Friday with Means - October 16th, 2009 - Mighty perk documentation

[Swordbreaker]

So according to this you're forcing Engineers to use a Grenade weapon to use Demolitions perk actions? I guess that means a bunch of Engineers are gonna save a bunch of perks after that unless you actually add a weapon that's WORTH SOMETHING that is a Grenade weapon.

The only thing that, as far as I know, made Demolitions even half-usable a line for Engies was that it DIDN'T require a Grenade weapon to be used. But that change to Creative Mind, I like. Medallion might even become landable now!

(EDIT: Only mentioning those perklines because Gadgeteer seems to stay in the useless range even if its procs are fixed and Mechanic didn't really get any changes, except some execution time reductions.)

[Worldofalts]

Thank you for the trader lub means. will be nice to do an emergency team heal/damage buff every now and then without worrying about dots, aggro etc...

[Ahndracorvid]

It has been said over and over again that the concept of solo pvp is to be left up to the chances as all balancing will be done exclusively around team situations.

Erm, I think he was talking about solo PvM, not PvP... you know, PvM, that thing that makes up the majority of the content in this game, yet tends to get forgotten amongst all the attention the PvP concerns get?

[Ayria]

Agent love! Weee. Our perks will finally be useful I can't wait. I'll read the rest later but much love to Means and Macrosun and all you devs I don't know, Agents are looking up. (Though I'm not getting my hopes to high, things may change from whines or uninfluenced mind changing, or I could be reading things wrong)

[Calamite]

AAO now only gets added to perks that have weapon skills as attack skill? THAT TOTALLY SUCKS!!!

Means, what about perks that use trade skills or abilities for attack rating? Those are hard enough to land, and they're mostly used by "support profs". It screws up crats the most since crats have low skills in about anything but loads of aao. Please reconsider.

[-XeI20-]

"What's that over there?"

"It's a Shade, their numbers were drastically reduced in the great change of 18.3"

"Why's that?"

"Well, everyone else got an improvement to their toolset. Shades on the other hand received no improvements, and had existing tools even nerfed. Needless to say the Shades either left the game, or stopped playing as a Shade"

"Oh, so why were they nerfed?"

"Noone can say with any certainty why they were nerfed, but one might think that it was because there were already very few Shades playing, and that more money could be gained by nerfing them and improving the more popular professions."

"Wow, that's pretty messed up."

"No child it isn't. Shades were an unimportant minority. They were unneeded and eventually unwanted. No one cared that there were fewer of them playing."

"But don't they miss Shades now? Now that they're they're missing from the game?"

"Shades never gave anything special to PvP or PvM. In fact, there were many who could do what they did about as well or even better."

"But weren't the other players upset that an already problematic profession was nerfed even more?"

"No, we were happy at the time that we were getting better stuff. We could care less about Shades. We didn't need them, so whatever would happen to them would be of no consequence to us and could even be viewed as beneficial."

"Weren't you even upset afterwards? Surely just the realization that they were nerfed while you were upgraded would be enough for you to have concern and empathy?

"No little one. Soldiers, crats, and engis were happy that they no longer had to compete with Shades to have high dd. Soldiers, advs, and keepers were elated they could tank more instances. Doctors were overjoyed they no longer had to heal Shades. None of us minded. That we no longer had to bother killing Shades before they got close to us in PvP was an added bonus. Even though they became even easier to kill, they still had the possibility to do harm."

[thecheeseman]

werent trox shades uber in pvp? what happened? did i miss something?

[Saetos]

werent trox shades uber in pvp? what happened? did i miss something?

He's not just talking about Trox PVP Shades. Every other breed and every other situation they're involved in is done better by other professions and breeds.

[bitnykk]

this change is an enhancement on perks that check against nano resistance, but at the same time a nerf to evades profs (which are also AAD based profs). The net result is: CERTAIN PERKS (=checking NR for defense) WILL LAND MORE OFTEN ON EVERYONE and CERTAIN PROFESSIONS (=AAD based defenses) WILL GET HIT MORE OFTEN.

Out of the satisfaction to see the perks revisited, that's also nearly what i read diagonnally.
& also the adding of a lot of damage for a majority of professions, wich i hope would be balanced to avoid serial reclaim online

[Sidana]

Perks using nanoskills or tradeskills as attack skill will attack against nano resist.

Ha! Cannot wait for the general whinefest until you publish the general perkline changes with CoNC using nanoskills as attack skill.


One question though: do you plan to overhaul the PvM difficulty more or less after the rebalancing?

[Phuriae]

Dude, wtf!? Means, you are the most kick*ss Game Director we could ever hope for, but when it comes to releasing Halloween early enough, you have failed us. One frigging week before Halloween?! Same sadness as last year too! I haven't even read anything about perks yet cause I don't see any UPH!

Please just release it in time for us to enjoy it a little more. Who cares if it is out before the club? People will still come to the release party. Actually, to be honest, I see less people coming and/or staying at the club release party if phatz are released the same day. The club will be there permanently, but Halloween will only last a week until next year. I choose Halloween, and you should too!

Be the kick*ss GD we all know you are and please patch/spawn those filthy UPH and spooky leets on live today!

[bungerman]

I commend the AO group to have the courage to attack even the hard problems in AO nowadays, and in this case: re-balancing.



I do have a couple questions though, starting with...

1. I thought I had read a post from someone on high that perk changes weren't just going to be 100% success or 100% fail, but might scale with each skill involved. Was this a player thought up proposal and I am mistaken or was it considered and ended up on the chopping block? Orrr did I miss it in the .pdf?

2. Will ACs be reworked in this overhaul of all things AO?

3. What will become of tradeskill/nanoskill perks that were just about the hardest to land pre-balance? People can get quite a bit of NR...

Keep up the painstakingly hard work and try to ignore those who don't really want to give actual feedback but only whine for either whining's sake or for the betterment of their prof only.

edit PS: I forgot the obligatory... THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!1!

[mr_road]

edit PS: I forgot the obligatory... THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!1!

the sky is not falling. you're legs are growing.

[Sawbones2]

Actually, I was attempting to integrate concerns over LACK OF PLAYERS with the likely impact of these changes on a significant portion of the remaining players in the game. It is unlikely that the focus on teams and pvp at the expense of the rest of the game has no correlation to the dramatic reduction in the number of players. In the 8 or so years I have been playing, I have personally convinced close to 30 people to play. Most left precisely because of the increased teaming requirements and the enforced pvp. (the rest left mainly due to the absolute boredom of having to camp items but that is another issue). What these changes seem to do is redouble the focus on the ever narrowing path of teams and pvp. If that is the case, just a simple comment that Funcom should anticipate yet another reduction in the number of players and further concertration of those remaining professions into fewer professions.

I will reiterate that Funcom would be well served to consider the impacts on soloist (pvp and pvm) and on the profession's pvm capabilities. Failure to do so may well result in a further deterioration in the business aspect of the game.

Not saying not to balance for pvp, just to balance in a manner that doesn't further unbalance the pvm and solo. I can think of many ways, other than nerfing someone, to accomplish the goal.

Amen

Hope FC is paying attention. Love the new DR play field, and S10 before that, so it's not like us PvMers are ignored but agree that the "silent majority" needs to speak up and be heard if player numbers are to stabilize or increase, and that means keeping a close eye on the impact of these changes have on PvM play, both team and solo, especially solo given the low player base numbers atm and the difficulty of getting teams to level with (other than the obligatory grind teams at Hecks and Inf mish).

[PingBong]

Just went through the pages and well i hate it bye bye fast paced gameplay, hello slime mode

[Ayria]

What's so great about fast paced fights? That you can get more of them in and get a higher kill count?

I'd think slow fights would be just as fun provided you still have a chance to win.

[ninor]

Hmm actually i have to agree on AO being a nice fast paced mmo. The teams i played on in Wow there was a break after each small group and boss especially and waiting for mana and what not.

Some of the best raids and team mission (RK2) i was on I had a constant high blood pressure because of the crazy speed. It is enormously rewarding to go through it without having even the time to think about a break and getting though it in one piece. An it was always boring if u had an AI general or some high HP INf mobs wher everybody could go afk, especially with crat stuns.

[PingBong]

What's so great about fast paced fights? That you can get more of them in and get a higher kill count?

I'd think slow fights would be just as fun provided you still have a chance to win.

coz the faster it is the more it seperates experienced players from newbies, infact i think ao should be even faster coz as it is right now many people have reached the same skill level where the only deciding factor that remains is luck

luck sucks

[McKnuckleSamwich]

coz the faster it is the more it seperates experienced players from newbies, infact i think ao should be even faster coz as it is right now many people have reached the same skill level where the only deciding factor that remains is luck

luck sucks

boo.

FAST doesn't equal GOOD

fast= good IF you have fast internet, fast ping, and excellent synch.

I live in australia, and I'm really stoked on slower. Internet here sucks, and all my toons are melee. If they slow things down just a tad, I might ACTUALLY play my TL7 again.

[PingBong]

boo.

FAST doesn't equal GOOD

so what does equal good? with the current state of computer interfaces fast is all we got