Monthly Development Update - February 2015 (The Storm)

[Wakizaka]

Reading this instantly made me think of this:

Shut up Pam!

[Esssch]

[Litestrider]

I've gone through some bad times, still am unfortunately.

I'm really sorry to hear that. I wish you the best and hope things get better for you! I and I'm sure lots of other people really appreciate the good news. Things definitely seemed to be taking a positive turn with Michi and 18.7, and this seems to lend it more solidarity.

I wasn't even comparing Solds to agents nor was I comparing a >tanking< shade with agent but ok I'll bite.

You seem to have missed my point. You've defined a "damage shade" and a "tanking shade". Every other profession can define themselves at least into those two subprofessions. Agents have damage (which sucks), and a squishy half-asser with tanking capabilities closer to those of a froob than a 220.

This...assumes...that the team doesn't have a prof that can give reflects like say Engi or Sold.

Yes, this assumption must be made. Because if you have an engineer or soldier, why are you not having the soldier or even the engineer tank? They're both head and shoulders above agent in that regard. If we want to go a step further, it's really hard to justify even assuming doctor heals, because if you have a doctor+agent tanking, why not just have the doctor tank while the agent focuses on pushing his miserable (hopefully not miserable in 18.7) damage and going some supportive FP. I do recognize that doctor's awesome ability to tank is a bit of a sticking point for a lot of professions, but it's no less relevant for agents.

Agents are actually asking for MORE damage so I'll let them argue with you about that.

I don't argue with them at all. It's not the direction I'd like to see the prof go personally, I'd like to see good damage be possible and a switch to a defensive setup be equally possible as is the case with most professions, but it's got to be one or the other I think. Currently agents have neither damage nor defense. With 18.7 they might have at least have some damage, maybe even really good damage with a really unusual setup that sacrifices a bunch of IP (which is already really tight thanks to all those blue skills) and AS which it seems half their tools are built around. I agree that if they don't get any kind of defenses, they should get even more damage, if agent is truly going to be an all-out gank profession in PvM, then make it just that. They don't even have the option for a reasonable defense at TL7 once CH TMS and whatnot have died down, so the damage they can push should be absolutely staggering.

Basically the main problem that's been talked about for years is Agents lack of usable SL nanos/SL Nanolines/Misc Nanolines with other profs, open up more or all nanolines for agents first and than we can see where agents are afterwards.

I totally, 100%, completely and absolutely agree with you here. If I were just put in charge of agent rebalancing with complete freedom, the first thing I'd do would be to throw agent on the test server with access to absolutely everything, SL nanos, DB nanos, the lot. It'd be pretty easy to see what bubbles to the top, and then you could pinpoint just those nanos that cause things to get too crazy and either restrict them to their professions or to higher TLs. I'm willing to bet that the number of nanos that actually need to be restricted is far lower than most people or even I think. Of course I don't actually expect anything of this scope to take place, it would be a pretty monumental undertaking that would likely demand far more out of the test server users than we or Funcom normally put into it.

[Raggy]

Currently agents have neither damage nor defense.

Lemme just stop you here. Currently an MA Agent is capable of doing a very considerable amount of damage.

[doctorgore]

Lets put it this way a froob version of a shade exists its called an agent and it sucks.

[Litestrider]

Lemme just stop you here. Currently an MA Agent is capable of doing a very considerable amount of damage.

Ok, my bad, sorry.

I did a little testing of this on testlive a while back though and hoo boy is that a weird setup. It puts the weirdness of dual fling/burst shotguns to shame.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Oh are we QQing about agents now?

I thought it was MP month.

@ Esssch sometimes I wonder about you man. Engi>agent for tanking? On what world is this even something I dunno, passes the "can I force my fingers to type these words test"...

At least agents have Mongo, and will produce a lot more individual aggro than an engi with pistol perks and DVP... wtf man.

[Litestrider]

Oh are we QQing about agents now?

I thought it was MP month.

@ Esssch sometimes I wonder about you man. Engi>agent for tanking? On what world is this even something I dunno, passes the "can I force my fingers to type these words test"...

At least agents have Mongo, and will produce a lot more individual aggro than an engi with pistol perks and DVP... wtf man.

Nah, I think MPs were last month and next month.

And it wasn't Essch, it was me. Yeah it's a really far-fetched situation, but then again we were already talking really tenuous scenarios. I would at least give the engineer a shot, if they can manage to get hate to stick to them they can at least take some hits. A profession with decent damage spamming an aggression enhancer can often do surprisingly well at hate generation in a nonstandard team, and an engineer might even have psych raised already! An Agent FP:Enfo has the taunt, but they're going to have their health rubberbanding like mad, and apart from mongo crush there isn't much in terms of hate generation because yet again agents have been restricted to froob nanos for some reason.

Anyway, the QQ about agents and MPs never really went anywhere, it's just been going on for so damn long that people have stopped listening and most of us have just rolled another toon and only wheel the gimps out for the occasional buffing session.

[Xootch]

Lemme just stop you here. Currently an MA Agent is capable of doing a very considerable amount of damage.

i lol'ed.

[Rockdizzle]

"Agent FP:Enfo has the taunt"
Let me just quickly make a correction, FP sold and MA both have taunts also and if Agents wanted to they can FP MA for 10k taunts every 4 seconds while having usable heals and dmg buff.

"They don't even have the option for a reasonable defense at TL7 once CH TMS and whatnot have died down, so the damage they can push should be absolutely staggering."
If you just mean rifle setup for at least staggering DD than fair enough but if we include odd setups than I don't know how 450k+ DPM is not staggering when it even ****s on MA setup DD lol.

"You seem to have missed my point. You've defined a "damage shade" and a "tanking shade". Every other profession can define themselves at least into those two subprofessions. Agents have damage (which sucks), and a squishy half-asser with tanking capabilities closer to those of a froob than a 220."
Your kinda stretching it here, I think you're trying to say that every profession is at the or should be the same level as the rest in all regards. No, Agents won't beat Solds right now at tanking but Agent is sure as h3ll a better DD prof in exchange for being a moderate Tank prof or moderate support prof, Sold is a Better Tank in exchange for just being a moderate DDer and reflects being their constant support.

Am I wrong in thinking that Agents are not that bad off? Sure they still need some work but saying they can't doing anything but do bad DD and suck at everything else shows you either don't know how to make agents work or you can't see what agents can use with current changes.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Nah, I think MPs were last month and next month.

And it wasn't Essch, it was me. Yeah it's a really far-fetched situation, but then again we were already talking really tenuous scenarios. I would at least give the engineer a shot, if they can manage to get hate to stick to them they can at least take some hits. A profession with decent damage spamming an aggression enhancer can often do surprisingly well at hate generation in a nonstandard team, and an engineer might even have psych raised already! An Agent FP:Enfo has the taunt, but they're going to have their health rubberbanding like mad, and apart from mongo crush there isn't much in terms of hate generation because yet again agents have been restricted to froob nanos for some reason.

Anyway, the QQ about agents and MPs never really went anywhere, it's just been going on for so damn long that people have stopped listening and most of us have just rolled another toon and only wheel the gimps out for the occasional buffing session.

Hang on hang on hang on.

I sense some decent argumentation incoming.

Ok, first off lets just compare a few things:

Agent has access to aggro generation devices just as much as engi.

Agent produces a lot of aggro through damage - granted, it'll be a bit less if he's in a more "tanky" setup but realistically, imo damage is probably more important to agents since their "standard" setup involves getting as close to about 18k-20k HP as possible

Agent has better defence than Engi - This I know will be argued, but agents with a LA AAD imp and an appropriate setup with CSS which should be the norm will get around 3k defence. Engi TOPS OUT at 2850ish evades+AAD in a highly unorthodox setup which will nerf HP a fair bit.

Agent has access to some Enf max HP buffs getting close to 30k HP if I recall correctly, add omnimed+ILC + other minor buffs and he should get close to 35k, perhaps 37k-40k with some minor swaps/raidbuffs/scone and stuff

Engi could get close to 25k with similar swaps/OSB's - so Agent has the advantage on HP.

Engi has DVP - but there's nothing limiting an engi from using DVP to help agent tank so that's a moot point.

Engi has reflects - but agent can EASILY get reflects from engi or soldier - yes, agent will suffer 3% less than engi but I don't feel this is make or break.

Agent - assuming he is tanking will use either FP doc for SL CH taunt generation, or FP enf, FP enf gets him a further 1.7k HP while FP doc will significantly boost taunt generation while engi has neither of these tools at his disposal.

Now, for the kicker:

Neither agent NOR engi should be having "HP bouncing" in a proper team. Crat+keeper for direct attack blocks, reflects are usually included in most teams already, and should an engi be in the team an agent could get another 5k AC's + target debuffs of -1210 AAO.

Honestly, an agent WTF rapes an engi on tanking, hands down. An agent in a team with crat/keep/doc/engi will own an engi tanking 5 ways form Friday.

[Raggy]

i lol'ed.

What? They are.

Grab MoP from an MA, FP Engineer for the Slayerdroid Transference, TP, FP Trader, get drain happy, enjoy your insane MA rating and 3 attack bars for procs.

[Rockdizzle]

Agent - assuming he is tanking will use either FP doc for SL CH taunt generation, or FP enf, FP enf gets him a further 1.7k HP while FP doc will significantly boost taunt generation while engi has neither of these tools at his disposal.

I agree with most of what you said but this point mostly assumes the agent is on live only but the argument included 18.7 changes so Agents loses CH taunt spam but gains other options, FP advy for small taunts + decent heals or FP MA for 10k/4sec taunts with less healing but access to more dmg. Lizard Morph comes with free 10 agressiveness for however much it helps.

[Wakizaka]

Lemme just stop you here. Currently an MA Agent is capable of doing a very considerable amount of damage.

And why can't an Agent have some decent DD with the weapon they are supposed to be using ?

Agent - assuming he is tanking will use either FP doc for SL CH taunt generation, or FP enf, FP enf gets him a further 1.7k HP while FP doc will significantly boost taunt generation while engi has neither of these tools at his disposal.

Except CH no longer has taunts on it in the 18.7 branch.

[Rockdizzle]

And why can't an Agent have some decent DD with the weapon they are supposed to be using ?

"Supposed to be using" is not the term I would use, Affinity is the term I would use as you could say Solds are "supposed" to use Assault Rifle due to more support but they have affinity with several other weapon types also due to their toolset.
Agents have the main options of Bow/Rifle and support for MA/pistol/grenade thru FPs and IP with everything else requiring more gear to make them work.


Setups like Bow/MA/Grenade/Shotgun etc are brought up not because rifle is bad or anything but because some people will want to find a certain setup to do even more DD, even if Rifle could push 350k DPM I would still look for a better DD option to get the most out of my Agent and nothing else.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

^^ suicide setups don't necessarily mean "supported weapon"... they just mean you've done "everything" you can to achieve max DPS.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having to move to a different weapon to achieve max DPS, you just have to use what has greatest synergy, and for Agents with HUUUUUGE proc damage, the best possible synergy is to max add dmg and the landed number hits you can achieve per minute that can proc.

notably burst/FA don't proc which puts a bit of a damper on some ranged setups.

But FA/brawl/regulars/fling/AS do proc

[doctorgore]

"Supposed to be using" is not the term I would use, Affinity is the term I would use as you could say Solds are "supposed" to use Assault Rifle due to more support but they have affinity with several other weapon types also due to their toolset.
Agents have the main options of Bow/Rifle and support for MA/pistol/grenade thru FPs and IP with everything else requiring more gear to make them work.


Setups like Bow/MA/Grenade/Shotgun etc are brought up not because rifle is bad or anything but because some people will want to find a certain setup to do even more DD, even if Rifle could push 350k DPM I would still look for a better DD option to get the most out of my Agent and nothing else.

Not even Golgo13 would have success with those weird downright insane weapon choices. The series is ending soon I bet he gets himself killed trying these setups.... What a way it would be to go...

[Phatkeep]

So about the new engine. I just ordered replacements for my farm of computers. The replacements will be all low power, passively cooled with integrated gfx only (Intel Core i7-5775C when it arrives).

I know Intel no longer supports DX7, so when is the engine coming? Still no clues? I have cancelled all my accs (again) and this time I really won't be able to come back to play unless you finally come through on the engine, no matter how much I might want to.

So.. any clues at all on an ETA?

[lunarsolace]

Rui Manuel Monteiro Casais
<rest of quote>

Anyone read the name like 'hello, my name is rui monteiro, you killed my father, prepare to die.' ?

No? silly me.

Hope better times fall across your path WG.

[Wakizaka]

Anyone read the name like 'hello, my name is rui monteiro, you killed my father, prepare to die.' ?

His name was Inigo Montoya, so not me.