Friday with Means - February 20th, 2009

[Berinda]

"This particular model is now environmentally friendly."

I wouldn't have put forth the effort, if I were you. Next he's going to complain about how something with a booster for propulsion isn't generating dust clouds/exhaust.

The booster is fun, aside some from bugs/overly time-sinky things that will get worked out in the long run. However, I can't move around in my hoverchair without the hoveround commercial getting stuck in my head.

When it comes to levelling, the 150-200 stretch is kind of a drag. This is because the difference between Inferno mission rewards versus effort and ado hecks/mishes and pen mishes is disparate. In Pen, I would say the XP rewards aren't unreasonable, but the difficulty is; prior to LE launch, I saw a 220 routinely bite it in a Pen mish because the mobs were level 250 or so. While a 250 mob might present a good boss fight for a TL5/TL6 team, having them as every mob on every level takes too much time to kill through compared to the XP gained on the mish reward. A scaling like RK missions would be more appropriate, and would retain newer people who have leveled to that point without the extensive social networks a lot of people who've been playing for years have.

Also, something that has irked me - why no LE research on RK over level 200 if you're not teamed with someone below level 200? You're not learning how to unlock your Shadowlevels or whatever, you're killing mobs that gave you research just fine until you hit 200.

[CulannHS]

1. Craptastic?
2. Cutesy?

Are you trying to hurt my feelings?

No, if I were planning on doing that I would just tell you flat out that you're on the same level of competence as Gaute Godager was, and you will notice I've explicitly *not* done that. I'm more frustrated than anything, and if you read the thread I attached, you'll understand why. As someone once pointed out about me..it's not that I don't care, it's that I care *too* much.

Nothing you are saying is unreasonable. This kind of common sense is often in very short supply. I like the way you think. I am certain we would get along great. That being said, knowing the issues and being able to actively and completely "fix" them is a completely different thing. "What" is tough...but sometimes "How" is even harder. Yes I would like to keep more of the 100's of new people who play AO for the first time every day.Yes, newbie island can be improved. No, we are not "hemorrhaging", I deal with the numbers every day and yet I remain cheerfull. "Hemorrhaging" is an awesome word though, and any possible chance to use it, whether accurate or not, should be grabbed with both hands. The Fr00bs ARE paying their way through the Massive advertising system and represent a very significant revenue stream. I'd like more of them.

A bit of history on numbers, Sir. I'm going to relate to you a story by another MMO corporation and their assessment of numbers, so that you can potentially see the analogy. I'll make it as brief as I can to not mire down the dialogue.

SOE and their flagship MMO Everquest I, developed as part of one class, the tradeskill known as Alchemy, which is a fancy word for potion-making. When it was brought to live servers, it was horrendous. SO bad in fact that a lot of feedback began to pour in, and it escalated into multiple websites with forums and a lot of other locations having a lot of discussion over it. Most all of this discussion was spearheaded through a website known as the Shaman's Crucible. Over a period of at least 2 YEARS, SOE argued with the players daily about the numbers being spot-on with the Alchemy tradeskill, and refused to do anything about it. After the Shaman population of players literally began to crash servers with petitions and feedback after a initiative started from the Crucible, SOE banned a few, than began to look into it. And lo and behold, when they tried using Alchemy on game servers rather than their in-house testing servers, yup, they concluded it was *seriously* busted and the entire tradeskill was immediately overhauled, and a massive apology from SOE to the entire population of EQ1 went out.

So..you'll forgive me if I say that I have no doubts you see the numbers, but perhaps the numbers you see and the numbers players see and their resultant leaving of AO may be two different things. The aforementioned parable is a attempt to indicate that it may look good to you from your side, but from a player's side, especially a 200+ who just comes back after a multi-year absence and finds no one to support them (read: no friends remaining, no org, etc) it's pretty bleak. And that's being cautiously optimistic about it.

What level range could your friends not find a team? That would be very helpfull to know as work could be done to centralize players at those level ranges...we sometimes have too many different things to do...at too many different level ranges. Tell me...we'll try and do something about it. Concrete reasons for why players leave the game are not always easy to get...or accurate.

That's a easy one..here ya go.

220 NT. 220 Adventurer. 220 Soldier. From 6:30 PM Eastern Standard Time up through 2:30 AM Eastern Standard Time.

And just to clarify, and before you hop in on that time frame and check, logging in during that timeframe and checking LFT will yield a few people, but not potentially enough for one team to do something. And by that, I mean this. You have endgame options for the Xan Booster PFs and instances, DB1/2 instances, APF PFs Albatraeum, and Allappa, and probably a couple I'm forgetting. When you check LFT there's people there, but if half a team is interested in doing say, DB2 instance, and you check LFT..there's not enough people listed to round out a team. Most certainly there are people there, and many have interests listed, but trying to find someone from the LFT screen to round out a team to be able to do something becomes next to impossible.

In short there's just not enough of a population to be able to pick and choose from people who are interested to make a full team, and the 3 aforementioned classes for various positive reasons just cannot do most if any of the 220 content.

I'd be more than welcome if you want to examine armor/build ingame for me, the Adventurer and I can get speedy word to the Soldier if you want to check him over as well. I say this to point out it's not because we're "messed up" characters, but rather we're good characters just not capable of doing the 220 content with just us 3 when we play to the utmost of our abilities. We need more people, and finding people interested is sorely lacking because there's so few on LFT and with such a wide margin of content, finding people who share the same interests becomes the crux of the issue.

The "Craptastic" content we are producing:
Balancing, content updates, bugfixes are things NOT done by the render coders. Stopping these activities (that are appreciated by others) will not make the new engine come any faster...as much as I would love it to. I'm certain you have heard the "9 women making a baby in one month!" example before, it is certainly the case here. I like your enthusiasm for the new engine...a big part of why we are working on it

Don't take the craptastic comment personally. I'm just one of those people who will use a ball-peen, mallet, or sledgehammer to put in a roofing nail because it gets the job done.

That said, why could the people on balancing, content updates and bugfixes be pulled and move over to assist the render coders? I will state up front I have no clue of the hierarchial structure in FC nor how your organization functions, therefore I ask the question earnestly. Is the render coder's job so specialized that it precludes outside assistance from others in the same job designation?

AOC Style marketing:
We won't get to spend millions of dollars marketing the new engine. I wish we could...but we won't get to. I love AO to death but that would represent a very significant risk. There will be marketing (as much as I can beg borrow steal and extort!)...but not on the crazy scale of a product like Conan. I have some ideas outside the normal approach I am working on..hopefully we'll see them soon.

The only reason I brought up the marketing campaign is because I know FC is capable of pulling off a incredible one. I saw the hype around Age of Conan; me and my wife have level 80 characters there (Barbarian & Ranger). I've also been watching the hype around Secret World and all the little puzzles and other things "leaked" to the 'Net. This is just exactly the kind of thing that AO needs to bring it out of torpor. Not explicitly the puzzles, but the brilliantly dazzling ability to hype things to the point that people literally fight over who can get in the door first.

Craptastic?

Come on...new customers are great...but keeping your existing customers (ie: "Churn") is also really important. If we stopped content updates and boosters then we would really be hemorrhaging (w00t!). I think people are enjoying themselves now...based on player feedback and general forum mojo.

Cutesy?

Well..if it mollifies you any, I've gone on record in defending AO more than once as having had the most innovative and most impressive amount of development staff out there, and that's over WoW, EQ1 & 2, Matrix Online (I was a fan of the combat system there), City of Heroes, and many other MMOs. My wife and I have beta tested and/or played at least 14 MMOs now, and with the exception of about 3-4 tops, we've maxed characters in every single one once it went live or when we started playing. But too many times even then we would make comparisions with concepts we found elsewhere to things in AO. And 9 out of 10 times, we found the AO concept much more indepth and / or refined. So don't get too disturbed about it..like I said, I'll use whatever's at hand to get the job done, and done right.

If I didn't have fun with every aspect of this job (even posting) then I wouldn't do it. I am serious as little as possible. Please don't mistake that for lack of resolve, concrete evil planning, manipulation or dire intentions when necessary. There are no bodies I won't step over to get this done.

I read the other thread and your excellent post there. Thank you for taking the time to let me know what you think...it would have been much easier to not bother. Effort like this is what makes this community special...even if you call our labours craptastic and me cutesy...eww.

Tell me the level range where there were no PUGs and your friends left!

Posted that for you above. And despite it all, I find myself liking you..it's hard not to. I realize, probably moreso than most people, that we're all human and need time to breathe, to take breaks, and to break the routine so that we don't burn out and shutdown. It's just a bit frustrating to say the least, when those breaks appear to be timed during periods that things are under duress, that's all. Sort of like, the firefighters in your home town all going on vacation at the time your house decides to catch on fire. Not their fault it picked then to do it, not your fault then they decided to leave, but it's still a critical issue..I mean you're house is on fire. It's sort of the same conceptual issue at work here.

For the other thread..yeah. As supremely "lame" and silly as this is going to sound, it still deserves being said, no matter who decides to heckle, jeer or otherwise stick up their noses. If it wasn't for AO, I would have never had the chance encounter that resulted in me finding my wonderful wife of eight years now. Wonderful to the extent that it's been eight years and the honeymoon is still going. That's really the reason I'm disturbed, it's not that I don't care...rather, I don't want to see AO ever shutdown or slip into obscurity. AO was home for us for on and off, a combined total of about 5 years when we played, left, revisited, etc.

The other thread has a lot of good points in it through the whole thing..my posts there were based on a lot of thought and contemplation on AO during periods when I had the time to do so..driving to / from work, doing dishes, folding clothes..the mundane things where your hands go on auto-pilot and your mind quietly slips out from some time to do it's own thing. I can't speak for anyone else in AO, but I'd be willing to accept alot of radical things to see people come back and the game not fade away, for all the reasons I've said already. I'm one of those who can handle the premise that sometimes, it's not enough to just replace the rotten parts of the wall and expect it to work, but rather to just tear the complete wall out and rebuild it new. That analogy applied to AO means t hat I can accept quite a bit if I know what the end result is going to be. Not knowing in many cases, is where uncertainty sets in, and uncertainty turns to doubt, and doubt (does this sound like Star Wars suddenly?) is where things really start to go downhill.

As far as cutesy..saw your interview about the Xan Booster, and no..can't apply that to you in any shape form or fashion. Female might..but I'm not gonna. No no and H no. =)

[Ashes2Ashes]

Nice post Culann.

[CulannHS]

Thank you RK1. It's way long for which I apologize heartily, but it's probably one of the most earnest posts I've ever made on the AO forums, outside of those in the other thread regarding population.

I can be a troll and a horse's rear just as well as the next individual but occasionally I find it's time to drop all the shenanigans and get right down to it...and to me, given all that AO's become, it's worth it to do so.

[Shonta]

Well said Cullan.
Means once said that AO will go on because there are too many people that love it.

I would like to suggest to means that when it comes down to advertising, use all the loyal players of AO, there are people willing to help with advertsising and things. There are many players that love the game and will do what they can to insure its survival.
Money isn't everything, loyalty can open doors and do things that money cannot do.

[nijushio]

Hey Means,
the last posts made me think about why a few of my friends quit the game. Many of them quit around lvl 150+/- and then again close to 220. What i think made them leave was that they felt a lack of progress and they disliked being so very dependent on other people. Also the only kind of leveling/activity they knew was very repetitive and boring (hecklers/inf missions). They didn't have much of what AO actually has to offer. Understandably, their main goal was to have at least one endgame toon to take part in high level org activities before exploring the rest of the game. So leveling was the main activity they went after. Let me go into detail here:

It may infact be easy to level for people who know the game and have lots of friends but for new players it is very slow and not always available either beyond level 150. That's where one of my friends gave up because he only had like maybe 2 hours to play each day. That's about what you sometimes need to get a working ado heckler team going. It is also hard to get a working team because most of the experienced people who could tank ado hecklers are in inferno.

Once in inferno the need of a 220 Puller makes many people sit around for hours (!) on lft. They can't do anything else during that time either because reaching ergo takes lots of time for the new players and they might not manage to get there alone anyway. Doing anything alone in inferno to pass time is not viable either while your below 220 and not fully equipped. That's where another friend of mine gave up.

So my friends sat on lft for an hour or two, or tried getting a team going and didn't manage. That pattern repeatet itself for weeks and even us running the odd mission with org didn't help because it was no fun experience for them. Also often we were already busy with something and coulnd't drop everything to help them level. They felt useless and depending on others all the time. They couldn't start anything with only 2 or 3 people or solo somewhere and saw no progress at all.




I want to suggest 3 small changes that may prevent new players quitting in frustration the same way


1. Change Ado/Pen missions which everyone else here thinks would help too.
Make them scale with team size too maybe so that small teams can have a go at it too and get a reasonable reward.

2. Make Rewards independent of mission puller level!
This would end the many wasted hours people sit on lft in inferno, and would make pen missions actually happen again. Everyone should get a reward suited to their level independent of team member levels.

3. Maybe most important: Offer Alternatives to Heckler/Mission grinding that encourage exploration.
Since Hecklers and missions are actually utterly boring and won't make people explore raise the xp gain on normal mobs and especially all quests. Don't change it too much but so that soloing or small teams of 2-3 people can see a bit of progress even if slow. Right now leveling on quests is not viable at all. It would be absolutely no harm if people got 2-3 levels out of scheol, ado and pen quests each. There are so many quests none does right now, but if there was some serious xp it would be different.
There's so much RK and SL content not used by anyone. Making people level of quests instead of repetitive heckler/borg grinding could be lots more fun! SoM, Smugglers Den, Foremans, Nasc, Ely, Scheol, Ado and so on - there's so many quests wich are really not used. Let us level from them and make the stupid mob grinding a thing of the past. It also doesn't make sense storywise why hitting rocks repeatedly for hours would make you better, but actually doing quests won't advance you much at all.





Before i get flamed for suggesting easy mode: the people shouting leveling is too easy already are the ones getting dragged through inferno missions at 160. I bet they would find it pretty hard going with no big org and friends doing the leveling for them.
I don't see why casual players shouldn't have the chance of progress, they would still be lacking in equipment and wouldn't have a chance getting AI armor easily so you could still tell them from veterans who put lots of time into their toons.

Also veterans have the advantage of having got lots of their stuff a lot easier in rush times (alappa, albtraum, dreads, db 1,2, db quest, apf nanos).
Making leveling easier would only balance the uncomparably harder grind for those instances new players encounter now with less people around doing them. I would likely just give up if i had to get all of those things now as a new player.

There's no reason why only the rich and experienced should have access to quick leveling.

You are already making changes to issues that made the rich get richer way easier than new people in the game (farm cities/ga4 fixers in s10).
Do the same to leveling. Decrease gaps between new and old players, thats really what puts lots of people off, the feeling that they will never be able to compete!

[XenonDe]

Wow, this is a very promising FwM thread.
Most major problems were regarded and taken up by Means. Keep it up! We count on you!

I like the booster so far, though didn't get to play much. Apart from the good ol' bugs and casting annoyances I like the trend of less grind, faster kills but higher difficulty that has shown so far. Hope to get to see more of the teaming parts soon.

[Hacre]

A lot of good Clanners quit on RK1 due to the incredibly sad state Notum Wars was placed in and has been in for a long time.

Band aid patching with knockback mechanics isn't going to cut it. There was a good chunk of people that lived and breathed AO for PvP and Notum Wars who have since left and won't be enticed back by shiny new graphics engines.

If you want to increase population and give AO diversity, then sort Notum Wars out and sort it out properly. Stop trying to "fix" it with fancy flashes and bells and whistles such as ill thought out and improperly tested Orbital Strikes. The additions to NW from LE could have started and ended with APTs/AVTs/Mechs, with probably a healthy dose of real work to address the old issues with NW.

No, I don't know what that work should have entailed but I do know that OS wasn't it. Something as powerful as an unbreakable area root and an area of effect non counterable reflect piercing 4x capping nuke should never have fallen into -anyones- hands. Sure, it makes for a nice story, but in a reality where people play a game to have fun, putting something into the game that puts an abrupt stop to the fun should ring alarm bells.

Big, loud ones. Either they didn't ring, which is disturbing, or they did ring (they certainly rang out clear on the forums) and went totally ignored, which is even more disturbing.

A token effort of adding another "cool effect" to the OS isn't going to cut it.

@Idiot Omni "L2PNeeb" commentators: I honestly, could care less what people who have no reason to dislike a problem, a very real problem, have to say about the issue. I'm sure it's great and wonderful sitting on top of your high level towers and I'm also quite sure SB+OS isn't the -only- reason NW has failed.

It has however, served as a huge moral crushing tool and sapped any willingness left out of a side when it comes to TL7 Notum Wars.

Something that needs to be addressed, along with the other good points already made well enough in this thread that I don't need to labour on them again.

[Klodovik]

Means, why is it your posts pretty much always are full of win?

Pfff. I doubt you will get that 500-900 (900) rifle just 'cos of this.

P.S. I can care less what anyone thinks, Fanboy, whatever. This "Means" progress!! I like what I am seeing You go Means!!

Pfft. I doubt you will get pets with 1k MC/TS reqs just 'cos of this.

Anyways.

Means, since you like froobs and all that stuff, what can you do to make this game more interesting to them past level 150 (yeah, I know it might be contra productive in a way - they don't have to spit out some money for SL/AI, if they wanna have more fun from now on, but still)?

Access to NW expansion was an interesting idea. Can we see some more of it? Actual new, mid level, froob friendly, RK based leveling content, which will be interesting to both, froobs and paying customers (to help out those poor teamless bastards CulannHS talked about)?

It would be nice to make it instanced and with no tl7 allowed in there (no kite teams/outside tanks and all that shizzle).

[Dunsany]

Allow Neutrals to Join the Dust Brigade

I want to have an evil twin brother.

[egadsrk2]

As of last patch I'm suffering from huge memory leaks from AO. It goes up to 400-500mb of RAM used up (I have 1024 MB RAM in my PC), then freezes or just goes back, whereafter I have to kill the process and restart AO. You can read some more specifics in my 18.0 crashthread.

So far I've only found one other guy that sometimes suffers from this problem as of last patch, and that's Decimal (egadsrk2 on the forums).

Well to be fair I blew up my main computer a day before Legacy. So I'm using my old single core piece of crap which does nothing these days but download pornography and host Flatbot/Zodbot and my Orgbot.

There was no memory leak that I observed. The client merely seized up, and only once. End process/Log in. Drama over.

[Mekh]

EDIT: Became a rather messy post, because I was in a dasm hurry, but.... well, the suggestions stands but could use some more carefull consideration andd better examples and such.

There are really two different level ranges.

Froob: Anything over 150. (Means: Read my thread in the other forum for my thoughts on that. )


Sloob: Starting about 130 to about 160. 130 is when Ely hecks become not as good of XP. People generally migrate up to Ado, but due to the way Inf missions work at 160 they move to Inf, meaning that the people stuck in ado is about 30 level ranges and the XP isn't great. Ado hecks are a bit too hard to kill for a team of 130-160 players.

Improvements: Reduce the difficulty of Pen missions for the same reward. Pen missions are almost (if not) as difficult as Inf missions with far less reward. This should actually provide a good leveling range for 150-180ish.

Consider level locking Inf in some way/shape or form. A level lock on Inf boots, perhaps. Level 160 players should not be in Inf. 180+ I could understand, really 200+ would be better. Inf is a great place to level for 200+, and should be left as is.


Full Expansion: The issue with leveling from 200+ has been dealt with in LoX. LoX is actually a great place to get XP/SK, and provides an alternative to inf missions (which I swore to never do again after doing ten billion of them on my main).

Full expansion players still have the same issue as sloobs with a horrible time leveling from about 130 to 160. See all my comments for sloobs and apply here.


So to sum up, froobs from 150+, sloobs+ from 130-160. Technogen has a lot of good thoughts (all of his comments on Ado missions are absolute money).

Agree 100% with all in this post... Level locking the boots seems to be the best option I've seen suggested so far.

...snip...
I wont begrudge anyone for that if that is the case. But, how do you balance and fix those issues if what you need is more people, or certain profession to keep the group alive. I wouldn't want the mobs to be made into a cakewalk either so a group of just anybody can waltz through and collect the xp. How can the devs do this without dumbing down everything? There are alot of things to consider.

Part of the problem is how "simple" SL mobs are compared to RK mobs.
They hit hard, very hard.... but pretty much nothing else.

If Ado/Pen/Inf mission mobs could be upgraded so they were generated somewhat based on the professions entering the instance, it would allow for some balancing with regard to such issues.

Example 1:
Trader, Doc, MP team enters the instance: Mobs will have big nukes and hit more often as well as have relative low HP --> Trader can Drain mobs and prevent them from nuking. Doc can save their asses with heals, MP can mezz adds and deal damage.


Example 2:
Shade, Soldier, Keeper team enters the instance: Mobs will have a lot more HP, hit less hard, have reflect and evade debuffs as well as damage shields...


Basically: Mobs in the instance should be balanced for the professions in the instance... Have tools to counter the professions, Like damage shields to make soldiers, shades be carefull, debuffs of various kinds to make everyone else carefull.... The examples are endless.


I can only imagine this being difficult to achieve in a balanced way, but it would help a lot with making people able to get some levelling and action happening.
It would prevent a team of 5 having to sit and wait forever on that elusive Doc/Tank they need to get a team going...

It would also mean that it could be the end of everyone just wanting damage professions in their team and noone else, because all the mobs would have tools to counter the tools of the professions.

for example a team of 3 soldiers and 3 shades might find it annoying that all the mobs have damage shields based on common damage types used by said professions , thereby negating all their uber damage...
Bring a Trader or MP to drain the mobs so they can't put up their shields or force people to switch weapons...


Todays levelling whether it's in missions or outside mobs favors damage professions way too much, leaving many professions on LFT, which is another common problem these days.

[egadsrk2]

I did have a long winded post written. It specified rather broad ranges where pickup teams are a problem. After I realised I included the entire range from level 90 to 208, I deleted the whole thing.

Theres pretty much a golden period of about 105-125, and then 159-170. But thats about it. Every other level is a complete pain if you don't have a bit of help from your mates, or your own resources to blast through it. Its our own fault. We're all in such a hurry. And for every player that leaves, an already subscribed player feels forced to start a second account just to play efficiently.

For the entire period of Lotx, I've been triple logged with three 220 DD profs. Its not nescessary, its just faster than looking for teammates. Such an attitude from the individual, if enough people have the same attitude - hurts the whole teaming concept. It wont be long until theres a 220 on account 4, and I've honed my ability to play all four toons at once effectively. (I already do play them all at once, but my reaction time needs some work, as does the toon itself. Another billion creds ought to have it ship-shape.)

Your numbers may be healthy, but actual unique human beings playing AO is a lot less than the accounts in use.

[Kintaii]

That said, why could the people on balancing, content updates and bugfixes be pulled and move over to assist the render coders? I will state up front I have no clue of the hierarchial structure in FC nor how your organization functions, therefore I ask the question earnestly. Is the render coder's job so specialized that it precludes outside assistance from others in the same job designation?

I'd like to take one quick moment to address this one myself, as I've heard this on more than one occasion and would like to clear up some of the misconceptions about the individual roles on the team.

As a content designer for AO, I worked with vastly different tools and in a vastly different framework than the coders. The truth be told, I don't know the first *thing* about coding. I once made a little password program in GW-BASIC back in the day, but outside of that? I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag. I take a look at the stuff that Macrosun does on a regular basis and it genuinely hurts my head - Same with the stuff that Enno and the other render coders are tackling. This isn't even because of the old "AO code ewww" running gag that's been passed around - It's just that code genuinely goes over my head.

Content designers are hired on vastly different terms and with vastly different requirements from coders. We... don't have to know how to code to do this job. Some knowledge of scripting helps, and it never *hurts* to know coding, but they're not requirements at all. Same with, say, the art team on the project - They're hired because they know how to model and how to use Photoshop - Not because they know C++, nor because they understand game balance.

That said, it isn't that we wouldn't *like* to help out sometimes - I myself have been goofing around in my spare time with particle effect generators, just to see if I can learn how to work with this stuff and potentially offer the engine guys some aid on my spare time (which is unfortunately dwindling these days, but I do what I can). Even though I'm no longer working on AO I still feel a deep, devoted passion to it - One that makes me *want* to help the game along, even if it means taking up my spare time to do it. You mentioned in your earlier post that AO was a game that meant a lot to you, and had influenced your life in fantastic, amazing ways. You're not alone in that, and there are plenty of us here at this office who actually feel the same way - Myself most definitely included.

So it's not that we don't want to help. It's that we're genuinely not qualified. As much amazing talent that exists in the current team, a designer is a designer, an artist is an artist, and a coder is a coder - While some small amount of overlap may exist, usually the people hired are specialized in their specific role, and quite simply just doesn't have the in-depth knowledge to help out that much in other areas. It's like if your mathematics-studying best friend asks you to help them solve a complicated equation for their term grade but you studied woodworking - You could offer to make them a really pretty frame to hang their solution in, but actually solving the equation is beyond your means. That's what it's like, mostly.

Meantime, we still have jobs, and AO still needs content and such to keep people rolling, so instead of us just kinda sitting around and waiting (or worse yet, someone *forcing* us to work on code, in which case literally nothing would get done because we would have zero clue of what we're doing), content gets made. It lets us keep our jobs, it lets you guys get new stuff to play around with in-game, and it keeps us out of the render coders collective hair. Because I can guarantee you that if we aren't kept busy, they start getting tired of us popping over every five minutes to look at the shinies.

[Ashes2Ashes]

EDIT: Became a rather messy post, because I was in a dasm hurry, but.... well, the suggestions stands but could use some more carefull consideration andd better examples and such.



Agree 100% with all in this post... Level locking the boots seems to be the best option I've seen suggested so far.



Part of the problem is how "simple" SL mobs are compared to RK mobs.
They hit hard, very hard.... but pretty much nothing else.

If Ado/Pen/Inf mission mobs could be upgraded so they were generated somewhat based on the professions entering the instance, it would allow for some balancing with regard to such issues.

Example 1:
Trader, Doc, MP team enters the instance: Mobs will have big nukes and hit more often as well as have relative low HP --> Trader can Drain mobs and prevent them from nuking. Doc can save their asses with heals, MP can mezz adds and deal damage.


Example 2:
Shade, Soldier, Keeper team enters the instance: Mobs will have a lot more HP, hit less hard, have reflect and evade debuffs as well as damage shields...


Basically: Mobs in the instance should be balanced for the professions in the instance... Have tools to counter the professions, Like damage shields to make soldiers, shades be carefull, debuffs of various kinds to make everyone else carefull.... The examples are endless.


I can only imagine this being difficult to achieve in a balanced way, but it would help a lot with making people able to get some levelling and action happening.
It would prevent a team of 5 having to sit and wait forever on that elusive Doc/Tank they need to get a team going...

It would also mean that it could be the end of everyone just wanting damage professions in their team and noone else, because all the mobs would have tools to counter the tools of the professions.

for example a team of 3 soldiers and 3 shades might find it annoying that all the mobs have damage shields based on common damage types used by said professions , thereby negating all their uber damage...
Bring a Trader or MP to drain the mobs so they can't put up their shields or force people to switch weapons...


Todays levelling whether it's in missions or outside mobs favors damage professions way too much, leaving many professions on LFT, which is another common problem these days.

I really like this idea alot. In your one example with the damage shields, it would revisit part of an engineer toolset that hardly gets used much Disruptive Retributive Negator. Would also open up opportunities for other professions to dust off some of thier professional toolsets that usually go unused. If mobs used similar tactics, the group members would have to counter. One thing I always wanted to see when running a RK missions, is seeing mobs use weapon specials, specific to thier profession.

Full Auto, Burst, Fling, Aim Shot, Brawl, Fast Attack, Sneak Attack, you get the idea... Would require groups to think smart, work together, and put a little excitement back into missions. Instead of just running into high damaging, single attack mob encounters. In a situation like that, it would be a boon to have along an engineer to be running blockers to counteract some of that, MP for NSD to prevent nuking, ect... Usually running into NT mobs (lv 200 mind you) in missions they will sometimes fire off a 25 hit point nuke! Come on now, lol . Usually it's the crat mobs you have to worry about nuking you hard.

I can see where this sort of thing would make things a bit more fun, and risky. Ofc it would have to be balanced like you mentioned, so folks don't start going splat in missions, and cursing how hard things became. But if it would be possible to tailor missions/mobs from those whom are in group, it would be a fun dynamic changing event I think alot of people would enjoy.

Nice idea Mekh

[Dunsany]

Its our own fault. We're all in such a hurry. And for every player that leaves, an already subscribed player feels forced to start a second account just to play efficiently.

This is so true.

[Keldros]

Full Auto, Burst, Fling, Aim Shot, Brawl, Fast Attack, Sneak Attack, you get the idea... Would require groups to think smart, work together, and put a little excitement back into missions. Instead of just running into high damaging, single attack mob encounters.

...and while nice, would ultimately be ignored by most players who can simply skip over three title levels worth of content by spending a few afternoons afk on a hill, or following a 220 around Ely and hitting q occasionally.

The problem isn't simply making viable options to kite/pocket teams, it's that kite/pocket teams need to be made nonviable as well.

[Mekh]

...and while nice, would ultimately be ignored by most players who can simply skip over three title levels worth of content by spending a few afternoons afk on a hill, or following a 220 around Ely and hitting q occasionally.

The problem isn't simply making viable options to kite/pocket teams, it's that kite/pocket teams need to be made nonviable as well.

True...
If hecks ran away after being damaged by a out-of-level-range toon, it would make pocketing a lot harder and probably annoying enough to practically eliminate it all together.
Remember... Hecks attacking a pocket tank usually gets damage from said pockets shields/reflects.

Kiting the old fashioned way without an out-of-level-range tank is harder to combat, except by adding some kinda snare/root/stun to said mobs toolset.
However, kiting a mob is a perfectly viable and intended way of killing a hard mob for some professions and therefore a severe nerf to said professions ability to solo mobs.

CH/Mongo pocketing should be easy to make so annoying that it won't be used in the Elysium range, by letting hecks or whatever else mobs run away if receiving damage by a high level toon, but for all other power levelling methods I do not see an easy way to handle.
Also... Scheol/Ado/Pen/Inf hecks are not grey to a 220, hence these mobs could still be pocketed.
Removing CH agg would only mean that you can only use Enfo's for pocketing, but won't remove pocketing.

It's not easy to fix really, unless you make alternatives to pocket teams, that are as giving and more fun.

If people can level faster in a regular semi-decent team without pocketing and at the same time by doing it on something fun to do, then I think many people would prefer that over spending semi-afk time in a mindnumbingly boring pocketed team.

Lotsa things to help with this have been suggested over the years, like upping RK xp/sk closer to SL levels, giving people better rewards for doing missions/quests compared to killing hecklers.
This would eliminate pockets as missions are team instances, but it means that said team need to get better reward from spending an hour in that team, than from spending an hour in a pocket/kite team.

[Keldros]

Kiting the old fashioned way without an out-of-level-range tank is harder to combat, except by adding some kinda snare/root/stun to said mobs toolset.
However, kiting a mob is a perfectly viable and intended way of killing a hard mob for some professions and therefore a severe nerf to said professions ability to solo mobs.

True, the game mechanics need to be altered so that "solo DD=solo XP", even if the player is teamed. If the other players want XP from the kite they should have multiple players landing damage.

CH/Mongo pocketing should be easy to make so annoying that it won't be used in the Elysium range, by letting hecks or whatever else mobs run away if receiving damage by a high level toon, but for all other power levelling methods I do not see an easy way to handle.
Also... Scheol/Ado/Pen/Inf hecks are not grey to a 220, hence these mobs could still be pocketed.
Removing CH agg would only mean that you can only use Enfo's for pocketing, but won't remove pocketing.

Yeah, outside heals are the most difficult problem to fix, short of giving Ely hecks a "delete Burden" or "knock symbiant unconscious" proc .

[Tazalanche]

I hate it when that happens!

Wonder if they planned it or it was spontaneous? Did one horse see an opening and just scream "Run for it dudes!"? Did they braid their tail hair into rope? Did someone smuggle a file in their oats? I bet the other pasture didnt use generic salt licks like you do.

The grass was greener.