the main problem as it was said before ( sry too tried to make a bunch of quotes ) i think is, that we are killing 5 6 year old mobs, so inevtably they have become easier and easier and time progressed. However i dont think the solution is to nerf crats so every would suffer ( although combining all debuff into 1 and give it a 110% nr check would be pretty acceptable to me ) rather than beefing up the encounters. Give them some nasty procs, specials or something so that "teams" would not be crat+"some random lucky guy".
I started writing how unfair it is to give crats soo much credit, but I just cant deny it. Took (me at least) less than 2 month to lvl to 220 and never had problems finding teams ( a quick though about this, the fact that most ppl just stand around waiting for invites and than whining rather than putting one together on thier own is just funny, so before your saying "i have a poor pvm prof bacause ppl dont invite me put in some effort on ur own ) so i yes, i have to agree crat are easy-mode in pwm if you put some effort in it, but to be actually good in pwm you still have to learn to play ur prof ( when hunting 250 dynas, not pressing some xp perks every few min ).
^^ WOW, that's the last thing AO needs ... more new stuff heaped upon more old stuff that needs fixing?
Awwww muffin, need a tissue?
I couldn't disagree more. A new, SL sized expansion would make SL as deserted as RK, and RK even more of a wasteland than it currently is. What is required is an adjustment to the current encounters to make them challenging again. And not just the default answer of more HP. Tanking longer to kill something does not mean that it is harder to kill. Beyond the re-balancing, new starter experience, and engine upgrades that they need to finish, there should be more instances like Dark Ruins in the game. Only this time:
1) Tone down the XP rewards so you don't have to put an 18 hour lockout on it.
2) Continue the single instance/team instance process where you have to finish it yourself once before you can start doing the team version.
3) Give the end boss lewt/buffs that will make people want to keep coming back to it.
The fact that so many people complained about how hard the solo verision of Dark Ruins was, means that it was exactly the kind of instance we need.
My first and main toon was MP.
In retrospect I should be happy I made this as first toon because after having played other profs I'm pretty sure that if I had something else as main I would have never gone through the 10 hour long lft to do one mission and have everyone leave because any other prof was favoured over MP.
Over the years this has only gotten worse even.
The reason I wouldn't bother rolling a MP anymore is because I know after the huge struggle to get in teams to just level, I'd have even less chance getting in raids so I'd have to raid with my alts to supply my mp with stuff (like I aleady do) so eventually I can end up with a top equipped MP that still can't compare to other profs in pvm or pvp.
Atleast I can spawn crystals and there are ( encounters in the game where NSD is useful, though not needed. Oh and of course two encounters where the healpet can heal a NPC.
Nesjamag 220/30/70 Shade
Nesjamah 220/23/69 MP
Nesjahero 150/16/42 Keeper
Nesjasol 220/26/58 Soldier
Nesjawild 150/19/35 Advy
The Asylum
It's kinda bad when, barring the Collector, you need more strategy killing bosses in Final Fantasy XIII than in AO. AO you just spray bullets and swing pointy sticks till they die.
No way - PVM is too easy, so let's make it even easier?!
Keepers are gaining a 10k AOE taunt in the perk rebalance as an addition to their Purify perk special.Give keepers or solds AOE taunts.
Let's take this a step further - require people to sacrifice something to gain an optimized setup. In almost every class, perhaps barring Shades (since spirits don't buff everything) and Atrox Enforcers with their Psychic issues, implants and armor buff everything that they need. There's no true sacrifice, because we have a hell of a lot of equipment slots. On top of this, team buffs negate most arbitrary sacrifices that might result from superbly polarized equipment setups. On the same token, as (for example) Doctors do not need to fill a DD role, they will always build a set-up focused on nanoinit and +heal% for both raiding and soloing.Allow advies to heal better at the cost of something else, etc.
Make players' characters into mobs and let players control the mobs. Problem solved.
Dibs on Artillery Commander.
I would personally love to see more dynamic strategy involved in PVM, this would certainly make things interesting enough. If you could approach a mob with desired loot drops knowing that you've encountered this particular npc many times before, but that he is likely to pull something new and challenging into this encounter that you haven't seen before and will require you to think on your feet it will never become boring. Currently, you can perfect one strategy for each npc which is 80% or more gaurenteed to result in a kill and makes the encounter boring after the nth run. A differing challenge everytime which requires on the fly strategic use of the toolsets in your team would lend a lot more life to each encounter.
Such a possibility with each mob may also encourage people to bring the multitude of different profs into their teams, rather than the tired old Doc, Sold, Crat etc. If each prof had benefits for dealing with each possibly different encounter then people would be more inclined to be less picky with their team invites.
I want to be required to use my brain in every encounter, not learn once then rinse and repeat ad infinitum. I'm sure I'm not alone here.
Last edited by Russless; Jul 3rd, 2010 at 22:42:39.
Rimor:
Russless - 220 Opifex Agent
Moriarty - 220 Solitus Crat
Urassis - 170 Nano-mage NT
Eccles - 219 Opifex fixer
Subwaysplat - 25 Atrox Enforcer
Templetastic - 60 Atrox Enforcer
Shishkabob - Opifex Shade
Goonagal - Atrox Keeper
Proud Member of The Empire
Angevil, proud 220 MA from Rimor.
Flourishing anew. About twelve GUI/Perk/Armor setups done so far, hopefully that one will outlast the criticism of my perfectionism!
Ars Magna. Histories became artifacts, images of poor effect, memories filled with acts and neglect
As a vulture of cultures I indeed feed my seeds with much greed, soaked in pleasure I succeed
Another thing about raids nowadays is, barring Sister Botanicus (who doesn't hit all that hard in the first place) and the flaky APF general aggro at the end of their run, the support - Doctors especially - are never under any threat. With Mercenaries for example, Ian Warr would consistently toss around AOE attacks, and if aggro went crazy, the Doc would die and the rest of the raid would collapse. As it is now though, with Pistols, Doctors are in no danger at all from taking damage, and can focus all their attention on healing 70k+ HP Enforcers with 25%+ reflects fighting a mob that's debuffed by 2500+ initiatives.
Speaking of initiative debuffs, let's calc how far the playerbase today can debuff inits, just to show how insane this has gotten.
Doctor:
1 452 [ Uncontrollable Body Tremors ] * unbreakable nano *
2 569 [ Anatomic Blight ] * breakable LE proc *
0 906 [ Muscular Malaise ] * unbreakable LE proc *
Bureaucrat:
0 400 [ Nanite Advanced Red Tape ] * unbreakable nano *
0 250 [ Normalised Improved Red Tape ] * unbreakable nano *
0 250 [ Improved Red Tape ] * unbreakable nano *
Shade:
0 850 [ Depravation of Celerity ] * unbreakable SL proc *
Meta-Physicist:
0 261 [ Wrath Abatement ] * unbreakable nano *
=====
6 934 initiatives
But that's not all:
Base:
6 934
Doctor / Bureaucrat / Meta-Physicist / Nano-Technician:
0 800 * Dazzle with Lights, Starfall 10 *
Martial Artist:
1 000 * Red Dusk, Xuyun 10 *
0 650 * Incapacitate, Spiritual Master 7, Bleeding Wounds not running (1300 with BW) *
=====
9 389 initiatives
10 039 with BW + Incap
12 239 with Empowered Divided Ego (though breakable on first hit) / 11 156 with Decrepitude instead of UBT
Something's seriously wrong here.
You forgot the crat init debuff nuke and the zombie dog debuff proc! and probably other stuff ;p
New Engine - Announced: June 2007 ETA: Soon™ I'm speechless (June 2015)
Rebalancing - Announced: January 2009 ETA: December 21, 2012 Started! (April 2015)
New TL7 Pets - Announced: March 2009 ETA: Uh...
AS Changes - Announced: July 2009 ETA: TBA
Parry/Riposte - Announced: October 2009 ETA: ??? Did it! (April 2015)
Perk Changes - Announced: October 2009 ETA: Right after server merge Started! (April 2015)
Breed Change - Announced: November 2009 ETA: Hell freezing They did it!!! (Oct 2012)
Beta Server - Announced: January 2010 ETA: Pigs Flying Did it! (Feb 2014)
"Neutnet relay: [PvM] *220 bureaucrat*: Starting 12man, need Enfo, Doc, Keeper, reflects."
"Neutnet relay: [PvM] *220 doctor*: Looking for crat/keep/enf for 12m pst "
"Neutnet relay: [PvM] *220 soldier*: still need doc/enf for 12 man. pst
"Neutnet relay: [PvM] LF enfo , crat , doc and soldier's for ipande / pst [220 doctor]"