Balancing equipment; giving everyone an equal chance.

[ArienSky]

I sure would love if armors were more equal.
That there were different armors, so the effort was in making the right choice, but that they were easily obtainable for all, so PVP would be about skill, not equipment and months of grinding.

Like AO classic, where you can roll missions for armor.
Sure, it takes a bit to do, but you can do it in a day.
the same with weapons.

That resulted in people having multiple setups
depending on the situation you would change.

Now we have so far out twinking, that it takes (took) months to change something.

I like twinking, it is a part of AO I like, what I do not like is that I need to spend a really really long time to get it.

one of my friends laugh at MMOs, his argument goes like this:
"Why spend months of work to get to the fair fight?
In other games you have a fair chance from the start"
He talks about CounterStrike and strategy games.
There practice and knowledge will give you an advantage, not how many times you have killed a gray or green alien and waited for an armor to drop.

With the rare armor/equipment system we have now, there are two options:

1) balancing around the average person

Pros of balancing around the average person:
+ Hopefully more new people will enjoy PVP
+ Random people, not just the top 2% can join in
+ You will be able to have fair fights without having to spend months of unbalanced PVPing getting VP for the armor you need to have, to get a fair fight. (eroz_c mentioned that you at least need OFAB to have a fair fight)

Cons
- The top 2% will likely be unbalanced, and with a lot of effort there will be a "best" profession.
- Less incentive to get the best gear, as you can have fun without.



2) balancing around the top 2% PVPer.

Pros of balancing around the top 2% PVPers:
+ The endgame, top-gear hardcore fighting will be balanced.
+ It is rewarded to have good equipment: you can easily kill everyone new that joins BS to try out PVP.

Cons
- You will need to spend a lot of time to get the gear, A LOT. Maybe farm AI city raids, or PVP in an unbalanced environment, to get the armor so you can compete with the others fairly.
- You will have difficulties training and getting better, as you are likely to get killed very fast.
- You can win just by grinding for months, or having a lot of credits, but little knowledge or skill.
- Buying credits with $ is attactive

But I have one worry about balancing around average joe: that the twinkers then still will have an enormous advantage.


In the scenario of equipment that is easy to get, you would have less of a span between top 2% and the average player.
so everyone would have the chance to twink.
Meaning that the game, overall could be more balanced and based on ingenuity and skill, rather than grinding.

I guess this is why some have called for a Fr00b only server: AO classic was easier to start with and get good setups without too much work.


and the post that sparked this thread to be started:

Other professions don't work "just fine" with less than mediocre equipment, either. Definitely not in PvP, not in Battle Station. And not at TL5. I have friends with quite mediocre TL5 toons that are stopped leveling projects - 1hb enf, MBC doc, ranged advie, martial artist - and guess what, they all get steamrolled and/or their defences get easily disabled. So they, in essence, don't "work".

I do have a level 150 soldier that's without AI armor, but I wouldn't say entirely mediocre otherwise. His defenses get easily disabled too, even though you can actually accomplish something useful (and kill people) from time to time. So he is functional. I am quite sure if you load up on similar non-AI armor gear and good symbs you can make things work for your TL5 CH agent (ofab, reactive, etc). Those with better equipment will of course have an edge, that's why they have obtained the equipment in the first place... Yes?

Thank you for your post eroz_c

I dislike the fact that your friends stopped PVPing, because they found the fights unfair, as they did not have good enough equipment, not because they lacked skill.
With good equipment they could train to become better in PVP, but without, they just were left for dead. With the option to grind an armor for months, then get a chance to learn and improve.

it is a very good point you have: around what players should be balance?
We can choose to balance the game around the top 2% PVPers, or around the top 50%, meaning the average player.
It is a very difficult decision indeed.

PVP is fun, when you have a chance to compete, to kill others.
but most trying it are steamrolled and stay away, as you mention it eroz_c.
Spending months and months getting equipment.. doing PVP without a chance for months, just for the possibility to get a fair chance.

That seems unfair and like too much work for many.

I see the LE mechs as a chance for the Mediocre equipped players.
but again, it is less fun, as you have so few buttons, AO is fun because it is challenging. The sad part is that it is near impossible for a Mediocre setup.


Sure there are games like GuildWars, where equipment does not matter, where it is pure skill, people could move there.
but
1) AO is more fun and challenging, also in PVM
2) AO has many many more items and actions, making it more tactical and knowledge based
3) AO is sci-fi

Kind Regards
-Ariensky

PS. Yes this is a "I want an easier time at getting equipment"-post
but please read the arguments.

It isn't a post where the point is to remove challenges from the game.
it is to move the challenge from: killing 10.000 aliens for an armor.
to: which combination of armor would do good.
Experimentation, fun and skill.

in essence: less grind, more skill.

The perk reset guy was a step on the way.
Please think of AO classic.
there you could get an armor easily.
Sure there were tradeskill armors as well, that were great, but they were rather easily doable for the average person.
--apart from the stiletto coldstone grinding. (but that is Notum Wars )
Also expensive GA fixers could be killed with a cheap AS weapon.

Has the game changed so much that new people should not have a chance?
it didn't use to be that way.

To me having to grind an AI armor to get a fair PVP fight is a waste of time.
I can go play chess with anyone in 2 min. There the result will be skill.

Twinking is skill, hence I like that part of AO
Grinding is not skill though.

[erozc]

Wow, I got quoted a lot... Even though I'm not sure my insight is totally authoritative.

The nature of AO itemization affects profession performance hugely, and that's what makes AO what it currently is. You can have a heavy weapons doc that is (or was) viable (in PvM at least) just because there's the option to work on skills that aren't necessarily at your profession's core. Meanwhile, this means that if you work on skills that are at your profession's core, the ratings are likely to be much higher than what they are for someone who didn't really work for it.

I did't mean to make a blanket statement on that OFAB will help people PvP, or that it is necessary. What's certain is that Classic AO style armors that mostly only buff ACs and a few points of something else here and there are not going to cut it when you have items that give +20-80 points in one skill in addition to blanket coverage of ACs.

On top of everything, just items don't mean you're any good, you have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of yourself as well as other professions too. This is what is similar to other RPGs. AO's combat system, however, is such that one can get killed in a split second by a coordinated perk alpha with special attacks, if one isn't prepared and doesn't have the gear necessary for the profession to survive the attack.

It's getting late and I have to be leaving but in closing, my friends didn't leave AO because they found PvP too competitive and discouraging, maybe that was a part of the equation but still merely a fraction of what was going on. On balancing, the top dogs need to be considered when doing the balancing or there will be forum cataclysms of cosmic proportions. What's probably needed is ways for the lesser ones to close the gap between them and the top, but the gap is nearly as much about knowledge on what to go for and how to get there as it is about items.

[Moonbolt]

very well written and good post ariensky

well... just a few points..

ofab isnt realy hard to grind... just takes a little time.
the problem with it is that for most profs the majority of ofab isnt worth getting.

also u have other options to AI and ofab armour now ingame.
the godess armour from the new instance isnt bad at all.

there is an easy solution to this that FC could imply..
make a couple of new armour sets from raids that isnt as good as AI armour but still will be viable options ..
like a set of mellee armour that adds +15 to all mellee skills for each part..
or a set of armour tht adds 30 aad at each part or w/e seems suitable.

u would miss out on the combined skills like AI armour has with both AR and AAD but would still be a viable options while grinding for "the best" armour for ur profession.'

ofab sort of is such a solution but most parts of ofab armour just doesnt add the skills that profession realy wants to have on ther armour set.

[Zadamm]

This is something to strive for.
How it can be done, I don't know.
It's sad to tell new players in AO (if there are any)
that if you want to be mediocre in pvp you have to first gather XXX millions of credits.
Gather knowledge for 1year+, know how to use tools and such.
Have org mates to help get item Y from place Z.

On the other hand, twinking is what keeps some of us playing.

I guess the obvious solution would be to make modifiers from all armors & implants
half of what they are, this would lessen the effect that they have.
Twinking would still help you, but not that much.
This would also make pvp easier for new players.
However...I'm afraid it's too late for all this, this should have been
done years ago. Oh well, at least input to FC for future games.

[Aethyrguard]

It really isn't the itemization itself that presents the problem in AO. Meaning, it isn't the fact you can twink that makes it a problem. It is the daunting task of completing a giant sized laundry list of content and farming required to have a second character or even finish a first. I believe that the saying "AO has too many grinds" is partially speaking about too much content and expectations to complete it.

AO is old. It has many stories in it and many changes based on those stories, but, they never end. Didn't we kill the Beast? Shouldn't ergo have fixed the SL by now with all of our help or that portal become unstable? Closing the shadowlands and replacing the RK vendor system (old useless crap) with SL items and making things like BoC and such very expensive credit wise as a money sink. Then refocus on the RK storyline and retool the missions system and add in an elite instancing system that offers VASTLY improved drop rates on items and an enhanced loot table with new balanced items that have bigger single stat bonuses than old AI/SL gear, no level locks, decent stat requirements and a implant like customization options for armor and weapons and we call it a day or AO 2.

[sultryvoltron]

very well written and good post ariensky

well... just a few points..

ofab isnt realy hard to grind... just takes a little time.
the problem with it is that for most profs the majority of ofab isnt worth getting.

also u have other options to AI and ofab armour now ingame.
the godess armour from the new instance isnt bad at all.

there is an easy solution to this that FC could imply..
make a couple of new armour sets from raids that isnt as good as AI armour but still will be viable options ..
like a set of mellee armour that adds +15 to all mellee skills for each part..
or a set of armour tht adds 30 aad at each part or w/e seems suitable.

u would miss out on the combined skills like AI armour has with both AR and AAD but would still be a viable options while grinding for "the best" armour for ur profession.'

ofab sort of is such a solution but most parts of ofab armour just doesnt add the skills that profession realy wants to have on ther armour set.

I'd say the problem lies with some posts from Game Suggestions. The armor currently in game is too powerful. AI armor was a mistake, and I think the developers realize that. Sad really.

It really isn't the itemization itself that presents the problem in AO. Meaning, it isn't the fact you can twink that makes it a problem. It is the daunting task of completing a giant sized laundry list of content and farming required to have a second character or even finish a first. I believe that the saying "AO has too many grinds" is partially speaking about too much content and expectations to complete it.

AO is old. It has many stories in it and many changes based on those stories, but, they never end. Didn't we kill the Beast? Shouldn't ergo have fixed the SL by now with all of our help or that portal become unstable? Closing the shadowlands and replacing the RK vendor system (old useless crap) with SL items and making things like BoC and such very expensive credit wise as a money sink. Then refocus on the RK storyline and retool the missions system and add in an elite instancing system that offers VASTLY improved drop rates on items and an enhanced loot table with new balanced items that have bigger single stat bonuses than old AI/SL gear, no level locks, decent stat requirements and a implant like customization options for armor and weapons and we call it a day or AO 2.

This really is a good post. Too much grind, not enough substance. It's like reading the first five chapters of a book over and over.

[Xtremtech]

At root, everyone cannot be given an equal chance.

Classic AO wasn't too bad in terms of twinked variance between the worst and best players. The variance was still potentially quite large because so much of a player's power was down to the effort that the player was prepared to put in... but the absolute difference between super-twinked and average wasn't huge in most cases.

The difficulty came really in the choice to make expansions that span all the levels from 1 - Max, whereas most other games expand primarily from Max level to new Max level. Even allowing for some items to cross from expansion to non-expansion characters... that creates an in-built imbalance. When you add on top of that, the natural tendency for there to be broad variance due to AO's system, what you end up with is a huge difference between many average players and super-twinked full expansion owning characters.

Most other games have quite tightly controlled templates and skills progression - most of which is automatically followed. AO's flexible system was much more difficult to control in terms of balancing the variance that the min-max level expansions brought. Level locking of abilities was one of the big things that came in (necessarily because of the variance in skills budgets between those with and without the expansions). That messed with the basic AO principles too much.

But also, the max skills budgets between Green and Dark Blue diverged in the AO system as you went up in level - so the addition of 200 extra levels (which is what the 20 SL levels actually are in old money) just meant that the variance at max level ended up being huge, magnifying the divergence that was already built into the system. In an effort to counterbalance that, items and perk-lines were introduced with across the board skills increases that blunted the massive variance to an extent.

It was always going to be difficult to expand the AO system, with its odd mix of skill and template based class differentiation. Making the expansions apply across all levels every time made that already difficult job much harder. And in the end, the more you actually try to fix it, the more of the original AO paradigm you'll lose... which is a shame - but is perhaps also necessary.

I'm not sure that there are really any good solutions any more. What FC need to do is to try to find the best solution given all the difficulties... and even that is going to be a challenge at best.

X

[Neon_1]

It really isn't the itemization itself that presents the problem in AO. Meaning, it isn't the fact you can twink that makes it a problem. It is the daunting task of completing a giant sized laundry list of content and farming required to have a second character or even finish a first. I believe that the saying "AO has too many grinds" is partially speaking about too much content and expectations to complete it.

Good post overall. But I disagree on the itemization part. For example, in one tower battle at TL5, I had decently equipped sold and my friend, who had decently equipped enf, attacked this ranged advy for 3mins straight, we couldnt make his hp drop below 80% in any stage. However, he killed us both and few other ppl in that same period of time. I think AI-Armor and some other stuff in AO has become too powerful to deal with. Of course that is the double-edged sword; how to balance out a game, where one of the strenghts has always been twinking and making superior toons ?

There are toons in every title level, who can easily handle 10+ "normal" leveling toons, and kill them while watching tv. When having a big battle amongst ppl who have nicely twinked toons that offer you good fight brings you the best overall gaming experience(at least for me, whatever the outcome will be), you start to wonder why this goal about pvp hasnt been set much earlier. Now for example its always funny to see how pvm ppl are shouting to give more VP from LE-missions(PVM) while pvp:ers are shouting that "No way, pvp dies !!1" argument. Both in their own way are right, but if you look at that situation sarcastically, youll see that the pvp:ers mainly want easy/afk- kills, nothing more.

So whats the point of this rambling ? Mainly its maybe this; In overall its very, very hard, if not impossible, task to balance out AO pvp. In its current state with "I win buttons" its practically impossible. FC is luckily changing that, however is it too late already ? At the same time items and implants and such should be reviewed in some way or another. AI-armor in general was a big mistake, hopefully that gets fixed. The game in a nutshell is like trader-drains; some ppl say that they are fine and hopefully nobody touches them since they make AO so unique. Others say that they are vastly OP in almost all level ranges and should be adjusted. Nowadays its IMPOSSIBLE to enjoy pvp unless you are NT or Sold, if you dont have 4b+ in your hands. Imo its too much to ask to be competitive in casual pvp. I dont mean that you should get all for free or that all should be always equal, but what Im saying that imo its very stupid that 10 ppl in basic setups cant touch somebody with uber setup. That is one big reason why ppl hate pvp in this game and even leave it.

[Hacre]

AI armour hasn't created imbalance, since everyone has access to it.

Also if twinking is quick and easy, it's not twinking anymore.

[sultryvoltron]

AI armour hasn't created imbalance, since everyone has access to it.

Also if twinking is quick and easy, it's not twinking anymore.

It has created some of the most hybrid, off the wall setups that have pushed PvP into this crazy mix of capped Aimed Shots from every professions but one, and more evades and AR than has ever been seen before. It's really hard to balance around meduim-large increases to almost any combonation of two stats that you want.

[Hacre]

It has created some of the most hybrid, off the wall setups that have pushed PvP into this crazy mix of capped Aimed Shots from every professions but one, and more evades and AR than has ever been seen before. It's really hard to balance around meduim-large increases to almost any combonation of two stats that you want.

AS is being taken away as a no brainer inclusion. So...next?

Can anyone packing CC or CSS auto perk anyone packing CSS or CS? Can anyone packing CSS or CS auto avoid being perked? No? Well gee...

[sultryvoltron]

AS is being taken away as a no brainer inclusion. So...next?

Can anyone packing CC or CSS auto perk anyone packing CSS or CS? Can anyone packing CSS or CS auto avoid being perked? No? Well gee...

It wasn't as much a comment on what will be, but merely what it has done up until now. Picking +30 of two stats and cramming it into every slot where you can't get +45 or more of those stats is a tad ridiculous (exaggerated, of course). Makes me sad to think that Digamma Combined really might be what is needed next.

[Boltgun]

AI armor created imbalance in the itemization itself. I think we need more AI armor combinaison, then upgrades that increases a feature but lose most of the mods (going AAO/AAD and get the weapon mods out ?). Basically bring the choices back, I know "planning hurt me brain" but at 220 fully equipped you might have the dedication to take 5 mins and write down your target setup.

I'd even say do something to symbs too, items we might drop an alpha for (ext occular, ado brains hello).

However as an average guy, I'm against centering balancing for averages guys. Because the 2% top deserve their power.

You still have to make the road up enjoyable, I mean AO classic and anything for new players. That first implants haven't been taken of yet is beyond me.

And reintroducing AC holes, please.

[Eralius2]

I agree partially with whats said in this thread with respect to certain grinds, but really i cant see how its too much trouble that the people that spend time getting the credits + armor + equipment + ip setups just right cant be the best at pvp. I've spent about the last month changing my 174 fix into a pvp viable option on BS, im not rich - its my only character and i've had a lot of fun getting to where i am.

I had no clue where to begin, i've never twinked anything seriously hard in my AO life and i've never had huge amount of credits. But i camped a few mobs, sold some items, bought and gathered myself decent weapons/symbs/equipment and now im a fairly decently setup fixer. One month it took me to compete with rich twink alts from scratch, hardly a grind. This month included levelling to 174 as i went, getting AI levels for various stuff, questing for no drop items, competing for camped mobs and earning creds to get some items and learning how to twink properly.

Dont take away the fun i had for other people, i think the real problem is people enter bs with a sadly 'gimp' character and expect to compete with people who've put a small amount of effort into thier own character.

[Towerblock]

I am pretty sure some equiptment itemization will be pretty necessary, once they establish the perks/nanos/procs/eveything else from the vision they seem to have in mind. Not that I claim to understand the full scope of it, but I do feel that down this road they are going, they need to take evrything into account, and if they are reworking things like this, then equipment will be a good place to even out the bumps. Based upon track record, I can see OFAB getting some major attention, and possible final upgrades. That is however, mere prediction.

That being said, big massive bump to clean up all the useless weapons and armour from RK shops/vendor food, would definitely be a welcome change.