Why Balance?

[-Ruken-]

Now I may just be an old fart, but balance has never existed in AO. Other MMOs try to balance, some get close. Without homogenizing the classes, you can't.

AO has always done well not in spite of imbalance, but BECAUSE of it. The way a team dynamic changes by simply swapping out one class is crazy good fun. Yes, when trying to make the optimal setup, you may want 1 enfo, 2 docs and the rest soldiers... but that's not fun. So we don't do it.

My point is: AO isn't balanced, and numbers shouldn't be balanced in AO. As long as each class is fun to play in their own right, perfect.

[Pafpuf]

That's the problem, some aren't fun at all.

AO isn't horribly imbalanced, the problem is some profs have that one thing that's over the top that requires little to no skill in order to gain a huge advantage against certain other profs. Balancing AO isn't difficult at all, just takes advanced game knowledge and some number value changes really.

In pvm they're pretty balanced. You're either a doc, tank, crat or plain dd (ofc some are better damage dealers than others). That's because pvm in AO is so simple it requires very little of any profession's toolset in order to be effective. Unfortunately.

[vitriolic-v]

I always felt, as a soldier, that I could take on anything, so long as the mobs came at me one at a time and my specials and perks were all up and I had full nano and wasn't in TMS cooldown -- hey that's kind of a lot of caveats. Any time I couldn't do crowd control by positioning myself or messing with line of sight, though, I was at a tremendously elevated risk of dying (because I didn't go for cookie cutter Atrox soldiers; shame on me, right?). Sure, I could get a root graft or something, but unless I'm high level (or have a high level character), any I might have access to are going to have a ridiculously long lockout and therefore can only save me from one mob every 30 minutes minus 5 seconds per QL -- and they're making it so grafts don't drop anymore after 18.7 anyway.

As a fixer, I like having area snares, so that I have some kind of crowd control. Doesn't neutralize ranged mobs or casters, but it was a definite improvement. It's fair and not overpowered, but now they're changing the function of snares (unnecessarily IMO, because they break pretty quickly when the mob is attacked, and it costs a significant amount of nano to cast them over and over again). Goodbye fixer crowd control.

ON THE OTHER HAND, we've got crats that can solo literally everything (this is hyperbole; if you sit there giving me counter-examples I will reach through the Internet and slap you with a chair). They can calm everything and do what they want. Cherry pick their mobs for dailies. Make a boss's adds a non-issue.

As a fixer, if I snare, I'm still in combat. If a crat calms, however, they are no longer in combat. They can then use the combined health and nano rechargers and be ready for the next encounter. I'm left with just those stims (unless, while leveling, I want to have several outdated QLs of traditional nano rechargers, and several more I have yet to grow into, in my inventory, *just in case*), and eventually I'll be out of nano from re-casting my short HoT and area snares. Post 18.7, I can look forward to those mobs I've snared slowly but surely catching up to me while I'm trying to top off my nano pool with stims or crappy little nano rechargers, boxing me in, and killing me thirty at a time.

Crowd control is the major factor in the ability to solo content. I know that designing classes to solo in a MMORPG that is meant to be undertaken in teams is not ideal, so I'm not suggesting that we give everyone AOE calms. I'm suggesting that the ability to calm be mediated. inb4 butthurt crat whining.

tldr; bureaucrats in AO are too much like their real life counterparts -- invincible and above the law. That's why balance. They make sense from a class description perspective, but calms need a cooldown/lockout or something.

It is also apparent that crats were initially intended to be strong support characters. They are. Of course, everything they provide to a team, they benefit from themselves in solo as well. Balance efforts should reduce their solo capabilities to be what everyone else's are, while retaining their important support abilities, but spreading important support abilities to other classes so that it isn't crats *specifically* that always get the last open spot in a team, and so that teams don't fail to get off the ground just because they're waiting for a mandatory crat to fill the last slot.

In short, balance: Because Bureaucrats Online is lame, and Atrox Online is lame.

[Anonimofied]

The only way to balance RPG games like AO is to remove a numerous nanoskills, perks and give the player less skills but powerfull as possible at higher level. But i dont think this idea is popular among the RPG fanatics.

[Tryptophy]

The only way to balance RPG games like AO is to remove a numerous nanoskills, perks and give the player less skills but powerfull as possible at higher level. But i dont think this idea is popular among the RPG fanatics.

I mean at best you could identify the 4 important roles in AO, and make sure every profession can handle two of them as well as the others. That is still pretty homogenous and boring, and no doubt some combos would be much better than others.

[-Ruken-]

...stuff (paraphrased)

This is my exact point. Crats are great at soloing. Soldiers... they're the best single target tank. No one compares to the Enfo's aoe tanking, a Doc's healing, a Fixer's speed...

I think this is a good thing. Since launch people have been trying to make "their class" do things it wasnt made for. I appreciate the original thinking, but I also think in the origins of AO.

Most people reroll once they realized they picked the wrong class (for whatever reason) or they couldn't imagine how much fun an engineer was.

I think instead of balance (Read: Make all classes have near the same damage, or make the tanks equal, etc.) they should make it FURTHER imbalanced. Embrace that each class has a different playstyle and just stay focused on making the classes core responsibility not change. If one particular profession comes out useless, make it awesome, but make it awesome in its own right.

As I see it, there are 2 types of gamers. Roleplayers and PvPers. (Bear with me here...)

On one hand, we have the Hardest Core of Roleplayers, these are people who LIVE for the roleplay. They do nothing more and are perfectly happy sitting in a bar chatting away developing the emotional attachment they have with their character.

On the other hand, Competitive PvPers. These guys do NOTHING but PvP, they PvP or they prepare for PvP.

This puts PvM right about dead center, and why so many games cater to this style.

Most people are not so far to an extreme. Some roleplayers like to get out and play a bit, some PvPers like to chat for a few minutes.

The point is, AO is mature enough provide an experience for all styles, but we may, as we did when we first started playing, have to reroll to get the exact experience we want.

... just a thought

[Esssch]

This is my exact point. Crats are great at soloing. Soldiers... they're the best single target tank. No one compares to the Enfo's aoe tanking, a Doc's healing, a Fixer's speed...

MPs are best at casting CM

[vitriolic-v]

This is my exact point. ... I think this is a good thing.

You missed my entire point. Crats are good at *everything in the game* because they have a great tool for *every situation in the game*. Soldiers, well, they can do some of the things, but they'll sit on LFT a lot. With our population, and no guarantee that it'll get better, that is tantamount to: Crats are PLAYABLE at all, and soldiers are NOT.

Ah dun did already said what would fix this disparity. Cooldowns on mezzes. Then, crats would STILL be the best at crowd control, but they'd HAVE TO TEAM UP sometimes. That's your "wonderful world in which everybody has a wonderful beautiful happy niche to fulfill," except without it being the wonderful world that excludes all other classes who can't mezz from the action.

[vitriolic-v]

MPs are best at casting CM

Point well made. Anything other than "best at soloing" is a crap consolation prize if there even exists such a thing as "best at soloing," especially if it's a matter of extreme difference.

[-Ruken-]

You missed my entire point. Crats are good at *everything in the game* because they have a great tool for *every situation in the game*. Soldiers, well, they can do some of the things, but they'll sit on LFT a lot. With our population, and no guarantee that it'll get better, that is tantamount to: Crats are PLAYABLE at all, and soldiers are NOT.

Ah dun did already said what would fix this disparity. Cooldowns on mezzes. Then, crats would STILL be the best at crowd control, but they'd HAVE TO TEAM UP sometimes. That's your "wonderful world in which everybody has a wonderful beautiful happy niche to fulfill," except without it being the wonderful world that excludes all other classes who can't mezz from the action.

If all you're saying is that crats need to lose "something" then I'd be alright with that. What made them so good though? Back in my day (albeit a while ago) crats got blown up first hit they took most of the time. Pets would turn on them and kill them if they werent paying total attention. I take it that's not the case anymore?

My point is, all damage dealers dont need the same damage if they're given something fun or useful in exchange.

[vitriolic-v]

Is there a thing going on where the fact that I am specifically talking about how crats can do crowd control all the live long day is being hidden from my posts, but I still see the original version, where I mention that, when I look at my posts?

[-Ruken-]

No, I just wasnt going to comment to "but, but, <profession>!"

[Traderjill]

Now I may just be an old fart, but balance has never existed in AO. Other MMOs try to balance, some get close. Without homogenizing the classes, you can't.

AO has always done well not in spite of imbalance, but BECAUSE of it. The way a team dynamic changes by simply swapping out one class is crazy good fun. Yes, when trying to make the optimal setup, you may want 1 enfo, 2 docs and the rest soldiers... but that's not fun. So we don't do it.

My point is: AO isn't balanced, and numbers shouldn't be balanced in AO. As long as each class is fun to play in their own right, perfect.

I won't speak on PvP but from a PvM perspective rebalancing should be more about making all professions relevant in team encounters in addition to being able to use their tools to complete content alone.

As it stands now, on Live, you can complete any encounter (except S42) if you have an enforcer, doctor, soldier, and a crat. In many cases, a crat plus almost anything else is sufficient. AO is a game where min-maxing and efficiency is the norm. As a result, it should be no surprise that when players form teams they are only interested in inviting toons that are 'useful'.

Ultimately the problem is a player mentality however that way of thinking is a direct result of an outdated loot system and raid encounters that are primarily tank and spank.

Professions like Traders, Meta-Physicists, Martial Artists, Agents and even NT's are especially left out of the loop. They do have some special/unique tools but there are other professions that simply do what they can do, better.

I do remember leveling my Trader and serving as primary healer at Ely hecks. When I was in leveling teams from around 2004 to 2008 or so good players were able to juggle their toolsets to make sure that the team survived and thrived. Today's climate is a tad different. I have a 220 of everything but Agent, NT and Keeper (NT is ~210) and I can attest to the fact that getting in on an endgame raid can be very discouraging on some of the non-useful professions. People want to do the encounter as fast as possible with the minimum number of people required without causing wipes.

Hopefully rebalancing toolsets a bit will help alleviate that issue for future players.

Regarding Crats: Crats can debuff the initiatives of a mob so much that between their own defensive skills and the init debuffs they'll barely get hit. In the event they are getting hit, they can use their crowd control skills to outrange the mob while they continue to dmg the mob along with 2 pets. And heck, if all else fails they are the only profession capable of mezzing a boss. I'm sure I"m understating their capabilities here a bit but my point is that this is part of the reason why you can't have a conversation about poor balance in AO without mentioning the crat profession.

[-Ruken-]

So what changed? What made crats so damned powerful? Why not just nerf them back to circa 2002-2004? I regularly deny NT's from teams because they can't control themselves by and large, but this is a personal preference.

My point is, if it's simply 1 profession to rule them all, then that merits a nerf. I hate the idea of nerfing in general (rather boost everyone else) but all the profs are already pretty powerful in their own right. When AO was first around, all professions were useful to some extent. It's still VERY MUCH bring the player, not the prof... abiding we rule out crats. I'm just saying, I dont think we need to rebalance the game if it's just a crat that needs adjusting.

[Traderjill]

So what changed? What made crats so damned powerful? Why not just nerf them back to circa 2002-2004? I regularly deny NT's from teams because they can't control themselves by and large, but this is a personal preference.

My point is, if it's simply 1 profession to rule them all, then that merits a nerf. I hate the idea of nerfing in general (rather boost everyone else) but all the profs are already pretty powerful in their own right. When AO was first around, all professions were useful to some extent. It's still VERY MUCH bring the player, not the prof... abiding we rule out crats. I'm just saying, I dont think we need to rebalance the game if it's just a crat that needs adjusting.

I think you're still missing the point. It isn't just that crats are OP. If you take crats out of the equation (on the current live build), you can still pretty much do the majority of encounters with a good doc+tank+reflects (or the tank and reflects could just be a soldier). As for bring the player not the profession.. that was the case MANY years ago. Now most people I encounter simply don't know how to play. I don't mean that in some elitist fashion, I'm being serious. I can't tell you how many times I've run into doctors that don't UBT, crats missing init debuffs, soldiers without reflects, fixers missing SL hots/runspeed. I was teamed with a MA at ado hecks and asked for Mark of Peril and their reply was something like "That doesn't help me so I didn't get it.". Those type of players, when they hit 220, aren't going to be the folks using an Advy or Keeper tank instead of an Enfo or finding a way to utilize the skills of other professions. They can hardly pull of an encounter with the ideal team setup. And those of us that can pull off encounters with less than the ideal don't need to because we all know the deal and have a doc/enf/sold/crat on our accounts.

Let me quote something I said earlier because it is really important to understanding the problem:

People want to do the encounter as fast as possible with the minimum number of people required without causing wipes.

Crats put a lot of encounters in easy mode so they're obviously a choice. Nerfing crats without providing other professions with useful tools for raid encounters won't result in those 'useless' professions I mentioned earlier, getting teams. All that'll happen is those 3 man teams might turn into 4 (or the 4 into 5) but I can tell you that the additional person would most likely be another doc or another strong DD.. not that MP, agent or trader. That is because most of AO's raids are just long hp bars that have to be endured.

And pointing out some other things: I mentioned in my previous post that other professions have tools but there are others that do it better. MP's have NSD but it rarely lands on endgame raid bosses. They also have damage reduction and some minor init debuffing but it really isn't all that noticeable.. certainly not enough to warrent bringing a MP in over a much stronger DD. Trader drains do land on quite a few encounters but still there are some they do not. I find them to be one of the most underappreciated classes because players tend to look at hard individual numbers and not at overall dmg+support. (Though I could argue that my trader's DD when she's in crit setup could give a lot of people a run for their money.. but obviously not the top 4 DD profs in the game). I don't have a high level agent (mine is 86) but from my observations over the years, they really aren't that great in endgame PvM. They used to be nice UBT-ers during pande raids to take pressure off the docs but that's not really needed anymore.

[-Ruken-]

man... if that's true, the game has really changed.

[Traderjill]

Yeah, and sorry I edited my post a bit after you replied.. might want to reread it.. clarified a few things.

[Traderjill]

Gah.. ok, one more comment to make since I know you're returning to the game.

A bigger part of the issue causing people to not know how to play is the lack of knowledge transfer from vet to newbie via in-game interactions. Back in the day it was common for vets to end up in newbie teams and able to pass on tips and tricks to them when they saw them doing something wrong. Nowadays, vets are sitting on kite hill til 160 then rushing their toons through inferno missions, dual logged or in org/friend teams. That's how someone could get to inferno and not realize they're missing a key component of their toolset or completely doing something in an unideal/detrimental manner.

Many people that play games don't sit and read forums and fan sites for hours. It is assumed that you'll learn the basics of how to play your profession just from playing the game. That doesn't always happen in AO. One good example of this are the 2 doc init debuffs. One breaks on hit an done does not. If you look at the nano descriptions in-game there is nothing that tells you this is the case (for an example check out Uncontrollable Body Tremors vs Decrepitude).

Think about last night when the crat in team wasn't aware of the red tape nanos that were buyable from the LE shop. If I hadn't mentioned it, how long would he have gone until he discovered them for himself?

[Lilwillie]

Now I may just be an old fart, but balance has never existed in AO. Other MMOs try to balance, some get close. Without homogenizing the classes, you can't.

AO has always done well not in spite of imbalance, but BECAUSE of it. The way a team dynamic changes by simply swapping out one class is crazy good fun. Yes, when trying to make the optimal setup, you may want 1 enfo, 2 docs and the rest soldiers... but that's not fun. So we don't do it.

My point is: AO isn't balanced, and numbers shouldn't be balanced in AO. As long as each class is fun to play in their own right, perfect.

Oh you mean the thing that players have complained was needed for the past 8 years? Yeah why do it, its not like anyone was asking for it.

[Vonkupps]

Now most people I encounter simply don't know how to play. I don't mean that in some elitist fashion, I'm being serious. I can't tell you how many times I've run into doctors that don't UBT, crats missing init debuffs, soldiers without reflects, fixers missing SL hots/runspeed.

That's actually a good sign, there is new life and new perspectives coming to Anarchy Online. New blood always challenges the orthodoxy of entrenched ways be it an industry or an MMO-RPG. The fact that this is happening proves that there is hope for the game because fresh meat still finds it interesting enough to play. I will take a brand new engineer over an entrenched old timer any day. Give me the guy who's never heard of trimmers before and I will show you the better side of an MMO: the opportunity to share your time and domain knowledge.

The only way to balance RPG games like AO is to remove a numerous nanoskills, perks and give the player less skills but powerfull as possible at higher level. But i dont think this idea is popular among the RPG fanatics.

The best way to remove something from a public system isn't to actually delete anything but to add new things on-top. I am the principle designer of several industry public APIs and this one's a no-brainer: you don't remove stuff, you add new stuff that's better. This may include adding new abilities to all other professions, to the environment, or to the mobs themselves. This way you'll end-up with fewer ruffled feathers: if you give a man something he doesn't want, no harm done, but if you take something away from him that he does want, then harm is done. Please understand this is NOT an excuse to simplify and flatten the gameplay and make it more homogenous (e.g. alien armor modifiers). Removing things may improve the system, but it consequently kills the community that pays for it.

Now I may just be an old fart, but balance has never existed in AO. Other MMOs try to balance, some get close. Without homogenizing the classes, you can't.

It's just that MMO-RPGs are still a rather new phenomena and nobody has yet figured-out how to balance without homogenizing.

AO has always done well not in spite of imbalance, but BECAUSE of it.

Strongly agree, this extends to items as well. I am no longer bothered by the fact that even with the low population nearly every level 60 dyna is almost always missing a boss because of not one, not two, but at least three (if not more) extremely rare and valuable level 60 drops. It's a little frustrating yes, but the reward of finding all three of these rare items from mobs vastly outweighs any frustration. Ah yes... when the Programmed Photon Particle Emitter (Shape Soft) finally dropped on mission boss #140 my heart skipped a beat... I still remember it as if it were yesterday, there was a rainbow in the sky, the sun was shining, I deleted a GA1 disc for the hell of it... went back to Harry's and fell into Harry's arms himself and cried, I fell completely apart and just cried with tears of incredible joy... two shots of red breast (neat), a rusty nail and a few Kelly Clarkson videos later my nerves finally came-to.

Balance might look like increasing the drop-rate on these and/or removing some of these, that would destroy Anarchy Online's competitive edge and seal its fate as another mediocre experience, but it's not a mediocre experience, the fresh meat Traderjill cited proves that. It's just a weird gaming experience that you're not going to find anywhere else.

The way a team dynamic changes by simply swapping out one class is crazy good fun. Yes, when trying to make the optimal setup, you may want 1 enfo, 2 docs and the rest soldiers... but that's not fun. So we don't do it.

But too many people don't swap out that one class, don't experiment, and don't have fun. It's unfortunate that there is zero negative impact on one's life from losing in Anarchy Online or any other MMO-RPG in general yet there's still plenty of resistance around experimenting with the gameplay elements (unless you log-off the game with Leukaemia, it's a non-issue... actually you're more likely to log-off the game with Leukaemia for taking it too seriously). If you're one of those who focus on the "right" way to play and consider everything else the "wrong" way to play then what you are doing is essentially work. Playing a game that is work is insane. At that point it's more fun to mop the kitchen floor, more mentally healthy too.

Balance ought to embrace diversity and play whereas a homogenous experience becomes boring much too quickly.

P.S. My rotund balding NT in bronto armor wielding an OT 12 grenade launcher is the best toon I've made yet precisely because I've had the most fun playing him.