Neo LoneWolf
03-07-04, 22:16
[Badly written, sorry, but I just don't have the time to redraft stuff at the mo]
First things first, what are the problems right now?
1. Serious PvP pretty much demands rare weapon usage. True, you can get by without them, but with just a quick glance at the base damage each rare does compared to the shop-bought weapons of its class, the gap is overbearing (frex, plasma cannons: Unlabeled [4x133]; Standard [4x 180]; Tangent [4x 214]; Cursed Soul [4x324] - numbers may be OOD, sourced from neocron.ems.ru). On top of thatyou have the increased stats you get on rare weapons compared to the stat-cap you have on constructed shop-bought ones.
2. PvP lacks fear and reward. Since the safe slot and belt-drop were implemented, playing Neocron has lost the edge it once had. To a fair degree, you may as well be playing Neofrag - you don't stand to lose much, and you don't stand to gain much. On the flipside, of course, it also means that grief-killing no longer leaves a low-level runner crying over losing that first rare it took so long to complete & so on. A reasonable compromise has yet to be found.
What I propose:
1. Make the safe-slot volatile.
A simple enough idea, really - as the game tracks who did damage to what within a zone, as soon as a player inflicts damage on another runner, they lose their safeslot. This would mean that anyone who suddenly found themselves being attacked by a random griefer could keep their most valuable quick-belt item safe by simply not attacking back (and presumably running like hell). Anyone deciding to fight another player gives up the right to a protected quickbelt slot for the chance to a) kill the other runner and b) take something of theirs.
2. Reduce the hacking requirement for hacking belts to a lower level (somewhere around the 30-50 mark).
This would make it so that although an investment in hacking is required, you don't need to be a hardcore hacker. With the implementation of Hacknet, serious hackers shouldn't be too upset at losing their occasional windfall. Anyone deciding to PvP for gain would have to make an investment in terms of skill points to do so (given the limited amount required, teaming up with someone else just for their hacking ability would be a sub-optimal choice).
3. Create a new degree of weapon with the same reqs as rares, but a lower damage output, standard constructed weapon stats.
Make the uncopyable BPs of the weapons drop unidentified (so needs to be researched) from new cave mobs. Make the weapons un-BPable. Make them require a high number of high-end weaponparts. Call the weapons 'Experimental XXX'.
What effect would this have?
High end (PvP viable) weaponry becomes easier to come by, and hence easier to replace, removing the need for rares in the endgame. Given the lower damage and stats, rare weapons still remain simply better (that, and they have a /swirly/), and without a safeslot for PvPing characters, anyone using a rare will demand respect (and a lot of bullets) for risking losing a hard to come by item.
Rare weapons will become rarer as the need for them in the end game becomes lessened, the hunting of tech parts will be reduced also.
[[Ideally, techparts would seperated out into L, T & E for the loot tables too, so you could get a 70/70 mob dropping L techparts, and only 90/90 plus mobs dropping E parts, but hey - that's another thing.]]
Big clans will be able to farm the caves for large numbers of BPs to make huge numbers of these weapons. However, due to the large number of high-end weaponparts required, the cost of doing so (and the standard chance of slots making 4 & 5 slotters that much rarer) should provide a good money sink.
First things first, what are the problems right now?
1. Serious PvP pretty much demands rare weapon usage. True, you can get by without them, but with just a quick glance at the base damage each rare does compared to the shop-bought weapons of its class, the gap is overbearing (frex, plasma cannons: Unlabeled [4x133]; Standard [4x 180]; Tangent [4x 214]; Cursed Soul [4x324] - numbers may be OOD, sourced from neocron.ems.ru). On top of thatyou have the increased stats you get on rare weapons compared to the stat-cap you have on constructed shop-bought ones.
2. PvP lacks fear and reward. Since the safe slot and belt-drop were implemented, playing Neocron has lost the edge it once had. To a fair degree, you may as well be playing Neofrag - you don't stand to lose much, and you don't stand to gain much. On the flipside, of course, it also means that grief-killing no longer leaves a low-level runner crying over losing that first rare it took so long to complete & so on. A reasonable compromise has yet to be found.
What I propose:
1. Make the safe-slot volatile.
A simple enough idea, really - as the game tracks who did damage to what within a zone, as soon as a player inflicts damage on another runner, they lose their safeslot. This would mean that anyone who suddenly found themselves being attacked by a random griefer could keep their most valuable quick-belt item safe by simply not attacking back (and presumably running like hell). Anyone deciding to fight another player gives up the right to a protected quickbelt slot for the chance to a) kill the other runner and b) take something of theirs.
2. Reduce the hacking requirement for hacking belts to a lower level (somewhere around the 30-50 mark).
This would make it so that although an investment in hacking is required, you don't need to be a hardcore hacker. With the implementation of Hacknet, serious hackers shouldn't be too upset at losing their occasional windfall. Anyone deciding to PvP for gain would have to make an investment in terms of skill points to do so (given the limited amount required, teaming up with someone else just for their hacking ability would be a sub-optimal choice).
3. Create a new degree of weapon with the same reqs as rares, but a lower damage output, standard constructed weapon stats.
Make the uncopyable BPs of the weapons drop unidentified (so needs to be researched) from new cave mobs. Make the weapons un-BPable. Make them require a high number of high-end weaponparts. Call the weapons 'Experimental XXX'.
What effect would this have?
High end (PvP viable) weaponry becomes easier to come by, and hence easier to replace, removing the need for rares in the endgame. Given the lower damage and stats, rare weapons still remain simply better (that, and they have a /swirly/), and without a safeslot for PvPing characters, anyone using a rare will demand respect (and a lot of bullets) for risking losing a hard to come by item.
Rare weapons will become rarer as the need for them in the end game becomes lessened, the hunting of tech parts will be reduced also.
[[Ideally, techparts would seperated out into L, T & E for the loot tables too, so you could get a 70/70 mob dropping L techparts, and only 90/90 plus mobs dropping E parts, but hey - that's another thing.]]
Big clans will be able to farm the caves for large numbers of BPs to make huge numbers of these weapons. However, due to the large number of high-end weaponparts required, the cost of doing so (and the standard chance of slots making 4 & 5 slotters that much rarer) should provide a good money sink.