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[ZwierQ]

First of all let's take a look.
This is september: http://www.riget.info/aop/playerStats.php?r=month&s=1409526061&ts=0&ar=0&step=9 not bad, huh?
October now: http://www.riget.info/aop/playerStats.php?r=month&s=1412118061&ts=0&ar=0&step=10 much worse.

We can't blame school for that as some people will. It's not the "boom effect" which ends after first two weeks. We can see that online drops day by day. What happened?

1. For me bad politics and nerfhammers. Instead of nerfing everything to the equal, very low level, some things should be improved. I know that some aspects of the game can just be nerfed and only nerfed, but those nerfs looks like they were made because of shouting and whining, totally ignoring other sides of the game before/after nerf. I know that if you shout louder than the others you will be noticed first, but how many moaners we have here and how many players who thought that this game was fun as it was before? Statistics clearly shows this.
2. I heard about ninja nerfs very often. I didn't test everything what I heard about, but most of things here and I have to say it's some truth in this. What happened with aimtime for example? One aimed shot with desert eagle .50 ext. cap. takes longer time than two LSW bursts.
3. Another thing in my opinion is bad focus or order in which changes are implemented. We have one really big nerf which makes many toons crippled or even unplayable and they can do nothing with that. Full reroll should be implemented in the same time. It works on FO2 and it's the easiest way to do this thing as it is there.
4. We have a bleedover mechanics here. Awesome, because we can make specialized characters and use other weapons as an addition to balance our weaknesses without spending SP (for the beginning, because everyone will do this later for items perks etc.). But the meta and some changes almost forced us to play as tanky as we can with big guns for damage if we don't have any leader behind us and especially with big guns if we have one. Balance is that creepy little bastard which no one can catch and settle him down, but it's not true. For me the best balance example is rock, scissor and paper. Something counters something and you can't be good at everything. We have EW which is easily counters when you put on your metal armor, but you still can managed against them using solar schorcher or electro weapon (if it's not tesla). But it's just a theory. We know that we can't reload solar during night and electro weapons have really small range or didn't have electro dmg on bursts. Sneakers were countered by some perception and bursts because of bypasses, now they are just countered, doesn't matter what you have. SG have too many weapons that will not or almost never be used because of dmg, bursting abillity, range, spread etc., but we have some dev's poll's so let's change the subject.
5. Stats not worth to invest to. It's normal. We have 7 stats and 40 points to spend. It's online game and if you wan't to be succesfull it's obvious that you will dump one stat as low as you can, because that's how math works. Now it's agility or charisma (most of people have two toons, one with high agi and second one with high charisma). How to fix it? Just make charisma useful just for followers or even totally kill it and make leadership bonuses dependant on leadership skill level for both, leaders and soldiers. With existing mechanics it will force people to plan their toons more than just make 250 bg/sg/ew/hth, 200 fa/sneak and 150 doc for defib. And if you want to revamp agi, just make AP dependant on it, not regen only. I don't mean 1 agi = 10 ap, but something like 80 is a base ap and agi will expand it to 100. It should go with some ap cost changes with few weapons and additional aim shot cost (for me it should be not more than +10ap for aim shot). You will decide what you need. High endurance and strength (tankynes) in exchange for some perception and agility (sight range, shooting range, total ap and ap regen) or maybe you will be a burster with lesser survivability (more agility, int and luck lesser str and end)? It's your choice, do whatever you want and suits you best. That will make leadership modules to make toons even more specialized than now, because they will be specialized from the start, not freaking tanks with bg.
6. It's mainly pvp server, so let's reward pvp. Not only ZC. Let's gave us some xp for shooting our opponents. 3-5k exp = Max hp, shared for ones who did damage to target isn't nothing bad and can encourage people to leave their bases and stop doing boring assignments. Maybe add assissts count? Caps spawn on the core could be increased too. Even if you scavenge 20 boxes/lockers/anything else and will found caps in 5 of them, 100-120 caps in each, it won't hurt anybody and make core runs alternative for grinding assignments for caps.

There is a lot more, but it's already a wall of text. As always sorry for my poor english. Let's chat!

[Perteks]

tl;dr

For sure 90% of this is bullshit if not more looking after other post of this guy
If not then i wait for some exprienced reasonable player to tell different

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

Some people stopped playing Fonline due to this 4 faction system. They're forced to play with complete noobs and if not a lot of people in their faction on,they can't do anything.  Some just want to PvP but can't.  I say there would've be a lot more players if it were something with towns /TC/random encounters /something like the other Fonlines.

[Myakot]

For me the best balance example is rock, scissor and paper

Literally the worst thing that can happen to any server . Every pvp will be the same. (Every server with uber-terminator-like perks has this).

(most of people have two toons, one with high agi ...)

The problem is: you don't need any1 with high agi, that stat is worthless now. (compared to any other one)

Just make charisma useful just for followers

What will this change? Leader sitting in some toilet on the map? Will stay the same.

100-120 caps in each, it won't hurt anybody

Except it will destroy one of the reasons to pvp. 'Dis for fun, right? What's the fun in it, if your enemy will just "brush" his death off with literally 1 minute core-scavenging and reclaiming whole set of his gear back with caps? Besides it'd kill assignment mechanic (since you won't need it anymore, if you will be able to get shit ton of money\xp\rep in the core, without losing anything).

Patches\fixes\nerfs have near-to-nothing to do with this. If there wasn't a single patch, situation would actually be much, much worse. I've talked to lots (literally, like 40 people) who came to play AoP along from other servers. Every single one of them (okay, Kain, you're one exception) claimed that they will return once there will be more to the game, at least 'till T3 gets into the game.

There is a lot more

If you have something to say, why don't you just get over with it? The more constructive criticism (hope some day it will become praise ) there is, the better.

[paragon]

Not agreed with the topic starter in many things. Online statistics pick in the September easily understandable by releasing of completely new product and need of leveling chars / earning caps / learning about the world. After it's set and done, and people have nothing "special" to do - people left. But those players are mostly uninterested in actual server mechanics and life, the are so-called hamsters, playing only to level up, loot, stash. Also there were many new players who never actually played Fonline and didn't know what to expect. So they tried and probably didn't find what they wanted to find.
Even with current small online we experienced 4 sides fights at this week with participation about 50-60 in whole. They are probably exactly those players who didn't play enough to make own opinion and those who finds the server to be the best out there (like me).
Actually, I would be a great developer poll to ask people: "Why don't you play / don't want to play anymore?" and standard answers for it. (Didn't like server mechanics / Didn't find my interest in the game / Didn't find friends to play with / Didn't find reason to continue playing after some point / add more on your on)

About new content: tier 3 will make the server being dominated by people who can spend more time on the game than others, as at any other server. I believe that solution when there's no such equipment makes the right balance. And, well, go and try gatlings, they are pretty superior.

ZC system already being reworked as we know.

Faction system looks as a problem in case of inability players to create own balance. We meet situations when we have more than 20 people online ready for zone control, but there's no enemy willing to come. I expect enemy to have the same situation.

[ZwierQ]

For me the best balance example is rock, scissor and paper

Literally the worst thing that can happen to any server . Every pvp will be the same. (Every server with uber-terminator-like perks has this).

Now it is always the same, not even situational. Camping on zc or be as tough as you can with the biggest possible dps (bg, low agi, high str and endu) on small pvp.

Just make charisma useful just for followers

What will this change? Leader sitting in some toilet on the map? Will stay the same.

I don't mean followers as a players. Some NPC followers as dogs or ponys (we have to many horse lovers here).

100-120 caps in each, it won't hurt anybody

Except it will destroy one of the reasons to pvp. 'Dis for fun, right? What's the fun in it, if your enemy will just "brush" his death off with literally 1 minute core-scavenging and reclaiming whole set of his gear back with caps? Besides it'd kill assignment mechanic (since you won't need it anymore, if you will be able to get shit ton of money\xp\rep in the core, without losing anything).

So it's basicly better for gameplay if he have to do 2 assignments instead of core run?

[Myakot]

@paragon
I wasn't reffering to T3 as a "gear-with-which-you-can-pwn-stuff", but to a something that is "desirable" to acquire. Currently almost everything could be considered trash, since you can farm it in less than an hour.

So it's basicly better for gameplay if he have to do 2 assignments instead of core run?

So it's basically better to tie entire server economic to the core, which will be camped constantly. Whoever gets in first won't let anyone in, is that what you want? o_0. You will be forced to do assignments one way or another.
The only solution to countering such a situation for a player would be to join the core-controlling faction. Yeah... it'd be sooo much fun, I'm sure every1 would come back to play.

[good guy]

there should be an enemy that will force the factions of phoenix to band together and defeat this new enemy like terminators or zombies something that its not a choice to work together against you have to

[paragon]

I'm sorry, I again posted unfinished message and had to edit it after you answers (my English dictionary key binding sometime causing unwanted "Post" press).

Gatlings is stuff which are desired. I play a lot but do not have them to come with in battles. I actually used only 1 in all time even though I won 50k from GM event, most of the money I spent to obtain more armors (lawyer and randoms from V-tech never seem to have enough of my armors to loot).
RL is stuff which desired, as well as ammo. Same with DSR, PKS, grenades, SS, defibs, drugs, support CAmk3, even usual CAmk3.
I don't like farming at all, that's why I really love arena mechanics of this server, but still I and many-many other players do not have the best equipment all the time. V-tech randoms still coming with AK-47 at the ZC, I believe it actually hamster mindset, but even experienced players and bands are not fully geared.
So please, do not say that making people farm to be equipped will make the game better. E.g. I personally would probably have to play only until I run out of caps and then I will leave in need of boring farming. (which may happen in one week of lawyers war supremacy) [Also I mean, look at counter-strike. No farming and tons of people are playing it, right?]

As I see it the ability to be in PvP all time you play would be the best way to save players base who came to the server because they actually find its uniqueness compared to others. So faction system could be reworked in some way to let people from one faction to fight each over as well.

Now it is always the same, not even situational. Camping on zc or be as tough as you can with the biggest possible dps (bg, low agi, high str and endu) on small pvp.

Damage per seconds directly depends on Agility, and completely independent from Endurance and Strength (I could be wrong about strength because don't know actual bullet in burst CTH mechanic).
You say that everyone at ZC (or small pvp) has BG? I think you don't play the same game we do.
Also followers... kill PvP, and many people will give you own experience about it.

[Myakot]

@paragon Yeah, you're probably right about that.
It's just my mindset then. Defeating someone in this game is fun and all, but defeating someone on an FOnline server, where you had to not just "lvl" your char up, but freaking "grow" them (getting to cap is the easiest part is what I mean.), AND gearing them up was way more... "enjoyable" for me? I guess?
I'll try to explain it on this example:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I earn like 500-700 rubles per 1.5 hour via simply being a tutor. Also I work in a bookstore, where my salary is close to 70-80 rubles per hour.
The difference is astonishing, and so is the difficulty, inside out. Managing a whole shop by yourself is hundred times harder than teaching someone. So it comes that "strange" way, that all those "easy money" I spend on everyday stuff, like rent\food\clothes, something I never even try to remember. On the other hand every single "memorable" things were bought from those "not so hard, but not that easy" money, which makes me take care of those things much more, than it would've been otherwise.

That's how I feel about grinding gear for weeks, months, and then losing it all in a span of a minute , shit's thrilling.

[paragon]

Well.. you may try to get level 60 or about that for the beginning, so you max out SG, BG and EW in the same time, it will give you great advantage of being really universal at the battle field. And should take you couple more months to accomplish (if you still want to continue working IRL xD)

[ZwierQ]

meta and some changes almost forced us to play as tanky as we can with big guns for damage

Never said that everyone do this, just want to say that everything looks like some people will to make it the most succesful build atm. I think that high agi helps too but not as much as being tanky. Bonus ap regen won't help you too much when someone turn off your base ap regen shooting to you or forced you to run away.

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Some people stopped playing Fonline due to this 4 faction system. They're forced to play with complete noobs and if not a lot of people in their faction on,they can't do anything.  Some just want to PvP but can't.  I say there would've be a lot more players if it were something with towns /TC/random encounters /something like the other Fonlines.

I dsagree.
The four-faction system is actually the best innovation of AoP.
1. It makes people socialize, a must-have in MMORPGs.
2. In old FOnlines, a serious problem is that everyone can be friend or enemy until you know them. Appropriate, but bad for mechanics because it leads to Prisoner's Dilemma, and it usually ends with someone being killed.
In AoP, its much easier: Everyone with a different colour is the enemy. So something like 1/4 of the server is on your side, which is a huge improvement over the old FOnlines where 98% of players are possible enemies.
3. It encourages co-operation. Things like donations to noobs, gambling in base, etc. Faction Chat also makes it much less annoying to talk to your fellow faction mates than using IRC or a radio, even if faction chat is full of spies (which adds a interesting factor) and important info is only said on squad chat or TS.
4. It ends the old annoying PK/APK shitfight that destroyed FOnline 2238.
5. It provides easier storing of goods.

If your faction is full of noobs, then find non-noobs, foster those noobs into non-noobs (what we did at The Family) or get another faction (what the former Lidae's Lightbringers did).

[Deathproof]

I think its mostly lack of things to do that made people leave. In other fo's you got enough locations and pve so even if not many players are online you can do something. (At first I loved this one town coz it was much easier to find people, just to be surprised about drop on server and people doing assignments in base meh...)

This game has so much potential, adding more things in future will probably make it high on fo list. Reworked AP system along with gun/armor perks made this fo's mechanics better than any other, but lack of things made a lot of people leave. Which usually makes a problem even bigger - no one to fight means more people will leave.

But in general this server is practically just born, so there is time for it to shine.

Nerfs and some other things,even if badly done, didn't really have a big impact on things.

4. It ends the old annoying PK/APK shitfight that destroyed FOnline 2238.

kek

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I always thought that the problem of the old FOnlines is that they used the existing world and mechanics to build upon a MMORPG. AoP did the inverse - They built the the mechanics and world to make a MMORPG. The setup is simple, easily-understandable and brillant - Four factions fighting upon the rich ruins of a pre-war city.

I don't think the problem is that the game is hard. Other FOnline severs are way harsher, loot is hard come easy go. In AoP, loot is easy comes easy goes, which is much more balanced and less exploitable. It also is even better that most fights are in the Core and loot after death remains in the core, so rather than dying in a random encounters and having your laser fall into the worldmap vacuum never to be recovered, you can go back and take your laser if you wish.

What we need is more stuff to do. The main things to do atm are Assigs (can't type assignment without 'ass')
Core Run (I enjoy going on a core run, shooting critters with TL1 weaponry, scaving and trying to avoid PKs),
PvP hunting (fun, but carebears are getting too cowardly to enter the Core lately),
ZC (hellafun but needs more people and more rewards. I miss the times I could long on a weekend and ZC all day until I was down to TL1 gear and fifty caps) and Dungeons (of which there's only one).

But then again, this server is on its beginnings, the devs just finished swimming through a ocean of bugs and even then we had around two months full of people.

[RazorRamon]

Just throwing out some opinions as to why i think the game is emptier right now than it really should be:

- Quests not taking place in the core:
Assignments have gotten old really quick, nobody i know does them anymore so whenever there's no ZC going on, most people will just log off. Having the higher tier quests take place in the form of "kill super mutants in the hospital" or "kill opposing faction patrols", "fetch item x from zone z" etc etc might help to remedy that. The lower tier assignments can stay as they are to still give broke players a chance to slowly re-gear without taking too much of a risk.

- Lack of ZC rewards:
The caps you get are quite low, the experience and reputation are kinda redundant, someone still in the levelling process is better off doing assignments or something else and those that perform well in ZC dont need xp and reputation anymore.
As for items, there's no unique rewards from ZC that can't be gotten somewhere else. (Legendary weapons aside, but none of these even popped up in the past two weeks)

- ZC imbalance:
If you come to a zone control and face odds the likes of 6vs20, chances are you're gonna be really demotivated after your first loss and just call it a day then. That's 6 players less on the server. But wait, the 20 players on the other faction also can't really do anything since they need an opponent to be able to fight. So in turn, they will go offline too.
There needs to be some sort of dynamic balancing during ZC that gives a severely outnumbered team a fighting chance. Maybe through spawning of additional patrols or stat buffs. Either way, it's really tough to think of a mechanic that is fair to both sides of the battle involved and cant be abused.

[Myakot]

a mechanic that is fair ; and cant be abused.

Are you sure you're talking about FOnline here? .
That would be ideal, but ideal takes time, lots of it.

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

Some people stopped playing Fonline due to this 4 faction system. They're forced to play with complete noobs and if not a lot of people in their faction on,they can't do anything.  Some just want to PvP but can't.  I say there would've be a lot more players if it were something with towns /TC/random encounters /something like the other Fonlines.

I dsagree.
The four-faction system is actually the best innovation of AoP.
1. It makes people socialize, a must-have in MMORPGs.
2. In old FOnlines, a serious problem is that everyone can be friend or enemy until you know them. Appropriate, but bad for mechanics because it leads to Prisoner's Dilemma, and it usually ends with someone being killed.
In AoP, its much easier: Everyone with a different colour is the enemy. So something like 1/4 of the server is on your side, which is a huge improvement over the old FOnlines where 98% of players are possible enemies.
3. It encourages co-operation. Things like donations to noobs, gambling in base, etc. Faction Chat also makes it much less annoying to talk to your fellow faction mates than using IRC or a radio, even if faction chat is full of spies (which adds a interesting factor) and important info is only said on squad chat or TS.
4. It ends the old annoying PK/APK shitfight that destroyed FOnline 2238.
5. It provides easier storing of goods.

If your faction is full of noobs, then find non-noobs, foster those noobs into non-noobs (what we did at The Family) or get another faction (what the former Lidae's Lightbringers did).

Vtec not full of noobs, I'd say 15% of them are beginners.

1- people already socialize on forums and some through irc, that's enough IMO.
2- wtf, finding out if someone is friend or enemy is the best part of fonline. Sadly it was taken away due to the teamkilling situation and makes everyone not in your faction an enemy. I still have yet to see family ally with anyone else from.another faction.
3-what you listed is roleplaying, I forget that some of you are from Gayonline2.
4- PK /APK, lol something I haven't heard in a while.  Everyone says killed nowadays. "Hey that Guy killed me!"
5- what, a 6 tents/personal base wasn't enough for you?

I would really love to know why like 150 players stopped playing.  I still blame the 4 faction system. What could've been if it was something different. BBS fighting Russians then gets backstabbed by other Russians then pistoleros/amboy dukes come and wipe the city of Tuscon clean, making it ours . PvP in the city of Phoenix non stop.

[Deathproof]

Well until PvE develops further for people focused on such thing, there could be base for independent characters, place to craft/buy stuff. This would allow some freedom, either to clans from other fo's or regular independent players.

Also maybe adding more "towns/villages"(You could use pre existing maps from fallout with minor changes, hell not even that just give them different name) which would be seen on the map by everyone , where you could scavenge. It would give people encouragement to not be afraid of scavenging because more places we have, bigger chance of survival. (Honestly, our big town is enough, but maybe people rather do assignments cause they're afraid to be killed, so this would help)


Idea for assignment/pvp related - bounty office lays out names of enemy faction players who killed the most players from your faction(something like top 3 or 5 from other factions) - when you manage to kill them you got caps + fame.

[mAdman]

Just throwing out some opinions as to why i think the game is emptier right now than it really should be:

- Quests not taking place in the core:
Assignments have gotten old really quick, nobody i know does them anymore so whenever there's no ZC going on, most people will just log off. Having the higher tier quests take place in the form of "kill super mutants in the hospital" or "kill opposing faction patrols", "fetch item x from zone z" etc etc might help to remedy that. The lower tier assignments can stay as they are to still give broke players a chance to slowly re-gear without taking too much of a risk.

- Lack of ZC rewards:
The caps you get are quite low, the experience and reputation are kinda redundant, someone still in the levelling process is better off doing assignments or something else and those that perform well in ZC dont need xp and reputation anymore.
As for items, there's no unique rewards from ZC that can't be gotten somewhere else. (Legendary weapons aside, but none of these even popped up in the past two weeks)

- ZC imbalance:
If you come to a zone control and face odds the likes of 6vs20, chances are you're gonna be really demotivated after your first loss and just call it a day then. That's 6 players less on the server. But wait, the 20 players on the other faction also can't really do anything since they need an opponent to be able to fight. So in turn, they will go offline too.
There needs to be some sort of dynamic balancing during ZC that gives a severely outnumbered team a fighting chance. Maybe through spawning of additional patrols or stat buffs. Either way, it's really tough to think of a mechanic that is fair to both sides of the battle involved and cant be abused.

I can agree with all of that, especially the last part about teams getting rolled and just logging off in response, I've personally seen situations where we were successful for a couple of hours, then in the first real fight that we actually lose, everyone loses heart and the group disbands to do their own thing, instead of regrouping or trying to recruit more, though that's not to say regrouping for ZC never happens, but it is far less likely to happen if the group that gets beaten was smaller or less organized than the winner.

Boosting the reward for groups who get slaughtered (6v20 for example) somehow would be a great way to make people want to fight, even against horrible odds, as it is, if you participate in ZC but your team gets destroyed, you get close to nothing out of it, aside from humiliation, and you not only lose gear but donate it to the party who wins, and likely gets a lot of caps and XP from the ZC reward too.

I know "the losers" shouldn't be paid out or given tonnes of praise, but maybe high XP amounts at least would make groups that were butchered mercilessly actually want to regroup, and also help to level up the players who are getting slaughtered.