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Thread: A modest proposal

  1. #1

    A modest proposal

    This was going to be a reply to the rebalance RK weapons thread, but then it got carried away:

    This addresses the obvious problem that it's extremely hard for new players, or paid players without 220 mains, to make progress on a new, first-time toon after they leave noob isle and get past somewhere around levels 20-60, depending on the prof. FC could make a HUGE difference in new player experience and stick-tuitiveness for new players, and in particular first-time players with brand new toons, by simply introducing a set of basic, viable leveling weapons and armor for all title levels with REASONABLE and SOLOABLE quests to obtain.

    The model should be just like on noob isle: you get a useable weapon and viable armor for your title level by completing a set of quest lines that a brand new character with the gear he already has from the last quest line can complete solo. On noob isle you can get all the basic gear and upgrades available, on any toon, using nothing but what they give you to start with. And the noob gear is totally viable for a solo player through the start of TL2, or a bit beyond.

    What's missing is a similar doable, comprehensible, and rewarding set of quests to continue that progression. There is really no progression at all for free players, and almost nothing for paid toons who do not already have a 220 main to farm far above their current level range in order to get useable gear. The way it should work is that, as you hit each new new TL, there should be a quest line similar to those on noob isle that opens up for you, that you can complete to get the next upgrade for your "noob gear." The upgrade would enhance the basic stats of your weapon or armor, and would also allow it level up to the end of your next title level and make it viable for that level range.

    For weapons, these upgrades could just follow the model of the engineer pistol upgrade, each building on the prior stage of the noob gear. But rather than having a quest line that is a major pain at certain points and is designed to lead to an ubar endgame weapon, these should be much more doable quests to get something that is not ubar, but totally useable, especially for a first toon / first time / free player. Weapons and upgrades should all be nodrop, should require only the same basic prof-appropriate skills required by the noob weapon, and should give reasonable boosts to min/max damage and MBS. The TL2 upgrade might also make the weapon require ammo, which would allow adding an FA special where appropriate (i.e., on the Blue Offset weapon for soldiers).

    It might also be nice to add a single basic leveling pet, leveling nuke, and leveling heal for the casting profs This might seem like less of an issue since viable pets, nukes, and heals are available in the shops at least up to QL 125. Still, the cost of nanos will destitute any new player and is beyond the reach of new support toons without a 220 to fund them. So having a basic nano on your primary skill line that is at least passable for your TL, while still being able to buy better when you can afford it, would also be nice. This could be a nano that would, within each title range, cast a pet, nuke, or heal with stats based on your level. You would have to complete a new TL quest to get the next nano when you ding a new TL. The quest and reward nano should also be TL locked, obviously.

    For armor, these quests should result in leveling upgrades for noob armor that froobs as well as paid players can get and use, and that would at least provide viable ACs and decent nano/hp boosts at lvl 200 if a froob takes it all the way. For paid players, these quests might just involve getting the Jobe armor and a full set of upgrade parts for each new tier through something more akin to a garden key quest in each zone rather than the absurd and completely overpriced 15m buy-in and endless cata-camping. It would be great if they would also make tier not suck and give useful boosts to primary skills and attributes rather than just adding random trivial buffs, but that's probably too much to ask. Making it gettable by players who aren't 20 to 50 levels past where it would be useful would at least be a step in the right direction.

    Although these noob weapons and armor and their upgraded versions should be nodrop, they should not be prof locked (so if you want, you could get more than one noob weapon and upgrade / use different ones as you level up). Since the noob weapons and armor would form the base for the entire line, they should also be buyable in any basic shop or from some backyard NPC for the same nominal price as on the isle. They might also be gettable from this same NPC after a trivial low-level backyard quest. This would allow people to buy a different weapon if they didn't collect them all while on the isle, and also would save low characters who left the isle too early, or toons who deleted their noob weapon or armor, from being locked out of the entire progression. Of course, for any newly bought weapon or new armor, you should have to repeat the upgrade quests to level it up (though it might make sense to allow you to take a brand new item and just do the quest for your current TL, to get a result fully upgraded to that level).

    None of this would take away from the ubar, OP, and hard to get buyable, campable, or TSable stuff that you can already get when you DO have lots of support from an org or a 220 main, all of which would still be better than the basic gear you can quest for. But it would at least allow players that have nothing to start out with (which is all new players, and in particular new froob players), to get gear that will let them keep making progress on their first toon, without running into a brick wall as soon as they ding out of the subway, and without feeling like a useless, helpless gimp at every level past 20.
    Last edited by blingoutyourdead; Nov 26th, 2010 at 23:52:56.

  2. #2
    Not a bad idea, especially if it involves sending people to some of the less popular, but interesting, minor dungeons scattered about. One of the biggest issues AO has had almost since launch is that getting gear pretty much all boils down to some variation of "mooch creds from 200/220 to afford stuff."

  3. #3
    While I agree with what you say, I was disappointed when this wasn't about eating Irish babies.
    Quote Originally Posted by kesh View Post
    I heard black troxes have a huge nothing.
    Berinda: Assault rifle

    Wenona: SMG

  4. #4
    Watch as they add this to the item store

  5. #5
    And while they're at it, just clean out all the useless stuff from the database that no one ever use anyway, such as weapons with 1-180 damage range at ql 200... or with non standard weapon skill reqs.
    I'm so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I say.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by drainbamage View Post
    Watch as they add this to the item store
    It's already there, just minus the questing part. Buy VP then go buy yourself some OFAB weapons and armor. You can also buy VP and sell the VP package you get for credits and buy your upgrade clumps (or anything else) via the GMS.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Magnificus View Post
    It's already there, just minus the questing part. Buy VP then go buy yourself some OFAB weapons and armor. You can also buy VP and sell the VP package you get for credits and buy your upgrade clumps (or anything else) via the GMS.
    Token packages will give a far better exchange rate of real life $ to RK credz. The OFAB VP trade is great as a source of free credz if you pvp 24x7 and just have tons of VP that you will have no logical use for ever. At the going rates of 1-5m credz / 1k VP tho, the payoff is way too low to justify buying VP with $ just to raise credits. But if you buy FC points at the best bulk price in 6,000 point units, and price 1,000 token packages to match the going rate for token gun bags, then you will only wind up paying about twice the going rate that internet cred sellers advertise, which seems about right for a legit vs. black market channel.

    In fact, even if you are buying FC points with the aim of getting OFAB, you're probably a lot better off just changing it all to credits through token packages and then buying cheap OFAB from people cashing out their stockpiled VP. In the end you will get the OFAB for less cost in real life $ than if you buy VP and spend it directly.
    Last edited by blingoutyourdead; Nov 28th, 2010 at 04:46:55.

  8. #8
    OFAB armor and weapons might not make the worst target for this. Although it would be a lot more viable if they would, in addition to making level appropriate OFAB gettable through simple and reasonable solo quests, also make AI dailies give one each of a prof-appropriate weapon and armor clump with each reward. Still, to be honest, some of the weapons give quite lousy performance since you can't get a decent QL on anything but a maxed out twink (yes, I'm looking at you, OFAB Shark Mk6). So if they really want these to be first-timer friendly staples, they'd have to look at making them a lot more equippable on non-twinks as well.

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