if it's all bosses that warp or selected ones.

If it's all bosses, then it brings up the issue of what I see as a "scorched earth" policy on the part of FC. There's some obvious exploits that they are aiming at closing. Fair enough. But why not just close those exploits, rather than extending it to every boss that warps in game. As has been stated before, out distancing an opponent should be a viable tactic. It certainly is in PvP, and it makes sense that if they are going to have stationary bosses, then it should be in PvM as well. The difficulty level in Dark Ruins will scale up tremendously with this change as many professions have to kite in order to complete the single player instance (no cries of "Get a decent team!" on this one). I remember a similar instance with crat stuns. Crat stuns were OPd in PvP and PvM. FC's solution, get rid of crat stuns (with the promise of changes that would offest this that have never materialized). Why? Why not change the mechanics of them so that they were more reasonable. Yes, chain stunning was not good, but why does that mean no stuns at all? And why not take them from other professions/items? No one seems to be complaining about shade stuns and why? Because they don't work on bosses and do not land with near the same frequency in PvP.

I'd just rather see a reasonable response rather than a reactionary one. Just throw out the bathwater, the baby is fine.