Discussion Thread: Dev Journal 01 - August 24, 2005

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SpikeDX wrote:

yea xero smart guy walrus isnt a dev hes a mod buddy hes incharge of the foums and filling us in but hes not a delveloper

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 I believe he has it on Macro  LoL....        just a joke there wally buddy dont ban me...

Message Edited by xerovirus on 08-24-2005 08:19 PM

Message Edited by xerovirus on 08-24-2005 08:19 PM

Message Edited by xerovirus on 08-24-2005 08:32 PM

I am very happy about all this. These changes and additions, especially Pandora's Box, will make this game funner, and that's a good thing.

After this game has a much bigger variety of fun, I recommend doing more commercials, because every Matrix fan needs the whole story.

Message Edited by H4TE on 08-24-2005 11:54 PM

Personally, I'm intrigued but not blown away.  It is, however, very nice to see the devs actually come out and say something, and I hope this isn't the last time it happens.  I also hope that the further dev commentaries do actually deal with in depth information, not just more "broad strokes"  If they don't want people to just view this stuff as a carrot dangled in front of the horse, they NEED to talk details.

Some personal issues:

Crafting:  Are we ever going to see a real "crafting" tree instead of the "photocopying" tree that currently exists?  Players have been wanting this for ages.

Multi-Interlock:  Rather than take it out altogether, I'd like to see it improved to something similar to the movies.  The ability to use selected MA attacks outside of Interlock is nice, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it will look awful, just like combat in other MMOs...

Pandora's Box:  Meh... I don't know.  It sounds okay, but it doesn't excite me yet.  I'll have to see it in action before I make any judgements.

No zero-sums in combat:  Ouch.  I don't know about this one either.  Some enemies already have broken combat rolls (like the Lupines) and it's a relief to actually be able to win a single exchange against them at times if you aren't using "cheap shot" or "side kick combo".  If they can hit you all the time, even if you do "win" the round, then it will only be worse.  On the up side, this will remove the rounds where you win the round and the enemy still gets their attack anyway, so I guess it's not all bad.

... I guess that's it for now.

I honestly enjoy the game the way it is now, but I do see the need for more content.  I, like others, just don't want to see MxO become... well, not MxO.  The core structure is already solid and I don't think the game needs a drastic overhaul, just a solid round of additions and tweaks.  Oh, and keep fixing the bugs and glitches.

Message Edited by ShinryuMxO on 08-24-2005 10:55 PM

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FlyMeToParis wrote:

Just take a little break like the rest of us are.

Message Edited by noVus on 08-24-2005 10:58 PM

Hey love the ideas however:

SOmething to counter Stun *CENSORED*

Without stun we take so much damage from other ppl. 

Hackers dont have much damage resistance so we will get beat easilty.   Hackers need stun to reduce damage upon them so 1 on 1 hackers will lose as soon as they lose their evade combat.  And every1 knows hackers Combat tactics are awful. 

THis now means 1 thing knife throwers are upgraded to becoming hte best PVPs. 

As for hackers use your attribute hack and go to the operative tree

Message Edited by mitez on 08-25-2005 01:17 AM

Message Edited by >revolt_ on 08-25-2005 04:53 AM

i dont normally post things on the forums, i just read some very interesting points... but for now, i just wanted to throw something in...

Im a hacker (yes, flame me later) and i thoroughly enjoy being one, not because of the power issue, ut for the fact that i know how to use it and im getting better with each fight i have (no im not gonna say im the next neo or some crap like that either...) and i personally think hacker should not be revamped, tweaked or anything... here's why...

the 30 second stun we have, very useful, especially stun 2.0. if i wanted to stun a group of enemies, its perfect! then once i've done that, i can use my abilities in that 30 seconds to maybe kill one of the enemies (im a ballista by the way) so thats great... then the stun wears out and unless i hyperjump away (which im stopping cuz its just lame) i get totally wasted and killed by loads of enemies... that doesnt bother me as such...

the thing that bothers me most is this...

master knife throwers, there's a lot more of them popping up these days... why? because they can overpower ANYONE in the game with their attacks... even logic cannon 2.0 which is a hackers most powrful weapon i believe... the amount of times in PVP i have faced one, and died, i cannot count. my point being that unless you get a MTK offguard and stun him first, ur a dead man...

a MTK can use a stun too... i think it has a 12 second window if i believe (plz correct me if im wrong) and way before those 12 seconds are up, im dead. as far as i can see, a MTK can stun you, tear your ranged defence in to minus numbers, hit you with a few throwing abilities, which one of them i have seen do around 1800 damage, and have u dead in around 5 seconds after stunning you...

not to mention the fact that if u duel one, a friendly duel, they can use their stun throw ability way faster than a hacker can cast a stun ability, which is why i said earlier on that unless you creap up on one (a hacker creeping up on a spy... hmmmm..) then u dont have a chance against one...

now im not saying that it should be nerfed, not at all, its the only thing that can really combat a hacker in this game, but im sure that many others, including MA's and other spies, have experienced death handed on a silver platter within 12 seconds. so if thats not OVERPOWERED (which most people are complaining about on the hacker tree) then i think a lot of people need to go home and rethink this game...

i say leave the hacker tree alone... if u want to play with the spy tree, then by all means make it better for all, just please dont nerf anything on any of the trees available in the game...

thats my pitch... please feel free to flame me now...

Shouldn't the caster be more of a support role in a big battle (like its patcher, buffer and debuffer disciplines already are)?

>revolt_

So they should be weaker? Is that what you are sayin?�  :manindifferent:

Message Edited by mandem on 08-25-2005 08:12 AM

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What I don't like is that it sounds like interlock is dying.  Even though you specifically state that you are not removing interlock, you are decreasing the efficiency of interlock by putting melee combat outside of it.  Personally, it's not necessary.  Also, the zero-sum concept isn't really that bad.  It's refreshing, different, and I like knowing how much I lose a round by instead of just getting a horrific "miss" message.  To me, the combat moves more at a pace now where I can understand it, instead of being  the cluster *censored* of other MMORPGs.  I don't want something "more similar to other MMORPGs".  If I wanted that, I'd leave this game and go play something that is another MMORPG.  At least there are "bonuses" for interlock, and they better be good enough to keep interlock alive.  The moves that interlock provides are always worth the price of admission.  I'm still seeing new things in interlock, because combat fluctuates SO much, especially when bullet-time happens in all the different situations I have been in.  Where as WoW tends to be.... the same thing... all the time... because it's freeform DPS... and it gets boring... even though it's pretty... Yeah, enough thinking about WoW.

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BINGO. Said everything I was thinking. I don't want MxO combat "to be like other MMORPG's." Other MMORPG's bore me. But, without seeing what exactly they plan to do, I will have to reserve judgement

Free-fire melee? PLEASE tell me you have a mini-interlock style animation with this where the hands/feet actually connect. I really don't want to see someone in interlock getting smacked around while another guy stands 5 feet away punching the air but still damaging. It works in other games but, it doesn't work here =( Please don't do it

At first. Thanks for these infos. A "concept-roadmap" like this is what the community wanted. And i liked almost everything

But i have mixed feelings about the combat part

what i really like:

 You won’t see a level 1-player beating a level-50 player but, as an example, the revisions do make it possible for a group of level-40 players to take down a level-50 through attrition.

What confused me:

 The main win is that Interlock fights will be much shorter, with fewer pauses and less prone to breaking game-play.

The combat part is readable in to ways for me.

...with my own words:

1. Well,... this interlock thing is hard to handle, you know. It´s too hard to make interlock fun for group-battles for every class. Operative, Hacker (and coder) .... so let´s make interlock less important.

2. ( and this is what i hope it´s meant like .... )

Well.... it´s very complex to have a working, fair and balanced combat/damage system with multiplayer interlocks. If 3 MA go on 1 player, 1 can go into interlock and the other can fight with their all new , great "free-fire" moves. But that doesn´t mean the unique interlock-system will be less important, because we will give our hackers nice interlock abilities. So, we will see a mix of interlock and free battles with more balance between the trees.

The main win is that Interlock fights will be much shorter

 What does that mean?

dave

Yeah, I do have Interlock concerns as well.  If interlock stays as it is in it's form, and they tweak it a bit, while adding some ranged MA abilities, all well and good.  Sounds like good additions.

However -

1) Interlock needs to stay in it's current form.   I'd say a small minority of the players dislike Interlock.  Otherwise they wouldn't be here.  It's was a major selling point to this game.  So all the changes should remain - is additions. 

2) As I mentioned before - SOE has a tendency to have a lot of ideas - implement them very fast - and we're left with gargantuan nerf problems.  Balance issues that have to be worked on for a year or more afterwards because the concepts were introduced too quickly.  Too much, too fast.  I really hope they take this in baby steps.

3)  I believe they mentioned something in regards to the mission system.  "Obviously the Mission system is what needs work".  Granted.  The same ol' Assasination / Courier / etc missions after a while become boring.  But funny how the lack of any live events was mentioned.  One or two comments have been made in the past regarding live events by SOE.  Then the subject is just dropped and we see these areas pop up in the forums.  It's as if they believe that if they mention it once or twice, and then drop the subject entirely - it will just go away in the player community.  Which it won't.  We remember great Live Events (The Race for Neo)  that were NOT transitory in nature as SOE seems to believe LE's are.  WoW was mentioned.  The simple truth of the matter is this..  People are becoming bored with MMO's.  They want a genuine MMORPG.  A world they feel involved with, that they can make a difference in.  Storyline arc'd LE's provide that, thus they are not transitory.  Otherwise all that is going to happen is what happens in the MMO world right now.  People just jump from game to game, losing interest after 3-6 months.

I mean, when Morpheus, The Oracle, Seraph, Flood, Niobe or others met with us privately and interacted with us, how long afterward were all of us talking about it?  God, they could seriously slow down implementation of the mechanical aspects slowly over time so that we wouldn't be hit with huge nerf balance problems, and add just a few characters to just to interact with.  Phew would that go a long way in settling everyone down.  The "action / scenery content" folks would be appeased, as well as their other market - the "LE" market who is looking for more in an MMORPG than just the next level and/or ability.

Message Edited by noVus on 08-25-2005 08:32 AM

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Chahk wrote:

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MxODraconis wrote:

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thornTree wrote:
(and people - it won't make stun useless, I think, but it does seem like you'll have to hit with stun twice in a somewhat limited time-frame in order to get the desired effect).

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Just a point on that. You know currently once you stun someone they are immune to further STUN for an automatic 40 seconds?

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It's not always 40 seconds, it's (Duration of Stun + 10 seconds), so Stun 2.0 grants 26 seconds of Stun immunity.  Two problems with this.  First of all, the "immunity" timer starts as soon as the Stun lands, which only provides 10 extra seconds of immunity when Stun wears off.  Second problem is that this immunity is very inconsistent.  For example, the Stun you get from Destroyer's AOE abilities doesn't grant immunity at all, so you can be kept in stun indefinitely by that tree.

I'm glad to see the devs working on the game though.  Hopefully there will still be some subscribers left by the time they get to implementing and releasing the changes they spoke of in this article.

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lol.... someone hold me stunned for a while last week.... 10 min or so.. i had to call some crewmen who kicked his *CENSORED*....

dave

Novus Wrote:

Yeah, I do have Interlock concerns as well.  If interlock stays as
it is in it's form, and they tweak it a bit, while adding some ranged
MA abilities, all well and good.  Sounds like good additions.

However -

1) Interlock needs to stay in it's current form.   I'd say a small
minority of the players dislike Interlock.  Otherwise they wouldn't be
here.  It's was a major selling point to this game.  So all the changes
should remain - is additions. 

2) As I mentioned before - SOE has a tendency to have a lot of ideas
- implement them very fast - and we're left with gargantuan nerf
problems.  Balance issues that have to be worked on for a year or more
afterwards because the concepts were introduced too quickly.  Too much,
too fast.  I really hope they take this in baby steps.

3)  I believe they mentioned something in regards to the mission
system.  "Obviously the Mission system is what needs work".  Granted. 
The same ol' Assasination / Courier / etc missions after a while become
boring.  But funny how the lack of any live events was mentioned.  One
or two comments have been made in the past regarding live events by
SOE.  Then the subject is just dropped and we see these areas pop up in
the forums.  It's as if they believe that if they mention it once or
twice, and then drop the subject entirely - it will just go away in the
player community.  Which it won't.  We remember great Live Events (The
Race for Neo)  that were NOT transitory in nature as SOE seems to
believe LE's are.  WoW was mentioned.  The simple truth of the matter
is this..  People are becoming bored with MMO's.  They want a genuine
MMORPG.  A world they feel involved with, that they can make a
difference in.  Storyline arc'd LE's provide that, thus they are not
transitory.  Otherwise all that is going to happen is what happens in
the MMO world right now.  People just jump from game to game, losing
interest after 3-6 months.

I mean, when Morpheus, The Oracle, Seraph, Flood, Niobe or others
met with us privately and interacted with us, how long afterward were
all of us talking about it?  God, they could seriously slow
down implementation of the mechanical aspects slowly over time so that
we wouldn't be hit with huge nerf balance problems, and add just a few
characters to just to interact with.  Phew would that go a long way in
settling everyone down.  The "action / scenery content" folks would be
appeased, as well as their other market - the "LE" market who is
looking for more in an MMORPG than just the next level and/or ability.

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*claps for Novus*

You just hit the nail right on the head man. We have
had a lack of LE's for too long. That should be SOE's main concern
right now. We need a new cinematic, Mission pack, and an LE thats lasts
no less than 5 days. I'ts rediculous how long we haven't had an LE for.
That is the main part of MMO's. LE's make the game realistic and thats
the goal of an MMORPG. We need to start seeing Niobe jacking in again
and rounding up the Zionists. I want to start seeing the Oracle sending
messages to every player in the matrix. There have been those
Helicopters that just fly around droping the papers saying "Don't Trust
the Frenchman". Well we need to know why we can't trust him and who is
behind the Helicopters. It's nice that SOE is talking about balancing,
integrating new formulas and revamping the Marketplace, but let me put
this bluntly. I could care less about formulas and the Marketplace will
always be crappy cause people decide they wish to sell items like a Cap
with +3 RCT for 20,000,000 info which is just rediculous. What the devs
need to concentrate on is LE's. LE's is pretty much how this game
received a player base. The new things that are coming are nice, but it
was said that most of these things were hoping to be implemented by the
Holiday season. Does that mean we won't be having LE's until about
Christmas time? Cause that is just simply unacceptable. We were told
that a years worth of storyline was already mapped out. If that is the
case then why is it taking so long for a new LE to happen.

*rant now turned off*

I had to get that off my chest...

Nice to know you guys are working towards a big change and improvement... but is there any way you could focus just a little bit on making the game more fun right now? I mean, the way I see it, I should probably cancel and chill till this christmas to come back if I want to not have to sit around and wait.

Would it be too much to have live char actors to come in every now and then? Or SOMETHING?

This is great. I'm very glad to hear what you are going to do about hackers. This has been a discussion for so long. I hate it when I'm taken by a lower level hacker just because of a couple of abilities they use and I found myself completely disabled with nothing to do.

I'm level 41 and have always been into Kung Fu. I'm glad you aren't doing many changes to that ability tree because is very well balanced. I do agree on the changes you mentioned on the interlock and we should definetly have more abilites to use outside combat as an MA. That will be great.

As I remember my favorite day in MxO was the end of Beta. That day the game reminded me the most to the actual movie. I wish more agents will come these days but at my level. If I see an agent is a rare occasion. I also wish that we could kill agents at least as a group if not on our own as it was on the last day of Beta. These days I can jack in pretty much anywhere and go about my business without much happening. That's not how the Matrix should be. It is supposed to be a very dangerous place. A whole lot more than what it is today.

Thanks

Thanks guys.  Yeah, the arc'd LE's is where it's at.  Now mind you, I think that over time Monolith's LE's sort of disintegrated.  The race for Neo blew our socks off.  It had some bumps that needed worked out, but man - that was fantastic.  I watched pure powerlevelers interact with Seraph in an RP sense.  They felt involved in the world in which they were playing.

I personally think that SOE sees arc'd LE's as transitory.  In other words - it's a one time event, and not worth the effort.  I think that is wrong for two reasons.

1)  The player does not see them as transitory.  Everyone who met with Morpheus for the first time remembers it to this day.  Whether in a group, by faction, or individually.  No one forgets it.  That's permenant excitement, not transitory.  The event passes.  The memory stays.

2)  I mentioned a "story arc".  The LE's need to connect to one another and I think that's where things began to break down.  With Monolith - there were two types of LE.  The ones that Chadwick wrote (The arcs), and the ones that the LET came up with inbetween the major story arcs.  The arcs were fantastic (Such as The Race for Neo).  Problem is, it seemed that over time the LET tried to rewrite some of Chadwicks stuff - to disastorous effects.  They should have left the writing to Chadwick, and they should have stuck to their own inbetween LE's.   SOE would do good to look at "The Race for Neo" - improve upon it, and make sure that it connected to the NEXT LE, and run LE's in that manner.  With an arc, each LE is not transitory in nature, but ongoing.

So, implement the mechanical changes that they've already discussed.  Slowly, so we're not hit with a huge nerf imbalanced bat.  And look at those LE's with an arc, and as well introduce "inbetween" LE's.  I don't think they'd be able to build servers fast enough for the people that would start playing this game if this happened.

Message Edited by noVus on 08-25-2005 01:23 PM