WoC. The lack of style in a genre defined by style. (12 year player/vet)

[Model192]

I have observed the psychological affect of "tiers" in two separate cyberpunk games, and it has ruined one and is on its way to ruin another one. One being Neocron, and one being a pen and paper of similar caliber of greatness (CyberSphere). These games have both introduced "tiers", whether meaning to or not. The issue with Neocron, however, is WoC. Though WoC is a problem, it is merely a microcosm of balancing as a whole, and current con/weapon workings, which I will post about in another thread.

WoC has introduced a "tier" system into the game world of Neocron. From Beta 2 and on to NC1 and pre-WoC it was all about ripping the LE out and going nuts with whatever you had. It wasn't a crazy slaughter-fest, it was a world of nervousness but respect. Why? Because LE carried an XP penalty with it. I will cover the XP penalty toward the end, and push to why it is needed and what the goal of this particular malus was for.

First, let's look at Cyberpunk. It's a cut-throat world, man meets machine. This world is ruled by corporations and their minions(clans), serving their purposes of creating the war machine to fund. They fight for money, power, and dominance over manufacturing. The world of Cyberpunk is usually filled with haves, and have nots. In the world of Neocron we are all playing a "have". We have access to all the power and weaponry we could imagine. In a sense we "work" for our organizations. We kill each other on the street for a few cred, we stab people in the back. We lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. That's Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is defined by style, attitude, and we're all supposed to be badasses at whatever we do and however we choose to do it.

Now, establishing that we are all "haves", we have now created a system within the "haves"; haves and have-nots. This effectively splits the playerbase of Spies and PEs from players who want to play and PVP(dex). If you pull your LE out before it's time to help out in OP fights you're taking a huge risk that could make going WoC even more time consuming. There aren't any worthwhile weapons for these two "races" under WoC. Hell, PE has probably been the worst that I've ever seen in Neocron right now; I know, I WoC'd one. Without his LE in. Unfortunately now it's cap, or not. If you're not capped, the LE stays in. There is no reason to take it out, not at all. Many in this playerbase view their viability in PVP as slim to none, and with good reason, they're not.

In Cyberpunk it's about the style. Any of the weapons that a bad ass decides to pick up he should be just about equally as good with. It's not style when you have to crunch numbers and see what's the best. I should be just as bad ass with an Xbow as with a SWAT Backup gun. After the weapons reach a certain tier they need to level out within reason, and for nothing else other than style in CYBERPUNK. I don't mean they all aim the same/do the same damage/fire rate, all that. But, they should all be equally as viable. Tanks should be equal to PE equal to APU equal to Spy in a rock/paper/scissors/stealth/gun sort of way. I miss taking my shotgun and 4 chevs and causing havoc for the capped players in pepper park. I miss that a lot.

The game built legends before, as cyberpunk games do, now it's just a joke.


This is a GREAT cyberpunk reference for broad ideas of "balance" and gameplay types. http://cs.netsville.com

[Doc Holliday]

Interesting post. I liked the plateau idea regards woc weapons and damage etc. That arguement has been made several times that woc broke neocron as we know it. WoC weapons should be about style points. they shouldnt be the necessity to compete. All i can add to it really.

[Torg]

i definitely agree, and salute this well-written post. i'd even be with you on the LE question, but we would need to talk about, and rebbalance, the PvP penalty system to make this work. and i feel a "bring down the WOC damage peak" movement coming.

[nabbl]

I like this post.

WoC has to be adjusted!

[Netphreak]

The damage bonus for WoC weapons needs to be brought down to the same level (or possibly even lower level as the weapons are easier to obtain) as the damage bonus for rare weapons.
Of course this is assuming that weapon damage is balanced around TL and the curve is flattened to allow lower TL weapons to be viable again.

[Dropout]

Very well thought out post Model192. I couldnt agree more with your post tbh.

[William Antrim]

I have completely changed my opinion of you based on that post. I would be very interested to read more. It is very insightful.

[[F6]Knight]

The damage bonus for WoC weapons needs to be brought down to the same level (or possibly even lower level as the weapons are easier to obtain) as the damage bonus for rare weapons.

I don't agree with this. WOC weapons should follow the same damage / TL curve as rares.
The weapons might be easier to get, but the WOC level and disc can take a lot of more time / effort than getting most rares.

You can go solo warbots or firemobs and trade / sell the parts you don't need to get parts / money for what you do need. You can't buy XP to get your WOC level.

[Deus Ex Machina]

Someone correct me if I am wrong please, but as far as I know the "theoretical" WOC Bonus isn't large.
The problem is that the WOC weapons, as well as ... well I'd say ALL other weapons are not really in line with their supposed TL determined effectiveness.
So in theory a TL 100 WOC weapon would be 0,5% more effective than a TL 100 Rare Weapon, and 1,5% less effective than a TL 100 Tech Rare Weapon.
That the state of the game doesn't reflect this doesn't mean the system is broken, but the implemention is. Very broken.

Here the link to the numbers I dug for:
http://forum.neocron-game.com/showth...62-Explanation

[Netphreak]

Someone correct me if I am wrong please, but as far as I know the "theoretical" WOC Bonus isn't large.
The problem is that the WOC weapons, as well as ... well I'd say ALL other weapons are not really in line with their supposed TL determined effectiveness.
So in theory a TL 100 WOC weapon would be 0,5% more effective than a TL 100 Rare Weapon, and 1,5% less effective than a TL 100 Tech Rare Weapon.
That the state of the game doesn't reflect this doesn't mean the system is broken, but the implemention is. Very broken.

Here the link to the numbers I dug for:
http://forum.neocron-game.com/showth...62-Explanation

I was under the impression that Rare's got a 10% damage bonus for their TL and WoC weapons got 15% damage bonus for their TL.
I could be mistaken though, can't quite remember where I read it.

[Dribble Joy]

It's something like that. The real problem is that some of the WoC weapons are way beyond it. But then of course you have the dizzy and other things.

[Izeo]

I also don't like the idea of extra tier (which is seemingly unreachable to me), but isn't anyone else bugged (also) by the visual style of WoC? They are re-skins of the normal powerarmor, which isn't a problem by itself (I mean that some re-skins can look absolutely fine), but these re-skins are kind of amateur. It gets worse when you combine a WoC armor with a WoC weapon - black tech armor with neon light stripes, with an AK47? Shouldn't they match?

[Model192]

i definitely agree, and salute this well-written post. i'd even be with you on the LE question, but we would need to talk about, and rebbalance, the PvP penalty system to make this work. and i feel a "bring down the WOC damage peak" movement coming.

You need to stop looking at PVP as a penalty system and more of an eternal war machine in which needs to be funded. It(LEs) needs to go back to a risk vs. reward system instead of a system of just arbitrary protection.

Risk vs. Reward should always turn the gears of war in a game.

[Torg]

ah, case of misunderstanding. please take my line "the PvP penalty system" as in soullight- and faction-symp losses from abusing PvP mechanics too much. if we'd ever go for LE penalties (less money/xp/damage) we'd have to balance that by stricter, harsher rules on killing allieds etc. imho NC should not turn into a all-vs-all combat shooter MMO. i'd really like to keep those RP elements.

[L0KI]

I completely agree. Great post.

As much as I don't like changing the subject, this reminds me.

Someone in our clan had a great idea earlier today. That idea was to limit LE users to something like 90% of total cap (a spy would cap at 90 INT/DEX, 36 CON, etc etc until the LE was removed). That way, people could LE their way up to near-max from low level, but wouldn't be able to hog the areas like Mc5, which quite frankly, should be competitive. Clans should be able to do battle over these rare parts and this territory. You can argue the playstyle stuff all you like, but this would bring such a huge level of excitement to the game.

Another idea is to prevent LE'd characters from having WoC at all.

Regarding PvP/Soul light penalties, I'd love to see an arrest and prison system implemented at some point. That would be excellent. It wouldn't even need to be complex; kill a player with negative soul light, and they're sent to prison until it hits a positive number, thus taking them out of the game.