Reon

A hide skill would be fine...what would seal the deal for me is too see the scout loose hack and gain a debuff and some sort of evasion skill(or to make afterburn a bit faster or allow afterburn to be used with nullfactor field). Perhaps instead of the ability to create a decoy or hide, they could get a skill besides afterburn that actually worked like afterburners on a jet engine, and would allow them to thrust away instantly at very high speeds for a few seconds to escape danger. I really do not see a need for more DPS on a TS...they do more damage than they were intended to, they are just behind a PS(as they should be). What scouts really need is just a little bit more of a group speed buff and an offensive debuff(or defensive group buff) to make them worth having in a group. Some sort of a hide skill is great, but don't expect that to help you find a group. Being able to make your teammates fly a bit faster than the current afterburn allows for, and being able to hull patch as well as give them a good buff, or perhaps strip an enemy mobs resistance to all damage types would suddenly make you able to pull your own weight.

here is a thought. after the game is in final beta, and things are nicely ironed out and the devs are set on class skills, balance, and most of the pressing issues, and they turn their eyes to balancing PVP, we all gank eachother in the arena and provide the devs with much needed info so skills can be balanced in pvp. The best way to do this is to split the damage types if possible, in otherwords, do what EQ2 did. start out with allowing players to have consenual duals in an arena. Develop two seperate damage systems, one for player vs player, one for mob...that will keep skills from getting nerfed to oblivion and being useless in PVE because players are getting raped by said skills. Once skills and damage are monkeyed with on the PVP side so it has some sort of balance, turn attention outside of the arena. The next thing to do is include pvp sectors. The devs could start with areas where the PVP is faction VS faction(think of the areas of high tension around 61 cygni for example). These sectors that are PVP oriented should not have low level mission updates in them, and there should be a warning message on the gate to alert any noobs they could get raped by gating to the pvp sector. As the PVP system is polished, a "flagging" system could be implimented to allow people to participate in PVP should they choose in any sector of space, and the consequences for winning and loosing and any faction adjustments can be determined at the time of implimentation. I think full on pvp all the time for a PVE game is a bad idea, and having a seperate PVP server will split up a small community...I think through time, and carefull implimentation, we could see a balanced PVP sect roaming around on a standard PVE server. With all that being said, I will be happy just to see this game released as it was around the time of sunsent...the arena will be enough to last me until the devs have the time to work on something a bit more complex.

On the subject of a psionic ward for the JS, the skill I am proposing is not a redundant copy of the JD skill...I am talking about a short term ward that will prevent damage for a few seconds, without stripping/replacing a standard psionic shield. The skill would provide a very usefull means of preventing spike damage, and in most MMO's, wards do not generate the same aggro that a full on heal does. The skill could provide more hit points than a standard JD psionic shield, but would only last a few seconds and would not over ride the JD psi shield(to keep things balanced and fair). That skill combined with the reactor optimisation would keep the class from being redundant, and very usefull on raids. If enrage is fixed eventually, aggro will be a small concern, and the JS has cloak and a low signature, and healers and tanks worth their salt will be able to cope with the lower shields(especially when they would be a secondary healer in the MT group or a solo healer in a non target group). If the enrage skill is working properly, a main tank group would most likely consist of one TT, one JS, one TS, at least 1 JE and tank. If the PP had a nice buff and debuff skill such as the Dispel that was mentioned, it would be perfect for the off tank group, or in support of a TT in the main tank group. If the TS had a nice debuff skill, combined with its entry level hull patch and afterburn it would be wanted in the MT and possibly OT groups. Suddenly it would be worth having the least played classes in for a group or raid. The Seeker is a tradesman and a healer...just as the TT and PP. I am not saying tradesman can't debuff, I just would expect Dispel to be found on a DPS healer like a PP, not on a more defensive vessel. The enrage skill never worked like a proper "taunt", it never controlled aggro, so I would say fix that rather than try to find a healer a different role because trying to heal would pull too much aggro. A "cure" that you describe like dispel would fit fine on the seeker, but a heal seems to fit lore quite a bit better. The Jenquai seem to be more about enlightenment and preserving life rather than taking it, and while a cure can fit that role, I would expect to see them with a version of a skill the original devs had in mind for the class. Frankly, the JS does not have DPS, so it will not be picked over a PP, and without shield charge and hull patch it can not heal as well as a TT. So to be viable in a group, especially if it is the lone healer, it will need to compensate for its level 8 shields...and while curing a debuff would help, it won't keep you alive too long against hard encounters...a short term ward would allow for that...and while it would not replace TT's, it could at least be a good option for a solo healer in a group, because right now she is the last pick of healers for groups, and I don't think a cure will fix that issue. Now, onto the support for multiple groups and playability concerns. The psionic ward and shield recharge should work out of group, so no concern with raiding. As far as grouping, you can add 4 guns worth of DPS and heal. Combine that with the seekers reactor buff and that seems balanced. For soloability, if the PP was to get a debuff instead of menace or something, it will still balance out...the PP will kill things quickly, but can run out of power doing so. The JS will now have an instant spike damage ward, as well as reactor optimisation to keep on using that and shield recharge. The kills will take a bit longer due to a missing gun and debuff, but because of better healing,stealth, and cloaking...survival will be ten times better on the JS. The TT will still be balanced as well, because the DPS will be on par, and she still has shield charging, hull patch, and plenty of speed. In summary, I am suggesting a large, low aggro, short term ward that at max level could hit your group or any nearby friendlys for a few seconds. Not the same old skill the JD has. It is close, and I would assume something like what the westwood devs may have wanted the seeker to have(it doesn't make sense for two classes that would often group together to have the same non stacking psi shield). I do not think switching build skills will make or break the 3 new classes...I think making them balanced and useful in groups/raids will determine if they are worth playing.

dispel or a cure is a great plan, but here is my thought on it...cures are great, but wasn't the JS class supposed to have PSI shield from the start? I would imagine with Jenquai lore that they would be a bit more about the ability to use their mental powers to create a barrier rather than remove hostile effects. I am in total agreement that a cure makes way more sense than a DPS or debuff ability, and honestly I would love to see it on them, but I still think that a ward makes more sense...Privateers are more offensively geared, so seeing the privateer loose menace and gain a offensive and defensive skill like the one you described makes perfect sense to me. What would seem to be a nice balance in the end would be something like this: Terran Tradesman: Shield Recharge, Hull Patch, Shield Charge Jenquai Seeker: Shield Reharge and Psionic Ward Progen Privateer: Shield Recharge and Dispel After all skills are working in game, especially Enrage, in a group or raid situation, you would have a choice of an all around meat and potatos healer like the TT, a more DPS oriented healer like the PP, or a more defensive healer like the JS. In a raid situation, you would simply add a Scout to the group for the hull patch ability and run with a TT. This mix of healer skills would allow the JS and the PP to be usefull in groups and raids, while not making the TT or any other class worthless. I think it is great that the TT be the standard healer, but the other trade classes should be able to heal high level encounters without back up...at least in certain situations they should be able to at least do a decent job. Should the JS and PP become viable healers, then suddenly the Scout has a use for its hull patch and will be a welcome addition to groups...especially if the Devs gave the Scout a mob debuff(something like -30 to all resists to an enemy). While the Dispel skill is useful and I agree it should find its way in game, the cure group and remove benificial buffs from enemy mobs sounds more combat oriented and would seem to be a better fit than menace for the Privateer. A Psionic HOT or Ward seems to be a better match for the Seeker, or at least the game creators must have thought so looking at the class description.

I am still a fan of this class getting something more in the way of a heal. You could give them crowd control, but there are already many classes that have menace, grav link, fold space, summon, ect. You could give them a debuff, but honestly, the Scout needs a debuff more, as it seems to be an explorers job to provide the buffs/debuffs(if we are going by a standard model anyway). You could add another buff, and while something like a group wide weapons buff as others suggested would be great, I think that should be low priority at the moment, and I do not think it would really make them increadibly usefull. Face it, when setting up a group, a person sets up for balance, and a Seeker has to be able to fill the healer or back up healer role. With no hull patch, they really need to be good at keeping shields up, otherwise, you will bring a TS because of the shield cap increase and hull patch, or you would bring a privateer for more DPS and longer range than the JS. So, my suggestion is (and has been) to give the JS a quick emergency ward to deal with spike damage. This "Psionic ward" would be a fast cast (0 to 2 seconds) small cap psi shield that was short duration (less than 15 seconds), with the main goal of stabilizing incoming damage, allowing for the longer 4 second heal to be used. The ward would not remove the JD's psi shield, and could be single target at low level and affect nearby group/raid members or friendlies at max level. The skill could either be lower hit points with a longer duration(near the 15 second mark) with no recast time, or it could be a massive hit point ward many times what a JD's psi shield is, however, it would be a shorter duration(maybe 5 seconds) with a recast time of a minute or more. This would make the skill either be a constant help in dealing with normal damage, or if the Devs chose to make it higher cap with less cast time and duration, it could be an emergency skill for dealing with spike damage. A psionic ward skill would give the JS the psi shield everyone expected them to have, without creating major balance issues, and giving them a better reason to be on a raid rather than DPS. Without hull patch and a way to increase shield cap, they will not take the place of the TT, and without DPS they will not be chosen over a PP. Instead, when a raid leader is building a group, if given reason to, he or she would set a group up with a TS and either a JS or PP, depending on if more defense or offense is needed...if mobs hit hard, a TT would be grouped with them. I think the raid setup could change alot once mobs skills and damage output are fully functional, especially if enrage skill is functional...because then we would see the need for a "Main Tank" group, and more than one healer would be required in the group, so why not build the JS and PP to fill that role that will eventually be created? To keep things fair, I would not increase the JS dps by that much, and if you do, perhaps it could be something as simple as a small groupwide dps buff that will keep the seeker from being overpowered with the inclusion of a ward to their skill lists. Also, I know there is talk of missles for the JS...i suppose that would help a bit, but even something as simple as a couple pieces of gear that would improve projectile damage and range that a seeker could use would be of great help. If slow kills while leveling are a concern, you could always try allowing an increase in weapon slots at lower hull upgrades to make for faster progression while not increasing the total weapon slots allowed(4 should be plenty, that is the same as the TT). Perhaps making a device that increases projectile range and damage from the seeker level 35 hull upgrade mission, that alone would give the JS a viable ranged weapon. I just do not see a Jenquai tradesman posessing critical targeting or massive offensive powers. Maybe I am too stuck in lore...I just see them more as using technology in an often passive way to ensure their survival, and a ward lines up with this more than some form of damage skill. A little more DPS is fine, especially if it is group wide, but it should be kept within reason because the warrior tradesman, the Privateer, should be the end all in DPS. A Psionic Ward would allow for better survivability when soloing, a reason for inclusion into groups and raids, and would give them just enough of an edge to make them worth playing, while not making them overpowered(if done properly...no instant cast, 50 second, 10 million hit point wards please). The ward could also be as simple as improved shield recharge in combat by a very large percentage to allow for a massive heal over time for a short duration. Either way, balancing classes is tricky, but in keeping with the themes of each race, it only seems right for the JS to have great survival skills but not be very great at dealing damage...a new type of ward or heal over time seems to be a good fit. EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text and poor spelling

nah, I would say skip the trifid if you are jenpie. According to the DB, the lvl 8 trifid decreases sig by 45%, and has a base sig of 800....combine that with the base ship sig of the defender, and you end up with a higher sig than what it would be with the SS(provided I did my math correctly, running on 1 hour of sleep). I suspect either something is wonky with his solar sails(maybe un installing and re installing will fix it), or he has a piece of gear increasing his base sig. Also if you are playing a JD as your info says, pick up a Musca device...activatable device starting at level 3 and gives 25% less radar footprint.

Scout: I like the TS, but it is lacking end game...it is out dps'd by most other classes and can bring only a little to the raid table. I like the current skill set, but hacking is not very useful in raids/groups when a TE is present. Making afterburn more usefull would be great. Perhaps increase group speed more and offering a better warp engage and cool down. Whatever skills are added, they need to be added carefully, we do not want to make other classes less viable, only make it worth having a TS on a raid. As a support class, I am in favor of a buff/debuff or crowd control ability...crowd control is already taken by the PS and PP(not counting jenquai foldspace and summon)...so that leaves buffs/debuffs. The obvious choices would be a small buff that is too usefull to ignore...something terran in nature...since the TE has a groupwide attack/defense buff, and the TT is set heavy for healing, why not add a group wide buff that increases heal amount or shield capacity? By a small amount of course(5% maybe?)...just enough when coupled with faster warp times and much faster speed would make them wanted in the tank group of a raid. The other option would be a debuff...small enough not to ruin balance, large enough to make them usefull...perhaps a short duration debuff that when used will lower the mobs damage output, or decrease the mobs damage resists by 20 points to all damage. Seeker: I like the seeker, but I never play one...because they are just so useless...and looking over server stats, everyone else agrees. They need more...of something...anything. Reactor optimisation is great, but it doesn't seem to be enough to reserve them a place in a raid. The idea of allowing them to use missles is great...either that or allow them a device at lower levels that increases projectile range so one of their few weapons slots isn't taken by a beam weapon just to allow them the range to be able to join a progen reverse kiting group. Perhaps a damage skill would be great, crit targeting 3 or 4 would be great, but would be too much to ask for. Maybe giving them a debuff of some kind would be nice, but what I think would be much better would be not worrying about outgoing DPS as much as the ability to deal with incomming DPS. My suggestion? A spike damage ward. Give the JS Psi shield back...but a modified version. A short cast (roughly 1 to 2.5 second cast time) low capacity psi shield, able to absorb a couple of hits from a level appropriate mob. All of the shield recharges are a very long cast time, and no way to deal with spike damage other than big PW's with hull damage control, making JD's and often TE's a poor choice for tanking...and when dealing with lower geared players, a group can turn into a nightmare when no one has decent shields because of the long cast times...this skill would start out as a single target psi shield with half the hit points of a normal JD psi shield, and could eventually turn into a group psi shield at lvl 7. It would stack with the JD's psi shield(we don't want to make JD's less useful), and would expire a few seconds after cast...it would stay up long enough for the Seeker to cast a single target or group heal, so maybe a 5 to 15 second duration, and just enough hit points to perhaps keep someone alive while casting that heal. More DPS on the seeker is fine, but I think a quick cast, very short duration psi ward would be far more usefull, and would be powerful enough to make them worth taking on a raid, but due to their being low DPS and squishy, they would not be a replacement for a PP, and without hullpatch TT's would still be the meat and potatos healer. In summary, a debuff or buff for the Scout(as well as a slightly better afterburn), and a short term small type of psionic ward for the Seeker!

Thank you! Good to know it is not something on my end at this point, because I am about out of ideas on what to try next Thank you devs for your time and effort in solving this problem and working to make this emulator in the first place

I have been plagued with problems trying to get ENB working again, tried a full re-install multiple times, even did a complete system format... finally arrived to this point. I have the same error, and no, deleting the cdata file and trying to update again did not fix it. after weeks of fighting with it and spending 7 hours reformatting my computering and getting it back to where it was before formatting, I am about ready to give up on the game for a while.

I know wipes drive players off and everything, but, this is a stress test...I am happy to be playing at all. once a live beta starts, I expect to see more progress and even though wipes suck, it is to be expected a little bit...I mean, this is a donate basis, and an unfinished project as well. I am sure even though some people have left due to wipes, we will get a good portion of them back once it goes live. not to suck up, but thank you to the people working on the project p.s. a date would be really awesome...I for one would LOVE to know if/when the sky is falling so I know when to pack my towel.

i think replacing hacking is a great idea...but giving them a buff would be a better idea than crit targeting. the buff wouldnt have to be huge or amazing, just enough to make it worth having them around. When the game was live, there were not a ton of sentinals and explorers getting into raids that i saw, the redeeming quality was jumpstart and if you were a JE you became a portable battery. everyone i ask says a TS is almost useless at high levels, which sucks, because they combine my favorite passtimes...JS'ing people, going fast while firing missles, and prospect. In live my mains were a TE and JE, so the TS seems like an obvious choice, but until they are a little more usefull, the TS is a back burner project.

server go boom?

well, while it would really be nice to have someone to group with now and then, I am not going to make a move to the bigger guilds. the current problem is officers are rarely on so recruitment is at a stand still. With no new recruits to take the place of the people that went inactive or switched guilds, it has become a bit desolate. I finally posted here to hopefully have some affirmation on what happened and why. Myself and my wife and daughter currently play, my daughter isn't in guild 'cause I haven't seen an officer online to recruit her lately. I played in FF when game was live, and it was very busy and bustling...I would like to see it at least have a group or two worth of active players at some point. I will just quietly hang back and level up my characters in the hope the original group makes a comeback and a push to be a strong guild again

I am not too clear on what happened, but most of FF kind of seems to have fallen apart. I maybe see one person on a day...I have seen former members of FF in other guilds. Supposedly most of the leadership quit logging in and over the last few months people have been leaving guild or quit playing. Kind of a ghost town these days.

Excellent work devs! My hat is off yet again! Thank you for the constant improvement of the coding!

well then, never mind that, lol. Either way, server is up, just use caution. I kept logging out to make sure everything was saved. after a couple of attempts I manged to get it to save my combat level I just dinged, so I will probably wait till the issue is ironed out before I start trying to grind out some levels.

I am assuming they fixed the problem, the launcher just did an update and I am showing 250 people online...I will know in a minute... EDIT: the server is online, and seems stable, however character saving is still a bit glitchy, so stop every so often, log out and make sure what you are working on is saving. I would advise against any major raids at this point cause it would suck to get an awesome item and loose it after you log out.

boom...nah, the reason it crashed was because me and my groupmate were both about to ding a combat level...as we both opened fire on the mob that would ding us both, we did the lovely deathswirl...I watched my TE circle the drain for a couple minutes before closing the client. I bet that hippo caught us by now...

well, I should have clarified...it was rare that I was invited to a raid where I wasn't on the sidelines out of group passing out jumpstarts. Yes, on some BBW raids the reactor transfer was useful when dealing with EMP equipped mobs, but that seemed to be the extent. I know that you can find a use for any class on raids....for example the TS can hull patch, use all sorts of useful devices, and jumpstart just to name a few features. However, anyone I talk to says that the class is pretty much useless in raids or serious grouping. Maybe I am completely off base, and every raid leader will want a full and balanced set up, but I didn't get the impression that support classes other than TT's and an ungrouped explorer class to jumpstart would be in great demand. so this thread is to discuss if people feel that everything is fine as is, or if there are ways to make support classes possibly more useful in a raid.

Ok, so here is something that may have not been covered, so I figured I would post it and open a discussion. I know that there is still so much to work on, so bear in mind that this is for future plans after a full beta version is released. I did not do much raiding when the game was live even though I was in Merchant Marines and Freedom Fighters...the reason being I played a JE for most of the time the game was live, and their usefulness is limited on a raid. I do remember that in groups and raids that the skill Enrage didn't do very much, and raids consisted of PW's and TE's blasting away and taking turns stealing aggro and backing out when the damage was too much to take. In other MMO's I have played the raids are MUCH more technical, requiring a good balance of DPS classes, support classes, a couple good "tanks", and a balanced group of healers. However, in those games, the mobs aggro is far more controllable, and the encounters are set up so that without a properly balanced group the encounter cannot be defeated. I guess the question I want to pose to the players and dev's is if raids will be kept identical as they were in live, making everything but the best healers and the best dps warrior classes useless, or if given the chance will the emu attempt to "fix" raids to make JE's, TS', PS', PP's, JD's and JS's more valuable in raids. Even if some minor alterations were made to make enrage a fully working skill and make the skills and device buffs and de-buffs other classes have useful in raid encounters would make raids more balanced and make other classes besides the TT, TE, and PW actually worth bringing to a raid. This issue is something that isn't of dire importance, but I figured the discussion should at least be brought up so that developers and the community could discuss in the months prior to even a beta release of the emulator. I guess it would be nice to see buffs and de-buffs that made enough of a difference that even the weaker "scout classes" would be a valuable asset to a hunting party or raid.

hey, can I ask a question? Is it true that the character profiles are kept on a separate server? I have been scared to work much on leveling in case of a roll back whenever there are major hiccups on the stress test server. P.S. Thank you dev team for the progress on this project!

Well, lately there has been issues on the play server with items and sometimes entire vaults missing. I know loosing stuff sux, but remember this is a stress test and not even a beta...and whats more its being put together by people working on the emu in their spare time. I would say lets wait for an explanation before getting too upset. The fact that some people still have the items in question make me think its more of a mistake and less of an intentional deletion, but who knows for sure until we get the full story.

Well, kiting is more challenging now than it was live. I remember kiting mobs through an entire sector on my TE, and watching merchant princes using kiting to solo very hard vrix mobs that should have taken a group. the mobs still have a huge tether point compared to most other MMO's. I think the current setup is fine, however, at lower levels I would lower the mobs speed...I don't know about high levels since me and elurai haven't leveled that high yet. As long as at max level its possible to kite most mobs from 5k-7k away while backing up with projectiles, I wouldn't change much. Kiting with projectiles was a standard practice in live, beams not so much. I remember when I played my JE live I either used projectiles and a range increase weapon, of if there was a JD, me and the JD would break off and attack the mob from behind with the progens and terrans kited the mob. Either way, me and el rolled a jenquai team and a progen/terran team. Her JS and my JD are way overpowered using combat cloak and my psi shield and her shield and reactor recharge. On our other set, I use my TE to pull in the mobs, and we back up as the mobs pull into her PP's projectiles range. We can't fully kite mobs that way, but we can stay out of beam range with the use of max level cats paw and engines available at our level. I would say it is fine for now and any tweaks that need to be made will happen over the course of the stress test and when we finally get to the beta.

boy, I hope so.. me and elurai just got our hull upgrades yesterday...the server was working fine till it dropped. When it came back up and we logged in, El was having all kinds of issues with lag, invisible mobs, targeting issues, and skills not going through. We just decided to sit it out until server was fixed.

I was able to log in just long enough to pick up an explore job and get stuck in slayton...no level for me tonight...oh well.