v1 Agent Nano Document!

[Aimzor]

A (partial) solution for the NCU wipe would be if the NCU wipe would distinguish:

1) Agent-always-usable-buff's.
2) Buff's casted by agent and on him/her/it selves in FP.
3) OSB's.

Only "2)" should wipe when changing the FP.

This doesn't solve the "FP MP for Odin’s missing eye and then FP Trader for Draining" ability which we have at our disposal atm, but such thing might be the sacrifice we need to make.

Or otherwise Agents might become the new and improved Buffbeggars after the rebalance :P

[Ninewood]

justin, i'm just talking about osbs.

[Shirayuki]

@Lupus,

Thanks for follow ups, all your time and efforts are so greatly appreciated.

For the change itself, however, most of my concerns which I wrote in my first post in this thread still stands.


#1. Too many nanos in certain nanolines, especially Single Roots.

I still don't see the point we have 13 nanos for the line.
For PvP, increment of 0.5sec does not really looks like "improving" each step,
and what is the point of the lowest one --- 0.5sec "stumbling" will not do anything even at TL1 PvP.

Consolidate it to 4~5 nanos as other snare/AE snare line, just to make things more clear and unwasteful for new players.

The same could have said to:

• Mid range nanos in the DoT line: they have too minor improvement between each steps.
  
  
• Damage buffing line: Too many of them with less than 10 increments (worst: +2 for +121 req). Not worth a database slot.
  Remember, unlike we have with current nanos, the news buffs do not have any improvement in their duration ---
  where the current nanos are justify-able even when the effect itself does not change much.
  
  
• Root/Snare reduction line: only 50% and 100% reducer is relevant, all others inbetween have so little use.
  Snare reducer might be okay as it is 50/75/100%, but for root ones it is definitely wasteful to have 10% increment each.

Again, 220s (including me) won't have any trouble from that, but I'm concerned for new players.
Less overall number of nanos are better, as we definitely will need to manage more of them in total than we do now.

#2: Conceal buffs

Where the "split the scaling and buffing element" thing has gone? I thought kinda everyone had agreed on that point.

And, can you explain why we have an increase in the NCU usage for it?
All other nanos have been given good reasons for the increase that none of us would complain about,
but for this one I don't see any change in the effect --- while the cost increased alot.
Not that it really matters anything, but it looks so weird.

And for team buffs auto-cast with it --- please, remove it or make it only cost 1 NCU.
Seriously, it *will* bring so many uncalled annoyance for every teammate who don't need it, which is the very majority.
I'd even dare to call it a harrasment for everyone as it is currently proposed.

As this line also have too many of them with so minor increment in power,
you can just change half the nanos in the line to single-target versions with the same effect (40NCU, +400 conceal at the top).

#3: Skilllock mod debuff:

Now that you have confirmed that this line is a debuff,
don't forget to poke the devs to have the modifier changed to have POSITIVE mods, to make it actually debuffs.

(and also, I'd say this line could have less number of nanos too. I don't think we need 10 steps for this)

#4: NCU wipe:

Looks like no one, other than devs, really agreeing on the full-wipe.

So far there are 5 possible ways of dealing with the buffs upon VP switch:

1. Full wipe --- Current proposal. Objections for this method have been talked alot in this thread already.
2. Wipe only non-agent buffs --- So we could maintain the least things we definitely deserve to have anytime.
3. Only wipe self-casted buffs --- So we could maintain anything we received from outside, which we definitely deserve to have.
4. Selective wipe --- Only removes certain key nanos upon switch, like Auras/TMS/Challenger etc.
5. No wipe at all --- Absolutely out of question, it should never happen and noone will ever ask for such.

Discarding E (not happening) and A (current state), which leaves B / C / D,
let's examine an important aspect when we suggest something --- their implementability.
So obviously, devs would not be able to implement it if they are not supported by the game code, no matter how brilliant the idea itself is.

• Wipe only non agent-buffs: Nightmare to implement.
  The current game code does not have a function like "remove any friendly effect that does not have an attribute XXX",
  so they must set every non-agent buffs one by one by hand to achieve it --- unimaginably tedious work to do,
  and practically impossible to maintain it, as they need to update it everytime they add/remove any new line.
  
  
• Only wipe self-casted buffs: Unlikely.
  I don't think the current game code has an flag of "selfed" or "OSBed" for each NCU effect.
  So, to implement this, they must add such a mechanism to the code solely for dealing with this issue.
  
  
• Selective wipe: More work than mindless full wipe, but well within manageable amount.
  All they need to do is to create specialized wiper effects attached to each VP's "onDeath" effect,
  which has 3~5 lines of "reduce line XXX's duration by XXXXXX" that'll do the work of removing specific nanos, tailored for each VP.

So, out of three possible partial-wipe scenario, the selective wipe is only practical method to achieve it
without forcing devs to do some tedious work / too-dedicated coding only to deal with the VP problem,
and that's why I keep suggesting that.

[Biggysmallz]

It looks way too awesome! Now how long we have to wait?

Which VP are you guys going to run first in BS? Mine will be NT, retaliation for those Remedy Inhibitors ]

My fav probably will be advy just so I can copycat Scumtron.

[Lazy]

It looks way too awesome! Now how long we have to wait?

Which VP are you guys going to run first in BS? Mine will be NT, retaliation for those Remedy Inhibitors ]

My fav probably will be advy just so I can copycat Scumtron.

looking forward to playing around with the new fp enfo actually. and to a lesser extent fp fixer.

[mawu]

Perhaps a RRFE hacked graft will exist.

Id like to have some of what your smoking.

[mawu]

I like it alot.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

VP advy is goign to be epic strong.

I'm seeing 2k+ static evade agents with a 300ish evade perk 70% of the time, and thats not including the new evade perk line (which is?)

Not that thats bad... since my 170 evade agent is going to love this... but, might be a bit much?

I'm rocking 1700 evades currently, selfed, plus 214 on stare+leader of the pack+wolf+100AAD on top ruse for 170.

not bad... but could be a bit OP.

[Lupusceleri]

Well, the added information makes the new system a bit clearer. The new system will allow alot of experimenting and for me the key bit of information is that they open up the access we have to nano lines from other professions (Agent is going to be the most expensive and challenging profession at endgame now).

I can also understand the reasoning behind the NCU wipe in the new system, but I'm still not happy about loosing the current FP nano line. It is possible to keep only the FP line (not mimics) as it is for buffing/social purposes at least, and let the NCU wipe take effect as soon as you use the new lines.

As far as I can see it should not be a problem to let the NCU wipe only affect nanos tagged as Visual Profession (including the agent VP nanos).

Keeping only the FP line allowing you to cancel it at will would pose the same problem as just taking away the NCU wipe though, allowing you to combine for example a thing like Heroic Measures with VP Doctor. I hope you can see why that is a problem.

Maybe a more elegant solution is adding a different purge at the end of each Visual Profession, that'll remove any self-only nano lines from that Profession from your NCU. Or, to be able to keep outside buffs casted on you by others, maybe just a wipe that'll clear any nanos from the Visual Profession you just cancelled.

I think we all need to give up on extreme combinations like:

- flying mini slayerdroids
- drains -> odins missing eye -> bigger drains -> trading mogul routine
- drains -> advy pistol buff -> more drains routine
- drains -> slayerdroid -> more drains

though. But it's a necessary evil, think of how much new options we're getting by trading in these situational twinking methods?

EDIT: for Letah, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Oh additional quantum wings and slayerdroid transference. Pointless but fun tricks. Drains are another thing if nano reqs on some nanos remain high we can't use the drain a leet trick to buff top nanos. This issue would need remedied.

I doubt these things are high up on the ladder of importance for the current plans. Flying mini slayerdroid is cool, but just a gimmick - it sucks to lose it, but would you rather have that or a usable profession? The drain a leet trick is useful to cast our top buff nanos, that's for sure, but even now we can cast them without doing so. My Atlantean Agent is casting the highest damage procs without drains, any perks into nanoskills, and I didn't even max the nanoskills out IP-wise. You'd probably have to swap for some nanoskill HUD items to do it though, maybe a Phulakterion, if you don't want to perk CONC or Nano Doctorate... but that goes for every profession out there, not just Agents.

Is this a set in stone way forward or not by your tone it seems to me you think it is?

You're talking about the NCU wipe I think? Balance wise, the dev team was very clear on that one: it's a choice between NCU wipe on VP cancellation, or access to a much smaller toolset of nanos (like we have now).

Personally I prefer the deeper access we'll receive. We've all seen that the current situation doesn't work for 9 out of 12 mimics @ 220, and even then those 3 where it does work are weakish.

@Lupus,

Thanks for follow ups, all your time and efforts are so greatly appreciated.

For the change itself, however, most of my concerns which I wrote in my first post in this thread still stands.


#1. Too many nanos in certain nanolines, especially Single Roots.
[indent]
I still don't see the point we have 13 nanos for the line.
For PvP, increment (..etc etc..)

Having a good amount of scaling never hurt anyone. With the new naming scheme, it should be a lot clearer for the beginning player which nano does what. You can hide unused nanos to keep the oversight of your nano window.

As for waste of database slots, you'll see that most of the "new" nanos are actually recycled old nanos: victims of the consolidation of the various buff lines (8 old nanolines (team/self concealment, agility/sense, rifle/aimedshot, damage/executioner) were merged into 4 new ones), plus out of 36 nanos dedicated to False/Assume/Mimic only 14 are needed to make the new scaling Visual Profession toolset work - another 22 database entries right there.

#2: Conceal buffs

Where the "split the scaling and buffing element" thing has gone? I thought kinda everyone had agreed on that point.

And, can you explain why we have an increase in the NCU usage for it?
All other nanos have been given good reasons for the increase that none of us would complain about,
but for this one I don't see any change in the effect --- while the cost increased alot.
Not that it really matters anything, but it looks so weird.

And for team buffs auto-cast with it --- please, remove it or make it only cost 1 NCU.
Seriously, it *will* bring so many uncalled annoyance for every teammate who don't need it, which is the very majority.
I'd even dare to call it a harrasment for everyone as it is currently proposed.

As this line also have too many of them with so minor increment in power,
you can just change half the nanos in the line to single-target versions with the same effect (40NCU, +400 conceal at the top).

I've been asking the same question myself, because I would love the split scaling/buff effects too. So far no answers though.

Again no idea why the NCU cost is increased to 80, but honestly, I don't mind because overall we've got so much lower NCU requirements on our nano lines.

Team buffs is something I have asked about as well, I often get annoyed out of my mind by the endless Iron Circle spam certain Doctors maintain, filling up my NCU so I can't cast actually relevant buffs. As you can see the range on team buff is 1 meter, maybe this means you'll have to stand on top of the Agent to really receive the buff - making it a choice? I'm not totally sure to be honest.

#4: NCU wipe:

Looks like no one, other than devs, really agreeing on the full-wipe.

So far there are 5 possible ways of dealing with the buffs upon VP switch:

1. Full wipe --- Current proposal. Objections for this method have been talked alot in this thread already.
2. Wipe only non-agent buffs --- So we could maintain the least things we definitely deserve to have anytime.
3. Only wipe self-casted buffs --- So we could maintain anything we received from outside, which we definitely deserve to have.
4. Selective wipe --- Only removes certain key nanos upon switch, like Auras/TMS/Challenger etc.
5. No wipe at all --- Absolutely out of question, it should never happen and noone will ever ask for such.

Discarding E (not happening) and A (current state), which leaves B / C / D,
let's examine an important aspect when we suggest something --- their implementability.
So obviously, devs would not be able to implement it if they are not supported by the game code, no matter how brilliant the idea itself is.

• Wipe only non agent-buffs: Nightmare to implement.
  The current game code does not have a function like "remove any friendly effect that does not have an attribute XXX",
  so they must set every non-agent buffs one by one by hand to achieve it --- unimaginably tedious work to do,
  and practically impossible to maintain it, as they need to update it everytime they add/remove any new line.
  
  
• Only wipe self-casted buffs: Unlikely.
  I don't think the current game code has an flag of "selfed" or "OSBed" for each NCU effect.
  So, to implement this, they must add such a mechanism to the code solely for dealing with this issue.
  
  
• Selective wipe: More work than mindless full wipe, but well within manageable amount.
  All they need to do is to create specialized wiper effects attached to each VP's "onDeath" effect,
  which has 3~5 lines of "reduce line XXX's duration by XXXXXX" that'll do the work of removing specific nanos, tailored for each VP.

So, out of three possible partial-wipe scenario, the selective wipe is only practical method to achieve it
without forcing devs to do some tedious work / too-dedicated coding only to deal with the VP problem,
and that's why I keep suggesting that.

I don't know what is possible, and probably neither do the rest of the rebalancing devs. I'll bring it up and maybe Macrosun can think of a way to pull it off.

One way might be adding a new school of nano programs to put those Profession == Agent buffs in, but that's a bit like having an elephant walk through a porcelain store.

[Gatester]

So for arguments sake: You go get all the buffs you want from someone else. then you change profession because i dunno...the holy spirit made you. you go forth and get your buffs again?

that's fine with you? ok - but advys should be forced to do the same upon changing morph then, don't you think?

So you want 14 profession's worth of buffs at all times as well as the ability to utilize the toolset of 14 professions on a whim without a single penalty? If we get an even larger access to useable nanos from other professions how could you even see this as a reasonable opinion?

If I bother playing AO when the rebalance hits, I will be fine with using the FP that will serve the situation best. I can say I will not be so weak with my agent as to require OSB's from half a dozen or more professions at all times just to do anything.

A (partial) solution for the NCU wipe would be if the NCU wipe would distinguish:

1) Agent-always-usable-buff's.
2) Buff's casted by agent and on him/her/it selves in FP.
3) OSB's.

Only "2)" should wipe when changing the FP.

This doesn't solve the "FP MP for Odin’s missing eye and then FP Trader for Draining" ability which we have at our disposal atm, but such thing might be the sacrifice we need to make.

Or otherwise Agents might become the new and improved Buffbeggars after the rebalance :P

The removal of the -140 nanoskills from the mimic line makes up for the 48 nanoskills from Odin's I would think. Not to forget going FP trader boosts your PM and TS relative to your level and up to +220.

[Ninewood]

So you want 14 profession's worth of buffs at all times as well as the ability to utilize the toolset of 14 professions on a whim without a single penalty? If we get an even larger access to useable nanos from other professions how could you even see this as a reasonable opinion?

you're right, that doesn't seem fair...oh wait a sec! i never said that...so wth...

I bother playing AO when the rebalance hits, I will be fine with using the FP that will serve the situation best. I can say I will not be so weak with my agent as to require OSB's from half a dozen or more professions at all times just to do anything.

oh my, half-subtle insults. i'm so shocked. - uhm. try again? please?

[LyraJ]

So you want 14 profession's worth of buffs at all times as well as the ability to utilize the toolset of 14 professions on a whim without a single penalty? If we get an even larger access to useable nanos from other professions how could you even see this as a reasonable opinion?

I'm pretty sure that isn't what anyone is asking for. In fact, any number of people have now specifically stated that would be unreasonable. However, most or all of those same people are stating that a complete NCU wipe every time to change vp is also unreasonable, irritating, etc., etc.

This isn't either/or here. No sane person thinks FC is going to let agents load up with every OP self-only buff available. But it's also perfectly understandable for, at a minimum, agents to keep their agent buffs and given the history of the profession it's also understandable that they might want to keep some of the long term OSBs as well.

Making it so that agents can't change vp w/out replacing all their agent buffs and all their OSBs is a large playstyle change at low levels and an even larger twinking change. The need/desire to keep OSBs running at lower levels will limit the flexibility of these changes as well. Again, these things aren't automatically bad but it's certainly worth discussing because they will bring large headaches to a profession that has one of the more frustrated player bases.

[Shirayuki]

@Lupus, thanks for responses.

For team conceal buff --- hmm, it really looks weird to have such strange trick to make it semi-single buff.
I wonder why they didn't just make several single targetted ones...

And again, for NCU wipe --- yeah, something must be changed definitely.
The fundamental problem with current proposal is not if there will be a NCU wipe or not,
but the fact that the goal they are, to my understanding, trying to achieve with the trick is *not* achieved at all.

Something must be done, or it will bring a lose-lose result.

[Leetlover]

Is it just me who thinks AO's 'master-assassin' should be fully effective when going undercover?

SP could be a nice additon to the the current FP, but srsly...

[Parranoid1]

Is it just me who thinks AO's 'master-assassin' should be fully effective when going undercover?

Fully effective as a 'master-assassin' or fully effective as the profession they're going under cover as?

[Leetlover]

I like the current FP-design and hope it's enhanced.

The biggiest issue w current proposal is that the agent, the actual profession, loose the FP-system entirely.

EDIT: for Letah, you can't have your cake and eat it too

You're talking about the NCU wipe I think? Balance wise, the dev team was very clear on that one: it's a choice between NCU wipe on VP cancellation, or access to a much smaller toolset of nanos (like we have now).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_S11o3dw80 It's a lot!



This is actually the person btw, I'm just an agent. Kthx =)

[Leetlover]

Post on debuffs:

Now that you have confirmed that this line is a debuff,
don't forget to poke the devs to have the modifier changed to have POSITIVE mods, to make it actually debuffs.

(and also, I'd say this line could have less number of nanos too. I don't think we need 10 steps for this)[/indent]

If we loose the FP-abillity as a highly lethal and deadly DD-class specialising in subterfuge, then debuffs defintly should serve the purpose of us being much more effective killing the opponent, in an agenty way.

Which is what the unique repetoir revolves around.


New debuffs seems to me to adhere to sustained combat (Soldier, MA or summat), not assassination. Therefore, init-debuff and healmodification seems to be more in line with our job. Or have such specifications added to existing hostile nanos, so one nano is more compromizing.

Healmod-debuff in dot, skill-lock in Bullseye, init-debuff in stun.

We already have init-debuff in our toolset and debuffing healmod compliments the posion-theme in the design.




+ 2 more lines will give us 3 debuffs in addition to the dot, root, deroot etc, which is a bit extensive maybe for a non-caster class that will die b4 finishing the cast... xD lolz. They could attempt to make all 3 have shared cooldown so it's not too OP, but makes us adaptive and proficient in circumventing the opponents defence.


Crit-debuff = bad replacement to sureshot as it conflicts with sniping/stealth, is castercombat and require def-checks.

The additional temp-buffs from sureshot is also leet and fun 2 play with.

[Obtena]

Fully effective as a 'master-assassin' or fully effective as the profession they're going under cover as?

That's a good point and relevant to the whole discussion. If the core agent concept and toolset isn't made the MOST effective choice for agents, then little has been achieved for the profession in rebalance. It should be strong enough to stand on it's own as a professional toolset. Any undercover choice should and looks like it does, give some compromise to that core position, with the obvious advantages that comes with the undercover choice. I think that's completely inline with FC's decision to wipe NCU when changing Visual Prof as well as the debuffs on some of the FP's (though I think some of them are much too debilitating).

[Leetlover]

Skill-lock debuff could force skill-recharge and increase it. Combine it w Death's Gaze, so stun+skilllock = 1 cast

Any undercover choice should and looks like it does, give some compromise to that core position, with the obvious advantages that comes with the undercover choice.

Simulates access/conceal, not proficiency. So extended access to the fp-repetoir shouldn't penalize core-function.

Current system corresponds with agent irl too.


PS/
New FP should be renamed 'Corruption' ;p

[Mordo]

There are some questions we should be asking. We have a severe lack of info atm.

1. Is fc touching the skill system? Will IP cost per skills change? Our rifle IP cost makes no sense and never has.

2. I touched on this before, what does fc intend to do with grafts and hacked grafts?

3. Pets. If we get mp, crat and engie pets how will they behave? If we make one and change VP will they die go OE? Can we change VP and buff them and will they obey in another VP besides the one that made them? As is we can make one and it will obey and last until its duration is up.

4. Crat charms will use psychology, will we be able to charm without this skill or locked out from it all together.

5. Nano acquisition. Most mimic nanos now are rollable except a few and a rare improved ones. We are going to need billions to finance the new VPs. The pand garden nano seller npcs are going to make a killing off of us unless some other way is made available. New players are going to cringe.