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[John Porno]

The current system is one in which all weapons are supposed to be roughly equal. I'm not in agreement with that design scheme. I would prefer for there to be weapons that are rarer or more expensive but better.

And this is exactly what we don't want and what will never happen. It goes down the diablo/wow road and not the battlefield road.

[PusiteGA]

Then I guess weapons will continue to be a bland bloated system of redundancy. It serves literally no purpose apart from tugging at your own penis.

dude you suck

[Shangalar]

Alright, this exchange is currently leading to nothing. It seems we'll have to discuss it again after server reopened.

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

hey, the weapons are the reason why I'm coming here, there's a bunch of them!

[BG Sexpert]

I'll admit my last post was fueled by frustration and was immature, so I removed it. I'll just end my part of this conversation by explaining why, in my opinion, gear progression is a must.

When you removed gear progression from the game you remove the major driving force behind what keeps players playing. Now I know there will likely be 3 or 4 forum members who will post in the contrary. That they were perfectly content in 2238 and reloaded to farm Gecko Mine day in and out, crafting and adding to the p90 piles at their ranger stations until eventually saving up enough caps to buy a bunker for themselves to live in alone. Then role playing at the entrance of NCR during the cool downs. Are these few players the ones whose opinions matter? They will hungrily suckle at the teat of whatever dev is currently running the server, throating log after log of feces with smiles on their faces.

1. Removing gear progression removes the driving force of end game content. Without the drive for bigger and better gear; all you have left to keep players around is malice. Malice to kill other players and destroy their faction. Now I will admit, this sounds mighty enticing at first. But without the progression of gear that is earned by paying the iron price (the priced earned by teamwork and payed for by the blood of your enemies) you will have a stalemate between all factions; with the only tipping point being the number of members. So the climactic release of malice may never come, or worse, may have no satisfaction because all you have done is destroy the hollowed husk of an abandoned faction whose players found more fun things to do.

2. Gear progression allows for the sway of power within and between factions. The players that have the best gear, clearly have the advantage. This forces other factions to use tactics and team work to remain competitive. On a larger point; IT ALLOWS FOR END GAME CONTENT. The whole point of each faction is to wipe out their competition, as stated in the lore. Without gear progression, this end game goal will come from factions having the most members as opposed to being the most skilled (welcome to Reloaded where the 50 remaining players on the server are the players of the amalgamated faction that calls themselves BBS).

3. With all gear being roughly equal, there is no reward from PvP. Who cares if I kill Big_Tim again, when at the end of the day we both go back and either grab a weapon from our endless pile or toss another on. By removing gear progression you remove all fulfillment from PvP. With rare, and better loot, you have a purpose for killing another player; to take their stuff. Believe me when I say this; there is nothing more satisfying that earning your first set of Power Armor by delicately planning and executing a member of a another faction (Thanks for the memories Gammatron).

I could go on and argue how applying the game design from CoD (a cancerous FPS) to Fallout (an RPG) while simultaneously suggesting that the formula from Diablo 2 (unarguably one of the most successful RPG's of all time) wouldn't work with your game design, is objectively wrong; but I don't have enough breath in my lungs. So I will just say this: by removing gear progression you remove the satisfaction of PvP, the ability to achieve end game content, and the purpose of the game entirely. I warn you that without these things you will be left with an overly sterile game that won't have the lasting power that we all would like to see. There is a lot of potential in AoP; I'd hate to see it squandered by a poor lead game design choice.

[John Porno]

dude, it is simply not going not to happen. The whole point of this server is to not have gear progression. It's like asking battlefield devs to make the game more realistic instead of just playing arma or asking CoD devs to implement vehicles. It's simply not part of the design, not by negligence but by definition.

[PusiteGA]

Bla bla bla

 Dude to get nice gear you have to go and collect resurses(i wold only change spawn rate to very low) thet all will be fighting for so you dont have instant pile of zilion guns, next like i sey if you go gear progresion like you want ther will be 2-3 OP guns thet all will use and nothing more, and i played Reloaded only,i killed 1 BBS dude whit Close Combat and it was so fun they 4 capturing tawn and i raped 1 ass before i died (i was alone and i was newer in faction), AND ZILION TIME DUDE ALL GUNS HAVE SOME PERKS TRAITS THET MAKE THEM DIFRENT

[BG Sexpert]

dude, it is simply not going not to happen. The whole point of this server is to not have gear progression. It's like asking battlefield devs to make the game more realistic instead of just playing arma or asking CoD devs to implement vehicles. It's simply not part of the design, not by negligence but by definition.

If you are going to design it that way then you should add crafting bonuses (like Reloaded) or rare (uncraftable) weapon modifications that you can get from looting and add to your weapon. You need something to give value to the individual weapon, something to make it suck to lose.

[John Porno]

If you are going to design it that way then you should add crafting bonuses (like Reloaded) or rare (uncraftable) weapon modifications that you can get from looting and add to your weapon. You need something to give value to the individual weapon, something to make it suck to lose.

But this is exactly the kind of thing that turns fonline into diablo and we decided months ago that weapon bonuses in such a form are counterproductive.

Players should not automatically be stronger than others because they are wealthier. The key is that very little grinding will be enough to reach the average or standard level of strenght in order to have a level playing field. Any form of farming or grinding beyond that should not make the player "stronger", but make him more versatile and flexible.

If you think about it, it means that in order to beat other people in pvp you have to pick the right equipment and use it properly (aka skill) rather than wow-tier grind money and farm dungeons or whatever. Again, we don't want to make a "classic" rpg where you continously get stronger and stronger. We have sacrificed that part of rpg gameplay and replaced it with RTS mechanics so to speak. Instead, classic rpg traits are incorporated into other aspects of the game.

[BG Sexpert]

How does craft bonuses turn AoP into Diablo? There are no craft bonuses in Diablo. Everyone can craft weapons, so its not a matter of wealth. Its giving purpose to the PvP.

Honestly ask yourself, what is the incentive for the player to stay around after the first 2 weeks? The lore? There really isn't much back story or plot (kill other factions). The character progression? After 24 progression slows, and will eventually stop. The quests? You can only do so many S ranked quests before you get tired of the repetitive format. The desire to destroy the other factions will wane and become boring without the gear having some value.

[John Porno]

How does craft bonuses turn AoP into Diablo? There are no craft bonuses in Diablo. Everyone can craft weapons, so its not a matter of wealth. Its giving purpose to the PvP.

There are in diablo 3 but it doesn't really matter how the bonuses are applied to the weapons. In fact, crafting bonuses would be the worst ones as the crafting process in itself is quite tiresome. We have some ideas for fixed weapon bonus applied through ZC actions on a single weapon, but that will only come alter, if at all.

Bonuses, no matter which form, have several issues:
1: They have to be displayed properly and the Fonline interface is not too effecient at that.
2: They have to be balanced properly. That's a given but seeing as we have n-times the amount of weapons than other servers, it would be complicated to say the least.
3: They have to be integrated in a way that doesn't make the game even more confusing for the average player.

Basically, we already have a very similar system, rather than having 2 assault rifles with different bonuses, we have 10 different assault rifles. Both systems have their advantages but I feel that having 10 different AR's with up to 5 traits and 5 perks and then add bonuses on top of it would be too much.

Honestly ask yourself, what is the incentive for the player to stay around after the first 2 weeks? The lore? There really isn't much back story or plot (kill other factions). The character progression? After 24 progression slows, and will eventually stop. The desire to destroy the other factions will wane and become boring without the gear having some value.

I stayed around on 2238 for 3 years, in a game that has nothing to offer apart from the same tc on the same 5maps. For 2 years I was there for pretty much every larger pvp action and I only left because I couldn't cope with the grinding and the later balance changes.

There really is not much to do on an empty server. I guess an empty 2238 would be more fun than an empty AoP, but that can change once we have the opportunity to focus more on additional content. The motiviation to play this game should be the gameplay and the pvp itself, not the results of it. In that way it differs from the classic rpg, as said before.

[BG Sexpert]

How does craft bonuses turn AoP into Diablo? There are no craft bonuses in Diablo. Everyone can craft weapons, so its not a matter of wealth. Its giving purpose to the PvP.

There are in diablo 3 but it doesn't really matter how the bonuses are applied to the weapons. In fact, crafting bonuses would be the worst ones as the crafting process in itself is quite tiresome. We have some ideas for fixed weapon bonus applied through ZC actions on a single weapon, but that will only come alter, if at all.

I like this idea a lot. Some sort of mechanic where the weapon gets better with more use. That sounds fun.

[Shangalar]

I wanted to post something more elaborate but I will probably not do it until tomorrow.

Once resource gathering will be more developed, and properly limited by players amount, you will probably have to make choices in term of crafting and I'm sure weapons will look more valuable then. Not everyone will like the same weapons, and maps and enemies you face will have an impact on that choice as well. You should come to the conclusion that having two weapons to adapt to situations is a big plus, and that pair of weapons can also change a lot from a player to another.

Then, don't forget that Tiers 3 weapons will come too, hard if not impossible to craft and so very appealing to loot and use. Just as Gauss pistols have been on 2238 for example. Armors too will play their role. We miss some learning system for the MK2 and MK3 versions that'll come at some point, so they'll be less easy to craft. There are also rarer armors, like Support combat armors and PAs that will be interesting to look for. Faction combat armors should also be interesting to obtain and not farmable. Finally, there are all those other items that will be really interesting to loot on players, like doctor bags, traps, drugs, stealthboys or smoke grenades for example, which are always useful and that will make the difference between more and less rich platoons.

So yeah, you roughly get the same weapons as your opponent and you can stand a chance as a newcomer, but those who will smartly use all the possible items and tactics will be victorious at the end. No need to grind for 3 months and take bad habits, just start working on your pvp skills from day 1, that's the idea.

As John said, there is a plan to personalize your gun and make it become a sort of relic of the Wasteland (not to say legendary weapon :p) by using it in PvP (among other possible ways), possibly renaming it or adding successive kinds of titles to it. However, we need a lot of stuff to be balanced first, and we could not decide of the best way to implement it. That's why it has been postponed for now.

[BG Sexpert]

I wanted to post something more elaborate but I will probably not do it until tomorrow.

Once resource gathering will be more developed, and properly limited by players amount, you will probably have to make choices in term of crafting and I'm sure weapons will look more valuable then. Not everyone will like the same weapons, and maps and enemies you face will have an impact on that choice as well. You should come to the conclusion that having two weapons to adapt to situations is a big plus, and that pair of weapons can also change a lot from a player to another.

Then, don't forget that Tiers 3 weapons will come too, hard if not impossible to craft and so very appealing to loot and use. Just as Gauss pistols have been on 2238 for example. Armors too will play their role. We miss some learning system for the MK2 and MK3 versions that'll come at some point, so they'll be less easy to craft. There are also rarer armors, like Support combat armors and PAs that will be interesting to look for. Faction combat armors should also be interesting to obtain and not farmable. Finally, there are all those other items that will be really interesting to loot on players, like doctor bags, traps, drugs, stealthboys or smoke grenades for example, which are always useful and that will make the difference between more and less rich platoons.

So yeah, you roughly get the same weapons as your opponent and you can stand a chance as a newcomer, but those who will smartly use all the possible items and tactics will be victorious at the end. No need to grind for 3 months and take bad habits, just start working on your pvp skills from day 1, that's the idea.

As John said, there is a plan to personalize your gun and make it become a sort of relic of the Wasteland (not to say legendary weapon :p) by using it in PvP (among other possible ways), possibly renaming it or adding successive kinds of titles to it. However, we need a lot of stuff to be balanced first, and we could not decide of the best way to implement it. That's why it has been postponed for now.

This is a good post.

[SnowCrash]

I would like to have some upgrades for weapons that allow a certain level of progression and customization (like armors). Keeping the breach between those upgraded weapons and regular ones fair enough to make a squad with no upgraded weapons able to beat a one with upgrades ones.

For example, lets say that weapon skill only unlock 3 weapon perks. And the other 2 can only be unlocked by a weapon upgrade (and also a skill requirement). Some weapons may have different upgrades making possible to specialize the weapon in a certain area (critical, damage, secondary effects, and so on)
Lets take the ripper for an example (which is my favorite weapon  )
Instead of having better bleed and more bleed unlocked only by melee skill, those perks will be unlocked by an upgrade: ‘serrated ripper’.  Another upgrade, ‘ripper mark II’ will unlock instead bonus rate of fire and faster reload, and maybe another that unlock two more criticals. Note that you can choose only one of those upgrades for every ripper

Right now, once you get the max skill lvl, and unlock the blueprint, every weapon you craft have its max power, so if you lose it, you can just craft another one with the same stats.

With this proposal an upgraded weapon will require more resources (mostly special parts),  making them more expensive and rare (not so rare as tier 3), but not a must have to do PvP.
Just like the difference between mark II and mark III armors, that mostly add a small edge to the stats

[Shangalar]

This is an interesting idea really. However I'm not sure we want to reduce the number of perks unlocked by skill only. Also, I think it would be hard to come up with enough variants, especially with the number of weapons. I could imagine that weapon X with upgrade Y becoming more efficient in a Z condition than another gun that is supposed to be better in that condition. Now that's not necessarily bad as it adds more flexibility to the arsenal, but this could also be confusing for opponents which, observing their enemy with a scout, would maybe not know how to counter them.

What about this: let's say we introduce like a tenth of special booster items, that are craftable and pluggable on different weapons. Not all weapons would accept all boosts depending on their nature. Those boosts could add different bonuses that would be kept rather weak and hopefully, balanced enough compared with each other. You could put one boost by default on every gun, and then perhaps add more as you use the gun in PvP (so related to the Relic weapon system). Would that be appealing enough to you?

I think that approach could represent way less work for us and would allow multiple upgrades on every gun, where making 2-3 variants per weapon based on your suggestion would already be a huge deal.

We would have to represent the boost properly, perhaps with prefixes and affixes, but that could become messy too with successive upgrades. Finding an adequate prefix for every combination should be possible though. Then, we would have to show boosts in weapon description and show how many upgrades are available to apply on weapons.

[SnowCrash]

Im aware that multiple upgrades for each weapon will lead to weapons with similar stats, and maybe will be necessary to remove/redesign some of them, but also is not required for each weapon to have more than one upgrade. And every upgraded weapon will have a different name to make possible to recognize which bonus the weapon have.

Anyway, the approach you suggest seems very interesting, and will address (hopefully) the points discussed here. With a possible boost by default, and further boost as a reward for PvP it’s a great incentive to do more fights.

[BG Sexpert]

This is an interesting idea really. However I'm not sure we want to reduce the number of perks unlocked by skill only. Also, I think it would be hard to come up with enough variants, especially with the number of weapons. I could imagine that weapon X with upgrade Y becoming more efficient in a Z condition than another gun that is supposed to be better in that condition. Now that's not necessarily bad as it adds more flexibility to the arsenal, but this could also be confusing for opponents which, observing their enemy with a scout, would maybe not know how to counter them.

What about this: let's say we introduce like a tenth of special booster items, that are craftable and pluggable on different weapons. Not all weapons would accept all boosts depending on their nature. Those boosts could add different bonuses that would be kept rather weak and hopefully, balanced enough compared with each other. You could put one boost by default on every gun, and then perhaps add more as you use the gun in PvP (so related to the Relic weapon system). Would that be appealing enough to you?

I think that approach could represent way less work for us and would allow multiple upgrades on every gun, where making 2-3 variants per weapon based on your suggestion would already be a huge deal.

We would have to represent the boost properly, perhaps with prefixes and affixes, but that could become messy too with successive upgrades. Finding an adequate prefix for every combination should be possible though. Then, we would have to show boosts in weapon description and show how many upgrades are available to apply on weapons.

This could be like the weapon modification system that was suggested earlier. I'd prefer to see the boosts be "find only" items, to increase the value but I'd be happy to see them as craftable as well.

It would be interesting to add Boost slots to crafted weapons only, that way crafted weapons will always be a little different than found ones. There could even be a cool "# of Boost slots" variety on crafted items to make things interesting. Crafted items could have 1-4 slots, with 1 being guaranteed and 4 being very rare. This could give some excitement to the crafting system.

Regardless if you include the latter, the boost system is an interesting idea. You could include the boosts on the weapon in the awareness perk, so you know what players are dealing with.

[John Porno]

In my personal opinion, which is not representative of the official devteam's stance on this, would be to have weapon mods that are either craftable or lootable or both which would have both positive and negative effects. However, those effects would never be a percentage, they would always be flat. Something like "-2 ap cost, -3 Magsize" Such a mod would probably be great on Assault rifles as you wouldnt notice the smaller magazine that much but it could also be interesting for some pistols where, depending on your stats, it could make you hit certain thresholds, meaning that with a certain pistol wiht that mod, you discard a very big part of your magazine, but you are able to use your first 100 AP to shoot the entire magazine.

That means that the same weapon mod would be a minor benefit on some guns, be virtually unnoticable on others but then also completely change the palystyle of some guns.

There are a lot of interesting things that can be done but the problem is, as I said, the interface. Once you have such a broad variety of weapons and weapon upgrades, you need a way to display the information effeciently and as I also said before, while weapons mdos are a "cool" feature, it doesn't necessarily match our design goals and might just complicate things without enhancing core gameplay.

[Shangalar]

About flat bonuses/maluses, we surely should create some boosts and make some tests. I can imagine that we could face issues, with some boosts being mostly useless at the end and others being often ubber. Personally I would go for both a percentage and a flat value to guarantee a minimum balance between mod effects.