Friday with Means - June 19th, 2009 - AO Complexity

[OfabRk2]

The aimedshot / full auto nerf patch is going to be GLORIOUS


I cant wait

I demand a SA and dimach nerf.

[Kain97]

The FA buff associated with new Fixer weapons will not be working correctly at launch of this update...we are continuing to work on it...but we did not want it to delay this update...especially with the larger changes upcoming in the very very near future.

So ranged advies and pistol users get a nice shiny new AS pistol, new perks, and advies get an additional perkline (copypasta or not, a new perkline is a new perkline)... fixers get 2 long broken perks reworked and reworked guns that don't work right? Oh yes, and the joy of everyone with a new shiny AS gun firing unevadeable shots at us? Forgive me if I'm not overwhelmed with joy.

I take it us fixers are still the redheaded stepchildren of AO then?

Seriously, I understand that dev time is limited, and that it's a sizable amount of work, but from a fixer point of view this patch is pretty disappointing. Even with the 500 FA working, many fixers will stay with the onehander.
It's bad enough that just to get a change that we probably should have gotten a long time ago (30 sec FA as opposed to 90) we have to buy a booster that was previously talked about as not adding any huge changes.
It's bad enough we have to fight soldiers for a gun that is a huge improvement for us and little more than an alternate option for them.

When, if ever, can fixers expect some real dev love? Fixer only guns, (the soldiers can go hang), timers on sws or ga (something that was on the wishlist when I started playing in '05!), real toolset improvements as opposed to "here's 11 sec FA and a huge FA buff, welcome to soldier-lite ville, population: yu0."

We've had a few fixers send pm's to Famine applying for the professionals program, with apparently nothing coming of it... especially during a patch cycle that was supposed to contain some fixer love - what gives?

I'm patient enough to see what the entirety of the changes will be... but not everyone has that kind of patience. Considering how quiet the fixer forum has been lately, I have to wonder if anyone else does.

[Klodovik]

So...

With FA/AS nerf, how about double/triple, GTH, S&D, "insert_shade's_huge_damage_perk_name_here" nerf as well?

[Genele]

QFT

And these same people are going to be "balancing" the game?

Some of us knew how to get a ship invite, all of us knows how to get one now!
Relax.


PS. It's me too, I'm the Genele in that post and I'm still laughing!

All hail Means and Macrosun, the alien hunters!

(We got an observant bot, I ninja looted it!)

[gimpmasta]

I demand a SA and dimach nerf.

Ahem, dimach has a 30min recharge (for most people) and SA has a 40s recharge
Full auto has a 11s, and so does AS.
They're also easier to cap.

[Darkripper]

(We got an observant bot, I ninja looted it!)

But I want phatz too!!

[Demoder]

Attempt Three

Macrosun and I run an attack..both of us Dual logged.

Facepalm Three: Genele laughed at us and mentioned we all needed to be on the General's hatelist to get an invite. Possibly 10 seconds after the death of the General.

After waiting for Genele to leave the room and lowering her desk an mind-screwing 4 cm.

I don't know about hatelist, but once upon a time I decided to find out what made an invite. I then found that at least four team members have to be standing in the vicinity of the general/generals corpse untill the invite pops up. Only those in the vicinity of the generals corpse get an invite. You also need at least one from the hosting guild to be in your team to get a invite to the ship. Don't have to drag the gen to CC, don't have to stand on CC.

[Falkvinge]

Our game director is a newbie

Thanks for the laugh tho means
... and now, how about adjusting the level possibility of the ncu hacker interface up to 220 while you're playing around with the game balance ?

[lordran]

Better safe then sorry. Just gotta test all the possible scenarios and thats just what they did

[Metafly7]

Go Genele !

lol at Means and Macro shame on u :P

[tacoleet]

Amagawd the devs dual log!

*runs screaming the eula is a lie!*

*pulls out hair*

rofl

[Klodovik]

Ahem, dimach has a 30min recharge (for most people) and SA has a 40s recharge

And yet, you are all using it with great success, most of the time, coupled with AS.

[sebquantic]

Some of us knew how to get a ship invite, all of us knows how to get one now!
Relax.


PS. It's me too, I'm the Genele in that post and I'm still laughing!

All hail Means and Macrosun, the alien hunters!

(We got an observant bot, I ninja looted it!)

I hope you /org kicked Means directly after he asked the question

[Gatester]

Hey Means, just so you know...In order to roll team missions you have to be teamed with someone

[Aethyrguard]

lol.. this made me laugh after just cussing out the people responsible for the atrocities known as LE missions.

Speaking of. Can someone take some time to "FIX" LE Missions? You know perhaps scale them a "tiny f'kin bit better?". The fact that a vast majority of players only do these missions as "grey" is counter-intuitive, frustrating and in my opinion moronic. The entire encounters are terrible, the levels are buggy as hell seeing as it is easy to get stuck in the geometry just walking in the door.

The bosses are quite simply the worst example of boss encounter designs I've ever seen in any game I've played. "Hai lvl 21 meet 25000 hp nuke!". I am not even going to start about how terrible the drop rates on VP are in them at lower levels where the BS's do not run at all. Yes, you all are on the right track lately, but it will take years from my guestimate to fix all the things Sil(Iwasagimp)incOPshiz broke, desecrated and all but defecated on in his time as Game Director. In my opinion the worst game director in AO's history in many ways. His one saving grace. He started talking to us because of his background in the CS dept.

Means gives me hope. I just hope he has the stomach for the task ahead.

[Redbar]

GJ Means, keep me updated on the AS changes please, im hoping its going to a template similar to dimach so agents are indeed the only ones capable of capping recharge as well as maxing damage output. Check my post in Game Suggestions for "Trained Assassin" also for agent support.

Hmm, yes. Bump for 10-30 minute recharge on AS. Throwing unresistable hits any more often is OP...

[Polarbaer]

The painfull irony of this day was that I wrote the rules and conditions for getting on the Alien Ships almost four years ago.

mh I don't want to ignore your successful attempts to improve the game (in fact atm you are doing a grat job all in all), but at this time i really have to say it: you fail at documentation!! No, seriously: often enough you complain about the complex (and chaotic) code of ao, but exactly this attitiude (just programming, as long as it works it won't bother annyone anyhow after I'm gone) brougt us here... Ofc it's pointless to tell you this but maybe you could tell this to your programmers... one mistake is no excuse for the second.

p.s.: yes, I'm drunk...but this just makes me ./facepalm nonetheless.

[Rktim]

I for one wouldn't mind getting a slower but harder FA, say capped at 25sec but doing up to 60% etc etc etc.. Especially with adjustments to healing around the corner -.^
Perhaps even making it slower but removing the 15k cap and replacing it with no cap or another softcap instead (theres a softcap at 10k already, and i think 1 more..) combined with say... Making all primary attacks lock the same skill as well as there own skill (aka 2 skills in total) making it so that if you use AS you cant use nether FA or SA or Demach for the duration of your AS recharge while burst, brawl, fast and fling stay as they are ^^

And i bet theres tons and tons of other things that could be done also/instead ^^

Ps.
Softcaps > Hardcaps
AND
Why not make it so that skill lock mods do effect special recharge time but only down to the hardcap time and not under it? Aka, someone with 15sec FA and -10 skilllock would get a 11sec FA but someone with a 35sec FA and -10 skilllock would get 25sec (Assuming a weapon that has a 1 sec recharge time xD)

[Mordo]

Hmm, yes. Bump for 10-30 minute recharge on AS. Throwing unresistable hits any more often is OP...

Bump for mass exodus of players.

[Saetos]

Why not make it so that skill lock mods do effect special recharge time but only down to the hardcap time and not under it? Aka, someone with 15sec FA and -10 skilllock would get a 11sec FA but someone with a 35sec FA and -10 skilllock would get 25sec (Assuming a weapon that has a 1 sec recharge time xD)

Skill lock mods are percentage based