thoughts on preserving False Professions

[einexile]

I don't put a lot of time or emotion into gathering and equipping gear, so my thinking here may be a little skewed. I haven't minded it so much when nerfs or gameplay changes harmed the Agent profession in terms of effectiveness, but it bothers me a lot to see it changed in such a way that the meaning and dignity of the role are altered.

I frankly didn't know about False Professions until I'd gained a dozen or more levels, and they didn't make much sense to me at first. They were a bit weird, and they seemed unfair. But over time I have come to know them as an essential component of the Agent role. This is especially important given that many of the things an Agent ought to do have wound up on the No Longer Envisioned list, or fell to nerfs in the interest of game balance. Weird or not, it has become a defining element of the profession.

Each profession has something unique to it; FP is what makes us unique. I'd like to see it preserved at all costs. Certainly arguments could be made that the ability creates unfairness in particular cases, but unfairness can be countered and corrected.

Version 12.6 was a perfect example of this. The changes to FP upset a lot of people, and their disappointment was understandable in my opinion - but there's no question that, however jarring, Funcom was skillful in addressing complaints of unfairness while preserving the spirit of the class. I learned to enjoy the penalties and the problems they created. I was even disappointed to learn that in 14.2 the penalties against Agent nanos while in False Prof would be removed.

I never thought I'd stoop to suggest a nerf for any class, much less my own, but in the interest of preserving the spirit of "Agentness" I'd like to see FP remain usable across the board no matter what we have to give up in compromise - even if the end result is a greater disadvantage than what we deal with now.

Forgive me for advocating a nerf, but I think I'd like to see OE standards applied to the Profession wear requirement, if that's what it takes to fend off the tide of FP-exempt stuff being added to this game.

I realize equipment is a lot less important to me than to other players, and the last thing I'd want to do is suggest screwing up people's long-term work by suggesting a new nerf, but it seems the False Profession abilities are being chipped away, and it looks like this is mostly being done to appease other professions who feel slighted by our perceived advantages. I'm worried FP will eventually be done away with entirely, or else cut back to such a point that a defining characteristic of the profession is lost. Shovel on the disadvantages, please, but leave the soul of our class alone.

[______________Ampris]

Originally posted by Vacuos
I'd like to see OE standards applied to the Profession wear requirement, if that's what it takes to fend off the tide of FP-exempt stuff being added to this game.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Over Equipping rules already apply to all equipment, including profession specific items.

[einexile]

What I mean is if I am using a soldier-only rifle and my FP: Soldier runs out, the effect ought to be the same as if my Rifle skill had dropped to 0.

After all, you can't really be 20% Soldier or 80% de-Soldierized. You either are or you aren't, so it would be all or nothing.

[Varfleet]

I can understand your point of view but, I don't think you fully comprehend the totality of what you desire. Let's start from the beginning.

Aimed Shot, the only special attack Agent can truly use, as the IP cost to equip other weapons is severe enough to hamper you using high versions of that weapon, does not offer such a great benefit because it was changed on behalf of whiners "1 shot kills aren't fair" (Even though we get the title of Assassin, figure that one out). For example, for me to raise my shotgun skill 1 point after 500, the IP cost is 1400. How much are you willing to spend on dark blue skills? A good number of us don't use weapons with fling, burst, or full auto, and even fewer of us use Brawl, Dimach, and other MA attacks.

Rifles are not major damage dealers unless you go hybrid shotty/rifle weapons. I use a 180 Caterwaul now, damage is okay, but you can see a difference.

The conceal skill, while fixed to some degree, has been changed over so many times, by the time you get adjusted to using new tatics, it is changed again.

How many HP do you have where you could tank or solo missions at 50% beyond level 100 without the help of FP? Not many.

Now onto False Profession. First, NO engie pets or crat pets. Limited MP pets. Nano Init penalties so sever that unless you have a 1000 NanoC init already, what good are you at casting a 8 sec nuke or team heal. The nano skill penalties already hamper what skills you can use. And unless you have been upping your nano skills since level 1, what good is that 200 HP buff, or Lesser Wrath Embodiement with a Valentyia, or a 250 Team heal when everyone is getting hit for 500+ points of damage by the time you get the nano off?

Now, when this game first launched, everyone was into exploring and hunting and missions. It wasn't until people, VERY FEW, started to PvP, did the whining start against Agents. "Not fair they can blitz/sneak missions, not fair Aimed Shot is too damaging, not fair etc., etc." So what was the end result? The MINORITY of people got their wish, Aimed Shot and Conceal got changed to benefit the whiners. Did they change Dimach? Did they change the runspeed buffs of Fixers? Did they change and CONTINUE to change, any other specifics of other professions to the degree that Agents have? NO.

Now you are suggesting that Agents ONCE AGAIN be penalized for being able to FP! Is it our fault that most of us Agents use thinking and changed tactics to overcome each nerf? Is it our fault for using ingenuity to overcame each penalty to our class?

For each class that crys about being unique, hey we all are in each of our characters! Trox MPs and NTs and Docs are a GREAT example of ingenuity uniqueness. As far as each class being unique, how many enforcers do you see carrying anything other than a beam or hammer? Without being flexible and allowing other people to play a class based on the RULES dictated by Funcom, the game becomes boring, and guess what happends next. Not many people playing means not much money comes in which means the game will close off.

The bottom line is so what if I am an Agent? I play by the rules given my class, you play by yours. I don't whine when I see an MP with 3 pets taking on 100% missions while I can barely survive a 50% mission at level 120. I don't whine when I see an Enforcer take on 3 red mobs when I can barely handle 1 or 2 green mobs or a grey still sees me even though I have a 1400 Conceal skill. I don't whine when I see a Trader debuff a mob to boost his/her attack skills and nano skills to make a quicker kill. I respect their CHOICE to play that specific class, RESPECT mine.

[______________Bure10]

Good Job saying all that in a somewhat nice way lol, Listen to everything he says its very true, the fact FC keeps changing everything what we can and cant do makes it very difficult to plan where you want to put your skills into and what u will use. Now that MA crits are self and Agents CANT cast that line in FP plus with the old llts' gone, one of the last few ways I saw to be somewhat strong is long gone. In return a cheap line of crit buffs that are useless for missions/being strong for more than half a minute, basically mainly useful for pvp which I think is least important as of now. On top of that with some hope coming in 14.2, mostly gone now with the new rifles mainly X-3 counter snipe, finally a rifle that used completely our 2 main skills that would compete with hybrid shotgun rifles, nowhere to be found or extremely rare. So basically what has come with 14.2 so far, a nice mask helmet, finally fixed sneak but added a 10sec delay to get back into sneak, a few nanos that dont really change much for the usual 30-40 min buff times, and we can now cast our own cheap line of nanos while in FP... what does this mean u ask it means we would cast our 4-15 second crit buffs and maybe use a root nano while in fp if needed lol. As of now only buffs (anything u cast before you start a mission) are used in FP until about lvl150+ depending, if you happen to pump your nano init skills to 750 to even out the mimic fp -750 nano init, you could then finally be able to use nanos in fights or heal yourself/teamates... just to find most of good high lvl nanos are disabled in FP of other professions lol. Now this guy is saying to put an equipment nerf so that agents cause use wpns that are only for other professions... lol funny, didnt know agents used other prof wpns or very rare better off using your own 20x, some armor thats meant for other prof we can equip in fp but most of it is Profession *** not visual profession(we can use it), so basically what you say is silly whether they did that or not wouldnt change anything at all. On a side note i would like to say MP pets suck everyone knows attack pets dont do anything in missions nothing at all most the time(should fix that feel sry for mp), only heal pet is the key, so basically now before a miss only fp useful until really high lvls are mp and maybe enforcer depending what nanos you can get your hands on, in my opinion FP cant really be nerfed much more its all nerfed out lol. Main use of FP for me (as i wouldnt be silly enough to solo miss, only do team miss) is for side things, like sneaking missions (adv fp), escaping (fixer fp) etc...

[_Tekkor_]

Good post Nonalla. I agree with about 95% of what you said.

Talk like this is plain scary for an old time agent like me. Dont even talk about this, lol. Put OE issues on FP? Like that will make anyone not whine about agents?

As it is right now Im having a real hard time figuring out what FP's are even worth changing to after the recent nerfs we just had.

We had MA crit buffs and MP pets taken away. Guess what were the two main FP's I did prior to this patch? You got it MA and MP. Now MA is nearly useless. MP is still good at my level but I know in about 30 levels or so its goign to start becoming worthless.

SO what do we have left now? Soldier and maybe enforcer. Trader is good still for a few things and my understanding is once you get up over level 160 or so as an agent and can use Mimick Trader thats the way to go.

Besides that everything else is not that useful. Yeah there are a couple buffs here and there in doc, crat etc that are nice but not useful in practical terms. No nukes are usefull.

So taking that all in to consideration you think on top of that there should be some OE penalties? Umm we already have penalties they are called severe Nano init penalties and lock out on numerous things like pets etc.

I just dont see how getting something like this implemented can do anything but hurt us even more. We still need some changes and perhaps something that makes us more desirable to a group especially at higher levels....but we dont need a nerf on FP when it is already suffered numerous nerfs.

Just by implementing this change it wont stop professions complaing or Funcom from nerfing FP things away from us. It will still happen we will just be more handicapped.

[___________Tangretti]

By the way.. The nano init penalty on FP is -1950.. No one of any class and any level sinks that much into a stat! lol There is no way around the init penalty that i know of. You may be able to reduce it with those belt add on's or something.. but 1950 is alot to make up for! This is the main reason why i stopped playing the agent after lvl 40. It seemed like the only things an agent is worth using were the buffs. When every class it seems now has it's own special buffs.. Agents and Traders are becoming more and more useless!