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View Full Version : Biccy's Ideas - 9) The APU



DigestiveBiscui
09-01-13, 15:09
Before i explain what i feel the problems are / what i would like to see fixed please understand that these are simply my ideas that, after playing the game during its core times (when it was at its very best), i feel need to be adjusted in order to make this a better experience and not another moment where the game looks promising only to be shot down by bad moves which has happened again and again.

APU CHANGES - PRIORITY HIGH

Wow devs.......just wow. How on earth did it get to the point where the APU monk was an utterly useless class that might as well be removed entirely from the creation list? Thats kind of a trick question really as I, along with most of the community, could probably tell you where you went wrong, and i'm going to right now. My advise to you is that you listen, and focus on this above most of the crap currently being worked on. People don't need new storyline missions - they need the stuff they want to play fixed.

I'm going to put the three main points into sub category's so it's easier to follow. Here goes:

1) ANTI-BUFF

So here i am in Neocron years upon years ago. The game is at it's most popular, op wars are regular and everything kind of has a use in terms of classes and what they can give. Some things needed tuning yes, but a few things made sense and worked correctly. So here comes my first question.

When you guys had a meeting (If you had a meeting) which incredibly stupid person suggested to remove Anti-Buff from the APU and give it to the damn PPU? PPU's gave enough utility in a fight. The healed, buffed, rezzed and looked after themselves in case they were focussed. APU's would be able to pick off targets with an anti-buff and try to burst before it was noticed - THAT WAS THEIR JOB.

So you removed what they were good at and you then filled it with nothing? Please explain why anyone would think of this as a good idea. You took away their use, gave it to someone else and expected people to keep playing them? Ok, ok...their damage was still decent and i suppose the PPU could simply call it out, right? That's fine....but then...........this happened

2) Reticle

Someone give me a child to punch. I get why you did it...kind of. APU's were able to target things that couldn't hit back and made farming a joke, amongst other things - BUT THIS WAS NOT A FIX. APU PvP in OP wars and solo was down to twitch reactions. It was different to the PE / Tank / Spy and thats what made it great. You royally screwed that and again, left them with nothing.

Let me recap here...so far you've taken away their main spell and then created it so that all of their damage spells need to be properly aimed to fire...and still given nothing back. Right now they're near the bottom of the list in terms of decent fighters where once they ruled the roost - and rightly so. They weren't called an aggressive psi monk for nothing.

Surely it couldn't get much worse

3) Damage / Frequency

Turns out it could! Not only did you destroy them, you also decided to completely ruin their rate of fire for good measure. Do you all play tanks in the office? Did you not like getting utterly dicked by an APU and thus decided you would make them utterly pointless for anyone to play? I agree that MAYBE their rate of fire in nc1 was a little high but by that i mean A LITTLE HIGH - not 75% or something utterly stupid.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

I'm sorry if I seem angry - but I am. I'm angry that you've let this get to the level it has and it's never really been noticed. Some simple, simple changes can make APU's worth it again and i suggest you do it tomorrow, not in a month when you're done making another story mission or re-releasing MC5. Sit down, change it, and patch it. The 3 main changes are below - they are simple, effective and can make them worth while again:

1) Return Anti-Buff to APU's
2) Remove the reticle
3) Up Damage and Frequency by 15% - This is a rough number and i would like some ideas about it.

It's that simple from my eyes - I look forward to seeing what others say

Deus Ex Machina
09-01-13, 17:09
I cannot contribute much, since I haven't played an APU much, but i experienced them often from the receiving end (of Holy Lightning around 5 corners mostly). And thats why they were nerfed in the underground, stamped on and a nuclear bomb was set off on them for good measure too.

Now while that sounds like i hate APUs: I did. But I find they should return to (some) glory. But its not that high pressing priority you seem to make out of it, prior to Evolution 2.2. there was a really long time in which the power of APU + PPU was unconquered, and it was only one playable and necessary class really, instead of three.

The reticle:
I don't know how it runs high up on the ladder (will know sometime maybe, can't access the Testserver at the moment), but in the low area there is no difference between firing with reticle open vs. reticle closed in regards to damage. I also noticed none in regards to casting. So I really don't know why it should be removed, i think the reason it was implemented in the first place was because you could shoot through walls without it (or was that seperate?)- And that is nothing we want returned, thank you. That would crush the new player base again I bet. And if you do less damage but must still not aim like the other classes, and when you aim you do more, there is nothing wrong with that.

What you want for the APU is too much at once again - and NOW. Thats what went wrong with the APU in the first place, so the way up again should be slow.
The reason WHY the APU took this deep fall was all the changes they made to him - AND the change they made to the PPU Shields. I don't know, maybe the old APU would be okay with the new PPU shields - as he might finally fall as fast as he should, and not be invincible. But who knows.

Fixing the APU must not make other Classes useless again. Thats the very N° 1 priority in that issue.
Maybe classing up Damage or/and Frequency is a first step on that road.

But one thing that was also very involved with the old APU nerf: Not enough people test. And the less quality feedback, the worse the output. That was true then and it is now. So please come and test the things you know about, or think you can contribute to. Even now, when other issues are on the testserver (thats directed to all, not to the Thread Starter specifically)

William Antrim
09-01-13, 17:57
Increase RoF to around 50 a minute for the Holy Lightning/Fire Apoc IMO. Not the old 105/min like they used to be but something more than they are currently (30/min ish?).

Bring back DoT on the Fire Apoc. It is a good combat vs stealthing spies, light them up so you can see them run and others can target them. Yes I am aware that this takes away from Holy True Sight Sanctum but you want the APU to have a use then this is one use he can have.

Leave the reticle as it is. If it is open too much then increase the chance of spell fizzle but please let the APUs damage be consistent for his spells. Let the player know full well he is going to hit that guy for xxx damage (obviously adjusted according to resists as normal).

On that subject also please can we have our DoT back on our Wyatt Earps (they too were cheap and reliable effective tools against stealthers).

Biglines
09-01-13, 19:57
Wow devs.......just wow. How on earth did it get to the point where the APU monk was an utterly useless class that might as well be removed entirely from the creation list? Thats kind of a trick question really as I, along with most of the community, could probably tell you where you went wrong, and i'm going to right now. My advise to you is that you listen, and focus on this above most of the crap currently being worked on. People don't need new storyline missions - they need the stuff they want to play fixed.

I'm sorry if I seem angry - but I am. I'm angry that you've let this get to the level it has and it's never really been noticed. Some simple, simple changes can make APU's worth it again and i suggest you do it tomorrow, not in a month when you're done making another story mission or re-releasing MC5. Sit down, change it, and patch it. The 3 main changes are below - they are simple, effective and can make them worth while again:


I think you really need to do a bit more research in the things that have happened before you start ranting like that. The DEV team that is currently working on the game is a team made of completely of volunteers, who have only just recently been able to start bringing out patches at an incredible pace compared to KK, having fixed more things in neocron than have been fixed in most of the past decade. They are not the ones that "broke" apu's, they are not the ones that left neocron ages ago. So show some respect please.

APU's are not as overpowered as they used to be yes, but an apu at this point does not break the game at all. The old, easily exploitable mc5, does. So priority one should always be: Fix gamebreaking game elements > make some guy's favourite class overpowered again

And this is coming from someone whose favourite classes in the game are the APU and the Melee tank.

DigestiveBiscui
09-01-13, 20:15
I am aware of the situation, but the dig at the Dev's wasn't aimed at the current ones but more the previous ones that destroyed something that was once good :)

Ascension
11-01-13, 21:05
I am a biased long serving APU player, and hate my class as it stands right now. Anything that rectifies the current situation I would happily welcome.

I don't care what anyone else says, but on a PvP basis PE's are more viable than an APU, putting an APU to the bottom of the pile.

William Antrim
11-01-13, 21:45
The Fire Apoc is still ok vs unbuffed players but everything else its crap just the same as Pistol PEs and Melee tanks.

Torg
12-01-13, 01:43
i think the problem is not so much the APU but overpowered WOC rifles. can you image a world without (devastating) WOC weapons? would you try an APU vs a CS tank or a FL spy? how would you tune APU damage or frequency to meet either?

Powerpunsh
12-01-13, 02:21
havent we already located the problem? Its all about range and -in my opinion - weapon efficiency. But who am i to believe in. :P
And yes we already talked about all other complications (abuff and stuff).

I would rather like to know when the balancing will start and what are the first changes to test. :)

phunqe
12-01-13, 02:49
One thing I am absolutely sure of: PRETTY PLEASE, with a warbot cola on the side, take the Antibuffs away from the PPU and give them back to the APU.

The amount of PPUs this has spawned is ridiculuous since one PPU cannot handle everything. If the APUs get their stuff back the amount of PPUs will hopefully go down to a reasonable level again and the fun factor up where it belongs :)

As for the rest, I haven't played an APU other than for leveling a PPU so I am not really qualified to voice an opinion there. In general it does however seems a few changes are needed from listening to others playing.

Dribble Joy
12-01-13, 03:43
As has been said by me and others; if you return anti-buffs to the APU, then you marginalise the role/necessity of the other classes.

Give anti-buffs to a class and you only make their inclusion mandatory in team PvP.

You either end up with a situation like the monk-o-cron days where whole OP team turned up in jawa suits or PPUs are more of a necessity than ever.

It may seem like a regression, but I say remove anti-buffs completely.

DigestiveBiscui
12-01-13, 03:44
I have no idea how that would work - other than destroy a lot of what OP wars have to offer. I for one don't want to sit there like a retard while a PPU heals a fully buffed tank all day long, soaking up all the damage because there's no way to remove his buffs.

No....just no

Doc Holliday
12-01-13, 07:24
As has been said by me and others; if you return anti-buffs to the APU, then you marginalise the role/necessity of the other classes.

Give anti-buffs to a class and you only make their inclusion mandatory in team PvP.

You either end up with a situation like the monk-o-cron days where whole OP team turned up in jawa suits or PPUs are more of a necessity than ever.

It may seem like a regression, but I say remove anti-buffs completely.


I still disagree with this point. Apu is STILL very flimsy and you STILL need people capable of dishing out a beating on people. Tanks fulfil that role. Spies (with their stealth) are still useful as that fast hit and run ability especially with the aks and dots that stack on them. The apu would be useful in an op fight with an antibuff but he will still remain a relatively easy target given how weak they are.

Simple thing to do is to patch this in on test server and lets test it rather than reiterating a point time and time again that really is one opinion on what might happen. I would love to do some testing like this. Lets see how it pans out.

Op war team composition would be about balance in my eyes if this were to happen. Yeah of course you bring apus for the antibuffing but you ALSO need other chars with a bit of a higher chance of survivability (Tanks and one day i hope we can say the Private eye) to soak up some of the fire either through blocking shots etc or by being so damn good everyone comes for you :)

phunqe
12-01-13, 16:14
As for making a class mandatory by the antibuffs, what we have now is a mandatory zerg of PPUs, so it is not really working either..

DigestiveBiscui
12-01-13, 18:48
It's not just the anti-buff that makes the PPU useful though

William Antrim
12-01-13, 19:10
Give everyone the antibuff. Or at least give it to spies and pes.

Xiphias
12-01-13, 20:44
Sure, give it to spies... not like they don't have much utility at all. Stealth, range. IIRC spies had it 10 years ago and people whinged like little girls.

DigestiveBiscui
12-01-13, 21:58
You just need to revert it - that simple

The only people it might upset are the ones cruising in their PPU Tank combos

wargolem
21-01-13, 03:39
I think bicceh has maybe gone a little over the top on this thread because he feels like his lovechild (the apu) has been kidnapped, raped and then spat on for good measure by the nerf crew.

Ill be revamping the thread that myself, bicceh and others put together some time ago and reposting it in segments in light of more recent NC experiences.

whats clear is that the APU does need some love, and soon, I dont think its that Spys and HC Tanks are overpowered, its just that pes and apus and Melee tanks cant keep up.

hajoan
21-01-13, 10:35
I could not agree with the starter post.

Yes, is is a pain that

the Antibuffs are gone
the reticle means that noskiller needs to play a tradechar now (best change KK ever did!)
the APU damage has been lowered and made the APU to unessential chars for opfights

But all that has been done for good reasons.

Possibly it should be tested to change the damage boost spell from ppu to apu?

DigestiveBiscui
21-01-13, 22:29
I could not agree with the starter post.

Yes, is is a pain that

the Antibuffs are gone
the reticle means that noskiller needs to play a tradechar now (best change KK ever did!)
the APU damage has been lowered and made the APU to unessential chars for opfights

But all that has been done for good reasons.

Possibly it should be tested to change the damage boost spell from ppu to apu?

Then you are wrong, simple - unless you have anything of any value to add other than 'I got stomped on by APU's because i was terrible thus i don't mind these changes'

Naim
21-01-13, 22:36
There is a simple and effective way to find out if a class is too weak:

Look at opfights and count the amount of APUs.

You dont find any ? You find one and he sucks ?

Yes solution is: APU is so much overpowered that nobody wants to play an APU as it is too easy to make shitloads of kills and to dominate the battle. All players behave responsible and avoid that Über-class as they dont want to mess the balance of any fight nor to get any advantage for themselves or their clans.

Dropout
21-01-13, 23:28
I could not agree with the starter post.

Yes, is is a pain that

the Antibuffs are gone
the reticle means that noskiller needs to play a tradechar now (best change KK ever did!)
the APU damage has been lowered and made the APU to unessential chars for opfights

But all that has been done for good reasons.

Possibly it should be tested to change the damage boost spell from ppu to apu?
You REALLY dont like APU's huh?

IMO, they should have higher freq on their APU modules, and KEEP damage and the reticle as it currently is.
Im not sure if they should have the antibuffs back.. It would at least give them some utility, but then Again, it would make APU's a requirement for OP fights Again..
If DB wasent as bad as it is for PvP, it would be nice to give that to APU's yeah.

hajoan
22-01-13, 09:26
You REALLY dont like APU's huh?
I just do remember opfights where I was a tank and all the rest were Monks.
I never played the imba classes so guess... currently I play a APU :P


Many people dont spec PSI ressists for two reasons:
1. This had no effect in NC1, NC2, NC2.1 and they did not noticed that it have a effect in NC2.2
2. In NC2.2 it have a effect but because of the small damage that the APU its not not speced

So a damage boost would be welcome but PLEASE carefully.
The APU just should come back to the position to be the counterpart of the Tanks thats all.
The damage boost would raise the APUs in Opfights and there would be less Tanks.
It also could raise the PEs but that belongs to the community.



There is a simple and effective way to find out if a class is too weak:

Look at opfights and count the amount of APUs.

This was allways the only way to find out.
Look at my posts from 2003 and 2004 and you will see that this was allways my opinion.
There were KK employees here that told the comunity that its 'now' ballanced and when you see the opfights you see that its not.
The reality is what happens and not any stupid statistic.

Dropout
22-01-13, 11:48
Many people dont spec PSI ressists for two reasons:
1. This had no effect in NC1, NC2, NC2.1 and they did not noticed that it have a effect in NC2.2
2. In NC2.2 it have a effect but because of the small damage that the APU its not not speced
Thats actually not correct. I think pretty much all spies and most PE's spec psi resists.. I know I do.



So a damage boost would be welcome but PLEASE carefully.
The APU just should come back to the position to be the counterpart of the Tanks thats all.
The damage boost would raise the APUs in Opfights and there would be less Tanks.
It also could raise the PEs but that belongs to the community.
One problem with making DB need APU.. PE's wouldnt be able to use it anymore (not that they do currently anyways though - but if DB were made viable to use Again, it would be a problem).
IMO the most important change they should make to APU's is up their freq. This will obviously make them do more damage, and more important, make the class more fun to use.[/QUOTE]



This was allways the only way to find out.
Look at my posts from 2003 and 2004 and you will see that this was allways my opinion.
There were KK employees here that told the comunity that its 'now' ballanced and when you see the opfights you see that its not.
The reality is what happens and not any stupid statistic.
Balance is really hard to achieve.. And some (most tbh) people will always go for the most powerfull classes/weapons.

Dracain
26-01-13, 15:02
I am kinda played an APU a while back when the game was in eternal 2.2 and while I quite enjoyed the class, I will say that I quite agree that APUs need their frequency buffed. Every combat class should have something to bring to the table in OP fights, and APU brought the glass cannon, which is fun. So for what it's worth I sign my name onto the frequency increase.

How exactly are APUs right now exactly? Are they changed from 2.2 in any way?

CritiNator
30-03-13, 12:36
Just noticed this post and it makes lots of good points.
So, this is just shameless /bumb

This should indeed be in their task list.

Doc Holliday
31-03-13, 14:48
IIRC spies had it 10 years ago and people whinged like little girls.

Spirit mod? The only antibuff a spy ever had.

Strife
31-03-13, 17:09
Currently sitting on a capped APU that I really want to play, but can't because they're nowhere near as useful as my other characters.

Just give me some damn shots per minute and i'm happy(for now)

tbird
01-04-13, 14:41
Agree for removing the reticle.

Frequency - i don't know. I have no capped Apu in NC 2.2

Dropout
01-04-13, 15:15
Agree for removing the reticle.

Frequency - i don't know. I have no capped Apu in NC 2.2

Why would you have the reticle removed? To make APU's a zero-skill class Again?

No, the reticle is perfectly fine (The more closed the reticle is, the more damage you do - and you can do quite a lot with a fully closed reticle)..
The main problems is the incredible low freq and the lack of utility.