"Exploits, Nerfs, Banning and Overequipping" by Gaute Godager

[_____________Mescale]

Originally posted by Tedric


Well, on the other hand you also have a lot of roleplayers and anti-twink people leaving right now because they are sick of the current over-equipping-is-the-way-to-go and exploit-all-you-want mentality in AO. I for one would love to see changes to the rule to stop all over-equipping (as defined by "equipping stuff that has requirements that you cannot *continually* meet with your own stats/buffs"), and would not miss the people who gave up the game as a result. Good riddance.

Yeah but unfortunately who do you think makes up the majority of Funcoms AO income Hardcore RP, anti-twinks or over-equipping-is-the-way-to-go and exploit-all-you-want mentality people,
That said I imagine that the RP'ers and Anti-twinkers would play the game longer so be a more stable income for longer, whereas the others would quickly ruin a game and would cast it aside once it lost its appeal which lets face it it would after a while.

I guess that leaves only one choice Bite the Bullet, Balance the Game and take the losses. I for one Funcom will allow you to keep your grubby hands on my money. :)

[_______________Denol]

Exploiters should be removed with extreme prejudice, no more to be said.

As for over-equipping... I think you need to bite the bullet and have items/implants/weapons/etc become unusable when you don't have the skills to use it. This won't stop people from being able to use them when they have the buffs up, but it will require more maintenance to keep them up, a justifiable trade off I think.

I'm guessing this was the original intent but overlooked. Perhaps to combat the angst this will cause to some, put in new buffs and items to compensate a little. Or perhaps have tutoring allow one class to provide small permanent skill bonuses to another? (What is tutoring all about anyway?).

This is one of those situations where you KNOW what the right course of action is and just have to weather the inevitable storm it will generate...

[_______________buggy]

im am a lvl 80 n-t i have played pvp before patch 6 i thnk i have won 2 both times it was with a player about 3 lvls lower no before you think i ma bully they chalanged me.i didnt know why then but i quickly found out;why after i died time after time with 1 shot.i dont believe ppl should be able to use eany eqiupment unless the skill lvl is met.This gos for weapons and only partualy for armor you whereing. You should be able to use with maybe some of the functions being afected,weapons again if you had to buff to eguip then you should have to buff to use it .I dont meen firing it but i mean that there should be modifiers on wheather you going to hit your target or not and how much damage you do:
i do not like the limit on nano you should be able to use yur nano to its proper limit acourding to eguipment modifers such as range increasers.wheather som1can see you should be based on concealment and your ability to detect it.dups i understand why they do that ive been looking for a ql 60 program crytal for weeks
and havent found it so if you want to get ride of dupes fix the reason they have to do it thank you and now i ll get off my soap box and by the way if you have a ql 60 program crystal tell me htennek

[____________DarkOmen]

Need a few Answers on to what you consider an over-equipping and sploiting
1.I use wrangles to get into a better gun is that over-equipping or sploiting?
2.I use implants to swap armor then remove those implants and put in my matter creation ones is that over-equipping or sploiting?
3.I used implants to install a six slot belt then removed comp lit implants and installed my regular implants is that overquipping or sploiting. Also I have my comp lit high enough now that I am about to do the same for one of the low ql 64 ncu units is that ovr-equipping or sploiting
4. I find docs all the time to cast the 80 treatment buff on me and with the med suit(pants and skirt still broken) can swap implants as needed are they cheating by buffing me or am I cheating by paying for buff? And if so you might want to do some math on how high players can actually raise treatment.

My new char (Nautalis)who is my main now was built the week of treatment clinic caps never did any of the major sploits, never duped, not even really a power player but I do know how to play and I do play a lot(Mission Junkie) Last night I got my treatment high enough that I only need one sleeve of the med suit and doc buff to swap in and out ql 125 implants. I have many different sets of implants all to do various things am I cheating by doing this?

If you answer yes to any of the questions I posed please feel free to wipe my account (you have my account id and pass) and no I will not reroll I will just move on and wait for the next great game to come along
At level 85 I have great armor, implants , and a decent gun not great but decent around ql 94(secondary weapon—just couldn’t bring myself to carry a pillow) if I am so overquipped how come I have to run screaming from most missions fighting mobs my level?
The only way I can see for you to do what’s on your mind and it must be on your mind a lot if you make it a front page news article is to
1.Reduce mob effectiveness if you start the broad changes posed in the article most players will not even be able to fight grays anymore
2.Total ip wipe for all players in conjunction with a full de-equipping of all items on all chars
3. anybody caught duping should be banned

Truthfully I think you are looking at a major player backlash that will make 12.6 look like Christmas day but its your game and you will do as you see fit and us as players will have to decide whether we think its fair or not. I truly do love your game but I am truly tired of the nerf stick and the changing of rules every 2 weeks and now you are talking major game mechanic changes 6 months into retail “sigh”
Like I said above if you at funcom answered yes to any of my above questions please delete my account now and save me any more grief

[____________Kohistan]

Originally posted by Denol
As for over-equipping... I think you need to bite the bullet and have items/implants/weapons/etc become unusable when you don't have the skills to use it. This won't stop people from being able to use them when they have the buffs up, but it will require more maintenance to keep them up, a justifiable trade off I think.

I'm guessing this was the original intent but overlooked. Perhaps to combat the angst this will cause to some, put in new buffs and items to compensate a little. Or perhaps have tutoring allow one class to provide small permanent skill bonuses to another? (What is tutoring all about anyway?).

This is one of those situations where you KNOW what the right course of action is and just have to weather the inevitable storm it will generate...

I understand that Over-equipping is to somes concern - But cant u see that if u do it so equipment becomes useless without the right buffs, some professions would become even more useless than now..
As im a fixer - the only buff we got on our weapons besides general is a tiny +8 to burst and MG/SMG. If the game was altered to be so that Over equipping would become useless without the right buffs - I could maybee wield a mausser 4-5 levels over me, that would make me quit AO without hesitation. I have carefully planned my toon - Giving thoughts on allmost every IP i have used, bought the right implants, got the right buffs to wield certain armor and weapons.
How do u think I would feel if I saw that get throwen away in a single patch. Not just the time I have spent planning and finding the right things - But also that My toons profession would be totally useless without over equipment.

Leave over-equipment as it is - Start working more on the RP aspect, like trade skills - RP missions.. Stuff like that - That would make people turn a bit away from Combat skills, and start investing the skills that would be required for those issues.


Kohistan
Fixer

[____________Valerian]

Wow,

this is the best and most honest Update Article I've read from you Fucom. You have my respect for being so open minded and frank with your player base. My opinion on the subjects at hand:

Banning should occur earlier. Something like 2 or 3 warnings and then permanent ban.

Ppl STILL asking for a Ip reallocation are too selfish to see the unbalancing consequences of it. You give the exploiters who are highlevel now an instrument to create the ultimate uber characters who cant be matched be anyone lower then them or starting their chara after the wipe. (there is enough discussions about this on the boards anyway)

Overequipping: this is against the whole idea of skill requirements on items. It doesnt make sense to have ppl running around in such an environment using armor and weapons far above their level. It should be simply impossible beyond a certain level as its highly unbalancing and unfair for prof/wpn combos who cannot do similar overequipping and of course casters.
If you say: "We need to overequip or we dont stand a chance!"
Get over it! Everyone (tho I dont know about enf) feels like that! If your class is underpowered they need to balance it! BALANCING CAN ONLY BE DONE SUCCESFULLY WHEN THE OVEREQUIPPING PROBLEM IS SOLVED!
I think there are some good ideas in what Mr. Godager lists in his article. I see the solution in a healthy combination here:
No item should be unequipped when it does not meet requirements. That just creates too many problems and serves no purpose.
Weapons should stop working and a message displayed telling the requirements necessary. Either you have the skills or you dont PERIOD!
The same goes for items that have a unscalable effect like cloaking devices, lights, goggles etc.
Because of the debuffs armor should not be useless and the AC should be reduced by a certain %, not be completely useless!
For the same reason certain items should not be affected by debuffing: NCU belts for example should not stop working when your comp lit drops because having only 8 NCU in a fight at higher levels is a game stopper for casters and everyone else (your weapon buffs drop and youre a sitting duck)

Val

[______________Eowyyn]

I'm not a big over-equipper. My main is a 64 NT. I use implants 10 ql above my current lvl. I user NFs within 10-50 lvls of my current lvl. The rest of my char is pretty much 'at par'.

If you're doing (or trying to, rather) away with over-equipping, then what's the point of having Team Skill Wrangler? Or Treatment Expertise? Or Essence of Behemoth? Are these NFs not supposed to be used to give your character an edge? Were they not put in this game to allow for you to have some sort of advantage?

Now, I'm not condoning -severe- over-equipping. I'm just saying that I've been blasted by a lvl 48 soldier for 1k+ dmg and died. It happens. I just wish these people that are crying about people being 'uber', would either learn to play the same game or shut up.

'We need to make the game fair for everyone'. Give me a break. Games were designed to let people free their imaginations, and see how far they can go. I'm so tired of everyone whinning that they're getting their butts handed to them by over-equipped uber-babies. Get over it. Those people are not going to be happy until they have the same 'god' power as GMs! They want to be able to kill with a look. They want all this and that. If they want to be uber, then they need to find themselves a good Trader that will Wrangle them. Or a good Enf. that will Essence them. Over-equippers should be limited a bit, that's fine. But don't nerf current characters. Let them have their fun. After all, they are paying for this game as well. I'm so tired of being TOLD how I HAVE TO play a game I am paying to play. If I wanted to be told how to do something, I would have stayed in Catholic Schools...

[_________DrDoolittle]

1. Yes.
2. The warning system in place now is fine.
3. What's about you maxed up the buff level you can have to wear gears? For exemple in a range of +20.

Ex. to equip that new armor sleeves, Mister X need 80 in STR and 100 in AGI. His current stats are 60 STR and 90 AGI. With a minor buff he can wear his new sleeves.

Mister Y wanna wear the same armor sleeves but his STR is only 40. The stats variation is too high. That will, imho, restrain the overequiped exploiters a lot.

I think reseting the IP and unequip all character is a good idea too.

Thanks!

Please sorry my bad english

Regards

[_____________Mescale]

Originally posted by Nanodood

'We need to make the game fair for everyone'. Give me a break. Games were designed to let people free their imaginations, and see how far they can go. I'm so tired of everyone whinning that they're getting their butts handed to them by over-equipped uber-babies. Get over it. Those people are not going to be happy until they have the same 'god' power as GMs! They want to be able to kill with a look. They want all this and that. If they want to be uber, then they need to find themselves a good Trader that will Wrangle them. Or a good Enf. that will Essence them. Over-equippers should be limited a bit, that's fine. But don't nerf current characters. Let them have their fun. After all, they are paying for this game as well. I'm so tired of being TOLD how I HAVE TO play a game I am paying to play. If I wanted to be told how to do something, I would have stayed in Catholic Schools...

See now this is why you do not go GOLD until you have a finished product. People have got used to the flawed AO and don't want the game as it was supposed to be but how it is, they want an AO where they can Twink themselves up and become as powerful as they like. Having over equiped items that are only a few levels above yourself is like saying I shouldn't be arrested for only going 5MPH above the speed limit. Your still breaking the rules.
Make the Decision now or never. The longer you postpone the sorting out of the Game the more problems you will have trying to change it. And if you don't change it it will never become a good game it will never reach its potential. The irony of Anarchy Online is that it truely has become Anarchy online.

As for staying in Catholic schools, I left because they threatened to call the Police.

[cellestron]

test

[Bothead]

I am extremely sad and annoyed that all the whining of players who don't want to spend their time 'overequipping' and begging/paying for high level buffs, seems to have moved Funcom to introduce even more nerfs. In my opinion, overequipping (as opposed to exploiting) is a necessary part of building up a strong character, wether for PvP or PvM playing styles. Let me illustrate by this example:

My main char is a lvl 54 Fixer. I am currently having big trouble in PvM agains yellow/orange mobs and I will simply not enter any Arena of PvP, as this would mean certain death. This situation cannot be remedied substantially as my equipment is many times better than it 'should' be (ql 78 armor, full set of ql 70-90 implants, ql 87 Mausser). I have spent AGES doing missions for cash to pay for all this, and additional days of begging/buying buffs from high level players to let me equip it.

Based on this, can anybody PLEASE give me one good reason why Funcom should nerf items that have been equipped using buffs? I think not.
Should Funcom go ahead with the suggested nerfs, I know my character will suck to bad he will have to be deleted in favour of an NT reroll. Many others will certainly feel that way too.

In my opinion, it is simply unacceptable to change the game mechanics in such a drastic was, long after official release. Making comp.lit. buffs self-only for Traders has already removed the opportunity for players to have crazy amounts of NCU for high lvl buffs, thereby drastically reducing the overequipping issue. As for the old players, who do have 'uber' ncu belts, this will not be a problem once their characters catch up in level to their equipment. Leave things as they are for now, perhaps with some minor adjustments, but nerfing buff-equipped weapons/armor/implants is NOT the right way.

[______________Scorus]

1) A pre-emptive strike is long overdue! AO has gotten a reputation as a haven for exploiters and they have chased away a lot of honest players already!

2) I would prefer one strike and you are out, with a quick appeal process. But given the huge number of bugs in the game and the fact that you have in the past suspended people for things that didn't turn out to be exploits, I think one warning and then banned is more than fair. Any more than that is inviting exploiters, as they can get away with it long enough to bolster their character enough.

3) Nano formulae and weapons should have the same rules, period. Since I think getting rid of nano formulae checks would be absurd, you have install the same use restrictions on weapons that you have on nano formula (i.e. same as the equip restrictions).
Since all characters use armor, implants and accessories, I think you can leave them purely with equip restrictions. Of these the only one that anyone has shown concern about is implants and you recent changes to the supply of Treatment skill seems to have taken care of that non-problem.
Another solution would to give weapons, or all equipment, a level equipping restriction. So that you can't equip something that is more than the item's level+X. Since there is no way to temporarily raise level, that would solve the problem.

Scorus

[__________starknaked]

I posted this in another thread, I'll repost it here.

Overequipping is an interesting issue.

First of all, it is only an issue that players care about regarding PVP. Nobody cares if they're fighting mobs in groups and others in their group are overequipped. "Oh no, Bob the Enforcer is hitting for too much damage, we're killing the mobs too easily, this is no fun!" No way, nobody has that problem.

People only are bothered by overequipping when they're PVPing against others who have overequipped when they themselves didn't.

So this issue of overequipping is actually another way that Funcom is trying to fix PVP.

While it might be a good idea, it is not the solution to PVP, it is not the most important PVP problem, and it's not going to fix PVP in this game.

PVP will still be lame and boring, you'll still hang around the PVP area for an hour, kill 4 people, get killed twice yourself, and when you're done you'll still have no idea if you were successful or not. That is, you'll still have no idea whether you've gained points, or lost points, towards your PVP title.

And there will still be no point to it, as you won't be able to strike any sort of effective blow against the other side. There will still be no territory to seize or control.

I'd also like to point out that if the overequipping changes go through, the next step will be a MASSIVE nerf on soldiers in pvp. This is because the other powerful professions, enforcers agents and traders, will suddenly be wielding weapons which do half as much damage, while soldiers will barely be affected at all. Soldiers will become unstoppable, and no one will be willing to put up with this. I assume that the nerf will be, soldiers won't be able to do their 3 specials all at once anymore. Or, the 3 specials combined will be capped at 40% of the opponent's hit points.

[cellestron]

my 2cents worth -

1. Stop expoiters.


2. Overquipping is a touchy subject. It seems that it can sometimes be difficult to tell who has used what means to overequip. I play an agent that, with maxxed rifle and aimed shot, and a few nano-formulas, who could use a rifle at least 10QL higher than he is, more with implants. it would not be fair to degrade equipment as that would hurt those of use that choose to specialize and be able to overequip specific items. What I propse is changing the method used to evaluate players.

Right now, as I understand it, players are compared soley based on level. I propose that this be changed to a combination of levels and equipment. A possible formula, and keep in mind this is just off the top of my head, would be: 1 part level, 1 part per weapon, 2 parts per avg of armorQL and two parts per avg of implant QL. Note that any item that is lower than my QL would be counted at my level. The average of this number would then be used for comparisons.

As an example we will look at my character in several situations:

1. Normal: lvl 29
weapon - QL26 rifle
armor - avg of 25
implants - avg of 20
TOTAL AVG - 29
2. I overequip a rifle within my abilities:
"rifle" - QL39
all else - same
TOTAL avg - 30.6 or 31
3. I am drastically overequipped:
lvl 29
wepon - QL100
armor - QL50 avg
implants - QL50 avg
Total - 58.6 or 59

As you can see, this would allow people to overequip to their heart's content, while allowing those who wish to specialize or overequip a small amount to do so also. I am sure this would require further testing and adjustment and may only be workable for comparing players to other players, but I think that it is a step in the right direction. Thanks!

[Mightykirby]

Maybe you do not understand the scale of the "Overequipping" you describe. Sure, it may be hard for the lower level new players, but practically everyone over 100 uses weapons and armor above their level. Many level 100 people use QL 150-200 gear and nanos. If we go for a full kill (i.e. unequipping) is you don't meet the requirements, it is incredibly drastic. Perhaps you don't understand the price at which obtaining these "over powering" items comes.
Let's take Player A for example. Player A is a level 75 enforcer, he has run countless missions with his friends for pieces of omni-elite, nano armor, whatever, and earned enough money for a QL 125 sledgehammer and a set of QL 120 armor. Player A goes to a friendly doctor and asks for a buff of iron circle. Player A gets this buff, for the paltry price of 20-30k. Player A now goes to a friendly enforcer and asks for essence of titan. Enforcer gives him essence, but for a price as well, maybe 10k-15k. Now, player A can put on all of his armor, of course, since he is not level 120, this armor must be too powerful right? Player A, not knowing about the recent nerfs, hobbles up to his trader friend for a skill wrangler buff. Trader (secretly knowing about the nerfs) asks for 50k, and player A accepts. Player A puts on his sledgehammer (with the help of some of his own buffs of course). Now, according to many people, supposedly player A is overequipping, and must be stopped. However, we notice player A is still beaten easily by level 80 monsters. Player A shrugs, knowing that all monsters are more powerful than people. His buffs wear off (seeing as skill wrangler only lasts 5 minutes or so). Player A has his weapon and armor unequipped! Now player A not only is out 100,000 credits, he realizes that he will never be able to solo again, because he cannot wear gear good enough to beat monsters of his level. Or, if option B is impleneted, player A still has all of his good gear on, but he can't kill anything anyway because it's all weakened. And, if player A engages in PVP with someone who debuffs his skill enough to drop his gear, he must go through the entire process again to wear it all! Plus, ressurection effects will ALSO make him loose all his gear, because he won't have any buffs and his skills will all be too low.
My point here is this, if you intend to implement this nerf, you need to consider the time and effort people put in to getting superior armor and weapons. If I have to get a trader buff and doctor buff to wear my weapons and armor EVERY time I die, I'm going to quit the game very very quickly.
You also have to consider that most higher level monsters now are based around fighting players with the superior gear. If you're going to nerf the strength of players, do it to monsters too.
Finally, consider what you make worthless through this.
1. The trader wrangler buffs will be pointless, they last three minutes or so and do little besides buff skills enough to wear good gear.
2. Any form of stat buff is rendered pointless, because even a 100% reliance skill only gives about 1 point for every 4 stat points.
I STRONGLY disagree with the idea that the large amount of people want these nerfs, most of these "letters" were likely written by people who feel envy for those who have invested the time to obtain all of their superior gear.
In closing, there is no quick fix to the problem of "overequipping". The entire concept is built into the existing system, and unless you're prepared to do a complete overhaul of the way the game works, leave the idea alone.

[______________Tedric]

Well, color me "not surprised".

The only people who are in favor of leaving tings as they are... are the people who have twinked characters. Wow, newsflash. Even less surprising is the argument that they would not be able to survive without their lvl zillion equipment.

Here's a clue: the reason why MOBs are so tough right now is you. If the game did not have twinks who have twisted the game balance out of whack, Funcom would not have been forced to upgrade MOBs - with the result we can see currently: over-equip or die.

Any game re-balance needs to go hand-in-hand with a MOB toughness balance. But isn't that what we have the test server for?

[_____________Stratoz]

Hi, the reasons ppl get upset about over equipping is mostly PvP related.

Here is a suggestion that deals with overequipping in PvP combat:



Introduce a new kind of level, I'll call it the "PvP level". You can call it what you want, the virtual level maybe...

To calculate the "PvP level" of a char you go through every stat of the char(one by one) and compare it to the chars equipped items(including implants) requirements. The item with the highest requirement for a particular stat sets what we can call the new virtual stat.

When you have done this u have a complete "virtual char". Now we calculate how much IP it would have cost to raise the stats to match this "virtual" char without twinking. Knowing the total IP cost, we can now calculate what level the char would have to be to have those stats without implants and buffs. This is the "PvP level"!

The PvP level is then used to determine who can attack you and who you can attack in PvP. You are allowed to attack(and be attacked by) chars with levels and PvP levels between your normal level and your PvP level.

Example:

You are a lvl 40 char with a calculated PvP level of 70. You can then PvP against players with level or PvP level in the lvl 40 - 70 interval (or maybe 35-75?).


This will make PvP:ing much more interesting, because supertwinked players can no longer be completely safe. While they will still dominate against players their same level(not PvP level) they will be a taget for higher higher level chars.


I hope this is understandable, my english is not the best but it shouldn't be that hard...

[__________starknaked]

I'd also like to point out that nerfing overequipping will then necessarily have to be followed by enormous amounts of balancing of all professions and monster strength.

This is because all professions overequip somewhat, and some are totally dependent upon it. Others barely do it at all.

Once the overequipping change went through, this would be followed my thousands of players screaming that their characters were now too weak to do this, that, and the other thing. Meanwhile, half of them would be announcing that some of the other professions be nerfed. (such as soldiers, as I mentioned in my previous message, who already don't overequip their weapons and who don't need to)

Be ready for a wild ride if you put this change through, Funcom.

[_____________Mescale]

Ok let me see you have 2 dimensions right? Well hows about you go for a bit of an experiement. RK 1 can be for all those twinks and over equipers and such and RK 2 can be Balanced, or the other way round, that way players who want to twink themselfs up can do so on one server and ones that want to play a balanced game on the other.

Then at the end of the day you can see which server is more popular the Twinker one or the Balanced one.

[______________Tedric]

Originally posted by Mescale
Ok let me see you have 2 dimensions right? Well hows about you go for a bit of an experiement. RK 1 can be for all those twinks and over equipers and such and RK 2 can be Balanced, or the other way round, that way players who want to twink themselfs up can do so on one server and ones that want to play a balanced game on the other.

Then at the end of the day you can see which server is more popular the Twinker one or the Balanced one.

While this is a fun idea, I think there are technical reasons why this would be a huge hassle (two codebases, with both having to be patched with new stuff).

I still suggest putting up a poll on the subject. I'd be interested in what the general concensus is - maybe I *am* in the minority in wanting over-equipping dealt with.