The professions - A balance chart/scoring system

[audrima]

Whaambulance,
you work for funcom dont ya :P Sound like how they "balance" everything. LOL (yes that's a joke folks) you can NOT balance classes via paper it does not work. there are to many factors involved in it. Form Race to class to ip to wepion to even play style and time online. the only way to test balance it to test them on the servers. and go back with atleast 80% input from the testers. the problem is that only (just a guess)10% of the players post here. and most are hard core gamers not casuel gamers.(Like my self) If you truely want to do someting like this then you need to question atleast 25% of the players ingame (and not just the 85+ players every player from lvl 1+) and then Split up the ranking in to:
Nano
Damage
heal
protects
trade skills
Class spec skills
ip Value VS color (ie green skills vs darkblue)
What works Vs what doesnot
when vs lvl (like when a nano can be self used vs the lvl it says)
Tweek vs newbe
Hard Core gamer Vs casuel
RPGER vs LVLER

well you get the idea there lot more to it than just DAMAGE protect and nano. there are some that RPG 1hr a day useing a skill that's not green no nano that heals and does damage and love it and theres others that have the "flavor of the patch" and hate it but have to to stay "uber".

and the morphs are not "pet morphs" for adv they morph the player they dont make a pet. :P

*this is just my opion nothing else. this is just a general responce to your post asking for advice of how to fix you system.*

have a nice day *^_^*

[_____________Calenth]

Originally posted by Greenhawk


I couldn't agree more.

I could easily make a tabulation that would be just as detailed, and just as "valid looking", but that would supply completely different conclusions. The base numbers the original poster used in his assumptions are TOTALLY subjective... and based on his opinion. For example, his assumption that run buffs count as damage prevention... which in 90% of cases they do not. The result has skewed the values of several classes (fixers most notably), resulting in bad data.

By purely anecdotal evidence (though a large volume of it), Fixers are the most "broken"... yet the Engineer, who is difficult to play well, but very powerful, is the most in need according to the author. Sorry... not buying it.

Right. Probably the best example is the trader . . .he counts all the positives of the trader class, but none of the "trade offs" -- for example, the fact that the traders' high team heals drain his own hit points, or that the trader's skill drains work against players but not PvM. .

Different classes are good at different things. Some people want to do some of those things, others don't. If one class isn't getting played, it means it's not good at anything people want to do. If one class is getting played too much, it means it's probably too good at something people want to do. Beyond that, tabulations like this aren't worth much.

[_________KrazyKanuck]

You know flow i find it kinda hard to listen to you whine about how nerfed the adv is while you are the second highest character on all of RK2??? There are how many engies that high in the whole game??? 2 both on rk1 who have been playing much longer then you yet you are similar level.

I am a engie and very biased towads engies first off.

But i have to agree with the author. Almost everyone who says engies are the very top have never played them past 100 or around about 110 when engie power peaks. and for the most part they quit before the last patch which screwed engies up and before this patch which will screw engies even more.

for example. In the average fight if i am in the same room as my pet i will take the aggro from my pet 3-4 times. This is without shooting a weapon and bar at max def and me pounding non-stop on the aggressiveness trummer in hopes my bot will take aggro back in time and he usually does. Unfortunately in some rooms this is a must to happen. For example the first room. Now you think well this isn't too much of a problem. Well it is. Engies have the worst evades. Engies have the worst body dev. Engies have horrible weapons skills. Engies have no roots/charms/mez. Engies have no heals. Whats a engie to do when he takes aggro? either find a very fast way to get the mob stuck til bot can handle him or RUN. Oh wait, run speed is dark blue as well.

The ONLY thing the engie has going for him is the bot. the person who said as long as the bot is alive the engie is fine could not be so wrong. How many times have i died in the last week?? probably 10. how many dead bots?? 0. This is fighting mostly orange/yellow mobs btw. And unlike any other class everytime i die i have to go get rebuffed to get my weapon back.

As a person without their bot the engie is the weakest combat class on the planet. We make fixers look like fighting gods. You take away the abilities of the bot more and we may very well end up worse then the fixers. For example lets look at the number of skills for each class which have IP costs 30 or higher. Using the IP emulator available @ http://rustot.by.ru/AOSkillEmu.exe

Adv 4
Soldier 4
Fixer 6
Agent 10
Enforcer 13
Trader 15
MA 17
Doctor 23
MP 24
NT 27
Crat 29
Engie 29

See how pet class are reliant on their pets to be useful??? Anyways i combined these stats by taking their ranking here and adding it to the ranking that the original post and reranked them according to lowest overall rank to create my own little ranking system. Which i think the results are slightly more accurate then the first one. And the come out like this

Adv 1
Soldier 1
Enforcer 3
Trader 3
MA 5
MP 5
Doctor 7
Fixer 8
Agent 9
Crat 10
NT 11
Engie 12


And BTW to whoever was wondering why engies in teams dont use sympathetic sheilds is because anyone who tries to use sneaking of any sort starts *****ing cause it breaks their concealment everytime it refreshes.

Igaloran
level 142 engie
RK2
Sick and tired of everyone thinking the the normal engie is the level 108 with his slayer guardian but don't think what the level 158 engie is like still using the same old bot while almost everyother class is increasing in power.

Oh and one more thing. Engies can't solo ACEs whoever tells you that has never played since the last patch. To solo ace you had to continuously heal your pet non-stop. Due to last aggro patch that is not possible anymore.

[Mercatura]

Divest/Plunder is not a pure pvp problem. Mobs can do them too, which result the same, if I'm unlucky.

Yeah, I can do them to mobs too. They don't do a damn thing. Nice little circle we've got there eh?

PvP: Deadly debuff that pisses people off to no end.
PvM: What debuff? As far as the mob is concered, there is none.
MvP: Deadly debuff that pisses people off to no end.

Solving 1 and 3 while burying 2 with another f*cking nerf is what every whiner on this board is begging for. They should choke on it.

As far as I'm concerned, you could completely remove the debuff part of the nano from the game, and shut the whiners up for once. I'm beyond hoping that any "balance" would ever be done properly by FC in present state and would settle for that, it wouldn't leave a class ruined.

[_________________XyZ]

Originally posted by fl0w_

Oh yes.. of course. Adventurer with Assault Rifle. That makes tons of sense. It's so obvious! Why didn't I naturally cling to Assault Rifle from level 1?

Now the Adventurer class is alright again.. we can all pretend to be soldiers, and alpha strike. Yay!

Well as it is everyone at high lvls are running around with AR's and using alphas, but also with all the other good stuff that they have.

[mrpres1dent]

Originally posted by KrazyKanuck
You know flow i find it kinda hard to listen to you whine about how nerfed the adv is while you are the second highest character on all of RK2??? There are how many engies that high in the whole game??? 2 both on rk1 who have been playing much longer then you yet you are similar level.

First of all, where are you getting your information from? I'm barely in the top 10.. #8 as of right now. Look here http://antiguardians.org/chars.php?g...ubika=2&guild=

Second of all, I have just as much right to whine about my profession as you do. I think (at least it's my impression) that most of the people in the Adventurer forum respect my input.

Third of all, if you don't think there's anything wrong with Adventurers then tell me the last time you said to yourself "man, I wish I had an Adventurer in this team". I'm not saying that is what should happen, but I'm saying that Adventurers are one of the lowest populated/played classes in the game. As one person already pointed out, that is a direct reflection of how useful, fun, playable and rewarding the class is for somebody who pays per month to have fun.

In my career as an Adventurer, if you asked me to look back and say if I had fun or not, throughout it all, I would say no. I saw the downfalls of the Adventurer class early on, when I received a lot of negativity towards players in the form of being kicked from teams in favor of other professions (jackasses), being made fun of, being told I'm a "newbie" class and that I have no right to whine, and a ton of others.

But I didn't let it get to me; rather, I decided to take action. I brought some of our issues to the attention of whoever would listen. I wasn't prepared to throw away all the /played time, all my real-life time invested, and re-roll because of the downfalls in the class. So I don't give up easily -- that's not a crime.

But according to many, Adventurers don't have any issues. And of course, in my mind, I would say that Enforcers don't have any issues (for instance), but I'm sure they have many valid concerns -- I just don't play one, so I can't give my opinion, nor do I. Nor should any of you without experience.

Scoring professions on their usefulness, playability, and demand without playing them through to a considerable level is foolish.

And last but not least, to address your concerns about Engineers -- you picked a pet class. Engineers do have many valid concerns. But, understand that giving you the same abilities that many other classes have to assist them in survival would make you way too powerful. If you were able to heal, and wield a shotgun, AND have a bot, how would that make things fair? Or, how about if you had a MK shield.. get my point? The fact that you have the pet.. makes it hard to keep it fair. This is probably the primary reason that 'crats don't have any sort of healing. If they did, they'd be very powerful.

Please note that I did not make any generalizations about your class -- I have played an Engineer, and personally I hate pet classes, so I didn't last past level 70ish. You have many valid issues, I just can't point out any real fixes for the class, because I didn't play it long enough.

[mrpres1dent]

Originally posted by Mercatura


Yeah, I can do them to mobs too. They don't do a damn thing. Nice little circle we've got there eh?

PvP: Deadly debuff that pisses people off to no end.
PvM: What debuff? As far as the mob is concered, there is none.
MvP: Deadly debuff that pisses people off to no end.

Solving 1 and 3 while burying 2 with another f*cking nerf is what every whiner on this board is begging for. They should choke on it.

As far as I'm concerned, you could completely remove the debuff part of the nano from the game, and shut the whiners up for once. I'm beyond hoping that any "balance" would ever be done properly by FC in present state and would settle for that, it wouldn't leave a class ruined.

Pretend it's not there then. Don't forget though, that in PvM while it may not do it's part in draining the MOB, it does raise your skills. That's something no other class can do.. allowing you guys to use nanos many, many, many levels before anybody else. Don't take that for granted.

In the meantime, use it in PvP as your unfair advantage against the other 11 classes

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Mercatura


Yeah, I can do them to mobs too. They don't do a damn thing. Nice little circle we've got there eh?

PvP: Deadly debuff that pisses people off to no end.
PvM: What debuff? As far as the mob is concered, there is none.
MvP: Deadly debuff that pisses people off to no end.

Solving 1 and 3 while burying 2 with another f*cking nerf is what every whiner on this board is begging for. They should choke on it.

As far as I'm concerned, you could completely remove the debuff part of the nano from the game, and shut the whiners up for once. I'm beyond hoping that any "balance" would ever be done properly by FC in present state and would settle for that, it wouldn't leave a class ruined.

To Mercatura:

Wouldn't change a damn thing. Then the weapon users would complain they get debuffed by divest/plunder unfairly and they'd want the weapon skill debuff removed.

To everyone else:

Everyone wants to be the "Hero" in this game. They want to be on the front line, slugging it out with the mob, no matter how rediculous it might be for them to be there. They want to rely on nobody but themselves, with the "MM" part of MMORPG meaning they'll have someone to brag to about what they beat up.

Every comparison of balance posted on this board has been either a side by side comparison of one profession against another. Or it has been a side by side comparison of one profession's abilities against another. The Doctor vs Trader healing discussion reeks of it, comparing just the healing abilities of the 2 professions. All the while ignoring the Doctor's ability to buff hp/stats/debuff inits which is just important a part of being a doctor which nobody else can do as well. NT vs MP nuke ability is the same thing (though admittedly, the NT's need something more to flesh out their profession than just straight nuke damage).

The balance comparisons everyone uses to point out how gimped their profession is may or may not be accurate. But that really doesn't matter. What matters is the balance they're trying to achieve is based mostly around solo ability. Attempting to achieve that balance is remarkably shortsighted. Yeah I play a trader. Yeah I can divest/plunder, heal, buff/debuff AC, and carry a mean shottie. I cannot, despite all those skills, solo everything in the game. Some professions can solo better than I can. Does this mean there's an imbalance that needs to be addressed? Some professions should solo better than I can. What matters is what we can do together. As a trader, I'm far more useful in a team than I can ever be solo. And that's what matters.

[_________KrazyKanuck]

If you want a honest answer of when i ask for advs in my teams flow it would be everytime. Have a couple guild advs who team with me a fair amount. even when i started a twink my first team which we went to 25 the first day consisted of 2 advs as well as me. Is it my fault some people don't understand the value of a class which can not only deal a decent amount of damage but heal as well?? sure a doc will out heal a ADV but most of the docs in know don't outdamage them. When i team there is a adv in the group 90% of the time. guess i am a newb thinking that advs are good in teams. Obviously you haven't had problems finding teams.

Anyways i totally agree with you on the engie part. Adding other combat skills to engies would make them overpowered. But the other people out there have to realize engies are the class which is single most reliant on their one bot. Crats have a possible 3 pets which damage the mob and keep the aggro away and in the event the crat does get aggro'd he has a mez. MPs have a higher damage pet then engie meaning it will keep aggro better. In the event that they do get aggro they have the mez pet which i am told decreases mob initiatives as well as a heal pet to keep them alive. the engie has absolutely nothing to supplement his bot so his bot MUST be superior to anything MPs or crats can use by a fairly large margin and the bot MUST be able to keep aggro almost constantly.

I dont really have a problem with the next patch coming out which will get rid of the level 80ish engies using a slayer. I waited until about lvl 108 to cast the first slayer and after that first one i didn't start using them again til around level 120. Just wasn't that important to me to get twinked into such a high level bot when a lesser one could do the job.

Problem right now is the engie bot doesn't tank which IMO does make the engie class one of the weakest classes out there.

[Nullifax]

Originally posted by fl0w_

Oh yes.. of course. Adventurer with Assault Rifle. That makes tons of sense. It's so obvious! Why didn't I naturally cling to Assault Rifle from level 1?

Now the Adventurer class is alright again.. we can all pretend to be soldiers, and alpha strike. Yay!

Actually in higher levels I've seen a lot of adventurers wielding Heavy Gamma-Beamers. But that's as far as the similarity goes. They don't have a TMS, but they DO have decent heals and some ok damage shields. I haven't really bothered looking at adventurers much though.

Of course, adventurers can also try dual wielding Home Defenders or Triple Jolts.

[mrpres1dent]

Originally posted by KrazyKanuck
If you want a honest answer of when i ask for advs in my teams flow it would be everytime. Have a couple guild advs who team with me a fair amount. even when i started a twink my first team which we went to 25 the first day consisted of 2 advs as well as me. Is it my fault some people don't understand the value of a class which can not only deal a decent amount of damage but heal as well?? sure a doc will out heal a ADV but most of the docs in know don't outdamage them. When i team there is a adv in the group 90% of the time. guess i am a newb thinking that advs are good in teams. Obviously you haven't had problems finding teams.

I'm not sure if you're on RK1 or RK2 but we aren't "blessed" with that many Adventurers on RK2 at all. To compare, for instance, RK1 has 41 Adventurers over level 150. RK2 has 3, er maybe 4 now. That of course, trickles down to the lower levels, indicating how many Adventurers actually stuck it out to a reasonable level on each server.

The only reason I ever found teams was cause I made friends early on. Had it not been for them, who I am still with now, I probably would have quit AO because of the lack of a "fun factor" the Adventurer experiences.

[________ResidentMage]

Whaaaaaa - bump.



I think this is generally a good system at the moment and that Fun Com should pay attention to what it says.