Thread: Monthly Development Update - 28th February 2014

  1. #341
    Quote Originally Posted by Neista View Post
    I agree 100% and from a story basis im against it, but i have a fixer alt....if they are going to ignore the lore and allow its use then we might as well get the most out of it!
    Ignoring the story was the first nail in the coffin.

    The second nail was deciding that you can take a game that works best for mature players and alter it to appeal to the same kind of people who left AO for WoW long ago.

    Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.

  2. #342
    Opening inspect won't hurt you, or me, or us.

    It may show some true colours in people, but do you really want to play an MMO, with people who can't stand the idea of teaming with, or helping people who aren't in 100% completed setups with nothing to gain but xp?

    All that stuff you learnt in 220 levels isn't good enough to pass on to the greenie in team who probably needs a nudge in the right direction nowadays?

    Considering most don't even pvp at 220 anymore on half their toons... what's the damn rush anyways? Are all those credits for loot rights burning holes in your pockets that badly just to PvM?

    There will still be toons on LFT, there will still be people in gardens, and there will still be those unwilling to team them.

    If I lft on my 200's I get one response as a rule "Can you log 220 to pull?".

    Gear isn't really the problem anymore.

    Nothing really changes.

    (btw... inspected 3 times just as I read through this page, teh h0rr0r)

  3. #343
    The inspect thing bothers me not because I have a super secret setup I want to protect, and not because I'm so gimp that I am ashamed to let others see my gear, but rather to prevent others from inspecting me and offering unsolicited and unwanted advice about my setup. This got to be really annoying (yes, it did happen a lot), which is why I started disabling the inspect function by default on all of my toons. It might not sound like such a big deal to some of you but it makes a world of difference to me. I consider being able to disable inspect, auto-decline duels, and ignore annoying people, a basic privacy requirement and I would be unwilling to play on any game that did not offer these features.

  4. #344
    I love getting inspected.

    I feel it's a testament to my awesome.

  5. #345
    As Annarina doesnt want Lore discussion in this thread ive started a thread in Fourth Wall about Grid Armor in SL (strictly from a lore point of view).

    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=610016
    ALTS: Alienhunter, Moonglum, Quellist, Quellcrist, Jesharet

  6. #346
    Quote Originally Posted by McKnuckleSamwich View Post
    I love getting inspected.

    I feel it's a testament to my awesome.
    *sigh* noobas...
    A new light shines upon Rubi-Ka,A new channel is opened in the grid feed,
    A new Team dedicated to the distribution of knowledge is formed.
    >>> AO-Universe <<<
    For the People, By the People.

  7. #347
    As a new player I can tell you why new players do not last very long. The newbie island starts off pretty well with tradeskilled weapons and leveling armor. There are some cool drops to find off the dyna bosses be it rings that give small bonuses or some back armor that is class specific. The crat suit, martial suit, and intern suit are pretty cool to find at a such a low level. There are people out there that do care how their character looks and these items help to avoid the ghastly random pieces of armor look.

    As soon as you leave the newbie island the entire game changes. Looting becomes very sparse and it seems that you have to know exactly where something drops or you will rarely find useful gear. Shops become a nightmare. Trying to sift through the mostly useless junk to find a decent weapon, armor, implants, or the correct nano's for your skills is overly wasteful of time. I simply dont understand how this game could be this old without shops getting a quality of life adjusted, filters are they that hard to put into the game?

    At first I ran a few missions and then I ventured into the shadow lands. The shadowlands feels far quicker to level. Also I get pattern drops which I can actually sell to make money. I find that 99% of the drops in this game have no value which is very odd. I end up selling my entire inventory and get 1k credits except for the last 3 items which are patterns that are worth 20x what the rest were worth. Like seriously though, if I didnt find patterns, I have no damn idea how I would have made money.

    Now that I have money I go to random shops to try and find a decent QL weapon which usually leaves me under geared and wasting hours going from shop to shop. Finally I gave up on shops except for the garden shop and if I cant find a weapon I will quit and play another character, randomly I will log in and look for equipment until I get lucky. Finding equipment seems like such a huge barrier to play with this game. Its also odd that when running missions on RK and then switching over to shadow lands, a weapon can go from perfectly fine to feeling worthless very fast.

    Trying to understand the skill system can also be a huge problem. If I raise burst does that increase burst damage or am i just raising it to equip a weapon. WTF does riposte do. It seems nano skills raise nano damage but do weapon skills raise weapon damage or are they just there as a barrier to what you can equip. WTF does riposte do?

    Most of my characters end up with Thar's armor on simply because I know where to find it and this is for you inspect people, I usually get laughed at and told its a waste of skill points trying to equip it. Then those people walk off without telling me what armor is viable and a point saver.

    Class balance at low levels is laughable. I struggled to do anything with a low level agent. Leveling to 40 was pretty slow and I had no idea how to use false profession which may have helped. Made a keeper and oh my was leveling a breeze. Hell with that constant healing I walked through most of ToTW and I had no idea what I was doing.

    From an outsiders perspective, this game is a mess. It needs a bunch of little quality of life fixes that probably should have been done 10 years ago. It also needs a strong theme which I do believe it has. What other sci-fi mmo do we have. Although every time I see two headed dogs running around SL I start to forget the game is sci-fi at all.
    Last edited by wretch; Mar 6th, 2014 at 00:46:40.

  8. #348
    I'm afraid people will inspect me and not invite me due to my bad gear

  9. #349
    Well wretch, let's go thru this one at a time shall we?


    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    As a new player I can tell you why new players do not last very long. The newbie island starts off pretty well with tradeskilled weapons and leveling armor. There are some cool drops to find off the dyna bosses be it rings that give small bonuses or some back armor that is class specific. The crat suit, martial suit, and intern suit are pretty cool to find at a such a low level. There are people out there that do care how their character looks and these items help to avoid the ghastly random pieces of armor look.
    Kind of a bad thing to say since you're up for newbie island, but it's going, they're changing the new player experience soon.

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    As soon as you leave the newbie island the entire game changes. Looting becomes very sparse and it seems that you have to know exactly where something drops or you will rarely find useful gear. Shops become a nightmare. Trying to sift through the mostly useless junk to find a decent weapon, armor, implants, or the correct nano's for your skills is overly wasteful of time. I simply dont understand how this game could be this old without shops getting a quality of life adjusted, filters are they that hard to put into the game?
    Yes, I agree with everything you've said here, it's not easy to figure out what's going on or where you should be going.

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    At first I ran a few missions and then I ventured into the shadow lands. The shadowlands feels far quicker to level. Also I get pattern drops which I can actually sell to make money. I find that 99% of the drops in this game have no value which is very odd. I end up selling my entire inventory and get 1k credits except for the last 3 items which are patterns that are worth 20x what the rest were worth. Like seriously though, if I didnt find patterns, I have no damn idea how I would have made money.
    You get more XP killing shadowlands mobs than you do killing RK mobs.
    The amount of junk in the game is impressive, it's part of what makes AO unique, so much stuff. However, the prices you can get selling this crap to the terminals definately isn't enough.
    One of the easiest ways to get quick 'lowbie' money, is to do RK missions, loot everything that's not bolted down and sell it. There are RK loots that players want, and will pay VERY well for, unfortunately, there's no way of knowing which items they are without doing research or having someone tell you (I swear I sold a Grid Armor disk to the terminals in the early days before I knew it was worth something!)

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    Now that I have money I go to random shops to try and find a decent QL weapon which usually leaves me under geared and wasting hours going from shop to shop. Finally I gave up on shops except for the garden shop and if I cant find a weapon I will quit and play another character, randomly I will log in and look for equipment until I get lucky. Finding equipment seems like such a huge barrier to play with this game. Its also odd that when running missions on RK and then switching over to shadow lands, a weapon can go from perfectly fine to feeling worthless very fast.
    Again, weapons are one of those strange things, there's so many worthless weapons in the game and so few decent ones (that aren't terribly hard to get) that it makes being a newbie simply horrid.
    Armor isn't much better, but there's always carbonum (if you can find someone to make it for you...)
    The reason that weapons change their damage when going into the shadowlands is that in SL, weapons always do their minimum damage (before bonuses)...

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    Trying to understand the skill system can also be a huge problem. If I raise burst does that increase burst damage or am i just raising it to equip a weapon. WTF does riposte do. It seems nano skills raise nano damage but do weapon skills raise weapon damage or are they just there as a barrier to what you can equip. WTF does riposte do?
    Raising burst does 2 things, 1st, it allows you to equip higher level weapons, 2nd, it decreases your burst timer.
    Nanoskills don't raise nano damage, they just let you upload higher QL nanos.
    Increasing primary weapon skills increases your weapon damage (and allows you to use higher level weapons), check your weapon descriptions for a 'max beneficial skill', above this you get no more bonus for high primary weapon skills.
    Riposte is only a requsite for weapons, it doesn't do anything else.

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    Most of my characters end up with Thar's armor on simply because I know where to find it and this is for you inspect people, I usually get laughed at and told its a waste of skill points trying to equip it. Then those people walk off without telling me what armor is viable and a point saver.
    Well, then they're not helpful people (try carbonum as an alternative).

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    Class balance at low levels is laughable. I struggled to do anything with a low level agent. Leveling to 40 was pretty slow and I had no idea how to use false profession which may have helped. Made a keeper and oh my was leveling a breeze. Hell with that constant healing I walked through most of ToTW and I had no idea what I was doing.
    It's not so much a ballance thing as a 'what's your prof good at doing' thing. Docs heal (great team players), enforcers do decent damage and absorbe damage (with a doc behind them, they keep everyone else in the team safe), soldiers do great damage and are suitable for soloing also, and so on...

    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    From an outsiders perspective, this game is a mess. It needs a bunch of little quality of life fixes that probably should have been done 10 years ago. It also needs a strong theme which I do believe it has. What other sci-fi mmo do we have. Although every time I see two headed dogs running around SL I start to forget the game is sci-fi at all.
    Those two headed dogs are actually players, morphed...



    If you send me a PM on these forums, depending on your play times, I'll try to get with you ingame and give you some pointers & such (don't bring the agent or keeper, I don't have a clue about those two lol).
    A new light shines upon Rubi-Ka,A new channel is opened in the grid feed,
    A new Team dedicated to the distribution of knowledge is formed.
    >>> AO-Universe <<<
    For the People, By the People.

  10. #350
    Quote Originally Posted by Esssch View Post
    I'm afraid people will inspect me and not invite me due to my bad gear
    I'd bet it's the nanomage MP part that would be the issue.

    EDIT: Ok.. maybe the pistols too.. I dunno <3
    You can find me at:
    Battlenet @ Marilata#1680
    Steam @ http://steamcommunity.com/id/marilata

  11. #351
    @wretch. You are 100% dead on about how the game is atm. Seeing a post like yours gives me hope. I wasn't the only person to actually see this game for what its really like. Most of the trolls on this forum will argue you to exhaustion to rationalize this game in its current state. Its like trying to explain what colors are to a blind person to get any common sense and logic into the arguments we see on here. Hear, see, speak, no evil of ao.

  12. #352
    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post

    Raising burst does 2 things, 1st, it allows you to equip higher level weapons, 2nd, it decreases your burst timer.
    Nanoskills don't raise nano damage, they just let you upload higher QL nanos.
    Increasing primary weapon skills increases your weapon damage (and allows you to use higher level weapons), check your weapon descriptions for a 'max beneficial skill', above this you get no more bonus for high primary weapon skills.
    Riposte is only a requsite for weapons, it doesn't do anything else.
    Thanks for this info its appreciated


    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post
    It's not so much a ballance thing as a 'what's your prof good at doing' thing. Docs heal (great team players), enforcers do decent damage and absorbe damage (with a doc behind them, they keep everyone else in the team safe), soldiers do great damage and are suitable for soloing also, and so on...
    I still think its a balance issue. I dont expect a Doc to out damage my agent, but in all honesty. My lower level Doc out damages my Agent. Rifles feel so bleh. Agent was probably the prof I was looking forward to the most so maybe thats why I feel so let down by how the prof plays.
    In my mind I was seeing this class that can learn a few abilities from other classes and build a unique play style. What I got plays like:

    attempt to sneak, random SL creature spots me, Attempt to sneak out of max range then walk into range while spamming Aim shot wasting 2 minutes until it finally works, auto attack until dead.

    I mean I understand that not all profs are created equal but man low level agents felt gimp. I have played every prof (except enforcer) to level 40 because thats just something I like to do and Agent was the only one I struggled with. Maybe its just Rifle Agents, I didnt try another weapon out. I had a pistol doc, MA doc, Shotgun doc, and each was easy to level to 40.

    It could also be the huge difference in perks. Got my first alien perk on a 15 fixer and the next thing I know I can damn near one shot things. That perk does far more damage than Aimed Shot at similar level and the perks Agent has access to at that level just dont deal anywhere near that damage. Same could be said of my Keeper, at level 15 i was doing far more damage than my Agent and I assumed keeper was a tank or offtank prof.

    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post
    If you send me a PM on these forums, depending on your play times, I'll try to get with you ingame and give you some pointers & such (don't bring the agent or keeper, I don't have a clue about those two lol).
    Thanks I will hit you up sometime. I appreciate the help. All I really need is information because I like to do most things on my own at first. That way I dont end up max level and have no clue as to how to play my class.

    Quote Originally Posted by doctorgore View Post
    @wretch. You are 100% dead on about how the game is atm. Seeing a post like yours gives me hope. I wasn't the only person to actually see this game for what its really like. Most of the trolls on this forum will argue you to exhaustion to rationalize this game in its current state. Its like trying to explain what colors are to a blind person to get any common sense and logic into the arguments we see on here. Hear, see, speak, no evil of ao.
    Well unless someone is making a ton of alts, they no longer see the lowbie game anymore and even if they do make lowbie alts, they cant truly experience it as a new player does. Its easy to ignore problems that you never deal with. Most people on AO will argue over twinking, inspect, etc because thats what affects them. They already know which nanos to buy, what weapon to use, where to get gear, how to power level to the point that they are playing a different game than the new player is. Every once in a while you get people like snakebite that try and help. On my keeper I had a guy run by me, stop, give me 8 mil credits, then run off. I was like, atleast wait for me to thank you. It came out of no where. I never even talk on the chat channels. Heh
    Last edited by wretch; Mar 6th, 2014 at 02:44:08.

  13. #353
    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    I have played every prof (except enforcer) to level 40 because thats just something I like to do and Agent was the only one I struggled with. Maybe its just Rifle Agents, I didnt try another weapon out. I had a pistol doc, MA doc, Shotgun doc, and each was easy to level to 40.
    I think agent is probably one of if not the hardest profs to play. However I will offer this advice for agent, if you are not using a root or snare and staying out of range of the critters you are going to have a very hard knock life. Use that range to your advantage and all you need is time to kill anything.
    ~Anyone can level, but only the wise gain experience~

    *Bronto Burger, serving 10,000 high level noobs daily*

    http://wolf-brigade.webs.com/

    My Story

    Don't feed the Mensa Tralalalala

    Everyday I'm Shuffling.

  14. #354
    Quote Originally Posted by Psikie View Post
    I think agent is probably one of if not the hardest profs to play. However I will offer this advice for agent, if you are not using a root or snare and staying out of range of the critters you are going to have a very hard knock life. Use that range to your advantage and all you need is time to kill anything.
    I rarely if ever use roots or snares simply because everyone that I have had gets resisted 2 out of 3 casts. So the enemy is usually smashing my face in by the time i get a root to land missing out of attacks trying to cast, then i have to run away to get range and start shooting again and by that time, the root has broken. I probably didnt have the correct nanos tho or its just that SL mobs are hard to land nanos on.

  15. #355
    Quote Originally Posted by Nusquam View Post
    Hi guys,

    - Parry will be replaced by a new defensive stat called Deflect. Deflect will make incoming hits glance. Instead of dealing 100% damage, a glancing hit will only deal 50% of the damage. Glance chance will cap out at 15%. Deflection is NOT considered a melee special and will work on any incoming weapon attack.

    - We will enable everyone to see friendly nano programs in their opponent's NCU. This is to level the playing field for people who do not have access to 3rd party programs which provide this information.

    Joel Bylos
    So ... have you adjusted the Deflect skill of mobs to be similar to the skill players could reasonably expect to have at their level? Or, do mobs have a high (maxed out) Deflect skill level for their size?

    When you allow all of us to see friendly nano programs in our opponent's NCU to "equalize the playfield" will you also provide the automated programs from the 3rd party that helps/automates the selection of the correct / most beneficial attack sequences? Or, will those with the third party programs still have the advantage as the rest of us must manually decide our attack sequence?

    Why don't you just disable the 3rd party programs?

    Emma

  16. #356
    Quote Originally Posted by Nusquam View Post
    - We will enable everyone to see friendly nano programs in their opponent's NCU. This is to level the playing field for people who do not have access to 3rd party programs which provide this information.
    How about enabling everyone to roll the RK mission they want for loot, like those that have clicksaver...
    A new light shines upon Rubi-Ka,A new channel is opened in the grid feed,
    A new Team dedicated to the distribution of knowledge is formed.
    >>> AO-Universe <<<
    For the People, By the People.

  17. #357
    Quote Originally Posted by Snakebite View Post
    How about enabling everyone to roll the RK mission they want for loot, like those that have clicksaver...
    Im with you on that. I refuse to use 3rd party programs because I dont like the hassle of getting them to actually work and I dont like the security issue of installing mods from some random dude. I refuse to use clicksaver and I guarantee that is holding me back in a lot of ways.

    I also have a question. Why isnt dual wielding a ranged and melee weapon possible. I just tried to make an Agent that uses piercing and pistol. To me it make sense to have the pistol to pull and when they reach melee range you have both weapons to fight with. Just curious as to why this isnt possible.

  18. #358
    Quote Originally Posted by wretch View Post
    I rarely if ever use roots or snares simply because everyone that I have had gets resisted 2 out of 3 casts. So the enemy is usually smashing my face in by the time i get a root to land missing out of attacks trying to cast, then i have to run away to get range and start shooting again and by that time, the root has broken. I probably didnt have the correct nanos tho or its just that SL mobs are hard to land nanos on.

    You will be hard pressed to have an RK snare / root / mez work in the SL unless you have the supercharged version. You will have to get the SL roots / snares / mez unfortionately. I have never understood why they attempted to create a seperate game within the game



    I may not have a lot of answers for you but if you need any help feel free to send me a PM and I will try to help. I am still noob in a lot of ways concerning the high twinking / endgame stuff though; however, I have played off and on since release.

  19. #359
    Quote Originally Posted by westyfu View Post
    Opening inspect won't hurt you, or me, or us.

    It may show some true colours in people, but do you really want to play an MMO, with people who can't stand the idea of teaming with, or helping people who aren't in 100% completed setups with nothing to gain but xp?

    All that stuff you learnt in 220 levels isn't good enough to pass on to the greenie in team who probably needs a nudge in the right direction nowadays?

    Considering most don't even pvp at 220 anymore on half their toons... what's the damn rush anyways? Are all those credits for loot rights burning holes in your pockets that badly just to PvM?

    There will still be toons on LFT, there will still be people in gardens, and there will still be those unwilling to team them.

    If I lft on my 200's I get one response as a rule "Can you log 220 to pull?".

    Gear isn't really the problem anymore.

    Nothing really changes.

    (btw... inspected 3 times just as I read through this page, teh h0rr0r)

    Asking for a 220 to pull may be because people want the highest missions or it may be because of a lack of people doing Inf. key runs. I know personally I cant get into a key run to save my life. I even offered to buy a spot, help farm ... and alas no takers. It doesnt help that the jerks put an INF key in the item shop so people are less likely to farm the patterns now than they were before. Its hard enough to get an xp group or dungeon group much less a group for a multi day endeavor!

  20. #360
    I get that, but people are so afraid to do anything BUT a 220 now, that things like Pen teams are an impossibility.

    We all leveled fine at the 255 before missions.

    We all leveled fine on missions without 220 pullers.

    We all farmed insigs just fine before our keys.

    Now? No one is willing to do anything less than "Best sk per hour" so they cut off their own noses to spite their face's.

    I got myself 2 research lvls done on wildlife, as I watched the same 4 pple in the garden, and spamming OOC for one more DD and getting nothing for their time.

    Best SK per hour now becomes worst SK per hour, if all they do is LFT for hours on end, waiting on that one magic prof/number to carry them through it.

    Inspect will not change that.

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