what's the biggest balancing problem?

[Hell-demon]

Ban all noobs from Neocron.
KK start making money.
Neocron becomes GOTY all years.




solved

[unreal]

[ edited]

Everything about Neocrons "balanced" PvP (as well as higher level PvM - Genotoxic mobs do meaningless damage until you're standing next to them, at which point they do instagib-like damage) revolves around PPU buttplugging. Weapons were either totally gimped (such as my beloved Executioner), stayed roughly the same, or as is the case with the usual group of PvP weapons, more powerful. I can agree with some of the balancing decisions, to make the classes more like their defined storyline roles, but it simply transferred the overpowered class from being Monks to HC Tanks/Rifle (Disruptor) Spies, a point that's even more blunt when they're combined with the ever so common exploiters.

I believe Koshinn isn't far wrong by wanting the PPU class removed. One major step forward in balancing IMO is to weaken the support PPU's are able to give, either to themselves, or to others, combined with balancing the things we know to be hugely overpowering. Why weaken PPUs you say? It bridges the divide. I often prefer to solo myself, because I know I can rely on myself, and partly because I no longer play Neocron long enough to stay in a clan. It's about 2 or 3 years after the fact that I removed one of my characters from TFC.

However, I say what I've said about PPUs with an unbiased open mind. It should be possible to do both, and people should have the ability and the confidence that they don't simply need to hug a PPU in order to win. According to Biglines, my view means I'm a ganker, but when you look at the facts, and how people in Neocron play, the truth is that it's the complete opposite.

Most people still "PvPing" in the game when they're fighting at say Plaza 2, and lose, simply switch characters to something that's more overpowered. They got owned 2vs1, so they switch to a Tank and come with another Tank, both of which will be buffed by a PPU who is sat camped at the stairs on the other side of the zone line.

Instead of people wanting to have a good fight, it's a scurry to see who can kill someone the fastest, with the most overpowered weapon they can, and many of those use exploits to make sure they don't lose again. Again one part of the reason for this is that nobody leaves their zone line, and the PPU isn't far from it. It's terribly dull.

People need learn to die in Neocron like the old days, instead of trying to cheat to gain twice the unfair advantage. If people don't get rezzed after their attempt to whore back into Plaza 1 from Plaza 2, because someone was shooting the PPU to stop it from happening, they sit around crying. You dropped a cheap item, with rare exceptions, which you'll pick up in a few minutes if it's something worth picking up, and only wrecked some condition on your implants.

You have reppers available almost whenever you need them, and replacements can be obtained just as easily, whether it's a noob heal tool, an implant, or a pair of boots. Surely you can afford it, having millions of credits and a big stash of rares? Why not venture away from your zone lines? The last "precious" thing I lost was my beloved 5 slot nailgun before balancing. I had fatal'd exiting MB sector 1, and Gunnar spanked me. I still have the same cabinet today containing 6 5slots, a few 4slots, and the rest are 3slots. I'm sure everyone else who constructs a bunch of weapons does the same, either in a personal apartment or dumping them in the clan app.

Exploiting is certainly one of the biggest balancing problems you face, but there's more to balancing than just damage and resists.

Economic balance (something I'm giving much thought into the MMORPG I'm working on) seems to be something Reakktor don't care about. WoC disks started dropping like candy, all previous hard earned WoC weapons were made useless at balancing because the quests were all tweaked to give artifact weapons instead, and for some bizarre reason, implants were added to the tech part pool. People have so much cash, that many things become hugely overvalued.

Player balance (ie, The percentage of new players, levelling players, people who are fully capped). Both of those affect tradeskilling and the general feeling of the game. Many people can't be arsed helping out newbies and giving proper advice, and that's their choice, but as the saying goes, the noobs of today are the high level chars of tomorrow (+ the time it takes to reach WoC ).

Recycling is worthless, Researching is worthless, Constructing is worthless, Repairing is worthless (but not for one lucky person who I tend to pay 300k a time ), Poking is less than average, but I find most people who have millions turn up for TL115's and tip <= 5k. People who already have so much simply don't want to pay more than pennies for a service because they usually get it done free by a clanmate or by dual logging.

PS. WoC Melee Chainsaw FTW. I'm and eager to find out how much of this post will be left standing. [Nid's edit - about half, I'd say.]

[Torg]

Which T-C & WOC bonues for tank? There are none, & I do not have a problem with this.

weapon damage is calculated from weapon quality and TL. and bonus.
from patch 162 notes:

bonus-System for weapons:
- HighTech 2.0 Percent (additive)
- Rare 7.5 Percent (exclusive)
- Epic 8.0 Percent (exclusive)
- WoC 8.0 Percent (exclusive)

so there's room for adjustments.

[zii]

But there you go, I've said it.

• ilst removed by zii

I had no idea that this was really happening, until someone mentioned it to me this evening. I simply thought that people were fully buffed and popping 8 drugs ago. Hmm.

Regarding newbie help. There are often characters poking, and I was only helping a new character out earlier this evening, along with others. I do not think the lack of newbie help is completely correct. I remember one runner offering driving services around the wastelands last week.

Wweakening the ppu class: so long as the other characters can still perform. Weakening the self-buff spells, or reducing the length of activity of the self-buff would allow a ppu to be killed easier than afore, instead of us chasing him around an OP like fools. The PPU would still provide the same level of support of foreign casts.

[nabbl]

very nice post unreal!

Glad to see that there is no difference at all between terra and mars :-P

People seem to lose their ability to right click after death and take the GR. They try to rezz their characters (most of the time without being able to do so, because the PPU is getting shot) and waiting more than 10 minutes for the rezz instead of taking the GR, which would be much faster. Or these Spies which dont like to skill anything on resists, but instead they have their ppu right after the zoneline for shields and buffs.

I miss the times, where you've met someone in PP3 occasionally and then just fought to see who is the better guy. There was no running away, no clipping, no safezone syncing. U died and then u flamed, or you came back to kill the bad guy.
That was the fun part. Of course you dropped an item, but it was a shelter or a deflector and nothing what was really worth to log an alt and save the belt...
Nowadays they have 8x Ionic pistol in their QB and when they die, th LE'd alt is just nearby to save the dropped Ionic pistol. (In the past you had just 25x Queen Flame Avalanche in you Inventory, but no Holo PA spy has it anymore because of the transport malus...)

Its not only a problem of balancing, it's also one of the overall sense of people.

[Garfield]

yar Nabbl, Unreal thats just OLDSKOOL, we have to admit thats a dead style .


raise the stealth tool requs or lower the cloak-time (a lot)

uhm didnt notice a LED guy can take belts even if teamed well i dont do lame tacticts thats mby why.....

[Torg]

In my own opinion, .... I'm and eager to find out how much of this post will be left standing.

Great post. I salute you, sir!

While i'm not perfectly sure to what extend KK will be able to fix cheating/exploiting, they will definitely not be able to fix human stupidity. As people will try to gain unfair advantage instead of playing fair, we are officially entitled to call them pussies. or losers. or worse.

besides that, there' still some balancing questions left.

[Brammers]

Nowadays they have 8x Ionic pistol in their QB and when they die, th LE'd alt is just nearby to save the dropped Ionic pistol.

You sure? I thought LE'ed runners can't access belts.

[unreal]

In my own opinion, .... I'm and eager to find out how much of this post will be left standing.

Eugh, I knew there had to be a brainfart somewhere. And I'm*

I had no idea that this was really happening, until someone mentioned it to me this evening. I simply thought that people were fully buffed and popping 8 drugs ago. Hmm.

No amount of drugging is going to make you fire your weapon 2-5 times faster or deal considerably higher damage than is defined for normal players.

Regarding newbie help. There are often characters poking, and I was only helping a new character out earlier this evening, along with others. I do not think the lack of newbie help is completely correct. I remember one runner offering driving services around the wastelands last week.

You can always find pokers. You can find other types of tradeskillers eventually, but you usually have to wait a while. Of course, it's a slightly more pleasant story when it's a holiday like Christmas. Some people, me included, usually flock back to Neocron at these times, but the fact I stated remains the same the rest of the time.

As for newbie help, again, it mostly comes back to holidays. I've driven a couple of noobs around, and drove another old Neocron 1 player back to NC, and I usually respond to questions on HELP, as do people like Dribble Joy and a few others, help out noobs with weapons, researching or give them weaponparts to help give them a head start, but most aren't bothered.

They're capped, have everything they need, and because people pay very little for services, aren't inclined to switch characters and help out. That's their choice, and it's not like you can force people to do it, but preferring to sit around flaming people all day doesn't really make up for it. Most people are friendly, but constant ass talk (especially when someone stops a PPU from rezzing), often on the wrong channels, is damaging.

The very essence of community in Neocron has broken down over the years, albeit with few exceptions, and the language/country barrier doesn't help matters.

You sure? I thought LE'ed runners can't access belts.

That's the point. People now use dual logged LE'd noob alts to do just that. As I mentioned though, they often don't take what's in the belt unless it's meaningful enough for them to do so (PA, secondary weapon, etc).

[Nidhogg]

The reason why we have rules against discussing exploits on the forums is that no matter how many people you believe use them there are many more who don't. However, there will always be weak-willed people who, once they discover a cheat, can't resist. Therefore, the first line of defence against exploits is denying them the oxygen of publicity.

What I will say though is that one of (if not the main) focus of the upcoming patch will be to tackle cheating. And you can be sure that there will be a crackdown.

I'm going to edit the exploit posts now and I don't want to see any more. Fair warning. I'll re-open the thread when I'm done.

N

[nabbl]

You sure? I thought LE'ed runners can't access belts.

Yeah.. should be so .. shouldn't it? :-P

[Torg]

Yeah.. should be so .. shouldn't it? :-P

no. they're teamed, aren't they? so?

[Biglines]

nope, le'd runners cant open any quickbelts, but it's usually a dual logged ppu that gets the belt

[Ka0s^]

I miss the times, where you've met someone in PP3 occasionally and then just fought to see who is the better guy. There was no running away, no clipping, no safezone syncing. U died and then u flamed, or you came back to kill the bad guy.

I miss this also too, but again all that happened was those that thought NC was "PvPing" on the zoneline of pp1 acted the same as the "PvPers" do now in p2. I think resetting the old Zone system would maybe take away the focus from zone whoring in p2. Its a gamble for newer players to go to see the smuggler for example in p2 as those there tend to just shoot on site, and yes you can always leave your LE in, but what if your wanting the brain slot, or maybe you want to PvP but dont want to do it over a zone line?

I go on about old NC too much probably but one thing that was right, back in the day, monk-a-cron or not, was that you could get with 40 of your clanmates, go hack an op and spark off territory wars that would last for days/weeks, when clans would work together to hold a factory or similar.

Ive seen the things that people are claiming, i got ganked at battledome by someone from a certain clan that took me from fully buffed to dead in less than one clip from an AK, it sounded like a chainsaw it was so rapid. Im glad Nid has given a pointer that cheating will be looked at, it kills online gaming and i hate seeing it in NC. Ive been playing since 2002 and im still shit at PvP i die alot more than i win, but then again the 3 chars i play are all approaching WoC and i prefer enjoying the game rather than a mad rush to be leet and zonewhore in p2.

PPU's have always been a funny point in NC and i honestly dont think there will ever be a way to make everyone happy, i reckon its a feature

[Cromac]

The reason why we have rules against discussing exploits on the forums is that no matter how many people you believe use them there are many more who don't. However, there will always be weak-willed people who, once they discover a cheat, can't resist. Therefore, the first line of defence against exploits is denying them the oxygen of publicity.

What I will say though is that one of (if not the main) focus of the upcoming patch will be to tackle cheating. And you can be sure that there will be a crackdown.

I'm going to edit the exploit posts now and I don't want to see any more. Fair warning. I'll re-open the thread when I'm done.

N

Very pleased to see that you've acknowledged and are working on a way to counter the problems rather than just denying their existence and punishing people for mentioning them.

Interesting post by unreal, i'm also sad that these days appear to be well and truly over, but i think the root of the problem lies in the game itself rather than the players. After all, as nidd said, most players cant resist once they find out about an exploit, and who can blame them? We can try to set an example by not exploiting one of the many errors in the game for self gain, but it will only take one person to start again and before you know it everyones doing it because everyone else is doing it. We can only hope that the next patch is a good stride in the direction of solving the exploiting, and judging by some of the recent GM posts i have every faith that it will. But it wont happen over night..

As for those in favour of completely removing PPU's, are you mad? To remove PPU's or change them profoundly would be to ruin the image of Neocron. However, i can understand peoples frustration with people using a dual logged PPU to buff their chars to gank across zone lines. This does ruin a lot of fun and make the act of zone fighting pointless. I cant really see any way out of this other than to make it so that PPU buffs dont work in any zone other than levelling dungeon's and OP zones. This would keep group PvP, ganking and solo fights etc outside of OP areas a lot more even and fun. After all, there's no real reason to need a PPU in any other zone than a dungeon or OP, and if you feel there is then it is probably just to compensate for your lack of ability.