Exploiters, overequipping and the rest.

[______________Ghostt]

I have played just about every class in the game & just have the following observations to add

3) Loss of Wrangler is somewhat (if not completely compensated)
For the added power Debuffs gain.

2) don't really have an issue for the pet restrictions as long as
the user gets a fair warning as to why his pet isn't responding.

1) FIX THE MOBS!!!!!!, if you implement this without lowering the
skill of mobs you will see a repeat of 12.6. Killing yellows is hard
enough with over equiping. It will become impossible for
anyone over 75 to do so without it, if the mobs don't get
easier.

1) (Part 2), PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE
The final #s you pick are programmed correctly, as in the
restrictions take into account everything being used (implants,
buffs, etc.) even while zoning. I don't want to have to recreate
my pet everytime I zone, or have to rebuff, because the game
doesn't think my skill is high enough. Or have my pet suddenly
stops responding because I lost a buff & the game forgot to
count my implants.

Just my 2 CR worth, otherwise I don't see a big problem with it.
AS LONG AS THE MOBS ARE DOWNGRADED (especially the human ones). Hope that point gets through.

Ghostt

A player still in the game because he has hope for the game's potential.

[Dhurdahl]

Yeah!!!

Go for it! I'd be happy with just this change! (But Im still for the hardline NO overequip version)


No IP realloc please.... misstakes are what makes the char unique! (I've made lots 2xFA->2xSleekblaster->2xPillows->1xPillow)

questions...

NF: are those affected, or are casters in the dark again?
Armour: I sincerly hope that you do exactly the same for armour as for weapons!!! No more implant stepping techniques to equip armour then dropping the implants!
NCU/belt/map/xxx: What about this kind of stuff??

[___________killahsin]

xombie armor is no different than a gun. People wanting that great QL 200 armor at level 80 is rediculous. These people think they found some 'special intelligent manuever' by using all these high level buffs to get CERTAIN armorments. The problem is this only works with certain base skills, and the rest of the professions can't participate. So you say people are a too stupid to over equip b never figured it out c too much pride c total wrong profession to use these 'uber buffs' to wear level 200 armor at level 80, so it isnt balanced. It never was, everyone CANNOT overequip. Oh, but now i hear you sayign will give the base skills buffs that are missing these high elevel ones. The problem with this is certain classes would 1 either nuke you into oblivion or 2 hit you with constant crits of around 1.2k a second. Using the 'new buffs' you would have implemented. So its either do it this way, do it 12.6's way, or take out buffs lmao.


You choose. FC has done a good job this time.

[______________Sathar]

Bravo. Now Implement it, Test it, Patch it.

Oh, and if I get a vote, I guess it'd be against an IP wipe. Sure, I'd love to rearrange a few numbers, especially if the ground rules are changing. But I'm on my first character since July, and the errors in my IP allocation are like the scars on a piece of fine leather, and make me unique.

Sathar 36NT RK-1

[_______________Ishii]

Looks like not many people caught the you can perhaps do it with a command if you want to reset your ip. So those who wish to restet ip, be happy, those who dont, be happy. Weapons, perfectly good way to solve overequipping weapons, BUT mobs must be balanced according to it. No way I can solo mobs with my enforcer with a gimped support beam, I can barely do it now. But I say thumbs up if you do it right, as in please test it alot. Make a test arena on the test server, spawn different mobs and try it out with different classes. You should be able to do this. Perfectly good way to test alot of things. If you could make a test server with test rooms instead of the whole world, and test various stuff that is broken, shouldnt this be faster? Anyway, people need to be higher level to test stuff on the test server, I wont level a char to level 50 there when I cant on the live server.
As for armor, you should get penalties using higher ql armor, why? Maybe its maybe heavier, movements are slower, you are not so quick in battle, your strength or skill cant quite handle it. Wearing something you cant use to the fullest, never give you all the advantages. But again, please balance mobs. And when you're at it, look into spawn time. It need to fixed too.

[_______________XAKKR]

I believe these actions will not solve everyones and everyones' dogs problems, but I'm sure these actions implemented will absolutely result positively to the gameplay of Anarchy Online.

I was happy to read this summary from Funcom, I give it my thumbs up!

That's my $0.02.

[____________Shaeidar]

I'm all for lowering the usefulness of overequipped weapons.

That having been said, the best gun for a char should always be the one with higher ql. Getting good **** should pay off, but there has to be some limit to uber twinking.

As for IP reset i'm for that too, mainly beacuse I'm one of the unfortunate pistol advents.

Funcom: You realise you will have no pistol users left after an IP reset?
Doesen't that tell you that it needs balancing as well?
Can't say I approve of the"reroll if you spent ip wrong" argument, this meens that I should invest weeks or months into a character just to have it gimped because of some major game mechanic changes. Pistols used to a viable option.
Its not hard to reroll, its just that its boring to do the same **** over and over again.

All in all, good solutions I think.


//Shaeidar lvl 67 adv

[__________Revalation]

In a time when you are trying to attract players, this is not a good idea... Why? well you will simultaneously create problems for Agents, Traders, Enforcers, Engineers, Metas, and Beuracrats.
These classes have been through some of the most radical changes in the history of any online game. Im an agent, and I have a finger on the pulse of the agent community in AO and I will say that if you nerf agents anymore, package or not, that a large chunk of them will leave. You should be increasing effective ness of these classes, or giving the other classes the ability to buf, and making QL 300 weapons available for use.

I think what your major problem is, is that you werent expecting people to gain high lvls as quickly as they did. And while you can hide behind the powerleveling/rulebending/overequipping stuff for a while the fact is that the ease of getting to lvl 200, if you do know how, is laughable. In EQ it took so much longer to get to the higher lvls, and thats an incentive for people to keep playing. If you make the lvl cap 300 and simply expand the monsters and items to say lvl 400 then this problem wouldnt be an issue. Right now there are no decent places for lvl 150+ to hunt. they are forced to do missions for decent exp.

To wrap this up, screwing around with the equipable stuff is not going to help. It may look good on paper, and the crowds may cheer it on now, but once you put it into action in game it will once again totally destroy the balance and make many character classes unplayable, alienate those who use them and cause the fragile AO base of subscribers to crumble even more... We dont need radical changes the system, they only break more things than they fix. we need more content, more story, more of the things that make me want to get up and play this game. Putting in more nerfs will do nothing but damage.

Remember 12.6...

[______________Ghostt]

Just wanted to add another comment on IP wipe.

I personally think its a great idea, since its voluntary I definitely don't see a problem with it (assuming there are no bugs, like in using it you lose IP)

Because of the way the game has had fundamental shifts in
the rules I think its the only "fair" thing to do.

Out of my 4 main chars I'd probably opt for it on 2 of them;
To correct problems on misspent IP for something that looked good only to have it not exist after the next patch.

Just another 2 CR worth.

Ghostt

A player still in the game because he has hope for the game's
potential.

[_______________Popey]

I you are going for an IP reset. Only allow the skills that have changed color to be reset. By the way, allow those guys using pillows to reset too. It looks too ugly anyway.


I't would be so boring if everyone had the same characters. I like my small flaws and I want others to have some too.

[________Mr.Agent Man]

Im not sure If I like the way this is going. I play an agent in Rk1 and for a long while I didn't equip ANYTHING I couldnt put on myself with my own buffs and implants. Lvls 26-30 I had a ql 32 rifle equipped, but I was having some MAJOR problems. I could barely solo greens with my rifle. Because agents have dark blue in both stamina and body dev. I had between 400 and 500 hp for those lvls and for everyshot I did, the npc mob would hit me back for just a little less damage.
Now im equipping a rifle thats 17 ql above my own and I can solo yellows and dark yellows as long as Im using first aid and Im at full health at the beggining,

The reason im writing this is that, without that rifle, many groups would start not whanting me because, A. rifles dont get in as many attacks as people with brawl, dimaich, etc or others with fling shot, burst, full auto. B. An agent's role in a group is what? Puller? Most groups ive been in would much rather just run up and kill the the thing, or use a pet to pull. I just dont like the idea that agents, that are pretty muched forced to over equip at certain times, are going to be nerfed and not be useful in a group or be able to make exp in missions with this change.

[______________Othgar]

Originally posted by Anarchin
I welcome the envisioned changes, and I really hope they will be implemented.

All except one: the IP reset. This is not right. A lot of us have been here since day one. The rules and game mechanics of Rubi-Ka have changed over time, and we have all had to adjust the development (that is: the allocation of IP points) of our characters. Well, this is part of the real world, too - things change and you have to adapt. You make mistakes underway and you have to live with them. Really, this is part of the game, part of a world that is finding its own balance.

If you have made a lot of mistakes with the allocation of IP points, reroll.

Then what about the people who have cheated and exploited to get loads of IP points? Simply delete the characters from their associated account and email an explanation to the owner of the account.

You are totally missing the point with regard to the IP reset. It's NOT being concidered because people have made honest mistakes in the allocation of IP points it's being concidered because FC has made changes in Game Mechanics and item effectiveness and requirments. If that were not the case then I would agree with you but it is so IMHO the wipe needs to happen.

I personally like ALL the ideas presented in FC's post. I hope they get implemented soon. It will be nice to be able to solo again at high levels.

[________________GorT]

This is a great IDEA one off IP reset I agree it is a choice given to those who want to take it , Lets face we have all messed up now and then and would love to try a different weapon change IE like blow away Duel wielding pistols or try going with the 2HB weapon instead of all the others, I also felt for conceal when it got hit hard... My main worry is that of treatment machines, seeing as this plays an intregril part of the game as in Implants, I can not understand why you made this skill dark blue to some makeing it almost impossible for higher levels to raise, As far as im concernd the skill should never have been Dark Blue or even Blue to anyclass : Unless you made a skill like lets say IMPLANT SKILL - leaving treatment skill to doctors and people who wanted to use high level labs and Nanos. Implants play a large part in helping chars use better Nanos/Weapons/Armour, Since only a very few abused the Treament Machines to Put implants in the skill should not be made difficult and not too easy. All i would like to see is the treatment Bar green/Light Green not a reduction in what it costs to wear a QL150 implant. Other than that I think you have been reasonabile with all the comments and suggestions you have made thanx for taking the time to listen and act on what a lot of people want >>>.

[__________Lucid Flow]

You'de think from the people who created this game, they would be able to come up with a better solution then this? This is the WORST overequipping solution I have seen yet. The reasons are as follows.


1) It would make all wrangles useless. Sure you might be able to use the small wrangles, but the top end wrangles, the ones that all traders want to have and pay millions of credits for the crystal WOULD BECOME USELESS. This solution says that a level 50 player wearing a level 100 weapon *using the current rules in the game* will have a less effective weapon then if he was wearing a q50 weapon. How is that fair?

2) I play with level 80s-90s that wear a q200 sledghammer or a q200 Support Beam or a q200 Stigma Rifle or q190 Lovemaker. You know what? These guys do nice damage yes... unbalancing? Heck no. These guys compete but they aren't unbalanced. All Funcom is doing is making me SPEND MORE TIME in thier game to do the same thing. Time is important to me!

3) Pet classes. I'm sorry if an Engineer Bot can tank like mad but overequipped it isn't an uber pet. Sure it can take a *lot* of damage but it's not exactly something that should royally be nerfed especially by making it not respond to commands.

4) Traders Wrangles will now become a useless nano. Yet Traders will automatically become the best PVP class in the game. As of now they are extremely strong because contrary to popular belief, ATTACK RATING IS a huge factor. Now, Traders will be able to basically nullify another players attacks and just heal and kill them easily.

5) IP Wipe. I've freaking told you a million times why this is a bad idea, but Funcom in their infinite wisdom chooses to make the worst f'in decisions. What about my Nano Formulas? Are you going to wipe the literally 10m credits i've spent on my spells?

6) What about Hybrid weapons where the secondary skill is dark blue? Are you saying debuffs will royally screw all these weapons just because they are the min required to use?




The REAL Solution to overequipping is not this half-asses BS you shove down your PAYING CUSTOMERS throats. The single thing you could do overequipping is to make Attack Rating more of a factor in the base damage of your weapon. The way you want to do it is a % base when no other parts of the game work that way. You are doing only half of what is right. A person with 300 skill using a weapon that requires 600 skill should not do WORSE then somebody using a 350 skill weapon and has 300 skill. Rather, your attack rating should take into account more of your damage then it does now. There is better solutions to this.

If these changes go into play, I will cancel my account. Why not just make a whole new f'in game?

[______________Hodaka]

i posted this elsewhere, but I feel it is relevant here:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I went and had some lunch and thought about this a bit more, and really, I think this change might end the game for me. If it was just my rifle, I could adapt to the changes, no matter how unhappy it made me.

However, if you read the article carefully. The only thing he wants to leave alone is implants. Thus, if my complit buff wears off, my NCU becomes less effective (i.e. less NCU I assume) Then I can no longer keep all of my buffs running, so there goes my armor (would have to keep those buffs all running too). Now I'm shooting for less, I'm defended for less, and I don't have the NCU space to keep any of the buffs running for my equipment and get the buffs I need on top of that for hunting and missioning..

*sigh*

the kicker? I don't trust the programmers enough to get this right.. they can't achieve balance now. With this, they're suggesting they have to rebalance a multitude of issues to make it work.. I promise you, they'll mess it up.. and bigtime.. play will now become so tedious, what fun I'm having just trying to play the game will take a backseat to the management of keeping my equipment running..

[_____________Codeini]

Not quibbling over the grand scheme of the idea just want to address only one concern. Will do it in example form.


Eg.
lvl 30 Agent Unbuffed Rifle skill 200
Equips QL 60 Rifle with 300 Rifle Req.
Rifle does 10-100 at up to 80% of Req.
It is actually in the 20-40% catagory... so it would if reduced by 25% do 7.5-75 damage....

Please don't make this reduction more than say if useing properly equiped version of the same rifle... example
If were to Equip QL 50 Rifle with 220 Requrment that does 8-80 damage.

So that it would actually still be benificial to equip higher QL Equipment but only thru a cost effectivness sense.

Does that make sense?


Dr. Gerry Ginsberg "Codeini"
Director of Medicine
Omni-Tek Emergency Response

[______________Lictor]

Originally posted by Zadeh
The other thing that immediately came to mind is that at high levels the Solitus breed will be at a severe disadvantage with regards to armor. For example, my QL200 Flowers Tech armor requires 551 Agi, and the breed maximum for Solitus is 480! The only way to get in QL200 armor for a Solitus then would be to max Agility for breed and use implants, and potentially sacrafice a lot in nano skills, and inparticular evades. I don't think thats fair at all.
.../...
As for a specific example of what I mean, the spots where Agi would have to go would be: Right-Arm (Shining), Left-Arm (Bright), and Chest (Faded). With my current config as an Agent nearing level 150, I'd have to sacrifice:

Leg: Dodge Ranged for Shining Nimbleness
Feet: Dodge Ranged for Bright Nimbleness
Waist: Biomet. /Dodge Ranged/Evade Clsc for Faded Nimbleness
Chest: Sens. Improv. for Faded Strength

If things are implemented that way I'm afraid my Solitus level 70+ Soldier and 150+ Agent are going to go the way of the dodo.

Let's do some math...
Well, first, Agent case... Max Agility : 480. General Bonus : +12. Feline Grace : +25. Total is 517. You're 34 points short. But remember the 20% rule? You can wear armor with an Agility req at 620, provided you keep the general buff and feline grace running all the time... So, no problem for your agent...
Now, the solider. His naturally buffed agility is 492. With the 20% rule, that's 590. Again, you're well whithin the allowed over-equipping ratio to get full benefit from your QL200 armor...
You will be able to wear it a little later than an optimized breed, but that's already the case... If you want to wear it sooner, you can still use implants...

[________Billy Talent]

Lucid stop crying. You are the typical person who gets mad that you won't be a twink anymore. To all over equippers that feel they have to overequip for mobs: Gaute stated this in his article -

Reduce the fighting capabilities of monsters somewhat at mid-high levels - to make soloing more viable.

You should be comtributing to this like giving ideas on how this can be accomplished. I am so surprised by the lack of reading a whole post.

Traders - will still be very valuable just might be getting more tells then before. I kind of feel sorry for them now since I know that a lot of them use the afk command to keep people from bugging them.


I suggest nano resist be more effective in PvP and PvE. As it is now there is no type of resistance in PvE and as for PvP I am not too sure since I haven't faced too many traders. But if Lucid claims they will be gods then nano resistance should be the leading factor to tame that. A trader shouldn't be able to debuff you anytime he feels like it when facing a player with high resistance.

[___________morcheeba]

Hmm,maybe you were all paid by FC?

[_______________Croyd]

Ok one or two points I would like to make.


First I would personally like an IP wipe, it would help me correct a few things I have done in the past that are not worthless.

This change will dammage the usefullness of the trader class, Lets just face facts here.

Mobs have to be made easier, right now I consider myself to be decently equipped and I can't solo Greens. Forget about people complaining I can't do yellows or oranges I can't do Greens!!

Doc debuffs are completly worthless on PvE. One hit and they are gone.

And lastly the statment:
Make equipment with higher quality levels drop from monsters and chests - so that acquiring "good enough equipment" is easier. (Has already been somewhat implemented, btw.)


What do you mean by somewhat? As far as I can see, this hasn't been implemented at all.

While I agree somthing needs to be done, there are several other things that need to be done first to make this workable.

IE. Give traders another fuction, Improve pistols, (an IP wipe now means I would be changing from a pistol to a shotgun. Just try and find a decent pistol a Doc can use without overbuffing, I dare you) Correct debuffs on NPCs, Improve drops, lower hp on NPC's, Correct some trade items and on and on and on.

Get that stuff done, then come back to this.