All The Necessary Changes Needed To Balance The Majority Of PvP

[Marinegent]

Preword : This post is meant to target changes to many key parts of the game. This is not a "boost my prof, nerf all others" thread. This isnt a "nerfed ranged advies zomg" thread, this isnt a "wtf melee is underpowered, nerf ranged thread". This is a thread that plans to target many key changes in all aspects of the game, including professions, debuffs, simple mechanics. This will not be a list that covers everything, but the a fairly decently sized list that covers most major problems.

This will be an open discussion and these changes are in mind with NO CONSIDERATION of the current proposed rebalance efforts. I as many other players fear they will be far more game breaking than just changing some things about what we currently have.


1. Game Mechanics.
2. Nanos and Debuffs.
3. Professions.
4. PvM vs PvP.
5. Level Ranges.
6. Final thoughts.

word of note : constantly adding things to this until the sections are complete. I will announce when they are.

[Marinegent]

1. Game Mechanics

Run Speed : Run speed in its current form has a standard cap of 2400 run speed. Any profession can hit the cap currently, there is nothing that separates profession strengths or melee vs ranged advantages. Here's a change that would fix runspeed issues and imbalances.

First, run speed should be treated as a multiplier, similar to aimed shot for example. Every profession would have a base multiplier, and title levels would also have their own multiplier. Run speed * profession multiplier * title level multiplier. You still IP or choose not to IP run speed, as that will be the basis for run speed multipliers. Every title level has its own multiplier, increasing with each title level. Every profession should have its own multiplier, how much is not to be decided by me, but fixers should naturally have the highest, and you would scale the rest of the professions accordingly.





Melee Vs. Ranged : Kiting can be seen as a crucial problem right now, this next idea is going to be working with the idea of sync issues and giving melee a base strength to balance the Melee vs ranged dilema.

Melee should have a base range to use perks and hit them if the target is immobile. 2-3 meters. If the target is moving, in order to balance melee vs ranged and keep up with sync problems, increase the range to 7-8 meters.

Ranged professions should still be able to kite, it is a valid tactic and gives CC tools a purpose. However, kiting and stopping for .2 seconds to Aimedshot / full auto / whatever, does need changing. Just as ranged professions cannot attack people while moving, give full auto and aimedshot and all other ranged specials a basis of needing 1 full second of standing still in order to use the specials. No cast time garbage like they are proposing, the current system is fine if you tweak when you can use the specials.







Special Attacks Specials in the current state are.. fairly okay actually. They do need some small changes though.

Melee Specials:

Sneak attack and Backstab :should be modified a little. A lower recharge for both, lets say 15-20 seconds? However the damage each one does should be lowered. Makes the attacks usable more often at the cost of slight effectiveness. A fair trade off i'd say. The numbers are a rough idea. Backstab should be improved to always landing on players. It should be the integral off set to being forced to stand behind someone and not be the attacked target.

Dimach : Could be modified based on profession and perhaps lower the universal 30 minute timer. Right now its useless on most professions except Shades and Martial Artists.

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Ranged Specials :

Aimed shot : Aimed shot should keep the lack of defense check as it currently has. Right now its the offset to untouchable evade professions. It really is the key to balance when you have a game where several professions are almost always unperkable. However, just like run speed, every profession should have its own aimed shot template. Melee professions should all have horrible bad templates making aimed shot almost entirely impractical. The only exceptions would be MA and Advy as they do have support for both ranged and melee. Agents should unquestionably have the highest template, almost always capping, soldiers following closely being the ranged weapon specialist, and the rest of the professions would need number crunching but if you arent soldier, agent, or MA, you should never cap aimedshot on anyone if the 30% cap is above 3-4k health.

Full Auto : Full auto as it stands has a "once 1 bullet misses, all of them miss" with 100% checks on every bullet. Kind of game breaking for professions who rely on them. Change the checks some, the first 3 bullets all have below 100% checks, the forth bullet having 100% check, and then slowly scale the checks up a certain % for each bullet after that. It not only boosts the effectiveness against evade professions for the two professions who have real full auto support, but gives a boost to a reason for having more health. Once Aimed shot and full auto are not guaranteed caps on high HP professions anymore, having more health will be a benefit in Anarchy Online, NOT a nerf!

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Burst, Fling Shot, Fast Attack, Brawl : As far as I can see these are not game breaking for now, i suggest they stay the same unless someone has valid reasoning + evidence to prove otherwise.







Hot swapping : Hot swapping is an integral part of the game. The only issue is instant swapping weapons that professions like MA's use to alpha people which outputs ridiculous amounts of DD. The simple fix is a universal swap time, but that isnt necessarily the best. It should remain, but exactly how to adjust in one tweak is beyond me. The weapons themselves may need re-adjusting.





Perks and Perkable Opponents: Here's a quick idea, while i feel like adding more to this list tonight. Right now people are either perkable, or unperkable. There is no middle ground.

I suggest a change to Perkable, or if unperkable by 100% checks, if within 50% range, the perks still land but act as if 50% OE. Also any secondary effects out side the damage is negated if the perks are OE on someones defenses. For example, if your perk does 3000-6000 damage, and has a 4 second stun and init debuff, but the target evades the initial check, but your attack rating is high enough to perk your opponent as if the perk was 50% check, you now do 1500-3000 damage with no stuns and no init debuff. Add in pvp reduction, 750-1500, and then reflects if the opponent has it.

The perk is substantially less powerful, but gains usefulness.

[Marinegent]

2. Debuffs and nanos.


Debuffs : All debuffs should be removable, and most should have decreased times on them. 5 minutes of crat debuffs and fixer debuffs while being unremovable is ridiculous and game breaking. Or at the very least, balance breaking.

Drains (in pvp), crat debuffs (in pvp), evade debuffs, etc. All debuffs should have a maximum of 45 seconds when casted on a player. PvM is another story and some debuffs need to be increased in duration or effectiveness against pvm mobs.






Crowd Control Tools : The current problem with crowd control is the spam ability, effectiveness and the duration of the tools all together. Can i cite a 23 minute snare as a problem? I think so. Some snares are so powerful they are essentially roots due to how much run speed they remove and the duration.

Crowd control nanos should have shorter durations, Roots should be 15-20 seconds in duration with diminishing returns. Currently you can hold a player in place for upwards of 4 minutes indefinitely if you spam the root. This is game breaking. If you really want to hold someone in place, you should be forced to spam the root indefinitely for the duration you plan to keep them in place. Every root should cast a "recently affected by" in your targets NCU. It should have a stacking effect, each stack would reduce the duration of the root based on how many stacks and the quality level of the root nano.

A noob island root may start off with 15 seconds, then drop to 2 seconds upon casting it again. The top roots may be 15 seconds, only dropping in 2-3 second increments, along with obvious things like different nano resist checks or attack/recharge times.





Nemesis Nanos:

Remove them.

[Marinegent]

Profession Changes.


Adventurer:
There should be an advantage to not being morphed. Doctors hold the healing monopoly in pvm right now. When unmorphed give advies a healing efficiency self only buff that is in the same lines as morphs.

Advys should have the cocoon amount they get limited. Limit adventurer's to 5 perks into biococoon.

Sneak Attack and Backstab should be reworked as listed above so 1he is once again a viable option.



Agent: Modify the false profession lines to give limited boosts in base stats based on what we FP. Heal eff% as a doc, max HP as an enforcer, etc.

Perhaps tack on some Nano resist or %resist to certain nanos and maybe a small amount of evades onto our perk lines to give a base level boost. Right now an agents core defense is CH and is a little too easily disabled by most professions.




Bureaucrat : Extend durations of pet buffs to make managing pets easier in pvp and pvm.

Extend durations on crat debuff nano's in PvM on a couple lines. Perhaps reduce nanocost if nanopool is an issue right now.

Crat aura's should have increased ranges and should always be running on their pets.





Doctor: Malpractice needs a longer duration with a different effect than init debuff. Perhaps skill lock modifier, maybe crit decrease. Also reduce the damage some, right now it's ridiculous. Reduce nanocost some. Not a lot.

Give healing Diminishing returns. BI is on a 4 second recharge. If you use the heal again in less than 6 seconds from casting it, the amount gradually decreases with a stacking effect until you wait out a 6 second long "you have been recently affected by". The healing would decrease in 5% effectiveness until it reaches a bottom percentage of 60%.

Remove the max health buff on SL heals, replace it with a HoT that heals for % of hp every couple seconds for a maximum of 10 seconds.

Give doctor the ability to AoE DOT people at the cost of huge nanocost. Perhaps add some negative debuffs to it lasting a duration of 30-45 seconds.





Enforcers: Remove the run speed on rage.

Enforcers should be able to force players to attack them as well.

Enforcers should have a "Charge" ability which would give them a very large run speed boost for 10 seconds with a 60 second cool down, which lets them charge a target and upon the nano ending, gives a 10 second AoE snare to everyone around them as a "ground pound" ability which shakes the targets.







Engineers: Reduce pet damage some, perhaps at the same time reduce pet attack rating some.

Change special blockers so that they block special damage, not a specific number of specials. 50000 special damage perhaps? The number needs tweaking. Also, change blockers so that they dont auto-refresh. Give it a local cooldown of 30 seconds with insta cast ability. You have to manually refresh it to keep it up. The duration of blockers will be reduced to 1.5 minutes, so you cant set it once in the backyard, then run out and be able to use it instantly as someone tears into your defenses.

Reduce NSD to -30%. Make it an anti-RRFE tool in groups or against OSB'd players and not a one button soldier killer.






Fixers: Make fixers the fastest profession already.

Give meep larger negative effects than it has now, so when used consistently in pvp people feel the effects.

Give fixers a special ability for burst to make them more effective burst users. Lets say 4 bullets instead of 3?

Remove the anti-fixer nukes from NTs.

[Marinegent]

PvM vs. PvP

[Marinegent]

Level ranges,,,

[Marinegent]

Final Thoughts



Pistol perks need 100% checks.

1hb perks need increased checks on a couple of them.

Remove pure nemesis tools.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I totally agree with the point about specials. I just had an idea too, which is almost exactly the same as what you're saying for ranged/melee stuff:

If a ranged prof is running, it could be that even if his special has recharged, it STILL requires him to stand still for 1-2 seconds in order for him to orientate himself to his target, in order for the special to "un-gray"

At which point it "un-grays" and he can spam "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or a fixer with Envy+Craphander"

[Marinegent]

I totally agree with the point about specials. I just had an idea too, which is almost exactly the same as what you're saying for ranged/melee stuff:

If a ranged prof is running, it could be that even if his special has recharged, it STILL requires him to stand still for 1-2 seconds in order for him to orientate himself to his target, in order for the special to "un-gray"

At which point it "un-grays" and he can spam "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, or a fixer with Envy+Craphander"

That is exactly the idea i was trying to make.

[alderwaran]

That is exactly the idea i was trying to make.

my idea was that the target for an as has to be in an 15° angle at the center of the screen of the attacker.
this is not q3a where on nightmare xaero can rail out of his back.

[Ciex]

Before they do anything they should close this forum section and open it again once they have full documentation ready.

[Omutb]

Theres just too many "broken" things, might as well fix PvP by continuing the nemesis nano idea.

Each profession is 100% immune to one other profession, but every profession has an I Win instant kill attack.

There, sorted.

Now PvP is a "fastest finger first" killing spree, except when youre faced with the one profession you cant even damage.

[Marinegent]

Theres just too many "broken" things, might as well fix PvP by continuing the nemesis nano idea.

Each profession is 100% immune to one other profession, but every profession has an I Win instant kill attack.

There, sorted.

Now PvP is a "fastest finger first" killing spree, except when youre faced with the one profession you cant even damage.

No. This thread is going to address the broken things and provide proposed fixes. Rock paper scissors is not only anything but balance, but simply retarded.

[Omutb]

No. This thread is going to address the broken things and provide proposed fixes. Rock paper scissors is not only anything but balance, but simply retarded.

In a lot of cases, the fixes are just a case of nerfing something, but the nerf brings in far more problems than the small number of cases its intended to fix.

The only way to get true balance is for everyone to have the same.

Not that your observations and suggestions arent valid, the speed at which actions can be repeated does seem to be most of the problem.

Maybe the answer is 2 timers for everything, 1 for pvm and one for pvp.

[Malaxia]

2. Debuffs and nanos.
5 minutes of crat debuffs [...] while being unremovable is ridiculous and game breaking. Or at the very least, balance breaking.

I've heard that during Q&A, I read that again now
Could you please tell we what awesome 5 minutes debuffs we have so I can go buy it ?

(Improved) Red Tape is our longest debuff and it's 6 minutes for a mere 30 (or 250 + some random effects) init debuff. Then we're down to 2 minutes and less for other red tapes.

[Marinegent]

I've heard that during Q&A, I read that again now
Could you please tell we what awesome 5 minutes debuffs we have so I can go buy it ?

(Improved) Red Tape is our longest debuff and it's 6 minutes for a mere 30 (or 250 + some random effects) init debuff. Then we're down to 2 minutes and less for other red tapes.

Don't get bent out of shape. Anything over 45 seconds is too long in most cases. You should have to actively continue to debuff players, not hit it once and forget it. The fact that it is unremovable makes it worse.

See the big picture.

[Malaxia]

As we keep recasting them in PVM, I don't see how they are long. Even in PVP, keeping them up on a player during a fight is not an easy task, and they are not powerful on their own.

So when you say "You should have to actively continue to debuff players", this is pretty much what we do, as well as constantly rebuffing pets...

[Ocene]

Theres just too many "broken" things, might as well fix PvP by continuing the nemesis nano idea.

Each profession is 100% immune to one other profession, but every profession has an I Win instant kill attack.

There, sorted.

Now PvP is a "fastest finger first" killing spree, except when youre faced with the one profession you cant even damage.

Rock Paper Scissor is what you do when you can't come up with solutions where each profession has a reasonable chance at defeating any other.

The issue I see in AO nowadays is that each prof has 2-3 nemesis they can't do nothing against, except maybe for a 1 or 2 professions. That's not PVP, it's just frustration, and people leave.

I'm hoping rebalance will change that.

[Marinegent]

As we keep recasting them in PVM, I don't see how they are long. Even in PVP, keeping them up on a player during a fight is not an easy task, and they are not powerful on their own.

So when you say "You should have to actively continue to debuff players", this is pretty much what we do, as well as constantly rebuffing pets...

What you seem to be conveniently forgetting is that the buffs are not removable. As for keeping pets buffed, that is another issue and not one that should be used as an excuse to justify extensively long durations.

You should have to manage between stuns, debuffs, roots/snare, etc. As it stands you can root, hold someone for an indefinite period, debuff them, and stun them fairly consistently with living embalming, and so on.

Also, these changes are targeted at PvP. Durations need a rework for PvM but shorter is not what i would suggest for pvm.

Also, heres the exact durations.

Nanite Advanced Red Tape : 1 minute 30.
Normalised Improved Red Tape : 2 minutes
Improved Red Tape : 6 minutes
Red Tape : 6 minutes.
Malaise of Zeal : 1 minute.

[Meira]

I've heard that during Q&A, I read that again now
Could you please tell we what awesome 5 minutes debuffs we have so I can go buy it ?

(Improved) Red Tape is our longest debuff and it's 6 minutes for a mere 30 (or 250 + some random effects) init debuff. Then we're down to 2 minutes and less for other red tapes.

You more proved his point than anything, honestly.

Doctor's need professionals that are willing to actually help us as a profession, not try to put on Xan of Dusk and Dawn, which won't make a horde of PvM damage, nor be welcome in PvP as an attack rating helpful weapon (Won't do high sneak attack, or any special). Besides the fact that standing toe to toe with an enemy as a doctor is a mark of someone who should remake their character.

Burst, Fling Shot, Fast Attack, Brawl : As far as I can see these are not game breaking for now, i suggest they stay the same unless someone has valid reasoning + evidence to prove otherwise.

Brawl, stun duration based on brawl skill. Not, how I could brawlstun a person for 5s, 35% chance with a hit or miss, as a doctor with no martial art or brawl skill.