Economy/Game improving suggestions

First off, I'd like to say that I feel the community team is doing a great job at salvaging Neocron and we(the players) appreciate it. However I would like to make a few suggestions that myself and 10+ other people that are NC vets have discussed on how to make very easy changes to the game that would improve its quality.

Please /Sign my post if you agree.

The Economy:

Rare parts:
The problem here is that there are currently too many players with not enough supply of certain "vital" rare parts to supply them. I'm looking at you special forces. It seems that fire mobs drop certain RP's very often and others they barely drop at all.

The solution to the RP issue is very simple and very easy. Allow War bot hunting to be Viable again. My suggestion is to change warbots to:
Warbot 80/80 33% RP drop rate
Warbot Dreadnaught 90/90 50% RP drop rate [NEW MOB]
Warbot Titan 100/100 66% RP drop rate [UPDATED MOB]

This not only makes RP's more available but Warbots seem to drop the techs that the firemobs dont drop thus making both viable. Adding a 100/100 mob also makes warbot hunting more dangerous and challenging.

WoC Disks:
The drop rate being so low with the mobs spread out over the wasteland is a known issue. I dont suggest putting them back down into Ceres labs so they can be exploited however I do suggest that the drop rate be increased to around 5->7% so that people can reliably get one if they spend the time. WoC is such a vital stat for certain classes to be competitive now that the current state of affairs is unacceptable

MC5:
I know there are some revisions in MC5 coming in the next patch (thank god) but there is one thing I would like to add. Runners SHOULD NOT be allowed to enter MC5 with LE chips in. The reason I say this is because it will lead to all sorts of problems and constant camped DPS races. MC5 should be how it used to be (when done without exploiting) and the stronger team should take ownership of it via PvP

Money Sinks
Now The above changes are probably fairly simple and wouldn't take much dev time, this one however may take a little bit more hard coding. I suggest that the price of implant Gel and construction grease be increased 2 or 3 fold. HOWEVER I suggest that the amount used by all NON rare constructions and implants be reduced. Thus poking an MC5 chip back in might cost you 30k worth of lube a rare chip might cost 20k worth of lube. Building a rare gun might cost 30k of lube etc. The idea is to make the rich people pay more and leave the costs the same for the newer folks.


Quality of life Changes
There were many things that NC2 brought that in most peoples opinions made the game worse or less accessable to new players. I know the community team have already started to revert changes (like the evac of doy) but it would be beneficial to change more things.

Implants
The biggest issue here is that implants were changed to give things like 2.47 dex etc. This is a heap of steaming poo. All implants should be reverted back to how they were before. This not only makes them more newbie friendly (in terms of understanding them) but also makes them more useful. for instance, lets look at the old M.O.V.E.o.n and the old Marine vs the new ones.

New Marine: STR:+1.90 TRA:+15.21 FOR:+9.51 PCR:+9.51 INT:-1.00 HCK:-5.02	Old Marine STR:+5.00 CON:+5.00 M‑C:+5.00 H‑C:+5.00 TRA:+5.00 FOR:+10.00 HLT:+15.00
New M.O.V.E.O.N CON:+3.95 TRA:+7.93 HLT:+7.93 END:+15.86	Old M.O.V.E.O.N STR:+3.00 CON:+3.00 M‑C:+6.00 H‑C:+6.00 TRA:+6.00 FOR:+8.00 HLT:+18.00

There are two great examples of good chips turned into completely useless steaming piles of dog turd. I know there will be people that argue that the old chips were overpowered, but think of it this way, Everyone has access to the same items, so in PvP it would still be balanced. There is also is end game content that is so rediculously difficult right now that often it is exploited, The bonus stats may allow groups to do things more effectively but most importantly are easier to understand and easier for new players to grasp.

Character Models:
I think most people feel that the new character models are bad. Yes I know they have higher pixel counts but generally they look awful. the reasons I suggest this are
- The spy's are anorexic
- Tanks do not look like tanks
- PEs with the "bottom lip" bug
- Hair clipping or hair falling off (I know GMs work hard to fix this but they could be doing other things)
- No colour customisation anymore :(
- Odd character models like characters with female breasts and a bearded face
- Distinguishing between classes during PvP is difficult due to everyone looking much more similar than before (unless in pa)

I don't know how much work it would be but myself and many others really feel that the character models for the old characters were much better, although the new weapon models are slightly better in most cases so it would be good if we could keep those. It is however my belief that most people would trade the new weapon models to not have the bugs and issues with the new character models.

Safe areas
It is my feeling that PvP in Plaza 2 and Viarosso are a little bit ridiculous. The reasons I suggest this are:
- They are supposed to be the central and up market ares of the city respectively, and thus, it makes no sense and ruins the immersion of the game world
- It is a small part of the reason so many people are forced to keep there LE in for so long
- New players shouldn't be on their way to aggressors and be exposed to people rez ganking, belt hacking, zone line exploiting etc.
- Pepper Park is supposed to be the semi lawless area where all the shadey happenings go on so it would make more sense to have the ganking there. (as in old days)
- Military base should be made a PvP zone once again as should TH

Also it must be noted that Cop bots right now are a bit of a joke. They more or less tickle people to death. Copbots need their old "Copbot rifle" back that ignored LoS and did scary damage.

New player Experience
I think Neocron would really benefit from having a proper tutorial in the MC5 zone to teach new players some of the basic game mechanics. I know this would be a huge amount of coding but I think it would really help new people get a basic grasp of the game. One of Neocron's problems is that it has always had a steep learning curve and this has never been alleviated by an intuitive tutorial. I have tried to get people into the game before and they are seriously turned off by the new player experience.

Remember graphics are not everything, look how well Minecraft and Terraria have done.

UI changes:
- Perhaps could we have a Debuff bar for Synaptic imparement to save us having to open the menus over and over to check its status


Class Balance
Now I don't profess to be extremely knowledgeable about class balance right now but I know some things are blindingly obvious and I will try and update this section as I continue to play the game.

APU
Right now there is an issue I believe with APUs not fullfilling there class roles. The reticle nerf, + the RoF nerf + the removal of HaB was just too much. I would suggest
- Rebalance Rate of fire of Fire apoc and Holy Lightning making them the highest overall Damage per second abilities in the game by a small margin of around 3%
- Add a Unholy poison beam with the same dps as holy lightning/fire apoc.
- Move holy Unprotection back to Apu with a long cast time (approximately 15 sec with good stats)
- New spell Holy Unabsorber for Apu with a long cast time (approximately 15 sec with good stats)
- Keep the reticle as it is now, it was too easy to exploit LoS
- Remove Holy Frostration

PE
- Increase the damage on SWAT backup pistol and SWAT rifle by a small percent but lock them to requiring Class: PE
- Remove the class requirement on Stealth activator 1 and lower requirements to Int 60

PPU
- Give PPU back Holy Frostration and allow it to slow a character by approximately 33%
- Remove Holy Unabsorber from the PPU

SPY

Tank







End Note

Thank you for reading my post and getting this far, as i'm sure you can appriciate it took a little while and I also had to ask around to get other peoples opinions and have a bit of a brainstorming session. This post is subject to change all the time so please dont quote it.

please could I ask DON'T make silly criticism, I would prefer people just read it over and didn't sign if they don't like my suggestions. However if you Do like my suggestions then please /Sign the post, Id appreciate your support.

Remember, people are coming back to Neocron due to what Neocron was, and what it could be, not because of what Neocron is right now.

Thanks again for your time and, keep up the good work community team!

/signed.

There is still so much potential in this game, and I'm hopeful with the new attention being paid on issues such as these we can see progress.

It seems at times changes were made just for the sake of change, such as the implant stats in the post above. Moving forward it wouldn't hurt to look to successes of the past for guidance, and if that means reverting 'bad' changes so be it; that isn't the opposite of progress.

I would especially like to see the street fights inside Neocron move back to Pepper Park. Making Plaza a 'safe zone' isn't necessary, just add more copbots and give them their old rifles back to create consequences for violent actions. Security shouldn't be provided through forced game mechanics like safe zones but through repercussions for breaking the peace. This should also encourage people to remove their LEs earlier if they would be more able to go about their trading and early leveling with less risk of someone ganking them without consequence in Plaza 2.

you maybe want to split your idea pad into several posts next time, and put them to the brainport.

in general: No.

in special: i do not see the economic problem you describe. we do not have an over-abundance of "rare" weapons like back on Terra, but thats a good thing. just keep farming.

there is no need of money sinks, too, as the real currency isnt NC, but tech parts. (again: farming)

i'm pretty sure both implants and char models are going to be reworked in the future, but maybe not just by means of nostalgia.

sorry, but your idea of class balancing is not about class balancing but about "make the APU stronger" and "make the PE a pure WOC-grinding class". i feel some ppl came up with something even more balanced. (see brainport)

in general: this is my opinion. i didnt call you names or something, i just dont share your views on certain subjects.

Well please feel free Torg to look at the THN blue pages and see people with stacks of 30 of one part of a rare and 0 of another part, would you suggest that the rare drop rate is therefore evenly distributed and balanced?

there is huge amount of statistical evidence to the contrary of the above, one TP should not be 30x rarer than the other TPs of the same item. The suggestion you make of "just farm" is unacceptable as a way of enjoying the game.

And the reason I ask for a money sink is to make NC worth something more and people to not just trade in TPs. That's the point, I think you missed the larger picture. The style of trading in SoJs for those who know what I mean is not a good economic model.

I'm sure people have come up with some wonderful Ideas Torg, however, these are the collection of ideas of the 12ish veteran Neocron players I'm on teamspeak with right now, also the idea is that many of these changes do not require large amounts of coding.

If a Mod wants to move this to brainstorming go ahead, I just put the thread here because this is the main forum section that our small community bothers to read


I would also like to add to my post that PE WoC exp needs to be lowered. But the forums seem to have an Edit lock.

I love you

/signed

All of these suggestions have had their own threads in the last 3 months.

Completly agree with the OP, with pretty much everything you said, 90% of things mentioned require little work for the Devs.

@Biccie ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by William Antrim

All of these suggestions have had their own threads in the last 3 months.

---

then is it not nice to have them all in the same place?

Moved to Brainport.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

WoC Disks:
The drop rate being so low with the mobs spread out over the wasteland is a known issue. I dont suggest putting them back down into Ceres labs so they can be exploited however I do suggest that the drop rate be increased to around 5->7% so that people can reliably get one if they spend the time. WoC is such a vital stat for certain classes to be competitive now that the current state of affairs is unacceptable

---

The Ceres Labs were re-opened with the release of R#175/6 and the fixes to Riggers/Droners it introduced.

Quote:

---

MC5:
I know there are some revisions in MC5 coming in the next patch (thank god) but there is one thing I would like to add. Runners SHOULD NOT be allowed to enter MC5 with LE chips in. The reason I say this is because it will lead to all sorts of problems and constant camped DPS races. MC5 should be how it used to be (when done without exploiting) and the stronger team should take ownership of it via PvP

---

I urge all of you to test out the new MC5 experience which is available on the Public Test Server (T#177). We need to see it fully in action so we can tweak and adjust where possible. The quicker this is done, the quicker the changes will make it to retail if they're successful.

Quote:

---

New player Experience
I think Neocron would really benefit from having a proper tutorial in the MC5 zone to teach new players some of the basic game mechanics. I know this would be a huge amount of coding but I think it would really help new people get a basic grasp of the game. One of Neocron's problems is that it has always had a steep learning curve and this has never been alleviated by an intuitive tutorial. I have tried to get people into the game before and they are seriously turned off by the new player experience.

---

There's a pretty solid tutorial available after creating a new character. While it doesn't rail road the user down a certain path it does provide an overview of several aspects of the game and it's mechanics. I agree the Newbie Experience has a lot of room for improvement though.

Quote:

---

Class Balance
Now I don't profess to be extremely knowledgeable about class balance right now but I know some things are blindingly obvious and I will try and update this section as I continue to play the game.

---

There's a massive amount of work to be done in the realm of balance. It's a project we want to get moving.

Quote:

---

Thank you for reading my post and getting this far, as i'm sure you can appriciate it took a little while and I also had to ask around to get other peoples opinions and have a bit of a brainstorming session. This post is subject to change all the time so please dont quote it.

---

Thanks for posting. We appreciate all the ideas the community puts forward as it's a significant indication to how much passion there is for Neocron. Its very interesting to see what different players with different play styles pick up on.

For information, editing posts after 30 minutes is a restriction at play here; if you do have further new ideas please start new threads for them. Having single threads for different ideas allows us to see which ideas really gather momentum and support. It also makes it a little easier for us to browse through the ideas.

I appriciate that someone from the team has taken the time to read this post and hope that some of the feelings of the community get put into the pipeline.

Ill try and make single posts in future.... but no promise I like a good gas

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

The Economy:

Rare parts:
The problem here is that there are currently too many players with not enough supply of certain "vital" rare parts to supply them. I'm looking at you special forces. It seems that fire mobs drop certain RP's very often and others they barely drop at all.

The solution to the RP issue is very simple and very easy. Allow War bot hunting to be Viable again. My suggestion is to change warbots to:
Warbot 80/80 33% RP drop rate
Warbot Dreadnaught 90/90 50% RP drop rate [NEW MOB]
Warbot Titan 100/100 66% RP drop rate [UPDATED MOB]

This not only makes RP's more available but Warbots seem to drop the techs that the firemobs dont drop thus making both viable. Adding a 100/100 mob also makes warbot hunting more dangerous and challenging.

WoC Disks:
The drop rate being so low with the mobs spread out over the wasteland is a known issue. I dont suggest putting them back down into Ceres labs so they can be exploited however I do suggest that the drop rate be increased to around 5->7% so that people can reliably get one if they spend the time. WoC is such a vital stat for certain classes to be competitive now that the current state of affairs is unacceptable

MC5:
I know there are some revisions in MC5 coming in the next patch (thank god) but there is one thing I would like to add. Runners SHOULD NOT be allowed to enter MC5 with LE chips in. The reason I say this is because it will lead to all sorts of problems and constant camped DPS races. MC5 should be how it used to be (when done without exploiting) and the stronger team should take ownership of it via PvP

---

Agreed, to all of this. Although I have never personally been a fan of warbot hunting, it definately should be a reliable source for techs Again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

Money Sinks
Now The above changes are probably fairly simple and wouldn't take much dev time, this one however may take a little bit more hard coding. I suggest that the price of implant Gel and construction grease be increased 2 or 3 fold. HOWEVER I suggest that the amount used by all NON rare constructions and implants be reduced. Thus poking an MC5 chip back in might cost you 30k worth of lube a rare chip might cost 20k worth of lube. Building a rare gun might cost 30k of lube etc. The idea is to make the rich people pay more and leave the costs the same for the newer folks.

---

Noooooooooo... I was pathetically poor on Terra, because I was a pure PvP'er. If there was to be Money sinks, there should be ways of gaining Money through PvP. Shit aint cheap! :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

Quality of life Changes
There were many things that NC2 brought that in most peoples opinions made the game worse or less accessable to new players. I know the community team have already started to revert changes (like the evac of doy) but it would be beneficial to change more things.

Implants
The biggest issue here is that implants were changed to give things like 2.47 dex etc. This is a heap of steaming poo. All implants should be reverted back to how they were before. This not only makes them more newbie friendly (in terms of understanding them) but also makes them more useful. for instance, lets look at the old M.O.V.E.o.n and the old Marine vs the new ones.

New Marine: STR:+1.90 TRA:+15.21 FOR:+9.51 PCR:+9.51 INT:-1.00 HCK:-5.02	Old Marine STR:+5.00 CON:+5.00 M‑C:+5.00 H‑C:+5.00 TRA:+5.00 FOR:+10.00 HLT:+15.00
New M.O.V.E.O.N CON:+3.95 TRA:+7.93 HLT:+7.93 END:+15.86	Old M.O.V.E.O.N STR:+3.00 CON:+3.00 M‑C:+6.00 H‑C:+6.00 TRA:+6.00 FOR:+8.00 HLT:+18.00

There are two great examples of good chips turned into completely useless steaming piles of dog turd. I know there will be people that argue that the old chips were overpowered, but think of it this way, Everyone has access to the same items, so in PvP it would still be balanced. There is also is end game content that is so rediculously difficult right now that often it is exploited, The bonus stats may allow groups to do things more effectively but most importantly are easier to understand and easier for new players to grasp.

---

With the old implants, no-PA PEs were viable... SIGNED!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

Character Models:
I think most people feel that the new character models are bad. Yes I know they have higher pixel counts but generally they look awful. the reasons I suggest this are
- The spy's are anorexic
- Tanks do not look like tanks
- PEs with the "bottom lip" bug
- Hair clipping or hair falling off (I know GMs work hard to fix this but they could be doing other things)
- No colour customisation anymore :(
- Odd character models like characters with female breasts and a bearded face
- Distinguishing between classes during PvP is difficult due to everyone looking much more similar than before (unless in pa)

I don't know how much work it would be but myself and many others really feel that the character models for the old characters were much better, although the new weapon models are slightly better in most cases so it would be good if we could keep those. It is however my belief that most people would trade the new weapon models to not have the bugs and issues with the new character models.

---

A big no to the usage of the old models. A big yes for updated "old models".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

Safe areas
It is my feeling that PvP in Plaza 2 and Viarosso are a little bit ridiculous. The reasons I suggest this are:
- They are supposed to be the central and up market ares of the city respectively, and thus, it makes no sense and ruins the immersion of the game world
- It is a small part of the reason so many people are forced to keep there LE in for so long
- New players shouldn't be on their way to aggressors and be exposed to people rez ganking, belt hacking, zone line exploiting etc.
- Pepper Park is supposed to be the semi lawless area where all the shadey happenings go on so it would make more sense to have the ganking there. (as in old days)
- Military base should be made a PvP zone once again as should TH

Also it must be noted that Cop bots right now are a bit of a joke. They more or less tickle people to death. Copbots need their old "Copbot rifle" back that ignored LoS and did scary damage.

---

God no, make Plaza zones/via zones much more guarded, up the damage of the copbots a bit. Fix the pool in plaza2. Remove ALL copbots from ALL pepper park zones.
All of this have to be done at the same time though..
You cant force into pvp'ing in MB/TH. When the zones Arent used, there wont be people to fight (I actually cannot remember why we always zonewhored MB - and that was HORRIBLE, and much worse than p2 IMO).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

New player Experience
I think Neocron would really benefit from having a proper tutorial in the MC5 zone to teach new players some of the basic game mechanics. I know this would be a huge amount of coding but I think it would really help new people get a basic grasp of the game. One of Neocron's problems is that it has always had a steep learning curve and this has never been alleviated by an intuitive tutorial. I have tried to get people into the game before and they are seriously turned off by the new player experience.

Remember graphics are not everything, look how well Minecraft and Terraria have done.

UI changes:
- Perhaps could we have a Debuff bar for Synaptic imparement to save us having to open the menus over and over to check its status

---

I dont not have an opinion on this.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

Class Balance
Now I don't profess to be extremely knowledgeable about class balance right now but I know some things are blindingly obvious and I will try and update this section as I continue to play the game.

APU
Right now there is an issue I believe with APUs not fullfilling there class roles. The reticle nerf, + the RoF nerf + the removal of HaB was just too much. I would suggest
- Rebalance Rate of fire of Fire apoc and Holy Lightning making them the highest overall Damage per second abilities in the game by a small margin of around 3%
- Add a Unholy poison beam with the same dps as holy lightning/fire apoc.
- Move holy Unprotection back to Apu with a long cast time (approximately 15 sec with good stats)
- New spell Holy Unabsorber for Apu with a long cast time (approximately 15 sec with good stats)
- Keep the reticle as it is now, it was too easy to exploit LoS
- Remove Holy Frostration

PE
- Increase the damage on SWAT backup pistol and SWAT rifle by a small percent but lock them to requiring Class: PE
- Remove the class requirement on Stealth activator 1 and lower requirements to Int 60

PPU
- Give PPU back Holy Frostration and allow it to slow a character by approximately 33%
- Remove Holy Unabsorber from the PPU

SPY

Tank

---

....No, just no.. You fix class balancing by fixing weapon/implant/psi module balancing.
for example, to balance PEs; make the low tl shields WORTH it. In their current state they are completely useless. And obviously, there isnt a single low tl rare weapon worth using, forcing PEs to stack DEX like crazy. And fuck WoC, it should NOT be a requirement!

The removal of Para was about the ONLY thing that I (and MANY others) liked about 2.2... Do not bring that crap back! o_O

Bring back Warbot droprate please. I miss the old hunting WB days. One of my RL friends just joined the game. I told him stories about warbots(back in nc1 times), he wanted to hunt some. I had to tell him it wasn't worth it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

......

- Give PPU back Holy Frostration and allow it to slow a character by approximately 33%

---

NO, NO, NO

PLEASE NO, NO NONONOOOOHJVKMHJKKJVHJKVGJ

There is so much i agree with in this post but this... if paraglue is back, i will never, ever ever log in.

Long good post it was and i will comment on a few ideas but please never mention this again please!

A lot of good points, some less good as you can see from people's reactions.

I only wish to say something about the "Implant" point you made.
Don't forget that in the old days where imps could give up to +5 or even +6, all main stat requirements for weapons and armor were much higher to compensate.
You are using 2 horrible implants to try and get a change for all implants.

Imho most implants are fine as they are, but I do strongly feel that the Marine and MOVEON need to be changed.
Nobody wants them anymore these days.

It's quite baffling that every weapon class has it's own rare chip, except HC and MC who get the generic Marine which doesn't even give HC or MC. It's high time that the dev team splits the Marine into 2 new chips. One for HC and one for MC. Both with at least +3.8 STR to bring them in line with the other rare imps.

The MOVEON might be more interesting if it had a STR bonus again. Nobody really cares about the 4 current stats it has. It's too much of a drawback compared to other imps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awkward silence

NO, NO, NO

PLEASE NO, NO NONONOOOOHJVKMHJKKJVHJKVGJ

There is so much i agree with in this post but this... if paraglue is back, i will never, ever ever log in.

Long good post it was and i will comment on a few ideas but please never mention this again please!

---

Ha calm down :)

Old paraglue was like a 99% slow or some bullshit, I suggest a slow to a much smaller degree to make the spell viable again, what is the point in having a unique game mechanic that isn't used at all

Dropout I suggest using the old models because many of them were much better than the new ones, spercifically the PE and Tank. The problems with the new models I have listed, going back to the old models would be a temporary fix until the team could do something different.

The simple fact of the matter is that the old models worked, the new ones don't.

Pretty much agree to all of this.

- Rare part distribution is really weird and imho only firemobs are kind of viable atm.

- The "reworked" implants are utter crap, except a few perhaps. The decimal stats are annoying and don't make sense to me.

- The class balance definitely needs attention, i can only speak as a former APU and its a joke playing one right now. Only real use is cave barreling. This topic is difficult as always and usually cannot be dealt with "some ideas" ;)


The not-so-important topics:

- Character models are indeed ugly, personally i liked the NC1 ones more, even with less polygons ;)

- i agree to the safe-zone suggestions

- there could be more moneysinks lategame, but i don't think its an urgent issue that has to be dealt with in the first place

- Beginner experience is not sooo bad if someone wants to dig into the game. There's plenty of information available via Help chat, forums, irc, videos (let's plays etc) so resources are better put into the more important things

My apologies Wargolem. I didnt mean to come across as obnoxious in my previous post. Please allow me to elaborate.

Apart from the parashock comment which I hate I am actually in favour of a lot of your ideas. The thing is they are ALL fundamental things that I would like to see changed about Neocron. The part that worries me about such big changes is having the discussion wander off down an off shoot track because different people have different agendas about how they would like Neocron to be. Personally I would rather see 5 different threads all tearing the shit out of an idea individually (or supporting it as the case may be) so that we do not end up with a game that has some of the "less popular" changes that have made it into it today.

I think you have hit up on the most prominent and burning issues within the game and as you can see by the passion in some of the replies you must realise you did this. For that and bringing it to the forefront of consciousness I can only praise you.

Just personally I am a fan of one thread - one change and rip it apart for me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wargolem

then is it not nice to have them all in the same place?

---

Nope. It's nice to have each idea in its own thread, but then keep all discussion about that one idea in one thread, rather than the same things being discussed in several people's "my ideas" thread.

Other than that:
Tech parts - There may or may not be something up with tech drop, but it's impossible for anyone other than the dev team to know. Some people have 30 of one part, and none of another? With over 300 parts, if there were to drop randomly, you'd pretty much expect that, statistically. I also don't see everyone's desire to go back to one mob (Warbot) being the best tech source by far. More (roughly equal) options, and less reliance on techs all around would be my favored option.

Para - Oh god no. It's not unique (lots of games have snares and slow) and it's not fun. It also really hurts the possibilities of one skilled player taking on multiple opponents.

Economy - All this searching for a single money sink is barking way, way up the wrong tree. There's a lot more wrong with NC economy than too much money.

Safe Zones - We go round and round in circles on this one. When all the inner city is safe, people complain (legitimately) that it's far too easy for players to spend all their time in safe zones, avoiding a lot of the intended game mechanics. When these areas aren't safe, the whinge is about fighting right in front of HQs being stupid (and zone line hugging, but that happens everywhere in the city). The dream is no safe zones, but effective symp rules and copbots, but until heel freezes over, I dunno what is best.

New Player Experience - nothing to disagree with there, although I wonder if just general player experience stuff should come first - make the game a really fun game to play before making it easy to get into. Still, at the very least, all the misinformation is stuff like skill adviser emails and so on should go away,

I don't yearn for the days when using a 'Freeze' sidearm was a must in PVP - so Holy Frustration is a no from me.
I also think that Implants such as mentioned should not be quite as toned up as they used to be - perhaps somewhere in the middle.

However WarGolem makes very valid and constructive points.

I think the problem we have is we all have our nostalgia goggles on - I'd like to see some input from 'newer' players imho.

If you care for issues addressed in this thread, I would kindly ask you to put them into seperate threads.
One topic per thread.

It will be very hard for us to keep track of a discussion that goes all over the place and jumps from topic A to B to C and back. I will be happy to replace the sections of the opening post with links to the new threads and merge the discussion that has already taken place here. Simply send me a pm.

Before this threads grows further and gets into the "untrackable" state mentioned above by Trivaldi and others, I will now close it.
Not to hinder discussion on these important topics, but to make sure each topic gets the attention it deserves.

-M