Monthly Development Update - 28th February 2014

[Traderjill]

In today's game economy, how exactly is that self conscious player going to get that 300 CC without going to the gold sellers?

Back in my day, when we used to have to walk to school, uphill both ways, we actually farmed our gear and didn't buy it with credits (or USD turned into credits). Hmm.. come to think of it, that still works. And if they're a PvM player then it would make sense they'd be PvMing I'd think.

But now the bigger question is.. why does someone need 300 CC for PvM?

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Yea, I don't really see the issue.

I'll outline a few scenarios which I find the most common:

Scenario 1: Player returns to game, has outdated gear

Assumptions: player probably isn't expecting to PVM or PVP competitively, or, has a rude awakening and quickly realises that he's not meeting par.

Result: he asks for help from orgmates, who help gear him up in DB gear in a evening or two of play. In other slots he gets a piece or two of Ofab/ alternate gear.

Total cost: 2-3 hours of farming (depending on capability/availability), a couple pieces of types, 10-20k of VP, maybe 50m or so of typed parts if required.


Scenario 2: Player in PVM gear with moderate skill Advertises himself as "good DPS" and asks to join an inf hard team

Assumptions: player isn't as good as he thinks, or, his team mates expect more than what he's able to provide, it may or may not be a gearing issue.

Result: player IS inspected, and is either issued a derogatory PM, or is issued constructive criticism. Player uses either to do an objective critique, or goes to orgmates to ask for help.

I really don't see these as being any different to how people conduct themselves in the real world. If I have a job that needs doing, and I hire a contractor to fulfil the scope, and he fails (partly to wholy) he may face litigation, at the very least, harsh words and probably some wrist slapping.

So why shouldn't people be held to the same, or similar code in game?

We're all honest people, so this only enforces the honest players to have realistic expectations, and, it will allow people who are *******s to be *******s, just the same as they are in real life.

If you don't like *******s, don't play with them, if you like constructive feedback, ask for some from your more veteran orgmates...

I dunno, I honestly don't see what the problem is with this.

[Grandpa]

Back in my day, when we used to have to walk to school, uphill both ways, we actually farmed our gear and didn't buy it with credits (or USD turned into credits). Hmm.. come to think of it, that still works. And if they're a PvM player then it would make sense they'd be PvMing I'd think.

I farmed all my gear, thank you very much.
First I got a couple of 220s, then I earned enough to get myself a (real) raid city and a ton of CRU, then I raided until I was blue (or green?) in the face.
That took about 3 years. Now I'm still raiding for my latest TL7's yet again.

But now the bigger question is.. why does someone need 300 CC for PvM?

Fine, CSS, my bad.
Because it will be a standard for the "gear check", along with ACDC, gauntlet stuff, DB bracers, alphas, etc.
The further you are from the standard, the more you will be discriminated against.
Forget skill, forget a good attitude, gear first - always.

Just to summarize one last time:

Funcom wants inspect so we can do their job for them and police each other.
That's completely ludicrous and is going to backfire terribly. But we cannot talk about that here.

Most of the pro-inspect people want it
a) because WoW etc. has it
b) because it's a great tool for trolling and grieving

And lastly, the idealists want it because they think they can do some good with it.
But they forget that every MMO with mandatory inspect is proof of the contrary.

Alas, I'm getting tired of this whole discussion, MMO forums are just not my thing.
And FunCom doesn't even have the decency to comment on our concerns.

So I consider mandatory inspect and everything else in this ridiculous patch a done deal.

When my sub expires again, I will make my personal decision.

[Traderjill]

Because it will be a standard for the "gear check", along with ACDC, gauntlet stuff, DB bracers, alphas, etc.
The further you are from the standard, the more you will be discriminated against.
Forget skill, forget a good attitude, gear first - always.

This is the general idea that I simply don't believe. Anyone that knows me can tell you I am not a very optimistic person when it comes to AO. But I simply don't see the game sliding down the most extreme path just because some people's inspect will now be visible. Truth be told, most people I encountered in game already have inspect open and I guess they're leveling anyway. And regardless of inspect, people already have damage dump programs. I don't think the reason people are sitting on LFT or not getting teams right now is open inspect, right?

And lastly, the idealists want it because they think they can do some good with it. But they forget that every MMO with mandatory inspect is proof of the contrary.

There are a lot of other factors in those other games that contribute to that mentality besides open inspect. I'd go as far as to say that the gear score concept is what causes issue in WoW.. the fact that it is quite easy to frame everyone into a single number based off of that ranking of each piece of gear. Unless Funcom is going to create an external gear database and players start assigning arbitrary values to said gear.. I dont' think you have to worry.

So I consider mandatory inspect and everything else in this ridiculous patch a done deal.

When my sub expires again, I will make my personal decision.

And yep, at the end of the day they're doing what they're doing.. the discussion I think is just for discussion's sake most of the time. AO does have a rather intelligent playerbase (overall) and its usually entertaining just to see what people come up with as responses to be honest.

[Pennypacker]

Unless Funcom is going to create an external gear database and players start assigning arbitrary values to said gear.. I dont' think you have to worry.

And yep, at the end of the day they're doing what they're doing.. the discussion I think is just for discussion's sake most of the time. AO does have a rather intelligent playerbase (overall) and its usually entertaining just to see what people come up with as responses to be honest.

CC/CSS; Over 9000

Anything else;0.1

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Fine, CSS, my bad.
Because it will be a standard for the "gear check", along with ACDC, gauntlet stuff, DB bracers, alphas, etc.
The further you are from the standard, the more you will be discriminated against.
Forget skill, forget a good attitude, gear first - always.

This is complete BS for one reason.

Nobody gives a damn WTF people are wearing......


AS LONG AS THEY CAN COMPLETE THE CONTENT IN A TIMELY AND RELIABLE FASHION.


There is no argument that can disqualify my statement.

You can't try to tell me some nub or vets time is worth more than my own, and therefore discretion is always with the leader of the group.

The more picky you are, the more time you spend assembling a group. The less picky you are, the more random the group might be and potentially be slower in completion. Doing a preliminary gear checks adds time, but might increase success rates. How can this possibly be anything worth fussing over? If some asshat requests that his entire team is full CC only, he's NEVER going to get a team together. How is that your problem?


The bottom line is, idiots who make unnecessary demands on a group/individual for gear will be selected against over time, while those who settle for raw capability and efficiency will be selected for. People who begrudge, and waste teammates time by being overly selective will gradually lose potential teammates because they will refuse to endure his time wasting practices.

Just think about this logically, and you'll realise all your concerns are nullified by the fact that REAL people operate the avatars.

[Antimony]

Yea, I don't really see the issue.

Result: he asks for help from orgmates, who help gear him up in DB gear in a evening or two of play. In other slots he gets a piece or two of Ofab/ alternate gear.

Total cost: 2-3 hours of farming (depending on capability/availability), a couple pieces of types, 10-20k of VP, maybe 50m or so of typed parts if required.

Heh yeah, if you got a large active org who likes to babysit.
Otherwise you gonna rot on LFT just to get a few db runs a week and still gotta roll for loot.
Or you gotta go back to the gold spammers and buy LR for everything.

Just think about this logically, and you'll realise all your concerns are nullified by the fact that REAL people operate the avatars.

Real people will be real a$$es, that's the scary part, man!

There are a lot of other factors in those other games that contribute to that mentality besides open inspect. I'd go as far as to say that the gear score concept is what causes issue in WoW.. the fact that it is quite easy to frame everyone into a single number based off of that ranking of each piece of gear. Unless Funcom is going to create an external gear database and players start assigning arbitrary values to said gear.. I dont' think you have to worry.

WoW lubbers rejoice! Gear Scores are next!

We wasting all this time talking about this stupid patch. FC wants to dumb the game down and make it WoW-like, whatever.
Meanwhile we are ignoring the elephant in the room that's about to crush the game.
You know, the one we cannot talk about here?

[doctorgore]

Just to put things in perspective my agent has everything in game but acdc and ai armor and even if I had those things I would never get a team since people know the profession is trash and discriminate. The thing everyone here is forgetting is balance changes will be part of this inspect change and discrimination happens always now anyway because the big four are all that is needed for pvm.

[borriss]

I am sure it must have been mentioned by the whole community already - but I have to make sure I also state my case...

My concern lies with the changes to the signet rings, I wonder why there is a need to remove the action on these? The rings are working greatly as they are, and it's really nice to have that option of using them without having to cast a nano - also them not having any reqs to be used...

Only reason I can imagine is that lower levels of that same profession may feel left out since the rings can't be obtained on these levels. However this may be true, but I don't feel like enough thought has been put into this decision...


For Martial Artists this ring is alpha-omega.... It's such a huge part of our toolset that seeing this go, would make me question my motives of playing my MA at all..

For me a big part of my playing is duels and PvP, and this ring has such great utility... LE MA attacks costs a whole lot of nano when used, also as MA we've adopted the Reanimated Healer cloak for big burst fights - and the nano heal + healing on our ring is simply something that if taken from us, will leave us unable to compete in several match-ups that with the ring is a good 50% win / loss for us....

Not to mention it being an item - we can thus use this when greatly debuffed and try to sneak in an alpha, letting our HP drop since we can fall back on ring heal... These are utilities that aren't easily replaced, and I fail to see how MA can remain competetive in todays AO if ring is gone.

While MA also got various changes as LE and LoX came along, we didn't get much more survivability.. If anything people got more AR, and our evades didn't scale to par - we did receive a new heal which was a huge blessing for us... But we're still lingering at a puny 24~k healing per minute (all taken into consideration) Taking away the ring would further decrease our ability to compete in PvP and I hope this gets looked at very closely...

/rant over, thanks for reading hope you understand my PoV.

[Awikun]

Auto enable inspect has some pros and cons but the key question is :
Is it the most needed thing at the moment and who need / asked for it ?

Over the years there were hundreds of good and excellent sugestions as well as thousands not so good or plain stupid ....
I may be wrong but I think that most of the changes anounced in 18.7 patch were not asked for nor needed at all !!!
At the same time the really good and needed changes that in some cases were perfectly described in explaind in sugestion forum are just ignored by FC...

Maybe it would be fair to delete/remove the whole sugestion forum part as clearly FC does not give a damn about what players think and ask for !

[Leetlover]

I big issue here is that newcomers have so little resource access. fc shud xfer lootfolders.

Twinks ftw, but I disagree to the idea that twinking should be required just 2 perform the function of your profession, which highlights another issue which is a effect of a bad lootsystem and poor neglectfull developement; we don't have use for so many professions anymore

With mandatory inspect, "evenly matched" PVP will decline, getting sure-fire ganks will increase.
The vast majority has no interest in fair fights or a match of skills and wits.
That's how it works everywhere else, and I have done it myself in MMOs with mandatory inspect.
Why would it be different in AO?

Welcome to AO-pvp. Nothing new will happen. Rubi-Ka is a warsone, the game evolves around the political conflict between omni-tek and clan. Many enjoys that a town in Rubi-Ka is dangerous if they have made themselfs open to attack.

There is also duels for those who doesn't like the streetfighting-pvp. In duels it is often agreed upon not to use RI for example, so the declining of duel-challenges is not gonna be a very new occurance if I were to predict.

imo, a problem here is the official duel-loss system. They should instead make doing duels a lot give you experience. Another way (which also would be a alternative way to reintroduce the old titlesystem) to go is to make championships with public fightnights, where you either take the duel or lose your position.

But reputation in AO was built on skill and attitude first and gear second.
With mandatory inspect, it will be the exact opposite.

It'd be a mixed bag I think. Learn to care less?

In today's game economy, how exactly is that self conscious player going to get that 300 CC without going to the gold sellers?
(and don't say farm pearls or I'm really going to laugh)

100% fc's fault. Introducing alien team-dailies that gives xp + loot will fix the ai-armor economy. Simple.

They would need to close down arid (make it solo instance) and make solo-daily have same cooldown 4 it 2 work tho...

[wretch]

Twinking in this game is kind of a joke imo. With a skill based game I expect each profession to have viable options, plural. Sadly it seems that the game revolves more around option. To add depth, you have twinking which in my opinion, is the wrong kind of depth. Jumping over a bunch of hurdles to over equip or over summon doesnt seem fun to me. I dont sit up at night trying to solve advanced equations for fun. With this buff and that buff, and 3 other prof buffs from my alts i can get that crazy shotgun equiped on my level 20 trader. Twinking in this game is about elitism. You either twink through socialization or you twink through multi-boxing. I would prefer social twinking over multibox twinking but I am damn sure that most people twink themselves through multiboxing.

I am not saying that I am against any form of twinking. Coming up with decent builds through twinking can be ok I would just prefer it be through socializing and not to the extreme twinking is done at this moment. When you need a mathematician that also knows every buffing item in the game to break down the possibility to over equip and this process goes through 10 different items, 10 implants, and various other items and buff nanos, twinking has gone to far.

I personally would rather see 5 or more viable specs for each profession. Is there another weapon a keeper can use other than two handed edged and somehow still be viable? If not, there is a problem.

Inspect seems insignificant to a majority of the problems that I see with this game, but thats just my opinion based upon what little I have experienced.

[Brampfine]

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[solcv2]

Is there another weapon a keeper can use other than two handed edged and somehow still be viable? If not, there is a problem.

Nowadays no, back in teh day - yes. I remember running around at 205 with Gelids on

mark

[Jihnna]

"I don't like the twinking options in this game."

You're playing the wrong game, man. This is the #1 reason most people love AO over all other MMOs.

[Anna]

I see a lot of discussion on whether open inspect is good or bad. Guess it has some of each, but that is not the major concern to me. The major issue to me is that the REASON given for changing to open inspect is pure nonsense. Same with most of the other rational for the changes being discussed. So logic says if the reasons give have zero credibility, then way are the changes being made. The common thread is that all of them will give some pvp types (especially those that use automated attack programs for instance) a massive advantage as they can tailor their attacks based on the equipment and ncu of the target. And that, I do not think is a good change.

Also someone asked why to pvm need 300 alien armor, guess my response is why shouldn't they wear it. Good equipment is good equipment whether you are hunting inferno dynas or engaging in pvp.

[Raggy]

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Ahahaha.

Yes, AOs playerbase is equally respected and focused upon.



Sort it out FC.

[Emma]

To make my reply manageable, I had to cut some of your quotes, sorry about that.

With mandatory inspect, "evenly matched" PVP will decline, getting sure-fire ganks will increase.
The vast majority has no interest in fair fights or a match of skills and wits.
That's how it works everywhere else, and I have done it myself in MMOs with mandatory inspect.
Why would it be different in AO?

I have kicked people from teams for afking, looting 2 rooms away while the team was fighting, and just for being jerks. While I never put them on ignore, I have written down their names and told my orgs about them. And yes, occasionally I have kicked the guy in the medsuit who wasn't doing any damage. So I know what you are talking about.

But reputation in AO was built on skill and attitude first and gear second.
With mandatory inspect, it will be the exact opposite.
Gear first - and if you don't pass that very subjective and vague gear check, your attitude and skill will NEVER matter at all.
Hence your ENTIRE reputation is based on your gear, nothing else.

Again, that's how it works everywhere else.
Again, I myself have used mandatory inspect exactly that way.
If someone didn't pass my personal gear standard, they got kicked and never had a chance to show that they had a good attitude and fine skills.

So if you get tells or open channel comments by people saying how gimp you are, that's not harassment?
What would you call it? Being social? Flirting?

In other games, derogatory remarks about your gear and setup are an almost daily routine.
Btw, this is the only game I've ever played where I have ZERO people on my ignore list.
I would like to keep it that way.

Ok, so you are nosey, but to your credit, you admit to it.
And you use it for positive things, like being social and helping newbies - I like that.

But you realize that you are a small minority, do you?
In MMOs that have mandatory inspect, nobody (outside of guilds) bothers to help a newbie correct gear mistakes with inspect.
It's just not used for that.

Last but not least, just because you are curious, does not mean I have endure your voyeurism!

Well said ...
+1

Emma

[Neista]

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Yeah, i think that pretty much speaks for itself.

[Traderjill]

Also someone asked why to pvm need 300 alien armor, guess my response is why shouldn't they wear it. Good equipment is good equipment whether you are hunting inferno dynas or engaging in pvp.

That really wasn't the point of the question. Taken out of the context of the conversation that Grandpa and I were having.. the question may seemssilly and maybe your response seems appropriate. However the context in which I posed that question was a discussion regarding leveling and non-endgame toons not being able to get a team due to open inspect.

QL 300 AI armor is not necessarily the best solution for every class and CC certainly isn't the optimal solution for many PvM setups. That being said, for those classes where QL 300 AI armor might be best in slot, there's always some non-AI armor alternative that would still allow them to perform well. My soldier, for instance, is a toon I don't care much for and she's not wearing any AI armor. Is her DD top? No, it isn't. But her DD is still darned good and definitely nothing to be dismissed. I've yet to be denied a team (with open inspect) because she's not wearing QL 300 CC or CSS. All of my toons have open inspect.. some of them have ai armor.. some don't. I've never been denied a team due to lack of AI armor.. not on toons that people don't know.. not on toons people do.

I think the 'omg people won't invite newbies to team because they aren't wearing ql 300 ai armor' is a bunch of nonsense.