Monthly Development Update - January 2016 (Getting Rekt)

[Lheann]

Well if we are looking for new grinds for endgame.

Add a new level. Call it Ascended. Takes 1 trillion SK to reach from 220. Allow RK XP to be converted to SK to count towards this.
Reward? 250 million IP. All skill and attribute caps are removed. All SL and AI perks become accessible but current total number of perks allowed in each remains. All research lines procs become available. Profession locks on items, nanos, armor and weapons are ignored. Ascended can only PVP with other Ascended. Add one tower field for Ascended to fight over.

Basically, grind out stupid SK amount and we will let you run around in god mode. PVP with a classless character basically that access to everything and the IP to setup any build they wish.

Of course the idea of grinding out 1 trillion SK is crazy. That is more than an accounts worth of maxed 220's if I did the math right.

Anyway just a random thought.

[Slynn]

Bump these ideas.

Altho with those Mbcrap around, wont be much of a diference in this game anymore.
Neither all those instances and missions. None of it will bring back all those who left.
This game has a serious problem, not only is dated (old graphics, bugs etc) but also has a tiny population in it still.
NW/PvP system stinks and has been ignored all these years on purpose or just becouse there's no driver on the train anymore.

Notum wars needs a full revamp. It's so stupid, so broken, and WAY too susceptible to exploitation, cheating via MB and, in the end it's not even.

I've given it some thought lately, and I realized, playing Dota 2 exactly what the problem with Notum wars is.

When you die in NW, that's it, you're out of the fight for too long.

If AO is ever going to have a balanced PVP venue, they have to remove the one sided benefits that towers provide, and make battlestationesque venues that provide a dynamic bonus that fades rapidly.

For example: make 1 new "battlestation", with different objectives and rules (factional).

All BS's would fulfil the BS daily mission, but anytime one side WINS the battlestation, a 5 hour stackable buff is given to the side which wins.
Each BS provides a different buff depending on which side you win with (buffs only given on a win).

Regular (current) BS could give something like: (stackable up to 3 times) 20 add dmg, 10% XP, 1% crit, 3 base stats, 3 first aid, 3 treatment

The new BS (factional) could give a different type of buff, stackable up to 3 times as well: 20 AAO, 20 AAD, 3 base stats, 3 first aid, 3 treatment, 200 HP/200 Max Nano

Stacks refresh and thus at the end of 3 wins you have your buffs for 5 hours.

Then.. if you wanted to retain some of the organisation benefits...

You make Org benefits scale in accordance with BS wins with a delay so benefits are retained for a period after activity. Each win could provide 10 contract points which are credited to the organisation you belong to when you win in BS, those 10 contract points stay in the Org bank for 7 days. After 7 days, the points expire and are removed.

This way, you have to keep fighting to maintain your benefits, which is exactly what the current notum wars model doesn't do. It also becomes much more casual, putting far less emphasis on having stupid multiboxes to win, while providing a huge boost to activity (you don't need to be max geared to win at BS... you just have to play smart); Also, the more people that join up the faster you accrue contract points - AGAIN, exactly what NW wanted to do but couldn't since it became an elite killfest vs anyone who wasn't max geared.

It emphasizes being in an org, being in an ACTIVE org, and being in an org big enough with enough active members that you can achieve all the org boosts within a week of play.

Just an idiot check:

Imagine 6 guys from one org go to BS and play all day. They get in 10 rounds in a few hours. they win 50% of the rounds, so their org is credited with 5 wins*6 players*10 points = 300 points

they play 7 days in a row, and accomplish the same result: 300points x 7 = 2100 points.

That's exactly the kind of result you *SHOULD* be able to get in notum wars. A group of players works diligently all week and is able to capture enough sites to max out their org contract space. Unfortunately, since MB started ruining NW, that is no longer the case.

[Dysfunction]

I love mcknuckles idea, something that would reward casual play as well as activity for the organization and it's members. Notum wars was enjoyable when we had ~15-30 active players on at any given time.... Now it's just not feasible in my opinion without tons of planning and scheduling.

[doctorgore]

I love mcknuckles idea, something that would reward casual play as well as activity for the organization and it's members. Notum wars was enjoyable when we had ~15-30 active players on at any given time.... Now it's just not feasible in my opinion without tons of planning and scheduling.

This is why we need at least a basic org alliance system and shared chat features. It seems fc plans all these years was to push small orgs into extinction and hope its members would merge into larger ones but the opposite happened and now we have all these tiny orgs with 5-6 people in them and nothing gets done. I figure you could also modify the contract system so contracts would effect more orgs than one so say you get 5 orgs hooked up in some official way the benefits of all of them combined would be shared between the member orgs.

[Footer]

Notum wars needs a full revamp. It's so stupid, so broken, and WAY too susceptible to exploitation, cheating via MB and, in the end it's not even.

I've given it some thought lately, and I realized, playing Dota 2 exactly what the problem with Notum wars is.

When you die in NW, that's it, you're out of the fight for too long.

If AO is ever going to have a balanced PVP venue, they have to remove the one sided benefits that towers provide, and make battlestationesque venues that provide a dynamic bonus that fades rapidly.

For example: make 1 new "battlestation", with different objectives and rules (factional).

All BS's would fulfil the BS daily mission, but anytime one side WINS the battlestation, a 5 hour stackable buff is given to the side which wins.
Each BS provides a different buff depending on which side you win with (buffs only given on a win).

Regular (current) BS could give something like: (stackable up to 3 times) 20 add dmg, 10% XP, 1% crit, 3 base stats, 3 first aid, 3 treatment

The new BS (factional) could give a different type of buff, stackable up to 3 times as well: 20 AAO, 20 AAD, 3 base stats, 3 first aid, 3 treatment, 200 HP/200 Max Nano

Stacks refresh and thus at the end of 3 wins you have your buffs for 5 hours.

Then.. if you wanted to retain some of the organisation benefits...

You make Org benefits scale in accordance with BS wins with a delay so benefits are retained for a period after activity. Each win could provide 10 contract points which are credited to the organisation you belong to when you win in BS, those 10 contract points stay in the Org bank for 7 days. After 7 days, the points expire and are removed.

This way, you have to keep fighting to maintain your benefits, which is exactly what the current notum wars model doesn't do. It also becomes much more casual, putting far less emphasis on having stupid multiboxes to win, while providing a huge boost to activity (you don't need to be max geared to win at BS... you just have to play smart); Also, the more people that join up the faster you accrue contract points - AGAIN, exactly what NW wanted to do but couldn't since it became an elite killfest vs anyone who wasn't max geared.

It emphasizes being in an org, being in an ACTIVE org, and being in an org big enough with enough active members that you can achieve all the org boosts within a week of play.

Just an idiot check:

Imagine 6 guys from one org go to BS and play all day. They get in 10 rounds in a few hours. they win 50% of the rounds, so their org is credited with 5 wins*6 players*10 points = 300 points

they play 7 days in a row, and accomplish the same result: 300points x 7 = 2100 points.

That's exactly the kind of result you *SHOULD* be able to get in notum wars. A group of players works diligently all week and is able to capture enough sites to max out their org contract space. Unfortunately, since MB started ruining NW, that is no longer the case.

I dont like the idea of a stackable buff giving treatment and abilities. I gotta wait for a certain level range of a BS to open, and i gotta win 3 times just so I can twink.
I also dont like the idea of having to constantly earn our contracts/nw benefits. Like we havent earned them already? Meh guess im just oldschool.

I DO like the idea of extra pvp solutions for different benefits, but i'd hate to see it interfere with our old style of pvp gameplay.

[Psikie]

I dont like the idea of a stackable buff giving treatment and abilities. I gotta wait for a certain level range of a BS to open, and i gotta win 3 times just so I can twink.
I also dont like the idea of having to constantly earn our contracts/nw benefits. Like we havent earned them already? Meh guess im just oldschool.

I agree, in fact I will take it one step further. If you want some form of extra buff for pvp, then I would suggest it breaks under the following conditions:

1. any attack vs npc/pvm buffs break UNLESS inside 5% or lower suppression gas. (notum wars towers do have random mobs sometimes)
2. use of treatment clinic machine, or portable clinic.

I cant believe you guys would fall for the rope a dope on this one. 2-3 players MB can make BS run forever and rack up "stackable" buffs just by taking turns on who wins each round. Are you seriously not thinking? This again has nothing to do with MB although I see by throwing that in there people try to drum up support on forums by pretending this is the magical solution to combat MB. Then all the anti MB sheeple just agree because they think its anti mb pffft.

You want some pvp buffs? Then they should break the opposite of combat cans. Combat cans give temp buffs for twinking, but break when in combat. I think pvp buffs should break when trying to twink or pvm. Its only fair ESPECIALLY if you want them to be stackable. Good lord what a crazy bad idea. Then 1 month later people will be QQ because now MB is again benefiting and getting the upper hand.

Heck I would even suggest they over write 12m/HI/IG/alappa buffs if you want them that badly.

[doctorgore]

You could add more buffs to towers than side xp to make towers more attractive.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

You could add more buffs to towers than side xp to make towers more attractive.

It won't fix NW though.

You're partially correct that the incentives to NW aren't attractive enough, but it's only one of several serious issues with it.

Off the top of my head the most serious issues with NW are:

1. timing and duration. Tower sites are open at odd times or good times, so you might or might not be able to participate, if you can participate, the duration is beyond daunting. Sure some college kid who's ready to give up a class or two to win and hold a site might have an advantage, but realistically it's been shown time and time again that any activity that takes longer than about 1.5 hours simply falls off the map. As the population of a game ages, there simply isn't enough time to set aside for long, drawn out encounters. Realistically, a endgame NW run could take 5+ hours including off and defending the freshly placed CT.

2. There are no FC supported systems to get involved. If players don't create 'bots' to investigate the NW timers, it simply becomes a tedious endeavour to be involved.

3. Getting the "critical mass" is often a lesson in futility - especially at odd hours.

4. The system is not complex enough to inhibit MB (i.e. you can log your MB, tab a tower, gank it, move to next), admittedly, GD has made some progress on the PVP aspect, and an MB in the PVP aspect is most certainly less effective than it was a year ago. But clearly, having an MB to force multiply is a serious detriment to balance.

5. The actual tower PVP system isn't FUN. There is a huge amount of logistics involved, organisation and preparations which simply don't contribute to the fun factor - instead, they contribute to the dreary factor. Is NW fun? Yes, for 5 minutes out of 60. Is that good enough? No.


@Piskie, you're too cynical. You need only to think about the situation, and how to improve it than criticize from your armchair of righteous negativity.

If you don't like the state of the game, fine. But you should try to offer improvements.

It's much easier to make complex mechanics in a venue than in a large playfield. For example, anytime you introduce a system where people are required to do different things at the same time to accomplish an objective, you limit the efficacy of a multibox. Sure, that guy can bring in his 6 toons, but he will only be able to accomplish one objective at a time. If a side needs to accomplish 2, 3 or 4 objectives at a time to have a chance at winning, it immediately becomes disadvantageous to bring your box into the venue. At most, you'd bring a box of 2, say, which is fine and doesn't significantly disrupt the flow.

Here's an example.

Lets say you put a 6 man cap on the current BS configuration.
Done.
That's it, now if someone logs a 6 man box and brings it to BS, their side will lose, almost 100% guaranteed. The best thing you can do is park in mid and sit on core, but if you go anywhere, vacate it, someone can jump in, grab a quick cap and you can no longer win.

Here's another example.

Make a new BS called "Notum Channel Security Detail"

The objective is to ensure that the fruits of notum mining are channelled into your factions notum silos.

There are three factions: Clan, Omni, and Unicorn

At the start of the round, Unicorn controls all flow, and there are several intermediate goals which contribute to the final goal. The battlestation is concluded when enough notum has been loaded into the silo to charge the factional notum distributor, at which point the round ends, AND a real world result occurs: Whichever faction wins the round gains a temporary notum distribution bonus (e.g. +10% heal eff, +10% nano damage, -10% nanocost).

The battlestation plays out as follows: The map is a triangle, with black corner, an orange corner and a blue corner. There are seven Notum mining towers, each of which supply a steady rate of notum which must be attached to piping which is located in each factions corner. At the beginning of the round you would likely get a carrier (tanky type) to pull out the pipe. Lets say, any pipe carrier gets a snare put on them that reduces RS by 1500 and also puts them in a state of enforced peace. The tank carries the pipe to the first tower, then someone hooks it up (standard Rclick type thing which can be interrupted). The idea is, that members of your team can go and damage the PIPE of the enemy, causing them to have to go back and run/connect a new one, PVP - which puts the dead in reclaim for a set period (say 15s), or pull out a new pipe and connect to the notum mine.

The unicorn have similar designs, and they will preferentially aggro the faction that has higher notum flow, if each faction is equal, then they will attempt to simply hook up their own to maximize flow.

Pipes could be damaged by ranged profs, but ONLY completely damaged by melee damage, and have say, 250k HP (about 1 minute worth of DD, which would give approximately 4 attempts to kill a solo offender for an alternate faction team). The unicorn are a bit of a wildcard. The unicorn has hired dustbrigade commando mercenaries from the Neretva region of the Xan. These warriers have different skills sets and are a force to be reckoned with. Their distribution is random, but will always have at least one engineer and one commando. They will preferentially aggro players, but also aggro a factions pipes if they have more than one pipe connected.

The AI of the Unicorn would be pretty simple: they could have 3 roaming killers, 1 carry and 2 support. The support defend the pipe carrier, and the roamers hunt the map looking for pipe/player kills.

If the unicorn win (which should be a real possibility if there is too much attention paid to killing clan vs Omni, and not enough attention directed to the AI threat), then is assumed the Unicorn corporation chooses to offload notum to a holding vessel in geosynchronous orbit, and notum availability on Rubi-ka actually becomes slightly less available - and all inhabitants suffer a -5% heal efficiency, -5% nano damage, +5% nanocost.

In this type of BS you have 6 very different objectives:
1. carry the pipe
2. defend the pipe carrier
3. Connect the pipe to the notum mining tower
4. kill pipes to force a re-carry
5. kill players
6. kill unicorns
Anyone multi-boxing would be able to accomplish one or even two of those pretty well, but certainly wouldn't be able to do all 6 reliably enough to win a round.

[Cratertina]

All interesting... My PoV is simple.

PvP needs to be shorter. Towers just do not work for me. Job, GF, Household,... Living normal life basicly means it is very hard to commit 5 hours per day for several days to get towers, and then replanting and protecting...

Even a simple event like taking down a 300 field takes time to gather, time to clear, time to fight and time to slack on CT...1 to 2 hours...

Aint nobody got time for dat. Total rework Needed.



Battlestations right now offer right ammount of time investment, for some good ganking fun. Real nice... But not enough reward...

Idealy you would have a chance of getting more gear through PVP. Maybe winning side should get 2M credits, that would be fun. But even better would be stackable buffs like McK suggested. Can MBoxerz easily get those? Sure... But they can easily get everything else aswell.

Maybe give winning team members additional tower contracts for limited time.

[Wakizaka]

Maybe winning side should get 2M credits, that would be fun.

Ib4 lowby multiboxers turn it into the new ingots.

[doctorgore]

you need motivation, incentive and cooperation between orgs to fix the mess that is towers. I have made some notable suggestions but you really need to start by changing it so towers give more than side xp they should buff everything and the buffs should be OP as hell. You should scroll down under side xp and see side mods and say OMFG. More risk to lose more incentive to gain by getting more involved in towers by doing this. Losing towers should hurt and hurt bad.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

you need motivation, incentive and cooperation between orgs to fix the mess that is towers. I have made some notable suggestions but you really need to start by changing it so towers give more than side xp they should buff everything and the buffs should be OP as hell. You should scroll down under side xp and see side mods and say OMFG. More risk to lose more incentive to gain by getting more involved in towers by doing this. Losing towers should hurt and hurt bad.

No man, you're wrong. Towers already have significant personal modifiers, and they are ALREADY way too big.

The exact problem with tower modifiers is that they represent an non-closable AR evade gap of 300 points at endgame which, for many profs is simply game breaking.

If you take two equally geared advy's and give one a 200-300 site, and the other nothing, the advy with a 300 site can get, quite easily:

a 275 Conductor of ransacking (45 ranged skills)
a 275 Conductor of Presence (90 AAO)
a 275 Conductor of Transfer (90 AAD)
a 275 Conductor of Observation (63 evades/dodge/duck)

Add a 250 light arc benefit +30 pistol skill

And you're at:
75+90 = 165 AR boost
63+90 = 163 evasion boost

Differential = 165+163 = 328 points which can't be overcome by any gear swap.

That's arguably one of the most retarded advantages that you can provide to a faction, because, simply, it can't be overcome by ANY individual.

On the other hand, if you provide buffs for doing content (i.e. Battlestation), then the point is that if you fight a lot, you retain those benefits, and, anyone can get those benefits by doing the content.

Notum wars, is unfair by the sheer mechanics of it.

Consider: in any game, you attempt to build it so there is fairness (note ranked matchmaking, as an very obvious example) - do ubertwinks like to crush medsuit noobs in 100 implants? Hell no, it's boring as hell. twinks want to fight twinks. But lets look at NW. There is NO fairness in NW.

* No mechanics to limit participants
* No mechanics to rapidly join
* No mechanics that equalize the field (in fact they do the exact opposite via vicinity friendly/hostile modifiers)
* Mechanics of NW dictate that in order to take a site there must be a CLEAR winner of the PVP (once the defenders are summarily dispatched, PVT can ensue)
* NW, actually, don't even require PVP. If a blitz is successful, a site can drop before a defender shows up

All of these things go 100% against the grain of what every other game tries to achieve in balance.

Every OTHER game, attempts to balance the field, by setting up equally ranked participants such that EITHER SIDE has a 50% chance of winning. That is good balance. Notum wars, on the other hand, limited by mechanics, enforces a rout, a crush, and awards those victors on how cruelly extinguished they dispatched their opponents.

So, in summary, notum wars is unfair, and unbalanced by mechanics; enforces and entrenches the victor, and NEVER, EVER provides either side a 50% chance at success.

[Alves]

- Real PvP is dead in AO... BS is only Fullcap Action - how fast can i do my BS Dialy's...
- Nobody cares Towers (only a few People) - Sidexp are crap (Baton/XP Perks are better)... We got to much Towerfields for a small playerbase (it gives more than 20-30 Placeholder Orgs.)
The Towerfields are only good for twinking - We got more an more overpowered stuff like Awakend ArmorItems...
No one have fun to defend Towers or attacking... they dont want to waste the time for that...
- All Professions are totally unbalanced - e.g. Soldier against NT (could write many other things there...)

PvP in AO: How fast can a player alpha another Player - Alpha Online is Born... It's really sad, that other MMO's got better PvP Systems like Anarchy Online... I like that from Elder Scrolls Online - each Prof. can have the same Abilities and have the same Chance to kill another Prof... and they got a big PvP Zone to cap Outposts and all of the Side get a Bonus not only a Org like in Anarchy Online...

And AO got to much Multiboxer - Multibox Online You can see them on the Battlestation, at Gauntlet, at Towerfights... It's another reason to cancel AO...
They do all PvM and PvP Things alone... For what does MMO stand for Funcom? Do something against all Multiboxer (PvP and PvM)...

[Psikie]

@Piskie, you're too cynical. You need only to think about the situation, and how to improve it than criticize from your armchair of righteous negativity.

If you don't like the state of the game, fine. But you should try to offer improvements.

The situation is, the game is out of balance because of massive power creep. So sorry if I think its a horrible idea to introduce a FARMABLE power creep.

Idealy you would have a chance of getting more gear through PVP.

That would be called the ofab shop.

Differential = 165+163 = 328 points which can't be overcome by any gear swap.

That's arguably one of the most retarded advantages that you can provide to a faction, because, simply, it can't be overcome by ANY individual.

<snip>

So, in summary, notum wars is unfair, and unbalanced by mechanics; enforces and entrenches the victor, and NEVER, EVER provides either side a 50% chance at success.

So exactly how does farmable buffs differ from your own paragraph??? Thats EXACTLY what you are suggesting!!! Entrenching the victor of BS rounds with a stacking buff that gets bigger and better that no one will be able to overcome. Seriously? The advy with ql300 towers gets blackmanes stat buffer from pvp. SMH

- Real PvP is dead in AO... BS is only Fullcap Action - how fast can i do my BS Dialy's...

[b]PvP in AO: How fast can a player alpha another Player - Alpha Online is Born...

Check and mate.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

The situation is, the game is out of balance because of massive power creep. So sorry if I think its a horrible idea to introduce a FARMABLE power creep.

Which is different from awakening, Eye of predator how.... ?

The difference should be obvious... but I'll enlighten you since you seem to be struggling here.

The difference between winning a tower site 6 months ago and retaining the benefits, and winning a BS round for which you retain a buff for 5 hours is simply that you:

1. have to keep winning BS rounds every 5 hours to maintain that benefit
2. winning a BS round MAY BE accomplishing using OBJECTIVE game play, NOT PVP

I'm not sure what is so hard to understand about that... but I'll try to put it in perspective.

Lets say a new person rolls a new toon. Levels to 150, has a set of QL 200 implants, and enough NCU to get GSF and RRFE. He goes to a tower site. Gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. Comes back, gets killed. ad infinitum

Now, he's really tired of this mess called tower wars, to him, it just seems stupid. So in the alternate universe, where FC is able to dedicate some time to improving PVP, and a couple new BS's come out... dude signs up and tries his luck.

He is on the losing side, but each time he learns something new:
1. if he's in a team he might survive an encounter with prof X
2. if he achieves an objective he can help his side win, even though he's not yet a competitive PVPer
3. he can get a piece of armor which helps him in some way
4. he can buy some buff which helps his team mates and in some way contributes to an objective
5. after X losses, he wins and now gets a buff

No matter how ineffective you are at PVP, there's a chance that eventually you can eventually beat the odds on objectives and accomplish a victory.

That's not bad design, that's GOOD design. But no matter how many times you throw yourself at an equal level CT, there are basically no chances of victory unless someone comes to help - but you've got the odds stacked against you every step of the way. It's easier for a defender to come defend, the CT will crush you 1 v 1, there are no systems or built in mechanics which enable a guy to sign up or participate in NW, nor are there funnels which move active participants into a hot site where they can directly help the original guy. Like, I hate to say it, but NW mechanics are a half baked idea. They got about 1/3 of the way to a decent PVP venue with it, then decided to patch it to live and we've had to live with the stupid crock of faction imbalance ever since.

[Saetos]

Towers aren't unattractive because the "benefits aren't big enough" - I don't know how many times people have to say this before people get it through their minds, but PVP in Anarchy Online has been a complete mess for thirteen years.

It was somewhat OK in the beginning of Shadowlands and to a lesser extent Alien Invasion for the higher title-levels when not a lot of big weapons and equipment were out (and AI armor was still stupidly rare), but even back then people had figured out how to turn the first three title levels into a complete joke, with the advent of Trader/Enforcer/NR1 Agent twinks. Skill only came into play when two equally-equipped combatants found each other - otherwise it was whomever had the biggest NCU, the best outside buffs, and whomever could push damage the fastest.

And now that AI armor isn't objectively rare anymore and now that we've let things like tower buffs and perks and research and raid buffs and alpha symbs and all this other unwearable nonsense "equipment" stack ever higher... add in a tremendous amount of time where game developers were being shuffled around the company like a deck of playing cards, and then the utterly baffling, unnecessary, and broken idea that was keybinds, and I'm still just sitting here, a year after I stopped playing the game for good, aghast at the argument over minutiae of a system of combat in a fifteen-year-old game that, at this point, is beyond repair.

The game's leveling and skill system was and still is cool, but it was fragile - introduce too much overskilling and it would fall apart. It started to happen with SL, it happened with AI, and then LE came along and tore everything to pieces. Real skill amounts are double to triple IP'd skill, and then add AAO and AAD on top of that and the whole concept of the skill system is completely unrecognizable. PVM is too easy, PVP is broken. The game is broken.

[Lheann]

PVP in Anarchy Online has been a complete mess for thirteen years.

So very true. I can point to the specific first change to PVP that has sent us down the road we are on now. The day they decided that PVP was not 100% damage. That day they decided to do something that would forever haunt AO and make it so that balance in PVP and PVM would never be obtained. If you can find the Gaute posting about it you will even see that they were aware that keeping both viable would take some effort.

First they made it so PVP damage was 50% for basic attacks and specials. Since then as power has creeped up they have pulled it further it back. Meanwhile PVM has slowly become a joke. Looking back in hindsight at changes like the OE rules it is clear that they should have just introduced scaling into the system then. Really it should have been % of req = % of benefit not exceeding 100%. This would have helped with power creep a tad bit as it would made twinking much more challenging and some current gear setups would just not be possible.

Overall I think the 12.x series of changes made some of the worst choices for the long term. I mean can we say 12.6? Can we say 50% of AO population quit after one of the 12.x patches? OE rules that were stepped versus scaling, 100% to 50% damage change, max range of any weapon can't exceed 40m. At some point not sure when the caps on specials got raised from 10K to 15K which marked one of the biggest damage buffs across all professions in both PVP and PVM. AO is haunted with decision from a time when FC still had AO on the four year plan. A time when FC was not thinking about the long road that AO has taken.

I saw a post that said for true balance that we need to reset several things like def check an such on perks to 100% vs 100%. I think we should go further. I think the game should be balanced for 100% weapon damage in PVP. This has an effect of stopping the team from adding stupid overpowered weapons. Yes I know it means revamping every mob and item in the game. Not going to happen I know but sometimes I wish I could go back and stop some of the changes in 12.x and set the path differently.

[Footer]

You want to double the damage in pvp? That's ridiculous, do you know how that will work? Everybody will roll agents enfs nts etc and just alpha everybody. Squishy profs won't stand a chance. Terrible idea. It works fine how it is.
Maybe I'm the minority, but I say LEAVE NW HOW IT IS.
This is what makes ao unique. It may not be like every other game, but that's the point!! Some of us actually like it how it is. So yeah it's a bit annoying having your site hot for 6 hours. But that's the suspense of it. People still fight for towers for the benefits and contracts. To me it works quite nicely. The point of fighting for a tl7 site is so that advy CAN get an extra 300pt advantage.
As for that being unfair? How? This is what orgs are for. What factions are for. That advy owning your advy? Rally up your org and take his towers. This is the whole point of NW like seriously why are people complaining.
Don't turn this into an mb thread, if your org doesn't have enough people, find a new org.
Like I said I like parts of McKnuckleSamwich's idea. But leave NW alone. It works how it's intended, it is fun and it's what keeps a lot of people playing AO.

[Ophiuchus]

Well, today's patch brings The Reck. Also apparently the /follow on mobs fix. Also an updated default map and (what I assume to be) a stripped down version of the new post-18.7 RK map from Saavick. Seems like a good patch.

[Alves]

You want to double the damage in pvp? That's ridiculous, do you know how that will work? Everybody will roll agents enfs nts etc and just alpha everybody. Squishy profs won't stand a chance. Terrible idea. It works fine how it is.
Maybe I'm the minority, but I say LEAVE NW HOW IT IS.
This is what makes ao unique. It may not be like every other game, but that's the point!! Some of us actually like it how it is. So yeah it's a bit annoying having your site hot for 6 hours. But that's the suspense of it. People still fight for towers for the benefits and contracts. To me it works quite nicely. The point of fighting for a tl7 site is so that advy CAN get an extra 300pt advantage.
As for that being unfair? How? This is what orgs are for. What factions are for. That advy owning your advy? Rally up your org and take his towers. This is the whole point of NW like seriously why are people complaining.
Don't turn this into an mb thread, if your org doesn't have enough people, find a new org.
Like I said I like parts of McKnuckleSamwich's idea. But leave NW alone. It works how it's intended, it is fun and it's what keeps a lot of people playing AO.

We need changes in the Game - How many People doing real PvP nowadays? 20% of all Players?! You can count the Players on one hand who makes Duells in the game... I think 80-90% of each Battlestation Round are fullcaps... 20-30% are interessted in Towers and their Boni - 70-80% give a fu.. of it... And the balancing in AO is now one of the worst in the Gaming World... AO dont have many real PvPler at the Moment... All things sucks at the Moment (Multiboxer, Exploit Using (with AOHM.exe), Unbalanced System, to less PvP interessted People,...).

It's time to wake up!...