In Progress - Early 13.2 Build Notes

[______________Yeshua]

soldier A waits in the grid watching players going into 2H0, then following immediately after they zone in, and initiating attack immediately...

I know it sounds rediculous...

I guess people will have to use that 15 seconds to run as far away from the grid as possible, pressing Tab like a mad cow to see if anyone is standing around waiting to attack when they're 15 seconds is up. What a messy and unimpressive way to handle Grid Camping. BAH!...

I still think my previous suggestion is better...

[______________Yeshua]

Ok, this is my list of bugs which have to be fixed for MP pets:

1. Healer does not always heal when told to.

2. Healer sometimes seems to wait until Hp is too low before healing, even if it's already been healing before the MP has taken the first hit.

3. If healer is healing someone, it will continue to heal until that someone is completely "Healthy", all HP restored, even if it is dirrected to stop and heal someone else.

4. Pet navigation is not much better. Have to constantly stop and look around for them, yelling Follow Follow! or Heal Heal or Guard guard.

5. Healer has difficulty healing near water in missions.

6. Pets do not always zone with their master, even when they are guarding or healing or following.

7. Pets move very slow around water!

8. Combat pet will sometimes agree to attack a target but then float motionlessly as the MP is slaughtered.

9. Check the damage outputs of combat pets, seems that the inferior wrath incarnation does more damage than the superior?

10. If a combat pet has been told to fight, and then told to follow it moves very slowly toward it's master, instead of speeding over!

11. Pet nanos rarely show up in missions as rewards or items in chests. Anima nanos are perversely rare. In fact most MP nanos are scarse.

12. Last but not least, If the person or thing that the healer pet was healing dies, it freezes up, and will do nothing, unless you zone out or log off and back on, and even this sometimes doesn't work. You have to wait until the thing times out and deactivates itself to make another one in the same zone!

Please put these fixes into a patch soon!

[skybert]

Originally posted by cson
Wow, does this mean that it would be really stupid just to hang out by the grid? So if you don't want to get attacked by someone gridding in, you should stay away from the grid entry point. I think this does stop "Grid Camping".

:-)

yeah!
Gridcamping is going to stop, which happened to be the goal of the invulnerability. The fix does EXCACTLY what it's supposed to do! And STIL, you complain... *sigh* ...some people....

[_________________Joe]

While I like the idea of my class getting something, I would rather see the trade skills improve or at least become viable. I never expected Engineers to get some sort of summoning nano. What I did expect was to be able to make/fix stuff. This game would become significantly less two-dimensional if at least one of the following two things changed:

1. Trade skills
2. PvP modified storyline.

[______________Yeshua]

Originally posted by Joe

__________________________________________________

This game would become significantly less two-dimensional if at least one of the following two things changed:

1. Trade skills
2. PvP modified storyline.
__________________________________________________

I agree with you, Joe.

Additionally, I've heard from a lot of people in different proffesions that the costs of using your trade skills in IP, time, and CR, are rediculous, prohibitively so. Like spending 200k making a nano crystal that is only worth 10k. What's the sense in that?

Sometimes I really have to wonder what funcom is thinking when they make decisions like this.

[_______________Skara]

Skybert:

You are right, it does stop grid camping. The problem is a new way to greif is opened up with the fix. The new grief tactic will not be as bad as grid camping where you didn't even have control of your character, but it will still give the griefer, err... well... a way to grief. That is what I am trying to get at here.

I imagine right now there are some griefers on test playing around with this change and working up the best griefer tactics, whether it is gridding in numbers, targeting 1 or 2 people at a time, alpha striking to kill them, grid back out and wait for specials to recharge, then repeat to establish a beach head (if they even need to grid back out); or wait for someone to grid in, follow them a few seconds later, then Alpha strike them, grid back out, repeat; I am sure they will find other tactics as well while they are working on this, because that is what griefers do.

I don't have a character on test high enough lvl to test this out, so I can't say this will be a problem for sure or not. I guarantee you the griefers aren't going to report it if the change gives them an advantage though, so you may see this on the live server soon.

I still don't see why people have a problem with neither being able to attack for the load time. In that situation no one has an advantage, it does away with grid camping, allows people to do their missions to Stret East, and allows those who want to PvP to do so.

Also, the grid making the person invulnerable and unable to attack could from a Sci-Fi perspective make sense because of what it does to the molecules to transport a body.

Making it that easy to establish a beach head because they are trying to fix a bug doesn't make sense along those same lines. I should have a difficult time trying to establish a military presence in a foreign territory, this change does the opposite. It makes it more difficult to hold that foreign territory because it gives the gridder a distinct advantage, which makes no sense.


Skara

[____________Slivicon]

15 second rule=zone camper killer.

only bad for people camped at the zone.

move away from the zone=no problem.

good for=people who pvp legitimately away from zone borders

good for=people zoning in to pvp zone

bad for=zone campers.

bad for=zone campers.

bad for=zone campers and only zone campers and only zone campers and only zone campers there is no bloody way that you will get alpha-striked by someone zoning in unless you are camped by the zone which makes you what? A ZONE CAMPER. STFU AND LOOK AT THIS NEW RULE WHICH MEANS THE DEATH OF YOU, THE LOSER ZONE CAMPER

It is amazing to me how many people are missing the singular point here: this rule is to destroy the ability to stay camped near the zone border. It is forcing you to MOVE AWAY from the zone border. Absolutely ZERO of the arguments I have read against this rule have stated any problems which would affect ANYONE EXCEPT ZONE CAMPERS (people near the zone edges). Gridding in and out.....hmmm....only affects zone campers....gridding in in numbers for alpha strike....hmmm.....only affects zone campers.....stay away from the bloody zone and this is NOT a problem. omg, was that what it was intended to do? Remove people from the zone? Destroy the zone camping problem? Is that what its doing? Are people a mile into the zone going to be affected by this? Is it only zone campers who are going to be hurt by this?

Every single argument against this is saying "let us stay by the zone borders." Those people are the only one who could be hurt by this rule. No. Staying by the zone is a proven exploit due to loading times. This rule will attempt to stop that. Worried about exploitation the other way? STAY AWAY.

*sigh* flame away, campers

[__________WGMelchior]

Not all players near a zone boarder are campers.

Will this count start when you finish loading, or when the server shows you in the new zone? If it's the later, it's quite bad for people with slow computers.

[_______________Skara]

If you had read more carefully the following:

I still don't see why people have a problem with neither being able to attack for the load time. In that situation no one has an advantage, it does away with grid camping, allows people to do their missions to Stret East, and allows those who want to PvP to do so

then you would have noticed the main change people have posted in this thread is to have the person gridding unable to attack or be attacked. How does that benefit campers? It doesn't benefit either side. At the very least, that is the way it should be.

I agree something had to be done to prevent the camping of people who don't have control of their character yet, but gridding into hostile territory shouldn't be an advantage.

Is it possible the people who are typing in all caps that people who are fighting this are grid campers, are themselves wanting to become grid griefers? Hmm...


Skara

[____________Slivicon]

if you are standing around a zone border in a pvp area, what could you possibly be doing other than zone camping. Waiting for someone to come in so you can say "hey, lets go into the zone and then start a pvp match"? HAHAHA I'm sorry, but everyone standing by a zone in a pvp area is a camper. If someone can provide a legitimate reason why you would be standing around a zone border in a pvp area other than camping, please provide it, I'd love to hear it. Oh, and don't say "waiting for friends, or lfg", you don't have to be by the zone border to do that. You can wait for friends further in and the shout channel for lfg extends a long way

again, i did read carefully and if they disabled the ability to attack, then that would not get rid of grid campers. They wrote the whole reason was to get rid of campers. Nobody who is not near the zone would care about their ability to attack when they zone in, so again, I state my point, this is only bad for campers.

Oh, and are you calling me a grid griefer? Ok, I guess the 5000 times that I said this wasnt enough. You could only become a victim of this possible new grid griefer if you are *say it with me* camped near the zone. It won't affect anyone else but the people *by the zone*. FC wrote this was to stop the people *by the zone* and that is exactly what it is doing.

lol The real funny part is I dont even know why I'm arguing this. I don't pvp at all, because pvp is ridiculous in this game, even aside from the camping problem and I doubt it's going to get much better any time soon. I guess I just enjoy clarity and I thoroughly agree with the perfect logic behind FC's move here.

[_______________Skara]

Again, whats wrong with being invulnerable and not being able to attack for 15 seconds?

No one has an advantage. No one could complain about that, unless they are wanting to grid grief.


Skara

[____________Slivicon]

and again, i say, whats wrong with removing the campers from the zone borders? I do see your point, however. I am just more interested in destroying the zone camper, the worst aspect of this game, imho, even more than the SPARE STUFF PLZ leeches (who should also die hehe). Also, if there is nobody by the zones, this new grid griefer prospect would be non-existant (nobody there!). So, I dont see how this rule would create grid griefers, since when this rule is put live , nobody will be camped near the zone borders anymore anyway, therefore noone could fall victim to a *grid griefer* I guess it comes down to whether or not you agree that people should be allowed to sit near zone borders. I don't think they should be able to and I will support anything that helps to remove them. I see about the "nobody has the advantage." However, that will also not remove people from the borders. It all depends on how you view PVP. Should it be this fighting on the zone edges as people appear or disappear and battles are won and lost because of nothing but the luck of game mechanics, or should they be fought in the middle of zones, in mountains, bases, etc. where actual strategy, skill and smart tactics might come into play. Imagine that.

[________________Vazz]

Originally posted by Skara
If you had read more carefully the following:

I still don't see why people have a problem with neither being able to attack for the load time. In that situation no one has an advantage, it does away with grid camping, allows people to do their missions to Stret East, and allows those who want to PvP to do so

then you would have noticed the main change people have posted in this thread is to have the person gridding unable to attack or be attacked. How does that benefit campers? It doesn't benefit either side. At the very least, that is the way it should be.

I agree something had to be done to prevent the camping of people who don't have control of their character yet, but gridding into hostile territory shouldn't be an advantage.

Is it possible the people who are typing in all caps that people who are fighting this are grid campers, are themselves wanting to become grid griefers? Hmm...


Skara

Exactly.

[Cosmik]

Originally posted by Szentisha
Someone really dropped the ball on this one! Why on earth is the color for team chat and of tells the same now? This causes all sorts of confusion! Please, please, please put team chat back to that ugly green color, or at least make it a unqiue color which is not the same as tell.

This seems like a minor issue, but believe me, these little details are what sometimes makes this game a major pain to play.

Please hear my pleas!!!!!

- Szentisha

Yeah, I've read quite a few posts from people wanting to have the colors set back to their original state, or wanting the solors changed to something else.

We are currently working on making the chat colours customisable on the client. This means that you will be able to select from an array of colors for your own text and have your text whatever color you want. Of course, this means that if you don't like the text color, you only have yourself to blame.

[Cosmik]

Originally posted by Maximilian
He, that sounds like a patch I could start looking forward to.

/me flatters before Savant
'A tiny fix to the team missions, please, please. Make the money split evenely or give the total to mission owner, please, please!!!
/me stands up, removes that slime, takes a shower and tries to behave normally

The missions that are available for teams in the game right now are not proper team missions. We are working on getting interesting and fully functional team missions into the game, and proper reward splitting between the team members is one of the main features. At the moment the details of the team missions are very hush-hush, but you'll be finding out more soon. Don't you just love surprises? And it's not even Christmas yet!

[______________Kizzim]

I think the 15 second zone/grid solution is wonderful. One of my first MMPORG games was Asheron's Call, when I first started playing when you died you went back to your life stone (which is like a reclaim terminal here). I played on their PK server and the problem was people would camp life stones and nail you there before you were rebuffed, while you had death penalties and before you could even fully appear again. In response they did the same thing as AO is doing, added a timer before you can attack them. It would let the player follow and attack them but did NO DAMAGE and informed the player that someone was trying to camp or kill him before his timer was up. The solution was amazing, it greatly reduced the griefing/camping losers who only pleasure in life is to kill someone who is severly hampered because they have no skill what so ever. I think this change is very good and can be used to even more help. Giving players the ability to even select a reclaim terminal in a 25% area and not fear that the terminal will be camped by losers.

[__________WGMelchior]

Will the timer be added to when you respawn after a kill? Nothing is mentioned about this.

[______________Shinji]

I myself am an engineer and i have to say i am really glad that u took some time on improving their abilities, but i dont think this summon line really reflects the abilities of an engineer.
This stuff is fixer stuff and not ours they should have unique ability to transport ppl from here to there within a short time. Thats what thy are good at.
Engis shoud get somethin different:
1. Please implement trade skills. Make the tradeskill items much cheaper to buy in shops. It is nonsense to buy equipment for over a few 100k to produce an item that is woth 10k.
Make tradeskill items much more available. This would be a great benefit!
2.We have some real cool nano crystals, but the problem is that they nearly all use dark blue skills. Let the summon line for the fixers and make these crystals better usable.(make them dependend from green skills:the buff for break and entry, chemistry and pharmacy, pistol and grenade, range init, and last but not least the BOT HEALS)There is no reason to make these skills dependend from psycho mod and biological Metamorphosis.

For example : Buff break and entry just enhances the power of the lockpicks, so that lockpickin gets easier; Pistol and grenade could make pistols and grenade weapons easier to use (some kind of weapon enhancement), range init enhances the firerate of the pistol and BOT HEALS.. well i really dont know why BOT HEALS should use Biometa...
I have never seen biological matter as a part of my robot!


Change this and i would be totally confident with my nanocrystals
3.Give tutoring more possibilities!
The only thing that makes sense to tutor is computerliteracy, because it enables u to wear NCUbelts and NCU Units. But where should be sense of engineering quantum FT, pharmacy and nanoprogramming?
Hardly anybody uses these skills and demand is very low for it.
Give them some sense, and tutoring will be used much more.

My 2 cents

Shinji

[______________Icaria]

There are some of us who feel that the cowards who sit at the grids and whompas ought to be eliminated and I'd love to see Funcom monitor this situation and penalize the little children who do so.

But how about a player setting for "NO PvP" for those who don't want to partake in it?

The reason I ask is that putting in a timer to protect those gridding in is fine but how about those gridding out?

Twice my son and I have taken missions south of 2HO. On our return, with no buffs other than our run buffs, we have been waylaid by snot nosed twits who take the easy way out by sitting at the grid. One little twit even giggled when we didn't try to fight but because Funcom protects the grid sitters by not allowing a player to grid while under attack.

Both times we lost 10K+ experience points each and we just don't bother going back.

By the way, have you taken a long look at the present game and tryed to figure out how long it will take you to get to level X? I think I read they expect the game to have a four year story and four years won't be enough unless you also buy into the "600 hours free in the first month" marketing other use. <chuckle>

[_______________Snarf]

> This is going to create SO many bad things. I mean, I can rush up to an NT, totally protected, and just unleash hell before she/he can do anything. Some professions rely on distance.

Yes, soldiers do have the advantage there... But imagine this strategy

Wait outside a store. Root someone that comes by. Zone into store. Zone out of store. Nuke them. Zone into store. Zone out of store. Nuke them. Repeat until they're dead. Re-root them if you're lagging. *THEY CANT TOUCH YOU*.

lol. Brilliant funcom. Yet another poorlt thought through concept.

Snarf