Friday with Means - July 10th, 2009 - Stims, Neutrals, Content and Vacation

[Omutb]

what makes fixers special seems to have been lost along the way...we need to find it again and bring it back.

Pinkness, thats whats missing.

Turn grid armor from blue to pink and make SWS give fixers a fluffy pink glow.

[crude4gone]

1. High-level side change forms will become available to neutral players.

These forms will require significant sided faction to use (meaning the work to establish faction as a sided player can not be skipped.). Once the neutral player has chosen a side, they will receive their sided token board and will be able to obtain tokens in exactly the same manner as a sided player. This is fair.

This is not an attempt to solve the "neutral issue". Unless sided players can now also choose to go neutral again, i cant see how this will help the neutral population at all.

[-Bear-]

I think one thing that would make the levelling curve better would be to simply add more xp gain from general wildlife, more like we see in Nascense. That way we could fight something other than hecks sometimes, and it not be a waste of time!

[Shrubberyman]

they've decided the benefits of being neuts arent worth having, but rather want some little token board around their neck.

Not for all of us, I'm definitely not changing side but waiting for the gap narrowing I was campaining for.

I will lick every tears shed by sided whiners given the opportunity though.

[Grim-One]

So Neutrals are still not getting token boards like Clan and Omni, but will receive items to lessen the gap in power while still keeping their normal advantages?

[Aethyrguard]

Good to hear.

[Obtena]

So Neutrals are still not getting token boards like Clan and Omni, but will receive items to lessen the gap in power while still keeping their normal advantages?

Yeah, it's a bit illogical to me .... I mean, are nuetrals so far off sided characters that they are dying in situations where the rest of us do a Q /afk? I guess FC thinks so ....

or really, this is an attempt to maintain the majority of RPer's that play neutral in the game. I won't fuss over it too much, it's just a neck item.

[Luiza]

Means if you're planing on giving neutrals new boards give them 1 for each TL level and make it require tokens in order for them to archive them!

The "gap" for TL7 neutrals is already incredibly huge considering we can't defend out very own TL7 tower-site!

If you care about neutral pvp/ers i'm sure you will satisfy them all with DECENT boards! Neutrals are already full of jealousy after they saw the omni xan boards (myself included)

[Sturmfaust]

What about the HI board? Or even Crypt del'a homedaddio?

Is it REALLY about the boards? I think even after the boards there would be something else to complain about.

Hey, when is Clan going to get its own version of the Omni Elite Tank? o.O /kleenex

[sultryvoltron]

Neutrals

After long thought and discussion with both neutral and sided players alike I am preparing to move forward with some actual action on this issue. This will consist of two separate actions:

1. High-level side change forms will become available to neutral players.

These forms will require significant sided faction to use (meaning the work to establish faction as a sided player can not be skipped.). Once the neutral player has chosen a side, they will receive their sided token board and will be able to obtain tokens in exactly the same manner as a sided player. This is fair.

2. The current power gap will be "Narrowed".

It was always intended that neutral as a side should, as primarily an RP choice, not be an equal power to the two main factions of Omni and Clan. The existance of a third alternative makes for interesting politicking within the population and leads to unforseen changes in the immediate balance of power. This will continue to be true in the forseeable future. However, the "gap" between the sided factions and neutrals in terms of individual character power has widened over the last few years with the addition of certain neck items. Neutrals who wish to remain Neutral will have the opportunity to obtain items that will narrow this gap to the previous reasonable levels.

Both these two actions will be included in the very near future...though unfortunately not in next week's planned update...the one after that should be reasonably certain.

Flawless Victory. Long live Means.

[PhoenixOfAges]

Please remember that not everyone sees the grind as too unreasonable; it looks like people are leveling to 220/30/70 faster than ever already, and some of the people who play this game have the attitude that everything should be shortcut for faster gain. These are probably the same people that blitz straight to the boss whenever new content gets released simply to get the loot, missing out on actually experiencing the content along the way, and then think there is nothing else to do and get bored with the game and leave. People can simply become impatient and start to complain about the grind. This doesn't necessarily mean that the effort required is unreasonable, it just means that people are being impatient. :P Please bear this in mind when deciding what to do, if anything, to shorten the grind.

It should be easier however to get some decent equipment, nanos, implants, etc... and I think it would be very easy to tie the faster leveling with the methods to get some decent gear...which adds even more reason to actively play your toon and get the knowledge that's expected of you in the later levels.

I agree with both of these two points. I remember when the SL missions first came along, people were hitting 220 at a tremendous pace with often multiple enlightenment messages per hour for a good week or so. With the LE missions and now LotX alien play fields people are getting AXP much faster than ever before too. Then there's the people that managed to power level to such an extent they hit lvl 220 or even lvl 220/30 in a day or so.

It is possible to level quite quickly now but the bigger problem for new players tends to be in getting gear and such rather than new levels. So a little help like with more missions such as the living cyber armour ones would help them greatly. Better access to VP would also help. Making it linked so heavily to BSs when few run and the PvPers that get and keep them running tend to have little to no use for VP isn't good. OFAB would be of great use to those that would be willing to spend some time getting VP but lack the means to get combined. Improving the way the LE types are gained would be good too.

Leveling too fast results in people that just don't know how to play their char very well at all and may not know much about where things are and such. We just don't need more people that even though they have a 220 need to be shown where the simplest things in middle SL zones are located. Or people that don't know their tool set very well at all and haven't updated much of anything for ages. I've been in many teams where the doc may have no heals and the enforcer while lvl 150+ is still using the essence my lvl 60 fr00b enf can use with ease.

Another semi-related issue is how paying players can run out of nanos quite early then won't get any new ones for a long time. Take my one MP as a for instance, it was able to self all the non-lvl locked nanos other than the highest creation ones at lvl 75. That means it would have almost nothing new for about 90 lvls. This is part of what would make people want to skip ahead quicker. We're getting nanos, armour and weapons on much earlier than we had in the past. When everything from the nanos and gear you use as well as the enemies you fight is the same all the time for a long time things get very stale. Some new things in the leveling levels rather than just for around 210+ would help.



Then when it comes to XP stims it's not just that people find leveling to 220/30/70 a long grind as it is now and want them to speed that up. Unless you practically provided a 220/30/70 level up button in the backyards beside the guide people will always be looking for ways to level up faster. Those stims provide that.

The real problem was how many couldn't make use of the party planer this year as they got their present with stims inside last year and couldn't get another when she returned. Then I am quite certain no matter how much chatter the change to nodrop is getting on the forums now many in game who likely did not abuse their gain means are completely unaware of this coming change. They will then have a big stack of XP stims stuck on a mule char which will do them no good at all. Changing them to unique instead should avoid that problem while at the same time complicating their sales greatly and making future extensive farming should they be added again impossible.

[sultryvoltron]

What about the HI board? Or even Crypt del'a homedaddio?

Is it REALLY about the boards? I think even after the boards there would be something else to complain about.

Hey, when is Clan going to get its own version of the Omni Elite Tank? o.O /kleenex

As long as they establish what the gap should be and maintain that gap, nobody will have anything to complain about. But, the latest trend of of up and down stat gap was no good and I think Means understood that.

[Luiza]

the gap is with towers... since we don't have them

[Obtena]

the gap is with towers... since we don't have them

The gap is that there isn't even enough Neutrals to fill a large tower site.

[Snakebite]

As i posted in another thread.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=557342

Before there were real MMO's there was MW4 mercs. When MSN games was at its high point this was probably one of the most active games on the web.

Now that its official and the Mechwarrior franchise is coming back to the PC I would like to know from the AO staff Just what steps it will be taking to improve this travesty you call mech combat.

O...
M...
G...
!!!

I will be SO happy if they bring out a MW5 or something, I used to be very visible (as in getting shot lots ^^) in the Mechwarrior community and would love to see it back.
But this has happened before and nothing has come of it.

On the AO side of this topic, I WOULD like to see some better mech combat, however, AO works from a 'locked on, randomised, no personal skill' system, where once you're tabbed on the enemy you stay tabbed on him and the game mechanics works out if you've hit, not your personal Joystick skills. So basicaly I can't see how it COULD get much better, other than being able to buy and chose the weapons you mount on your mech (with cool added meshes).



& for those that used to play MW4 Mercs, The Justice Federation rules!!!

[Dangerbot]

Wow. Just wow.

My neutral MA was rolled neutral for the sole purpose of cheating on the battlestations with the intention of the toon being very cheap and Ofab fueled. Heh. What a mistake that was, the temptation to deck that MA out was so overwhelming, and the total VP farmed was an entire 7500.

Omni tiiiiiimmmmee

[Sturmfaust]

Whats with all the mech talk lately? I dont know who would have actually sub'd to this game because of the mechs they added, which IMHO are more of a novelty/bonus then anything.

Who really cares about the mechs not being OMFG AWEZOME?

[Smasherr]

Good stuff coming up for a change, finally adressing the grind issue. And about the neck item... I would like to see Neutrals getting the edge over omni/clan in 1 profession (for example, Neutrals could have the best NTs), you should add something very specific to it.

[Grim-One]

So when do Shades get the options to have token boards or something to "narrow" the gap?

[Luiza]

when they will add treatment requirements to their implants ^