Arms race and inflation

[Sperber]

I feel that there's a significant imbalance of availability based on the misconception that "more" equals "better".
Crafting bonuses are so good that they basically made regular weapons worthless.
Almost all resources are easily available in huge quantities.
Blueprints are so cheap that they are besically pointless.
Making a couple thousand caps in a day is easy.

And now with mini-dungeons "regular" rare items will become more worthless with each locker being looted.

I've noticed that people get bored easily since there are very few things left for them to do.
The prefered counter-reaction to keep people interested and the server alive
is to buff items or introduce a new way of getting even better gear.

This is called a vicious cycle.

People get bored. You give them goodies.
People get bored with goodies. You give them better goodies. And so on ...

This is not a good choice to keep the game alive. It destroys all balance and values.
By shoving in power-up's you do not solve these problems. You just delay them temporarily.

The inevitable solution to this is a wipe and everything returns to where it began only to end up the exact same way.

This is neither a complaint nor is it an accusation.
Just concern from a player who likes the game but also sees a significant design flaw.

What's your opinion?

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R]

People are getting bored because no PvP

has nothing to do with items

except noobs

[Sperber]

People are getting bored because no PvP

has nothing to do with items

PvP is heavily influenced by this as well of course,
since the better your gear the higher your chances to triumph over other players
and with constantly changing power levels of gear it's hard to keep track.

What Fonline needs is more versatility and balance. Not more powerful gear.

[Winnie]

I completely agree on this. And It makes me sad when I'm thinking about it.

We should concentrate on three things:
1. Balance the overall economy( money, resources, etc).
2. Balance all present weapons.
3. Think on new activities.

All tasks are tough but first priority.
One should not whine, but always give an alternative instead!

[Furior]

Remove crafting bonuses, rework private mines,add more PvP places. Thats what this game needs imo.

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R]

PvP is heavily influenced by this as well of course,
since the better your gear the higher your chances to triumph over other players
and with constantly changing power levels of gear it's hard to keep track.

What Fonline needs is more versatility and balance. Not more powerful gear.

people need more PvP, screw the gear

[Gavared]

Not everyone is a fan of PvP, i'd much rather see new things like dungeons(which I know are in the works and I'm actually playing around with the map editor to maybe try and help) and things like more modifications for gear.  Say a craftable extended clip for a gun OR a scope that increases range by 2-6 Hexes(this would vary depending on the gun the scope is crafted for). I'm not sure if it is possible to make multiple modifications for a gun and let the player choose which one they want to use but if it is I think that would be awesome and it would definitely add diversity because than not every gun would be the same. I know that not all guns are exactly the same because of the different stats they can have like +min/max damage and such but adding more modification choices to the existing guns would definitely make them even more diverse since people would get to pick and choose which modifications they use for there style of play.

[Caligula]

There is a map editor? Where Can I find it? I would love to take a crack at making some dungeons.

[Strike]

There is a map editor? Where Can I find it? I would love to take a crack at making some dungeons.

More talking about map editor.
http://forum.fonline-reloaded.net/index.php?topic=2777.0

[OskaRus]

I completely agree on this. And It makes me sad when I'm thinking about it.

We should concentrate on three things:
1. Balance the overall economy( money, resources, etc).
2. Balance all present weapons.

You cant ballnce anything without knowing its cost. And you cant know cost of anything if you have no market/auction house. So FOnline is destined to stay poorly ballanced forever. Maybe ill try to code some market one day and sen it to devs .

[Sargoth]

I agree that players need something "to go for" .. Because when they have everything they need, the game starts to be boring, because they have nothing to do there anymore.
But this varies..
Some people like PvE and so they want new dungeons and areas to overcome, the harder - the longer it keeps this kind of people interested.
PvP is another major part of every MMO, especially in FO. People obivously need to win sometimes, cause dying without any chance of win starts to be boring very soon. I think PvP is fine here, maybe add few locations, where players can go for PvP and they know they will find it there.. I mean some fair PvP, not camped warehouse / reno =) But anyway, when player gets killed, he has a decent chance to find someone else to kill and that will satisfy him enough to play more.. PvP players are much more likely to stay interested in game than PvE players..
And in my case, i have a little bit different problem.. I love the game, i love killing people, i love that you loose your equipment, i love sound of gatling killing a person.. Theres many things why i love Fallout.. BUT, the combat system is getting boring for me. I played single player Fallout a lot (1,2,tactits) before i found FO. It had one big advantage - you could play however you wanted and you was able to win. This doesn't work in FO.. Lets be honest, in FO there are 2-3 effective character builds and that makes playing extremly boring for me.. Real time combat? Bursters win it... PvE or PvP, burst is a key to victory. TB combat? Fast shot (1AP/shot) or burst again, doesn't really matter what weapon/ammo you have). And thats it, thats how you HAVE to play, in order to be able to catch up others. And this is what makes game extremly boring for me. Im playing FO for 2 months maybe (i know, im rookie), but even after short time, im starting to lose interest in it, even if i love it so much. More goodies or wipe doesn't solve anything for me, cause this won't change it. This is not a complaint or crying, i can catch up a little bit, but of course, with burst or fast shot.
Solution in my opinion? More builds... Melee, Thrower, Sniper, Leader (followers), maybe more.. which can catch up to bursters and fast shooters in PvE and PvP.. That would bring a lot of fun. Players would exp new chars, farm more, pvp more.. it would keep us interested much longer.

Just my opinion =)

[BB.]

I feel that there's a significant imbalance of availability based on the misconception that "more" equals "better".
(...)
People get bored. You give them goodies.
People get bored with goodies. You give them better goodies. And so on ...

This is not a good choice to keep the game alive. It destroys all balance and values.
By shoving in power-up's you do not solve these problems.

I agree that players need something "to go for" .. Because when they have everything they need, the game starts to be boring, because they have nothing to do there anymore.

What Fonline needs is more versatility and balance. Not more powerful gear.

Remove crafting bonuses, rework private mines,add more PvP places. Thats what this game needs imo.

+1

Making new PvP arenas like New Reno and Warehouse lockers is a good idea (good job Kilgore, thanks for doing your work for this game! ), BUT... the devil is in the detail.
1) Changes in stats make some things useless and other overpowered (like the Pancor case).
2) Crafting bonuses and the low cost of crafting made typical gear suck and not used anymore.
3) Additionally -AP bonus generated problem with 1AP shots. And it enabled making 'tank gatling two-burst' builds (they're way overpowered).
4) Lockers give really powerful gear, causing "rare items" stop being rare and enlarging the imbalance gap (in advance - normal encounter-lockers are said to give more stuff and the circle is on).
5) And because of 4) it all players are gathered In NR and WH - there are no more interesting TCs, turn-based combats in SF or just human raids in westland.

What's my point? Let's stop for a moment and think everything over. We shouldn't fall in the circle of "giving" and adapting stats, but make some clear changes. Wasn't war more pleasant for everybody (but infinite rare gear owners ) without the push on buffed gear and the unceasing rage about implants, where we could participate in some balanced fights that tested our skill, not gear?