Hi there. Let's talk about Engies for a few minutes.
After letting the Professionals post the rebalancing tidbits over the last few days, there've been quite a few various opinions on exactly what's happening, how it's happening, and whether or not we up here have any clue wtf we're doing. I'm one of those guys who'll freely admit that we don't always know wtf we're doing at any given moment, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to get everyone together and have a discussion about where we on the AO team see Engineers fitting into the overall landscape of Anarchy Online, what you guys expect out of the rebalancing, and what the best way to proceed would be.
First off and foremost I should say that neither of the current Professionals have much of anything to do with creating the over-arching designs that we've come up with - Instead we came up with a vision of where we'd like to go and offered it up to them for feedback. Since then we've had two very different opinions: Ellarisa, who does not care for the majority of the proposed changes and has been very vocal against anything to do with tradeskills, and Technogen, who is viewing the rebalancing as an opportunity to completely alter and rework the entire vision of the Engineer profession and half the rest of the game while he's at it.
Where we on the team fall in on this spectrum is somewhere in the middle - Due to technical limitations and concerns we can't make our "dream profession" for anyone; AO is old, its code is buggy, and there is ultimately only so much we can do to change a profession around. However, looking over the various professions and their weaknesses/strengths, we've taken the ones we feel need the most work and have done what we can to come up with an overall strategy about what the "feel" of the profession should be in an attempt to give them their core concept back - Something that's sadly been lost for many professions over the years of AO's development.
Pet professions in general have suffered quite a bit due to various issues - Pets have seen decreased usefulness through-out the years due to a lack of updates to their base templates/weapons, barring them from being in-line with the rest of the game's changes and increases in power. Additionally, issues such as pet buffs, crowd-control problems, and other such various bits of nastiness have made the over-time diminishing of pet strength that much more glaring. Pets are not what they used to be in a lot of ways, for Engineers and other professions reliant on on their pet strength.
Because of that, and due to the measures put in place by various other iterations of the Anarchy Online team, the core concept of the Engineer has ultimately been diminished - Instead of a creation profession, Engineers have become more and more reliant on personal damage and often left their pets by the wayside, particularly in PvP. Their playstyle still works, mind you, and Engineers are not at the bottom of the PvP food chain (regardless of what anyone would try to tell you), but is it really what an Engineer should be about?
Engineers, according to our vision, should come in three basic flavours: Creator, Attacker, Gadgeteer. Let's further define what each of these means.
Creator: The core concept behind an Engineer. The "creator" variant relies on their pet as their weapon of choice, with the majority of their damage output coming through the pet they create and manage. Nanos and perks act as tools to enhance their robots, while their personal damage is sacrificed. The "creator" playstyle relies on ensuring that they remain as far out of harm's way as possible, but still has the ability to defend themselves if need be - They can still do personal damage via a held weapon, and can still mitigate damage on themselves (both via nanos and [potentially] via diverting damage to their pets), but will have a much better opportunity to do so if their pet is kept alive and well.
Attacker: An "attacker" Engineer sacrifices their ability to utilize their pet to it's fullest potential by investing more fully in weaponry, ensuring that they have the ability to take on an opponent head-on while utilizing their pet creation as more of a distraction/low-damage tool. The pet's survival has only a minimal importance to the "attacker" Engineer, and while it's nice to have one up and running the Engineer is much more concerned about their own welfare.
Gadgeteer: A "gadgeteer" Engineer has sacrificed their ability to utilize weaponry even more than the "creator" Engineer - While weaponry is still a vital part of the "creator" setup, weapon choices are diminished for the "gadgeteer" due to their focus on improving tradeskills. The "gadgeteer" variant of Engineer relies on their ability to craft to focus more heavily on debuffing others while outputting a minimum of personal damage via a held weapon, and utilizing their pets to keep enemies distracted and confused while the Engineer themselves causes damage with specialized items that they themselves have crafted. A "gadgeteer" will never be the end-all, be-all of PvM or PvP - That said, though, just because someone's decided to go down a tradeskill-based route it doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to have fun and enjoy themselves in-game.
Obviously none of these are set in stone at all, and part of the beauty of AO is that going down one road or another is never something that anyone's forced to do. Will there be a "best" setup for each of these three distinct types? Yes, or at least several "best" setups. Will hybridization completely and utterly gimp your character? No. AO is a game about picking, choosing, twinking and experimenting - The day we remove those core aspects from the game is the day we might as well shut down our servers, because we sure as hell ain't Anarchy Online anymore.
At the end of the day, our goal is to try and give Engineers the ability to return to their core concept, while still offering support for other playstyles - No one here is saying you will be *forced* to suddenly drop your weaponry for an item which will make your pet better, nor are we saying you will have to reset all your IP and drop everything into tradeskills just to be competitive. At the end of the day, Engineers who choose to maintain a focus on their weaponry instead of their pets will be just as able to compete in PvP and PvM as anyone else. It's just a different flavour.
Ultimately, though, it comes down to what you guys want and what will make you happy. If you think we're wrong on this, tell us we're wrong. If you think we're right, tell us we're right. Make suggestions, talk about what you want to see changed - Tell us what your own core vision for Engineers is. Remember, though, that what you view as an Engineer may not be what other people view as an Engineer - AO's a game which encourages all sorts of setups, tactics and playstyles, even for each individual profession, and everyone has their own opinion.
Keeping the above in mind, what do you think? Do you feel that we're on the right track with our vision for the profession overall? What would you like to see for your profession out of this rebalancing effort? All opinions are welcome - Let's see what you guys think. =)