Soloing and Cooperation

[___________MrTeatime]

Excellent ideas, I especially like the boss mob spawn when a group is tearing apart a particular hunting ground.

As a crat I can solo just fine, but I'm only level 92 right now so I may hit a wall or something when I turn 100. Maybe someone at FC could take the time to play several level 120-150 chars to see what the fuzz is all about?

I love the ability to solo, it's my choice and I don't have to stay ingame for long periods forming a team etc. I can log on, play, and log off when I want. There are some problems with soloing at higher levels though, the biggest are these:

Missions are too large/timeconsuming
If I want to do a mission now, with a difficulty setting that will be challenging and rewarding (70%) I have to spend at least one hour inside the dungeon, and that's on a good day. Most missions takes two or more hours to complete, even if the mobs aren't that hard to kill. It would be great if something could be done to lower the size of missions or the time it took to kill everything inside.

Lack of non-mission things to do
Well, mostly speaks for itself, but when I play solo the only thing that is worth doing is missions. Good rewards + nice xp is too tempting compared to a large spawn with slow xp and a big risk of dying. The upgraded loot on mobs helped, but as they also improved inside missions it kinda cancelled itself out. Exploring is only fun to a degree, and since I'm a crat I have to tradeskills to speak of. The only thing I've found to be interesting these days is charming NPCs and entertaining newbies with /pet social

Anyway, all your suggestions are good ones, so please do everything as soon as possible.

[__________JohnMclain]

"Do the professions with an adequate number of hit-points to "tank" (survive with monsters bashing them) have enough ways to keep the monsters focused on them? (As in viable "Aggression Enhancers" and Nano Programs?) Are you able to do your job?"

One of the problems here is players don't get any kind of feedback when using Aggro Enhancers. They don't really know if they're working very well, and early on the tanks do enough lots of damage so its not hard to keep it off the doc or whatever. By the time they get their first taunt, it works, and Aggro Enhancers are forgotten forever. The other thing is, teams hunt many levels over them. I remember you guys saying that you can't expect a L10 enhancer to work on a L30 mob for a L30 character. Unfortunately that character is fighting L45 mobs when in a team. Give the players a feedback message that tells them in some relative way if the thing is worth using or even working.



"Do the professions that heal (Doctors, Martial Artists and Adventurers) have any use / purpose in the team? Do you really need a healer when the monsters drop in 5-10 seconds?"

This is only true in the hard camped areas. If you have 35 people at mort Cyborg Factory then no, a doctor really isn't as good as another damage dealer. If you are in missions or hunting "in the open" then healing is invaluable. You can instantly raise the difficulty of the mobs you hunt by 5-10 levels.



"A natural follow up question here is: Should we increase the unpredictability of monster spawns so that they are more "surprising", and different - so that more healers are needed. (More on this later.)"

YES! - Example that already exists in the game - when hunting in the VW, there are a lot of NPCs + a randomly spawned wolf. The wolf can often mean death for a group without crowd control, however a well equipped group with a doc in their 40s can take out a wolf (I've had sever groups capable). Some of those wolves are maybe L70ish it seems? (It's so hard to tell, and the lvl tools are so meaningless compared to when you might "need" them)



"Do the "crowd control" (the ability to temporally suspend monsters from battle by "freezing" them, "slowing" them down, or totally "wiping" their mind) professions have any use? Do you need a Bureaucrat, Agent, Fixer or Trader to keep monsters at bay?"

These are the least useful professions right now (well traders get green shotgun which at least gives them massive crits). One of the biggest problems for these professions is that roots/snares break after a shot or two, and its nearly impossible to coordinate in a timely manner with your group. My roommates NT still constantly breaks his own mez because he can't stop shooting it in time with fast firing pistols. My own Bureaucrat carries a ql1 westinghouse for its 8s attack time which gives me lots of time to cancel an attack before i break a mez on accident. Is this how you feel we should have to play? (My roommate also now carries a westinghouse when he teams)

There is another big issue here - roots and snares suck for crowd control compared to mez. There is rarely a situation where root or snare is more useful than mez. This is a direct result of roots and snares breaking faster than you can cast them. Since mez wipes the hate list, whoever is running away from the mob is even better server by you "mezzing" it and letting it aggro the next man who hits it than by a "snare". My Bureaucrat hasn't even uploaded a root or snare in 30 levels because of this. These nano lines are simply overnerfed. Why should I waste creds? Oh yah - roots would be next to useless in missions anyways thanks to the small rooms.



A question to those of you venturing into static dungeons: is there any difference here?

As someone who's played in all 3 dungeons, the answer is, it depends. Healing is definately needed. Crowd control definately helps although that requires an experienced group and a non camped dungeon. The steps is an example of where it doesnt matter because usually 3 teams camped on neleb anyways. The Biotech Facility and Cyborg Dungeons are good examples because you can get pulls of so many. However in both of those dungeons the attackers are ranged... root/snare is useless, so its only mez that helps.



Do enough professions have crowd control capabilities? Which do you lack? Suggestions?

Actually I'd say that depends on which ability. Three professions have mez (NT, Trader, Crat) but since its the only real crowd control necessary you cheapen the Crat each time you give it to someone else. Also... consider giving the Crat another AoE mez before he hits level 100ish - until then they're no better at crowd control than an NT. Charms are also an issue... you can't charm anything in a group except when you first upload it, within a level or two your hunting stuff too high to be charmed. The Trader charm is also useless. I'm not sure how to make it better without having the trader totally obviate a Bureaucrat (since they get area effect roots also, which is the distant 2nd best crowd control ability)




"Does support people have any real use? I have noticed many players on low levels having an inadequate number of NCUs to really take advantage of the beneficial nano programs ("buffs")."

Nope. All the best buffs come from the "uber" professions anyways. Essence from enforcers, humidity, evades, layered protection from NTs, crit & ac from MAs (who are uber till about 100). Your support roles, supposedly Traders, Fixers, Agents, Adventurers, Bureacrats, Engineers, MPs have on average, less desireable buffs. Traders have nothing... Fixers have run buffs which negate damage so are almost always cancelled except by nano users + don't stack with other evade buffs... Agents have any buff in game none of their own that are any good... Bureaucrats & Engineers now have the area buffs which usually you are asked to cancel because of spam (which should also tell you how good they are, but I know, it's only 1 ncu).

Basically what it comes down to is, a group will almost always be better off adding another soldier-doc-enf-NT than it will be adding a "support" class that doesn't add much.




"Do you meet monsters that require skill and tactics to fight other than in the static dungeons?"

Not really - most of the places that did in clan territory have had their spawn rates significantly reduced. Places like the Temple, OT camps in VW... right now all there is to hunt in these areas are the Borgs in Avalon & the Borgs in Mort. People get real sick of hunting borgs. I never understood why mobs didn't patrol in packs of 2 and 3.



"Would you like us to add them, or would that seem like we are reducing your capabilities to solo?"

Let some areas be for solo'ing, and some be for not. While I'm on that topic... how in the world does it make sense for solo missions to have 3 mobs in the first room Team missions should have 3 in every room.. but solo? This is the biggest problem with solo'ing in missions right now anyways, once you take away balance issues.



"Imagine going to the mines in Mutant Domains or Lush Fields to fight monsters. Suddenly, larger and tougher monsters spawn among its fellow "cannonfodder" friends. It would have more hit-points, higher damage output, and a higher chance of unique item-drops (Loot). Would that be fun, or a pain in the ...?"

Yes, this would be great. Can we get more places to hunt like this though? Right now there are only a couple such areas for any given level of char, where there should be 5-6 in each playfield. Also how much more difficult are you talking? Like Mr. Neleb I have 10 million hp or say a l70 mob in in a string of l60 spawns.



Do you have enough time for socialisation?

Yes. When getting team together.



"In some other MMORPGs there is a much higher "down-time" factor. (Down-time, the time you wait before you can fight again after last battle.) You can sit for several minutes just gazing at your spellbook or such. The only thing you can do in that period is chat with your team or friends. Do you miss this? Is AO too hectic, too fast-paced? Remember the downtime is very much created for your ability to play solo, so in a team - you are a non-stop-fighting-machine. (Pardon the pun )"

Gah. The most fun I've had in AO is when I'm a non stop fighting machine. Part of the problem is there are too few areas where you can do this any more. I have plenty of time to bs with my group when we spend 20 minutes forming and traveling to hunting grounds



"Does the GUI support you in your effort?"

If the game survives long enough to create an expansion, consider totally revising the GUI. Esp in the areas of Nanos, Trade skills and chat. If a doctor relies on the GUI to heal his tank, the team is in trouble. Sure it's accurate 9 of 10 times, but then once it isnt and someone dies and it wipes out the other 9 worth of xp. Highly populated areas are worse than missions and isolated hunting grounds.



"Is the Map GUI with your team members listed, the team GUI with health and nano enough for you to cooperate? Any good suggestions here?"

Give each teammate a color. When he goes off your perception range, mark the edge of the map with a small line or arrow denoting which direction we'd have to go to find him.



"I wouldn't dream of changing the rules in such a way that you would be less effective in what you do, or "nerfing" your abilities. What I could consider would be to make life less predictable, and in turn more rewarding. In addition there should be new ways of fighting so that tactical abilities and cooperation are more frequently needed. Examples:

Give more professions the ability to "crowd control" to some degree. (Adventures getting lower-aggro range nanos i.e.)

Make more interesting monster camps.

Check for a quick death-respawn cycle. If so you increase the chance of a "boss monster" to spawn.

They will have higher level, more hit-points, and an increased chance of dropping unique loot.

We could do this from monster level 50 and up i.e.

Give monsters a more complex AI when you meet them with a team. Let them pick dangerous opponents, basically be "nastier", more challenging... (More fun?)

Go through each profession and make sure it has something unique, or at least very good, to contribute to a team in a fight.

If you feel that this is the problem with your team, please supply suggestions of what you would like.

Include different team-missions. Finally turn on the team-mission booths and give them tougher monsters, more of them, better loot and several levels. Maybe with a boss at the end? + Multiple reward and tokens."

Where are our team missions??? These have been dangled in front of us forever This is something that was promised for release and we're almost 6 months later and they're not even on test yet. Be very careful giving out crowd control abilities. You have a profession based totally on that, don't cheapen them like you did Fixers. Keep in mind the only thing that makes them even a tad better than NT's at crowd control is AoE mez.

John

[Susanooh]

There are many problems atm, such as low level nt's in teams aren't often a good idea, becuase if they start using their early nukes, ie glacial advance on a target, because of the high(ish) damage the monster will attack the nt instead of the character who is tanking on it. And then because of extreme low hp and VERY VERY slow recharge and casting rates the nt will be VERY lucky to survive. This wasnt so much of a problem when the range cap wasnt in place.

I sent an email regarding the range cap and I was told that it is unavoidable, well if your going to decrease that MAJOR part of the nt (and a quite important part of other proffessions) perhaps you should make it so nt's have more health and/or nano pool and/or faster casting and recharging.

Once you obtain the calming spells soloing isnt so much of a problem, however these can be VERY buggy, such as you pull it of successfully, they didnt resist it, but they are still attacking you!!. then if you hit them they stop for a few seconds.. its weird.

Hard games can be fun, but there is a line, too hard and its not fun anymore.

p.s. can u make nt spells/instruction discs LESS RARE, these aer our weapons, and with shop bought programs we will always be useless (or near enough) we need to get our more powerful programs e.g. Jobes Nano library, igzimmers little nuke, igzimmers last word ...... etc. to be a remotely good high level class/profession.

Lower levels, we are a danger to our selves, as in teams monsters will often attack us after we (finally) cast our nuke(s) and we dont have enough lower lvl defencive spells (we dont get enough defensive spells full stop. Nullify Sphere is almost useless, we cant move, and because of the recharge rate it the protection is almost gone by the time we pull off another 1 spell). also at higher lvls we cant get the programs, so we never match the damage caused by our counterparts, now that we finally have semi-decent health and a load of nano-armour (plus maybe some unique stuff e.g. neleb's cloak, the kelvar vest off of professor von horn, ncu trousers from the trash king)

We need some fixing.

[______________Mrkane]

Heisan,

I have been playing a Doc the last months and basically I have not solo'ed. And I should not be able to!

I have chosen to be a full time healer and devoted most of my XP that way. The problem is that I needed to read x forums, y web sites, play the game for some months to get all the information.

Put up some player guides, strategy guides, profession guides and better documentation on the basics in the game. I have heard complaining and whimping from all professions these seven months. Most of it is because they have used XP the wrong way and discover after 2 months that it was stupid.

Improve AO documentation and include in the documenation how you envision that the different stuff should be used. Have information on what proffesion built wepons and nano excist, whet drop specific items excist.

I love AO , but your documenation is the worst I have seen in my 20 years of gaming.

Mrkane

[Digitlcoup]

Get those Team Missions up and running please!

Here is a quote from Gaude's post:

"Include different team-missions. Finally turn on the team-mission booths and give them tougher monsters, more of them, better loot and several levels. Maybe with a boss at the end? + Multiple reward and tokens."

I think that if FC did implement this element, the game would be ALOT more fun. Aso, if they could unique create team-missions based on actual story events (aside from the static dungeons) it would also give the players a stronger sense of participation in the AO storyline. These story based unique team missions would not necessarily be of those that significantly alter the story arc that FC has in store for us but could be minor events that would give us (the players) that sense that many of us crave (maybe not all).

Perhaps using the random generator for different people to assasinate, schematics for new weapons, discovery of illegal cloning experiments, spying or finding spies within the clans or Omni, or stopping certain shipments to either clan or omni facilities? Specific missions for specific clans?

Anyway, these are some ideas that came up in my brain storming session. Hope they help!

[________________cson]

Originally posted by Mrkane
Heisan,

I have been playing a Doc the last months and basically I have not solo'ed. And I should not be able to!

I have chosen to be a full time healer and devoted most of my XP that way. The problem is that I needed to read x forums, y web sites, play the game for some months to get all the information.

Put up some player guides, strategy guides, profession guides and better documentation on the basics in the game. I have heard complaining and whimping from all professions these seven months. Most of it is because they have used XP the wrong way and discover after 2 months that it was stupid.

Improve AO documentation and include in the documenation how you envision that the different stuff should be used. Have information on what proffesion built wepons and nano excist, whet drop specific items excist.

I love AO , but your documenation is the worst I have seen in my 20 years of gaming.

Mrkane

Funcom, please do not listen to this person and fix documentation thinking that's the answer to the problems. It's low lvls like this that makes it seem like AO is too easy.

[__________Subject IV]

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not increase downtime for the sake of socialization. It is what I HATED with EQ. There is plenty of socialization in the cities.

We go out to hunt to gain exp.

We go to mission to aquire gear.

We go to Baboons to socialize.

- Check for a quick death-respawn cycle. If so you increase the chance of a "boss monster" to spawn.

They will have higher level, more hit-points, and an increased chance of dropping unique loot.

Excellent idea. I love it when a Life Bleeder spawns during a mutant hunt. It adds excitement to the battle. Just make sure risk = reward.

- Include different team-missions. Finally turn on the team-mission booths and give them tougher monsters, more of them, better loot and several levels. Maybe with a boss at the end? + Multiple reward and tokens.

Excellent idea. We want a boss that drops unique/rare items. It makes the mission more worth while. That is what made EQ so addicting: getting rare items from tough spawns.

- Make more interesting monster camps.

Please do. The world you created is SO beautiful, but some areas are never ventured into because the access is too difficult. So people just group in the "common" spawn areas.

For Example: I traveled DEEP into Broken Shores for a mission (Desert of Lost People). It was AWESOME. But no one was there to see it but me. If there were more unique areas with named spawns, or cool places like this that are easier to get to, people would spread out.

Here is my idea: Create a transport system (like the static carriers in Lush) that drop people off. Make it a profession nano, like an engineer or beurocrat, that "calls in" a troop carrier. This picks up the team, drops them off, then picks them up again (all through a nano ability). It would open the world up more.

[Shadowfaax]

Hello,

I have an Agent lvl 105 and an Engin lvl 88 ( and rising fast =D) on RK 1. These are my thoughts regarding these 2 proffesions and solo/ grouping.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First the Agent.

Soloing

With my agent at lvl 105, I have had a OK time soloing up till now.

- But the only way I can solo well is with my MP heal pet. And apparently that is going away =(

- I cant solo well as a FP soldier because of the HUGE nano cost and the slow nano cast of MK shield.

- the Agent DOT's are ineffective. i have never used them except to break roots cast on me.

Team PLay

Agents have NO team buffs what so ever.

The only way they can be useful to a team is to go into a FP and use there buffs.

But that leave the agent high and dry because FP makes it impossible to get healed ( did they fix this in the last patch? i havent played my agent in a while)

For buffing purposes, I think most teams would prefer to have an acutal MA or MP rather than an agent assuming those proffs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Engineer

Solo

solo is pretty good for an engin aslong as you have a huge pet to beat the crap outta everything in site. Ofcourse pet pathing needs to be improved so oen does "lose" their pet so often.
A simple and very effective solution was proposed by blacktie, a /pet summon command that would bring the pet to you. I personally would love this PLZ implement it!!!

Team PLay

Engins have an OK time teaming too. people love to have a pet tank for them.

Our AC buffs are pretty good, but nothing exceptional. The auras are a great idea, but the spamminess of them turns people off.

plz increase the duration of the auras so they dont spam so much.

Other than that we have no really good team buffs, some ore would be cool. Beacon warp is cool, but i dont use it too ofen.

The only other problem i have with the engineer is that I HAVE to get MP or trader buffs to use my good pets. Right now with the lvl cap, i have to get MP buffs to use my orange pet.


***Having some some sort of Time and Space / Matter creation/ Mat met buffs would be REALLY helpful.***

I dont think MP's or traders would mind too much because they wouldnt constantly be hounded for buffs by Engineers.

Except for the ones who charge 80K crds for a single buff.


Well those are my thoughts on those two professions.


In General
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I really like some of the sugesstions like more Boss monsters with faster respawn rate.

i have one problem in general with solo and team play. I noticed this when i started my new char, the engin.
The slow spawn rate!

for the last 2 months a lot the good hunting grounds have been "nerfed" . The temple, 1KX1k in VW and a lot of other places.

I have been able to find good low lvl hunting in other places, but why lower the spawn rate? People were having a lot of FUN hunting there.

Other than that im happy wit hthe progress the game has made.

The thing i am most looking forward to is TEAM MISSIONS.
plz plz plz plz plz plz get them up and running ASAP. I also like the idea of boss monsters at the end. There is simply not enough unique monsters/challenges / loot in this game.

And finally, I m sure you know this, but give the high lvls something to do. I cant wait till we can take and hold terratory. But until then. give us some UBER hard monsters / bosses/ missions that are hard to kill/finish with a team of 150+

Plz consider my sugesstions and keep the improvements coming !

- Shadowfaax /Gimlii

[_________________fok]

Do the professions with an adequate number of hit-points to "tank" (survive with monsters bashing them) have enough ways to keep the monsters focused on them? (As in viable "Aggression Enhancers" and Nano Programs?) Are you able to do your job?

As a level 111 Doc nobody I team with mentions even using "Aggression Enhancers". The only class that bothers to use its taunts are enforcers, and even then, it is only the mongo line. I’ve been told by soldiers that their taunts are usable, but they are single target and less effective than mongo at any given level. Martial Artists also have taunts; from what I have heard, they are also single mob and less effective than mongo. My suggestion is give all the combat AE taunts and make them on par with mongo.

Do the professions that heal (Doctors, Martial Artists and Adventurers) have any use / purpose in the team? Do you really need a healer when the monsters drop in 5-10 seconds?

I’m a Doctor, I’ve yet to see any red mobs drop in 5 – 10 seconds, do you think a team would go out and hunt green or yellow mobs?

A natural follow up question here is: Should we increase the unpredictability of monster spawns so that they are more "surprising", and different - so that more healers are needed. (More on this later.)

No. The idea of monsters just popping is a bad idea.

Do the "crowd control" (the ability to temporally suspend monsters from battle by "freezing" them, "slowing" them down, or totally "wiping" their mind) professions have any use? Do you need a Bureaucrat, Agent, Fixer or Trader to keep monsters at bay?

The only one useful is calm. Maybe roots to some extent. I have not seen a mob effectively controlled by slowing it down.

A question to those of you venturing into static dungeons: is there any difference here?

Not really.

Do enough professions have crowd control capabilities? Which do you lack? Suggestions?

As a doctor, I would like to be able to clam, or charm. Maybe the nano-formula could be called “Trust me, I’m a Doctor.”

Does support people have any real use? I have noticed many players on low levels having an inadequate number of NCUs to really take advantage of the beneficial nano programs ("buffs").

Most people level fast, I doubt its really a problem.

Do you meet monsters that require skill and tactics to fight other than in the static dungeons?

Yes. Nevertheless, it’s always the same tactic. De-buff the current team target, calm or root its friends.

Would you like us to add them, or would that seem like we are reducing your capabilities to solo?

I would like you add weakness to the mobs. Like a certain mob is weak against fire, and take double damage from fire. Another could be weak against cold or disease.

Imagine going to the mines in Mutant Domains or Lush Fields to fight monsters. Suddenly, larger and tougher monsters spawn among its fellow "cannonfodder" friends. It would have more hit-points, higher damage output, and a higher chance of unique item-drops (Loot). Would that be fun, or a pain in the ...?

It would be a pain in the backside. What would be fun how however is if a larger Mob had a routine. It would periodically wander around. They should not just pop spawn in the middle of the group. I suggest you make them spawn at some known location, its lair perhaps. It drops unique items 100% of the time, but make it a range items that vary, with each kill.

Do you have enough time for socialisation?

Yes. However, not while I am doing anything else. I don’t socialize between fights; I don’t see this as a problem.

In some other MMORPGs there is a much higher "down-time" factor.

Current down time is suitable.

Does the GUI support you in your effort?

It’s adequate, but not great. Some things are fiddly like the Def-Agg bar. The health bars in the team window are often lagging behind the actual health of the character.

Is the Map GUI with your team members listed, the team GUI with health and nano enough for you to cooperate? Any good suggestions here?

I like the map. I need to be able to increase its size though.

Give more professions the ability to "crowd control" to some degree. (Adventures getting lower-aggro range nanos i.e.)

Sound like a good idea, it would be useful in solo aswell.

Make more interesting monster camps.

Definatly, I suggest you make the terrian a more usable part of the battle.

Check for a quick death-respawn cycle. If so you increase the chance of a "boss monster" to spawn.

Would be nice. Current boss monsters are often over hunted at peak times.

They will have higher level, more hit-points, and an increased chance of dropping unique loot.

More unique loot is good.

Give monsters a more complex AI when you meet them with a team. Let them pick dangerous opponents, basically be "nastier", more challenging... (More fun?)

Be nastier? Nope. Use tactics such as running away, yep.

Go through each profession and make sure it has something unique, or at least very good, to contribute to a team in a fight.

You mean this was not done when you designed the game? *shock horror*
I think you should go a head and add new stuff.

Include different team-missions. Finally turn on the team-mission booths and give them tougher monsters, more of them, better loot and several levels. Maybe with a boss at the end? + Multiple reward and tokens.

Yep. Team missions are good. Definite need for everybody in the team to get a token when it’s completed though.

Let me stress again that this should in no way change the way you solo, or your ability to solo. Those aspects should remain as good as they are today.

It would be nice if you could make them better, it quite boring doing missions solo, there should be some indicator of mission size. I don’t want to spend two hours doing a mission for a single token.

[_____________Trigger]

You know what, we all know there are a ton of problems with individual professions. The problems are all over the board everywhere. Funcom attepts to get some vialble feedback about some teaming ideas and gets flooded with whines about my profession this or that. Anyone that has read any of these boards knows all this allready. Why don't we at least make an attempt to stay on topic.

Before you think about flaming me I know the pain of the profession inbalence (lev 45 fixer retired unplayable).

To reply to the post, my experience in teams is excessive. I created a new char for the sole purpose of teaming and advancing my skill level in being affective in teams. What have I learned? Well first off FC would be making a huge mistake if they just continue to give all nano's to all professions. What good is it if you give croud control and healing capability to everyone? You would be much better served if you made the ones that are out there work! Roots, great idea but rarly work. If your in a team chances are your trying to take down some mobs that are higher than your level in order for the fight to be worth your while. Try playing a rooting class at higher lev FC and tell me that you are going to waste your nano on roots. Were better off continuing to shoot cause casting a root on a mob above your level is a joke. IF it lands your talking max 10-15 seconds on a 3 min root. The problem is not the skills that are out there, its the effectivness of what is available. Charm and tame seen to work a little bit better if you are very carefull in the way you use them. As for skill in teams? Put your mission bar to full hard grab a team an run a mission. If you intend to survive you had better use tactic. You just cleared the main room with 3 ultra hard mobs in it and go to get the guy in the first door with your team all standing in the main room. The pet class had is bot on gaurd (ooops) and someone attacks, next thing you know 5 reds all over your team from out of no where. People who play heavy team know this all ready.

As for the question of whether the healing classes are needed? I am suprised to hear this question from someone employed by the game maker. Ask someone who playes the game that question and you will get run out of town. Doctors and support healers are a must have, PERIOD. If you want to kill anything worth killing you better have at least a doc and probly an adv, trader or mp as backup. In defense of FC though hey at least they ask us about what they are unsure about (make no mistake you are very unsure FC).

I like the boss mob idea. Your camping a hunting spot and all the suddon out of no where spawns this big nasty. Man talk about an exciting scramble. Chaos and confusion, only the hard core ready for anything players/teams would survive that. It would seriously add to the game as people who just run to a popular level sight before they should be there to power level would have a real game experience! I am all for dynamic difficulty.

In conclusion, FC we would love to see some new team features but new features are for not when so many things need to be fixed. You need to stop what your doing and fix what you have now before you find yourself without a player base. This is evedent to the blind by reading this board. Are you sitting there wondering why all the posts are off topic? Your player base is desperate for answers and information on what your going to do about all of the broken game issues, and they post wherever they think there is a chance in h*** someone is listening. Stop what your doing, fix the game, and then show us what you can do with the content. Believe me when I tell you there is not a player in this game that would ***** if you said to us hey guys were going to take a few patches and address all the balence and game issues before we add new content.

My 2 cents.

[______________Phikia]

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to a thoughtfelt article-

Game Mechanics as related to teaming

While I feel that this is one of the most well designed areas of AO, I have a few suggestions:

1. Teaming in Camped areas makes it difficult to distinguish one group from the other. Impliment some sort of visual aid to help in this matter, whether through overhead markers visible to team members only or some other means.

2. Enhance communication methods- I find it extremely confusing & burdensome to manage conversation and communication between team members, other players etc. I may not fully understand shortcut methods that may exist, but there must be a way to simplify the ability to manage multiple conversations internal & external of the team without having to bounce back & forth between the Friends/Team/Vicinity/etc options available.
Scripts/Aliasis may help but a streamlined interface would be a better option. Perhaps a "Walkie-Talkie" visual interface would help.

Professions and Skills as Related to Teaming

I believe that when the prototypical grouping process begins, a leader is obviously looking for a puller,tank,healer,eng/MP with good pets/bots, multi-purpose (backup healer,yet good attack capability)..this is nothing new.

1.Choosing group members, as with real-life social order, is more a matter of predjudice and perception than of logic & knowledge of the process. As an Adventurer, I am well aware of the predjudices hanging over my profession's head. We are perceived as nothing more than a below-average healer, with limited attack strength who would weaken a team more than strengthen it. I designed my Adv to kill. I get crits & avg. hits very similar to uber killers in same lvl range. The difference is that I need MUCH GREATER support from Docs than do the tanks due to my lame Sheild/AC buff options.

2. In the first 3-5 minutes I know whether my team SUCKS or NOT. I have been in a 3-member team & leveled 10 times without anyone dying over that span. Conversely, I have been in the proto-PERFECT team on paper, just to see it fall apart in MINUTES. This has LESS to do with game design and EVERYTHING to do with strategy, communication, teamwork, sacrifice and maturity. It isn't rocket science. You just KNOW when you are a part of a good team....It is like a well oiled machine.

If all team members are on the same page they will:

- Know their roll on the team
- work TOGETHER to level
- NOT be self-serving
- Listen to the team leader or designated rep
- use discipline
- use discretion
- communicate effectively

Bottom line:
FUNCOM cannot do anything to enhance the teaming experience as related to this topic. Only human ability can,will & should dictate how far a team can go with the resources at hand. The template is THERE for people to excel or fail with. New or better weapons,attacks,nanos etc..will not fix anything. Give a lamer a good weapon & good armor & good buffs and you have an uber lamer.

Additions/Enhancements to team gaming Experience

1. Add more distinguishable areas in which to team based on level. a PERFECt example of this is Lush Fields near the cave( y'all know where I mean). It is PERFECt for levels 45-60ish. There aren't alot of choices out there, therefore every DECENT area is camped to hell.

2. I love the idea of covert team operations. Areas in which enemy outposts/camps can be studyied, disected & attacked with the benifits being faster team leveling for example...Im not trying to confuse this with missions,static or otherwise...

3. What about spawned Encampments?....Look at Lush Fields and Cyborg encampment near Avalon for example...EVERYONE knows about these places. EVERYONE goes here to team & level...The only action being to kill respawning monsters/enemies.

Why not take the respawning concept a step further. People dont CAMP in one place forever like they seem to do in AO, so why not have randomly spawned encampments???..This way you get a change of pace, the thrill of changing strategy to attack, the thrill of stumbling upon an enemy camp, AND since the randomly generate, you eliminate CAMPING, encourage exploration and add spontinaity. Aren't we all tired of killing the same 3 types of respawned monsters in any given area?

OK OK...I'll shut-up...Maybe im Wayyyyy off base, maybe not. These are my humble feelings & opinions. Thanks for your time if you actually read this..

[___________Misophist]

I have a lot to say, and it's not all organized in my head, but here goes...

I read through the article and though most of the ideas sound good, I'd refrain from making the mobs more difficult in light of their current status. Right now, mobs certainly aren't easy. And soloing is currently not an option for MANY classes at varying levels.

The truth is, you have to be pretty buffed with implants and whatnot to solo. And after level 100, soloing becomes difficult for everybody, even those who have recently been given a boost (metas come to mind).

I think it'd be nice to incorporate the team missions (soon!) and make them much, much different than a solo missions, but not to the point where solo missioning would become obsolete. Let's say... team missions would offer much more variety in terms of reward and allow players to work together more efficiently (as was suggested). Solo missions could be toned down a bit and used for credits and other, more ordinary items. Right now, team mission are useless and solo missions inevitably turn into team missions.

One of the comments (regarding how people are so used to soloing that they don't know how to work within a team) kinda struck me as truthful -- I don't know how many times I've gotten so fed up with a team that I said to myself "Damn, I do better on my own!" and went off to solo-level and mission all by my lonesome.

But honestly, it just comes down to the individuals in the team. Sometimes people have it together, they're very efficient and they all do their jobs. Teams need to have certain key elements to work. They need a tank, they need a real healer (usually only a doctor will do), they need secondary healers (I notice a lot of MAs don't even bother using their healing abilities and meanwhile our doc/tank is dying), and the other classes need to use their calms, roots, etc. It should not come down to the meta (me, currently) steadfastly watching every health-meter in the team and sending the heal pet to the dying teammate because our team is not properly constructed. I don't think it's Funcom's fault, really, when players die because a team isn't working out -- it typically can be blamed on the players not doing their jobs. Or um, most likely the mobs just being way too difficult.

Yes, making a good team ain't easy, and sometimes you can get away with filling spots with odd professions, but honestly, I'd like more of a push to make a fully realized team, one with all the key elements. This would be necessary in a team mission with complex MOB AI. You'd NEED a real team in that case, no agent tanking, or MA acting as a stand-in doctor.

In conclusion, I like to solo and I also enjoy team-work. But these two things should be clearly different. There should be a definite difference between a solo mission and a team mission. No blurring of the lines between the two. I think this would encourage people to work together more effectively and urge people to play their characters in a more intelligent fashion.

[______SecretAgentMan]

Originally posted by reality
Adventurers are stuck with fast low-damage weapons.

I really don't want to start a flame war, but *no one* is *stuck* with any weapon type. You can spend the IP to use *any* weapon (with the exception of the 2-H Beam unless you're a 'trox) in the game, it's just that some weapons are going to cost you more to learn.

I know it's tough (if not impossible) if you're level 50+ and picked a crappy weapon type to say "Oh, well, I'll re-roll and pick a different weapon type". I did it when my 45th level Agent got nerfed to being worthless. I then re-rolled as an MA and got that char up to 53rd level, and I'm considering re-rolling again unless the upcoming MA fixes make a big difference to the min-dmg problem.

Continuing to play a gimped character is a personal choice (and hopefully the IP reset will make it worthwhile), there is no one forcing you to continue to play that character that way. I've seen numerous posts of people who switched weapon classes after many levels and sure, it sucks to burn those IP, but it's sometimes easier than starting from scratch.

Face it, pistols suck. MA weapons (for now) suck. Any weapon that hits fast with low damage is going to suck. My friend plays an adventurer as his second character, and he went with 1-H Edged weapons and is doing quite well.

Just because your skill is green, does *not* mean that you are required to use that skill.

S.A.M.

[Spoonbender]

Whatever you do, DON'T let more professions get similar abilities/nanos. I think most professions are already too close to eache other, making several of them completely useless... What can agents or fixers contribute to a team? No pets, no spectacular damage output, not enough hp to tank. Sure, the fixer has some nice heal-over-time nanos, and the agent has some decent damage buffs, but it's not exactly something that makes them in hot demand in teams.

The only profession that is a must have when hunting in groups is a doc. Every other class can easily be swapped with several others, which have pretty much the same abilities. What we need above all, is more diversity between the professions, so that every profession can contribute with something unique to the team. Maybe not something vital for surviving, like docs or tanks, but something useful, that no other class can do. Maybe if the agent could do something useful with his aimed shot, like really high dmg, or maybe crippling (slowing down/debuffing combat abilities/blinding?) the mob? Other classes that really need some unique abilities include Fixers and Adventurers, and probably several others...

[MaDezzie]

'Include different team-missions. Finally turn on the team-mission booths and give them tougher monsters, more of them, better loot and several levels. Maybe with a boss at the end? + Multiple reward and tokens.'

Do not make a huge mistake with these. Be very careful how you plan these out, please.

My guildmates and I are ALWAYS doing missions. Yes, they can be a royal pain if its those brown caves (which about 85% of the missions I receive happen to be those). But, we don't have to fight for a good mob spawn, don't have to worry about KS, and with a smart team, you can control the amount of aggro. We are all lvl 95-105, so we usually get some more difficult lvl 130-150 missions, so we can all get some decent xp for our time spent in them. One of us grab a hard solo mission, copy the keys and go to work. Occasionally we get the smaller 'white cave' missions that only house about 10 mobs. Those are ideal for one person, but the majority of these missions are those lovely brown caves/acid pits/water pits. And they are huge. Even with a full team it takes a good amount of time to clean them out, and the XP is definitely worth it. My only issue with these is the fact that a lot of the rooms are tiny and a lot of times Line of Sight is extremely buggy, which makes it difficult for not only the casters, but for us ranged professions as well.

For team missions, please don't model these after any of the static dungeons. Don't give the mobs in team missions more HP then an 'average' mission mob. Don't put 7-10 mobs in the first room. In fact, don't put more then 3 mobs in any one room at all. 5 deep red mobs in starting room with uber HP=death to all. More HP=more time to kill and you just end up getting the same amount of XP. Its not worth the trouble and aggravation on the player's part. Now, one boss mob IS in fact, a good idea. This could be one higher then average mob and it could give more XP in turn.

Basically it comes down to this for what I want for team missions:
-A token for every player in the team once mission is completed
-An award (cash/xp/and item) for every player in the team once mission is completed
-Bigger rooms in general, other then the main room
-A compass and map indicator for everyone in the team once mission is received and uploaded
-One boss mob
-A few more rooms so there will be a few more mobs

What I don't want:
-tougher mobs in general (mobs in higher lvl's are tough enough, thanks)
-brown cave missions (these are just bad, take a poll, you'll see the majority of your players don't like them)

Here, just do this. Get a lvl 100 player to con up a lvl 150 mission, then have them lead you to it. Go inside, wander around and pay attention to what you see. Now, make the rooms bigger in size. Next, tack on maybe 5-10 more rooms, each one of those rooms can hold 1-2 mobs each. Now pick a room in this mission with 2 mobs, and add the boss mob in there. Then, go look in ALL the chests (75% of them will be empty or hold ammo). Remove all ammo from these chests, and replace them with viable loot, be sure to add viable loot to all the empty chests as well. Find all water and acid pits, then delete them. Now, try to walk through the walls, just to make sure they're impassable. Can't go through it? Hmm, mobs can. In fact, they will aggro you from 5 rooms away and just magically appear in front of you. Ok, now fix that mob teleport through walls issue. Now for the rewards. Remove all clothing from the reward bank for missions. If you can't afford to buy these by lvl 100, then you have a problem. Replace these clothing awards with something useful! Viola, there's your team mission template.

Feel free to add anything in I may have forgotten.

[_______________Garzu]

Make mobs more smart, i like the "boss" mob spawn in the middle of a slaughter idea.

Plz balance the profs NTs, Advs, Fixers and MAs needs a boost.

Anyway, most of it is good ideas/thoughts, get it in the game.

Do something about our gui....

[Valoren]

I would love to see some unpredictability changes, and some multi level missions and areas, make this place more 3D, add ladders and elevators and spiraling staircases, heck maybe even a firemans pole we can slide down... haha and allow us to climb over fences with a climbing animation, make some underwater areas that we can swim to, to find an entrance to a static dungeon etc... Watch some TV, spy, action movies and blend move real world things into the game. Make some entrances into air vents in the floor and walls, make us crawl into them to get to the next area... Add some secret walls like we right click on a torch and a wall opens up etc. Give us something else to stop and check for in a mission besides just slaughtering everything... Also make the chests look different... and put them in more random places, like in shelves, maybe even we can right click on a drawer on a table and that's a chest... We could open a cabinet and find something. Surprise us!

Doing the same thing over and over is what makes people bored. Surprise us! Surprise us! keep us exploring and seeing new things...

What i would like to see fixed for GUI:
Previous suggestion... make a person name highlight red in team window if they are under attack.

Oh and Fix Instant Death bug!!!!

Also make some Greif Killer missions.... When you funcom finds out that players are constantly messing with/abusing people to cause havoc grief killing... have a Side based Contract put out on them so when someone 100+ is pulling missions you can fill that 6th mission spot with these Contract killing missions... and when you have this mission you have authority from Omni or Clan to hunt down this person and assasinate them with a 6 person group in *any* zone. =)... The Hit List... hehe The Most Wanted, whatever you call it... if you want to play dirty eventually people would hunt you down for payback.

Oh and Fix Instant Death bug!!!!

What i would like to see fixed for profs:
Give soldier a line crit buffs... even if less than ma... you have 3 healing classes... why can't soldiers have that... soldiers are the masters of range weapons eh... call it Perfect Aim or something...

Oh and Fix Instant Death bug!!!!

Give Fixers some love!!!!!! =) I don't play one but I can tell you I never look for them to group with... that tells me something! hehe And fix Engies pets so they can make it through doors... There are many other things but most are already mentioned on other places in this board... go read them =)

[Miriandel]

1° Solo play is too hard. It takes forever to kill a mob and many classes past 100 simply can't solo at all.

2° Solo play is too slow XP wise. Just compare the XPs you can do in camps (shades, bothackers, borgs, medusas, Aces, ...) to what you can do solo. If you don't have time enough to spend hours finding a decent group, you're screwed.

3° The best fix to solo play is to make solo missions keys not duplicable, nodrop, and spawn monsters of half the HPs they have now.

4° Team play is perfect, IMHO, and doesn't any improvement soon. Any group is viable as long as people know how to play their profession.
I would list as "top team" professions: traders, MA's, enforcers, soldiers and metas.

5° A boss monster at the end of a mission is THE way to go, since AO has turned into EQ with recent boss camping (most players don't even have a chance to actually see a boss monster).

Bottom line: improve solo play


Sorja, Meta 134
Chepa, Trader 85
Kroll, Fixer 80
Japualtah, Soldier 43

[______________Ciraco]

1 - tanks have enough HP and AC, but lack agro generating ability, or more importantly, lack the ability to agro "adds" succesfully. As a doc, I constantly find the add atacking ME, and not one of the other 5 members, including the tank. I usually get killed when there is an add and I have already begun a healing process.

2 - Healers (docs, engineers, mPs and adv) definetly have their place, even at higher levels. They do however lack good offensive programs to adequately use their medical knowedge as a weapon!

3 - "root n Shoot" is a very good strategy when adequate healing or adequate tanking is not available.

4 - Bosses or random "stronger" monsters add great complexity to team missions and make the game much more interesting, but in spawning grounds, should be limited in number, or limited to a small percentage increse. For example, in Lush Fields at the NW cave, the Life Bleeder class draws A LOT of attention when it spawns! Adding some infrequent creatures at say 20-30% more strength would be acceptable. Adding spawns stronger than this would likely only get whole groups killed...

5 - One thing I think AO lacks is a trading center in each area, or an area specifically designed for trading of items, experiences, and tactics. It seems the only social areas are for forming hunting parties. Clubs are a good start, but are only useful as an alternative entertainment, and do little good for the character being played. Maybe implement character owned shops too, say in an open market. Alow characters to place icins on available "booths" and start selling items they have earned or made under that symbol (symbols similar to shop terminals indicating the type of wares being sold)

6 - Please add remaining NCU's to the team control, and a permanant indication of the leader. An added bonus wuold be to add a status window so we can see how programs we run in other user's NCU's are doing, and when to recast them.

My bigest complaint in teams combat has little to do with OUR team, but other teams that seeks to profit from OUR pulls (kill stealing). Please look into implementing a severe XP penalty for each additional atacking team! (or simply deny XP to a second atacking team, allowing the first team in the atack to acrue all xp)

On another note, because of all the activity around a team, it is nearly impossible to see chat messages from teammates durring combat (A GREAT BIG DIASADVANTAGE TO SOMEONE RECENTLY AGGROED!) Would it be possible to split chat into 2 windows? One for actual communication, and another for system messages, broadcasts, battle activity, and other normal chatter from the AO server? Currently you can't segregate, say, the hits from your group from the hits of others around you. Color coding is a start, but team chat should stand out more, and stay on the screen longer! In a second window would work the best I think...

[camilaen]

"Is the Map GUI with your team members listed, the team GUI with health and nano enough for you to cooperate? Any good suggestions here?"


I've made this suggestion before, I'll make it again. Make a "Team hit Other" checkbox, so when in a full team fighting in an area with perhaps 4 other teams close by, you'd only get the dmg dealt to/from the team, and not other in the vicinity. As a doc I don't rely on the health bars of my team list to be accurate, so I like to see what the mobs actually do hit for, and who they're on. If you're pulling mobs that aggro in other mobs of the same family, it's sometimes hard to type "I need heals, can't you see I'm hurt?", and when the screen flows by with "Veteran Agent hit non-teammember123 for 560 points of projectile damage" and so on it's even hard to notice what heals you get off, and how much you actually healed teammember4 for.

Other than that, I'm happy as a doc. I am a good teamplayer. I hate being alone. But that could be related to the fact that DoT's rarely take out a mob, and pistol is the only light skill for us.. I use a shotgun, sure, but Yeowch, the ip cost! Make a few more DD nanos for us

DrCam