Exploiters, overequipping and the rest.

[_________Firewater58]

Why don't you FIX the game for once! I keep on crashing each time i zone! i've crashed 5 times in the last hour... worry about that.
-------
This guy is right.

Ive tried to look at both sides of this overequiping issue and the bottom line should be - WHO CARES!!!

If your so foolish as to think that this is the most important issue in AO right now, then youve eaten too many Bronto Burgers.

Everyone should start posting that they want CONTENT added, and LAG removed! We all agree that those 2 things are by FAR the most important issues in AO. Every second Funcom dev. and programmers waste on issues like ip wipe and overequiping takes away from the fact that -

#1. Youll NEVER have a decent war or "event" when lag goes through the roof (even on my works T1 line) when 32players or more get together.
#2. Since AO lacks story and content (nobody thinks your lame "cartoons" are worth $13 a month) there is no goal or purpose to ANYTHING we do.

I love the graphics and people of AO - I love the weapons (9/10ths of which are useless cuz of piss poor game balancing) - and Id love to see AO shine some day. But it aint going to happen if you continue to waste time by missing the "big picture."

ADD CONTENT - REMOVE LAG!

[______________Scorus]

Originally posted by Firewater58
Everyone should start posting that they want CONTENT added, and LAG removed! We all agree that those 2 things are by FAR the most important issues in AO.

Do we? Well, that is good to know.

If you look through the boards, you will see a lot of very diverse opinions on what the most significant problem in AO is. Since AO was released ca. 6 months too early, there are an incredibly large number of incredibly important issues that they need to address. Far more than they can afford to with their declining player base. The previous thread on this subject showed a lot of people wanted this addressed and wanted it addressed very quickly.

Scorus

[_____________DrVixen]

You have taken the time to seriously investigate this issue, query your userbase for opinions and suggestions, and seem to have carefully crafted a response that, in my opinion, would be very beneficial to the game.

However, will the proposed "overequipping" penalty be applied to armor as well as weapons? I didn't see that mentioned in your article. And I *strongly* suggest you handle nanos in the same way, allowing nano runners (who gets mastery buffs, for example, and upload "overequipped" nanos) to be able to continue to use them at a penalty JUST LIKE WEAPON USERS. If a level 120 agent can manage to equip a Q200 rifle and use it with penalties, then a level 120 NT who manages to equip a Q200 nano should be able to use it with penalties, as well. This is the only way you will have real balance between nano users and weapon users.

Otherwise, Kudos to you Funcom for both a well thought-out approach, and especially for communicating it to your users far in advance!

- Rookie DrPhil
63rd OmniTek Doctor, Rubi-Ka 2
Shadow Ops Member

[elviella]

I love these suggestions! Do them all and respect for the team that came up with the sollution for overequiping, this is the best possible to sollution by FAR I ever heard.

Once upon a time, THIS will be the best game on the planet! Keep up the good work!

[________________Zaal]

Just a thought. Once players reach 200 - over equipping will be the only way to make them davance in any way at all. Minor tweaking will be needed and so on. They shouldn't be penalized as much as newbies with now skills.

A level based curve should be developed to designate where and when overequipping no longer limits teh effectiveness of an item nano or weapon, and one other thing: I am in favor of casters being able to cast NFs that they DO NOT meet the stats for if they manage to get that NF uploaded. Just impose the same overequipping rules on them as well as the weapons users.

The curve idea is roughly as shown in the crude graph below:
High Penalty
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.................................................. .................................................. .*
.................................................. .................................................. .*
.................................................. .................................................. ..*
.................................................. .................................................. ...*
No Penalty........................................... .............................................*
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+
1.....................50......................100. ....................175.................200
Levels

As you can see - lower levels would be kept more viable and in line with each other, per/profession until you started to get close to the level cap in which case over equipping would become viable at certain skill levels of your characters stats. This would allow those high level players the options and abilities to keep twinking and developing their characters and pervent them from becoming COMPLETELY stagnant as an overequipping cap would obviously do.

Just a thought.

(edited for the fact that the BB took all my spaces in my graph out and I had to substitute "periods" to remove all the left justifying of the asterisks)

[________senatorjesse]

First of all, I think that this is so far THE absolutly most serious game rule change that has been propsed and CANNOT be relegated to just the bulletin boards for the opinions of the gamers.

Funcom, you have the ability to put information directly in front of the players with the connection/patcher client. I believe that you need to find out the opinion of every player who is logging on by presenting them with a poll through their means of connection. I do not believe that the board effectively represents the player base nor does it represent the percentage of players who feel in certain ways about over-equipping. I don't think that I know of a single player who does not over-equip in some way, and I've known probably more than 400 of them.

Secondly, my views. I like your ideas for decreasing the mob toughness at higher levels. Monsters have insanely high minimum damage, which is not attainable as a player. They also have incredible amounts of hit points as well as "skill" levels that are above possible. If you consider every monster as a character with the same IP allocation as a player, it would not be possible for them to have the run speed or evades or perception that they do in fact have at their level. It's almost as if every monster has their skills completely maxed.

I like that you want to work on concealment which is currently not working in a logical manner. If a level 61 player has 760 concealment when fully buffed (which without buffs would take you until level 152 to achieve), why can a monster of level 75 detect you? It's obvious that at some point, the concealment that you have unbuffed would never be enough to sneak past a monster in your range. This causes problems for sneak attack, it causes problems for aimed shot, it causes problems for trying to avoid being killed by the three yellow monsters in the opening room of a mission. It also seems like concealment is not really based on skill but more based on your level, as unbuffed I can sneak past a few monsters sometimes, which would make the bell curve of concealment's effectiveness curve very sharply somewhere near level 45.

I think that weapons and armor should be more easily available. Perhaps this will stop inflation and the spiraling economy somehow, Which is a good idea. Last night I saw a piece of carbonrich rock sell for nearly a million credits. I'm not aware of the availability of this but I believe it's a tradeskill item used to make nano crystals or something. When's the last time you ever saw a tradeskill sell for close to a million?


What I do not agree with however is your stance on overequipping. The weapon currently does have decreased damage when you do not meet the skill requirement. I'm sure everyone will jump down my throat or ignore me because I am going to use an Agent as my example just because every hates agents but here goes:

Agent at higher levels can't solo yellows, light oranges or sometimes even greens. I myself have trouble with greens (regular greens not yellow greens) at level 62. I've got 500 attack skill (which should be exactly half of what is possible without 'over-equipping' so equivalent to a level 100 character). I have 1000 hit points, and 1600 in all three AC's. I have low evades yes, but they're over 100. Seeing as how this is a dark blue skill for me I think I should be able to survive solo even though I don't max them. If they are absolutely required for solor and everyone should be able to solo, everyone should have them green. But I digress. When I attack a green to green-yellow monster, I cannot survive the battle without using first aid. This is supposed to me a monster lower level than me, roughly level 55? 50?, and yet it would have no trouble finishing me off if I didn't get at least one critical with my level 111 rifle, didn't use first aid, and didn't root it and run away sometimes.

Also, there is PvP. Or just the matter of "he's doing more damage than me ! WHA!" that seems to have been going on for as long as the game has been out. First of all there's nukes. direct damage spells normally do a range of damage that is much closer than a weapon's rage at the same level. Also these attacks have a much much higher base damage. Leaving you an assured amount of damage that you know you will do. If you based your effectiveness off the lowest damage possible with your nukes, you could still fight relatively high level adversaries. However with a weapon, your base damage is most likely under 100. I do not know of a weapon with a higher base damage than that, although I'm not an expert on the weapon database. Your luck with a weapon is the max damage and the critical. As well as the special. Then there's pets. Most of the time you will see pets hit for close to the same damage every time and at a constant rate. Thats why you see pet users advertising themselves as "Eng with pet that does 400 every 3 seconds" or whatever. They know they're going to do a certain amount of damage. You don't really see Enforcers saying: "Tank with two swords doing 350 damage every second", they don't know, they could do 350, they could do 48, they could do 1500. On top of that, Pets fight for you. Most Eng's and MP's at least can solo deep reds. Last night our group was abandonned by an engineer who was level 60 or 65 (I can't remember) because we were *only* fighting level 80 monsters. Sheesh the nerve of us to expect them to waste their time in a group trying to kill something 20 levels higher than us.

Funcom. Please. Don't do this. The system is what everyone is familiar with. If you MUST find a solution, find one that doesn't radically change everything we've been working with for months and months. Fix the bugs, fix the true exploits, balance the classes. Do that all before you decide that weapons are too powerful. Everyone overequips, It's been a part of the game for a very long time now. And it's only rational to think thats what you wanted us to do considering all the buffs all the ways to temporarily increase skills (for 3 minutes -- wrangles) and the way that weapons of similar QL's can have vastly different requirements (tsak rifles have the highest req's of any rifle at their QL).

One more final point, you say that weapons need to have decreased efficiency when the skill is not met yet this is already a factor. Using agents again (this is what I know best, stay away agent-haters), you have high level agents maxinng (yes maxing) a dark blue skill every level. The skill is shotgun. They do this because they cannot survive using a normal rifle, they must equip a Lovemaker or Ranee shotgun/rifle to survive. And even with this they need to have an MA buff cast all the time as well as a Low Light Scope just to get the criticals they need to be effective. Debuffs don't have a noticeable damage reduction on them you say but perhaps when a debuff runs it should also perform a check on the new skill or perhaps the denuff should just be different. Maybe a debuff shouldn't affect skill, maybe it should affect damage output instead. If this is really about debuffs, there's better ways to go about this than radically changing the way the game works.

For those who don't care to read I apologise for my long-windedness. For those who did read it, thank you for your patience. And to Funcom employees who are just scanning:

Please Don't Do This. I'm Starting to have fun again finally. Taking the game away and replacing it with something different will not renew my faith.

[____________Nehemiah]

Go with a mandatory IP reset. This will weed out the past exploiters and help many correct the wrongs of IP's wrongly spent. Many people who started AO via the internet download, had no clue as to how to go about building a good character. The IP reset will help many who simply jumped into their character creation without having read 20+ hours of online forum material from AO Vault, AO Basher, AO Forge, AO Stratics, The PunchingBag and AO Hackersquest...and the list goes on and on. In regards to a reroll...I have done that and my latter characters are always better than the one before it. So a reset will simply apply the knowledge that I've learned to a character that was gimped by a lack of game information starting from the very beginning.

Regarding those who foresee a Nirvana full of game balance and equal characters for all...such thinking is not realistic in Sci Fi or Fantasy based games. Some character classes are simply more powerful than others. To effectively nerf all the more powerful classes to accomodate the weaker classes, while politically correct to many, is a serious blow to the realism of the game.

Regarding overequipped players...if such overequipping has come about via cheats and exploitation, then the IP reset should fix it. If I create a low level character that I can overequip a great deal by paying somebody to buff me with money that I had to earn and with equipment that I had to work hard to get...I fail to see the problem with that. If some characters/classes cannot overequip...I suggest you be the one to reroll...not me. Regarding PvP...if you don't have the stomach for it...don't do it. I had a player yesterday who wouldn't fight me unless I would show her all of my armor and weapons! What the heck is that all about? It's about the lame thinking that suggests that we all should be equal..we should all play the same way...we should all have about the same strength and the nicer person should always win, because they play "more fair" than others.

Summary:

IP reset mandatory. Those who have cheated or exploited in the past aren't about to voluntarily opt for a IP reset. It must be a forced issue.

Game balance. Stronger, smarter and more creative players will always win. Weaker, cheaper and whiner players will always come up short except when it comes to their "whining" to nerf everyone stronger than themselves. No matter how Funcom changes the game, I will find a way to consistently hand the "whiners" rearend to them on a platter in PvP. They will continue to whine and guys and gals like me will continue to dominate them. Winning, to many of us, is important. I don't play ANARCHY Online for a balanced, fair, equal and loving environment. Perhaps the game should be renamed to Hugs and Kisses Online if we are all to become virtually the same player, but just have different clothes.

Overequipping. If I can buy it, if I can buff it and if I can pay somebody to buff me into it...it's mine, it's fair and it shouldn't be changed. If Funcom decides to nerf down the increases that overequipping gives me...well, I will take everything I can and will push the envelope as far as I can..and I will continue to annoy the "whiners" of the game. Simple enough.

All this being said...maybe Funcom should start a true RP or a "Perfectly Equal for All" server where many of the malcontents could migrate to. Those of us who play to win will continue to play that way...even if it's on another game. I've played a bunch of them, and I'm certain that there are many more to come.

Cheating and exploits...I'm all against them. Maximizing every opportunity and advantage that is within the game? I have, and I will continue to do so. Whiners? They have always been with us and will most certainly be with us in the future. It's simply an annoyance to the powergamer as the powergamer is an annoyance to the roleplayer.

Get rid of the hackers, cheaters and exploiters. Let the rest of the AO society sort itself out. I for one do not wish to be reduced to the lowest common denominator of this game.

[______________Yazule]

GREAT IDEAS.

I would just like tp point out that if you give the overequipting changes then you have to do IP's with it or people will scream!


Great article with very good concepts.

[IcedKube]

Let me start by saying
/prostrate
/prostrate
/prostrate

I would like to thank you from the heart of ALL Nano Techs. We have been looking at Atrox enforcers with the same LVL as us using weapons doing more damage in 2 seconds than we can do with our biggest 15 second delay Nuke program. And they get all the strength and HP. DOing this will ballance out the diferant Classes more which for those reliant on Nanos is Good news.

FOr those who complain..

This is how its SUPPOSED to be

[_____________Tiphany]

I for one think this is a bad thing.

If this happens, it needs to extend wranglers to an hour or two and not debuff a Trader.

Engies need to have similar buffs to the MP's so they can self buff.

This is such a bad way to look at things. Don't nerf Engineers and several other classes this way.

Almost everyone that posted support for this said,
"Great, but get ready to drop mobs hp, increase damage, etc."

What's the point? It's one more thing to screw up. If the overequiping is done so that someone can actually survive a 50% dif mission, then why reduce their power, and then decrease mob capabilities? You end up at the same place.

If this occurs, MP's will still be the kick ass class they are. But all other classes will be nerfed.

As a Trader, I can hardly make it through a 50% mission. Obtaining 15k, a pair of yellow hot pants, it's hardly worth it.

[smallfoe]

I dont have much to comment on alot of the topics as I have only been in AO just over a month and still dont feel I know enough
Basicaly what i want to say is about the IP reset. It sounds fair for some and foul for others. Is there a middle?
I've relogged 1'ce and now have 2 lvl 40ish fixers .. the reason i did relog was over silly placement of IP's.

My thought is that they could be periodic when players reach a certain point/level

veteran(lvl50)?- 20% of IP from all skills returned... (and all their stats reduced 20% of course)
elite(lvl90)? - 30%
ect,ect

AND even that !!"Rare"!! item people could sell/trade that would pretty much do the same thing depending on the QL


SmallFoe,

Something like this probably has been brought up before and i'm sorry if i'm playing an old tune

[_____________Barakon]

The whole point of this is to 'rebalance' things right? you are not balancing anything, you are just spending an immense amount of time and effort shifting the imbalance elsewhere.


Say all this goes through, this is probably what will happen in 2ho or any other pvp zone:


Scenario 1

NT will be stronger now(sure they may deserve it, but it would have been simpler to give them a new line of better nanos), so anyway this NT zones into 2ho and prowls around, confident that he is on a more lvling playfield now.

A not-so-stupid Enforcer zones in(he is not so stupid because he aquired nano masteries from a meta so he can cast his best challenger[beyond his lvl of course] which boosts his damage as well as giving him 2hb skill increase). In addition to this he has all the other best buffs running for >>over-equipping<< his hammer/support beam to some mad QL.

He spies NT and charges at him, hits NT, damage is less because he has a slight penalty from over-equipping so much, but it still hurts the NT like hell.

NT nukes Enforcer, does similar damage from pre-nerf days since DD are not affected much by armor.

Enforcer casts Mongo Slam!, Enforcer roars and casts challenger!

Enforcer squashes NT like a bug with massively over-equipped hammer which has no penalty to damage at all now!(the NT sighs, oh well this is just like the good old days).

Bit later...

Enforcer spies Agent, roars and charges at Agent.

Agent panics and fires his sniper rifle at Enforcer, he is forced to use a rifle much nearer to his lvl now so it does much less damage, but at least the Enforcer has weaker armor, kinda(he used his str/sta self buff to get less penalty from over-equipped armor).

Enforcer bellows from the sting, casts challenger again to negate any penalty for over-equipping as well as the damage increase that the nano gives and squashes Agent with massively over-equipped hammer, doing even >more< damage to him now that he would have before since the agent is forced to use much lower QL armor now(poor opifex agent, they really don't have much hp you know).

Enforcer waddles away happily whistling.


Scenario 2

Trader grins to himself and polishes his waaayyy over-equipped Vektor shotgun while hiding in the shadows of 2ho.

Dumb meta/engie/crat wanders into view his pet dutifully waddling after him.

Trader's grin widens, trader casts deprive on pet lover.

pet lover grimaces wtf?? go get him fido!!

pet dutifully continues to follow(ignoring commands now that his pet is too high QL for his debuffed skills to handle).

Trader casts ransack on pet lover, sure ransack might have 190% resist but deprive boosted the trader's nano skills up making it easier to land the debuff.

pet lover stamps in frustration, still shouting out commands to useless pet.

Trader smiles, slowly aims >over-equipped< shotgun(which now has no penalty since the deprive/ransack boosted his shotgun skill waay up) and blasts pet lover's head off(thx to nerf pet lover is forced to use lower QL helmet).


Now don't get me wrong I love traders and enforcers, i just used them as an example since it was most obvious with them. So is this the perfect balance you want? 2/3 thirds of the professions avoiding pvp areas like the plague while the other 1/3 duke it out in similar fashion as before the nerf?

[_______________Cuffs]

Just a few things i feel i need to add in reply to all those twinks who are whining about the game possibly being balanced.

This game is Funcom's baby...it is their decision how it will grow since they have all of our best interests in mind. We are lucky to have a company that actually listens to its player base....really they could give a rats ass about what we say...but that is not the case. Do you think they really feel threatened by a few people saying they will quit?...I doubt it...this game has a market that spans the globe.

Think about it....for every twink that might quite there will be two more to take his place...and in the odd chance...maybe a roleplayer who has the best interests of the game might take his place.

Twinks will get tired of the game after a year or two tops...it is the serious players who are interested in balance, roleplaying and making the game the best ever who are going to stay until the end.


that is just my opinion tho....flame me if you want...

[___________KillBilly]

Originally posted by Cuffs
Just a few things i feel i need to add in reply to all those twinks who are whining about the game possibly being balanced.

This game is Funcom's baby...it is their decision how it will grow since they have all of our best interests in mind. We are lucky to have a company that actually listens to its player base....really they could give a rats ass about what we say...but that is not the case. Do you think they really feel threatened by a few people saying they will quit?...I doubt it...this game has a market that spans the globe.

Think about it....for every twink that might quite there will be two more to take his place...and in the odd chance...maybe a roleplayer who has the best interests of the game might take his place.

Twinks will get tired of the game after a year or two tops...it is the serious players who are interested in balance, roleplaying and making the game the best ever who are going to stay until the end.


that is just my opinion tho....flame me if you want...

agree and agree, this game is ruined by people who just dont want to RP, if you dont want to RP you are wasting your money and ruining it for the people who are paying for an awesome MMORPG, practically the best one around in my opinion

[_____________Barakon]

agree and agree, this game is ruined by people who just dont want to RP, if you dont want to RP you are wasting your money and ruining it for the people who are paying for an awesome MMORPG, practically the best one around in my opinion ~ Killbilly


Sorry but that is a very narrow-minded opinion:

Some ppl like to RP ... more power to them

Some ppl like to be competitive ... more power to them

Some ppl like to max-min stats ... more power to them

Some ppl like to sit around and socialize ... more power to them

Some ppl like to blah blah whatever else ... more power to them

This game is not made just for RPers, no MMORPG is, its made for whoever likes playing online games in their own fashion and is willing to pay $12/month.

<edit for Scorus>This official poll shows that most ppl don't give a damn about this PvP balancing aka nerf and would rather have new content and storyline:


http://forums.anarchy-online.com/pol...ults&pollid=15

[______________Tintle]

I just recently started playing this game. I have to say it is one of the most addicting games I have ever played. I give a thumbs up to Funcom for all the effort they are putting into this. I play a Agent lvl 28 now. I would just like to say a few things. I think it is a good idea. A real good idea. Everything my character owns and operates I use implants and self buffs to get into. I spent a lot of time and creds doing it is fun. But everytime I want to try PvP I get spanked by some one that is maybe a few lvls lower then me, just because they are so "uber? twinked" up there is no way in hell I can beat them and that is when I feel like I am overequipping something that I use my implants and buffs to get into. That is not fun or seems fair to me.
As for a IP reset umm I just don't like it. I think that IP is what makes your character who he or she is. We all make mistakes in life that we have to live with. But on other hand it does suck for the ones that have been jipped in some way by changes in the game.
Just my 2 cents on the subject. I

[_______________Lozer]

i hear alot of complaining that people that "wased" ip at low level will become UBER powerfull when thy get there ip back that they wasted.......

i don;t see a problem.

think about it.... let say at level 8 you put 12 pont into electronic enginereing so you could use night vission goggles. OK so lets look at this.... you "wasted" 400 ip. now your level 100 and your electronic enginereing is 40 points higher than all the other trade skills becase of the 400 ip you put into it. and now your not going to need to put the 400ip back into that skill.

so what is the big deal.... you get 1 extra point in a green skill because of that extra 400 ip? o SPANK! in reality your wasted ip is going to be refunded... not a real big deal.

[___________KillBilly]

Originally posted by Barakon
agree and agree, this game is ruined by people who just dont want to RP, if you dont want to RP you are wasting your money and ruining it for the people who are paying for an awesome MMORPG, practically the best one around in my opinion ~ Killbilly


Sorry but that is a very narrow-minded opinion:

Some ppl like to RP ... more power to them

Some ppl like to be competitive ... more power to them

Some ppl like to max-min stats ... more power to them

Some ppl like to sit around and socialize ... more power to them

Some ppl like to blah blah whatever else ... more power to them

This game is not made just for RPers, no MMORPG is, its made for whoever likes playing online games in their own fashion and is willing to pay $12/month.

<edit for Scorus>This official poll shows that most ppl don't give a damn about this PvP balancing aka nerf and would rather have new content and storyline:


http://forums.anarchy-online.com/pol...ults&pollid=15

if thats the case why isnt it called a "Massive Multiplayer Online Chaos ", because it is a role playing game not a fps. ofcourse we want good items and good nanos there is nothing wrong with that, and socializing is a very important part of roleplaying, im sure we all have freinds and have made freinds in AO. but people who play to try and fufill thier lack of power over their real life are just a tribute to their own weaknesses, because this game isnt real, its nothing more than a game, and this is nothing more than my opinion and how i feel about it Brakan and im not going to get into a flame over it. i've said my piece

[______________Xombie]

It's one more thing to screw up. If the overequiping is done so that someone can actually survive a 50% dif mission, then why reduce their power, and then decrease mob capabilities?

Wrong. The overequipping that they're attempting to address is the ubertwinking people do in PvP, that completely imbalances it.

[_____________Barakon]

Ok, I think its obvious by now that I like the way the game is and don't want the change to be implemented, so instead of whining and complaining, i'll offer my ideas for balancing:


1)A prime problem is with 'twinks' ruining fun for the average player who wants to have fun in PvP.

Right now the con system in PvP only allows you to fight ppl within a lvl range. This is too simple, what about something like: player con rating =(damage output) + (hit points) + (averaged AC) = powerlvl #.

Then the powerlvl # of 2 players can be compared much like player lvl is compared now. This PvP con system only becomes active when you enter a PvP zone otherwise its normal vs mobs and players outside PvP zone. Now with this the average player wont have to worry about being stuck with fighting a 'twink', and in fact the 'twinks' get to suffer a bit by being stuck fighting higher lvl players due to their powerlvl # being raised up high due to vastly over-equipped weapon and armor.

2)Vast over-equipping

I think you were on the right track when you added lvl restrictions for using the items found on the Cyborgs in Tir. Just add lvl restrictions to items, most items need their stats revised anyways(eg* stun-batons using melee energy in addition to 1hb but doing basic melee damage?). You have already proven that you can change stats on items that chars own.

Eg. QL 70 rifle would still have base stat reqs same as before but to allow for some generous over-equipping(but not insane over-equipping) you could have lvl restriction somewhat lower than the QL of the item, eg. requires lvl 50 or whatever.