Zenshai Beams

[TigerByte]

Hi Guys,

i just thought i'll make a poll of this in the case the Zenshai Beams (no matter what lvl) ever did suck on damage so they went kinda useless. Would be a shame to keep the line EA did on them. Actually, at 100% (only the lvl6 can be re-made to 200%), they just do a lil bit more damage as their couterparts but one lvl below, i.e. using a lvl5 zenshai, that one does just a bit more then the a equal lvl4 beam.

So in my opinion they could use a overwork to do more damage so they will have a chance at least to get in usage AND from me myself, they should do a good bunch more damage in case they're kinda artifactial.

- they cant be mantufactured so neither mapped of weapons builders

- they drop in sertain lvls of zenshai only

- they have a unique look and fire sound

- the totally amazing fire rate at 1.5 sec

- the small cap useage of them

i think, it would be a shame, just to leave it as it is. they really need to get intressting to the beam using classes. maybe, if they get more intressting, the drop chance of them will be decreased. at the very right moment they dropp like hell but at the actual state of them they pretty useless.

just to let you think about this: WHO would use a lvl4 beam if a lvl5 can be used?

of course the a re-made lvl6 at 200% should line up with the lvl6 high dps beams as well.

so, what do you guys think about that?

[Tyran]

I agree with this.

But don't forget to say the same with 80% of other weapons that are useless!

Sure each race is meant to excel at one type of weapon. However, the secondary weapons they build only have a novelty value. Take jenquai missiles as an example...

[Suricata79[IS]]

You have to remember that alot of weapon stats are balanced out so some excel in different areas, for example, a weapon with a lower dps may have a better range or lower energy consumption, also weapons that are only obtainavle from mobs are usually better than vender ones, so a player that goes out and buys from other players or explores and finds rarer drops effectly gets rewarded for that (especially for builders going out to aquire rarer recipes). I'venot looked at the shard stats lately, but I doubt we'd be altering the stats of weapons from what they were in live anytime soon.

[TigerByte]

hehehe suri... tell me why i dont wondering about your comment

[Tyran]

You have to remember that alot of weapon stats are balanced out so some excel in different areas, for example, a weapon with a lower dps may have a better range or lower energy consumption, also weapons that are only obtainavle from mobs are usually better than vender ones, so a player that goes out and buys from other players or explores and finds rarer drops effectly gets rewarded for that (especially for builders going out to aquire rarer recipes). I'venot looked at the shard stats lately, but I doubt we'd be altering the stats of weapons from what they were in live anytime soon.

I don't think the 'looted must always have better stats argument' holds well when you consider several things:

A lot of vendor weapons are very expensive to buy and it can be much more cost effective to loot and rebuild your equipment. Based on the assumption that more effort should be rewarded then a lot of vendor equipment should actually have better stats than looted gear.

Most buildable weapons come from vendors resulting in only very few weapons being of use. That is provided they remain unchanged.

Not all vendor equipment sucks. Devices are great from vendors because there is usually no loot-only equivalent. Why should a lot of vendor weapons (& other equipment) have such silly stats that it gives you spinal shivers?

The real reaon behind crap vendor equipment in live was probably due to the rather immense effort required to balance all those weapons which is a delicate task... Something a company who already knew the game was doomed from day one ofcourse did not bother with.

Lastly the most important reason for making vendor equipment usable is giving people a choice what weapons they want to use. In an other word...fun.

[Deroth]

There's a LOT of looted gear for all the races that is non-manu that 'sure would be nice at 200%' but that's not the way they are and for good reason. So unless everybody honestly thinks that ALL gear in the game should be made manufacturable, then this is silly.

Edited June 20, 2010 by Deroth

[Yuritau]

There's a LOT of looted gear for all the races that is non-manu that 'sure would be nice at 200%' but that's not the way they are and for good reason. So unless everybody honestly thinks that ALL gear in the game should be made manufacturable, then this is silly.

Shouldn't even try to make ALL items manufacturable.. but it would be nice if the non-manu items were at the very least as good as the manu items. Case in point, the zenshai beams the OP is talking about, their stats were terrible, and consequently no one ever used them.

[Terrell [BT]]

Shouldn't even try to make ALL items manufacturable.. but it would be nice if the non-manu items were at the very least as good as the manu items. Case in point, the zenshai beams the OP is talking about, their stats were terrible, and consequently no one ever used them.

I agree. If the non-manufacturable stuff is as good as a non-vendor PM item of the same type level, that is a good thing.

[Suricata79[IS]]

Why would players bother gettng PM stuff if all the non-manu stuff you could loot for free was just as good though? PM stuff is meant to be better to encourage people to trade with builders. The only non-manu stuff that should be as good as PM stuff is the raid loot IMHO.

[Lars[IS]]

Hello,

Ok, I guess I will jump in here. If I remember correctlly weren't the Zen beams one of the best in the game in live? Not only do they look the coolest both on your ships but they use to really put out the dammage. I have always argued that fast beams are better then slow beams for several reasons and the Zen Beams where the top of the line for fast firing beams. Now they are a joke and that is to bad. They do half the damage of the blue gaze line which are also drop only, but can be PM. Here is what I purpose for the Zen beams:

1. Give them 2x the damge they are now so that atleast they are useable.

2. Make all of them PM just like the blue gaze line.

3. Lower the drop rate like it was in Live to something like 2%

Just doing those 3 things would bring the Zen beams back to what they were in live and make having them specail again instead of saying, "Crap, another stupid Zen beam"

Merlin

[Terrell [BT]]

Why would players bother gettng PM stuff if all the non-manu stuff you could loot for free was just as good though? PM stuff is meant to be better to encourage people to trade with builders. The only non-manu stuff that should be as good as PM stuff is the raid loot IMHO.

I think it's a matter of having different benefits associated with different equipment choices. Some equipment should be better for some situations, while different equipment being better for others. It's like a player using different damage types on different mobs, after mob resistances are implemented.

Also depending on the equipment in question, it may be easier to simply buy it from a builder. Items should vary in usefulness, but not everyone can have the most uber items (which is how it should be) so the items that are below that in quality should range from it's okay (in slightly disappointed voice), to pretty good.

[Riia [LDEV]]

Hi

I have rechecked the stats on the Zenshai beams and they are correct. I never considered the Zenshai Energy Shard to be an uber beam, nor do I believe anyone else did either.

However, contrary to some posts here, the other Zenshai beams can be manufactured. The Zenshai Energy Motivator line of beams are somewhat better than average and have some nice buffs.

And just so everyone is clear on this, there will be no change to these beams. When we get into balancing the game we will look at it, but don't get your hopes up. They are as they were in Live.

Riia

[Tyran]

Riia,

With respect and I know you mean well, but are you not being a bit punctual with the term 'emulator'?

Emulating the flaws of Live, even at this relatively early stage, means that around 80% of weapons are senseless.

For example, and correct me if the enbarsenal stats are incorrect:

100% L6 'Lion beam' does 20.25dps

200% L6 Zenshai energy shard does 21 dps

Why can one not get their hopes up for a buff to this weapon?

Is it sacrilege to throw the 'Live' stats into question?

I do not understand...

[Riia [LDEV]]

Hi

There are 64 lvl 6 beams in the database. They have stats and buffs or not, making them slightly better than the lvl 5 to slightly worse than lvl 7 beams.

Now some of you don't like the stats on the lvl 5-6 Zenshai Shard beams, so now it should be "improved". Tomorrow someone else will think that the Sundari Pallas beams are under powered, so they should be improved. The next day.....

There are lots of beam choices to use, so I'm not opening the door.

Riia

[TigerByte]

well, thx for the show.

it shows pretty clear its not any longer a open project where players can put their memories of the old live game in neither to make it even better as the orginal wich EA obviously screwed up nor even other devs been heard.

its more about to keep glued to the "database" wich apperantly is kinda outdated anyways because ppl keep asking in chat about stuff wich is been changed about 2 or 3 times already. for example the roid belts been changed of merlin to a total different way and hell, the miners love it now because its way more fun now to mine => totally different to live where most miners just did of their duty. thx again to merlin for all that work and having the nuts to change something what should have been changed long time ago !!!

this is the point i'll definitely wont put anything in anymore and as i guess, a good bunch of other players as well.

its curious because the game wouldnt have beenn brought that far without the memories of the community...

[r8rsfans75]

Wow, haven't been on in a few days, and there is a lot of good discussion here, +1 to Riia, Suricata and Mr Merlin. I think the best thing that has been said so far is what Riia said that there are 64 lvl 6 beams. I believe there are too many other things that need to be accomplished with the emulator before we look at balancing one type of beams against 63 others.

[Riia [LDEV]]

Hi

Here is a screen shot of the lvl 6 Zenshai beam from the live game.

95% of the items (which includes all weapons, devices,loot etc.)were not created by us from memories. The stats on these items were taken from databases created by players while the game was still being played. There are at least 5-6 such databases. We also went thru thousands of screen shots to verify items stats where possible.

There are 64 lvl 6 beams available to be used in the game, whether they are actually all in is a different matter but in time they will be.

Normally for each lvl of beams, they range from slightly better than the previous lvl to slightly poorer than the next lvl. The variety of beams available allows people choices.

I guess this is where we have a difference of opinion. I do not believe every item should be uber. The suggestion that we double the damage on the Zenshai Shards would make the lvl5 equal to a low range lvl6 and the lvl6 equal to a mid-range lvl7 beam. After that, the argument would be that the lvl6-7 beams should now be fixed, then the lvl8, then the lvl9, which now means that all the mobs would have to be redone to try to keep some balance. We still have a lot of work to do, but some of the changes proposed would just double that work.

If you believe an item (weapon, device, reactor etc.) is junk, sell it! You can still get credits and xp.

Riia

[Suricata79[IS]]

I have to aggree with Riia here, its a very slippery slope to go onto when you start 'improving' items to make the game 'more fun'. Everything in the game has knockon effects, you can't just simply change one thing thinking it will have no major impact. For example, if the Zenshai beams were to get thier damage to be doubled, whilst maintaining thier low energy useage, they would be 'the' beams to use, which they never were in live. This in turn would damage the beam builders market for the levels those beams are in, it would also cause choke points of players trying to get those beams as well, since they are loot only. From an Emulator point of view, it also breaks the memories of how the game was for players who remember using thier ocelots and Orion beams. These all seem like minor points, but these are just from one item change, if you apply lots of these little changes accross the entire emulator, all these little changes can result in pretty major changes to how the game plays out, which can eventualy break the playing experiance. For example players been able to take 12 jobs at once, as opposed to the 2 every 5 minutes in live, upto a total of 6, has caused players to be able to hit lvl 150 in a coupel of weeks, and has even caused the behavior of players to lvl thier entire combat up from spillover XP from jobs. This is one relativly small change, that has had drastic effects on the games balance and the way people play.

Ideally, its best to aim to get the game as close to live as possable, once that in achieved, then making minor changes like this can be looked at, but when lots of systems are not properly in place yet, its best to not touch things like this.

[Phorlaug[IS]]

The only reason(s) I can think of why the beaam is as it is, IS.

The graphics would be one reason (they're cool)even when its not firing.

Another reason would be that the low fire power IS NOT an Aggro Grabber

for a lowbie or a healer in a group and they can do some shooting and some

amount of damage and not attract attention to themselves.

I know when I'm being power leveled I feel guilty because i'm not helping

kill something. So you can consider this a psychological weapon for your groupies

Also if I remember correctly an NPC Debuff or skill can be interupted by

your firing or fire power and/or your Debuffs and skills (Hack etc etc....)

Soooo the Quick refire rate of this weapon would help in that respect also. IMO

Phorlaug..