Org Abilities

**SolidRevolver**

Pfft just abolish the Cyphs like they should have been in the origional plan, they have no direction anyway. Get rid of EPN for that matter too, without the Cyphs they will have lost their 'balance' and will seem out of place.
Its all easily done with some Kill-Codes and an angry Intruder SMILEY

Would stop sub-org hopping and allow Rarebit to get more indepth with the 3 main orgs story as he wouldn't have to do worry about the EPN and Cyph events ^^

*isn't serious unless everyone agrees*

>_>
<_<
SMILEY

**Synapse777**

I'd say make these abilities prone to live testing. I know it's cutting to the bone but I don't want to write too much about this but.. simply what players have been looking for, diversity in orgs and their different strengths. Tapping into the Matrix and running them without a tree, now that's new and fresh thinking! Keep, please! Live testing. Live testing. Live.. oh, I said I didn't want to write too much about this SMILEY

**Procurator** · 04/05/2008 16:50:12

SolidRevolver wrote:

Pfft just abolish the Cyphs like they should have been in the origional plan, they have no direction anyway. Get rid of EPN for that matter too, without the Cyphs they will have lost their 'balance' and will seem out of place.
Its all easily done with some Kill-Codes and an angry Intruder
Would stop sub-org hopping and allow Rarebit to get more indepth with the 3 main orgs story as he wouldn't have to do worry about the EPN and Cyph events ^^

Woo, that'd create some serious instability in the Machine org.

Especially on Syntax: the ex-Cypherites would never get invited to events by the liaisons. Eventually, though, I guess it might go back to the way things were, with some factions (I'm thinking Masked Agenda here, if memory serves) openly declaring themselves Cypherites and avoiding the official Machinist stuff.

And, of course, most Cypherites now like to declare that they don't work for anyone, have no leaders. And yet they follow Veil, Cryptos and the liaisons into whatever they plan. SMILEY

**SolidRevolver** · 04/05/2008 17:12:57

Procurator wrote:

Woo, that'd create some serious instability in the Machine org.

Actually, a lot of Cyphs have said they'd go Merv if there was no Cyph option.

But I stray from the point, Org Abilities are full of win and it would be a huge mistake to just leave them to rot away with Zen Master and such SMILEY<img src= " width="15" height="15" />

EDIT: I say 'a lot of Cyphs' but only one I recall has said it, but when you look, a lot of Mervs have gone Cyph on Syntax at least.

**Bayamos** · 04/05/2008 22:14:44

Procurator wrote:

SolidRevolver wrote:

Woo, that'd create some serious instability in the Machine org. Especially on Syntax: the ex-Cypherites would never get invited to events by the liaisons.

You mean the Syntax Mech liaisons would only invite the top of the social hierarchy to events / their secret forum where players could bash the factions who didn't have access? I was under the impression that was already going on. Heck, some 3 year machinists-to-the-core may have gone CYPH solely because of what this essentially amounted to: a blacklist that could only be gotten around if you "knew somebody," essentially sending the message: "These are the machinists the liaisons care about, the rest be damned."

Anyway back on topic, I think as it stands the Merv abilities are way better than the other orgs abilities. Although, in terms of notification if someone had these active, if somehow they were ever implemented.. there is still that ol' Loadout Scanner lying around, if that could be gotten to work :0

**CPT_Starschwar**

Completely and utterly untrue. The syntax machine liasons make themselves available to all machinists.

**ChloeAnn**

SolidRevolver wrote:

Procurator wrote:
Woo, that'd create some serious instability in the Machine org.
Actually, a lot of Cyphs have said they'd go Merv if there was no Cyph option.
But I stray from the point, Org Abilities are full of win and it would be a huge mistake to just leave them to rot away with Zen Master and such " width="15" height="15" />
EDIT: I say 'a lot of Cyphs' but only one I recall has said it, but when you look, a lot of Mervs have gone Cyph on Syntax at least.

I would of stayed Merv if there wasnt Cyphs SMILEY

FrayJack

kou_urake wrote:

Completely and utterly untrue. The syntax machine liasons make themselves available to all machinists.

nah

**Marias**

FrayJack wrote:

kou_urake wrote:
Completely and utterly untrue. The syntax machine liasons make themselves available to all machinists.
nah

Seconded.

**Rarebit** · 04/05/2008 23:15:46

Obviously nobody's going to say they don't want them. Here's more power for free! Who would say no to that? As far as PvE game balance goes, though, they can't be allowed to exist at their current levels. Our poor NPCs already have a hard enough time as it is in CR2.0.

Aside from the PvE and PVP balance issues, and the significant technical issues that would have to be worked out for an org ability system to function within the established parameters of the game, "org abilities" are based around two fundamental design concepts that I don't think are right for the game.

1) Your organization determines your fighting capability.

Organization in MXO is supposed to be an ideological choice. Offering different abilities to different organizations would make it a combat choice, because no matter what you do, different abilities will work better with different loadouts. So you'd have a situation where, for instance, someone dedicated to Zion might feel they have to switch from their favorite loadout because it's no longer optimal for PVP, or someone who only wanted to play a gunman would feel like they'd have to switch orgs, because the abilities of the org they were in weren't as favorable to their fighting style. I don't want that to happen.

2) Your fighting capability is crippled by changing organizations.

Except for EPN<>Zion and Cyph<>Machine, if you switch orgs, you have to re-grind reputation. Currently this restricts your access to the latest critical missions, and to using the org area key, but it doesn't inhibit your fighting prowess. Some people posting here have implied that switching orgs is something we should be trying very hard to prevent, but I don't agree with that. The rep-loss mechanism has already solved the old problem we had with people jumping orgs willy-nilly to get through org barriers and crash events. But there are perfectly valid role-play reasons for wanting to switch organizations long-term that I don't believe should be discouraged. With org abilities tied to high reputation, changing organization would make you stink at PVP, at least until you did a ton of mission grinding.

It seems to me that the long-term effects of the two items above would be to discourage rather than encourage ability loadout and organization choice. I'm not at all interested in doing that. The game's original lead designers did not tie reputation to fighting ability in any way, and I think they had very valid reasons for keeping the two separate.

**Rogue**

Gonna have to agree to disagree with you Rare. I believe it adds some much needed diversity to the orgs. They should be slightly different from a combat perspective honestly. It adds flavor to the game.

Do they need balanced? Yes. But removing all together is like taking 10 steps backwards at this point, even though the step forward was unwanted.

**Rarebit**

Oh, I expect most people posting here will disagree with me.

Zudrag

The only reason I would want these in games is because they would really, really benefit me.

But they'd unbalance PVP and they cause all sorts of problems/are very broken, and have no memory cost. Introducing any new abilities in PVP would greatly upset it's delicate ecosystem of ganking.

Have to go with Rarebit and that one guy who said he didn't want them on this, just too problematic.

**Pylat**

TBH I don't think the abils are linked THAT much to your PvP loadout, I think the abils excel more depending on the PvP situation. The mechs can convert damage to IS, get a trauma surgeon to load that and spam heals, the ability is great if you are getting zerged and shot to crap (Yes, you can start the "lol zerg" jokes if you like). The Zion one just adds a huge bonus to IS regen, get a howitzer to load that and go off with their attacks, it's far more reliable cause you don't have to get shot to get IS back, and works better in 1 on 1 situations. On the flipside a Zionist can buff the damage of all his teammates for a short time (Works good in groups) where a mech can only buff himself (And again needs to be shot for it to work) so with good coordination a Zionist team can basically always have their damage buffed.

Of course if the abils were to be implemented I think icons should be added to the character if they are using them (Like HT suggested), mainly for the sake of duels and tournaments where, yes, your org could make a difference enough to matter to the overall outcome, but in regular PvP I think there won't be THAT much issue with them.

Also, you need to change the % bonuses on the temp activated abils to actual bonuses cause it would be too easy to stack some of them. But yes, I think with work the org abils can be implemented.

**Procurator**

Bayamos wrote:

You mean the Syntax Mech liaisons would only invite the top of the social hierarchy to events / their secret forum where players could bash the factions who didn't have access? I was under the impression that was already going on. Heck, some 3 year machinists-to-the-core may have gone CYPH solely because of what this essentially amounted to: a blacklist that could only be gotten around if you "knew somebody," essentially sending the message: "These are the machinists the liaisons care about, the rest be damned."

Here, listen you. That's not what I meant, as you *CENSORED* well know. The Syntax Machinist liaisons don't like Cypherites - simple as that. So if the Cypherite org meshed into the Machine one, there'd initially be a conflict there. But it would never be allowed to last, if you'd employ some common sense. Either the Mech liaisons would change their tune, or the Cyph liaisons would join the liaison team or... whatever.

But don't you dare cry favouritism. We've had to put up with that overused and baseless accusation before and it's very, very tiresome.