Friday with Means - November 12th, 2010 - Changes large and small

[Mastablasta]

I can't wait for the shopping channel to turn to 100% ofab only. It'll be easiest and by far the best armor to have leveling from 1-150. Don't bother with anything else if you have LE, ofab is cheap and common as dirt. I like ofab either being Yesdrop or VP buyable, but NOT both. Come on!

Oh and Means, please, you have to give in on something as a gesture to the hardcore crowd here. I'm not hardcore, but scratch the whole buy 50 levels thing. Make a gesture, scratch that. That is game killing.

So OFAB can be either Yesdrop or VP buyable, but not both. Then, pray tell, where would you get it from? It doesn't drop anywhere.

I'm hardcore, I have been one of the most hardcore players in the game. I don't mind that someone can buy 50 levels. That's not gamebreaking, it takes a couple of hours to get lvl 50 and be uberly equipped for a hardcore player. Skipping the grind in SL where all I'm doing is KS'ing poor noobies would only be to the benefit of everyone. Should I want to pay for this.

[lyledesol]

all i have to do to get 1k tokens on new toons is go to the veteran shop.
and i am not the only one =)

Again, just my opinion.. But Vet Points should be part of the solution for buying levels.. Not $RL.. Make Vet Points mean something.. Expand their use even more..

(I kept most of my Vet points for the future, silly me.. I could have used some for tokens but I, like others, were under the impression their use would be expanded rather than just left to stagnate)...

[lyledesol]

They already did all those things. But for some of us who've been around for ages or those with 5-6 and more 220 chars, I think there's a point in time when you just don't want to spend that amount of time just getting a new character to try out some newly introduced level locked content. There's a limit to how much fun leveling is when you've done it to a certain degree.

See my last post about Vet points...

Selling XP, tokens, buffpacks and VP are not broken promises. These are things that are free to get in the game if you throw time at it. They don't require you to have any skill, build up gear, learn to play or anything. Any noob can go from 1-220 without knowing anything about anything and do it in 1% of the time it used to take. No broken promises by charging a bit of credits for that. There's no rare loot or powerful items in this booth that you couldn't get by sitting afk ingame already.

I don't agree with this at all.. They ARE broken promises.. An MMO requires time and effort, AO more than some.. Everything in game takes some effort.. whipping out your VISA (IF you can afford it) takes none!

If you're referring to Buying creds in game for phats or buying kiting services to level.. Say so! There's better ways for FC to stop it without taking AO down the road of micro-payments...

[Mastablasta]

See my last post about Vet points...


I don't agree with this at all.. They ARE broken promises.. An MMO requires time and effort, AO more than some.. Everything in game takes some effort.. whipping out your VISA (IF you can afford it) takes none!

If you're referring to Buying creds in game for phats or buying kiting services to level.. Say so! There's better ways for FC to stop it without taking AO down the road of micro-payments...

Veteran points allow you to buy tokens for free. That is very powerful on new chars and all my new chars get to start out with 1000 tokens. Now I just get it for free compared to others instead of an extreme advantage.

Broken how? Just because you can level a bit faster if you're new or start out at higher level if you've already gone to 220, then you still need to spend time and effort to get all the things that this leveled character needs. You can still go to BS and get VP like normal if you like pvp or you can buy your LE nanos and OFAB armor from other players with credits from pvm.
So, there's actually nothing being detracted from the game, only some accessability and shortcuts added for those who want that. And please try not to base every argument and grudge on the assumption that after the patch goes live EVERYONE will ALWAYS buy EVERYTHING and desert the game.

And no, I'm not referring to buying anything, I'm referring to sitting AFK at kite hill, sitting semi-AFK in turrets in BS, leeching with a 160 char in a inferno team, and so on and so forth. These things require no skill or effort, just time. And the people who have enough time to sit and hate on the game by being so negative in their playing style now have the option to not polute it with their indifference to any content but endgame pvm.

[lyledesol]

Veteran points allow you to buy tokens for free. That is very powerful on new chars and all my new chars get to start out with 1000 tokens. Now I just get it for free compared to others instead of an extreme advantage.

We each have a choice how to spend our Vet points, you like to get 1000 'Powerful' tokens (broken promise! selling power!).. If you had the choice tho, maybe you'd prefer to spend some on level packs instead, hmm? But there is no choice, or very little with the current Vet Shop items...

And no, I'm not referring to buying anything, I'm referring to sitting AFK at kite hill, sitting semi-AFK in turrets in BS, leeching with a 160 char in a inferno team, and so on and so forth. These things require no skill or effort, just time.

Every item you listed there requires some effort.. Kiting needs creds, hours spent doing something in game to earn them.. BS needs plenty of time and patience.. Just sitting in the queue for 30mins sometimes is painful.. I've been getting vp's and dailies on a toon in 220 BS lately.. it's gimp as hell and only worthy of using an AP.. trust me when I say the effort is there for those that want the reward, and with lower numbers, my wait times would have been even worse :/

...And the people who have enough time to sit and hate on the game by being so negative in their playing style now have the option to not polute it with their indifference to any content but endgame pvm.

I'm actually quite surprised that you came out with this lol.. You really feel that way about some people in game? .. I guess that lets me know where you're coming from at least..

[Mastablasta]

I would buy levels with veteran points if I could. I never paid anything to get my alts kited. I guess I just know too many people that are only too happy to kite or OST my alts. I can't imagine I'm the only one. Well, I know I'm not.

Why would I do that? Well that is connected to my last point that you're surprised about. Why do I feel that way about people? Why would I want to skip most of the levels? Well, because people have a very disruptive playing style with their OST'ing, their kiting, their "I don't want to team anyone but the most uber" and so on and so forth. So many people who don't want to actually play the game and in the process of playing it themselves ruin it for those of us who actually enjoy team play, challenge, dying to hecklers because too many were pulled or othewise doing crazy stuff that no powerplayer would ever consider because it's not "optimal leveling". Most people don't get these fun moments because their playingstyle has been tainted by powerleveling people who only want to sit and be kited or OST'd. Or ruin the BS by sitting semi-AFK instead of at least trying to capture a point or land an AS...

[Alternity]

If status symbols are so important to you, what if whenever you wear any of this "replica" equipment, some sort of effect appears on you that is visible to other players but unobtrusive?

Say, for example, when you are wearing any piece of "replica" equipment at all, a small glowing green ball appears above your shoulder, or something like that. The effect might even look kind of cool in its own right, and it would make it very obvious that they hadn't "earned" at least one of the pieces of social they are wearing. Nevertheless, they still get to look cool and some people like social armor because it looks cool, rather than as a status symbol.

I'd rather see unique social wear in the shop, I can't even fathom what FunCom is thinking. I'm left feeling they'd be willing to step on everything players have done, just to gather some extra bucks.

I'm not against a ingame store, I am however profoundly agitated by the items FunCom are putting in it. It's diminishing player achievements, and I'd say that's the last thing you want to do as a MMO developer.

Sure unique cool looking armor, that can only be bought with your VISA. But leave the rest the hell alone.

[lyledesol]

I would buy levels with veteran points if I could. I never paid anything to get my alts kited. I guess I just know too many people that are only too happy to kite or OST my alts. I can't imagine I'm the only one. Well, I know I'm not.

Why would I do that? Well that is connected to my last point that you're surprised about. Why do I feel that way about people? Why would I want to skip most of the levels? Well, because people have a very disruptive playing style with their OST'ing, their kiting, their "I don't want to team anyone but the most uber" and so on and so forth. So many people who don't want to actually play the game and in the process of playing it themselves ruin it for those of us who actually enjoy team play, challenge, dying to hecklers because too many were pulled or othewise doing crazy stuff that no powerplayer would ever consider because it's not "optimal leveling". Most people don't get these fun moments because their playingstyle has been tainted by powerleveling people who only want to sit and be kited or OST'd. Or ruin the BS by sitting semi-AFK instead of at least trying to capture a point or land an AS...

I share your sentiments.. Lets agree to disagree on the solution

[blackmesa]

They already did all those things. But for some of us who've been around for ages or those with 5-6 and more 220 chars, I think there's a point in time when you just don't want to spend that amount of time just getting a new character to try out some newly introduced level locked content. There's a limit to how much fun leveling is when you've done it to a certain degree.

I kinda anticipated this argument -- the reality is that there are a lot of quests but roughly only 1-2 instances per TL with the exception of TL7. But that's beside my point. Clearly there is a reason to be tired of, or bored of, or just not enjoy certain parts of the game. That's all I'm saying, and you even provided an example. After 10 years, it's pretty natural. But why should players be forced to pay to skip that which isnt fun? What of the fact that this puts an incentive to make more grinds for them to sell a shortcut past?

Also, there are literally a dozen more things they could do to fix leveling too. They could make implants/clusters easier to buy, Make symb drop rates go up. They could remove hecklers from the game. They could nerf teaming ranges so you dont see 160s in inf mishes. So yes, while they have made some progress in reducing parts of the grind, there are still some un-fun things about it. You even complain about a few you find distasteful (kite hill, lowbies in inf mishes).

Selling XP, tokens, buffpacks and VP are not broken promises. These are things that are free to get in the game if you throw time at it. They don't require you to have any skill, build up gear, learn to play or anything. Any noob can go from 1-220 without knowing anything about anything and do it in 1% of the time it used to take. No broken promises by charging a bit of credits for that. There's no rare loot or powerful items in this booth that you couldn't get by sitting afk ingame already.

You were around for all the drama over paid points when they were originally introduced. I would venture to think you remember some of the promises made to calm the masses. But even Means' post about the item store seems to promise we wouldn't be seeing the buying of power.

To say that just because "these things are still available in game, it doesn't matter", is a misdirected argument. This has nothing to do with selling items that existed or didnt, or were hard or easy to get. It was whether the item a player can buy gives him/her an advantage over another player. Time is a decent advantage afk or not.

The simple fact is that they are selling very real advantages. Ofab is the best armor for certain slots, even at end game. If you dont see a difference between this batch of stuff and the social costumes I'm a bit at a loss for words.

As for pissing off people, then why would "pvp'ers" want to restrict access to regular gear that everyone wants, removing the "gimps" from their BS and why would "pvm'ers" be pissed that they can now use their pvm rewards to buy the gear they were pissed about having to go pvp to get? Because they're not being rational. That's why.

Some of the arguments are certainly rational, to flippantly dismiss them doesnt make them any less so. I sympathize (to some extent) both with those that wish they didnt have to pvp, as well as those who want real rewards for pvping.

Still, my point was just I found it funny though. Splitting the difference between what two opposing sides want can often be the best compromise, but this seems hardly a compromise from where I sit. That argument barely interests me though, I just found it funny.

[nitr0]

We each have a choice how to spend our Vet points, you like to get 1000 'Powerful' tokens (broken promise! selling power!).. If you had the choice tho, maybe you'd prefer to spend some on level packs instead, hmm? But there is no choice, or very little with the current Vet Shop items...

i transferred toons between accounts, i renamed one, i put some pp on accounts... and i still got over 3000pp left for whatever.

u get quite a lot of pp "for free" when u have normal accounts.

and those u can spend in the shop now =)

so that point is not really valid as u can get tokens for veteran points+level boosts from the new shop without paying extra =)

[Crowena]

Skipping the grind in SL where all I'm doing is KS'ing poor noobies

I really hate people like that.

[Mastablasta]

I kinda anticipated this argument -- the reality is that there are a lot of quests but roughly only 1-2 instances per TL with the exception of TL7. But that's beside my point. Clearly there is a reason to be tired of, or bored of, or just not enjoy certain parts of the game. That's all I'm saying, and you even provided an example. After 10 years, it's pretty natural. But why should players be forced to pay to skip that which isnt fun? What of the fact that this puts an incentive to make more grinds for them to sell a shortcut past?

Also, there are literally a dozen more things they could do to fix leveling too. They could make implants/clusters easier to buy, Make symb drop rates go up. They could remove hecklers from the game. They could nerf teaming ranges so you dont see 160s in inf mishes. So yes, while they have made some progress in reducing parts of the grind, there are still some un-fun things about it. You even complain about a few you find distasteful (kite hill, lowbies in inf mishes).

Oh, that's just the way of business. You have the option to level after all, but you can skip it if you want to pay. I'm OK with that.

Incentive for FC to put in more grinds to sell shortcuts for, then I believe that all the new instances, boss encounters and quests speak very much against this and I think that it's rather silly to even put that up as an argument. And they are as far as i can see working more on making new things to make the grind less and more enjoyable. Maybe in the end it won't even be considered a grind? With enough small raids/dungeons to do like Dark Ruins or alappaa, then the grind could potentially disappear and we'd be left with an enjoyable string of different experiences. That each of those could then turn into a grind from our own doing... that's another thing.

You were around for all the drama over paid points when they were originally introduced. I would venture to think you remember some of the promises made to calm the masses. But even Means' post about the item store seems to promise we wouldn't be seeing the buying of power.

To say that just because "these things are still available in game, it doesn't matter", is a misdirected argument. This has nothing to do with selling items that existed or didnt, or were hard or easy to get. It was whether the item a player can buy gives him/her an advantage over another player. Time is a decent advantage afk or not.

The simple fact is that they are selling very real advantages. Ofab is the best armor for certain slots, even at end game. If you dont see a difference between this batch of stuff and the social costumes I'm a bit at a loss for words.

Yes, and the paidpoints turned out to be no big deal. Which I believe is pretty much the same thing that is going on here; a storm in a glass of water.
So, the items bought gives advantage over a player who didn't spend as much time. I already had that advantage just because I played for a long time. As the current population of AO is probably largely veterans of at least some time, then the new players start out horribly underpowered compared to the rest. Now they can spend a bit of cash and not be as horribly underpowered. Sadly, that's not something that's remediable in any other way, for a game like this. I remain opposed to selling actual endgame gear and full setups. The ebaying of characters is just wrong. Buying a few levels from the official source, meh.

OFAB may be the best armor for some slots, but the ones you can buy are only the basic bits, you still need the alien blobs to upgrade them with. I always was somewhat befuddled by the OFAB gear. It's not that good for most, for some it's OK, some slots are really uber. But they were all really easy to get. You just had to do a bit of pvp. There was no luck for drop rate or anything to figure out how to get them or where to go. Just run around in BS some and in a manner of time just running in a grey area you'll have it. You don't need to work with other players or do anything, just be online and click the signup terminals.

Some of the arguments are certainly rational, to flippantly dismiss them doesnt make them any less so. I sympathize (to some extent) both with those that wish they didnt have to pvp, as well as those who want real rewards for pvping.

Still, my point was just I found it funny though. Splitting the difference between what two opposing sides want can often be the best compromise, but this seems hardly a compromise from where I sit. That argument barely interests me though, I just found it funny.

Well like I said elsewhere, then the majority of people do not care for competitive pvp, and as such marketing a product to the largest demography makes sense. I would really personally prefer that they didn't sell VP and just made OFAB Yesdrop, but out of all the things sellable in there, VP is the least evil.

[lyledesol]

i transferred toons between accounts, i renamed one, i put some pp on accounts... and i still got over 3000pp left for whatever.

u get quite a lot of pp "for free" when u have normal accounts.

and those u can spend in the shop now =)

so that point is not really valid as u can get tokens for veteran points+level boosts from the new shop without paying extra =)

My idea uses existing Vet Points only...

Each new toon you create/re-roll is given your full amount of Veteran points to spend.. Use that to buy levels with.. And keep doing it whenever you reroll.. Free!

With paid points you have to keep paying $VISA to FC for every individual toon you create.. First one or two might be free with the free PP, but it will run out, then its $VISA time...


As for tokens.. Use ur Vet points and no level.. Lazy Git ;p

[Mastablasta]

Vet points are rather exclusive, though.

[Nevo-RK3]

Veteran Points are supposed to be a reward for playing AO for some time, hence paying for some time. So they arent exactly exclusive, just a nice gesture from FC towards the old players realy.

I dont mind people beeing able to buy levels via paid points at all, the beacons from vet shop still are like THE BEST items ingame, and clearly a timesaver too.

[blackmesa]

Oh, that's just the way of business. You have the option to level after all, but you can skip it if you want to pay. I'm OK with that.

Incentive for FC to put in more grinds to sell shortcuts for, then I believe that all the new instances, boss encounters and quests speak very much against this and I think that it's rather silly to even put that up as an argument. And they are as far as i can see working more on making new things to make the grind less and more enjoyable. Maybe in the end it won't even be considered a grind? With enough small raids/dungeons to do like Dark Ruins or alappaa, then the grind could potentially disappear and we'd be left with an enjoyable string of different experiences.

Well some of the new instances and boss encounters are great. Quests not so much (personal opinion). It's still only a few per TL though. And it's still 320 levels of their own doing. They didnt have to add research with LE.

The grind is only worth skipping because they made it so long in the first place. I agree they have made strides to fixing things but it feels like paying them twice because they made the grind too long. Once for the expansion and again to skip the old content. You may be OK with that but I hope you understand why some people aren't.

I dont need a long grind or crappy drop rates or any other silly MMO underhanded game design technique to make me come back and play AO a lot. The (awesomely unique) skill system and setting and story and pvp are fun. And finally some of the PVM encounters have become very fun.

That each of those could then turn into a grind from our own doing... that's another thing.

I dont believe players create the grind.

Still, you make some good points and I appreciate the discussion. I just think FC should have played to their strengths, especially the skill system, and not created grinds and farming, and now shortcuts.

[fortorn]

HEY I KNOW!!!!

Lets fill the content in the game to make lvling more fun and less of a grind.

Hey, paying for 50 instant lvls takes the difficulty in this game way. People lvl thier alts for a purpose, to be tool in s10 or totw or CoH, some do it to have pvp toons in several ranges. Others do it for TSing.
You want to see a game where new players and poorer players have fewer people to team with and have a harder time leveling just go ahead and institute this buy-a-level thing. It remains to be seen how much this will impact the game but if it becomes prolific, FC you need to take it out of the game and sit on your cash and smile.

[Alternity]

This is so wrong.

[Autohead]

This is so wrong.

Just consider it a victory trophy, a souvenir liberated from the oppressors!

/rp off

[Qhite]

I'm getting a very bad feeling from this FWM.

VP's, why not just make them easier to get for non-pvp'ers. I'm one of the countless pvm'ers that hate pvp but have been forced to run BS to get myself some armor/nanos/weapons but I really don't see the point in using real cash to get them, why not just up the vp rewards in AI-mishes and even give out vp's as reward for AI-dailies.

Buff-nanos, why not just make every item ingame equipable for everybody?... This takes away the uniqueness of several professions and makes it ....meh!

This whole store business leaves a bitter taste but I guess I'll have to wait for it to hit live before I pass final judgement on it, but it sure makes me abit scared of the future of AO and that makes me a very sad panda.....