Friday with Means - May 1st, 2009

[Cdogg421]

btw i forgot to ask a few things...

eta on instanced citys?
is the new pvp zones and new ways to gain VP being looked into yet?
do you prefer kittens or puppies?

[Desperado35]

But will you then complain about Fixers being nerfy after Beast nuke-stomps you back to reclaim?

Tanks need to be able to do their job. Imo they could do more with the add spawns to create a bit of challenge for the damage providers/healers.

There's plenty of ways to make it challenging so its not a tank & spank fight. Some people that played wow might remember Voidreaver's aggro reducing knockback or Supremus' Hateful strike or Gaze.

Also other mechanics could be used to keep people busy, like a timed 30k AoE nuke that will kill everybody that isnt a tank. A bit like the DB quest tower on steroids. Forcing melee to do more then just bash their specials & perks.

AoE nano nukes that nuke your entire pool unless you run into a safe zone (cloud?) that spawns at a random place.

A proc on the boss that debuffs/dots the target that stacks (a la malpractise) so he receives more and more damage (forcing tank swap).

An AoE HP drain that removes 10k hp from the players and heals the boss for 10k for every player that gets hit by it, unless you keep some buff up that you get from jumping clouds/pads, kill towers/mobs etc.

As you can see the possibilities are endless. Tank & spank is boring, keep us busy during bossfights.

Hmm quite a list, perhaps time for a game suggestion post

[Hacre]

There's plenty of ways to make it challenging so its not a tank & spank fight. Some people that played wow might remember Voidreaver's aggro reducing knockback or Supremus' Hateful strike or Gaze.

Also other mechanics could be used to keep people busy, like a timed 30k AoE nuke that will kill everybody that isnt a tank. A bit like the DB quest tower on steroids. Forcing melee to do more then just bash their specials & perks.

AoE nano nukes that nuke your entire pool unless you run into a safe zone (cloud?) that spawns at a random place.

A proc on the boss that debuffs/dots the target that stacks (a la malpractise) so he receives more and more damage (forcing tank swap).

An AoE HP drain that removes 10k hp from the players and heals the boss for 10k for every player that gets hit by it, unless you keep some buff up that you get from jumping clouds/pads, kill towers/mobs etc.

As you can see the possibilities are endless. Tank & spank is boring, keep us busy during bossfights.

Hmm quite a list, perhaps time for a game suggestion post

Some nice ideas, but please, no more cloud/pad hopping. It was unique to AO with DB1, now we're DB2, Vortexx Mitaar and EH into it...

[Desperado35]

Some nice ideas, but please, no more cloud/pad hopping. It was unique to AO with DB1, now we're DB2, Vortexx Mitaar and EH into it...

Linedancing ftw. If its not via clouds or pads then make parts of the ground covered with flames / falling debris / alium tractor beams / exploding leets....whatever. As long as it lets people do something instead of standing still and 1/2/3/4/!points

Another idea, shamelessly stolen from wow (can call that game whatever you want, but bossfights are amazing): the meteor + AoE nuke linedance!
1) Big rock/leet/fireball/lazer hitting the area of 10m around random player for 100k damage. This damage is split over all people in the area, forcing you to group.
2) Shortly/ at random interval after: a player getting a debuff that makes him AoE all nearby players for 50k damage after 5 sec, 'encouraging' you to get away from each other (or at least the player thats going to explode).

Stuff like this keeps you on your toes and can make bosses that hit for less and have less HP a lot more challenging/fun/rewarding/epeen extending.

[Firestorm518]

Means: There is something else that must be taken up with FC before the summer begins. Because honestly its going to fall apart by then.

Allow me also to preface this by saying this represents my own views. Not of the council staff not of the Coven of Hunters or its players.

The current organizations of the Council of Truth and the Board of Directors are failures. True failures. Population of these groups hasn't broken 10 players in a long long time. The RP associated with them and their supposed power has long since been regarded by most as a Joke. The inability for the Events team to have storyline control and the lack of action on Funcom's part concerning said storyline -and the unwillingness to let a player or a group of players change a potential outcome- have shoved away players and have basically had no small part in killing RP. In games like this i figure if you have a 1:50 ratio you are doing pretty well when it comes to RPers. It is a LOT less on RK2. These groups were supposed to be a place to promote unity within the separate groups. For each side to lay down marching orders to its players. There have been several problems with this. Not the least of which has been the inability or the unwillingness to grant clans rewards concerning achieved objectives.

The plain fact is as of the last meeting i almost pulled coven of hunters out right there. Simon's actions had infuriated my character and i had long been questioning the council's usefulness given the lack of result. There was a time things could happen changes to the game could be made through it. Tir guards not being pushovers: A council achievement. OA's beautification project in no small part was strongly pushed by both councils. By this summer if things have not changed or there has not been a major meeting of the minds IE: Events team council staff+current members (both sides) +Funcom GM's with the authority to speak for the board of directors. I can not say these groups will continue to exist.

As an Rper and someone who has loved the story of anarchy online i find myself sorely disappointed over the current situation concerning events and the council. There needs to be a real logged and honestly a public discussion between the people involved in this if RP will continue to be any kind of factor in this game.

Means While everything coming is a good thing i fear it is being done with total disregard for the RP situation which has been a major factor in my sticking around this game as long as i have. Please can we have some kind of indication that things are not going to continue down this path?

[torakx]

wow hard post follow after haha

anyway just want to say to means and co.
im extremely pleased to hear there will be a start to the profession balancing soon.
probably one of the toughest jobs yet.

so just let us know if/when u need us on test.glad to help if it will improve pvp gameplay for everyone.

ps. pls pls dont release any new "lub" for any profs until its fully tested against all other profs

i hope after this balance the i win button wont exist so much.unless strictly on a nemesis bases which i hate lol

[ArienSky]

On the RP note..

the 50th open Board of Directors meeting is coming up soon, it would be cool with something big made up around it, maybe along with the birthday celebration?

Omni-Mining (RK1) has the right number, there was a slight mishab in the logs of the old webpage, but together with an Omni-Mining representative we were able to spot the right number of meetings.

The 50th meeting is this year
[someone from Omni-Mining, please post the month of the 50th meeting, I have forgotten]

Kind Regards
Ariensky

If the pistol fix is a new AS pistol, I promise to go Bow on my agent.
The good old Agent alternative, that was not carried through in nanoes and SL (along with green Sneak Attack)

[Neista]

Dear Means,

I notice a trend of allowing players to go straight to the boss, or cut down the time it takes to get there in new content. I'd like to nudge you in a direction to reconsider that.

Personally I found the trip to the boss to be half of the fun.
The fact we had to invest time in it and a screw up could waste all that time made finishing an encounter much more rewarding.

If we would fail on a boss and we could just try again within 10 minutes the fun would be gone.
The fact a screw up would only make you lose 10 minutes of work makes content less exciting and brings less motivation to bring your best performance to a raid.
Content needs to be hard and dangerous for it to be truly rewarding.

My first beast raid (without a zerg bot) took several tries and several hours. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I've had in AO and I didn't even get loot.
It's what drove us to extend FFA pande on RK1 to 1 week so everyone could experience this.
With instancing coming up I'm hoping everyone would get this same thrill. But this would require people to do the whole package, not just instant access to the beast.
I really hope I misunderstood your post and you still have to go through the entire zone before reaching the beast.

As for something in the middle, I could settle for "safe points", given they're far enough apart from each other.
Clearing content up to a certain point would allow you to start over from that point if you fail further ahead.
But a 5 minute trip to a boss is really a shame. There will be almost no buildup of excitement and pressure, this will mean there's almost no relief or pleasure after beating the boss.

Agree 100% on this, Raid instances should be big sprawling things with challenges on the way to the boss as well as the boss itself.

Also a big YAY for working on ranged advys, i cant wait to unretire my very first alt :-D

[Nosgoth]

Okay, great FWM, in fact it gets better and better.

Great to hear about ranged adventurer love (hell, it's about time). An AS Pistol would only be a band-aid, so i hope for something new and unexpected.

[Amosco]

The Engine

Enno and his evil team of coders continue to beat their forheads savagely against the horrible code that is the old AO engine. Standard workflow is that new features/optimizations are developed and worked on in a "sand-box" type environment to avoid long painfull compile times and to better isolate the area they want to work on. As they get closer to a ready state, new work is merged into the full development client to see how it fares. This week work was done to bring in some optimizations of the animation and statel rendering systems to the "full" development AO client.

For those of us who aren't 1337 H4XX0RS could I get a translation about this? I'm fairly sure it means something good, but I don't have a clue as to what!

PS: Pix pls kthxbye!

[Kaylinne]

But will you then complain about Fixers being nerfy after Beast nuke-stomps you back to reclaim?

Tanks need to be able to do their job. Imo they could do more with the add spawns to create a bit of challenge for the damage providers/healers.

No I would never complain about something that treats equally my profession as all others, generally said. Something that depends more on my actual playing skills and gives me equal chance to survive/screw up.
I gave random example that first came to my mind but Desp added there more of what I meant.
Hes going to jump my throat now, but after some time and when I dont play the game that irritated me with other things anymore (WoW), I remember Heroic Magisters' Terrace Vexallus and Priestess Delrissa fights as one of the most fun experiences I had in any game so far. Those are examples of how not every fight has to have classical tank and how fun it can be when the fight depends on your team ability to improvise.
And its not even the big raid instance, plain old 5 man.

[Solsssss]

There was once a young man named Hobjkolkobaird, this young man was only 78 years of age.

One day Hobjkolkobaird decided to get laser leg repirtory transplant systems initilized into his cerebral cortex where from then the shark would devour his pestering golly gosh jam jars from the tent of heavens and the perseveering tractors from the end of the neigh!

Two years later, Hobjkolkobaird had a suxxessful implant, implanted into his cerebral cortex, Hobjkolkobaird was then named Hobjkolkobaird II, after his godfather, Tony SOprano, Tony Soprano lived in the 267500's, he was known for his abominable massacre of the toronto chieftan warlord ork elf dynasty warriors in the land before time

[Kaylinne]

Glad to see you back to your old self

[Solsssss]

Cant teach a new born puppy old tricks!

[vadagget]

Spam

I spent one evening this week in game personally banishing spammers from the face of RK. Thanks to those who kept me company as I gagged then burned, exploded or extreme knockbacked these annoying people to oblivion. Was nice to meet you Hopscotch...one of our super-longtime fr00b players indulging his alt-itis on newbie island. Amazing how persistant the spammers really are. I feel better knowing that there is increased support team action on banning their accounts (70ish this week...I don't have the large credit figure here at home.) Work is also continuing on an automated gag system for this behaviour as well as a client side chat filter that will put the power back in the communities hands in 18.1. Right-click ignore in the chat is also in 18.1. *ahem*Hail Macrosun!

Have great weekend everyone!

WTB video of Means/GM/whoever torch(er)ing spammers...would also make for nice promotional material showing FC is serious about the issue.

[Vhax]

For those of us who aren't 1337 H4XX0RS could I get a translation about this? I'm fairly sure it means something good, but I don't have a clue as to what!

PS: Pix pls kthxbye!

In a nutshell, they're doing things to the way stuff is being development.
It means changes/features can be created faster, easier and with less faults.

[Darksuperman]

Anyway that Sillum's Combined Mercenary's Headwear will ever become wearable by shade??

Made it on my shade not realizing 15 more dmg makes it NOT shade when shade can wear cm..

So many of the Not shade tags are kinda pointless

[Lheann]

Means,

I have been considering balance for some time. And I think the key to balancing the professions can be had.

Like specials that open up for certain classes with proper skill I think specials in general should be class specific to use. Here is a list of ideas.. Some New Specials are included.

All Classes Special Attacks
Fling Shot same as it is now.
Burst same as it is now.
Full Auto (200 points skill adds extra bullet and max bullets capped at 8)
Aimed Shot (1.5 damage multiplier and 50% evade check)
Fast Attack same as it is now.
Sneak Attack (1.5 damage multiplier and 50% evade check)
Brawl same as it is now.

New of modifed from base attacks by class
Agent
Aimed Shot (6.0 damage multiplier and no evade check and half the recharge time)

Shade
Sneak Attack (6.0 damage multiplier / no evade check / half the recharge time)

Advy melee
Double Cut ( Fast Attack like attack with 2.0 damage multipler / 20 sec capped recharge)
Sneak Attack (3.0 damage multiplier / 25% evade check / normal recharge )

Advy range
Rapid Fire (a two bullet burst like attack following fling shot recharge times)
*When Pistol Skill exceeds 400 skill the advy can fire while moving

Fixer
Extended Burst (a 5 bullet burst / same recharge as normal burst)

Solider
Full Auto (Same recharge as today but max bullets is 20 and 75 skill points gets an extra bullet)
*When Assault Rifle exceeds 800 skill the solider can fire wihile moving
Duck and Cover ( 1pt damage / clears sol's first aid skill lock / doc is healed for first aid skill points of health / hard recharge cap of 60 seconds / 3m range )

Keeper
Rightous Blow (normal hit damage / 75% stun chance / hard recharge of 30 seconds)

Enforcer
Brawl (current brawl with 3.0 damage multiplier / same recharge as today)
Crushing blow (2hb weapon req'd / normal damage / 75% stun chance / hard recharge of 30 seconds)

NT
Steal Nano ( 1 point damage / target looses 40% nano / hard recharge of 20 seconds / 3m range )

MP
Suppressor Anger ( 1 point damage / target is removed from combat mode / 25% stun chance / hard recharge of 45 seconds / 3m range )

Trader
Scater Shot ( shotty equipped req / normal damage / no evade check / Fling shot recharge rules )

MA
Dimach (1 minute capped recharge reachable at 1500 skill and 10 minute max recharge / 50% evade check / the rest same as it is now)

Engineer
Fling Shot (2.5 damage multiplier / the rest same as it is now)

Crat
Demoralizing Blow (1pt damage / tgt - 450 AAO for 15 secs / hard recharge of 60 seconds / 3m range)

Doc
Fling Shot ( 300 pts fling shot adds 1.0 damage multiplier so that 900 skill would be 3.0 damage multiplier / same rest as today )
Duck and Cover ( 1pt damage / clears doc's first aid skill lock / doc is healed for first aid skill points of health / hard recharge cap of 60 seconds / 3m range )

Just some idea as to how the special could work. This would change the everyone has Aimed Shot problem.

[erozc]

It was a good May Day. I had a nice picnic including sparkling wine, came home to read this friday's FWM, watched a good ice hockey match.

Thank you for playing a part in this May Day.

[Vrezafk]

No I would never complain about something that treats equally my profession as all others, generally said. Something that depends more on my actual playing skills and gives me equal chance to survive/screw up.
I gave random example that first came to my mind but Desp added there more of what I meant.
Hes going to jump my throat now, but after some time and when I dont play the game that irritated me with other things anymore (WoW), I remember Heroic Magisters' Terrace Vexallus and Priestess Delrissa fights as one of the most fun experiences I had in any game so far. Those are examples of how not every fight has to have classical tank and how fun it can be when the fight depends on your team ability to improvise.
And its not even the big raid instance, plain old 5 man.

Yes those fights are awesomely done and executed, I remember wiping and wiping on them day in and day out, I'd like to see something in that direction for AO raid bosses