Your input on: Drugs

[ulx]

As someone who didnt see the need to use Drugs back in NC1 i say go back to that...

[DomeOfTerror]

Having to drug for certain situations, like equipping an armor that then provides enough
stats to stay equipped, is fine.

But I don't like the idea of having to drug in order to be competitive and if it is a
requirement to be competitive then the penalties for using those necessary drugs are too
high.

If drugs remain necessary make it so you can stay drugged for much longer and suffer the
flash after you've had time for a full Op fight or two.

[Hackebeil]

Drugs are fine!

I consider my self as a drug user since the very beginning.
Drugs are one of the coolest things in Neocron ever.
If you didnt get this by now, you probably never have seen yellow pa tanks and purple pa ppus fighting...
I can remember when i was leveling as a noob back in NC1, that i was using drugs to use higher tl weapons to boost the cr etc.
Drugs are not gamebreaking. Sure they give you a light benefit for pvp but.. they cost alot if you consider to use them constantly.
Ofc this is depending on how often you fight.
However, what i consider to be most important is that drugs giving more dynamics to the game itself. You can build extreme setups depending on drugs.

Just to give you and brief idea why drugs are awesome:
There was a time in NC1 - beginning NC2 where nearly no spies attended to OP-fights.
At this time not many people considered to use drugs for their normal fighting setups.
I did. I had so much fun doing opfights as a spy where everyone said: "A spy? Not useful.. etc."
Even my own Teammates where sceptical...
However, i am an supporter of variety and drugs are important for exotic builds and variety.
For people that are complaining: that they have to use drugs in fights, because if they dont, they have an disadvantage..
thats not the full story!
You dont win fights because you use drugs... or lose because you didnt.
All people who talk this nonesense, 13 years and you still dont "know how" to OP-fight?
There are many fights where i dont use drugs, because i dont need them.

In my opinion it would be great to keep drugs ingame.

On the other side i can see that it might be a good step into competative gameplay (balancing everyone/everything). Making everyone even.. thats not Neocron...
I dont want a mirror match. I dont want people to have a similar setup.

[Jack Slater]

Personally I don't like drug-setups but pills like Paratemol X-Forte give you the feeling that you have a disadvantage if you don't use them. I don't care if PEs take pills to use a certain weapon though.
In my opinion pvp-stats like ATL, AGI, WPL and HLT should be "implant-only".

maybe even have specific mob drops that you use to craft/recycle them from, or have certain clan quests or tie it in more with the BD faction but ultimately make it something you work for, and maybe even pretty hard at that, as a clan. If you want to PVP harder than the next clan then you better get out into the wastelands and work for it. im starting to sound like a broken record here with the constant 'create more grind/team activities' but when is it that you find yourself gaming the most ferciously in NC? in my exp its pvp or leveling/optimizing ur char, and pvp you cannot do all the time, PVE however.

This! Graves + Swamp Caves are a nice spot for this. I like grinding but rare parts is too boring and I don't really need them.

[Hackebeil]

Personally I don't like drug-setups but pills like Paratemol X-Forte give you the feeling that you have a disadvantage if you don't use them. I don't care if PEs take pills to use a certain weapon though.
In my opinion pvp-stats like ATL, AGI, WPL and HLT should be "implant-only".



This! Graves + Swamp Caves are a nice spot for this. I like grinding but rare parts is too boring and I don't really need them.

Please ! NO !
Don´t mix PVP and PVE.... I don´t want to farm stuff for PVP... especially not in Neocron..
I just want to log in and have fun pvping. I still have to farm credits for the drugs...
And this is far more than you expect.
The whole Clan Infected spent over 50 millions on drugs, medpacks and stamina boosters so far.
Just to give you an idea that there is something you have to do...

Make ATL, AGL, WPL and HLT implant only ?
Hell no! There are moments when i need to boost this kind of attributes...
And if those stats are implants only the character setup will suffer from it.
Those are the strongest pvp attributes and ofc everyone will max them... That means everyone will take the same implants... max atl,agl,wpl,htl...

I dont want to change implants during a fight because i cant follow up a pistol-spy using a devorer.
No i simply want the option to take drugs and take off my pa...

What will be the next step? Remove buffs because it is unfair in terms of pvp that ppl use alt ppus to buff their main char?

[Bragi]

OK, so do you guys want a system where you don't need drugs, or one where you do?

[OLD No.7 BrAnD]

OK, so do you guys want a system where you don't need drugs, or one where you do?

I highly prefer a system with drugs, it extends the possibilities of different setups. Even now you don't have to use them to be competitive, although if you wanna maximize your character/output you'll take them. It brings another aspect to the game and the required micro-management seperates good players from....not so good ones.

I dont see the negative aspects of drugs beside the fact that some people are just too lazy to manage them in fights.

[StevenJ]

Key here is in the word "need" - temporal, expensive, downtime inducing items. In answer to the above binary question - no. Temporal and downtime inducing items aren't fun. Fuck reality, etc!

[OLD No.7 BrAnD]

Key here is in the word "need"...

As i mentioned above, there is no need to take them. It's up to you if you do or don't. In OP-fights you are perfectly fine to play without, it's just an extra boost or you take them to maximize a setup to it's full potential.

My exprience so far is that there are people who wanna maximize things and people who don't like the extra stress in fights. They dont like the fact to use their weapons on buffs/drugs only and therefore they dont play with them. Not to mention infight drug-rezzes or extra drugs to delay the flash. But if you really feel a disadvantage over the guys who use drugs, it's totally up to you to change your style of playing. Crying for fixes/nerfs etc. is weak and the easiest way possible to avoid having to cope with things you dont like/feel wrong.

Generally spoken, drugs are a proven thing in NC, both views have their right to exist and it's not a problem to play either style.

And one more thing looking a bit further into the future of NC: When freezes are a thing again, you'll have to take anti-freeze-drugs from time to time (hopefully not the same amount like back in the days), so it will get a lot harder for drug addicts to consistently play on a max-drugged setup (anti-freeze-drugs-drugflash-inc)!

[Snake EYE]

TL;DR - This means I'll read the rest next time.

A short question from my side - Do you want to keep the current "drug hell" or do you want the NC1 version? I personally prefer a drugfree gameplay ;p Drugs shouldn't be a need to play a character it should act like a powerup with malusses ofc. imho

I'd say go back to the old NC1 system. I use drugs just now and I don't mind them at all. As others have said, they're fairly easy to manage. I just think it was much better in NC1 when you didn't _need_ them. Yes, you can play without them, but if you put two fairly equally skilled players up against each other now - one with drugs and one without - the one that's drugging will certainly win. That's too much of an advantage in my eyes.
Plus it gives people another reason to run their 5 alts on 5 different accounts to the OP they're about to attack: so when they get drug flash they just hop onto another toon.

[Drachenpaladin]

Uhm, theoretical question:

If you put a drugless setup against a drug-user setup, with equal skilled players - wouldn't the drugless setup gain a further edge over the drugster when using drugs for himself anyway? Simply from the skill-overkill, e.g. the abundance of performance enhancing factors applied to the already working setup?
Are there any ceilings like diminishing returns or anything working on those levels?

[BlueRobot]

Uhm, theoretical question:

If you put a drugless setup against a drug-user setup, with equal skilled players - wouldn't the drugless setup gain a further edge over the drugster when using drugs for himself anyway? Simply from the skill-overkill, e.g. the abundance of performance enhancing factors applied to the already working setup?
Are there any ceilings like diminishing returns or anything working on those levels?

Not sure if thats what you mean, but by making your satup with drugs (and PPU buffs) in mind you can optimize far better for stuff like opfights. The character will be a lot better in opfights than one that can work without drugs.


My opinion: Due to the above explanation a drugsetup is also more fun in opfights, so I wouldn't want them to be irrelevant there, but there has do be a downside. Maybe some visible mark that tells you how long it takes for someones drugs to run out could work. This would give you strategic options/advantages when fighting against drug users.

[Divide]

There are antibuffs which remove buffs. Why can't there be antibodies which remove drugs? Could make a nanite build useful outside of solo play (which itself has been broken for quite some time now).

[StevenJ]

there is no need to take them. It's up to you if you do or don't. In OP-fights you are perfectly fine to play without, it's just an extra boost or you take them to maximize a setup to it's full potential.

In a competitive game, people want/need to maximise their effectiveness to win. While there's no need to use the best weapons, there's a very, very strong case for doing so - and that will always, always be the case.

[William Antrim]

All good points raised on all sides.

Drugs are a good cash sink also though, they should have a place in the world of Neocron but they should not be NEEDED. They should be simple, easy to use and part of the life as cyberpunk without drugs in some form or another is just not cyberpunk enough. There will always be dropouts, down and outs, hobos, bums whatever you want to call them but they have a place in this society. The Black Dragon clan exists to serve this aspect of society and from a "lore/rp/theme" setting there is a need for them.

However they should give a minimal edge and be an option to give extra edge to a player but not be a crutch to be used in combat.

If anything I would like to see their effects lessened and their use prolonged. They should/could perhaps be given to players levelling up and enjoying the game rather than the be all and end all of pvp as was 2.2.