Agents... enough with them

[______________Bastet]

Not too long ago I was teaming up doing a team mission and I, being a fixer, was with an enforcer, an adventurer, a metaphysicist, a martial artist and an agent. Before we even start our little adventurer, the Agent low and behold goes and complains about NOT having ANY healing nano's. Now wait a minute... last I remembered, there are only 3 classes that have any decent healing, the doctor(obviously), the agent, and the martial artist. So, naturally being a fixer(means I'm already grumpy enough), and being the passive aggressive I am, I knew there was an enforcer in the group and promptly said, "Enforcers don't have any heals either." The Enforcer agreed. But, what did the agent reply? He deftly dodged both our comments, and kept on complaining. I felt like shooting him.
Now, why do I complain if I'm a fixer, and I have my Heal over Times? At my level, 54 I'm using a nano called Insurance Hack... it's a quality 47 nano. Sounds good, right? I'm a Nanomage who has invested every trickle of IP into my nanoskills. One of my guild mates who is level 63 asked the other day, 'What's the next HoT in line after medical claim?" Which is a level 30 or so nano. This isn't an example, this is a common occurance.
So, what's my point? I have really good reasons to complain. I have really good reasons to complain when agents have 7... new features... already added on to what they can already do.
Oh... and that ability to hide from other players, who is THAT going to help? Agents definetly, fixers sorta, anyone else? Nope, have fun pressing the search button everyone. Don't get me wrong, it's a really cool feature, but who are you kidding? It's more meat for agents to swallow whole.

One last thing to say... I do NOT play a class so that I can feel lousy because someone else playing an agent can do everything I do and MORE!

You're destroying the essence of being individual, special, worthwhile. Basically, you're destroying everything you gain pleasure from when you play a game because it feels like the other side is cheating, and NOONE likes cheating. Might as well open the floodgates for exploits.

This is something I've wanted to go over for a while... let's see who has more features.

Let's go over the Agents abilities as of this next patch?
Then, I'll compare them to a fixer, since that's what I play, then you can compare against the relevant class you play. I'm sure I've missed a lot since i don't play an agent.

Agent Nano-Spells.
1-Roots
2-Death Over time nano's
3-Falsify Professions(BIIG ONE)
4-Practically every other professions nano's
5-SO... Fixer nano's
6-So... Nanotech nano's
7-So... Doctor Nano's. (Like smore more healing nano's?)
8-So... Adventurer nano's
9-So... Martial artist nano's
10-So... Metaphysicist nano's
11-So... You gett the idea.
12-Damage nano's
13=NEW-MORE damage nano's that stack
14-Team concealment buffs.
15-Variety of Buffs like Catlike Grace, Concealments, perceptions,

Agent-abilities?
Hitting for ludicrous amounts of damage with Sniping. How about a level 35 agent sniping a monster for 1000 hit points of damage.
Let me see at level 54, I'm lucky if I hit for 600 with my burst.

The ability to sneak past practically all players with their concealment skills. Let's see... if an agent has 100 in concealment, and I have 100 in perception, and I only have a 75% chance of seeing him... that means if their concealment is 200, and my perception is 100... What're my chances of seeing him? NOTHING, a big fat ZERO.

Items-
Repressor-Yeah... that's right. Don't want those oogy boogy monsters going after our precious agents! Nope! NEVER EVER Want THEM to die. Hell, let the doctors die, let the bureaucrats die, who cares about the metaphysicists, and screw the nanotechnicians.

Holograms! Oh... hehe... sure... we'll start making duplicates, because we need more agents standing around? Cool idea and all, but WHY are THEY the ONLY ones that GET IT??!!!
Actually, maybe it won't be so bad. Perhaps it will be like Grid Armor and Agents will have to pay an arm and a leg to buy it from the other classes? That'll be a nice justice.
__________________________________________________ __
Alright... now that that is that...
Post your relevant classes abilities if you feel gimped and lets compare.

Let me put my classes up-
Fixer-
NanoSpell's
1-Run Buffs
2-Heal over time
3-Grid Phreak line
4-Damage buff nano's.
5-Roots
6-Snares.
7-Summon weapons, ammo, armor which is like hoping lightning will hit you to get what you want.

Let's see.... which of these does the agent already have, WITHOUT the falsify profession nano? They have the roots, they have the damage buff nanos... they also have a tendency of being able to cast our grid phreak nano's before we can even do it with the falsify profession... Now explain that to me.

Abilities?
Ummm... blitzing? OH.. but WAIT! I need grid armor to really do that well...
A decent burst

Unique items?
Hmm... umm... none yet... unless you include Grid Armor... which needs a nano to cast... and might as well be a nano with the new requirements.

Fixer-7 nano types
Agent-17+ nano types
Fixer-1 semi-decent shooting ability
Agent-Shooting ability-going to be able to hide-and others, I am sure.
Agent-Two unique items at LEAST.

So... post your classes abilities, compare it to the agents and see how you add up. Also, feel free to add stuff that the agent can do that I missed... since I don't play an agent I don't know the ins and outs.

Basically, it's enough with agents... do someone else, I do not care WHO... ANYONE... any other class, just ENOUGH with the agents!

[Whiterrabbit]

never say that agents can do aimshot damage worth a damn. they all jump down your throat saying that aimshot is worthless and rarely does anything but crap damage. im not sure if this is true or not, but just a heads up.

[______________Bastet]

The only problem I see with aimed shot is GETTING the shot OFF, since Mobs perception is a ***** to get around. Fix that.

[_____________arsiine]

So let me get this straight. You are attacking the entire agent community and profession because of the words of some lvl ~50 agent? Ok lets go over your list here:

Agent Nano-Spells.
1-Roots
2-Death Over time nano's
3-Falsify Professions(BIIG ONE)
4-Practically every other professions nano's
5-SO... Fixer nano's
6-So... Nanotech nano's
7-So... Doctor Nano's. (Like smore more healing nano's?)
8-So... Adventurer nano's
9-So... Martial artist nano's
10-So... Metaphysicist nano's
11-So... You gett the idea.
12-Damage nano's
13=NEW-MORE damage nano's that stack
14-Team concealment buffs.
15-Variety of Buffs like Catlike Grace, Concealments, perceptions,

1-roots: yes we get roots and they are pretty usefull when you hunt outside. Unfortunatly, hunting outside isn't really an option for me any longer.

2-dots: the best dot i can cast at lvl 151 is greater deaths knocking, the second best dot we have. it hits for 136 and does a total of 2040 damage over 90 seconds. This is on mobs that have 50k+ health. in other words, useless.

3-false profession: these are awsome nanos and they are one of our class defining abilities.

4-practically every other prof's nanos: see below

5-fixer nanos, run buffs are good for blitzing missions although using a soldiers TMS seems to work better for me personallyl. Basically, why bother using fixer nanos. We dont and shouldn't have the ability to cast your groovy smurf armor. fixer FP= why bother.

6-nanotechs: Casting attack/other nanos while fighting is completly useless. In the time it takes to damage a mob with an attack nano we would have done more damage using our rifles. And there is no resisting rifles.

7-doc nanos: similarly, in the time it would take to cast a doc heal on ourselves, the mob will damage us for more points then the heal will heal us.

8-Adventurer: only real reason to FP adventurer is for the leet form which adds an additional 200 to our conceal. Unfortunatly even with a buff of 10,000 to conceal we still suffer from a broken concealing system.

9-MA: the only reason we MA is for crit buffs which, is being taken away

10-MP: my pets are being taken away so the only reason I will continue to MP is to buff others with mochams. This really doesn't help ME directly but will help teamates(if i can get any after this patch).

11-So...You get the idea: yes hopefully YOU get the idea. FP is NOT some overpowering tool. We see very little benefit from it.

12-damage nano: our best adds 19 damage. Once again on a 50k HP mob hitting for 519 instead of 500 is just like having a +19 dot running. Completly useless.

13-New more damage nanos that stack: its hard to comment on this one because we do not know exactly what the damage will be. ATM our damage is far surpassed by many classes that have healing abilities. MA, ENF(your saying mongo doesn't heal?), soldier(yes TMS doesn't heal but it reduces the damage they take so the effect is the exact same), trader, Docs. The problem is all these professions can outdamage us AND can either raise their health in battle or reduce the amount of damage they take in battle.

14-team concealment buffs: hmm I really dont see the use for this one yet as conceal is really fubar'd

15-variety of buffs: this is the ONE out of 15 that actually means something. Yes we can buff better then most if we spend the IP. This benefit ONLY increases our credit amount because anyone can pay for any buff anyhow (with exception to self only buffs)

Items-
Repressor-Yeah... that's right. Don't want those oogy boogy monsters going after our precious agents! Nope! NEVER EVER Want THEM to die. Hell, let the doctors die, let the bureaucrats die, who cares about the metaphysicists, and screw the nanotechnicians.

docs can recover health, crats have fear nanos, metas have heal pets and pets to tank for them, nano techs can calm(then can heal, put up their layers) then resume.

The ability to sneak past practically all players with their concealment skills. Let's see... if an agent has 100 in concealment, and I have 100 in perception, and I only have a 75% chance of seeing him... that means if their concealment is 200, and my perception is 100... What're my chances of seeing him? NOTHING, a big fat ZERO.

Why a fixer would even make this comment is beyond me since your conceal is pretty darn good.

Please stop bashing the agent we have had enough of it. Even in the patch that is supposed to give us 'love' we have been majorly nerfed by taking away our solo ability(MP pets) and by taking away our chances to find a team(MA crit buff gone).

-Arsiine 151 age of RK!

[Croak]

I have played my Agent to 88, and my Fixer to 95, and while the Agent has some issues, they are nowhere near as glaring as the Fixer. After 14.2, that gap widens quite a bit more.

Why a fixer would even make this comment is beyond me since your conceal is pretty darn good.

Our skill in Conceal is light blue, true. But we CAN NOT afford to spend IP in it. Hell, we can't afford to spend much IP in Perception for that matter, which is green.

Fixers have several skills that are green/light blue, and we can't keep them at the same level that many classes that have DARK BLUE in the same skills can, because we are always starved for IP, mainly thanks to needing to keep six dark blue nano skills at a level to allow us to cast nanos twenty to forty levels below us.

How many of you reading this have had the luxury of sitting on unused IP for any length of time? With a Fixer, you MUST spend all your IP, as soon as you get it, just to stay ALIVE if you intend to do any solo play. And you damn well BETTER plan on solo play if you are a Fixer, because getting in a group is not easy.

On top of that, for IP invested, the return is marginal. ~150k IP in MatCre alone to self cast Grid Armor MK1 without MatCre implants (and, if you implant for MatCre, you just shift that savings into a similar cost in another nano skill and/or weapon skill). 150k/(20k/level)=7.5 TL3 levels of NOTHING but MatCre. In reality, you need to spread that over 25 or more levels in order to keep other skills at minimal amounts.

And by the time you CAN self cast GA MK1, you've pretty much outgrown it, you are in fact better off using Flowers if you can't upgrade to MK2 by 100th. And you CAN NOT self cast MK2 at 100 even if you cripple yourself elsewhere.

See where our IP goes now? GA is MatCre/T&S/MatMet. Should I mention that we need to keep Bio, Psy, and SI up as well, for our other nanos? 150k*6=900k IP spent by level 100 just for nano skills. Out of a total of ~1400k IP earned by that level. That's 70% of our IP spent. Then there's Stats, SMG/Burst, Comp Lit, Evades, Init, Run Speed, B&E, Treatment/First Aid, Vehicle, Body Dev, and Nano Pool to spend the rest on.

Even if we could AFFORD that massive IP dump without skimping elsewhere, we'd still be a bit on the gimp side because at 3points per level, we would STILL be lagging behind the QL of our Nanos by a good bit.

This isn't a nerf the agent post on my part, you were in need of some attention. But just looking at the color of a skill in the interface does not tell the whole story, especially for Fixers.

[garpenlov]

Originally posted by Bastet
last I remembered, there are only 3 classes that have any decent healing, the doctor(obviously), the agent, and the martial artist. So, naturally being a fixer(means I'm already grumpy enough), and being the passive aggressive I am, I knew there was an enforcer in the group and promptly said, "Enforcers don't have any heals either." The Enforcer agreed. But, what did the agent reply? He deftly dodged both our comments, and kept on complaining. I felt like shooting him.

Doctors have heals. MAs have heals. Traders have heals. Adventurers have heals. MPs have heal pets. Enforcers have mongo. NTs/Crats have calms. Fixers have (crappy) HoTs.

Oh... and that ability to hide from other players, who is THAT going to help? Agents definetly, fixers sorta, anyone else? Nope, have fun pressing the search button everyone.

Uhmm, it will probably help MAs, who have aquaish conceal. Since they have problems with getting rooted vs ranged classes, this way they can sneak up and unleash a Brawl-Shen-Dimach on you.

...incoherent ranting snipped...

Ummm... blitzing? OH.. but WAIT! I need grid armor to really do that well...

Hahaha.. no. You don't. There were plenty of fixers blitzing missions before grid armor even existed. I used to team up with one as my agent and we would team-blitz missions. It was great. I was jealous of his speed. He was jealous of my stealth. There are plenty of fixers STILL blitzing missions without grid armor. But because you have deluded yourself into thinking you need grid armor to blitz, you will blame all your failures on not having grid armor.

The problem is not with agents, but with fixers. Compare any class to fixers and you'll feel bad. I feel sorry for fixers, but all my fixer friends have quit this game long ago...

[______________Nietya]

Need I mention the blitz nerf?

Now the item can be just about anywhere, no certainty of its location, making blitzing much much much much less doable than before.

Especially without grid armor.

[__________NightShade]

Nietya, I'm not posting an anti-post or anything, but I'm just curious concerning when this anti-blitzing nerf went in or if it's scheduled to go in in the future. I'm a level 64 adventurer who occassionally blitzes missions about 18 qualities above my head, and if this is something new (I hadn't noticed any regular item placement before) I wouldn't mind knowing about it. Sorry for being ignorant, but I seriously haven't heard of this mentioned before.

[_____________Nakomis]

Give all classes some loving. And stop with this stupid nerf bat sh*t.

[garpenlov]

Originally posted by NightShade
Nietya, I'm not posting an anti-post or anything, but I'm just curious concerning when this anti-blitzing nerf went in or if it's scheduled to go in in the future. I'm a level 64 adventurer who occassionally blitzes missions about 18 qualities above my head, and if this is something new (I hadn't noticed any regular item placement before) I wouldn't mind knowing about it. Sorry for being ignorant, but I seriously haven't heard of this mentioned before.

It's already in. You used to be able to predict where the item in a mission was -- it was always in a certain spot in a certain type of room, usually in the corner of a mission. Now, the item can be anywhere a chest can be. Which makes it harder, but not impossible. But probably much harder for fixers than agents, since they're zooming through and don't have time to stop amd look in every corner. But don't worry, I'm sure the concealment changes in 14.2 will greatly harm mission sneaking as well.

[__________starknaked]

Bastet, your post was full of errors, some of which have already been corrected by others in this thread. Hire a fact checker, have them edit your post and remove all the falsehoods and silly statements, then repost whatever's left and I'll respond to it.

[___________Comador64]

Bastet there are 2 many errors in your post, so I wont even bother responding.
Get your facts straight!

[__________Terranigma]

What have you all got after months of payment and hoping the game will travel from beta to release?

3 months ? half a year? the story hasn't even started one bit there is not roleplaying feel factions? organisations? we can't even start a organization war organization feeels nothing much like joining a community service club or whatever. OT and clan wars? i've never seen it war ships in the air? well guys dream on Balance and justice for other proffesions? it'll take them another half a year. Apartments , new cloths tradeskills etc etc? man you'd wait for another 2 years to get that.

They have so much balancing and bug issues to deal with that they have no time to work on extras like DAoC

A game is meant to be something to : enjoy about

not something to be : angered about

if you're angered about funcoms preformace : you should just quit AO or just decide to play some other day.

so let's give a equation

pay money > hope fc works harder >nothing happens>anger>sorrow>hope more by staying in the game> more sadness ? more anger> repeat

this eventually leads to madness

to a enternally ruined community

everyone has lost the idea of what a game is supposed to do , if it doens't then why r u playing a game

just quit it and screw it dude

[______________NERFED]

lol agents and heal dont mix....

Lol level 54 ..please dont speak child jus go level up more

Traders,Advents,MAs,Docs can heal

agents cant heal

high level fixers can heal....jus ask Argulace,Sodie,Hexxtor....all uber Fixers who dont die easy in pvp.