Balance ?

[Gridpain]

So... did FC balance AO yet ?


FC shoudl really take exemple on a game company that, roughly 6 month after the release, is already rebalancing stuff in a very correct way, even by listening to players !

I m talking about TSW made by ... wait ?!

[Otansaanpas]

So... did FC balance AO yet ?


FC shoudl really take exemple on a game company that, roughly 6 month after the release, is already rebalancing stuff in a very correct way, even by listening to players !

I m talking about TSW made by ... wait ?!

6 months is already too long!

But how would you actually determine if something is not working correctly if FC only works with mindset "healer should be able to keep tank up". Well, thats achieve by introducing iCH.. there are no actual guidelines what professions should or shouldn't be able to do.

Makes balancing bit hard.

For example, tanks should be able to take roughly same amount of beating without additional help. Whether they have reflects, layers, hots, evades or hp to prolong their survivability. and then their other toolset should be under inspection, damage and utility and threat and so forth.

[Psikie]

there are no actual guidelines what professions should or shouldn't be able to do.

Actually thats not true, the original boxed set and game manual have very clear roles for each prof. Over time and expansions and game directors those roles have blurred..a LOT. Froobs still live in the spirit of the original game design, AI-LE is what threw the profs all out of whack. It wouldn't be hard to balance the game but it would make a lot of people butt hurt.
Truth be told I think ai- combined armor is what started this exponential power arms race. Throw in LE Xan/DB and those items effectively make 100's - 1000's of players equal to or better than Pen-Inf temple bosses. (demi-gods)

With current power curve I would not be surprised if Zods/TNH could be solo'd soon. You can already 3 man them which I am more than positive that was NEVER intended.

You want balance you will have to look at froobs for guidleines as to how the diff profs can and should work together to cover each others weaknesses. Thats what makes people team is necessity.

[Raggy]

With current power curve I would not be surprised if Zods/TNH could be solo'd soon. You can already 3 man them which I am more than positive that was NEVER intended

Actually you can 2 man them. Doc + Crat.

[Belph]

Actually you can 2 man them. Doc + Crat.

Docs can solo (some zods)

[Aiken]

So can Crats

[sultryvoltron]

With current power curve I would not be surprised if Zods/TNH could be solo'd soon. You can already 3 man them which I am more than positive that was NEVER intended.

I've solo'd certain Zods on a Crat, and I've solo'd TNH on my Doc after the pinks were dealt with and the Crat died. #Clevergamemechanics

[Psikie]

Actually you can 2 man them. Doc + Crat.

Docs can solo (some zods)

So can Crats

I've solo'd certain Zods on a Crat, and I've solo'd TNH on my Doc after the pinks were dealt with and the Crat died. #Clevergamemechanics

Depressing game imbalance

[Cratertina]

Aye, doc can solo some zods, crat can solo some zods, together I soloed beast with a good doc friend. Nolonger in game bless his heart.

However why cant other professions solo them zods? imbalance right there. But that is life. Funcom is working on rebalance since 2009. Delivery of balance is done in a wrong way. Rather then everything at once they should have published 1 fix per month. By now we would have 36 fixes and chances are balance woul be pretty excellent. Little bit every month. It would also give AO much nedded progress.

[Belph]

Rather than everyone being able to solo, no-one should be able to solo...

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Aye, doc can solo some zods, crat can solo some zods, together I soloed beast with a good doc friend. Nolonger in game bless his heart.

However why cant other professions solo them zods? imbalance right there. But that is life. Funcom is working on rebalance since 2009. Delivery of balance is done in a wrong way. Rather then everything at once they should have published 1 fix per month. By now we would have 36 fixes and chances are balance woul be pretty excellent. Little bit every month. It would also give AO much nedded progress.

Thats what I said.

I said they should have just fixed parry, and aimed shot, and that would have bought them about 2 years of players trying to adjust to the changes.

Fixing Parry+Aimedshot, would have effectively COMPLETELY wiped the ranged>>>>>>>>melee PVP balance down to a level that any good player would have to completely reconsider the power balance.

When the power balance is unknown, thats when you get awesome experimentation and people totally involved in building new and unseen prof choice+setups. Basically those two choices alone would have sent every single assumption about survivability and defence out the window.

Then they got at least a year, but probably closer to 3 years to sort out how the hell to do the nanos/perks etc.

But... you know, taking a small risk to break the game to have a chance at an awesome rebuild isn't in their repertoire.

[drainbamage]

I don't see why people are fixated on certain profs being able to solo zods.
Pande is what, nearly 10 years old now? I could solo outdated 40-man raids in WoW on my paladin.
The real question is why this ancient and trivialized content hasn't either been updated to match the power levels we have reached, or retired and replaced with something new.

[Psikie]

Rather then everything at once they should have published 1 fix per month. By now we would have 36 fixes and chances are balance woul be pretty excellent. Little bit every month. It would also give AO much nedded progress.

+1 Yes

Rather than everyone being able to solo, no-one should be able to solo...

+10 More Yes

Only potential problem with gradual changes are some of the rebalance changes are linked to other changes or changes with other profs. So if only half the equation for a particular change were made it might create a whole new imbalance. Also with the turmoil in FC offices some of it had to be known ahead of time and if one group started to make changes and then were laid off...who would be able to pick it up exactly were it was left off?

I mean far be it to, I don't know have some sort of outline as to what and when changes should be made on a reg schedule kind like patch notes for devs. You know like Jan change 1-2-3 for prof a-b-c, feb 4-5-6 for d-e-f, but that might be oversimplifying it.

[Otansaanpas]

Actually thats not true, the original boxed set and game manual have very clear roles for each prof.

i didnt mean general guides like how to play ones character, but what is possible if you push it.

if you determine tank with "Can survive Beast with a raidforce" and dd with "not tank or healer", then it might be little difficult to make professions equally usefull.

Pande is what, nearly 10 years old now? I could solo outdated 40-man raids in WoW

true, even before sunwell patch.

[Dysfunction]

Before the init buff I could solo libra on my soldier quite easily

[Esssch]

together I soloed beast with a good doc friend.

I think that's technically no longer solo'ing.

[srompu]

I think that's technically no longer solo'ing.

I semi-afk soloed beast on my agent barely buffed with a few teams.

[Utopian]

+1 Yes



+10 More Yes

Only potential problem with gradual changes are some of the rebalance changes are linked to other changes or changes with other profs. So if only half the equation for a particular change were made it might create a whole new imbalance. Also with the turmoil in FC offices some of it had to be known ahead of time and if one group started to make changes and then were laid off...who would be able to pick it up exactly were it was left off?

I mean far be it to, I don't know have some sort of outline as to what and when changes should be made on a reg schedule kind like patch notes for devs. You know like Jan change 1-2-3 for prof a-b-c, feb 4-5-6 for d-e-f, but that might be oversimplifying it.

Well - the other thing to consider - is the "balance" is at best a "good guess" by the Devs. So I would assume alot of post-patching to correct issues will be coming. That alone is a reason not to release them separately and the linkage is also a very valid point.

What I don't understand is why the changes were not thrown onto TESTLIVE and let everyone have at it - that would be the best first step once FC has what they think should be ready for live.

[Raggy]

Rather than everyone being able to solo, no-one should be able to solo...

A nice philosophy, if only it worked with a game that wasn't suffering from extreme population issues.

[Pomidor]

Truth be told I think ai- combined armor is what started this exponential power arms race.

As a long term player, with a lot experience i tend do dissagre. From my vast experience of all pvp ranges, I am more then sure that PERKS did messed up balance.

It started very simple: we give you (insert proffesion here) THIS, and to counter THISD, we give you (insert another proffesion) THAT.

At first, as an example, comes to mind DoF, as an individual "on you" action, which bosts always (!) 800 evasion skills and has no chances to fail, versous soldier deevades debuff, which, unfortunatelly, must land to make it accurate. Various perks are marked Offensive (damage/debuffs) vs Deffensive (DoF, Coon).

The bad thing in it is counterpart of hiting target - only one action is to do so, which is infamous Mongo Rage, given to atroxes, from lvl 207. But its a tip of mountain, where things went bad imo.

I remember first days at arena, after introducing SL, and I was wondering - ok, this proffesion has action for evades, what profesion has something to counter it?

Basic AO game, the one boxed - as you stated Psikie, had perfectly designed roles for 12 proffesions, and it was working good. Perks started mess, which produced more mess later on.

FC gave to much love for some profs (crat come to mind) and took to much from other (soldiers, for example, or doc - there is no really need of doc, despite few endgame encounters, yet huge nano pool + minus costs made doc almost inventible in pvp since lvl 100 - and I know what I am saying...)

I believe it can be fixed, but no MAJOR changes are needed, just few important ones.