Obligatory support items on Hard and Ragnarok

[Maroon]

While it might (might) be argued that borrowing stuff is too situational to be an effective counterargument, it's more that the absolute inability to join a server without a support item is overkill in my opinion. What about crossbowmen? What about semi-casual players, who can't afford a 300k obstacle? In fact, that gets me thinking. As an engineer, it is currently regarded as a near neccesity to have a SHC or better. And a medic? Medic boxes do fine on rag. So what about people who learn they need to have med boxes or a SHC? They check on the prices, and find they should either pay 300k or... 15k? Which of the 2 would randoms pick? The cheaper one, naturally. So how does that solve a lack of SHC on a random server? Instead, you'll get an abundance of med boxes.
And how about randoms who just started playing NI, and had already picked engineer as their support? They find that in order to be able to join, they'll have to save up for a SHC, which is a massive investment for them, in order to join rag in the first place.

All in all, I think there is indeed a shortage of cades on pub servers. However, I do not think it can or should be fixed by adding a requirement for people to join. Instead, I think we should look into the need to have that many cades in the first place. Why should we need to have 20 cades to hold a boss on rag? Isn't there any other option?

[greekdragonkdl]

Well the only ways you could reduce the need for so many cades to hold bosses like Thor or Odin, would be to either reduce the damage bots do to cades, or buff cades a ton. To account for the change, the cost to craft cades would probably need to increase even more so things don't get too easy. Or perhaps just write a script to disable the spawning of support items from toming, and only have that enabled on respawn on spawn waves. With that, the amount of cades that people can spawn in is much more limited, but the cades are buffed enough so you can get through Thor and Odin on rag with the limited amount of cades.
Can get a bit ridiculous having to tome around 10-20 times on a full rag server just to get enough cades to get past thor or odin. Maybe tomes should be geared more towards reviving dead players, rather than a method of mass spawning support items.

[Simpleton]

@maroon

Now we getting somewhere with the discussion, me like. Yes, this might be overkill, but thats why we should have discussions so that hopefully they gives the devs some ideas in the long run on what to do. This might be all figured out by them and included in the next patch, what do we know.

The difference in cost is ofc a problem and maybe that should be looked at as You say, it costs more to go engineer unless you get a tome.

Yes, boss fight need some change, i agree.

Well the only ways you could reduce the need for so many cades to hold bosses like Thor or Odin, would be to either reduce the damage bots do to cades, or buff cades a ton. To account for the change, the cost to craft cades would probably need to increase even more so things don't get too easy. Or perhaps just write a script to disable the spawning of support items from toming, and only have that enabled on respawn on spawn waves. With that, the amount of cades that people can spawn in is much more limited, but the cades are buffed enough so you can get through Thor and Odin on rag with the limited amount of cades.
Can get a bit ridiculous having to tome around 10-20 times on a full rag server just to get enough cades to get past thor or odin. Maybe tomes should be geared more towards reviving dead players, rather than a method of mass spawning support items.

This is an idea i like. A difference in support items  depending on if it is spawn or a tome You spawn from. Lots of good points here.

[Revan]

Ever since I came back to NI a couple weeks ago (I left prior to 0.5) it struck me as a little odd (or even ridiculous) how many cades you needed for Thor/Odin/Ragnar, and how important toming dozens of times was. It would be certainly nicer and less weird if you needed less cades for the bosses, but how do you maintain the necessary difficulty? And if cades had more hitpoints, but you can't spawn them with tomes, wouldn't that make bringing cades in support slots at regular spawn even more important? (And people not bringing them was the reason this thread was started.)

[madjsoh]

need a quest where the reward is an shc so that no one has an excuse for not bringing in a support for the team

problem is, people these days are blinded by the aesthetic of fancy new armours and weapons for themselves rather than something actually useful like a support item. I don't see this changing unless the devs implement an easy way to obtain such items like the one mentioned above, otherwise people will continue in the same manner.

on a slightly off track note...wasn't a rule implemented regarding quality of armour on hard and ragnarok servers where one could not join in redshirt gear. not sure if this still exists of i it ever existed but the same should apply to support items, after all a lack of support items is far more detrimental to the team in comparison to a T4 archer in a redcoat

[Leberkass]

I think this idea is not that bad, because sometimes it is annoying when only 2 guys bring in a SHC for a Rag Run on a public server, but just think about how we have started, we had no good cades either and needed to be supported by the "rich players" to reach higher waves.
So if we would not allow to get the "useless guys with no good support gear" to join Rag servers, then they cannot get the stuff to buy such good support gear. And if you say a guy has to bring in support gear of t4 then it means he cannot join rag servers before he is reaching level 50 and I think already some guys made a topic about only letting people who are level 50 or higher.
I mean this idea is not bad, but maybe we can find a mode between Hard and Ragnarok, so that they get to know the game better before they join a Rag Server. This is just an idea to not disallow the new players to join good servers with good teams
Greets Tarrod

[Drunken Monkey]

Play cav guys, no cades needed there. Excuse me, had to do that.

[Noname]

Play cav guys, no cades needed there. Excuse me, had to do that.

Have to do this: Give us Horse Archery then

[greekdragonkdl]

Typically the more veteran players who are wealthier than the newcomers have good support items, along with their superior gear. However a fair amount of veteran players have been going AFG or quitting NordInvasion entirely, so those players are no longer joining pub servers with their support items. Newcomers seem to not put as much effort into getting support items as they do with getting better weapons and armor, hence the lack of cades. Not sure I quite like the idea of forcing every single player to bring in a support item to join hard or rag, although it'd be awesome if everyone DID bring a support item. Newer players often can't afford support items like an SHC, and thus have to play hard/rag with help of wealthier players , so thewho can afford such itemsn the newer players can get drops to buy/craft better support items. Pub runs seem to have gotten worse and worse since I've been here, and that's due to the absence of veteran players. Other than my previous cading/toming reform ideas, maybe an effort to educate newcomers in the value of cading & teamwork would help. Getting a normal cade is rather cheap, so there isn't much of an excuse to not at least have that. Anyways, I think the whole lack of cades on pub servers is a bit more complicated of an issue than it appears to be.

@madjosh
Yeah, you're right. I'm not sure if that's a rule set in stone anywhere on the forums, but it is certainly an unofficial rule that's upheld quite often. I've seen admins warn/kick players on hard/rag if they come in with no armor or redshirt gear. Enforcing that with regards to support items is a possibility, but would be a bit harder to do.

[Slayer]

While it might (might) be argued that borrowing stuff is too situational to be an effective counterargument, it's more that the absolute inability to join a server without a support item is overkill in my opinion. What about crossbowmen? What about semi-casual players, who can't afford a 300k obstacle? In fact, that gets me thinking. As an engineer, it is currently regarded as a near neccesity to have a SHC or better. And a medic? Medic boxes do fine on rag. So what about people who learn they need to have med boxes or a SHC? They check on the prices, and find they should either pay 300k or... 15k? Which of the 2 would randoms pick? The cheaper one, naturally. So how does that solve a lack of SHC on a random server? Instead, you'll get an abundance of med boxes.
And how about randoms who just started playing NI, and had already picked engineer as their support? They find that in order to be able to join, they'll have to save up for a SHC, which is a massive investment for them, in order to join rag in the first place.

All in all, I think there is indeed a shortage of cades on pub servers. However, I do not think it can or should be fixed by adding a requirement for people to join. Instead, I think we should look into the need to have that many cades in the first place. Why should we need to have 20 cades to hold a boss on rag? Isn't there any other option?

If you're level 32 or level 40 or whatever the requirement is, you can spend 13k or so on a barricade or 10k on a medic box.

Doesn't matter if you're a "casual player", fact is you're still level 32 or whatever, therefore you can afford 13k on a barricade, everyone can. If you can't, then obviously you don't care about the team enough so therefore you shouldn't be allowed in the hard/rag servers until you get BASIC support items, which you can pay assist xp for either way. Heck, im sure someone would even donate one to you if you made a thread saying "Hey i cant get into rag/hard, can someone please donate me a barricade/medic box so i can help the team as I dont have the funds".

People taking this thread way out of proportion, Simpleton is simply trying to say that a full hard server or full rag server should not have 2 barricades and nothing else in support. That is ridiculous.

Again, if you're playing Rag/Hard, you can afford 13k on a cade or 10k on a medic box IF THAT, if you can't, then play normal and get the necessary funds because you blew your money on war arrows or bear armour so you can do trickshots more easily.