Soloing and Cooperation

[__________Bl00dAngel]

I am a team designed doc. I designed my character to play in a team and I enjoy it very much. Being a team oriented doc I am a great memeber to any hunting party. Not necessarily invaluable, but a very nice luxury to have around. :>
It is true that at times my job is less than exciting. As the tanks step through the mulch that they've just made of the last mutant they don't really need me to heal them, but there are always times when something goes wrong. Then I step in and try to make it right again. So... for me the teaming works very well.
As far as monster spawns goes, because of my profession, I would very much like to see 'boss monsters' spawn every once in a while where the rest of the the monsters are of lower level. A good analogy is the Life Bleeder who spawns at NW Mines in Lush Fields. I find they are always a treat to fight. Most teams tend to avoid them unless they have a doc or are of a high enough level. It's nice to find that I'm necessary for some teams to defeat them. :> A similar situation on diffiferent hunting fields would be nice.
As for nanos that I could use, I think the Docs are missing a wide variety of nanos. We have Damage over Time ( which I don't use ), heals, heal over time ( which is helpful, but again, not tide turning in a battle ), slows. It would be nice if I, as a doc, could get some way to get an aggroed monster off me. Often is the case when I am attacked and my team tells me to run in circles while they try to 'root' the monster. Why can't I do something like this myself? Maybe a non-aggro nano. Maybe something to make me hidden, so the monster cannot find me, maybe an aggro-transfer or something?

Anyhow, I still find team playing is the best. That's why I'm a team doc. :>

Halla 64 Doc RK2

[________________PMAN]

I play a Fixer on RK1 and I find that it is hard to get into teams. My profession simply has nothing to offer a team. Engineers have their uber-bots. MA's can hit for 9 gazillion damage. Enforcers and soldiers can tank. MPs, doctors, and adv's can heal. Crats give more XP. Agents can do it all.

The fixer has no useful nanos to offer a team, we cant even SOLO for godsake. If you want to kill green mobs you have to have grid armor, but you cant kill the bloody mobs that drop the disk so you can't get it! And in team play, if you get aggroed your pretty much f***ed. Not only that, but our hold nanos are a joke. I have had the same one (Lesser Prolong Encounter) forever! It requires 139 PsyMod and 103 T&S. The next hold nano we have is Delay Retreat as far as I know, and it requires *300* PsyMod and *216* T&S!!!!

Well, since I have *5* solid blue nanos skills to raise (in addition to base skills, weapon skills, and others) I might have the IP to get that in about 90 more levels!

The only useful nano we have are the runbuffs and the grid-line of nano formulas. But those don't help teams too much since the run buffs lower damage and nobody has the IP for the team grid spells. Lets see the other professions raise the *4* dark blue skills required to use just those 2 nanos!

The only useful nano we might have had you gave to the engineer! That nano which warps your team to the casters location. Aren't fixers supposed to be the masters of getting places?

Oh well, I guess I'll go play an MA or Enforcer like everybody else. Until then, I'm off to find a disk that doesn't exist, so I can make a nano I wont be able to use, so I can kill MOBs I should be able to solo without it. Its a Fixer's life for me!

[______________Aberic]

this game is so broken it will never be fixed properly period.

[Flapsie]

I would love to get a way of seeing who in the team that currently is beeing attacked, in the team view the "buttons" on the side could light up red if the player get's attacked or aggroed, and maybe yellow if it is his pet/pets getting attacked/aggroed...

I also would love to see any buffs that NT could contribute to a team other than Humid Extractor...
I also would love more damage dealing nanos with lesser requirements for us to use in low and high levels, I'm now at lvl 56 using inplants to get my Matter Creation up to the level that I need to use programs that gives up to, but still FAR from the damage done by other members of team per time unit...

I would also like to see a advanced and superior General NanoCrystal shop booth in stead of just the basic one everywhere...

[___________Goodpheel]

Originally posted by MrBunny
If you really want serious feedback, and feedback that matters you shouldn't ask on a forum like this. Rather you should do one of two things,

1.) Ask exclusively level 100+ soldiers for soldier feedback, MA's past 100 for Ma feedback.. etc

2.) Get 3 RANDOM people for each class, who have NEVER played AO before, and have them play different classes. Then get their feedback.

Reason why? Well for one you cut back on the dumb@$$ newbie comments, and who have probably not leveled past 4. Look at some of these posts. Some of these people are just posting for the first time, or for the 4th time. Albeit some of them might be past 100, but the majority I am willing to wager, are probably not even in the double digits.

Their feedback shouldn't be counted, due to lack of experience.

Actually until recently I had no reason to EVER post to this board or for that matter bother to read it. Now you are saying that due to my no posting, that my input is worthless. Fortunately, some of your other comments make more since. And then after hitting the nOObs, you say get 3 brand new players to play - would they not be nOObs, or would you train them first?

As I have read in these posts (4 pages the first time I posted in this thread, many more now) for a DOC there is a whole new world above level 100. If my account stays active that long, I may end up seeing it. I think each of the professions should talk about their professions and the problems they have in solo and team. There should be a breakdown between the <100 and the >100 levels since the game play seems to be so different.

As someone who ran a BBS (yes, that was what was used before the internet to let people get together) I have seen people who have read for YEARS post only one or two messages in the entire time. Don't be so stupid as to equate number of posts with either intelligence or experience.

[________________Jaif]

Sorry if I tread on ground covered already, it's hard to read all 8 pages of posts.

1) I would grab concepts from DAoC for mob AI. Their bring a friend code - BAF -, which caused social creatures to band together if one attacked, and to do so at a level that approximated the group's level, was excellent. It lead to very good fights at all levels (up to 50), with crowd control, taunts, and healings necessary.

2) I would grab the "scout" idea from DAoC as well. The idea is that some creatures send out a scout monster that spots a group, stands still for a few seconds, then runs back to the main base to report. A minute later (loosely), a horde comes running back that is designed to be overwhelming. This will keep players on their toes.

3) I would also suggest that you work very hard to make soloing at upper levels viable. You'll never please everyone, but if people can kill monsters there level and do so reasonably quickly, you're roughly on target. Some professions may shoot higher, but have more downtime, while others shoot lower but can blitz, but the rule stands.

4) Add story-driven missions now. I don't see why your event people can't act as pen-n-paper GMs for a little while, and keep track of things the old fashioned way. Simple example: the council of truth announces that a few queen whatsits are about to hatch a brood in Athen Shire, and that player groups are needed to stop them, and only have an hour to do so. Players are told to report to building X, where a GM hands them a mission key and sends them to the dungeon (special mission area). This mission area is the same for everybody, and is just a standard mission involving dumping chemical x on equipment y. If enough missions succeed in an hour then catastrophe is averted, and everyone involved earns a token (GMs responsible to hand out). If any missions fail, then hatchlings rampage through west athens. (Hope the high-levels stay around to help.)

5) Story driven RvR now. Same as above, let your even people operate as Pen-n-Paper GMs and adjucate takeovers now.

6) Bounties for clan/omni killed in certain areas. Maybe the omni base in newland starts handing out cash for every clanner killed in the 25% zone. Meanwhile, many clan missions end up going to that area.

7) Some control over the rewards. Instead of people spending obscene amounts of time waiting for a certain mission reward, give them a bit of ability to pick the reward. Make the missions tougher, and always in 25% zones, or whatever to balance, but stop making people stand at booths trying to find a mission.

-Jeff

P.S. Regarding DAoC: someone early on in the thread claimed that the BAF code was a failure. This is absurd: the BAF code was a major success at all levels of play, and good groups looked for BAF monsters to a) provide a challenge, and b) to provide better exp & loot.

P.P.S. High level people in DAoC are leaving because there isn't much reason to fight realm versus realm. If you add a reason, you will have a major, if not massive, leg up on your competitor.

[___________Ciorthual]

The solution to this isn't class balance (although it wouldn't hurt to un-nerf the unused classes). I'll make this in caps.


GROUPING IS NOT AS REWARDING AS SOLOING.

Very simple.

Monsters you fight with in groups are hard to find, have static levels, and drop less loot than what you'd get in a mission.


If monsters dropped lots of credits (and add a group split command ala daoc), you'd see more people grouping. If grouping gave you a lot more experience, you might see more people grouping.

[knightbk]

I have been playing these games since Kingdom of Drakkar, and its nice to see you guys taking an active role in asking what the players think. More companies should do this.

Anyways, I hate games that force you to Group up. Why? because of the difficulty in setting up a team, playing with the team, communicating with the team over text-chat, critical people lagging out, waiting forever for dead people to get back to your area, and the just plain fact that most games force you to group just to advance, which is wrong IMO.

When I play these games, I want to get into the action when *I* want. I do not want to stand around town for an hour looking for a good group, then another hour waiting for the group to get organized. This forced grouping has drove me away from EQ and DAoC, and kept me playing AC for 2 and a half years now. AC is very solo friendly, much like AO is, though Grouping is strongly encouraged for quests (required in a lot of cases) and actually lets you level faster now, but is NOT required for advancing.

I firmly believe that MMRPG's should give us the OPTION of Solo AND Group play. Neither method should be forced on you. However, I do think that a Solo player should level slower than a GOOD, ORGANIZED group who is fighting none stop and have there $hit together. Solo play should not be penalized though, and should be able to reach the higher levels, just at a slower rate of course, and with the right classes.

I believe that developers of any MMRPG are sadly mistaken if they think that because a game is "online", they should push "group" play a lot more than solo play. Group play should be there, should be a quicker route to advancment, but in no way should a Solo player be "punished" for not wanting to put up with a group. I play these games to chat with people, and be in a world with other people, not necessarily to group with them all the time.

EQ forced you to group to level up, and Solo players were basically dead after level 15. DAoC is the same, to a lesser extent. You can Solo to a high level, but it takes you about 10 times longer than a group, and that rate of advancement is not fair, period.

So far, AO has a few characters that are awesome at grouping but not soloing, and a few characters that are awesome at soloing and not grouping, and the remaining who are good in both categories. This is good, and balanced. The people who want to solo, can take those "solo" templates and do that, while the "group" guys excell in groups. Obviously the solo guys won't level as fast as a good Group, but thats ok (as long as the solo guy doesn't fall too far behind).

I think a good rate would be for 2 characters who start at the same time, and play the same amount, that the Group guy gets to 200 in a group at about the same time the solo guy gets to 160-170. This would be a fair rate.

Now direct replies to your question:

*********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 think MA are useless in groups unless the heal, and they aren't even great healers. Why should a combat character be relegated to healing?


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

Tough question. One thing you could do here is add in different weaknesses to monsters. So hitting with Edge would be better than hitting with Blunt, etc. AC does this, and gameplay is more strategic. The problem may be that this will nerf some people who choose to spec in one weapon only.

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

I think some areas SHOULD have them, others not have them, giving people a choice of where to hunt. In fact, why cant different zones be aimed at different players? Have some insane "Group friendly" zones, and other "Solo Friendly" zones?


******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 ...?*****

This is a good idea, because it lessens camping to some degree, and provides an extra challenge for groups too keep them on there toes. Solo guys will probably get nuked though, but they shouldn't be in that dungeon then without a group, and could go to a more Solo Friendly dungeon.

*****Do you have enough time for socialisation?*****

I talk constantly with those in my guild, though I notice that people in Town dont talk much period, except for trade spam.

Few comments here: A channel like the OOC Clan channel needs to be available ALL the time for people to talk on, so if your in a Mission, you can still participate. This will foster better communications, which means people get to know eachother better, which will lead to more grouped play.


*********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 )*******

AO is perfect so far, and I have soloed for the most part. Don't make this into DAoC or EQ downtimes. You did a good balance here IMO. Maybe make some areas that have faster spawns, and are more group friendly.

*****Does the GUI support you in your effort?******

The GUI is OK for the most part, though a transparent life meter window just showing your groups life in a tiny, movable window on top would be nice. Also, for chatting maybe look into the chat menu/feature of DAoC with the multiple windows to help keep things organized.


******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?******

This is ok, but like I said above, maybe make a transparent mini-window that can be used to keep an eye on people easier, and not take up much desktop space.


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

Now to how I think you guys can really get people to start groupg.

The only way Grouping can be improved IMO is to offer real reasons for people to group up, beside just more EXP/hour than playing solo. Unique Quests in HARD static dungeons that need groups to do them is a good way to encourage it. BOSS monsters with good/unique loot that spawn in a general area but need a group to kill them (or a very high level solo player) is another method. Making some zones SO hard, with such nasty monsters, and such good rewards in the middle, that the only way they can get there is if they form a killer group.

Example:
Tir Country could have a level 40 monster that spawns, and drops some unique loot that would be perfect for level 15-20 people, encouraging them to group and go try and find it and kill it. A level 40 character could probably solo this monster, but what for? He wont want to use the items right?

Do the same with higher level boss monsters, each requiring higher level groups to take them out, until it gets to the point where you have level 500 boss monsters and need 6, 7 or more level 180+ guys to kill them. Keep putting the higher level monsters into more dangerous zones, just randomize the spawn so it wont always spawn in the same place in that zone, stopping camping, and forcing people to explore.

Just don't Nerf the solo abilities of people, as the majority of people prefer to solo play most of the time, and group less of the time. Put in some damn good quests that need people to group in order to do them, and people will group. In short, Give us a good reason to group other than "to advance", and we will. Its not necessarily the interface that is holding up grouping in this game, I think its more because people just have no real reason to do it (unless your a template that needs to).


(Actually, unique, rare drop monsters add a lot to any game, because it encourages people to go out and find them and items. These would be a great addition to AO, and they can be different levels so that both Solo and Group based people can enjoy hunting them)

I wish to thank you for offering us the chance to express our opinions on this game.

Email: knightbk@sk.sympatico.ca

[Sincerlee]

As an Adventurer I can't speak of other proffessions, but as a reply to your questions:
I have tried to make my healing skills as high as possible I feel that I'm appreciated in a team. I usually don't do much damage and seldom are the one that makes the monster fall, but when things are getting out of control, my skills are very appreciated.
But because I stay in the back, prepared to fight when the sh** hits the fan, I have been kicked out of a team, and replaced by a Doctor

I have been fighting together with all proffesions, and a tank is ok, but someone like a Trader, Fixer, Bureaucrat or Agent makes the fight, if not so fast, more interesting in all ways! As an Adventurer I never take a monster down in a sec. when alone, so I feel more like a support person than a fighter. For my proffesion I'd like something than can, if needed, boost my hitpoints to a certain level. But it should be costy in someway so it can't be used as a standard attack.

The GUI when in team, I really like. I have the helth and Nano status to all my team-members under control. Whatever you do with that, don't make it less visible or userfriendly!

What socialisation? It's not when we are in a mission or on a hunt we talk. It is on our way to, or after a hunt we do those things. Very seldom when we are prepared to fight. Besides when at heavily camped hunting grounds the messages window is too quickly filled up with hitpoints info, that it is impossibel to socialise at all.

The Adventurer proffession is often quitted upon before level 50. So something must be done to make it more interesting to continue. Not neccesarily more hitpoints. Maybe better healing capacibilitys, maybe a team shield of some kind ( a good one :-) )
Actually whatever you can think upon would be helpful. But don't destroy the initial meaning of being an Adventurer.

[___________Goodpheel]

I read the replies and it gets longer and longer. Just in case Funcom is having a problem reading all of these, let me recap and restate some of the various items I have read or deduced from the reading.

1. NO MORE PLAYER NERFS! You have already nerfed most of the professions to ruin. Stop it!

2. FIX THE TEAM MISSION TERMINALS. Have them give out awards to ALL team members. If need be, lock the solo missions so that the key cannot be duped.

3. DON'T MAKE THE MOBS ANY HARDER! People getting killed by greys is stupid. They are supposed to be weaker than us, but in reality they are stronger. You beefed up the NPCs as a response to overequipping. YOU programmed overequipping into the game to START with. All you did was make it impossible for most professions to solo while the ones that can overequip have trouble.

4. DON'T MAKE EVERY PROFESSION THE SAME. Otherwise what is the point of having all the professions? Just pick slot one body, slot two general profession, and go forth and kill. Then buy all the nanos you want and there you are tank/program attacker/program healer/pet user. Gee, it's the new one size fits all game. Don't keep adding nanos to professions when there are nanos that do the job in another profession.

5. DON'T INCREASE DOWNTIME. People that want to socialize will. Forcing downtime is a great way for people to leave. I left EQ because of such stupid ideas. That and I did not like the overall game mechanics. The thrill of the game is lost when you see "Have to get my mana back. It should only take about 5 minutes." "Ok, I'm off to the store (RL) to get some beer. I'll be back about then." Yep, lot of socializing there. They even had to put a game inside the game so that people would have something to do.

6. MAKE BOSS MOBS. But you should not stop there. If the boss is killed quickly, you should gen up the next level. Or failing in that, have the mobs in the area DROP in level. That way teams that are just there to camp the area will either leave due to no XP allowing others to take over, or they will hunt for no XP waiting for a boss to reappear. I think most would either stop and wait for others to get the boss to appear or would leave. Then both teams would benefit.

7. FIX THE PLAYERS. This does not read as NERF THE PLAYERS. Fix the rooting type nanos. Fix the debuff nanos. Fix the aggro to include distance from MOB to source of aggro instead of just who did the most damage or who just ran a heal nano.

More of my own opinion:
Most of what I have read over the months has been done to fix things in PVP. I DON'T WANT TO PLAY PVP. Fix the PVM (player versus MOB game). I can make it even easier for you on this. (Standback, novel idea coming up {radiation shielding and shades might be advised}) Create a third diminsion. (You can be original if you want and call it Rubi-Ka 3). Allow players to MOVE their characters to the new diminsion. Make that diminsion NON-PVP. See how many people move there. Then think about IF you should be worrying about PVP or PVM. I believe you will be suprised at your answer. BTW, please send me a tell so that I can put my doc on the first shuttle over. Can't do another diminsion? How about a device that can be bought for the various levels, worn on the either of the shoulders that produces the suppression gas? Quit "fixing" the PVP game by destroying the rest of the game!

and just to restate the obvious:
NO MORE PLAYER NERFS!

[BigGreen]

My input is that before anything else gets changed it really makes more sense just to halt, take a step back, analyze and then fix all the gameplay bugs that are out there. There are several outstanding bugs that exist even after 13.5 major revisions. They include:

unexplained dropoffs where your character cannot interact with their environs and then poof! you're back at the login screen

the game locks up the system to the point where a reboot is needed

corrupt files even after a re-install

tech support whose canned answer to everything is "must be your video card"

The current situation reminds me of a guy who has several holes in his roof, trying to decide whether he wants to change the color of the wallpaper.

Funcom, fix the bugs!!!! Then after that focus on aesthetics and gameplay issues. I really don't care about team vs solo because I can't do either on my main DSL connection!
Regards,
Strax

[______________Phikia]

"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?"

Note to All:

The quote from Starknaked is representitive of many people's opinion. Ironically, this prejudiced & ultimately flawed mind-set ultimately leads to prejudiced and flawed teams as well.

Stark needs to realize that the ANY character is only as good as the human being who is designing it and that a smart RPG'er is well capable of overcoming characteristical flaws relevant to his or her profession and be a vital team contributer. I don't know HOW many times i've held an Uber Atrox's hand through a tough mission due to their lack of experience in strategy & team play.

Spit out all the mathematical data that you like to disprove my point. Like I've said before, give a lamer Top of the line equipment,nanos, implants and Weapons and what do you have?...An Uber LAMER.

I have to believe that Stark was the Little Pig that opened the door to the wolf in sheeps' clothing. I smell the bacon cooking right now....Yum

[__________WGMelchior]

There is actually a whole line of bot heals. Go to virral.clansupport.com and look at the nano list. I've had one myself, so they do exist.

And our auras would be a perfect complement to a group if they didn't spam you with 3 messages per 22 seconds. First of all, get rid of the '10 seconds left' thing. Or make it an option. Then, instead of displaying terminating + executing, just put 'Your NCU is refreshed with the Sympatetic armor boost formula.' I can put up with one line. That is all we need.



And for the trouble with targeting the right mob in a crowd:

Macro the command '/assist'.

Then, whenever the leader shouts out the name of something, just press the F-key to select him, and press the macro. Then everyone will have the right target.

However, it would be nice if there would be a blue bracelet around mobs that are under attack by your teammembers. Just like the red one that notes your fighting target.


And for gods sake: Increase the range of the radar! It's almost impossible to follow someone because they vanish just a couple of meters in front of you, and then you just go straight.

The ability for a leader to set out checkpoints and display them for the rest of the group would be great. First you go to the savepoint, then assemble at a hill, then rush down to the dungeon or whatever when everyone is there. No need so ask for coords all the time.


Lastly: Why not create a place-holder when someone goes linkdead? This placeholder would prevent others from taking up the slot, but it would also automatically invite the dropped person when they come back. The leader can of course 'kick' the placeholder if neccessary.

[testest]

I read Gautes article, and the first thing that I thought was:
"omg, now we can perhaps get some stuff done"

"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 ...?"

So very interesting, I can see it now.

"Claw Mutant in my sight, attacking"
"omg help help, he's kicking my ass"
/shout BOSS MONSTER SPAWN AT CAVE, HELP
(alot of ppl come running)

It just feels very interesting, gives experience getting outside an edge.

Now, to some more serious matters....

We, and I mean everyone need more "camps", at all levels.
Getting a group together may be tedious, it's really a pain when people leave and things like that but it's bad when they leave because of the lack of monsters.
This is especially the problem for 100+ players. Why, oh why didn't you think of making more high level experience places?

Ok, this is the thing, I play a level 136 meta, currently one of the most potent classes in the game. I got a good bunch of my experience outside, started with some camps in lush fields, SW, NW etc and then moved over the PM and did East camp, Shades camp and finally 800x800. At 90 or so I switched to medusas and managed to get to 110 or something before you totally destroyed them. Ok so after awhile we started doing Ace camp...ding ding ding.

Now the Ace camp is good, it got a wide variety ganking monsters and it's 25% so it keeps you on your toes. The thing is that it's no fun when there's 40 ppl there, stealing kills.

What I want you to do is this:

* Add boss monsters that spawns occasionally.

* Add more camps with reasonable spawns, I don't care if they are aggro. What you could start with doing is to lift your "oh no, people are level to quick at medusas" nerf. Right now a Medusa who hits harder then a Veteran, has 2-3 times the hit points, aggros on men and spawn in wast numbers(making it very dangerous to kill) gives the same or LESS experience.

We need more viable places to get experience, QUICKLY.(I mean we need the places added, not the pace :P)
Using the bugged Brokens shores missions just isn't fun, and it's exploiting IMHO.

I'm not going to make any empty threat about cancelling my account if nothing happens, but there's a multitude of other mmorpgs beeing released within the near future and right now it feels like there is nothing todo left in Anarchy Online.

Theese are my thoughts.

/Buffo,Bluffo,Bufflo,Byffo and Crauffo

[____________VampHoZr]

This is a good thing to talk about. I can't even begin to list the ways in which I think this area could progress. So I will only mention the biggest one. I think that we should get the group mission booth activated! I have always thought so and didn't think that I would get any response.

Now don't get me wrong I love AO and that is why I still play. I only say these things because I want to put those EQ and DAoC players (read A*@holes) out. There are other things that could be better (I play agents and we have been nerfed into the floor) but on the whole I would rather play this than EQ and I still play that. On that matter I guess I am just a masochist.

Some of the other posts have a good point, PVP and grouping isn't really the problem when you step back and look at it. Grouping is something I do only seldom and PVP just doesn't happen unless it's between me and a friend or me and a truly supreme jerk.

So please don't nerf us anymore (in fact reverse ALL agent nerfs and buff us a good deal hehehehe. j/k about the buff) and don't push group and PVP on us.

[Vlados]

I think you and FC should look into the different professions ability to solo without twinking your character, or be uber planned and not have any tokens and so fourth. Test out different levels and so fourth. I believe that several professions got big probs when it comes to soloing...

"Team levels". What do they do and what bonuses does they give?
I think it should be very awording to play in a team so long that you got team lvl 6 and so fourth. That would encurage more people to stick in the same team longer.

[______NWvoicesStink!]

I think Single Missions keys should be nondrop (so you cant duplicate) and the NPCs in Single Missions should be nerfed hp wise for solo play. (professions with low hp have a pain in the *** time trying to stay alive, especially agents, as much health as a NT, but more vulnerable, only special attack- you have to be concealed to use, special attack damge output has been lowered, sneaking by a NPC doesnt do squat, Funcom save them!!)

Team Mission keys should stay the same along with all the NPCs in the Team Mission rooms.

spanks.
BleuSwimsuit

[Downsizr]

OK I've been reading all the posts (wooot) here.
My suggestions :

1) Use the Enforcer profession as a template for balancing other professions. Our team abilities with taunting + hp + good dmges are very good. Even if Soldiers 100+ can tank better than us -still they can't manage aggro- or any other pets 100+ when mobs start to hit for 600+ pts. Our soloing abilities are also rather ok because we have access to a limited but useful HoT.

2) Don't try to give to every profession a way to heal (other than kits), a way to taunt (other than dmges and aggro enhancers), a way to deal massive dmges, a way to root and a way to mezz. By doing so you would kill the specificities of the professions.

3) As many players I know that the game evolves with levels. Are you adressing concerns for ppl that are in the 1-50, 5O-80, 80-120 or 120+ range ? This was not clear and some problems have to be adressed in very specific ways. MAs for example are really good up to 80 then their lose any good damaging abilities.

4) MOBs. This is a very long part.
They should have a kind of ecology. Right now you just have in different sizes : small mob, not-so-small mob, medium mob, bigger mob, really-bigger mob ...

Having a real hierarchy would mean that when growing the mob would get more powers / nanos and start to be smarter.

So ...

I would like to see mobs getting more smart with the lvl.

I would like to see Borgs run when at 25% HP. And maybe General run at 50% and call for help at the smae time, so that the range of other Borgs cooperation would be extanded.

I would like to see Medical Assistant Borgs that would be very fast - low HPs, and would heal from a distance the Colonels and Geneals.

I would like to see Vegetals mobs that would sprout smaller 'sprout' mobs.

I would like to see dangerous high level mobs that would be able to charm you.

I would like to see mobs that work in team with a tank and ranged attackers.

I would like to see camouflaged mobs that would require an Agent or a Fixer to detect before they jump on us.

5) Grouping as I said is today just a way to kill bigger stuff. There is no big strategy in pulling mobs that have such basic reactions and getting healed when taking damages. If you want to develop teaming, give a challenge to players. Not something out of reach of course. But we just need to adjust what we are doing to the mob we are facing.

6) NPC camping. This was not adressed but I would say that NPC should spawn with a very variable range like 30-50 or 50-90. This will let some ppl get kills at some static spots, without letting them kill a hundred time the same NPC. No blaming here, I done that. Give me a fixed spawn mob with tremendous XP and no risk and I'll be there until I am bored.

7) Statics dungeons are ok right now. Maybe don't try to compete with other games. I think that you cannot be the best in PvE, PvP and have uber PvM for high-end game.

More thinks to come on the subject soon I guess ...

[______________DASGee]

Please activate the Team terminals again. Tokens for everyone in team, keys for all members, mission boss, random rewards (aligned to profession maybe?).

Oh and pleeeeeeeeassse increase the item limits for the apartments!!!!!!

[___________Stercoral]

Are we going to keep 6 players max. in a team ?
I'm not sure but rising the number in a team from 6 to 8 may help to have more fun.

I like the idea of the Boss !

Another thing: someone (at FC) have to write a few good pages (better that what I know in AO fan site) with advices, explanations, and "the best way to deal mobs in a team", utility of every profession in a team...
If it already exists, I did not see it (for me it's part of another "problem": the idea that in a mmorpg players have to help each others, ok ok, but there are limits.)