Envisioned - Bureaucrat Changes

[______________Savant]

Discuss the Bureaucrat Changes found here.

Savant

[__________WGMelchior]

"The bureaucrat will gain a new nano that allows them to increase the taunting ability of their pet [...]"

If you add the effect of trimmers, will this mean crat pets taunt even better than the engineer pets? Or will the advantage in damage balance that? Does the amount of damage you do actually play a role in who a mob attacks? Can these nanos be used on engineer robots, if we group with a Crat?


"[...] make sure they are not too far behind the MP and engineer combat pets."

Heh, they really need it. I mean, those androids doesn't seem to do much. Just make sure they don't look like killers. They are supposed to be helpers.


"With the existing pet AI, this may or may not be possible. What is envisioned is that the pets will get some combat buffs like the enforcer’s Challenger line of buffs."

Seing as mobs already do this, I see no reason why it should be hard to do. Or are you intentionally making pets more stupid than mobs?

Will they get the nano that matches the QL of the pet, or will they get one some steps lower?


Other than that, it seems like some nice changes.

When are we engineers going to get something similar? I mean, is the aura nanos (we aren't really supposed to be tanks anyway) the only thing we get, or are we up for a similar overhaul next? I had the impression that we were up before the crats. They need it most though, so just acknowledge that we have things to look forward too.

[_______________kabir]

Sound sooooo cool

Just something to keep in mind, FC... perhaps the briefcase can be created in such as way as to check it's requirments each time it's used? I bring this up becase I play an Agent, and while I think it would be cool to be able to use a breifcase, it would also be kinda silly for me to be able to, say, FP:Crat to equip a briefcase and then use it forever. It just seems wrong somehow. If you have to meet the requirments _every_ time you use the briefcase then that would help the Crats have a cool unique skill/item, which I figure every class needs a few of.

After these changes I'm sure going to want a crat with me when I head out though!

[______________Datura]

Looks good so far, with a few bits I noticed... the 'unstable charm' needs to have a more relaxed Psychic check in order to be used as a crowd control nano. The problem with mezz/psychosis lines at the moment is that, well, they don't work. Or when they do, it's very very rare. The resists on those need to be looked at in order to account for crowd control. Finally, though these changes more clearly place us as a support class, I strongly suggest checking out our offensive nanos. Not the power, but the spread between some of them, a few nanos here and there would help out quite a bit and just help smooth out the curve. Other than that, it looks good. In fact, I'm excited, but please check out the resistances/general effectiveness of psycho and charm psychic checks, without these, there's no crowd control and all the nice little enhancements won't help us in that regard.

[___________Graukonig]

With these changes does it mean that Crats will be able to have three pets? A robot pet, stable charmed MOB, and unstable MOB. Or will they be able to cast the charms on more than one MOB each? These changes seem to move the Crat into the area of the Meta. If the crat is going to take over the position a top PvM pet class then the Meta class may need to be changed slightly. The Meta already has the nanos in place to make it the anti-caster PvP class with formulas like Nanoshut down and unmake. Perhaps these lines should be extended to make caster PvP the Metas central role.

From my point of view as a Meta these changes seem to help the Crats with their PvM problems. They also get a number of cute additions like the suit and briefcase. Using psychology to boost charm capabilities was also a good idea. I'm not sure how useful the XP loss reduction nano will be but we'll have to wait and see when the stats come out.

Graukonig

[______________dfield]

Thank you thank you thank you. Just one question: Is any of this stuff going to require Matter Metamorph? I've been stockpiling IP in anticipation of changes, so I should have enough to up psychology. Please condiser not requiring matt met; butif you are going to, could we have fair warning?

[_____________Gorguss]

Hehe, there seems to be more replies from other proffesions than the Crats This further shows that the Bureaucrats have almost become extinct. Now we are definately going to be more desirable in teams.

To the changes, these look really sweet.
The things we really lack though is damage nano's, there is an insane gap between the requirements of the nano's and this really hurt our dmg capabilities. Please take into considering to fill in some of the major gaps, like the gap between Monoflaviant Whip and Searing bolt. If you are not going to fix this, please tell us why there are these big holes in our nano line.

Also I know that almost all Crats have left some IP unspent becouse they thought they would need it later. But for the high lvl ones that did'nt think about the Psychology skill beeing implemented eventually in some form or another will have some problems adjusting. I don't think this is going to become a really big problem though as changes to our proffesion is more than welcome at this point. (I'm lvl 51 and have 130k unspent IP )

One last thing, we held a meeting especially for Crats last Sunday and 8 Crats showed up or so(about the population of crats on RK1 ). This meeting was to get together and make some ideas about what could be done about the current Crat situation, hopefully to get FC's attention. There were some speeches and good ideas and we would like those ideas to make it to you. And maby a direct conversation between Crats and someone from FC would make some of our concerns a little more clearified. Cosmik said he played a Crat and it would be great to see him ingame. The next meeting is posted at the Bureaucrats forum, and please don't come if you are'nt a Crat, we don't need tons of Soldiers nagging about them beeing too nerfed. However, you have clearly not been on the slack side as we thought and finally published some ideas, glad to see that.

(Don't make us rule too much or the other proffesions will be crying )

Gorguss lvl 51 Crat RK1 out---

[_____________Theanna]

Mmm... Seems like crats are going to be shaped into a primo team player. If you give them serious damage capabilities, it unbalances things. Unfortunately, though, it might mean that crats will never be able to solo again. Although, as a soldier, I'd be quite happy to have a crat with me in my missions after these chances. (Assuming the changes work...)

Theanna

[______________dfield]

agreed. It sucks but, we all said we'd rather have better crowd control abilities and team buffing type stuff then damage capabilities. Many however, siad that if your'e not goign to give us this,you better give us better damage capabilities.... I think FCs solution is much better.

[______________TaoMan]

Well I think I can almost go to sleep tonight happy!

OK my thoughts on the DD nano. I think we need more nanos *IF* they don't increase the pet damage much.

The more the pet can dish out the less we will need dd nanos and when we do get a new one it will be gravy for a few levels till it gets behind the curve also.

I do about 60% damage now by nano, I'm level 56 now and have had mono whip for a bit. It is starting to age just a bit now and I got a long way till the next one. If my pet can take up the slack I'm ok with no new dd nanos, If they just up the pet a little bit then I stilll think we need more dd nano.

All in all I am happy with this list.

BTW paperwork tradeskill???? Come one give me a clue about this one!! I have this idea in my mind *You just created a ql56 paper airplane. You earned 175 exp*

How about making bows out of rubber bands and bent paper clips!!

[______________Xombie]

Dude... what if like, Fixers were given the ability to hack briefcases?

[___________MrTeatime]

Yay, nice changes

My crat will be so happy with his new briefcase, I'm not sure about the suit though...I like my elite armor

[Paffy]

1. Changes to baton line

A VERY nice bonus. Now this nano will really be worth something and make us Crats more desirable to party.

2. New XP loss reduction nanos.

Again a good nano that will allow a party with this ability to do monster further away from save and longer periods. Ok, death might still suck but perhaps not that much.

3. Pet Taunting

Surely needed but how about giving similar thing to Engineers too, preferably as Trimmer (or if there already is Positivi AGG-DEF?) how about making it work better? My Engineer pet agro is real bad even with that trimmer in use.

4. Speech nanos

Umm. SURE you want to do this? You do realize that there will be then Low light scope + MA buff + this all combining giving people REAL high crit changes. Are you absolutely, positively sure you want this? I think I would leave crit part away... Please DO test this carefully. I am already thinking like some are that MA crit buff should be self only from game balance view but oh well, I just hope you DO know what youre putting your head into.

This might also make Crats as one of the "must have" professions like MA (or Agent in MA false) already is. I dont endorse things like this

5. Pets

Excuse me. I was in the impression that Engineer pet was SUPPOSED to be the BEST damage dealing pet there is? After all, we engineer do NOT HAVE DD, charm, fear or DD and healing like Crat/MP do. Engineers rely on pets completely. Engineer pets should do LOT more damage than any other pet. Period. So this should belong to Engineer, not Crat.

6. Pets, part 2

Hmm not sure if this is good or bad or even needed... I rather DONT have this ability of pet filling my NCU with useless buffs that I might have kept empty for certain reason like Doc casting HP buff, oh no, wait! Sorry Doc, do it again. My pet just buffed my NCU's full second before your nano came...

7. Briefcase

Again... Isnt this something that belong to umm.. Fixer?

Zarch and bunch of other chars

108 Agent
79 NT
59 Enfocer
53 Engineer
40 Soldier
7 MA
3 MP
1 Crat

Withing 1 year from now, I will have 8 x 100 lvl + chars.

[___________MrTeatime]

Oh yeah, one more thing:

Could you please fix our nano restoration line? It's completely useless right now, as the NT line was before they got their upgrade.

[_______________Rypht]

Ok, first off I'm real happy that crats are getting some attention finally that is in fact positive toward their end. I have a little crat myself that has been in mothballs for a while now, along with my fixer and engineer. I know it says that the envisioned section bears no indication on when such ideas will be implemented, but I would have thought that since the fixer or engineer top 10 lists were up for well over a month before the crat top 10 showed up on Nov 4th (this was before the recent shattering of the forums into a million little areas where nothing can be found) that those two would get some kind of noticable priority over whatever would come next down the pike after that.

[______________dfield]

Fixers and engineers already had their patch.

I wish some more people would actually discuss the changes in this thread rather then discuss what crats shouldn't get or to make sure FC knows that engineers and metas are supposed to have better pets and metas are the masters of pets and crats shouldn't get crit buffs and crats shouldnt' come before engineers or fixers and ....

Oh well..

[haavarst]

/me leans back and starts thinkin': When will i be able to attend my RL job?!?!

Thank You Very Much FunCom!!

A lot of very nice improvments here. And everything is fitting quite nicely with the previous "nerfs" implemented. I now see a good reason for why they were made But as a prayer for furure changes of all classes; next time.. try implementing the good and the bad changes at the same time. I whish no class the frustration we have been experiencing latley!

Wonder what the paperwork tradeskill is going to do.. hmm
guess anything you come up with could be good.. but please let it be something usefull... i shiver from the thoughts of Tao_man:

*You just created a ql56 paper airplane. You earned 175 exp*

or something like this:

You combine your Q56 Fancy Feather Ink Pen (234.534credits) with the q49 Ink (134.234credits). The result is a q56 Fancy Feather Ink Pen Dipped in Ink, wich u comine with the Q1 Official Looking Paper (254credits). The endresult beeing a low level OT Application Form... NODROP of course URG!

[____________Greystar]

Sounds really cool, go for it.

I hope that Fixers who are even worse off at high levels than crats, get something useful too finally...all other weak classes who were already way better at high levels than fixers, including crats, are through with boosting, so the worst high level class is of course the last to get boosted, but that's ok. As long as it is not another "summon crap" nano that we can't use, I can wait a bit longer.

[_____________JuJutsu]

Originally posted by ImaGideon
Sounds really cool, go for it.

I hope that Fixers who are even worse off at high levels than crats, get something useful too finally...all other weak classes who were already way better at high levels than fixers, including crats, are through with boosting, so the worst high level class is of course the last to get boosted, but that's ok. As long as it is not another "summon crap" nano that we can't use, I can wait a bit longer.

I am a high level 'crat Phear Me you gimped fixer. Yeah right. Guess that's why we see hundreds of high level crats and narry a fixer to be found. What world do you play on it sure isn't Rubi-Ka 1 or 2

[Cosmik]

Originally posted by WGMelchior
"The bureaucrat will gain a new nano that allows them to increase the taunting ability of their pet [...]"

If you add the effect of trimmers, will this mean crat pets taunt even better than the engineer pets? Or will the advantage in damage balance that? Does the amount of damage you do actually play a role in who a mob attacks? Can these nanos be used on engineer robots, if we group with a Crat?

From Blackmane, our nano guy extraordinaire: There is a limit to the amount of hate a pet can take on itself (100%). Using both a trimmer and these nanos, you could reach that limit - this would mean that all the hate that the pet generates would remain on the pet. The Bureaucrat will only be able to buff their own pet, as per normal.

Originally posted by WGMelchior
Will they get the nano that matches the QL of the pet, or will they get one some steps lower?

The level of the buffs that the bureaucrat pets may get have not been decided, but there will not be a buff for each version of the pet you can create - it may end up using the same buff for 5 or 10 levels.