You decide, first edition!

[Gimpynoob]

Yes, the pre-daily grind was so superior to everything on the market, that's why AO was completely swarmed with so many new players, they had to merge the servers to handle them all.

Pre-daily mission, people still accelerated the endgame grind as much as they could - heck teams, inf spirit kiting, those came long before the new, and frankly improved levelling experience.

The problem is the aging population - many of us are completely sick of levelling new toons to 220, or twinks to whatever level. We are going to do it as quickly as possible for purpose built toons. Nothing will change that.

What dailies did is offer an alternative to the sh!t grind that we had before.

Every single major MMO out there offers a comparable system.

To deny that the addition was an improvement is completely batty in my opinion - and if your objection is lack of levelling teams, I see a lot more people seeking teams for Elite daily missions than I have for any other levelling content in most of the last decade.

Regarding the other issues, i.e. levelling gear etc., yes that needs to be improved. But the transition from singularly repetitive /afk grinds to at least partially active grinds is nothing but an improvement.

If you re-read my post you will see that I made no reference to daily missions. I also didn't say that a game with a fast leveling process was a bad game. Or that AO should not go that route.
And daily missions are bad. Not by themselves but because they make worst something that is already badly broken in AO.
Also I would like to point out that the AO leveling experience is bad not because it is long but because it is repetitive. Making the grind shorter will not make the game more interesting for anyone. Because after you finish one grind you will have to do the same thing all over again.

[jorricane]

If you re-read my post you will see that I made no reference to daily missions. I also didn't say that a game with a fast leveling process was a bad game. Or that AO should not go that route.
And daily missions are bad. Not by themselves but because they make worst something that is already badly broken in AO.
Also I would like to point out that the AO leveling experience is bad not because it is long but because it is repetitive. Making the grind shorter will not make the game more interesting for anyone. Because after you finish one grind you will have to do the same thing all over again.

My apologies, I misread your point then.

I still stand by the fact that anything shortening the grind, in any way, is positive.

The problem, as I have said before, is that AO was designed in a different time, catering to a different play style that was prevalent years back. People used to play MMOs to socialize and explore an open world. Now it's a race to endgame toons and gear. Coping with that kind of shift is a very difficult task. Although I support the current Dev team, I also realize that this team, and teams past, lack the big picture, meta-game centric view that would allow them to fix it without bandaids.

Almost everything that has been done in an attempt to smooth the road that most people take now, i.e. the fast track to endgame, has worked fairly well. Added grinds (such as LE research) has not been implemented quite so well.

[Towerblock]

Pity you don't care. I was ready to make a long post with my opinion about the personality traits of people who make insulting posts in reply to previous posts and then hide behind lame excuses of "This isn't about you" and also about the intellectual capacity of people who think anyone would ever believe such patetic excuses. But since you don't care...

Nope. I can't be bothered to stop and band-aid the resulting feels of people who throw themselves on the ground, and then cry at me because they skinned their knees.

I am not sorry that I have zero time for that sort of game, either.

[jorricane]

Looking at the poll it looks like the PvM crowd finally clicked the launcher link and started to vote. Good and bad IMO... fixing tower stuff might retain some customers, but adding some XP alternative might as well. Both options will lose some people as well.

Catch 22 in action.

[Themanwhonukes]

Looking at the poll it looks like the PvM crowd finally clicked the launcher link and started to vote. Good and bad IMO... fixing tower stuff might retain some customers, but adding some XP alternative might as well. Both options will lose some people as well.

Catch 22 in action.

Doubt people will quite because one of them gets fixed. It's a question of which fix that will bring most attention to quitters to return.

[jorricane]

Doubt people will quite because one of them gets fixed. It's a question of which fix that will bring most attention to quitters to return.

Fair point.

[edmaster3]

Ed, I don't know where you come up with this stuff but I always feel like reaching through the interwebs and slapping you in the head.

In case you've not been paying attention, though, FC noticed, and took the first step: nerfing fixer meeps. It shouldn't be too long before something is done regarding the MB part.

It seems when half the population of AO quits and cites these things as an issue, people do actually notice.

There is more to the game than just "grinding" 220/70/30.

Lol i can say the same thing.
But wow, so 12 out of 14 professions are balanced? So why is ao trying to hard to rebalance them?

Your only concern is 220 tower wars, I am talking about in general.
But back to what you said, only a few professions dominating certain lvls doesn't mean its balanced. While you are pandering to old vets with maybe finished twinks coming back. I am hoping to get new people.

If they join ao for pvp (not likely) they will find that even with MBing 5 alts, they still cant kill one twink. They literally "will be 1 year to young to be able to kill a twink" if you know what I mean. Which is not should not be possible.

Low lvl tower wars arent mostly about skill, its about who has the better outside buffs on and the few pvp professions.

Yes the many professions is what makes ao great, but no one is going to stay for pvp if its not even possible for them to win. There is a reason why ao pretty much have to blackmail people to get them to join BS, before lvl 220 bs.

[Pafpuf]

Lol i can say the same thing.
But wow, so 12 out of 14 professions are balanced? So why is ao trying to hard to rebalance them?

Professions (core) are pretty balanced, it's the years of stupid band-aid fixes with op items/nanos that ruined everything.

[orochi3]

link these polls to the startup window, as mentioned earlier

[Esssch]

link these polls to the startup window, as mentioned earlier

Your suggestion would carry more weight if it hadn't already come to pass

[Ansehx]

I don't mean to disregard anyones opinion but if 12/14 professions are really balanced...

Why are there so many fixers/shades/enfs? ^^.

[Esssch]

Some are more balanced than others

[Beornin]

Some are more balanced than others

Spoken like a true pig.

[Traderjill]

The true question, for whoever said 12/14 were balanced (can't find it) is what are the 2 professions that they feel are unbalanced.. I'm kinda curious.

[edmaster3]

Some are more balanced than others

I bow to your awesomeness. Perfectly times animal farm reference.

Woot we almost passed the pvp people, so few of them. So in the true AO spirit of engineering, freedom and greed. I am going to log on and pay people to for for option 4, just so the MBing troll people can know there place.

[Grandpa]

The true question, for whoever said 12/14 were balanced (can't find it) is what are the 2 professions that they feel are unbalanced.. I'm kinda curious.

Balance is in the eye of the beholder. Personal experience is almost always subjective.

While I'm not a big fan of metrics, it is self-explanatory that most want to play the "best" professions.
Some time ago, I saw a statistical distribution of the professions (I believe it was on Auno, but I could be mistaken).

Crat, Doc, Solja and Enfo were on the top, while MP, NT, Trader, Agent were on the bottom.
While I forgot the actual numbers, the percentage margin was indeed considerable.

This indicates that these bottom professions are less desirable to play.
There are probably several reasons for that - i.e. too squishy, not enough DD, no function in the team, too cumbersome to play, etc.

So, I think rebalancing (which was promised many moons ago) is still necessary.

[Esssch]

Crat, Doc, Solja and Enfo were on the top, while MP, NT, Trader, Agent were on the bottom.
While I forgot the actual numbers, the percentage margin was indeed considerable.

http://auno.org/ao/stats.php

That one?

The 201 one is probably more accurate for your argument, though.

[Leetlover]

I think the pvp-balance in AO is fairly ok. Enforcer has some over the top tools (that ring and some nanos and procs could use a tweak) and engineers should be put to jail if they team people, but apart from that it is ok due to the complex customation you can add to your profession.

I think we need more setup-disparity tho. Lately we see that all use same bracer and shoulderarmor. I don't think a game like ao is supposed to be like that. So more items like this so we can make a choice.

[Psikie]

Im curious about the 12/14 also..but i suppose its a cup 1/2 full scenerio, perhaps only 2 profs are balanced and the rest are unbalanced. lol

[edmaster3]

I think the pvp-balance in AO is fairly ok. Enforcer has some over the top tools (that ring and some nanos and procs could use a tweak) and engineers should be put to jail if they team people, but apart from that it is ok due to the complex customation you can add to your profession.

I think we need more setup-disparity tho. Lately we see that all use same bracer and shoulderarmor. I don't think a game like ao is supposed to be like that. So more items like this so we can make a choice.

231 option 4 to 228 full pvp, Money always win. As ao people we will always walk on the edge of the law to attain what we want.

No such thing as pvp balance in ao. The only lvl that you can say is almost at 40% balance is the 220 one. All others are completely one sided.

The only introduction any new person to ao will get in pvp is that they can never win and even 5 of them can barely scratch one twink. And maybe after a year or so they might be able to fight them.
The Devs should fix low lvl pvp if they even have a dream of getting new people to join ao.