More info on LLTS nerf

[______________Lilbob]

aside from that..... cz go ahead run a poll
and then you will see just how many people are VERY against this nerf.

as for the dev team, uhh can they get back to doing what they are supposed to have dont over a damn year ago?

add some proper content and bring balance rather than running around wacking everything with there nerf bat?
.........

nerfs are the easy thing to do, just like demolition, mindless, destructive behaviour, 80% of the time uncalled for, and damn right irritating to the occupants.

fixing is the hard thing to do, just like construction, it needs to be planned, talked through and put through trial and error and in the long run much more pleasing to the occupants.

....

jeez could you imagine FC as a building firm?

*me shudders at the thought*

[Argulace]

lilbob read the entire thread then come back and give me the same advice. I already said, the IPR was a fargone conclusion, its not optional, it has to happen either way.

FC FLAT OUT said they were leaving the scope in the game as it is. That makes them responsible for the IP we spent on them, period.

Open and closed case.

[Skulldawg]

what about the idea of selling old scope to vendors for 1m per ql?
and the ipr points is a great idea we really can use em

[Isgrimnur]

Argulance,

Just to point something out to you about melee range:

if your weapon says 3m and you use a QL200 range extender it extends it 41%. What is 41% of 3m? Then a Ql250 VE extends it 41%. Um again what is 41% of 3m. I tested it on my advent. You know I gained 1m more with those 2 items on me all the time.

Please tell me how 4m (the distance of EoT btw) is overpowering?

I am not sure what MA distance is, never played MA.

As for scopes and melee, don't confuse melee classes like adv with enf/mas. Adv have no buff to make init go up like enf do. Adv can't work with 150init like ma can.

I use a 250ve on my adv cause i need the range and the 8% crit.

I pay the tax by having to implant melee init so i can hit positively. If you want to talk about ranged users bonus, go look at the TIM hud that adds 180 to ranged init. That seems a good bonus to me

Balance should be balanced for all classes, not just the most powerful ones. IMO if it is MAs they are worrying about here whats the big deal of 7% crit? make Ellts ranged only and VE everyone can use? I dont know any enf/adv that would use 15% scope with melee, that 7% crit make less diff than slow hits.

[Elixoria]

Originally posted by Dhurdahl


So if I get you correctly here... it's the number of crits they want to limit, not the damage itself?

Once FC wants to take away our earned items of what they provied they will do so. They don't care.

There is no balance for this robbery. If there could be it would be don't steal the power of our good items. But alas they are being taken.

Why do we continue playing and paying?

Is there anything to look forward to that will be safe once it is earned?

[eaze]

Only way to do this; Forced IPR for WS and EE. Simply said, on the patch day ALL chars will automatically have their WS and EE skill reset, and they will get an announcement/tip of the day popup telling them that this was done, and for all professions/chars wishing to keep their WS/EE maxed, must max it again.

Yes, this creates "alot" (c'mon, get real, 3min or so) work for traders, engineers etc who likes this skill, but is the only way to make this 100% un-exploitable.

[Elixoria]

Is there anything to look forward to that will be safe once it is earned?

Maybe we should quit AO since nothing is safe much less sacred.

[eaze]

Originally posted by Elixoria


Once FC wants to take away our earned items of what they provied they will do so. They don't care.

There is no balance for this robbery. If there could be it would be don't steal the power of our good items. But alas they are being taken.

Why do we continue playing and paying?

Is there anything to look forward to that will be safe once it is earned?

How about you take your whiny butt and cancel the subscription, heh?

[Elixoria]

Originally posted by eaze


How about you take your whiny butt and cancel the subscription, heh?

Are you jealous of our LLTS's?

and/or work for the FC special committe to slow leveling to extend revenue periods.

The later I suspect because no real player would vote down their LLTS's.

These wretched Ideas should be polled to the users if they are to be implemented. Not affirmed by shrills from FC like yourself.

Since Orgs can vote I'm sure the users could be provided with a voting mechanism for this radical changes that are shoved down our throats every other month.

Come on FC! Let us the customer tell you how we want to be served. Let us vote on this LLTS's nerfing idea.

[Kithraks]

Only give the LLTS a slightly reduced attack speed init penalty, about 50% of regular targeting scopes. If you over compensate the old scopes you would have defeated the origional purpose of nerfing them in the first place.

And no IPR points should be refunded. How do you figure out who has the LLTS(get a refund) and those that don't? Giving everyone extra IPR points for a small minority is a bit of an overkill isn't it?

[______________Hayake]

Originally posted by Argulace_MoK
.... ehh, ok.

I have opinions, you have opinions, they are different. Nothing wrong with that. Some of our opinions are the same, even better.

As far as your personal attacks...

K I re-read everything you posted and everything I posted. As you said there a number of things we agree about and a number of things we disagree about.

I do not change my opinion about the things I disagree about with you, but I did think about what you had to say and I hope you considered at least what I said about it.

But, what I do agree about on is that I went overboard in
a. the tone of my post towards you
b. making this more or less a personal attack.

I was wrong in doing that and to be honest I'm pretty sure I would have been more polite if
a. I didn't see alll these (not yours specifically) posts suddenly popping up to nerf melee professions, which kindof upsetted me as I play one
and
b. you had not been the high profile player you are.

These are both pretty lousy reasons to lash out at you in person, so for that I apologize.

/hayake

[Autocratt]

I think Cz has hinted another full IPR is coming our way (who knows when). I highly doubt they would give IPR points anyway. The fact they did full IPR once (which made many ppl happy and deflected the issue off OE) means the easiest thing to do is to offer it again.

P.S. Too tired to read through all the post. Has anyone commented on whether a QL 200 LLTS offer an 8% crit vs. a QL 200 VE's 6%? Or will it be QL 200 LLTS = 6%?

[________Chipforbrain]

Can the designers implement the nerf after swg comes out?

[_______________lear1]

Originally posted by Elixoria


Once FC wants to take away our earned items of what they provied they will do so. They don't care.

There is no balance for this robbery. If there could be it would be don't steal the power of our good items. But alas they are being taken.

Why do we continue playing and paying?

Is there anything to look forward to that will be safe once it is earned?

I agree

[_______________lear1]

Originally posted by Seraphfirst
I think Cz has hinted another full IPR is coming our way (who knows when). I highly doubt they would give IPR points anyway. The fact they did full IPR once (which made many ppl happy and deflected the issue off OE) means the easiest thing to do is to offer it again.

P.S. Too tired to read through all the post. Has anyone commented on whether a QL 200 LLTS offer an 8% crit vs. a QL 200 VE's 6%? Or will it be QL 200 LLTS = 6%?

Haha, they would have to give everyone 100 IPR points to make up for the loss

[Cheetra]

Originally posted by Argulace_MoK

At the risk of starting a debate (which I don't want to do), this nerf will cause a chain reaction which would effect Doctors, Fixers, Traders, Crats, MP's, Soldiers, some Adventurers and even some MA's.

yep you got the chain reaction part right.

Without going into too much detail, most melee professions use brawl as their primary, repetitive special attack. This along with sneak/fast attack allow these professions to have incredibly high recharge special attacks which usually break passed any evades/grid armor/etc.

fast attack is a slow recycler, sneak attack is a very slow recycler, and neither of these special attacks is on any MA weapon. If you wise to include MA special attacks, BTW does a max of 450 points a tick, Shen... well if you shen you can't do any MA special for 15 minutes.. so i'd call that a VERY long recycle timer.

Add the fact that the recharge on all melee (save Diamach) special attacks are infinitely faster than ranged attack recharge times and what you have is an edge. Not only in the fact that your recharge for specials is faster, but your actual attack times are faster.

sorry boss, you are assuming that all melee / ma fighers have use of all specials, unlike ranger users we really can't swap out for an alpha strike and then got back to our damage over time weapon. When ranged users can't swap out weapons mid combat to for for an alpha strike this might hold water.

I've pvp'd with every profession in the game and was at the top of Novice before Grid Armor was even worth anything in pvp.

I can tell you, there is a reason those Veteran Techhunters / MA / Enforcer profession mobs kick butt. The reason is because they attack FAST and do incredibly HIGH damage over time. In fact, MA's are usually tanks in teams now, pulling agro from even the most skilled Enforcers.

I recall you mentioning that after a 28 minute fight with a MA the other day, you won. Apparently crits don't mean much vs. GA4, heck i recall you saying you rebuffed mid fight while still fighting. So i don't really think MA's are overpowered if you can rebuff in combat have a 28 minute fight with self healing class and still win.

I do not dispute the need for equippable crit items for Enforcers, however I do not believe that they should have the ability to use LLTS type scopes because coupled with the high speed and high minimum damage of an enforcer, this type of a device is overly powerful.

enforcers, ma's and adventures ( the tank classes ) are SUPPOSED to do more damage, close in. That was promised up front, close in fighters where supposed to do more damage, sometimes ( ala llts ) we manage to do it too. The down side of course if that we can be rooted and nuked, shot, deprived, shutdown, etc... at range. As to why MA take agg it's really pretty simple, there really aren't many skilled enforcers in this game period. Now to take this down home and personal, I have to be smacking my agg muliplier and using direct agg programs to pull agg off Boltgrinder, Why? Boltgrinder rocks.

Lemme bring this down home a little more, Budicea can steal agg of me almost at will, and she's 40 levels lower the me still Arg! The proplem with enforcers not keeping agg has less to do with MA's and more to do with a lot of 'forcers that choose not to do there job. It is after all putting yourself in harms way for the team, a concept most don't understand and gladly make no effort to pull agg off the MA. Now in the case of soliders you have a very valid point, I have never had any solider be able to pull agg off me period. ( BTW i want to thank both Boltgrinder and Budicea - the eonforcers i work that most for saving my skrawny 'fex butt time and time again, i love you both

I spoke to an MA last night, a level 200 MA. I was informed that the only init MA's ever actually need is 150 in the positive to max their speed. This means an MA could actually max the melee init skill, equip a scope of medium Quality (LLTS for example) and gain an extra 12 or so crit% without any type of slowdown.

this is partial truth. Ma's need 150 init to have a 1/1 at full agg. What this means for me personally: with title 5 maxed init and using all three init clusters, AND my sucky First Strike program I can hit 1/1 with FULL agg using the BEST 15% scope ( a ql 194 which has the min init penalty for the +15% scopes ). Obviously I'm not fighting defensive because in the case of my profession ( MA as you know boss ), defensive means one thing... death. Throw in on top of this: I have no special attack beyond brawl and a very slow tick 450 pnt DoT ( 450 points of damage every 7 seconds isn't impressive to a Real Mean mob ). I do not have: fast attack, sneak attack, OR the effective use of ANY decent MA weapon as all the DECENT MA weapon actually require a LOT more init to make 1/1's then do fists. Effectively I have choosen to use fists only and to do it effectively, I'm not using the wepaons which my profession CAN use ( with no multie melee thank you very much ). If I was to use other weapon I would be self gimped in them do to my whooping 240 ish init ( grand total under buffs ).

The Init for a ranged weapon profession is much much more skill dependant. For me to have 1/1 with a 2/1 weapon, I need to have 600 positive ranged init (numbers not proven by DEV team but VERY close to accurate).

That being the case, I equip a QL 195 scope for 15% crit but end up slowing my gun down because of it.

oddly that 600 init number? That's about what the decent MA weapons require. So the same situation applies.

One could say, well you can root and run and so on.

Fact is, none of these arguments are valid because with the scopes and movement predictors, most melee professions can hit you from 8-12 meters away. On top of that, you can hit on the run and I am unable to do so. Add that to having to use a root 2-3 times before it sticks and the fact that roots are about the easiest debuff in the game to break means this scope situation is simply unbalancing.

i realize this may seem like it, but in actuallity it's the brawl range that get's jacked up, and that I will grant you is a bug. I certainly do not expect or want my max range to go up from this device, nor do i think it should increase the range of any ranged user as it does nothing to physically change your weapon in any way.

Take an item like the Blood Bat for example. Should an enforcer be able to equip a QL 250 scope, gain the range and the crit% with that weapon without any sort of penalty to their speed?

Absolutely not.

When I equip its only real competition on a soldier (CHS), and I use a scope (an item designed for ranged professions) I loose speed. This seems like an acceptable solution to everyone? I think not.

actually i dont' think you are looking at this quite right here, try thinking like this: melee class just dumped a lot of ip into init score ( which other then for scopes is not that needed ) in order to do more damage... CLOSE IN. Melee'ers are supposed to do more damage, period, yet oddly using scopes is the only way to keep that edge over ranged users.

It is my belief that soldiers (for example) have issues with attack ratings/speed which is why they suffer over all from the ability to do fast sustained damage to their opponents.

no debate, soliders have been the red headed step children of AO for some time and a LOT needs to be done for them to effectively do their tank role in any way. The soliders ability to take damage right now means nothing as they can't keep agg.

As a fixer, I am a sort of mini soldier and I suffer from the same problems.

Imagine being a Crat, without the ability to buff your own ranged weapon skills. Now add this scope to the crat because they NEED it, slow their weapon down and add that to their sub standard attack rating. Now they are slow AND they can't hit you.

Take a Doctor for example. We all know they win usually by out lasting you, but are you really afraid of any doctor doing large amounts of damage? Absolutely not, because they fire every 10 minutes by comparison.

This problem is a serious one for folks who want to play the game solo. The soldier needs the crit to be successful vs. a mob. Same for most other ranged professions.

Not every profession is designer to solo, I disagree about the mini solider thing, solider don't have HoT's, soliders actually get hit ( not not every Fixer has GA but man the ones that do make the rest of use gawk in envy as we realize they are in fact the best tanks in the game because they never get hit ).

Fixers with Grid Armor can certainly solo missions their level. But what does that do for the 90% of the fixer population that do not have Grid Armor?

FC says professions are too powerful versus their mobs and in PVP and that’s the reason for this nerf.

I say they are absolutely right, except that the scope is NOT overly powerful for ranged professions, only melee types and especially those melee types that are capable of healing themselves significantly while in combat.

I do not know a level 200 MA who is unable to solo a QL 200 team mission. Is there something wrong with that?

First: Bringing up the mythical Bloodbat and GA in a question of haves and have nots.. kinda serves to illustrate the point, rate drops should not be considered in averaging damage.

second: not overly powerful PERIOD, i fail to see why melee should lose ground in damage ability vs ranged users when higher damage over time is supposed to be the trade off for having no range. Oh... btw... let's class fixers a significant healing over time, based on how littel a GA fixer get's hit, that HoT is more significant then my BEST heals as a MA.

Third: basing the ability for the "average" 200 ma to solo a 200 mission on some of the people in our guild is NOT a valid assumption, can I kill *some* real means? yes i can. Can i take out any enforcer type real mean? No, no i have no prayer in hades of taking out a real mean enforcer solo, let's add any RM trader type to that list too. Maybe i'm a screw up, but hey if some one wants to give me some pointers on how as a MA to take out those two i'm all ears.

Well, yes, especially if a level 200 soldier can’t. Especially if a level 200 Trader cant. Especially if a level 200 Doctor can't.

I don't claim to have all the answers but I do know this. MA's aren’t hurting for crits. Enforcers do incredibly HIGH sustained damage and have UBER attack ratings. Adventurers are incredible in 1v1 pvp and in pvm.

solider need help, bad, we all know that. MA's got their lubbin patch, shame they made grid armor so rare as MA damage out put is about as sick as GA fixer damage evasion abilities. Enfocers do consistant damage, i would not say high damage, espeically not when you take things like alpha strikes into consideration where the person then runs off until their specials recharge while the enforcer is still running after them trying to get a hit in. Adventures as incredible.. hmm... well.. the really good ones yes, but just how many adventures do we see in this game? Maybe they are all hiding as leets in the newbie areas? I don't think the number of adventurers in AO speaks well for the playability of the profession.

So you tell me, who's actually getting hurt here? Keep in mind, Arg is not my only character, I play a couple different toons and one of them is melee. This is not about fixers, this is a global issue.

you awnsered that way up top... we all are.

By definition, Soldiers should be awesome front line hard hitting heavy damage professions. They are not. Heck, a level 200 soldier can not solo missions 20QL lower than his/her level.

Now you guys wanna' take their crits away?

again, i completely agree, soliders need massive help. Does that mean a level 200 doc should have the offensive power to solo a 200 mission? No, i don't think so. My point being this: not every profession was designed to be great damage dealers, and they where given other abilities to compenstate. Why should those professions who's only abilities are to do good damage be nerfed to equal the damage abilities of those classes have the other additional ablities, while the other classes retain their edge in their additional abilities? That makes no sense what so ever. If you want to do damage like an MA... play one. If you want to heal like a Doc... play one. If you want to charm your way through mission, play a class that can do it.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that because another class can out damage you that they are superior in all ways. As a MA i have one option, do more damage faster or die. MA heals are a joke in pvp, the likely hood I will even be able to heal in pvp is a extremely slim, traders will remove that ability VERY quickly, doc's make my cast times so slow i'll lose out on so much damage while i'm trying to heal i come out behind.

This is obscene the more I think about it. It’s absolutely ridiculous. If you want to balance the scopes, leave them alone and just disable them when the profession uses any type of melee weapons. That will balance your concerns with over powerful melee professions and it will allow the ranged professions to at least stay where they are with damage dealing.
Arg

how about just leave them alone period? Melee's aren't over powered, we just do better damage, we are supposed to. Why? We don't get ranged attacks, we don't get grids, we don't get GOOD heals, we don't get charms, we dont' get pets, we don't get damage nano's, we don't get the best evades, we dont' resist programs for squat, we don't roots, we get... damage.

Are we supposed to be able to out damage ranged users? Yes, yes we are. Do we? Some times, but not always, or we'd always win in pvp wouldn't we

And ma's, forcers, adv's would never pick up ranged weapons for pvp... because we wouldnt' need them... but... we do.

*bows*

sorry boss, but i hope this sheds some light on how at least one of the folks in MoK feels about this.

love and hugs ( cause yoru still a cutie ),
Cheetarr

[Elixoria]

Originally posted by Smoochies
Can the designers implement the nerf after swg comes out?

This perfectly illustrates the insanity of nerfing your customer base.

[________________Jica]

Since i.e. UVC+scope seems to be adding "too much" crits to the MA class (at least compared to other classes, and in some ranged weapon combinations), maybe it would be an idea to make SG, VS, LMA and UVC only work with hand-to-hand combat and melee weapons and not with ranged, since that is the real purpose of the martial artist?

Just a thought :]


EDIT:

Though I really would prefer nothing to get nerfed at all, it seems like it's coming no matter what the customers think about it.

Since the real problem is that we jsut chew our way trough missions and mobs like a hot knife in butter, maybe you should take a look at how many higher end players who actually do missions above ql199/200 for xp. Mobs are to ohard to kill already. Can take minutes, so we go for lower ones which are weaker and we kill them faster and with less risk. Just a question of doing this fast enough

EDIT 2:

Just want to say that I never played a melee profession or MA character (other than twink levels), so I don't know much about the profession itself as a player :]

[Zipcat]

People have based there entire characters lives around a few products like the LLTS's.

Inspite of all the suggestions on how to change them a little the only logical and fair choice is NOT TO CHANGE THEM AT ALL.

If MA's have them or what ever other proffession has them then so be it.

Don't let the envious sentiment stear the foundation of a item that has already been developed, then earned by the players for its attributes and then players have spent months and months investing IP around the item and its attributes.

The item must not change.

Don't change the LLTS. Not even a little. Make a new scope that sucks even more than that stoopid scope that replaced it. Just don't touch what is made.

--Zipcat

[________________Jica]

Seems that what Funcom "wants" is "balance" in gameplay. However, I don't quite agree with it in all ways.

PvP is not fun if it's predictable. And I still don't get why PvP should be "fair". If so, thenwhy are engineer i.e. such crap in 1-1 PvP action?

I can understand that PvM may be too easy, but then why not increase mobs' hps instead or evades for that matter to balance them against the "overpowered" (E)LLTSs?

Crit in PvP.. Well as docs have advantage of healing, so have MAs of crits, though nerfing scopes (as I read in another post here), would only decrease crit chance a minor percentage for MAs, while more than 50% for the rest of the playerbase. With or without scopes, the difference would still be the same, since anyone can use them.

Now I'm off to bed, be nice to Cz =)