Hi everyone,
To those who aren’t familiar with my in-game characters, let me introduce myself quickly.
I’ve been playing Anarchy Online since 2003 on different toons. My best-known is a 220/80/30 solitus fixer named Breakme , rolled on rk1 back in 2008 and still active.
I’ve been in and out this game for the last 17 years, played every single class (but MA) to endgame in both PVM and PVP.
I’ve seen a lot of changes during that time, for good or bad with the evolution of the game.
I have a very little hope, that this post would achieve anything, but as I am still a passionate AO player, I thought it’s my duty to share some game suggestions, that I believe are fairly simple to be implemented in a very-short period of time, while making this game much more enjoyable for everyone out there.
PVM wise - I’d suggest you update your current content to make it way harder, given the current state of the game. A simple stats check can do the thing.
All your mobs/monsters have the same original stats since 2001 or later when the expansion containing them was released.
I think it’s time to double-check your numbers and increase everything’s HP/defense/evades/Nano resist and most of all - the damage that it deals to players.
That would encourage mostly teaming up with other people in order to complete anything in-game. That boosts community , friendship , organisations in-game and also your cash flow, as obtaining items would become significantly harder, meaning more time-consuming and requiring more people to be completed. Even people who have the endgame gear would need to help their orgmates or friends, who are still trying to obtain a certain item/experience or quest.
*Note - you might want to be careful with how much you boost the regular RK mobs stats - they are already pretty high, as not too many things have changed on Rubi-Ka itself since 2001.
PVP wise: That would be the main focus of my thread.
I’ve been back lately and I’ve noticed a MAJOR change in how towers/Tarasque fights are done nowadays. I am happy to see Multi-Boxing had died out, more or less today.
But : Fights take too long; Fights are uncoordinated and death of a player is more of a result of their own mistakes in positioning, rather that of the enemy actions to actually try to kill you.
I’ve noticed, that some professions don’t even exist in PVP anymore. I have barely seen MPs/Adventurers/Enforcers, even soldiers/bureaucrats are very,very rare.
PVP is all about:
NTs - due to their range and dmg output + defensive capabilities
Engineers - due to their blockers auras for teams and ability to warp people back from reclaim
Doctors - with the assist command completely removed in PVP, it’s very unlikely for a doctor to die, yet one can do excellent job healing a whole raid force, meaning a single or couple of doctors can decide an outcome of 36 vs 36 in PVP, by pressing ONE ability(nano)
Agents - they are still around, due to their massive PVP damage provided by their Aimed Shot with high damage perks, that almost no profession could dodge/resist in combination with their extremely high defensive stats for an offensive proffession.
Keepers - toon that provide significant buffs for your team, but most importantly “Clarion Call” nano - a ridiculous ability, that displaces and stuns your target. = Brings us back to "Mistakes in positioning resulting in a player’s death) , with very little - to no counterplay.
On another note : Killing other players is least rewarding than ever, as the player who died can 1) use Rez can removal instantly after death ; 2) get instantly warped back to the fight fully buffed 3) out of 3 to 5 teams actually attacking this player,resulting in his death, only a single team gets a certain amount of PVP Team Score and given the current system, you need thousands and thousands of kills to ever achive anything over rank 8 out of 10.
If you compare back this to the old titles - you could achieve Grandmaster with around 150 solo/team kills.
My list of suggestions, that I believe can be implemented relatively easy and quickly is the following:
- Engineer’s Beacon Warp and Team Beacon Warp nanos to be only cast-able if both you and your target/team is not in combat - the same check that’s on the “Health and Nano Rechargers”.
2)Introduce back the Assist command, that works both in PVP and PVM, with the one restriction, that you can ONLY assist a member in your team! And team only, not a raid.
That will significantly improve coordination between players of a single team, giving the potential to actually kill a target relatively quick.
The so-called “zerg assist” wouldn’t exist, as you could only have 6 people attacking a single one at the time. Given the scenario, that the person being attacked is also a part of a team, has some defensive stats in addition to team auras and decent positioning won’t be resulting in “Instant death”, but rather in a well-rounded PVP cooperation scenario where different teams are trying to kill different targets.
*Introduce back /Follow command as well in PVP areas, as long as you can ONLY follow a target that you are attacking. That’s the only way to have melee professions become useful once again.
Simple check : You can’t follow the selected target. You Q, then execute /Follow command or macro = /Following your target.
3)Remove or change Clarion Call’s keeper nano. A very easy way to change it to a different state that it currently is : Even if your PVP target resist your nano execution a 45 second lock is still applied nevertheless. You can reduce the Nano resist check to 75% or so, as a compensation for that.
Similar change would make keepers still very useful, but only when applying their nano program to certain professions and not tab+spam it as they currently do.
- Bring back the option to change to Legacy Titles (and change the name Legacy obviously), or add a new title system using the same mechanics with different Names for each title. That way a player would still have the ability to choose between the titles they want to have on top of their character name, yet they will be easily distinguishable between the old Legacy titles and the new titles that you could implement.
Let’s face it here - this game is not what it used to be and the numbers aren’t the same. It’s time to stop dreaming, that someone still has the ability to farm 30-35k Solo or Team kills to actually achieve rank 10 with the current titles? There are simply not enough people left in this game for a person to do this, no matter how hard this person tries.
Another alternative would be : to change the reward per kill , instead of 100+/- the title difference and the level difference to a higher amount. Respectively, you can keep the amount given per kill, but reduce the numbers required for each rank ?
- An important Note* = That system only benefits from your time spent in-game and your farming capabilities. It does not represent in any way your actual PVP skills or knowledge, unlike the Legacy Titles, which makes the Legacy Titles much more preferable.
- Change the towerfields timers.
Ok a bit on this one : We all remember when the Legacy Timers have been exploited by both sides, in order for towers to be placed/planted and reopen at a certain time, benefiting the faction who has them, so we all know that’s not a very good idea.
Currently there are 3 different timers in different areas.
1There are several fields with Legacy tower timers - see up, we know that’s being exploited and doesn’t work properly.
2There are areas that are open to attack in the EU timezones - as that’s the time with most Europeans online
3*There are areas that are open to attack in the US timezones - as that’s the time with most Americans online.
All that combined : Meaning that if you’re an euopean/american - you can only attack/defend in certain areas for a very limited period of time. The faction that is currently stronger could obtain and take an advantage of the Legacy areas as well.
A simple way to change this : Make towerfields with a different/lower cycles.
An example : Currently a field is 18h cold and 6h hot (open to attack) - it would be great to change that to a 5h cold timer and 2h open timer. or 8h cold and 3h hot.
That would greatly increase the options for attackers/defenders , yet a small raid group will not be able to fully take a planted high level towersite, as with the current towers HP, they will lack the damage.
A small group of defenders would also be quite useful in that time.
However, if no defenders are willing to defend or replant for several days - the field could be completely destroyed and taken by the attackers.
It is ESSENTIAL, that timers do change daily and they are NOT always opening in the same hours. With 5+2 hours or 8+3 hours , or even 7+2 hours, that guarantees that each towerfield will be open to attack in every single timezone in a matter of a week time. That would encourage both PVP as attacking force,also defending would be quite important,if not immediately, then the next time the field goes hot, but also economy - as towers will need to be replanted and fields kept (and we know you’ve done a good job at increasing the cost of conductors/turrets/CTs).
List of suggestions, that might not be so easy and fast to implement (to be discussed and continued) :
-
Rebalance/tweak classes that struggle in both PVP and/or PVM - either changing perks or weapon/gear choices.
-
Remove the soft Runspeed Cap - I’m a Fixer with maxed green Runspeed at over 3700 , yet a lot of traders/engineers/nanotechnicians do outrun me and I lose sight on them, with 2500ish Runspeed?
Hello ?!? -
Remove Awakened Complete Heal Nano or at least make it self-only with much,much longer cooldown? On the same thought - why are the fixers the only ones who will never use it ? You can’t possibly ask us to sacrifice Shadowweb Spinner for this.
-
Think about new weapon choices and perklines + research that support them for different professions - all the way from 1 to 220.
-
Introduce PVP and Dungeon/raid rewards, that are based on your actual skills and not on your farming capabilities (playtime spent). For example : you can set daily challenge to complete a certain dungeon/raid in a certain amount of time, increasingly harder for an increasingly better reward. That done by a Quest from a NPC, using the same dungeons/locations/bosses, just better rewards?
as for PVP rewards - these could be “Nodrop” weapons/armor/even social items for a certain PVP achievement made.
I know it’s been a long post, but I would appreciate comments and suggestions from both Players and Game Designers/Developers.
Thank you everyone for reading!
<Breakme
220/80/30 Clan Solitus Fixer