How would you see it balanced?

[borriss]

Ok first off, I'm Borris2! I play on RK2 and I'm a solitus MA. I love my profession and I actually love AO (That's what I realize every time).
Even though I'm not online I'm usually on forums..

My question here today will be the following!

Tell me, how do you want the rebalancing to be balanced?
To better phrase my question, what should the game be balanced around?

Examples:

- Solo PvP, meaning you're running around more or less buffed up and fighting mostly 1v1 1vx..
- Group PvP, fighting in groups (not nessesarly teamed) 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5 and or x vs x...
- Mass PvP, towers, tarasque and other scenarios where raid interface may be taken into use
- New suggestions?



My reasoning for asking this question is very simple, in a complex game like AO you cannot balance it around every aspect... First of all 1v1 balance is nearly impossible, some professions will always have an upper hand against some others. And you can't balance it 100% in every aspect. So I want to know what you all would like to have Anarchy Online balanced around.

[alderwaran]

first of all: leave pvm as it is, do not touch pvm chars because you want to fix pvp.

therefore i'd suggest funcom licenses the q3a engine off id soft and a join to the bs would mean you fight a battle q3a style... perfect balance.

[crattey]

I choose all of the above. Why set the bar any lower?

As for 1v1 balance, you're right; it can't be done perfectly. They're on the right way, though. All the whines aside, balance is better now than it has been in years. Every time I see a keeper cry, I can't but help but think of the years right after SL, when keepers dominated PvP and there were multiple professions who simply couldn't compete -at all- in PvP. These days, everyone has some chance in PvP. If they follow that line, it should be good enough.

You'll never get rid of whines, anyway. Every so often, someone will be butsex't and alt-tab immediately to whine about it on the forums.

[borriss]

I choose all of the above. Why set the bar any lower?

As for 1v1 balance, you're right; it can't be done perfectly. They're on the right way, though. All the whines aside, balance is better now than it has been in years. Every time I see a keeper cry, I can't but help but think of the years right after SL, when keepers dominated PvP and there were multiple professions who simply couldn't compete -at all- in PvP. These days, everyone has some chance in PvP. If they follow that line, it should be good enough.

You'll never get rid of whines, anyway. Every so often, someone will be butsex't and alt-tab immediately to whine about it on the forums.

I agree balance is not all off right now, but debuffs are insane today...
Also I would say funcom need to bring something new to the table as far as PvP goes. Some kind of way of making PvP competetive, Towers and tarasque are the mass pvp versions.. I would like to see some smaller versions of that.

Take World of Warcraft as an example, now these two games are a world apart and though I've probably done absolutely everything in WoW aswell, but I prefere AO to WoW because of the complexity of AO and the way perks/specials works. But Blizzard saw early that the battleground was not enough to keep playerbase interrested...
Now they introduced Arena, to hone the 2v2 3v3 and 5v5 skills of the players... What they then realized was that more PvE oriented players were not able to do that because they didn't have the personal skill required to compete at even medium level... So now they're introducing rated Battleground where you will have 10v10 15v15 etc... Where individual skill is not as important on every level as in Arena.

I'm not at all saying Funcom should copy Blizzard and make arena, but do something to make PvP competetive again... Right now it's all about whos' got he more Kills.... (and who the fk cares about that really.. And it still doesn't give any real excitement in killing anyone) Before it used to be Titles, hunting titles and defarming people in BS.. Making teams to kick the asses of other high titled people... Now I know ALOT of people loved that excitement of chasing down and killing someone to steal their title...

Give us something to compete for... The spirit of competition is alwyas strong!!!

[McKnuckleSamwich]

I vote to balance the game around specials. It's not about 1 vs 1, or 20 vs 20. It's about how any prof does damage.

AO has been called Aimed Shot online for a very long time. The advent of certain weapons recently have made it more so.

Certain changes that have been proposed may limit the effect, but, I have serious doubts.

Overall, the specials need to be balanced, Sneak attack, Aimed shot, Full auto, Dimach.

Once those are balanced, the rest will fall into place, Nukes, pets, secondary specials, damage templates, evades/ AR/ perks, profession specifics, is all secondary.

[crattey]

Debuff duration is long, I agree. But try and keep in mind that many of these debuffs have been around for years. The reason you now notice their effect is because for a long time, these professions never PvPd. Tables have turned slightly, but the difference are nowhere near what they used to be.

Going all emo over it is really telling of your perspective. (Not aimed at you, btw, but the people who make new threads about it every day. You know who you are )

[borriss]

Debuff duration is long, I agree. But try and keep in mind that many of these debuffs have been around for years. The reason you now notice their effect is because for a long time, these professions never PvPd. Tables have turned slightly, but the difference are nowhere near what they used to be.

Going all emo over it is really telling of your perspective. (Not aimed at you, btw, but the people who make new threads about it every day. You know who you are )

Well hehe I'm mostly talking about Crat, doc and Trader debuffs... Which has all been increased in value and crat has gotten alot more... These has always annoyed me as much as they do right now.. But that's to be expected as MA is the profession who suffers by far the most from these sort of debuffs.

[Ocene]

I think PVM should not be touched, i.e. all the nanos should have different implications whether they are used in a PVM or PVP scenario.


The balance should be focusing on 1v1 imo. While complete balance will never be achieved, no profession should be insta-dead or shutdown, at the click of a button or a proc. The entire nemesis concept needs to be removed, and, as much as it's humanly (and atroxly) possible, every profession should have a bare chance against any other. Won't be perfect, but it will be miles better than what we have now.


Group PVP in my opinion will be quite hard to balance simply due to the insane number of possible combinations. However AOE CC tools could be reviewed and checked if acceptable in those scenarios. Example: I'm not too bothered by fears and such as a soldier, but a doc might and big time.


Mass PVP should definitely be looked at. Things like OS+SB very powerful for one faction, but not the other should not exists. I would actually and very simply remove OS and SBs from the game. Or change it to be something for RPing in the case of SB.

[crattey]

Well hehe I'm mostly talking about Crat, doc and Trader debuffs... Which has all been increased in value and crat has gotten alot more... These has always annoyed me as much as they do right now.. But that's to be expected as MA is the profession who suffers by far the most from these sort of debuffs.

I think fp doc agents would disagree But yeah, you're not wrong.

Debuffs are aimed at PvM, which has always been about mobs with insane HP and long, boring, static fights. Having something with a 5-10 second duration is barely worth casting there.

Like I've said before in many a thread, taking init debuffs as an example; a short, say 8 second duration, with a lockout of perhaps twice or three times as much would be far more suitable for PvP. Easy to land, non-spammable and no stupidly high amounts of innate resistance or spammable removers.

[borriss]

I think fp doc agents would disagree But yeah, you're not wrong.

Debuffs are aimed at PvM, which has always been about mobs with insane HP and long, boring, static fights. Having something with a 5-10 second duration is barely worth casting there.

Like I've said before in many a thread, taking init debuffs as an example; a short, say 8 second duration, with a lockout of perhaps twice or three times as much would be far more suitable for PvP. Easy to land, non-spammable and no stupidly high amounts of innate resistance or spammable removers.

Yeah good point, but I agree with Ocene too PvM shouldn't be touched... PvM is fine as it is to be honest *shrug* I really don't care about PvM though, while I do get that some people do...

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Debuff duration is long, I agree. But try and keep in mind that many of these debuffs have been around for years. The reason you now notice their effect is because for a long time, these professions never PvPd. Tables have turned slightly, but the difference are nowhere near what they used to be.

Going all emo over it is really telling of your perspective. (Not aimed at you, btw, but the people who make new threads about it every day. You know who you are )

i don't agree. i think it's because docs/crats, etc have such high nano AR that they can land this stuff on everyone and his dog with ease.

Add to that some wtf retarded malaise that is OP'd in conjunction with all other crat debuffs, stuns and high damage specials, weapon allignment and fast, hard hitting pets, doc procs, AND stacked debuffs, and docs having all the previously (mainly) harder to use specials (like AS), everyone who doesn't have 4k NR gets gibbed bad when any debuffing profs are around.

[Ocene]

There we go.. from a nice high-level-non-prof-specific discussion, we landed again in a OMG-CRATS rathole. Leave crats alone for now.

[crattey]

Yeah, that's because I'm posting here. I'm a magnet for whines, it seems.

As for PvM, I think it's fine for the most part. Hell, as a crat, I'm pretty much the king of all that is PvM, with perhaps the best all-round solo-ability, high priority in every team at every level and a kickass suit that makes me look sexy. Some professions aren't quite as lucky though. MPs, MAs and traders come to mind here. Their desirability to teams should really be upped a bit.

[borriss]

Noobast, init debuffs are already beeing worked out. I don't think we shoul/You hould make any assumptions about that yet. Stick to topic please

Yeah, that's because I'm posting here. I'm a magnet for whines, it seems.

As for PvM, I think it's fine for the most part. Hell, as a crat, I'm pretty much the king of all that is PvM, with perhaps the best all-round solo-ability at every level, high priority in every team at every level and a kickass suit that makes me look sexy. Some professions aren't quite as lucky though. MPs, MAs and traders come to mind here. Their desirability to teams should really be upped a bit.

What?? I ALWAYS want a trader in my team!! :P Then again I'm an MA

[crattey]

Haha, yeah, works well for you personally. But the added damage through your increased MA skill can easily be off-set by ditching the trader and getting a crat/engi, who both bring even more useful tools to the team and do far, fare more personal damage to boot.

A clear example of how things are a bit off; I dinged my last LE level stacking Inf missions in an all-crat team. Pretty sure that's not a very 'balanced' team setup, but it was extremely efficient SK/hr, pretty much the best one I've ever been in. Healers, tanks, mezzers, whatever; all would have been a drain on SK/hr simply because few professions are as sturdy as crats in PvM while also matching the consistent, very high damage output.

[borriss]

Haha, yeah, works well for you personally. But the added damage through your increased MA skill can easily be off-set by ditching the trader and getting a crat/engi, who both bring even more useful tools to the team and do far, fare more personal damage to boot.

A clear example of how things are a bit off; I dinged my last LE level stacking Inf missions in an all-crat team. Pretty sure that's not a very 'balanced' team setup, but it was extremely efficient SK/hr, pretty much the best one I've ever been in. Healers, tanks, mezzers, whatever; all would have been a drain on SK/hr simply because few professions are as sturdy as crats in PvM while also matching the consistent, very high damage output.

With your debuffs, crats really are gods of PvM... I've been wanting to see, 30 sec or 60 sec duration on some of MA's debuff perks in PvM for the same benefit and making Ma's more wanted in teams... Let's say 2 of our perks were boosted in PvM to debuff 2k inits and last for 30 sec each with 1 min recharge, that I would love:P

[crattey]

With your debuffs, crats really are gods of PvM... I've been wanting to see, 30 sec or 60 sec duration on some of MA's debuff perks in PvM for the same benefit and making Ma's more wanted in teams... Let's say 2 of our perks were boosted in PvM to debuff 2k inits and last for 30 sec each with 1 min recharge, that I would love:P

I'll swap ya for the new stance and heals as described in the balance doc

[Johnnykay]

Completely balanced 1 on 1, so when two equally geared/skilled toons fight it's a coin toss. Then I want to complain how dumb luck is the only thing that matters in duels.

[Spartanx9]

In terms of pvp. perhaps group pvp, but attempting to get rid of hard counters in 1 vs 1 (engi vs sold, nt vs fixer, there are more i'm sure). I'm not saying they shouldn't have an advantage post balance, but that it shouldn't be so one sided and with enough skill, that the underdog should have a chance to win.

but, that's just my opinion

[Notcrattey]

Let's say 2 of our perks were boosted in PvM to debuff 2k inits and last for 30 sec each with 1 min recharge, that I would love:P

God no, the last thing we need is MORE init debuffs in pvm.