What about nerfing professions insted of adding new stuff to items/toolsets evrytime?

[Le-Quack]

What about nerfing professions insted of giving love to items/toolsets evrytime?

What i want with this is that maybe the dev's can start to think about nerfing specefic professions and items insted of boosting a profession here and there becose that will never ever make this game balanced.
And by nerfing just dont go hammer down here and there, try to actualy get a understanding how each profession will suffer if you take away to much and how it will affect the profession vs the other professions, i belive with true effort into a big nerf patch it would problabe give a more posetive effect to balanceing the game than keep adding new tools now and then to items/toolsets.


The devs should try be more into this game, if they were a little active they would seen why there is certain threads since the last balance that never died out, and it still hasnt been done a single thing to fix those issues.
It wouldnt hurt the company if you could try to care what the few paying subscribers has to say insted of looseing us becose you simply dont see the issue about what we try bring out to you in certain threads.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Make all perks check 100%.

you'll get way closer to balanced than we've had in a long time.

[Saetos]

Make all perks check 100%.

you'll get way closer to balanced than we've had in a long time.

Not good enough. The perk system itself needs a complete, total overhaul, and the concept of attack vs. defense on perk attacks and weapon attacks, coupled with the tremendous amount of AAO and AAD present in the game, needs another look as well, because combat in the game has been farcical for years.

Once keybinds were implemented the jig was up. You cannot develop a PVP system, using passive and active defenses, with any sort of credibility when multiple actions can be simultaneously activated with one button press, as it completely nullifies the point of active defense and makes entire contests based around attack rating vs. evades, which thus favors a constant horse-race between Attack Rating and check percentages + AAD, as perk checks are a yes-or-no hard-check deal each and every time.

This whole argument was what frustrated me back when I was still playing, Arete and ICC were getting figured out, and people were mulling over the Keeper/Trader/MA/Agent overhauls and wondering where the balance favored at that point. Traders especially were feeling the brunt of it, as our capability to lower Attack Rating (remember my mention of Attack Rating vs. Evades) was cut to about a fourth of our original ability - which, intrinsically, is fine, but not in how this game handles combat - and so we had several people suggest we just nick Acrobat, or Careful in Battle, or all sorts of other changes. But that only aggravates the problem further. We're just going to add more blocks to this stupid Jenga tower we've had going here ever since Shadowlands came out almost fifteen years ago. Nothing matters but perks and specials, and if you have something passive that allows you to absorb or negate what could come your way (evades, reflects, heals, stuns). This game is horrendously flawed, and it would basically take rewriting fifteen years of code and effort to make it anywhere north of workable again, because it's a complete mess.

[Eedesti]

I wouldn't mind if the devs rolled out smaller balance patches more often to test what impact a change might have: Try one thing, if that was too much, nerf it a bit and see how it goes, and vice versa.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Not good enough. The perk system itself needs a complete, total overhaul, and the concept of attack vs. defense on perk attacks and weapon attacks, coupled with the tremendous amount of AAO and AAD present in the game, needs another look as well, because combat in the game has been farcical for years.

Once keybinds were implemented the jig was up. You cannot develop a PVP system, using passive and active defenses, with any sort of credibility when multiple actions can be simultaneously activated with one button press, as it completely nullifies the point of active defense and makes entire contests based around attack rating vs. evades, which thus favors a constant horse-race between Attack Rating and check percentages + AAD, as perk checks are a yes-or-no hard-check deal each and every time.

This whole argument was what frustrated me back when I was still playing, Arete and ICC were getting figured out, and people were mulling over the Keeper/Trader/MA/Agent overhauls and wondering where the balance favored at that point. Traders especially were feeling the brunt of it, as our capability to lower Attack Rating (remember my mention of Attack Rating vs. Evades) was cut to about a fourth of our original ability - which, intrinsically, is fine, but not in how this game handles combat - and so we had several people suggest we just nick Acrobat, or Careful in Battle, or all sorts of other changes. But that only aggravates the problem further. We're just going to add more blocks to this stupid Jenga tower we've had going here ever since Shadowlands came out almost fifteen years ago. Nothing matters but perks and specials, and if you have something passive that allows you to absorb or negate what could come your way (evades, reflects, heals, stuns). This game is horrendously flawed, and it would basically take rewriting fifteen years of code and effort to make it anywhere north of workable again, because it's a complete mess.

lots of QQ but no suggestions.

What do you think needs to be done?

[Saetos]

lots of QQ but no suggestions.

What do you think needs to be done?

Not being a game dev this question shouldn't be answered by me. But as you want my opinion:

1) All perks must be considered actions; i.e. they must prevent a new one from being queued before they finish activation.
2) Completely remove all perk attacks from AI Champion lines.
3) In tandem with #2... completely redesign the way perks actually function, as far as their role in combat. As said in your own thread by someone else, perk attacks tend to be rather piddly in PVM (2-4K, scaled, every 30-60 seconds is laughable) but extreme in PVP. Allow Shades and Agents to retain a unique identity of holding a good, but not massive, variety of perk attacks (maybe only tone down moderately Shade perk damage, but keep them the kings) but redesign almost all other perk attacks to be weapon buffs, procs (100% chance if desired) or just removed. As an example: make Concussive Shot deal no damage but, for the next 3-5 seconds, provide a 100% chance to proc a short stun. The goal of this is to make weapons the primary damage source for PVP as well as PVM, especially for weapon-based classes.
4) Remove AAO and AAD from AI armor. Reduce the influence of AAO and AAD modifiers on all other equipment in the game, including from perks, research, procs, towers (passively, outside of tower fields) and contracts.
5) Remove hard checks from perk attacks. Perks should be able to land, though with a diminished chance, on high evade targets.
6) With this new emphasis on weapons, more variety needs to be implemented for almost all weapon types across almost all title-levels.

You asked.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Some of your idesa are pretty good, and several mirror what I and others have said, but some I don't think are really valid. Like removing AAO/AAD... I kinda doubt that will happen, it's just too big of a task, when there has been clear gear progression and those stats are important aspects of that progression, so it would be hard to remove without upsetting the natural gear progression system.

[Soju]

Not good enough. The perk system itself needs a complete, total overhaul, and the concept of attack vs. defense on perk attacks and weapon attacks, coupled with the tremendous amount of AAO and AAD present in the game, needs another look as well, because combat in the game has been farcical for years.

Once keybinds were implemented the jig was up. You cannot develop a PVP system, using passive and active defenses, with any sort of credibility when multiple actions can be simultaneously activated with one button press, as it completely nullifies the point of active defense and makes entire contests based around attack rating vs. evades, which thus favors a constant horse-race between Attack Rating and check percentages + AAD, as perk checks are a yes-or-no hard-check deal each and every time.

This whole argument was what frustrated me back when I was still playing, Arete and ICC were getting figured out, and people were mulling over the Keeper/Trader/MA/Agent overhauls and wondering where the balance favored at that point. Traders especially were feeling the brunt of it, as our capability to lower Attack Rating (remember my mention of Attack Rating vs. Evades) was cut to about a fourth of our original ability - which, intrinsically, is fine, but not in how this game handles combat - and so we had several people suggest we just nick Acrobat, or Careful in Battle, or all sorts of other changes. But that only aggravates the problem further. We're just going to add more blocks to this stupid Jenga tower we've had going here ever since Shadowlands came out almost fifteen years ago. Nothing matters but perks and specials, and if you have something passive that allows you to absorb or negate what could come your way (evades, reflects, heals, stuns). This game is horrendously flawed, and it would basically take rewriting fifteen years of code and effort to make it anywhere north of workable again, because it's a complete mess.

how do i 'like' this post?

[Honorbound]

Apparently all replies failed to pay attention to the OP and instantly started arguing about specifics, instead of reflecting on the essence of the suggestion, which is to avoid any further power creep by not boosting the "weak" elements, but weakening the "strong" elements.

While I don't play many MMOs, it seems to me that the "boost what's weak" approach is the norm, which has a serious negative side effect: it makes old "content" (in a broader sense of the word) obsolete by adding a stronger version of what was considered to be too weak... and then adding a stronger version of what now becomes too weak compared to these freshly boosted elements... and again, and again...

One exception being EVE, where, for a while now, they are not afraid to weaken what they think being too strong instead of just rolling out a fresh set of "better" stuff every time to replace/compensate for said weakness. This doesn't make them popular among those who were taking advantage of whatever was overpowered before the latest round of balance (nerf) pass, as they have lost their "easy mode" due to the changes, but as a whole, it keeps the game a whole lot healthier in terms of old vs. new "content", and things which are around since the start still have their roles and uses in spite of numerous additions and expansions to game systems and items, as opposed to AO, which is full of dead items, areas and gameplay mechanisms that fell victim to the "balance by adding better stuff" approach.

[nanoforcer]

Somebody else will have to comment on the powercreep issue, but this is what i though about to make ppl with weaker ar count a bit more:

To combat this whole perk-or-die situation i got 2 suggestions.

1) in scenario where the attacker has 10 total attack rating and the victim has 100 total defence the perk could do 10% of the total damage, and have this scale from 1% to 100%
This would enable even weak ar toon like docs / mp's / etc to hurt high def profs like fixes and so on, less with dof & limber up and a little more when defs are down but clearly never 100%, that way everybody plays a small role in taking down a toon that would otherwise only be hurt with AS/nukes and so on.

(this assumes that the system today works close to a 1:1 ex, 100 ar needed to get thru <=99 def and so on.)

OR

2)Make perk check def twice, once when you hit the perk the button and once when it lands, if the other player managed to get off their defences before check two it would work like it does today, they evade the perk and the attacker gets their perk locked out as usual.

[Saetos]

Apparently all replies failed to pay attention to the OP and instantly started arguing about specifics, instead of reflecting on the essence of the suggestion, which is to avoid any further power creep by not boosting the "weak" elements, but weakening the "strong" elements.

While I don't play many MMOs, it seems to me that the "boost what's weak" approach is the norm, which has a serious negative side effect: it makes old "content" (in a broader sense of the word) obsolete by adding a stronger version of what was considered to be too weak... and then adding a stronger version of what now becomes too weak compared to these freshly boosted elements... and again, and again...

This isn't limited to MMOs by any stretch. This is prevalent in trading card games as well. There are two ways to go about it in card games:

1) Make everything equal throughout the game's lifetime. This is usually seen as a bad idea, as it necessitates generating a ton of new mechanics or wrinkles into the game's rules, and you continuously run the risk of basically just printing extra copies of already existing cards, which doesn't help sales because why would you buy more of a card than you really need?

2) Make ever stronger cards as the game's lifetime progresses. The biggest upside to this, again, is sales; you can entice people by creating cards to counter pre-existing strategies, that in turn get cards created to counter them, and so on and so on. This does have the drawback of making older cards obsolete, but when you look at Magic: The Gathering and its over 20-year history when Legendary creatures used to be somewhat high-costing 5/7 vanillas instead of something like Progenitus (and he's not even the best by a long shot nowadays), it certainly can work.

Back to MMOs; what's going to keep people coming in to any enduring game is new content, and in a competitive/multiplayer environment that's usually to get something new that'll best older strategies or metas. It's an inevitable part of game development and not something that should necessarily be stymied to a big degree, though there's no reason it can't be curated somewhat by making sure you don't just shovel in new ideas all over the place until the game loses all sense of balance.

I imagine your original statement had something to do with my little essay above and I agree, it did derail the topic quite a bit. However it's put forth from the idea that tweaking something here and reducing something there and adding more here isn't enough. We're trying to fix a leaky boat by sitting on the holes, but with each new hole that's been created we run to it and try to cover that one up too, ignoring the fact that this ship is weakening by the month and by the year. We need to fix the problem at the source now before the whole thing sinks.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

We're trying to fix a leaky boat by sitting on the holes, but with each new hole that's been created we run to it and try to cover that one up too, ignoring the fact that this ship is weakening by the month and by the year. We need to fix the problem at the source now before the whole thing sinks.

And that's exactly what my thread and this thread is about. Replace the leaky boat with a no frills, no gimmicks, no holes design base. Everyone knows it's the perk balance that elevates profs to "FOTM" As I showed with Advy, enforcer and agent in the recent years and also notably from a defensive perspective, Fixers.

But, from what I can see, there are at least one of three global changes needed, which others in the conversation have contributed to significantly:

1. perks land all the time and partial damage mitigation is applied if check stat exceeds check criteria

2. all perks returned to 100% check (which gives us our baseline, and from there each prof can be adjusted slightly)

3. if a Boolean logic is used on perks (land/didn't land), then perk queues need to be eliminated OR the check occurs on execution, not queue


I don't think there's any getting around it, but these are by far and away the real determinants on whether AO continues to be a fun game built on robust mechanics, or just slowly degrades into obscurity due to poor mechanics.

[Raggy]

Just check defences on perk execution, not activation. It really is as simple as that.

[drainbamage]

I don't think there's any getting around it, but these are by far and away the real determinants on whether AO continues to be a fun game built on robust mechanics, or just slowly degrades into obscurity due to poor mechanics.

While your heart is in the right place, the problem is that AO has never been built on robust mechanics. It's a poorly scaling cluster**** and has always been one. As soon as numbers began to move outside the range of the original design it started breaking in mysterious and wonderful ways.

How many other games have you played where PVP damage has to be both halved and capped just to keep things somewhat sane?

[McKnuckleSamwich]

While your heart is in the right place, the problem is that AO has never been built on robust mechanics. It's a poorly scaling cluster**** and has always been one. As soon as numbers began to move outside the range of the original design it started breaking in mysterious and wonderful ways.

How many other games have you played where PVP damage has to be both halved and capped just to keep things somewhat sane?

none

I agree, but I refuse to give in and say "lets just accept AO for what it is" I mean, we the players understand more clearly than anyone else exactly what works and what doesn't. So it's up to us to provide clear feedback on what is most broken.

If you think there is something else that is more broken that needs addressing, I'll be more than happy to listen and provide my experience as relating to your grief.

But don't simply roll over and say "it's a custer****" and leave it at that... !!!

[drainbamage]

none

I agree, but I refuse to give in and say "lets just accept AO for what it is" I mean, we the players understand more clearly than anyone else exactly what works and what doesn't. So it's up to us to provide clear feedback on what is most broken.

If you think there is something else that is more broken that needs addressing, I'll be more than happy to listen and provide my experience as relating to your grief.

But don't simply roll over and say "it's a custer****" and leave it at that... !!!

Eh, don't mind me, I'm just being cynical and jaded. Your suggestions are fine, I just wish FC cared enough to do something big and bold, and not simply cure the worst symptoms.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Eh, don't mind me, I'm just being cynical and jaded. Your suggestions are fine, I just wish FC cared enough to do something big and bold, and not simply cure the worst symptoms.

To be perfectly honest, I'm very, very happy with what Michi has accomplished in the last few years.

I think he messed up agents, no question. But making one mistake among several good changes isn't a good enough reason for me to start abandoning hope or calling him out.

Better, I'd just like to simply keep providing constructive feedback, and defendable suggestions. I don't think for a second that putting every perk check at 100% is the be all, end all to AO's problems.... but I think it's a highly effective method to establish a baseline, from which better balance can be achieved.

[Avari]

Power creep is a problem in a lot of games. One of the major cross roads in AO was the introduction of combined armor. For some reason the developers only thought people would get 1-2 pieces and not full sets when they considered the balance aspect. I think it was Sillirion or Means who mentioned this in a post years ago. I wish they'd had the courage to reduce the stats when they realised this.

After combined armor they went overboard on bracers/HUDS/utils imo and the rest is history. Scaling back certain items and tools would be beneficial I think.