PPU Discussion

[calim]

Mobs are the last thing to take into ppu balancing. Because mobs can be adjusted a lot easier than pvp balance.

KK did that before wihtout many problems so it should be doable again when PPU would get nerfed. What i'd love to see.

foreign cast will be nerfed , that almost certain... Self cast ... i hope no

[kg-ua]

As for me, I dont see any reasons to nerf PPUs in any ways. Devs should better increase strength of selfcasts ... if no ... then just they should do nothing to PPUs.

If someone thinks that some dungeons are too easy with current PPUs ... lol, then fix those dungeons better, dont make PPUs scapegoats and solution of most balancing problems in Neocron.

[carecare]

You want the ppus to be stronger than they are now?

[calim]

What about the current no-nerfed-holyheal-group ? i wonder if it's voluntary ?

[unreal]

It should stay un-nerfed really. The incredibly crap range more than makes up for that. If levelling is left harder than normal after the balancing, leaving the the Holy Heal Group as it is would be a nice gesture, since we'll be getting worse Holy buffs and the Holy Heal Group will only make a minor change to whether we're going to live or not. It also casts slower than a Holy Heal which makes it even less worth while for use in PvP.

[Zheo]

I agree with the fact that you shouldn't be able to take on 120/120 by yourself, at least not without a great deal of difficultly like having a vehicle to gun instead of normal weapon or having a bunker you can hide in and it healing after every two hits.

See imo ranked 65/65 shouldn't beable to kill a 120/120, since if a player was ranked 120/120 you'd have no chance much the same as a 0/2 has no chance against a 30/30 player.

You should beable to kill a 65/65 (if your 65/65) with a little difficulty then mobs ranking 80/80 should probably be the limit for soloing. Mobs 85+ should require a team, However I think the problem is places like MC5 don't provide much cover for runners so it makes it impossible for a large team of multi skilled runners to go in there and kill the mobs. It would be better if the roomers where bigger and their where more places to hide, OR if it was more like the REAL mc5 and the difficult bit was getting to the building, which only held the commander!

[Kain]

Just going to re-ask a question from page one which got ignored.



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Could someone please post the current effect of Foreign Cast buffs so I can get an understanding on what the below actually means:

Foreign Casts
The PPU’s main focus lies on supporting others: we’d like to generally reduce the effects to 10 – 25%, mainly for Shelter, Deflector, DamageBoost and ParaShock.
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My second question is about Hybrids. What is the plan with those?

Both this thread and the weapon thread make no mention of them ( other than occasional complaint).

My third question is about Tanks, the plans are to remove psi and give them additional toys to do healing etc, I assume that the Tank can still receive buffs from a PPU?
The affect of this, combined with the cast reductions, will really make PPU buffs on a tanks become relatively much more effective, as the heals / shields become an additional buff. IMHO this is a good thing, depending on the toys Tanks get.

But with the foreign cast buff reduction PE's become more powerful as there self cast buffs stay the same power. How much of an advantage this is only time will see. PE's are already the kings of solo PVP and dueling so I'm sure they will be happy with the OP war / group PVP buff.

Once again we really need to see the numbers to really begin to compare.

My final comment is about PPU's in general. The healing class in this game has probably the hardest time of any MMORG I have ever played. Casting on our selves is not the problem. Its maintaining buffs on others.
There are precious little indicators to see when another player's buffs etc have dropped / been removed. We are forced to rely on the player telling us either by text or through a thirdparty tool like teamspeak.
If you introduced something like neural interface along with the buff nerf its going to get just plain painful.

People play to have fun, KK if you keep this up its just going to be damn painful.
I for one am not someone who gets pleasure from being in pain.

Kain

[Richard Slade]

The major issue I see with PPUs,
is that they exist.

There's no reason for anyone to have an extra buffer as all it does is gives an "OMGWTFPWN" edge that just removes any type of fair fight.

Make monkeys monkeys and not "this or that" monkey,
altogether, removes para bs, all buffs above rank 2 and make them not even 50% effective on others

Hence, we got a monkey, that can choose, a balance, between self-buffing and attackpower.
PPUs are gamebreakers and has always been, no need for them in the sense they are now.
Mind you, I don't mind an half-immortal monkey, what I do mind is that all of his buddies are equally half-immortal and also that he has the ability to whoop my sorry ass.

Balance in all things

[Okran]

A PPU isn't supposed to be able to turn every single class into a damage sponge ...

True! However the problem I have with the PPU is that they are supposed to be 'passive', yet they can cast OFFENSIVE boosters on others. Any combat boosters of level 3 boost the players offense skill by 20, which is a mahoussive amount!

A PPU should NOT be able to also increase anyones 'offensive' capability, while at the same time giving them better defense/healing capability! It makes no sense!

[Dribble Joy]

A PPU should NOT be able to also increase anyones 'offensive' capability, while at the same time giving them better defense/healing capability! It makes no sense!

Incorrect.

What a PPU should do is raise the fighter's overall capabilities to the appropriate level (probably a 40-50% boost to total effectiveness), be that purely through passive effects (heals, shelter etc.), pure 'passive aggressive' effects (DB, combat buffs, debuffs etc.) or a mix of the two.
The use of Exotic Psi Use could restrain the PPU to one or the other, or a lower ability with both.

But with the foreign cast buff reduction PE's become more powerful as there self cast buffs stay the same power. How much of an advantage this is only time will see. PE's are already the kings of solo PVP and dueling so I'm sure they will be happy with the OP war / group PVP buff.

PEs never gained much from PPUs in the first place, infact; unless the PPU was full capped with a decent spell, getting a foreign shelter would be of detrimental effect. Where as when a PE and say a tank (used) to be balanced, a tank would benefit greatly from a PPU cast, giving the tank a much bigger advantage in the team arena.
(The problem is that PEs gained far too much with the skill changes, hopefull this should be resolved.)

What we need is a situation so that all classes, balanced 'solo' then recieve an equal boost with the addition of a PPU. Other wise classes will loose out at either solo/non-PPU supported times and/or loose out when a PPU is involved.

[Kain]

DJ,

Thank you for the reply, both in this discussion and the weapon balance thread.

Think both are going to be very hard to do. At what point do you balance PPU ? I'm not sure you can balance the benefit of a PPU across classes.

Mainly because of your main class the PE, the jack of all trades. I don't mean they are overpowered.



Just that they sit firmly in the middle. As you said at the moment PE's gain very little benefit from the shields of even a capped PPU.

So how do you balance from that?

Only way I can see it is by initially balancing the wpn dam vs defense for non ppu buffed chars.
Then doing the whole thing again using capped ppu buffs.

But does the code have the ability to distinguish character class when a foreign buff gets cast. So that additional formuli can be used to vary the effect of a shield according to class?

Glad I'm not hands on involved. To balance 1vs1, small group and OP war with and without PPU availablity.

<shudder>

You can see why a lot of games stick to PVE.

Certainly the online games I've played with pvp in them have all had balancing issues, judging by the forums.

Anyway good luck to whoever is doing it.

[Okran]

Incorrect.

What a PPU should do is raise the fighter's overall capabilities to the appropriate level (probably a 40-50% boost to total effectiveness), be that purely through passive effects (heals, shelter etc.), pure 'passive aggressive' effects (DB, combat buffs, debuffs etc.) or a mix of the two.
The use of Exotic Psi Use could restrain the PPU to one or the other, or a lower ability with both.

I disagree. A 'pure' PPU should be purely passive, I disagree with anything that allows 'them' the ability to increase another players offensiveness.

So with that in mind, maybe if Exotic Psi use is introduced properly I would not have a problem. If you want to spec both then you should not be as good as a specialised monk.

[John Doe]

The implementation of neural overload is currently "on ice", at least
until we can see the effects of the remaining PPU changes on the test
server. So you don't need to think about that point anymore, for now.

[Roc-a-fella]

Do you guys like, have OP wars on the test server? Then get mad because another GM para shocked u and then godmode and kill them all?

[Scaramanga]

mahoussive

Love that word.

On a side note, would making parashock stackable lead to an increase in ppus present at group fights due to the affect being so profound?