Dr. Nano Doc

[Dritch]

Just a couple of questions...

How many stupid quests and crap will have to do for these new/changed/improved nanos?
How many credits will we have to dish out yet again to get the new nanos?
How many mindnumbing and totally wasted months will we have to spend in BS/LE to farm VPS for it? Yeah I know you can buy VPS now, but not everyone has extra $s floating around for that.

Or...

Are the nanos gonna be changed automatically, and only questing/buying/farming needed for the totally new ones?

I have one 220/30/70 doc and another 214/2x/xx doc, and I for one are pro for some of the changes, it should give a new edge to doccing whether it is going to good or bad or "omg! what were we thinking" changes, but do I want to end up paying 100s of millions of credits or spend months in *yawn* boring BS/LE to get VPS for new nanos for endgame heals/buffs that I've already been using for years and years? NO! The same goes for having to redo quests and stuff just because somebody decided to whine about docs.

Going totally off topic here for a sec... if FC thinks that these changes will force adventurers/martial artists/traders to assist heal their teamies... think again! There is only a handful on RK1 that actually does that - big thanks to those! That said, I have a advy/ma/trader and I totally get why they don't always assist heal, the heals are crap and the recharge is insanely slow, sub 215 trader heals are a joke, but every 1900 points of healing does help And as for these changes being implemented soon (tm) not holding my breath for that one. It will prolly happen when the new engine comes out, and I've been waiting for that since I started playing in 2005. Soon young padawans soon (tm)
In the mean time, keep on healing mah fellow docs, lol, while we still can do that properly *chuckles*

*coughs & mumbles very softly to myself* kinda makes me wonder... is this really all about changing or improving or balancing the game or did FC run out of ideas how to make the game enticing enough for old and new players to stay and is this just another way of trying to keep the players busy? *cough*

[Gatester]

I believe the nanos that say "previously xxx" will be changed to the nanos in the document. There should not be many entirely new nanos.

[Edta]

I believe the nanos that say "previously xxx" will be changed to the nanos in the document. There should not be many entirely new nanos.

This, and they also promised somewhere that any entirely new nano will be easy to obtain.

[Aeliniyah]

This, and they also promised somewhere that any entirely new nano will be easy to obtain.

"They" also promised there will be no camping in the shadowlands...

[Obtena]

"They" also promised there will be no camping in the shadowlands...

Actually the 'they' that said that aren't even remotely involved with AO or even FC anymore. So what are you implying?

[Aeliniyah]

Well i guess i'm not implying anything... I guess i just wanted to point out how little trust/faith i have left in the current dev teams promises.

"we are not going to sell power in the items shop" - yet they include VP's (which can be used to buy armor and weapons) and token (that are yesdrop and can be used to indirectly buy credits with cash).

I do see a pattern there, but i guess i'm special that way

[Obtena]

Well i guess i'm not implying anything... I guess i just wanted to point out how little trust/faith i have left in the current dev teams promises.

"we are not going to sell power in the items shop" - yet they include VP's (which can be used to buy armor and weapons) and token (that are yesdrop and can be used to indirectly buy credits with cash).

I do see a pattern there, but i guess i'm special that way

The current devs didn't make that promise so, yeah. As for shops, depends on how you define power. You can't get anything in shops you can't get ingame. That's not a power delta. That's just trading time for RL money. What you can't buy are things like Touch of Marius' because you can't get them ingame. That's buying power.

EDIT: Portable shops isn't POWER, so it's reasonable to sell it ... and yes, it's ingame. It's just limited to traders.

[Avari]

You can't get anything in shops you can't get ingame.

By that logic they could just as well sell credits for $$$.

[Edta]

By that logic they could just as well sell credits for $$$.

That's exactly what they do with selling yesdrop items, they're just not so stupid to sell credits directly since that would inflate the market.
But enough about this topic, back to doctors please.

[LyraJ]

I'm withholding judgement about a lot of the changes but I don't care for the nerf to short-term HP buffs across the board. It's very common to cast that on the squishies in the team plus the tank before dealing with nukers/areas where CC isn't going to be instantaneous (Channelers anyone?) or when they are likely to get sudden agg swaps that can one-hit smack them. Who hasn't seen a lowbie agent or MA go down because agg flickered and were insta-ed? Of course you want a team where everyone can play their roles correctly and well but being the doc means you are the buffer not only against damage incurred by mobs but also against their stupid mistakes.

I understand that FC doesn't want it abused as a heal but I'd rather see it as something cast prior to combat without the heal component and a 3-5m span. Inconvenient enough to not keep it on all the time but there to beef up toons as needed. Also, as it currently stands if your tank is getting beat on and actually needs the hp you have to get that thing recast in a 1s window while juggling the rest of the heals. That seems to me to be a subpar option. The only place I can see it really working is if doc is tanking.

In the long term, I'm waiting to see how this is going to impact leveling docs solo and in teams - especially in the 50-170 range. In the first part of that twinking for healing combined with limited items for reducing cost means that docs often struggle with nanopool until/unless they get to Genius 2 and toward the later end CH tanking becomes common in teams (in SL at least) because it's easier than dealing with iffy tanks, problem teams, the afore-mentioned squishies, etc. Not kvetching mind you, just curious. Ideally teams would have to pay attention to doc nanopool and support it either by boosting doc, handling CC or augmenting healing and that's no bad thing. Nor is having a tank who actually understands their toolset.

Not really stressing the end-game pvm docs (and not touching doc pvp at all) - with all the items, perks, etc., that are or are likely to be available I think they'll be able to adapt pretty well.

[Vitalsigns]

I like the new combat nano we get:

Unsedated Colonoscopy

[Keldon]

Yes it does.

This is an MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. The entire point and purpose behind the genre is to have folks interact, team up, and take on challenges larger than themselves. You can't solo The Beast (or if you can you're either exploiting or a 'crat from a couple of years ago), you can't take on S42 by yourself. You need others to be able to take on certain content that the game has to offer. This is just the nature of the game itself; that's how it's always been, that's how it'll always be.

Saying that you don't want to ever interact with another player in AO is kinda like complaining that there weren't any turn-based encounters in Doom, or that Final Fantasy Tactics didn't offer a realistic space-flight simulation. That's just not what those games *are*.

Now, this said, does that mean that there isn't or shouldn't be soloable content in an MMORPG? No, of course not, and there will still be solo content/quests/encounters for people to enjoy. But it's an online game, with mechanics and encounters that are designed for team play because that's *what the game is*. That's how it's been from the start, and that's how it's going to stay in the future.

I completely agree with this post, BUT the problem comes down to amount of people playing AO. During peak times (going back 1 year to 1.5 years ago) www.auno.org was claiming that about 200-250 people were online in RK1. Once you got outside of peak times this number would drop to below 100, I personally saw it under 30 one time when I was on.

I live in the central time zone in the US (Texas). I work night shift where my work days are always Friday night and every other Saturday night. This means that 1 day out of every 2 weeks the peak time extended well into my play time. Most of my play time was done with a low online population.

Zerk bots are typically run by morons who go emo at random times. Loot is awarded by points that people have built up over how ever long, show up, gear an alt, never show up again until their next alt needs loot. I got into a zerk bot and quickly gave up on it.

If my small group of friends and I could not complete stuff like S13, S28, and Ipande we would have left the game shortly after getting to 220.

Lets see, relying on others... Check. We were not solo'ing, we had a small group of real life friends. Had a PvM (note none of us were really into PvP and we all had given it a fair chance) challenge we enjoyed... Check. Completing some of these events with as few as 5 people doing them for the first time some times under geared was a blast. Consumed our time and we felt like we got our moneys worth from the experience... Check. We each had alts that we enjoyed for various reasons and geared out at 220.

When you break any MMORPG down those are the 3 core components to them, community, sense of accomplishment, and perceived value. Unless the whole PvM environment is going to be re-tuned along with these profession changes I do not think AO has the population to support groups of people (be it 3 or 36) doing some of these events. If I could not get things accomplished I would have left the game very quickly. This gives 1 less person. My friends would have started to leave also. During our smallest amount for some events that is 5 people. During our normal play time we typically saw sub 100 people online across the whole RK1 server (per auno). This represents 5-10% of the online population during our normal play time being lost.

I think from a dev stand point doing anything in this game that make high end PvM encounters require a few more people and specifically certain professions is like signing the death certificate for the game. The game engine will bring some people around for a while, they will all leave again when the next new shiny game comes out. I have been playing MMOs since 2000 and I have played enough successful and flop games to have seen all sides of this from a player perspective.

Remember PvP will not support a game on its own. Over time every hard core PvP centric game has put in heavy PvM just to pay the bills. Ultima online had to create a mirror so you had a PvP land mass and a PvM land mass and they did see subscriptions increase after doing this. Dark age of Camelot never turned into anything major. Warhammer had a huge player base at first but as people realized that it was easier to get into PvP in a first person shooter they started to leave. Age of Conan was suppose to be a huge PvP centric game with a fair amount of PvM. While playing to max level I had to look hard for PvP due to my play times (spent 6 hours online signed up for the battle grounds thing and one never started).

Tread lightly and don't step on the PvM crowd to hard, other lead devs can tell you how hard it is to pay the bills without their support.

Note: Back on page 5 or so I posted my thoughts on how these changes will affect PvM.

[XenonDe]

Mh. I got annoyed again at the DPS numbers for dots in the draft (they are wrong - misplaced bracket in the formula) so I made my own comparison. I'll dump it here again.

DOT line A: 6	
Name				Nano	Duration	Min	Max	Hits	Delay	DPS (draft)	DPS (correct)	Total Damage	Damage/Nano
Scything Blight (new)		1337	30		-1113	-1113	10	3	-556,61		-371,07		-11132,1	-8,33
Scythe Omega Virus		1846	30		-837	-837	15	2			-418,5		-12555		-6,8
													
DOT Line B: 7	
Name				Nano	Duration	Min	Max	Hits	Delay	DPS (draft)	DPS (correct)	Total Damage	Damage/Nano
Bone Eater 			1362	30		-1350	-1350	10	3	-675		-450		-13500		-9,91
Bone Eater  Old			1975	30		-892	-892	15	2			-446		-13380		-6,77
													
DOT Line C: 582
Name				Nano	Duration	Min	Max	Hits	Delay	DPS (draft)	DPS (correct)	Total Damage	Damage/Nano
Mutagenic Pestilence 		3632	10		-1800	-1800	5	2	-900		-900		-9000		-2,48
Mutagenic Pestilence  Old	1772	30		-756	-756	15	2			-378		-11340		-6,4

Curious to see that the A line dot actually got nerfed down to ~88% of it's previous damage per second.
Bone Eater got a improvement in the damage/nano ratio that wasn't that obvious.
C line dots you certainly wouldn't want to spam on adds for it's total damage and dmg/nano is way worse. DPS increase is huge for pvm though.

[Johnnykay]

You can't get anything in shops you can't get ingame.

I just rolled an enf not long ago but I've yet to find a portable bank/gms for him outside of the shop. Where can I find one?

[Kazeran]

I just rolled an enf not long ago but I've yet to find a portable bank/gms for him outside of the shop. Where can I find one?

Not to specifically jump on you but keep the item shop chat out of this thread guys. It doesn't belong here.

[Cyberleet]

[Long HP buffs:
Attack and recharge time is now 1 second each.
Duration is now 4 hours.
The long HoT that comes with the long HP buff is slightly increased in both minimum and max values. (slight better healing when it ticks)

Imo, they should remove the HP-tick and let it buff HP only. Then enable flagging under pockethealing flagged charracters.

[Kazeran]

Imo, they should remove the HP-tick and let it buff HP only. Then enable flagging under pockethealing flagged charracters.

Your talking about changing nanos to fit game mechanics that don't even exists. Not happening.

[XenonDe]

The Team HP buff is a problem for pocket healing? Wow. If that should enable flagging I suppose fixer hots and NT buffs should kill them outright for buffing.

[Cyberleet]

Could disable it for hots then, kinda saves ncu to have a long hot in the hp-buff to look at it that way.

[Kazeran]

Could disable it for hots then, kinda saves ncu to have a long hot in the hp-buff to look at it that way.

Your talking about changing nanos to fit game mechanics that don't even exists. Not happening.

Your still asking for the same thing. Not happening for a game mechanic that doesn't even exist.