Friday with Means - October 9th, 2009 - Parry and Riposte - Back from the dead!

[Krattonomic]

I guess a few twinks of the mailing system here is needed -coughs at means-

The following errors occurred with your submission:
Means has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space.

[Escritores]

Anyway what does that long ass latin text mean?

[Dagget]

Ok, Folks! We've been digging around after-hours around the Funcom offices and finally turned up this list of hand-scribbled notes we found on Means' desk:

(apologies if some items didn't get transcribed exactly, we're poor handwriting readers.)

Proposed changes for upcoming 'balancing' effort:

NT's, in keeping with their 'glass cannon' status, will gain a new nuke which will be unblockable and uncheckable. This nuke will enable the NT to 'one-shot' any opponent, however, the strain of the nuke will be such that the NT themself will also die at that instant. Cannot be executed in duels. Cooldown 10 minutes.

Traders will be able to 'borrow' engi blockers

Nanocost caps will be reduced by 15% / 10% / 5% for Atroxes / Soli/Opi / Nanomage

Attacking a Control Tower will immediately clear the attackers' NCU of all nanos not specific to their profession

The effects of Notum Repulsor perks trained will be ignored during duels and within the combat radius of a Control Tower

All healing, on battle stations, or when PvP-flagged, or anytime when in 25% or lower gas; will be cut in half. Adventurers will be unaffected

All chat between factions on battle stations directed at the enemy will be translated to gibberish. On Rubi-ka, anyone PvP flagged or in 25% or lower gas, will see other faction text(from anywhere, in any channel) as gibberish, unless the other person is also in their team or Raid Interface.

Keepers have been doing some espionage and have learned the secret of NT's Nulity Sphere and can duplicate the nano

Traders will be able to 'borrow' Nulity Sphere from an opponent.

All runspeeds on battle stations and in 25% or lower gas will be halved, with the exception of mechs. Air vehicles will be unaffected. Adventurers will be unaffected. Fixers will gain a new perk action which can be used to negate this slowdown for a moderate time.

In duels and battle station, both ranged and melee profs will have a 40m range.

In duels and battle station, ranged weapons can be fired while moving.

Soldiers can 'borrow' a traders current drain ups if the trader has a borrowed soldier reflect on

Keepers will gain a new nano which creates an aura on everyone in their team, enabling a 33% chance to avoid an aimed shot

Enforcer Mongos will cause opponents in the vicinity to be feared and round around like headless chickens for 5 seconds. 1 minute cooldown before someone can be feared again. Crat and Keeper Anti-fear nanos will block this effect.

All attack pets will have a 40m range when attacking a PvP target

Adventurers will gain a new hostile morph - Rollerrat. The nano will have a 140% NR check and cause the target to be forced into 1st person camera view and cause their view to spin when they run. Duration: 3 minutes, cooldown 10 minutes.

Doctors will gain an AoE DoT perk to their Combat Medic line. Nicknamed 12 Monkeys, the perk, when executed will infect anyone within 40m and continue to do so for 10 seconds as the doctor moves about. The actual Dot will delay initiating on target for 30 seconds then damage for 5% of the targets' total hp with a tick every 5 seconds. Targets have to be PvP-enabled but the doctor does not have to be and will not become PvP enabled until the DoT kicks in on the targets. Doctor gains the equivilent of a 4h flag (attackable in 75% gas and below) for 5 minutes. The DoT will not harm anyone in the doctors' team or raid interface but will harm same-side chars if they are in range and PvP enabled.

[Xenotric]

Actually the being able to fire ranged weapons while moving would be great, also nt's need that nuke but make it highly resistable for the target but a definite 90% damage to the NT ^_^

Great stuff dag :P

[OfabRk2]

So anxious, so eager, so full of vim and vigor.

No worries, young ones - I'll be changing that soon enough... Hehehehehahahahaha!

It's him!

[Gunfytr]

You should have been fair enough to include video with the rest of the fight, like this.

Here we can see how one (pistol MP without pets?) can tank and kill full soldier squadron. This guy is not melee, he's ranged user that can swap to melee if needed.

Dude, that is SOOO a Ranged Advy!

[Klod9000]

Dude, that is SOOO a Ranged Advy!

It's not. If you watched the movie, you could see clearly that he was a priest (he only acts like an AO advie ).

[BigBubba]

I was really hoping to see all the changes this week. Its probally a good idea to get all the info out at the same time but I cant help but think that just the fact you cant put it out now could mean a mass exidos of angry players when its all said and done.

Personaly im not going anywhere ill make what ever comes out work. Someone has to help keep you guys with a job. Hell ive been pissed off since shadowland if im still hanging around after that wonderfull expansion then I guess I can handle anything. My only fear is that its looking like a wasteland as is on the servers. So I hope you guys piss off everyone equaly.

Since Shadowlands Adv have had none stop funcom love. Think they have to be the only class thats been in total bliss patch after patch. Im not calling a nerf on them im just saying some how the patches at times are mind numbingly unequal. Other classes like keepers on the other hand been turned into pre-SL advs.

I just hope its not the rock papar scissors system of PVP. You should give different perks , weapons and IP setups different out comes in PVP vers different classes. If your a doc right now you isntantly offer duels to SOL, If your a shade right now you isntantly offer duels to a Doc, Ect ect ect. The outcome should depend more on a setup then a class. I on what ever char im playing should have no clue that im about to WTF pone some other class.

I know ballancing that isnt easy but maybe consider something like Nemisis perk lines that all can use that hinder the abillitys of a couple of classes. I dont know just hate the zero thought system of making a toon that AO has become. Or zero thought on who to PVP or not. The out come is basicly predetermined right now what the fun in that.

Well thats my two cents

Eunucha
Inner Circle
Since 2001

Ps love the parry and riposte idea. Cool idea for forcing players to really choose where to put IP.

[Gastastic]

Your suggestion? The only thing suggested more often then mailing system is adding nipples and bouncing boobies.

/takecredit fail.

That's a new fail.

I'll take credit for nipples, though. In general. And bouncing boobies. It was me who first suggested T'n'A sliders for AoC. Let me take this moment to suggest them for AO's graphic upgrade... with an additional one for penis. "Boobies, we salute thee!"

[-XeI20-]

It is not stupidity, it's a fact about combined melee/ranged specializations a few professions in AO can do, opposed to your claim that such things are not present in AO.

Obviously an mp using a SoZ and their prof specific 1hb staff is a specialist in 1hb weaponry, oh right, their weapon skills are dark blue, they have no buffs for it, they can't even use the 1hb perks when using that staff...ya big specialization there....Agents are specialists in Rifle and AS, Soldiers are specialists in Assault Rifle and Pistols, Keepers are specialists in 2he, Enforcers are specialists in 2he/2hb/1he/1hb.

[Klod9000]

Obviously an mp using a SoZ and their prof specific 1hb staff is a specialist in 1hb weaponry, oh right, their weapon skills are dark blue, they have no buffs for it, they can't even use the 1hb perks when using that staff..

So what? It just means that some stuff is broken and needs to be fixed (before this announced nonsense with parry/riposte zombification).

[-XeI20-]

So what? It just means that some stuff is broken and needs to be fixed (before this announced nonsense with parry/riposte zombification).

You're totally and completely right man. Left4Dead 2 is gonna be the shiznat.

[Klod9000]

ccl

[Mastablasta]

So what? It just means that some stuff is broken and needs to be fixed (before this announced nonsense with parry/riposte zombification).

So, active participation in combat is zombification? Well, the only thing you want is for MPs to be the ubergods and noone else to have anything to fight them with we all know that.

[monk13]

as a ma that has been waiting and hoping for parry and riposte to make a comeback
and work somewhat how they do irl, I APPLAUD the changes and the devs for not just giving up
parry and riposte are two of the biggest pieces of the Martial Artists toolset , and to not have them working at all was something i was sad to discover when i first started, i am SOOO happy that ma's are finally getting the love they have long been overdue on
THANK YOU Funcom!

[monk13]

You don't hit bullets out of the air, instead you hit the weapon a moment before it's fired so the next shot will miss.

thinking too small
a Martial Artist that can crush the bodyarmor used in this time period can most certainly cause a wave of force with his hands that will deflect projectiles or energy

[Ebondevil]

Friday with Means - October 9th, 2009 - Parry and Riposte - Back from the dead!

One of the downsides of working on a project for as long as I have is that sometimes you can get "stuck" in the old way of thinking. The previous attempts at implementing parry and riposte actions in the past had been unsuccessful for many reasons...so the idea of resurrecting this old code had always been a firm "no" in my book for good reason. This brings us to the value of having such a good team working on AO. Kintaii (unlike myself) did not see this as a lost cause and continued to work on acceptable solutions to these unused skills and has put together with the rest of the team a good alternative to the old systems for Parry and Riposte that will allow us to bypass all the "old" reasons for not activating these actions. So here is the basics of what we can expect from Parry and Riposte in the larger effort of balancing/renewing that we are currently working on:

I thought Necromancy was bad, can someone infract Kintaii for it?

[monk13]

an aside about lorem ipsum (that latin text in the screenshot)
it was the first text printed on the movable type printing press
when a layout was requested by his client, the creator of the press was told to fill it with nonsense
the client was the church
the nonsense he filled it with was a philosophical treatise "on good and evil"
the irony of this should not escape you

[Odov]

bump

[No4Sniper]

means, i finally thank you for bringing attention to MA's problems, well here it is

thanks!