Friday with Means - September 3rd, 2010 - Battlestation changes

[Lusos101]

If it was so advantageous to make those lvl200 twinks why is the game not full of them now? I see no change really. All the Tl5 PvP twinks claim that TWars are already ruined by Tl7s. Seems to me that Tl5 twinks are figureheads anyway for NW. The only difference i can see is that 174s that are topdogs in the BS will become cannonfooder if they dont upgrade.

[Joehoo725]

If it was so advantageous to make those lvl200 twinks why is the game not full of them now?

The advent of the new APF playfield (150-200) is one reason you will see new level 200 twinks, and those that are 174 may choose to level to 200 (since there's really not much reason to pick 174 unless you're only doing BS) - therefore those 150-170s will be pitted against the new level 200 twinks. That is why the game is "not full of them now" - there's no reason, but there will be.

[Lusos101]

Leveling toons will always be the main source of Epeen for dedicated PvP twinks, PvM twinks for sector 10 will be killed easier, but it doesnt make much difference. PvM toons for sector7 will maybe give some fight but they will still be mostly cannonfooder too. PvP twinks for TW have always cried that Tl5 is dead because of Tl7 interference, if the 174 level to 200 I see only a bit of respite for the lower levels of Tl5, because if the 207 twink killer could beat top Tl5 twinks, Im sure 174 twinks could do the same for the lower levels. The only people who loose are the dedicated BS 174s who will have to level up. People afraid of level200 PvM twinks may have a tiny bit of reason but still it doesnt warrant so much whine. The 150 twinks for S10 are not a big cause of whinning at lower levels. Why should the level 200 be?

[Gridpain]

Level 200 "leveling toon" will probably get pwned by 165 twink, and possibly by 150...

I predict lots of QL 200 APT ... joy

[Darkirbiska1]

Many 170+ are OP vs 150s and I don't see difference if my face is smashed from 170-174s or 200s, but this 170, they aren't used to be in the middle of the food chain.

[blood-red-fist]

alot happens at 195. so may be worth reconcidering top lvl 194 there.

[Soliphus]

Many 170+ are OP vs 150s and I don't see difference if my face is smashed from 170-174s or 200s, but this 170, they aren't used to be in the middle of the food chain.

You can't compare 150 vs 174 and 174 vs 190. lvl 189 vs 190 is a bigger difference than lvl 150 vs 189. (100% PvP wise that is ofc). What are all the ranged classes gonna do vs HHAB? Go CS instead of CSS just to land roots/drains/debuffs/nukes ?

[nitr0]

150 - 200 BS scares away new people and casual players. No way do they want to be chain-killed over and over at level 150-165ish just to get some vp.

thanks for making my day. as if leveling toons don't get chainkilled now in bs.
leveling toons couldn't care less if they are insta killed by 150ish, 165ish,174ish or 200ish twinks.

the only ones crying are those that can easily kill all the leveling toons in the bs, without them having any chance. they are crying now because they won't be uber in that bs anymore.

because they would have to twink/level/equip again... or simply make a second toon for bs (unbelievable hu? you can have more than one toon for nw/bs)

[Hulk]

with the adjusted level ranges will current pvp ranges still be in effect? that would make point capping very easy for a toon out of range of everyone...

[Jekonam]

Fully twinked 200 toon will destroy 5-10 s10 farmers without much effort with HHAB and topped alien armors, because the lowbies can't even hit him.

[Drakeep]

Wonder if a 200ish can wear full suite of 300ish combined ai armor, on a 173ish the max i was able to wear was 250ish... 300ish ofab are doable on a tl5 already.

Ofc HH@B have no sense in tl5 bs, cept ruining em....

[drops]

Fully twinked 200 toon will destroy 5-10 s10 farmers without much effort with HHAB and topped alien armors, because the lowbies can't even hit him.

S10 farmers don't stand a chance against a twinked 164. What makes you go QQ about them and a 200 twink? That 164 twink not being top dog anymore?

[Iwate8992]

My experience relates to BattleStation up to TL3. I have only ever managed to get two toons onto BS, one time each. For the first, the BS session ended as soon as I left the buffing room with the message that my side didn't have enough players. The second toon made it into the station for a minute or a minute and a half when the session ended with a message that the other side didn't have enough players. That's it. That's the sum total of my BS experience.

With a few exceptions, when I log on a toon, I sign up at the BS terminal. I soon realized it was a mistake to stay there and wait for the invitation. Still, whether I wait around or not, the result is (99.9+% of the time) that BS simply doesn't run. I may be listed as 1st in the queue, 4th in the queue, 7th in the queue; it doesn't matter. BS doesn't run.

I find it very, very difficult to work up a lot of sympathy for the people with 800 thousand VP complaining that the BS map is boring and they want new objectives and such. I don't care about new maps and new objectives. I'm not bored with the old ones yet. I just want BS to run.

If, as Means has said, the changes to the level ranges are being done with the intention of getting BS to run more often for more people at more levels, I say "Great!"

I say this from the point of view of someone who fully expects to be "uncompetitive" in my average PVM setup. Or, to be more to the point, I fully expect to be squished repeatedly by the twinks. I don't particularly care. The only reason I want to go to BS at all is to earn VP. (And, by the way, that's 'earn' VP, not 'leech' VP.)

As Kintaii said here a few weeks back, FC still wants, for some unfathomable reason, for BS to be the principal source of VP. If there were some other comparable and viable source for VP, I would have no interest in BS. Echoing what someone else pointed out earlier, collecting 10,000 green globs of VP goo in Mothership missions is NOT a viable source.

I can only guess that the hard-core PVP fanboys in the FC offices are convinced that they can convert PVMers into PVPers if they can only force enough PVMers into PVP situations. This reminds me of the Demotivational poster: BEATINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES!

If BS does run, I expect my experience will be something along the line of :

Step 1. Leave buffing room. <Squish>

Step 2. Return to buffing room.

Step 3. Repeat step 1.

I'm working on the assumption here that when you die in a BS session, you go back to the buffing room and not to a reclaim point on Rubi-Ka or an SL Garden but I'm just guessing.

Will I enjoy the above BS experience? No, not at all. But I will endure it in order to get the VP that I want. As a matter of fact, I can't imagine that the twink that's squishing me is going to be getting much out of it, either. With apologies to other Babylon 5 fans everywhere because I may not have the quote just right : What glory is there in winning a battle that you could not lose?

I do have a suggestion for changing BS but I think I'll put that into a thread in Game Suggestions. This wall of text is already long enough.

[Pinkeltje]

I'm very happy with the notion that BS needs a change, in order to get more people involved. Now, I didn't read through 21 pages of text to find out if this had already been answered, but will a 200 toon be able to engage and kill a 150 toon in BS?
If the answer to that is "yes", then I'm afraid you'll not see any change at all or perhaps even more people not joining on BS. For casual players like me, who have an average setup mostly for pvm and here and there a lil extra for pvp, getting one-shotted back to decon gets boring real fast. And what is left on BS are the same twinks that are running around now, just higher level.
With the current level range I at least have a slight chance of surviving a fight every now and then, but with the new level range...

[Roswell]

Starting to get some pretty impressive numbers for this FWM. I see 21 pages, 400+ posts, and close to 15,000 views as of this post. Not bad... I'd say you did a pretty good job of smacking the bee hive with the aimshot bat with this little bombshell, huh?

Bombshell? Is it me or was this little "train wreck to be" kind of out of the blue?

What I don't see however is the usual tidbits of banter from the developers/content designers we usually see in other FWM, some of which is informative in a, "let me explain what we meant" sorta way.

Not touching this with a ten meter pole are you? I don't blame you.

SO, will we have a FWM Rollback T-Shirt for this tiny little face palm moment, or can we expect this to go live and get a Server Rollback T-Shirt instead? Personally I think you should roll it out live purely for the entertainment value.

I intended on holding out for that new engine and balance thingy you guys have been working so hard on. Great game AO is... Well worth the 30 bones a month to see it get well thought out changes. Well thought out changes, yes?

[SoapTarder]

It's odd that people keep asking whether 200's will be able to attack 150's, when 49's can already attack 20's in bs, and cannot outside bs.

as far as the new level changes to bs are concerned, funcom could've given vp farmers a different method of getting vp that didnt involve pvp, but then the precious battlestations would likely not run at all at any level.

the only sure way of getting bs to run more, or at all, is to either widen the level range enough to include the unsavory levels too (which benefits those who would like to gain more vp while levelling); or make it so that bs continuously runs all the time, with or without anyone inside. but the second solution would be bad in the eyes of devs, so wouldnt happen. you would quickly see sides dominating any specific bs and farming vp to their hearts content.

again, removing vp from bs would outright kill bs, unless something like a 12man style buff was given while bs ran, and would remain in ncu afterwards for a few hours (would be removed upon joining bs again, but would be recast again as well).

making bs red vs blue? for a while i supported this idea, but there are serious issues that can arise now that i really think of it, which im sure means and co. have thought of as well.

and my last thought about the changes. currently there are those that are saying that pvm vp farmers have "won", and that pvp'ers are being ignored. 2 thoughts on this topic: for starters, I've seen many a twink farming vp in bs for ip resets. also, whenever bs isn't running, you will see people spamming neutnet with "need more people for 150-174 bs (for example). grab your vp dailies and get some xp and tokens while you're at it". instead of "come on pvp'ers, lets get xx bs running, and have some fun". why? cuz all the twinks that are online are already standing around outside the bs twiddling their thumbs, and the only way to get it running is for gimp levelling toons to sign up. not always the case, but often.

[tentonhammer]

I think this BS range change doesn't make sense.

If the devs want the BS to run more often they should just get more ppl in the game and not ruin the only 161 twink I have

[Lheann]

At this point I think FC really needed to say, hey we are wrapping up X, Y and Z in the next patch. Instead they open another can of worms.

Frankly I would have rather read yet another lame excuse of why there is no engine video vice this mess.

Reason I think no engine videos is simple. The new and old engines render the game basicly the same visually. That is why all this extra work on effect, heads, bodies, textures and so forth is going on.

I will predicate that we see neither the balance or engine this year. And that at xmas we will be stuck with new BS changes and the BS's will still not run right.

[PhoenixOfAges]

Wonder if a 200ish can wear full suite of 300ish combined ai armor, on a 173ish the max i was able to wear was 250ish... 300ish ofab are doable on a tl5 already.

It can be doable, although if it is or how easy it can be done as always depends on the prof, armour reqs and breed.

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with the adjusted level ranges will current pvp ranges still be in effect? that would make point capping very easy for a toon out of range of everyone...

...
will a 200 toon be able to engage and kill a 150 toon in BS?
...

As others have said in BSs PvP lvl ranges don't matter. A lvl 20 can attack and be attacked by a lvl 49 in BSs now but can't outside of them.

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What I don't see however is the usual tidbits of banter from the developers/content designers we usually see in other FWM, some of which is informative in a, "let me explain what we meant" sorta way.

Actually they often don't hop in much if at all. Then if they do it typically would only be on the first day and usually just some goofy comments rather than to explain something. The only time we see a lot of chatter from Means in particular is during those FAQ FwM threads, which this isn't.

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thanks for making my day. as if leveling toons don't get chainkilled now in bs.
leveling toons couldn't care less if they are insta killed by 150ish, 165ish,174ish or 200ish twinks.

Sure they are already and have been for some time at both "active" BSs. Although now that will go on for even longer than before. Also I'm sure there are those that got sick of that to the point that they just don't want to bother so don't go already. By making things worse there are bound to be even more. There are also bound to be more people staying in sneak, wall humping, running around in mechs, sitting in APTs and so on. Fact is this will not be engaging or enjoyable content for many and if it starts out as something they come to loath that does not help encourage them to come back later.

[Luziciona]

thanks for making my day. as if leveling toons don't get chainkilled now in bs.
leveling toons couldn't care less if they are insta killed by 150ish, 165ish,174ish or 200ish twinks...

My point exactly. Which is why I have been proposing less wide level ranges.

100-139, 140-164 and 165-189 is how I see TL4-TL5 work out oki.

Oh, and you are welcome. I hope it was a fine one.

Edit:
There will be enough players:
Use auno.org and you will see there are A LOT of S10 toons, we already know there's a HUGE 165-174 crowd,
and 100-139 will probably see some action from all the levelling people looking for decent armor, weapons and HUDs.

If one could buy XP stims for VP, then there will most certainly be a new dawn for Battle Station.