Summary of Profession Rebalancing: Round 1

The PvM and PvP issue is an interesting one.

Judging by the MA changes announced, their defensive stance looks like being primarily aimed at the PvM environment. Also in some of the other changes, there's some clear changes that are targeted at improving either PvM performance or trying to increase the choices and diversity of PvM play. In general, I'd say that most professions can access teams reasonably well, so PvM balance is perhaps not such a burning issue... though there are exceptions to this (MPs in particular can struggle to get teams).

There have also been some comments from FC about rebalancing some of the mobs in the game alongside the changes to players. I can't find the specific threads... but I'm sure I've seen that spoken about. Dealing with outside tanking and NT kiting teams etc is perhaps a more difficult proposition...

But it's not as though PvM has been forgotten in the rebalancing...

That said, it's nevertheless true that players in most MMOs these days, view levelling as something that should be over as swiftly as possible and really as a means to an end - being getting to endgame Raid content or PvP. It's almost become a standard paradigm for players, that the levelling process is sidelined and seen as a necessary evil rather than as a substantive part of gameplay that needs to be enjoyed (a situation I find appalling myself...).

There's an argument that endgame raid content in AO tends to be a bit weak compared to some other games and so, at high levels, PvP tends to be the primary focus. That said, endgame content has, I think, improved recently. But endgame PvP is certainly one of the primary goals that many players have in AO... hence the player focus on that, that you'll often see in the forums.

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

MP's are the ones needing most love of all, in most peoples opinion they bring nothing to the table in pvm and I've seen so many teams that would rather grab a 205 solja than a 217 MP and thats sad. Move the capture of essence idea to the MP and make it really cool, and they will get teams again. Maybe there could be dedicated, quest reward, nano crystals for the really really bad mobs, like an essence of the Beast, that only works to capture the essence of this specific mob, and has a long cooldown or only hold it for one use? Sort of like a nano equivalent of popping shadowbreed. A one timer that can change the outcome of combat. Maybe in the beast example giving the MP's a temporary baby beast pet with badass AoE dmg. Also, variation for the third pet is kinda cool, but I think skill debuffs belong to trader. Better make it a NSD pet or something that goes for the nanoskills and leave weapon skills alone, to stay within concept. Overall better damaged output is more needed here than variation, but I just assume that this will be taken care of with the pets being completely revamped.

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THIS. Please take note in our wishlist also.

...Man Really cant wait to find out the outcome of the soldier Rebalancing..i really wish we had better solo-ability could we mayb get a higher QL one more hit healing?...or mayb another option other then jus stims to help us get a lil health back in a fight

Engineer Idea: If the engineers get the option of only using a cyberdeck and no weapon maybe they could have a special pet that they could actually house themselves inside of like the current mechs but a bit more powerful against players.

i guess engi's being able to throw down a turret (pvm focused really) in a big fight is not on the menu, but would really fit the genre to the truest sense. and when i say turret, it could be split into 2 catagories of the same nanoline: healing turret, that does an aoe heal on all friendly's in vicinity every 10 seconds, and gun turret that basically would be like a turret that you run into in missions/statics. only one turret could be dropped at any given time, and killing/redropping should be similar to having a pet shell in your inventory. casting both turrets before hand would give opportunity to swap turrets on the fly by terminating one and dropping the other immediately after. maybe its been thought about before, but i would likely level my engi up if this kind of thing were implemented, and im probably not alone i imagine.

Anybody got the screenshot of the ranged pets when they were introduced :o ?

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Originally Posted by SoulTarder

it could be split into 2 catagories of the same nanoline: healing turret, that does an aoe heal on all friendly's in vicinity every 10 seconds, and gun turret that basically would be like a turret that you run into in missions/statics. only one turret could be dropped at any given time, and killing/redropping should be similar to having a pet shell in your inventory.

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Healing of players isn't a part of the engineer toolset; If that healing turret heals pet only (or even only robotic pets), it would be a fun aspect of the engineer profession. This would require pets to be able to actually hold agg to be of any use, though.
Gun turret: Sounds like an awesome idea.

It would also be nice if they extended the BS-only mine idea. It's an interesting part of the engineer toolset which would work in so many other situations than BS, w/o being OP. (Might need slight adjustment of modifiers, however)

Took this post, as I really found interesting/intriguing to comment on.

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

I play all the professions in this game, and have been around since launch 2001. When I look at these changes being made I think most of them looks good except for the following:

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I am glad you have experience with all professions, but I don't think that makes an opinion better; however, at least you can say you have used up the last 9 years of your life for a game you enjoy.

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

Trader don't need a working pet line - it doesn't go with the concept. Remove all pets from traders and instead increase their crits and evade lines. To me it's unbelivable that traders do not have a dedicated crit perk or nano line. They should have received it when MA's crit buffs where changed. Defenses are also low, and with evades being more within concept than absorbs or HP, please increase evades/AAD a bit further.

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I agree, giving pets to traders if patching a bleeding profession. Traders are so darn powerful at lower TLs, and even higher to some extent. They are almost glass cannons like NTs, and they need to see increased evades/aad/crit...and maybe on the side TINY evade/AR/Nanoskills and other types of drains. Not overpowered, but to where they can pick their battles careful and survive...without being too power in their drains and can still perform PVM.

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

Crat basically don't need nothing new at all, so just throw them a bone and be done with it. They are the #1 most wanted teammember at any pvm situation. Please balance them, don't nerf because I hate nerfs, but they shouldn't by any reason get all the best new stuff either. Especially not the essence thing, see MP below.

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Yet again, spot on. Crats have been extremely easy for Pvm...and that is crazy. They need small nerfs in PvM but, PvP still sees Crats dying a lot. This needs to be addressed. It seems PvM will be on par in the future, PvP is the major issue here. Still will probably be #1 (or slip to #2/#3 in most wanted).

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

MP's are the ones needing most love of all, in most peoples opinion they bring nothing to the table in pvm and I've seen so many teams that would rather grab a 205 solja than a 217 MP and thats sad. Move the capture of essence idea to the MP and make it really cool, and they will get teams again. Maybe there could be dedicated, quest reward, nano crystals for the really really bad mobs, like an essence of the Beast, that only works to capture the essence of this specific mob, and has a long cooldown or only hold it for one use? Sort of like a nano equivalent of popping shadowbreed. A one timer that can change the outcome of combat. Maybe in the beast example giving the MP's a temporary baby beast pet with badass AoE dmg. Also, variation for the third pet is kinda cool, but I think skill debuffs belong to trader. Better make it a NSD pet or something that goes for the nanoskills and leave weapon skills alone, to stay within concept. Overall better damaged output is more needed here than variation, but I just assume that this will be taken care of with the pets being completely revamped.

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I would say MP's are top THREE in needing the most love. I believe to say MPs are up there, but keepers/agents are not seems wrong (you didn't even mention Keepers). I would agree that MPs need a change, but I see what you suggest and I feel it still leaves MPs at craptastic status, just with some cool things here and there to make them feel better (i.e outcome of battle, etc)

I am going to be honest, and I am sure there are 5 decent MPs alive, but here is the thing. They are crap (will explain). No way around it, they are buff machines with good-average damage, that offer very little and are seeing tiny improvements and a few adjustments to look better. MPs really need strong unique changes. They were good in a long time ago, but with so much content being easy their toolset is probably up there with worst toolsets for current game. This would see like crap as everything they have supports them doing...nothing. Their toolset needs to emphasize what they need.

Pets of different types - melee, ranged, nuker ...and not just one every once in a while, but can be swapped
Team nano defense - against nukes, aoe damage, and anything of nano damage nature
Powerful nukes - that at least put them up there with NTs when pets are factored in
Unknown - at least another mechanic to really put the MP on the radar...that says 'this is how I am unique'. I get they are unique in some ways, but they are unique in the outdated ways for the current game state

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

Engi getting cyberdeck. This idea is nice if implemented right. I think that if we let go of our weapons and go for cyberdeck , it must also mean an increase in the pets resist to root and mezz while weilding cyberdeck, because then we would rely 100% on pets. I also think that the cyberdeck would be a great oppurtunity for the engi to finally get their long awaited third pet. The kamikaze bot. All other pet profs have nukes, debuffs etc, as well as and more pets, along with weapon lines. Engi should at least have the same amount of pets if letting go of their weapon.

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I am not sure I feel strong about this. I feel Engineers should stick to robotics and go way from nuking, pistols, and have a different variety of pets. The Engineer should be a strong bot healer, and strong grenade/heavy weapons user. Maybe do something with nanos and weapons...like firing nukes out of weapons, etc. Engineers are getting dull imho, and turned into another nuke based pet profession (homogenizing much?).

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Originally Posted by Plektrum

Agents - There has been talk before about giving agents a range of truly deadly sniper rifles, but with the equipment req of"not while in FP" would give the agents a choice between DD machines or FP specialists. The true sniper route could be the equivalent of a ranged shade. I wonder why that idea died? And just for fun, they should recieve a undercover nano that lets them get displayed as omni, clan, or neutral by choice. That would let them equip whatever armor they wanted and go into BS on either side of the conflict. Like a true double agent. Or sneaking around cities ganking people, which is totally within agent concept and tradition.

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The ranged version of the Shade is definitely where it was going. They are both sneaky, both assassins, both meant to be high damage dealers with a solid defense/offense but nothing over the top in defense. I think something like double agents are extremely unique, but I also believe BS should be side 1 vs side 2, not clan/omni. There should be other places for faction disputes.

I also feel with the FP direction they could see Agents being a new love child, with more jack-of-all-trades components then even Adventurers.

Overall, I feel Plektrum did a fairly good job. But I really want to caution Funcom from really making every profession the same. It is hard with 14 professions, but it is crucial to not make every pet profession alike, to not make agents/adventurers alike, to not forget the MP/Keeper/Agent who have seen their roles turned to ashe. Just like PvP should = PvM in terms of importance. Neither should weigh heavier, as both have a big role in this game (just like the twinking system uniqueness).

I really hope what I said (along with Plektrum and many others) gets reflect to Funcom properly.

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Originally Posted by Siegetank

The ranged version of the Shade is definitely where it was going. They are both sneaky, both assassins, both meant to be high damage dealers with a solid defense/offense but nothing over the top in defense. I think something like double agents are extremely unique, but I also believe BS should be side 1 vs side 2, not clan/omni. There should be other places for faction disputes.

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Uhm... no. Very high offense should not have a defense even close to moderate. Glass cannon is what both classes are meant to be. Givign a profession high DD and any kind of duration defense is OP. These classes were never meant to tank mobs or players well and should never be allowed to do so after rebalance in my opinion

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Originally Posted by fortorn

Uhm... no. Very high offense should not have a defense even close to moderate. Glass cannon is what both classes are meant to be. Givign a profession high DD and any kind of duration defense is OP. These classes were never meant to tank mobs or players well and should never be allowed to do so after rebalance in my opinion

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Hehe, like many other classes are high DD and high duration defense... what class do you play?

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Originally Posted by vios

Hehe, like many other classes are high DD and high duration defense... what class do you play?

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I play an enforcer and a crat predominantly.

Enforcer has among lowest DD in pvm since we have low dmg regular hits, no nukes, slow perk recharge and no high dmg specials. PVP 60s recharge for alpha and must be in max AR setup.

Crat has more continuous dmg but is checked by NR easily at later titles. Defense is passive with the exception of init debuffs and AAD perks which make an effective defense for a shorttime. Rest of the time squishy.

Again I'm talking theory.

Edit: Long duration defense should not accompany high dmg unless that dmg is luck dependent on landing.

wait wait the enfo getting lower dude why the enfo is fine has is. i finaly made a enfo almost to 220 and u pull this out lower there health why. i might quit playing bescue that i do all this hard work on the enfo for the health so i can solo stuff finaly in game and now thats being taking away. there would be no point to play any more Oo. if the enfo health is taking a away there would be no point in useing a enfo to tank pandy no more or collecter or any thing bescue of this.. plz do not nerf the enfos health

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Originally Posted by jagdryan

wait wait the enfo getting lower dude why the enfo is fine has is. i finaly made a enfo almost to 220 and u pull this out lower there health why. i might quit playing bescue that i do all this hard work on the enfo for the health so i can solo stuff finaly in game and now thats being taking away. there would be no point to play any more Oo. if the enfo health is taking a away there would be no point in useing a enfo to tank pandy no more or collecter or any thing bescue of this.. plz do not nerf the enfos health

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HP nerf was coming. What was entirely unexpected was the huge boost soldiers got to their taunts and the nerf to taunt enforcers got.

So an enforcer will be less effective at taunting and cant stand on par with a soldier's damage taunt BUT will be given the same HP as a soldier with no viable defense? As far asI understand it the soldier is the new tank and the enforcer is made useless.

Again and again and again I call total BULLSH%T! The PvM enforcer is destroyed under anything close to resembling the current nano documents.

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Originally Posted by fortorn

HP nerf was coming. What was entirely unexpected was the huge boost soldiers got to their taunts and the nerf to taunt enforcers got.

So an enforcer will be less effective at taunting and cant stand on par with a soldier's damage taunt BUT will be given the same HP as a soldier with no viable defense? As far asI understand it the soldier is the new tank and the enforcer is made useless.

Again and again and again I call total BULLSH%T! The PvM enforcer is destroyed under anything close to resembling the current nano documents.

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I think you missed the part about the SL essences (Mongo's Kraken is +15k HP, +54 str/sta), which now carry no negative modifiers, and doesn't terminate on zone.

You must also have missed the improved enforcer team buffs; Team shields, team absorbs etc.

But I think you're right on the taunts. This depends entirely on itemization & further changes to perks, however.
The current perk documentation states enforcers will have two taunt actions from Manners of Mongo, which will taunt 16k (30s recharge), and 30k (42s recharge) at level 220. These will help a lot on bosses and other long-lived mobs, but will be more or less useless for "garbage mobs"; Then again, the AoE mongo should deal enough with garbage mob aggro.

So to sum it up:
I think it looks like enforcers will still have the best taunt tools for tanking mass-garbage and/or boss mobs, while soldiers seem to be good secondary tanks as they seem to get the next-best taunting toolset. I think it's a good move to let soldiers tank individual garbage mobs, as the soldier will then hold aggro of the mob which is being killed, while the enf keeps agg on everything else. (Except when fighting a high-hp/long-living mob, which should hopefully let the enf build up more taunt than the soldiers taunts+dmg combined)

On crats

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Crowd control:

it's going to be completely revamped. Yay! It will likely be shorter lasting, more dynamic, and ???efully much more useful (both in pvp and in pvm/SL)!

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I would like to say that I really hated coming to SL and finding I had no AOE calm. You feel like GOD in RK and GIMP in SL. I would, as master of calming we are, like to be able to charm a room of mobs like I used to in RK missions... and we still can... Doesn't matter how high level the mobs are. Old nano still seems to do the trick

Reduce the amount of nanos we have, and make them more versatile. I cant for the life of me see why my RK nanos should be less effective in SL. I can see like on the spell what makes them more efficient... I just fail to see the logical reasoning behind it.

I can however see the reason to devide between pvp and pve effects. But I do belive that to be the case in every proffession.

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Pets:

also going to be revamped, specifically with attention to how outdated crat bot pets are, leveling crats, and crats who pvp at sub-220 levels.
New TL5 secondary pet (like a mini-carlo) that would be obtained with pen quest instead of the rollable brainfreeze (retroactive if you did quest already).

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Thank you... I had that ql 200 pet from before level 100 me thinks... and it lasted till 205. Barely bothering holding aggro at all, and having hard time doing damage. ANd when you then get the Corp Guard you really get a new low finding its not really alot better... And finally getting a new pet instead of the Nano I have had for a long time before would be great. Also span the bots evenly around the 220 levels, so you wont have to chang bot 5 times in a level (if you suddenly find a better one)

We have a pet heal. Either remove it so as not to give us false hope, or maye make it into a HoT buff instead.

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Charms:

there are talks about providing a way for bureaucrats to 'capture the essence' of npc's/monsters and spawn them later on in other zones for pvm or pvp!

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I actually had a nice idea on this point. Me thinks... and it goes along with my view on crats, witch I would like very much to share. Why we use guns is beyond my understanding. We have people for that. YES... a crat gets into trouble, he has his bodyguard, legal coucil, and his all around fixer/Torpedo/dirty jobs guy on speeddial.

And again why make a diffrence between the SL and RK charms? and whats the point in giving a prof that mostly solos a team buffed program?

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Nukes:

more interesting nukes and more support for nukes as a REAL damage alternative, instead of just a damage supplement.

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I see the point in this, but then again... IF I was a lowlife paperpusher wielding a desk. My worst weapons would be my contacts. and my way to navigate legal and administative tasks around.

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Misc. Fixes:

TTB: getting reworked to become worth casting!

Multiple Red Tap lines: collapsed into one!

Charm pathing/scrip behavior bugs: getting fixed! (eg /pet wait not working)

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You are thinking about making tradeskills count for something abit more for engis. Why not make our psycology count for something abit more also. It is actually the skill we use when we're convincing the Real Mean Torpedo to change side, and actually hit his old friends... MIGHT even have to pay him for it. Soldiers hits harder with a higher skill... we should have psycology as main stat for charms, calms, and even speeches when you think about it.

Make a nanodeck for crats for those that would rather stay behind and look at theire pets eat through the bastards. I just leveled my crat up. And no... I have no endgame experiance... but leveling up you don't really feel like shooting. couse your pet never keeps aggro. Just let him deal with it, and add a freind in. now 211, I get a bad feeling everytime I don't fire my guns, but then again why should I... they still does **** all. my gimpy pets kicks more ass... SO I would love a deck for my crat, and when using deck we should have higher dmg on pets, and resist to roots and such on them.

Maks us able to choose whatever we feel like doing... you feel like wielding a weapon and going heds on, thwats fine. I just don't see that as the way I would as a thin lill paperpusher deal with my problems. I would make a big dude mess things up, and in return either pay him, or remove some parking tickets, og let him move into a better appartment payd by the state. WHATEVER I had to do to get him to fix this shait.

And then something for all proffessions...

1. make us able to cast spells while running.

2. Maybe scale the leveling bit more equally so that people find it better to do missions, hunt, whatever else then sitting in ely watcning someone nuking the hell out of hecks. thats not playing, and I hate the way of leveling.

*hides for flaming*

I had another interesting engineer idea that would probably never make it ingame but would be cool. Make it to where engineers could learn how to hack the alien fences and place those. Would be cool if you were assisting a lowbie team in leveling and could protect them from trains in the open playfields. Maybe could even make a lower version of them for totw and some of the indoor playfields that have alot of train activity.

So.. Anyone think they can predict how all this will play out in pvp?

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Originally Posted by Noobius76

So.. Anyone think they can predict how all this will play out in pvp?

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When the balance hits live at least, the 2 remaining toon on server will be out of PvP range...

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Originally Posted by Noobius76

So.. Anyone think they can predict how all this will play out in pvp?

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If anyone is around to see it... uhm soldiers probly be a mainstay in pvp liek now.

Enforcer is gone. Useless in pvp and pvm.

Fixer changes might effect pvp qutie a bit.

Crats probly gonna go down a lot on the ladder.

All AS profs are screwed in DD in pvp and thus will be ineffective.

But this all depends on if CC and debuffing is gonna mean something again.

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Originally Posted by fortorn

Crats probly gonna go down a lot on the ladder.

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Lol.