Hello Jason, Welcome to mmorpg.com. But have a couple of questions regarding pvp. Now I am a big crafter so how is ganking going to be handled? Say I'm crafting at one of the tables will I be attackable? This is one of the main reasons why I'm not a big pvp fan. I played on vox server eq2 so not it's like I never tried pvp. Hate dealing with griefers, those who just hound harvesters and crafters. Would love to try out AOC's crafting system as well, but are there going to be safe area for crafters or a pve server?
You'd only be able to be ganked if you were playing on an open PvP server. And if you were there is a punishment system called the bounty prison system in the works that identifies grief behavior and can eventually result in the criminal character being put in prison to complete a series of hard labor quests before being released.
As a side note on a non PvP server you will still have access to Drunken Brawling, Mini game, and the Border Kingdoms for PvP
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
hello jason, welcome to the forums, it's nice to have a reliable source representative to so diligently answer to all (or some) of the questions concerning Age of Conan.
1. I just wanted to ask about respeccing especially in case of healing classes - how much less effective will they be while levelling if someone chooses to focus on healing, will they be group useless if not specced to heal? and will there be a penalty for respeccing and some kind of points pool to distribute?
thanx in advance for any feedback on that one
This should not be a problem really as we were very careful to make sure there were no optional feat lines for improving healing ability. We absolutely did not want priests to have to be heal spec and knew if it was possible then it would become mandated.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
If you want something that answers you better than I did then you need to ask better questions. No wonder you are such a skeptic if you cannot tell when someone really did answer you. The first part is important because it addresses what the real problem you want to know about it. You say your main crusade is "raider uber alles". I will try to better explain the answer that I gave you and see if that helps.
Like I had said previously defining best is pretty open for interpretation.
Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol"
Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything.
The real problem most people have with "Raiders" is being forced to do something they don't like or don't have time for in order to consume content and achieve the same level of advancement as others. (as items are a further form of advancement) Generally speaking this is not a PvE issue as if you are a semi casual or non raid interested player you don't usually "need" even in a much more heavily item based environment than Conan to have better gear to perform. What I was trying to point out to you was your issue wasn't with raiding at all but was with if non raid players will also have ways of accessing top tier items.
The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous. We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney, it is not honor or token farming from WoW. You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats. For a game based so heavily on combat we have a LOT of combat stats. Attack, Defense, Magic ratings, invulnerability ratings, damage multipliers, evasion ratings, etc etc. All of these stats we use for the normal combat system have a PvP clone that is used additively in PvP. This is the same for bonus's from PvP levels.
So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.
Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.
I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.
A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE
in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense
B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense
So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.
So, in long winded way you're saying that PvP gear comes from PvE activities. If anyone reading this thread thinks that I'm misinterpreting things I invite you to go through this quote line by line and after each sentence ask yourself, "Did he tell me how I get PvP gear?"
I'll pull out the more pertinent bits.
-----"The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous."------
No doubt. But apparently the numerous ways of obtaining it are all through PvE.
-----"We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney"------
You MIGHT let us use bloodmoney to buy PvP gear. Meaning you also might not let us. And that isn't the purpose of bloodmoney so I'm going to go ahead and assume that "might not let us" is the most likely probability.
------"You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats."------
And where do those gems come from, pray tell? More to the point...where do the most powerfull of those gems come from?
Ok, it sounds pretty clear to me. PvP gear is obtained by doing PvE. Raiding will be the most rewarding type of PvE content. Therefore the best PvP gear will come from PvE raiding...either directly as item drops or indirectly as crafting material drops.
Maybe I have a misconception here, I was under the impression that player cities were in the pvp areas. Was that a wrong impression?
Just a note, whoever designs your website, needs to put more information up on the game. It is silly to have to go to the forums there to get basic game information.
So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.
I take this to mean that some of the gear has come from PvE simply by lvling or casually enjoying PvE content. In addition to that the player has some "ubah 1337 PvP gear" from focusing more on PvP than PvE. Basically it seems like player A will "pwn" player B in PvP and player B will get picked 1st when getting a group together hardcore raiding because of his leet sauce PvE gear. It sounds pretty simple to me and pretty awesome! The way I read it is the only thing he left out is the term "PvP gear". It kinda seems to me like you might be purposefully looking for things to gripe about /shrug.
Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.
I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.
A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE
in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense
B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense
So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.
I haven't done a lot of reading on the official site yet. This has definately got me hyped about AoC. 1 question I have (sorry if it has already been answered or is public knowledge) is are there different factions or will we be fighting other player cities/servers in pvp? Another would be if there are different factions will people be able to switch sides. That is one thing I didn't like while I was playing swg but looking back that kind of stuff added player content in a way and was a huge factor in rivalries which imo is what keeps pvp interesting. I really hope this game has some awesome world/massive pvp. Thanks for spending time answering questions its definately a very welcome change and I think will help get even more people interested in the game.
*edit* I guess what I'm really asking is when pvping will I be fighting for my guild/city, faction, or server? I'm really hoping that this game will have healthy pvp rivalries. To me WoW seems more about who's guild does better at pve or has the better honor grind group than supporting your faction.
If you want something that answers you better than I did then you need to ask better questions. No wonder you are such a skeptic if you cannot tell when someone really did answer you. The first part is important because it addresses what the real problem you want to know about it. You say your main crusade is "raider uber alles". I will try to better explain the answer that I gave you and see if that helps.
Like I had said previously defining best is pretty open for interpretation.
Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol"
Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything.
The real problem most people have with "Raiders" is being forced to do something they don't like or don't have time for in order to consume content and achieve the same level of advancement as others. (as items are a further form of advancement) Generally speaking this is not a PvE issue as if you are a semi casual or non raid interested player you don't usually "need" even in a much more heavily item based environment than Conan to have better gear to perform. What I was trying to point out to you was your issue wasn't with raiding at all but was with if non raid players will also have ways of accessing top tier items.
The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous. We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney, it is not honor or token farming from WoW. You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats. For a game based so heavily on combat we have a LOT of combat stats. Attack, Defense, Magic ratings, invulnerability ratings, damage multipliers, evasion ratings, etc etc. All of these stats we use for the normal combat system have a PvP clone that is used additively in PvP. This is the same for bonus's from PvP levels.
So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.
Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.
I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.
A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE
in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense
B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense
So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.
So, in long winded way you're saying that PvP gear comes from PvE activities. If anyone reading this thread thinks that I'm misinterpreting things I invite you to go through this quote line by line and after each sentence ask yourself, "Did he tell me how I get PvP gear?"
I'll pull out the more pertinent bits.
-----"The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous."------
No doubt. But apparently the numerous ways of obtaining it are all through PvE.
-----"We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney"------
You MIGHT let us use bloodmoney to buy PvP gear. Meaning you also might not let us. And that isn't the purpose of bloodmoney so I'm going to go ahead and assume that "might not let us" is the most likely probability.
------"You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats."------
And where do those gems come from, pray tell? More to the point...where do the most powerfull of those gems come from?
Ok, it sounds pretty clear to me. PvP gear is obtained by doing PvE. Raiding will be the most rewarding type of PvE content. Therefore the best PvP gear will come from PvE raiding...either directly as item drops or indirectly as crafting material drops.
I am saying we can give it out however we want. If a crafter wants to craft a PvP gem he is still going to need resources and those resources would be aquired the same as any other resources. Same thing for making a sword, a socketed crafted sword is just that a socketed sword until you decide what attributes to put on it.
No aquiring PvP gear is not meant to be done through being forced to PvE if thats now the new question you are most concerned about. The clarification regarding the Blood Money is one of people thinking it works like WoW Honor points which was not its intent.
The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple. There is no reason for us to put them in the PvE areas for example since we have the dual layer system.
So again clarify your questions into something more easy to understand what your point is.
Are you worried about raiders having access to stuff better than you? Why?
Are you worried about this because you dont want them to have an advantage over you in PvP?
Are you wanting to spend all your time playing PvP and be able to equip yourself, so you loathe any sort of PvE gameplay at all?
You aren't a skeptic you just don't seem to be happy about anything :P Other people reading this seem to be getting the answers I am giving you without thinking I am trying to dodge the point.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Maybe I have a misconception here, I was under the impression that player cities were in the pvp areas. Was that a wrong impression? Just a note, whoever designs your website, needs to put more information up on the game. It is silly to have to go to the forums there to get basic game information.
The community.ageofconan.com site is better and I am working with the community team to do a huge update of the FAQ answering many questions like those that have shown up here. You can also use www.bymitra.com to search for posts on topics to help save you some digging on the forums.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
hello jason, welcome to the forums, it's nice to have a reliable source representative to so diligently answer to all (or some) of the questions concerning Age of Conan.
1. I just wanted to ask about respeccing especially in case of healing classes - how much less effective will they be while levelling if someone chooses to focus on healing, will they be group useless if not specced to heal? and will there be a penalty for respeccing and some kind of points pool to distribute?
thanx in advance for any feedback on that one
This should not be a problem really as we were very careful to make sure there were no optional feat lines for improving healing ability. We absolutely did not want priests to have to be heal spec and knew if it was possible then it would become mandated. omg, that is awesome
Let's start off with a hot topic.Will all the heals be over time or will there be standard heals and instas as well.can you throw us any info plz.
Almost all healing is heal over time as we do not want healers to be heal bots, they are intended to be a part of the action not spectators. You do have access to an area of effect instant heal but this can only land on the same person once per minute per class. This allows some stacking for emergencies and keeps multiple healers from being redudant without letting direct heal spams become the name of the game. that's pretty cool, just want to make sure i understand this correctly for myself and my guild, healers should be assisting doing dmg and debuffing the mobs--while throwing up heal over times.
also that brings up another question, how many debuff slots are available on mobs? i know WOW started at like 4 or 8, went up to 16 and then finally up to 40, will there be sufficient slots for debuffs? that might have been answered before somewhere else, i hadn't thought of checking on it before.
Let's start off with a hot topic.Will all the heals be over time or will there be standard heals and instas as well.can you throw us any info plz.
Almost all healing is heal over time as we do not want healers to be heal bots, they are intended to be a part of the action not spectators. You do have access to an area of effect instant heal but this can only land on the same person once per minute per class. This allows some stacking for emergencies and keeps multiple healers from being redudant without letting direct heal spams become the name of the game. that's pretty cool, just want to make sure i understand this correctly for myself and my guild, healers should be assisting doing dmg and debuffing the mobs--while throwing up heal over times.
also that brings up another question, how many debuff slots are available on mobs? i know WOW started at like 4 or 8, went up to 16 and then finally up to 40, will there be sufficient slots for debuffs? that might have been answered before somewhere else, i hadn't thought of checking on it before. While some things do not stack I do not believe there is an actual limit at this time
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
First of all thank you for making such a wonderful game!, and second thanks for taking your time to answer our questions .
I have one question. In a hypothetical situation where:
Player A has very good PVP gear will he have a significant advantage over say Player B who has decent PVE gear?, When I say significant I mean such and advantage that Player B's skill would not be able to dictate the outcome of the battle due to the fact that Player A's gear is way better?.
So what am I'm asking basically is what are the numbers for gear vs skill. You guys have already stated that skill will be more important than gear (which is awesome IMO) but how much more is what I want to know.
for example would it be like 70% skill and 30% gear or what?.
And the inevitable question, when is the General Beta going to start?. Also will there be an open beta?. I'm sorry, someone was bound to ask and I figured what the hell may as well try lol .
Anyways keep up the good work and I hope everything is going well with the game.
With regards to class balance and pvp. Ranged classes clearly have the advantage of distance against melee oriented archetypes. I was wondering how will these melee classes (particularly the soldier classes) be able to close the gap effectively ?
Also will "tank" archetypes be able to taunt players off other players (healers) for a limited period of time akin to EQ2 ?
And i'll end with
are there any plans for guild alliances in the works so as they may assist in sieges without taking damage themselves ?
Also, there is absolutly no explaining anything to Neanderthal, you clearly posted a long detailed description of how you have alternate paths to get top level items or items that will help in PvP and his reply was "So you have to get your PvP gear from raids?" or whatever...
Its like bashing your head against the wall, and no Athelan, discussing things with me is NOT anything like that ... I can prospectively "hear you thinking it"
Nubbins: The devs have clearly and repeatedly talked about a deep alliance system for sieges... have no fear.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Participation is not limited so Alliances are possible but only one guild can actually lay claim to a Battlekeep.
Skill is important and making good use of your abilities. There are loads of factors but if the PvP player was not playing well the PvE player could definately win. But the PvP player might be more experienced.
Some of the most advanced alliance systems will not be in initial launch however. Mercenary contract type systems are also on the "after launch" time frame since we needed to prioritize the core functionalities polish first.
I am unsure as to actual dates for general beta, and expect there to be some open beta prior to launch.
Well Sturm if its arguing for the sake of arguing then I would understand it more, but I really am trying to get him the answer.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Another question for you. This one is about guilds.
How much customization will we have over our guilds?. Will there be tabards?, we will be able to have guild tattoo's?, will we be able to put guild emblems on our armor and weapons?. Will we be able to create banners with our emblems and hang them in our city's?.
Im not sure Hoser, we have tatoos, and scars, and piercings, and such things and can swap textures on items etc but I don't know if we are letting the players do that at release.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Another question please, how detailed is the crafting system? One of the main reasons why I still play VG is do to the detailed crafting system they have. You really do earn your levels and skills with that game. I hated it when they changed the eq2 crafting system.l
Im not sure Hoser, we have tatoos, and scars, and piercings, and such things and can swap textures on items etc but I don't know if we are letting the players do that at release.
Hmm maybe I worded that a little weird lol.
What I wanted to know was what are the ways that guilds are going to be able to distinguish themselves from one another?.
Sorry If I'm being a pain in the ass, these questions have been bugging me for a long time lol.
Another question please, how detailed is the crafting system? One of the main reasons why I still play VG is do to the detailed crafting system they have. You really do earn your levels and skills with that game. I hated it when they changed the eq2 crafting system.l
I am not the expert on crafting, but as far as I know it's not mini-game based like the original EQ2 or VG systems.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Im not sure Hoser, we have tatoos, and scars, and piercings, and such things and can swap textures on items etc but I don't know if we are letting the players do that at release.
Hmm maybe I worded that a little weird lol.
What I wanted to know was what are the ways that guilds are going to be able to distinguish themselves from one another?.
Sorry If I'm being a pain in the ass, these questions have been bugging me for a long time lol. Well in UO for example we just dyed our boots and cloaks certain colors, we did not have access to logos so your question is a bit too hard to answer until we see what happens in beta. I don't really know what has been planned for this, I just know the tech we have that could support the options if we had time for the content and gui etc etc.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I have one for you.
Will there be a benefit to PvP?
What will the main benefit of PvP be? Will it be a further way to advance your character, or will it have an actual impact on everyone in the game i.e. Relics in Dark Age of Camelot, or Darkness Falls etc. If you didn't play DAoC (I'm sure you did at some point) Darkness Falls was a dungeon that was opened up when one of the realms had a majority of the keeps, it had access to good loot and money and experience spots.
Another question please, how detailed is the crafting system? One of the main reasons why I still play VG is do to the detailed crafting system they have. You really do earn your levels and skills with that game. I hated it when they changed the eq2 crafting system.l
I am not the expert on crafting, but as far as I know it's not mini-game based like the original EQ2 or VG systems.
Again thanks for the fast response. Might still check the game out even though I love complicated crafting system base games.
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I have one for you.
Will there be a benefit to PvP?
What will the main benefit of PvP be? Will it be a further way to advance your character, or will it have an actual impact on everyone in the game i.e. Relics in Dark Age of Camelot, or Darkness Falls etc. If you didn't play DAoC (I'm sure you did at some point) Darkness Falls was a dungeon that was opened up when one of the realms had a majority of the keeps, it had access to good loot and money and experience spots.
You mean aside from PvP levels, Battlekeeps ("real" buildings to be won/lost), resources from those BK's, Bloodcoin to buy PvP gear/feats?
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Well I mean besides further character advancement, like overall bonuses to your guild like 3% more coin per kill 15% more exp per kill stuff like that.
Comments
As a side note on a non PvP server you will still have access to Drunken Brawling, Mini game, and the Border Kingdoms for PvP
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
So, in long winded way you're saying that PvP gear comes from PvE activities. If anyone reading this thread thinks that I'm misinterpreting things I invite you to go through this quote line by line and after each sentence ask yourself, "Did he tell me how I get PvP gear?"
I'll pull out the more pertinent bits.
-----"The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous."------
No doubt. But apparently the numerous ways of obtaining it are all through PvE.
-----"We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney"------
You MIGHT let us use bloodmoney to buy PvP gear. Meaning you also might not let us. And that isn't the purpose of bloodmoney so I'm going to go ahead and assume that "might not let us" is the most likely probability.
------"You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats."------
And where do those gems come from, pray tell? More to the point...where do the most powerfull of those gems come from?
Ok, it sounds pretty clear to me. PvP gear is obtained by doing PvE. Raiding will be the most rewarding type of PvE content. Therefore the best PvP gear will come from PvE raiding...either directly as item drops or indirectly as crafting material drops.
Maybe I have a misconception here, I was under the impression that player cities were in the pvp areas. Was that a wrong impression?
Just a note, whoever designs your website, needs to put more information up on the game. It is silly to have to go to the forums there to get basic game information.
So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.
I take this to mean that some of the gear has come from PvE simply by lvling or casually enjoying PvE content. In addition to that the player has some "ubah 1337 PvP gear" from focusing more on PvP than PvE. Basically it seems like player A will "pwn" player B in PvP and player B will get picked 1st when getting a group together hardcore raiding because of his leet sauce PvE gear. It sounds pretty simple to me and pretty awesome! The way I read it is the only thing he left out is the term "PvP gear". It kinda seems to me like you might be purposefully looking for things to gripe about /shrug.
Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.
I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.
A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE
in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense
B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense
So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.
I haven't done a lot of reading on the official site yet. This has definately got me hyped about AoC. 1 question I have (sorry if it has already been answered or is public knowledge) is are there different factions or will we be fighting other player cities/servers in pvp? Another would be if there are different factions will people be able to switch sides. That is one thing I didn't like while I was playing swg but looking back that kind of stuff added player content in a way and was a huge factor in rivalries which imo is what keeps pvp interesting. I really hope this game has some awesome world/massive pvp. Thanks for spending time answering questions its definately a very welcome change and I think will help get even more people interested in the game.
*edit* I guess what I'm really asking is when pvping will I be fighting for my guild/city, faction, or server? I'm really hoping that this game will have healthy pvp rivalries. To me WoW seems more about who's guild does better at pve or has the better honor grind group than supporting your faction.
So, in long winded way you're saying that PvP gear comes from PvE activities. If anyone reading this thread thinks that I'm misinterpreting things I invite you to go through this quote line by line and after each sentence ask yourself, "Did he tell me how I get PvP gear?"
I'll pull out the more pertinent bits.
-----"The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous."------
No doubt. But apparently the numerous ways of obtaining it are all through PvE.
-----"We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney"------
You MIGHT let us use bloodmoney to buy PvP gear. Meaning you also might not let us. And that isn't the purpose of bloodmoney so I'm going to go ahead and assume that "might not let us" is the most likely probability.
------"You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats."------
And where do those gems come from, pray tell? More to the point...where do the most powerfull of those gems come from?
Ok, it sounds pretty clear to me. PvP gear is obtained by doing PvE. Raiding will be the most rewarding type of PvE content. Therefore the best PvP gear will come from PvE raiding...either directly as item drops or indirectly as crafting material drops.
I am saying we can give it out however we want. If a crafter wants to craft a PvP gem he is still going to need resources and those resources would be aquired the same as any other resources. Same thing for making a sword, a socketed crafted sword is just that a socketed sword until you decide what attributes to put on it.No aquiring PvP gear is not meant to be done through being forced to PvE if thats now the new question you are most concerned about. The clarification regarding the Blood Money is one of people thinking it works like WoW Honor points which was not its intent.
The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple. There is no reason for us to put them in the PvE areas for example since we have the dual layer system.
So again clarify your questions into something more easy to understand what your point is.
Are you worried about raiders having access to stuff better than you? Why?
Are you worried about this because you dont want them to have an advantage over you in PvP?
Are you wanting to spend all your time playing PvP and be able to equip yourself, so you loathe any sort of PvE gameplay at all?
You aren't a skeptic you just don't seem to be happy about anything :P Other people reading this seem to be getting the answers I am giving you without thinking I am trying to dodge the point.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
also that brings up another question, how many debuff slots are available on mobs? i know WOW started at like 4 or 8, went up to 16 and then finally up to 40, will there be sufficient slots for debuffs? that might have been answered before somewhere else, i hadn't thought of checking on it before.
also that brings up another question, how many debuff slots are available on mobs? i know WOW started at like 4 or 8, went up to 16 and then finally up to 40, will there be sufficient slots for debuffs? that might have been answered before somewhere else, i hadn't thought of checking on it before. While some things do not stack I do not believe there is an actual limit at this time
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
I have one question. In a hypothetical situation where:
Player A has very good PVP gear will he have a significant advantage over say Player B who has decent PVE gear?, When I say significant I mean such and advantage that Player B's skill would not be able to dictate the outcome of the battle due to the fact that Player A's gear is way better?.
So what am I'm asking basically is what are the numbers for gear vs skill. You guys have already stated that skill will be more important than gear (which is awesome IMO) but how much more is what I want to know.
for example would it be like 70% skill and 30% gear or what?.
And the inevitable question, when is the General Beta going to start?. Also will there be an open beta?. I'm sorry, someone was bound to ask and I figured what the hell may as well try lol
Anyways keep up the good work and I hope everything is going well with the game.
Best regards,
Hozer
Also will "tank" archetypes be able to taunt players off other players (healers) for a limited period of time akin to EQ2 ?
And i'll end with
are there any plans for guild alliances in the works so as they may assist in sieges without taking damage themselves ?
Also, there is absolutly no explaining anything to Neanderthal, you clearly posted a long detailed description of how you have alternate paths to get top level items or items that will help in PvP and his reply was "So you have to get your PvP gear from raids?" or whatever...
Its like bashing your head against the wall, and no Athelan, discussing things with me is NOT anything like that ... I can prospectively "hear you thinking it"
Nubbins: The devs have clearly and repeatedly talked about a deep alliance system for sieges... have no fear.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche
Skill is important and making good use of your abilities. There are loads of factors but if the PvP player was not playing well the PvE player could definately win. But the PvP player might be more experienced.
Some of the most advanced alliance systems will not be in initial launch however. Mercenary contract type systems are also on the "after launch" time frame since we needed to prioritize the core functionalities polish first.
I am unsure as to actual dates for general beta, and expect there to be some open beta prior to launch.
Well Sturm if its arguing for the sake of arguing then I would understand it more, but I really am trying to get him the answer.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
How much customization will we have over our guilds?. Will there be tabards?, we will be able to have guild tattoo's?, will we be able to put guild emblems on our armor and weapons?. Will we be able to create banners with our emblems and hang them in our city's?.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Another question please, how detailed is the crafting system? One of the main reasons why I still play VG is do to the detailed crafting system they have. You really do earn your levels and skills with that game. I hated it when they changed the eq2 crafting system.l
What I wanted to know was what are the ways that guilds are going to be able to distinguish themselves from one another?.
Sorry If I'm being a pain in the ass, these questions have been bugging me for a long time lol.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
What I wanted to know was what are the ways that guilds are going to be able to distinguish themselves from one another?.
Sorry If I'm being a pain in the ass, these questions have been bugging me for a long time lol. Well in UO for example we just dyed our boots and cloaks certain colors, we did not have access to logos so your question is a bit too hard to answer until we see what happens in beta. I don't really know what has been planned for this, I just know the tech we have that could support the options if we had time for the content and gui etc etc.
Combat, Control, Class Distinction Designer for Age of Conan
community.ageofconan.com
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. I have one for you.
Will there be a benefit to PvP?
What will the main benefit of PvP be? Will it be a further way to advance your character, or will it have an actual impact on everyone in the game i.e. Relics in Dark Age of Camelot, or Darkness Falls etc. If you didn't play DAoC (I'm sure you did at some point) Darkness Falls was a dungeon that was opened up when one of the realms had a majority of the keeps, it had access to good loot and money and experience spots.
Again thanks for the fast response. Might still check the game out even though I love complicated crafting system base games.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. -Nietzsche