11-21-2013, 12:48 AM
Once upon a time, we used to have this and it was fun. As a matter of fact, so fun that I didn't really do anything other than workin on tech deals for about the last two years of 4.85. People sure did cry about skype friendship, and they sure did cry about overpowered combos, but in the end, it was the whole lot of fun and roleplay that got taken away with the 86 release and this damned nerfchart we have right now... Oh, and yea. I was against this whole nerfchart thing replacing the old techchart from day 1, and I also ended up bein the one having to take care of 87 nerfchart. If that's not ironic, I don't know what is.
For those of you who weren't around back then and have no idea what the page I linked is all about, tech combos were a whole different story back in 4.85. There was no powercore nerf, and who can use what was enforced by admins through sanctions. If you wanted a shiny ship or a flashy gun and it was not a green cell to the ID you used, you had to actually roleplay with the owning faction and get their permission to use that tech, and then they had to add your char's name to a post in a pinned thread in the rules subforum, and then you could use that tech on that char without getting sanctioned, but when your name got in that list, you could just use that combo at full core and whichever way you liked. We had Reavers shooting Corsairs in 100% Tizona-Vulture Sabres, after all... And I'm talking about 4.85 Reavers, which were a whole different faction and a whole different level of fun to fly with (No offense to the new Reavers, but you know this is true).
The nerfchart we have right now is just a mess, but every single time I have to go through the configs to sort somethin out, it makes me wonder if the old system was actually bad enough to be worth replacing with this new mess of a chart. Sure, it had its flaws, but at least it offered something to work for, and anyone with even a bit of self respect didn't run to their buddies on skype to get the tech they wanted, and actually RPed the whole thing ingame before they got the ship. What we have right now, requires absolutely no roleplay, absolutely no work, and doesn't offer as good of a result either.
The old system was broken cause it didnt have to go through any filter to work, so faction leaders ended up doing whatever they wanted with their faction tech, no argue in that, but is the new "Tech FFA" we have right now really better than how it worked back then? Sure, people with more influence got their toys easier and newbies got royally screwed cause no one would've granted a tech to someone fresh on the server, no matter how good their RP, and we even had some faction leaders acting like giant male parts and granting not a single piece of their faction tech to anyone, again no matter how good their RP, but at least even the rage that came with it was fun to sit back and watch as an outsider.
I'm also gonna add a completely random paragraph here cause this thing's still not the wall-o-text I want it to be, so here goes: Nope, 4.85 wasn't better, or at least that's not what I'm saying. I prefer some of the toys that came with the later versions, but some of the stuff that got changed were a mistake in my book. Removing the techchart instead of fixing it was one of them. Since comparing pros and cons of the whole system, a partial rework would've made things much better than complete removal. I said this a couple of months into 86, and here I am still saying this a couple of years later. Though, it might be too late to change it now, since community's too used to the new effortless system of handling tech, where everyone can go buy whatever ship and gun they want on a fresh character with absolutely no background at all, then slap whatever ID they want on it and just put up with the nerf. So in simple, we're back to "I stole it" bein what the cool kids do. That must be an improvement I'm sure, otherwise, someone would've definitely done something about it two years ago.
tl;dnr - 4.85 wasn't better, but techchart sure was.
Mind you, this is flood, I'm bored, and I'm not even using an align bbcode for this post, so take it as a serious post at your own risk.
For those of you who weren't around back then and have no idea what the page I linked is all about, tech combos were a whole different story back in 4.85. There was no powercore nerf, and who can use what was enforced by admins through sanctions. If you wanted a shiny ship or a flashy gun and it was not a green cell to the ID you used, you had to actually roleplay with the owning faction and get their permission to use that tech, and then they had to add your char's name to a post in a pinned thread in the rules subforum, and then you could use that tech on that char without getting sanctioned, but when your name got in that list, you could just use that combo at full core and whichever way you liked. We had Reavers shooting Corsairs in 100% Tizona-Vulture Sabres, after all... And I'm talking about 4.85 Reavers, which were a whole different faction and a whole different level of fun to fly with (No offense to the new Reavers, but you know this is true).
The nerfchart we have right now is just a mess, but every single time I have to go through the configs to sort somethin out, it makes me wonder if the old system was actually bad enough to be worth replacing with this new mess of a chart. Sure, it had its flaws, but at least it offered something to work for, and anyone with even a bit of self respect didn't run to their buddies on skype to get the tech they wanted, and actually RPed the whole thing ingame before they got the ship. What we have right now, requires absolutely no roleplay, absolutely no work, and doesn't offer as good of a result either.
The old system was broken cause it didnt have to go through any filter to work, so faction leaders ended up doing whatever they wanted with their faction tech, no argue in that, but is the new "Tech FFA" we have right now really better than how it worked back then? Sure, people with more influence got their toys easier and newbies got royally screwed cause no one would've granted a tech to someone fresh on the server, no matter how good their RP, and we even had some faction leaders acting like giant male parts and granting not a single piece of their faction tech to anyone, again no matter how good their RP, but at least even the rage that came with it was fun to sit back and watch as an outsider.
I'm also gonna add a completely random paragraph here cause this thing's still not the wall-o-text I want it to be, so here goes: Nope, 4.85 wasn't better, or at least that's not what I'm saying. I prefer some of the toys that came with the later versions, but some of the stuff that got changed were a mistake in my book. Removing the techchart instead of fixing it was one of them. Since comparing pros and cons of the whole system, a partial rework would've made things much better than complete removal. I said this a couple of months into 86, and here I am still saying this a couple of years later. Though, it might be too late to change it now, since community's too used to the new effortless system of handling tech, where everyone can go buy whatever ship and gun they want on a fresh character with absolutely no background at all, then slap whatever ID they want on it and just put up with the nerf. So in simple, we're back to "I stole it" bein what the cool kids do. That must be an improvement I'm sure, otherwise, someone would've definitely done something about it two years ago.
tl;dnr - 4.85 wasn't better, but techchart sure was.
Mind you, this is flood, I'm bored, and I'm not even using an align bbcode for this post, so take it as a serious post at your own risk.