Friday with Means - November 7th, 2008

[Means]

I am currently in Lund, Sweden for the funeral of my wife's grandfather so this weeks update will be a quick note that I can update during the week with screens.

The Booster:

I had hoped to put together some screens of the new Dust Brigade before I left but things got a bit crazy. We'll try to get them up this week before the next Friday with Means.

Before I left for Sweden, our build engineers (who are STILL on vacation in Japan..) were going to produce the first build of 18.0 for the Test Live dimension. 18.0 will be the Booster we have been posting screens from...so it is very exiciting to get a first version on to test so we can start balancing the content with players in the very near future.

Things to look for:
Player based fear has been re-introduced. This means all your old abilities that use it (very much like the "oops" we had earlier) will once again work with the new mechanic. Just so we are clear "THIS IS ONLY FOR TESTING PURPOSES". In no way will these old abilities have a fear component affecting players in the final versions of the booster. For now this is a very simple way of testing the Fear mechanic without having to distribute new nanos and items to everyone who wants to test it....anyone arriving on TestLive can easily get these nanos on their own. Please feel free to visit TestLive and terrorize each other.

The "Feared" state:
When feared you will flee in terror...running away from your target like a maniac. You will be unable to cast nanos or attack. You will be able to use items/perks. Items will be coming in new versions of 18.0 that will break Fear/Stun/Root and immediately return full character control. In upcoming versions Fear will not be "spamable" by a single user on a single target. The longest intended Fear is set to be 8 seconds..and no longer.

Knockback mechanics will hopefully be in at the end of next week for testing.

Typing this on an IPhone took forever...I'll try to add to this thread this week.

Cheers from Sweden!

Colin "Means" Cragg

[Vlain]

k, I'm a bit confused, some of the fear stuff was kind of ambiguous...(i.e. "in no way will these old abilities have a fear component affecting players" followed by, "terrorize each other") - are fear/knockbacks eventually planned for pvp or not?

If so, I can say right now that the prospect of being proc stunned by a crat for 10-20 seconds followed by 8 seconds of wall humping and subsequently knocked on my @$$ for a few more seconds doesn't sound like much fun.

I wish I could get more excited for these proposed changes, but it just sounds like too many crowd control options to me; I'm afraid it will bog down pvp and compromise strategic control of your character. In other words, there's not much player strategy involved if all you're doing is staring helplessly at your stunned/feared/knocked down toon for the duration of a fight. The long duration on proc stuns are already too much imho, and I'm concerned this will make it worse.

If you're really going to do this, I implore you not to make any of these status effects last more than 4-5 seconds.

[Mekh]

Thanks for the Friday update, Means...

k, I'm a bit confused, some of the fear stuff was kind of ambiguous...(i.e. "in no way will these old abilities have a fear component affecting players" followed by, "terrorize each other") - are fear/knockbacks eventually planned for pvp or not?

If so, I can say right now that the prospect of being proc stunned by a crat for 10-20 seconds followed by 8 seconds of wall humping and subsequently knocked on my @$$ for a few more seconds doesn't sound like much fun.

I wish I could get more excited for these proposed changes, but it just sounds like too many crowd control options to me; I'm afraid it will bog down pvp and compromise strategic control of your character. In other words, there's not much player strategy involved if all you're doing is staring helplessly at your stunned/feared/knocked down toon for the duration of a fight. The long duration on proc stuns are already too much imho, and I'm concerned this will make it worse.

If you're really going to do this, I implore you not to make any of these status effects last more than 4-5 seconds.

/agree 100%

[Graftmage]

Items will be coming in new versions of 18.0 that will break Fear/Stun/Root and immediately return full character control.

meh..

[Foob]

If I wanted to play a game with AoC mechanics then I wouldn't have quit it and returned to AO. This game already has a huge amount of debuffs/stuns. Rethink plx...

[Alternity]

lolwhat? You guys going for a whine award here?

[Means]

k, I'm a bit confused, some of the fear stuff was kind of ambiguous...(i.e. "in no way will these old abilities have a fear component affecting players" followed by, "terrorize each other") - are fear/knockbacks eventually planned for pvp or not?

If so, I can say right now that the prospect of being proc stunned by a crat for 10-20 seconds followed by 8 seconds of wall humping and subsequently knocked on my @$$ for a few more seconds doesn't sound like much fun.

I wish I could get more excited for these proposed changes, but it just sounds like too many crowd control options to me; I'm afraid it will bog down pvp and compromise strategic control of your character. In other words, there's not much player strategy involved if all you're doing is staring helplessly at your stunned/feared/knocked down toon for the duration of a fight. The long duration on proc stuns are already too much imho, and I'm concerned this will make it worse.

If you're really going to do this, I implore you not to make any of these status effects last more than 4-5 seconds.

Fear and Knockback are going to become a part of regular AO pvp. You are not going to be staring helplessly at your character for long periods of time. Crats will be a class that has a fear toolset, and as such it is likely that the stun durations will be adjusted at the same time.

[Mereditche]

8s in pvp = ages
Its:
1................2................3............... .4................5................6.............. ..7................8

veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy loooooooooooooong

[Means]

If I wanted to play a game with AoC mechanics then I wouldn't have quit it and returned to AO. This game already has a huge amount of debuffs/stuns. Rethink plx...

Looking at your list of 220's I imagine you really returned to us because you weren't trapped under something heavy . I suspect it would take a great deal more than knockback and fear mechanics to turn AO into Conan...and to be very, very clear that is not our goal. AO is AO and has its own something special...we won't be trying to turn it into something it isn't.

[Means]

8s in pvp = ages
Its:
1................2................3............... .4................5................6.............. ..7................8

veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy loooooooooooooong

Couldn't agree more..that is why 8 seconds is an absolute maximum under any and ALL circumstances. Losing control of your char for longer than that is absurd...and hopefully won't exist anymore in the near future.

[Mekh]

Couldn't agree more..that is why 8 seconds is an absolute maximum under any and ALL circumstances. Losing control of your char for longer than that is absurd...and hopefully won't exist anymore in the near future.

That sounds very reassuring... Appreciated a LOT.

[Graftmage]

Couldn't agree more..that is why 8 seconds is an absolute maximum under any and ALL circumstances. Losing control of your char for longer than that is absurd...and hopefully won't exist anymore in the near future.

8 seconds is enough (more than enough in many cases..) to kill anyone who cannot use attack or use nano based defensive abilities. For crat, enf and, especially, MA. These three professions already have stuns in their toolsets.
Please, be very carefull when add those to the game.. Ruining fun is not good, I believe you don't want "GTH #2", that will affect all professions, not just two

[NoGoal]

Sorry for your loss and thank you for the update.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Please, be very carefull when add those to the game.. Ruining fun is not good, I believe you don't want "GTH #2", that will affect all professions, not just two

Except it wont.

Lets not exagerate over here, shall we.
Fear alone isnt going to kill anyone, not only 8 second but 800 second one.

Ability to still use perks means those with some form of perk based defenses will still have ability to defend themselves quite effectively during that short period.

Its in no way an I WIN debuff

[Mekh]

...snip...
Fear alone isnt going to kill anyone, not only 8 second but 800 second one.
...snip...

Who would use Fear alone
A carefull guess would be noone....

Is almost like saying an attack leaving you at 1HP in 1 hit would not kill anyone alone, although it might as well in most cases, if not all.

Something that kills you instantly or something that makes sure you get killed within 8 seconds, without any possibility of retaliation is the same thing.
Not saying fears necessarily makes sure you get killed, but they sure help with it.

As far as I can tell they are "just" a gimped version of stuns, and that means they are another way of removing control of your toon/fate.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the implementation of them, but in my opinion stuns are already way more than enough, because of their long duration.
Mainly concerned about PROC stuns here, since you can't clear those.

However... if FC intends to balance stuns a bit more appropriately when implementing fears, then it may turn out as Status Quo, better or worse... Noone can tell for sure untill they've been on test and/or live and I will wait with my personal judgement on this issue, until I know what I'm talking about...

That does however not exclude me from venting my concerns

[MrMacdk]

Our sincere Condolences for your loss Means.

BR

Macdaddy.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Who would use Fear alone
A carefull guess would be noone....

Then your guess is wrong , because i already know i will.

Not saying fears necessarily makes sure you get killed, but they sure help with it.

That's hardly true. Out of 3 proffesions that have Fear as it is of 17.10, are melee. Care to enlighten me how exactly can melee user kill someone that is aimlessly running away? By throwing rocks?

I'm not necessarily opposed to the implementation of them, but in my opinion stuns are already way more than enough, because of their long duration.
Mainly concerned about PROC stuns here, since you can't clear those.

As far as i am concerned, no stuns should be removable. I'm hoping to see it fixed somewhere in the future.

However... if FC intends to balance stuns a bit more appropriately when implementing fears, then it may turn out as Status Quo, better or worse...

I dont see what one has to do with the other. Existance of one or more old debuffs dont have anything to do with balancing the new one. And fears are hardly new anyway, they just dont work as it is today.

[Alternity]

What about the MA, I posted a suggestion in the MA forum for how the fear line could work.

I want fear for my MA!

[zartosht]

Sorry to hear about your loss, Mean.

Does the "18.0" numbering have anything to do with the new GFX engine? I remember Sillirion saying that GFX engine update would be 18.0...

[trousers]

Sorry to hear about your Loss

And thanks for the update.

Any chance of a Fear Aura? I could see someone like Rita Prestin having it running until she puts her makeup on