Since nothing has actually been done yet, and probably will not be done for some time, any suggestion, and branch of this discussion, is "forward".
The current proposals are as much hyperbole as anyone else's at the moment.
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Since nothing has actually been done yet, and probably will not be done for some time, any suggestion, and branch of this discussion, is "forward".
The current proposals are as much hyperbole as anyone else's at the moment.
Hyperbole such as "everyone has left because of X, and you are destroying what is left!" or "everyone should just delete their agents!" and other such "the whole profession will be pointless!" comments are hyperbolic and hysterical, and not constructive.
From what i got out of that monstrosity of a spreadsheet before my eyes started bleeding the new fp buffs/debuffs are as follows
shade: no debuffs at all
keeper: -500 conceal
NT: - 450 aad/-500 dmg/-1k conceal/-500as/-25% nanocost/+30% nanodmg/+50 nanodelta
MP: -450 aad/-500 dmg/-1k conceal/-500as/-15% nanocost/+20% nanodmg/+50 nanodelta
crat: -500 dmg/-1k conceal/-500as/-15% nanocost/+20% nanodmg/+50 nanodelta
doc: -450 aad/-300 evades/-500 dmg/-1k conceal/-500 as/-15% nanocost/+20% heal eff/+50 nanodelta
trader: -450 aad/+200 pm/ts /-1k conceal/-500as/
fixer: -500 conceal only
engie: -450 aad/-300 evades/-500 dmg/-1k conceal/-500as/
adv: no debuffs
ma: -500 conceal only
sold: -450 aad/-300 evades/-500 conceal
enf: -450 aad/-300 evades/-500 conceal/+4k hp
meaning
enf/sold/doc/engie take a 750 point hit to def
nt/mp/trader take a 450 point hit to def
keeper/shade/crat don't take any hit to def
fixer/ma/adv gain 400 evades thanks to swift maneuver.
overall, the fps agents currently use to not die will be worthless, and previously worthless fp will still be worthless, but agents will be forced into using them in order to not die :)
also, somebody more bored than i am can go check keeper and shade docs and see if their new procs are "blah blah this proc is melee only" or if they removed that. if they proc on ranged attacks too now i'd guess shade/keep might be worth considering
My mistake then, sorry. The timing of the post made me think that ideas of our own were not permissible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anarrina
Kopecz: as stated in the OP, numbers can be refined, and exist at this point to show intent.
Also, we were originally informed that we would be receiving four shadow perks per profession. Since we may only be getting one, some consolidation is required.
No more mini flying slayerdroids? You thought about that FC? You'll clearly have to redo this doc now that I pointed this out, huh? :P
More serious now.
This is my biggest issue. Other people would not be OP with all the buffs an agent can provide, but an agent able to cast these buff would be OP?
I really hope the mysterious thing Lupus mentioned solves that...
And if nothing else: I originally made my agent as a buffing monkey, so at least it would be much more efficient in performing its original function...
I'd like to mention that as far as I can tell, visual profession Adventurer might not be bad at all in wolf form. I do not know whether Agents will have access to defensive stance from the MA toolset, but if so VP MA could be quite useful. Also, what Lupusceleri said about waiting a bit for more information before passing final judgment :).
My first thought on this document is that I'm glad that Funcom are working so slow that it probably will never be released before the game is shut down. I'm not sure why they think radical changes to a profession will encourage people to play the game, when they should rather spend time on getting that elusive engine finished. Sure, agents will probably get some way of instakilling people again as a trade off for loosing any useful mimic, which will in turn be nerfed due to whines from people getting instakilled. Seen it all before.
As for constructive feedback, what is the point when anything that goes against the ideas outlined in this document will be disregarded anyway.
I don't want some big mysterious game changing feature either. I just want to fill gaps in team composition, like mimic was intended to do, and did do, up until the release of Shadowlands.
Put Visual Profession tags on a better heal, a reflect aura, and a calm. You could quite possibly get away with doing as little as that, and Agents would be fine.
Way too much complaining to read, we need someone to make a solid analysis of these FP's and damage to clear up the unnecessary fears about agents being broken.
No matter how many unfair issues arrise with NCU wiping buffs that can be cast on others, it will always be overriden by the power of the self-only buffs. Agents would never stay FP shade if they can use the stun procs in any other FP they wanted. Agents already have the highest NCU capability until tl7 because of FP trader comp lit buffs and FP fixer NCU buffs, so the potential with unlimited FP recasting is far too unfair itself.
You did attempt to offer an alternative with clearing particular buffs, but I believe the simplest solution would be if the NCU wipe targeted nanos tagged as self only. This way the problem of agents being buff totems but unable to benefit themselves could be somewhat alleviated because all the targeted buffs could be maintained.
If the snipe shot is not an instant action or had some sort of restrictions then it may not be in this manner. AS itself should have an attack time as well so it may be a lot of damage over a short period, but preferrably not an instant assassination on many players.
The damage is increased overall. Considering the maximum damage capability of agents is rather high given a devoted setup and FP, then any loss may only be noticed in extreme cases such as non-rifle setups or particular situations. The ability to use engie pets, stronger nukes for NTs (although your point about nano pool is certainly valid), and the continued use of charms should allow those FP's to maximize damage. Imagine how engineer pets or charms could perform when the targeted mob has no critical resistance.
Gnat's wing is easily replaced with the critical decrease debuffs, if not completely overtaken. Rifles could change to be more crit friendly as well. Damage add buffs are higher, a new double hit special, and procs do considerable damage.
Skill lock could be more far reaching in the future, but for now it could help in unforseen ways. Imagine a player who takes 2x longer to spam a free movement stim? That could make stunning more effective and improve your alpha capabilities.
Critical hits are nothing to scoff at and this sort of nano is incredibly useful in pvp and pvm given certain team setups. Doing more damage, in any form, is always a benefit.
Not quite, as you need more than just -1 AAD or lower to cause the critical bug. Hopefully FC does resolve this however.
Program Override. You forget the offensive power of fixers as well. With the changes to perk mechanics that 3.6k+ def could also be much more effective than you realize. If you want to tank in pvp though, FC probably intends for you to use a tank FP perhaps?
It is far more complex in what agents gain and lose with each FP to just look at the FP effects themselves and suddenly condemn agents to failure.
I doubt anyone can just glance at all the documents and assess an agent's true potential at this point.
Thanks for the rational post Gatester, this thread decended into a whinefest very quickly.
My main thoughts towards this is the NCU wipe, I understand that it is needed to be there to stop agents from getting 3 professions worth of buffs, but could it be altered to just remove non-agent buffs? So when leaving a mimic all those profession specific buffs are removed, and stuff like agent conceal/rifle/AS buffs remain?
The aad debuff I personally dont mind, because i've never played my agent as an evade agent, the only problem i could forsee is greenies perking me a lil easier now.
The debuff to AS wont make perks harder to land, but just potentially lower their damage template. Essentially it seems like they are giving you options in other areas but making you sacrifice damage as a trade off.
I'm interested to see what lupus is refering to :).
Frankly with the agent perk changes, the snipe shot, the additional damage perk actions for some fps, I can see agent have an ungodly alpha.
Except that its NOT needed. How is it perfectly alright for every other character to receive multiple buffs, but overpowered for the character providing them? And FYI, people already can have multiple buffs right now. The limiting factor is and always has been NCU, which Agents themselves tend to have less of as well, since we have to use a recompiler in Deck 6.Quote:
Originally Posted by Parranoid1
The document has been out for one day, and already some of us are pouring over it, attempting to min/max and figure out what the "best" new Shadow Profession will be. Why even bother with the other ones? This translates into wasted time and effort by Funcom, as well as fails to life up to the original mission statement of all Shadow Professions being viable.
Do we really need viable Shadow Keeper, Shade, Engineer, Adventurer, Martial Artist, among others? No, we do not. It is excessively complicated, changes too many fundamentals, and incites ****storms like this one.
And the kicker is that none of it was ever needed.
Agents can still receive these buffs from other people... just get them after you've done whatever mimic swaping you want to do...
This is simply to stop mimic/tp/mimic/blah, which i think is justified. This doesn't stop agents receiving buffs from other players, if that is your concern, then put your mind an ease.
I sit at about 650-700 ncu on my agent... that's as much if not more then most...
Now you're blaming funcom for the players trying to pick which mimic will work best? Sir, your whining is terrible.
And why not have those professions viable? I'm not finding it overly complicated. How bout you put forward something constructive rather than just whining about it.
If it makes you feel better, have it wipe your NCU of all nanos belonging to profession that you are mimicing out of, so that buffs other people have given you stay active, but you lose all buffs/gains from the profession you were.
It's funny when people without endgamed agents talk about the prof like they have an idea what goes on :) Currently as it stands agents don't have infinite NCU ( after the rebalance i still doubt this will be teh case) Why? b/c you need hard core cpu/viral compiler/ def ncu and the infused interrupt. Trust me , you can barely get that many osbs due to all the necessities an agent has.
Trust me 3.6 def in fixer isn't enough lol. I've pvped with 3.6 to 3.7 def with pocket crat, you still get hit enough to die within 30 secs, without healz. Right now, as it stands the position of agent is going to be interesting, but we need to know what nanos we're getting access too. As well, the penalities on our def is way too high.
Also, our pvm dd might go higher, but agent is supposed to be top dd. What we need is a better dmg dealing rifle, not more dmg buffs.
Right now based on this documentation, all agents have to change their playstyle from a tanking occassionaly playstyle to a kiting/sneak playstyle by the looks of it
well well. didn't read the whole thread...but I wanna say: told you so! i'm not 100% on this since it's hard to overview all changes and predict stuff but i'm quite sure:
this is a whole lota bull. what's the use to be able to change prof every 10 secs if you need to rebuff? you can just omit all agents buffs then and go with the perkspecials but uhu.
what this means: doc is dead, cant survive with zero evades. the only options i see to actually pvp is reviving solja. could go with fixer, but i doubt evades will be any near sufficient. so: hope we get some really neat peak damage to kill someone while ams is up.
two additional comments:
1.bail line: what's it for? we got crit decrease buff already and roots only last 8 secs. i don't see the point in this any more. well a little use if you want to avoid an alpha but still. with the changes, this nanoline, esp with the high nano skill reqs seems near obsolete. has had limited use already due to run speed cap.
2.all the debuff stuff: i hate you leetah.
so in total: a really cool nerf to the status quo. hoorray! as expected we loose our main offensive tool while at the same time loosing any viable option to stay alive.
if i may say a word of advice to funcom: go cooperate with kink. the guy has a better picture of what's happening, what's going to happen and best of all a head full of neat ideas. may need balancing though.
so glad i quit ....and didn't wait to be rewarded with this bitter disappointment.
actually we got a dmg nerf, we only have one dmg proc now compared to the 2 we had before. Cuz FC is replacing one with a super useless detaunt.
kudos leetah!
everyone wanted fc to change the detaunt line into something useful. not only are we stuck with it now, we even lost a damage proc line to it...thanks a lot!
nope that's not really enough if u wanna go all out on osbs. Hell i know tl4 trader twinks with more ncu than that :) and no one uses ofab chest :P
It's just enough for agent buffs/superior omni med, life channel, NR buff, initiative buff, rffe, at, os, precog (and maybe 2 more nanos ) and no fps fixer for ncu lol (that'll lock u out of casting rrfee/reflects)