General questions about new nanos...

[howlin]

The designers took a great deal of care to ensure that the math was correct and all the nanos can be cast by the relevant profession. There is nothing ‘impossible’ about the requirements, but there is a choice for you to make, and yes, you might even have to sacrifice something else to be able to use them.

Did the same designers do the OFAB Hawk when it first hit live?
Did the same designers make the top shade proc nanos that noone is using?
What exactly are NTs and MPs sacrificeing for their new nanos?

[Mekh]

...snip...
What is your point? Doc has to give up on 220 heal for QL 300 KEC? If a fixer gives up a QL 300 hawk should FC give him 220 doc heal?

I guess that you would have made a better comparison if you had said something like: If a fixer gives up a QL 300 hawk should FC give him the ability to cast the new HoT?

The Doc looses some healing for more damage and the fixer loose some damage for more healing...

Makes kinda sense imho.

[Tiralee]

Oh we do, but you know accusing the designers of idiotic ideas and being imbeciles is not the way to get it discussed at any length. There is never a problem with constructive criticism but personal insults and flames like that are totally out of order.

This is something that has been bothering me lately, this trend towards name-calling, insults, flames, etc. of FC, developers, designers, and yes, a time or two, even our game director. It's not just this post -- I've been seeing it in a number of posts lately.

I like the idea of constructive critiscism. There have been changes made in the past when people have constructively critiscized some items, reqs, etc. But it seems that lately name calling and angry taunts are more the flavor of the day.

I doubt that anyone at FC is sitting there and saying, "Let's nerf this on purpose." I'd imagine that everything is the product of someone's hard work. Sometimes they just won't be able to win because you can't please everyone, and someone isn't going to like something, or someone is going to want something easier or harder than it is/should be.

But sometimes perhaps an FC person just didn't consider something, or overlooked something, and perhaps something they did does need a change. That's still no excuse to start insulting them.

I shudder sometimes at the some of the comments I read in the forums these days. It makes me wonder why some FC volunteers/employees don't just say "Forget it! I'm not even going to try anymore!" and pack up their bags and leave -- either literally, or by just giving up.

Let me repeat: There have been changes made in the past when people have constructively critiscized some items, reqs, and so on. FC does listen and take comments into account. Just because they can't change everything to make everyone happy doesn't mean that they don't listen. But being rude and insulting isn't the best way to get an opinion heard. I'd assume it actually works in the opposite way.

[IHaveHugeNick]

It says a lot about the designers if they actually did a research for Engineer nanos.

[Mamman]

I can see Sils point and it doesn't really matter if I agree with it or not I guess, but my question is:

Why isn't the difference between 'in combat' and 'buff before combat' nanos recognized at all? If great minds have done great amount of thinking like you said Sil, surely this must've crossed their minds. All the players saw this instantly and you also mentioned our understanding of the game is nothing compared to the devs.

Enlighten us.

[Alphatech]

A lot of the name calling comes from the desingers repetively going anginst the playerbase's feelings toward something. <atleast in the case of the engie comunity.> we've just reached our wits end , with all the very constructive posted we've had that just get deleted or ignored. Typos are forgiveable when they are said "opps our bad we'll fix that." But for the most part fc does say what's a bug/typo or if/when they are going to fix it, and this is what annoys the playerbase in to the direct insults. It takes maybe 3 min for the pr people to ask a dev if something is supposed to be like that and respond "yep we ment that you tell us why you don't like it well take it in to consideration." Yes I know they can't do that for every thread, but they can on honest bug threads. Take the tread I made on the engie ofab back being left out of the fix, they could easly have said yes it was a mistake, we'd say ok and noone would be angry about it. But instead they ignore it and it just drives tension up between the player base and the devs.

[lazarus]

btw.. what most people don't keep in mind..
is that we can probably self this easy in some months.

I bet many +nano skills items will be added in the future

but where to put em?

[Alphatech]

And btw the devs do know more about it then we do because they know what they are going to add next patch. The problem is you can't add current content with future patch items in mind. If your going to do that then you have to make the stats equial for today and raise them when you get the new content in. Which btw you can do sil, just let us know your going to make a changing game play and that everyone needs to read the notes. List what items you raised on the website and go from there.

[Shrubberyman]

but where to put em?

When/if these items are available, then it will boil down to what you/we're willing to sacrifice to benefit from these nanos. Nanoskill research or AS? Sniper friend or nano deck? Take time to swap/buff/reswap or rush middle?
I think (I hope actually) that the Mounty Hall days of "X and Y" are now over and that we're going back to the more oldschool "X or Y". Perhaps not as drastically as these nanos look today though.

[lazarus]

When/if these items are available, then it will boil down to what you/we're willing to sacrifice to benefit from these nanos. Nanoskill research or AS? Sniper friend or nano deck? Take time to swap/buff/reswap or rush middle?
I think (I hope actually) that the Mounty Hall days of "X and Y" are now over and that we're going back to the more oldschool "X or Y". Perhaps not as drastically as these nanos look today though.

well it all seems nice to have more roads to go, but for an already set endgame ip spending, we are kind of left at the choosing state without the possiblity to choose
atleast not easy

and why dont NT have to sacrifice anything? or they just only have one road to go? and that is nano skills?

[Ragetra]

I <3 clueless posts like this.
My anwser to you is:

hmm? without towers or contracts, just mining ops, top symbs, conc, max level and 3 scouts/com relay castable self. get towers and contracts or cmo and you don't need to change anything but conc. or why do you think there are nanoskill items, perks and buffs out there?

[Abalz]

Oh we do, but you know accusing the designers of idiotic ideas and being imbeciles is not the way to get it discussed at any length.

Please enlighten the community on HOW to get designers and developers to discuss things at any length, it seems we get one or two posts per month except from Means. Much less than any MMO on the market today. There isn't even a "Dev Post Tracker" option on these forums, which on other MMO forums returns a search of most revent dev posts.. Reason FC has none on AO's site: Devs don't post often enough, the search results would be embarrasing.

[Chrys]

The new nanos are intended to be something that you shouldn’t take for granted. They offer tactical options for your character if you want to make the changes necessary to use them. We know for example that they are very difficult if not almost impossible to cast with NR trained, thats the whole point and exactly why they are set where they are set.

It’s a choice you have to make on an individual level for your character. The designers took a great deal of care to ensure that the math was correct and all the nanos can be cast by the relevant profession. There is nothing ‘impossible’ about the requirements, but there is a choice for you to make, and yes, you might even have to sacrifice something else to be able to use them.

Sil, that's all well and good but it didn't answer the OP: that there's a tactical difference between self-casting buffing pre-combat nanos (in which I think those should have high reqs), and casting in-combat nanos (which should have high reqs, but certainly not as high as they are. Pet profs can't go around fighting with phulaks anymore than fixers can take off their SWS and be viable. Secondly, the nanos, to really justify gimping your setup, have to be much better than what is currently available to make the tradeoff something to consider. Unfortunately, they're only marginal or next to useless.

For example if I had to decide on my MP whether I want to cast a bigger pet dd buff or whether I'm going to keep my AS capped, it's a no-brainer. Now if pet pathing were improved and the damage increase was enough to outweigh the fact that pets path terribly, are easily disabled and evaded and I can't decide when I want to land that "killer" punch, then it would be something I consider. Until then, the extra nanoskill cost just ends up being another useless item that you've doubtless spent a lot of time on (e.g. healing staff) and nobody uses them. I'd rather have fewer but more effective alternatives, than lots of junk ones that anyone who thinks things through can figure out is junk (again, e.g. the healing staff - no MP actually uses this, though a few hapless souls sacrificed IPRs to try it out before discarding it again).

[Mmba]

Please enlighten the community on HOW to get designers and developers to discuss things at any length, it seems we get one or two posts per month except from Means. Much less than any MMO on the market today. There isn't even a "Dev Post Tracker" option on these forums, which on other MMO forums returns a search of most revent dev posts.. Reason FC has none on AO's site: Devs don't post often enough, the search results would be embarrasing.

i believe thats where we come in. the devs talk to us alot, and its our job to make sure that we understand the player's wants/needs to relate them back to the devs.

whether or not either side listens to us is a different story tho

[ThePartisan]

I have no idea what will be added in upcoming patches.
I have been in your position for 4 years+?
I know exactly how you feel and I know the frustration.
It sux to be dependant on test Databases sux :/.
And you post your anger because you want to be heard and want to have some kind of influence.



You have to make a sacrifice to use these nano's.
Use +nano skills HUDs+armor+etc to cast them.
That is the whole idea behind these nano's.
If you don't think it is worth the sacrifice, don't use it.
After all.. anarchy online is about making choices .

That would be nice and all, but the sacrifice is HUGE and the benefit is MINIMAL, so you don't have to be a mathematician to realize that the nanos are not worth the bother.

As agent, I can probably cast a couple of them, but I don't even think they're worth the mindless questing. I mean... I can shrink myself a bit more and get some more conceal that I don't need... or get a marginally better Gnat's Wing (that no sane person uses in PvP anyway)... Yawn... Probably won't bother, but we'll see. Maybe I'm just getting too old for this and should quit MMOs altogether.

[Shrubberyman]

well it all seems nice to have more roads to go, but for an already set endgame ip spending, we are kind of left at the choosing state without the possiblity to choose
atleast not easy

and why dont NT have to sacrifice anything? or they just only have one road to go? and that is nano skills?

NTs sacrifice less cause their nanoskills are already high indeed. Well, we'll have to re-IP BM/MM to some extent, but that's like +300 in each so it's acceptable.
There are Evade NTs, AR (as in nanoskill whore) NTs, NRed NTs, Low hp NTs, High hp NTs, Concealment/perception NTs... of all profs, NTs are perhaps the less cookie-cutter syndrom afflicted one, mostly cause we already couldn't have "X and Y". However (apart perhaps for NRed NTs) all 220 builds have between 2 and 2,5k in TS/SI/MC/PM.
The new nanos will hinder us less than some others indeed, that doesn't mean that we won't have some choices to make. Forfeit dmg or AR or research for the deck item, go high hp to profit a tad bit from layers or stay low hp and forget altogether of new layers in PvP, use time to swap/buff/swap or go in fight immediately...

[Loucretia]

There is a huge difference between adding new nanos in an expansion like SL, and adding them in some "content upgrade".

Most of the people that will be using these nanos will be 220. They dont have any levels to go grind, they dont (mostly) have loads of uber phats to go camp, they are by and large at or close to endgame.

If the intention is to avoid people using NR, its really quite simple to work out what are reasonable reqs.

While there may be new buffing items available down the line, you cant expect people to say "oh great new nanos lets stick em in the bank for a few months until the other content catches up".

In addition, people dont want to radically change their setup everytime you introduce some new content, especially as FC are so retentive about IPRs.

And If you are going to give them ridiculous requirements, then make them ridiculous for every prof, not almost impossible for some and doable unbuffed for others.

Finally, if you want to make the nanos very hard to cast, they need to be worth casting.

[Rewo]

And If you are going to give them ridiculous requirements, then make them ridiculous for every prof, not almost impossible for some and doable unbuffed for others.

Finally, if you want to make the nanos very hard to cast, they need to be worth casting.

QFT

[Koizumi]

That would be nice and all, but the sacrifice is HUGE and the benefit is MINIMAL, so you don't have to be a mathematician to realize that the nanos are not worth the bother.

That pretty much sums this whole update.
Even if Sil says the opposite, i still know FC cant count.
They prolly had no ideas on what to do, so went in with implementing something useless, making it totally UNCASTABLE for any sane person, so the ppl would rather whine that they req's r too high instead of whining that FC has no imagination, and in the end leaving AO out of boredom...

And If you are going to give them ridiculous requirements, then make them ridiculous for every prof, not almost impossible for some and doable unbuffed for others.
Finally, if you want to make the nanos very hard to cast, they need to be worth casting.

Another good point.

[defectorid]

Why isn't the difference between 'in combat' and 'buff before combat' nanos recognized at all? If great minds have done great amount of thinking like you said Sil, surely this must've crossed their minds. All the players saw this instantly and you also mentioned our understanding of the game is nothing compared to the devs.

Enlighten us.

i asked that in the thread on enf forum, and really i would like an answer too.