What do we do next?

[William Antrim]

So with the Spartan balancing changes coming through and wholesale changes to the rare drop system AND the changes to make 1-2 slotted rares better then it will significantly cut down on the amount of time that is needed to make people pvp ready.

This should promote more fights and hopefully will lead to more op wars and then more people needing to farm more money to keep up with the drugs and costs of op fighting.

I am wondering if this will eventually flood the economy with rares however and thus make cash more valuable again as people need drugs to fight.

It is an interesting possibility to see the economic shift move once again but i wonder if it will devalue the rare parts and guns overall.

Also more importantly once the server has their rares completed and all the guns they will ever need what will happen next? Will we go back to the hardcore days of early nc1 with no safe slot? with all of these extra guns kicking around and the fact that store bought can compete with rare and woc means nothing but aesthetic it might be time to make things that much more rewarding in terms of loot drops from players perhaps?

What else is on the horizon to keep players playing? Any ideas from the community? More player run events perhaps?

[AlvaroT]

Balanced NC would make room for new content or refreshing old content (visuals, immerse, sounds) that can finally attract some fresh players to the game. Goal will be achieved when NC will shine again in world of other mmos.

[Agent Kane]

Dude, honestly as a person who has been a pure droner since my first time ingame...I would REALLY love to see a re-work and balance of drones. Some are far too over-powered, some are way too weak. and the fact that even once you cap Remote Control at 160-180, and Willpower at 140-160, and still can't compete with other people's damage is a big turn-off, but then again we droners were never meant too be pure soloists, the facts still stand and very clearly. Punisher is junk, Particle Nemesis is not what it used to be, mosquito and raptor arent worth bothering with and nobody makes Kamikazes because they're useless! I have at least a front and back page of changes that I feel really do need to be made to beginner and mid-tier drones. Being forced to use AOE to level as a droner is a really big turn-off and very flawed playstyle. I would at least like to see some new rare drones or at least the top-tier drones being reworked from the ground up in all aspects. Obviously a re-work of major leveling areas is neccesary too and we all know that, especially us long-time players. I'm confident the developers are already working on these issues though :]

[jj dynomite]

Drones have always needed more variety...and not just for combat. I always wanted support drones like transport drones as well. And adding a droning aspect within hacking to make hacking more useful would be outstanding. Imagine how fun it would be to remote hack a WB and drone control it for 30 seconds or whatever.

I would love that.

But for the overall game, I agree that these changes coming down the pipe will be a huge boost for the game. The discussions on the Brainport seem to have common themes and i'm betting the Devs will work their hardest to provide stable and positive changes to the game.

Side note...since R#185, i've already seen a large boost in server population...so yay for that!

[William Antrim]

I think that Sparta will bring a raft of changes such as the ones you guys are asking for. The thing is I am not asking what the Devs are going to do. Sparta already answered that question. I am more concerned with what WE are going to do as a community.

When rares get "fixed" so that we do not need to farm 4k parts for ATP CS we will do less hunting for parts because we will get our parts quicker.

When weapon balanced gets fixed we will no longer need to grind to WOC to compete in pvp. WOC will be something that might happen for people whilst they casually hunt to gain money to pvp.

At present rare parts are worth more than money because the most valuable ones (see above for example) have a price higher than most people would believe. With the changes ALL rares will suddenly be the same value. People will complete their rares much sooner now also.

With the changes to weapon damage and mods 1 and 2 slot rares will now become useful. With all of the above changes people should be able to pvp with their FIRST rare. Collecting extras is just going to be an aesthetic thing. As when everyone has one rare they will collect another and then another for variety. Its just like having a favourite gun/car/other toy I guess.

Cash will suddenly become more useful (hopefully) and so valuable to buy rares again and for people to use to buy drugs for pvp.

All of this SHOULD lead to people having MORE free time in game to do stuff because they will achieve "END GAME" status of char (capped/have pvp weapon/ready to fight) more quickly.

This is a good thing for the state of the game. It will mean casual players have time to progress and will see their progress happen in real time.

However it will also give capped players MORE time on their hands to do OTHER STUFF. To some people this will be pking noobs in the sewer. To others it will be looking for those capped players and ganking them. To others it will be running events (fight night MOTU) etc. To others it will be RP or more hunting/collecting rares.

It seems that with the Sparta changes you might get a 1% bonus in terms of your damage if you have MC5 chips and the best setups so people will go back to the drawing board in terms of thinking about setups etc. This again is a good thing. It means new guys wanting to compete or old players levelling new chars to compete will be able to do so faster.

However with all of this extra time on peoples hands I think that we need to think of things to do as a community to put a bit of community spirit into the game. Be it taking ops or running events, everyone is good at something. I would like to see more player run events and things basically. To celebrate the new lease on life our great game has. I just dont want to see a load of capped bored players running around ganking noobs because they have nothing else better to do because that just makes me want to dust off my beretta.

[BizzyBum]

Remember that NC3 teaser art?

I assume that was a hoax, right?