What is ACTUALLY wrong with Age of Conan?!

GPrestige

Let me start off by saying that I played at launch. I was a casual player and only got to level 43, so I never really experienced whatever they had offered for endgame. I also quite enjoyed the game, but quit probably because I was worried about all the people quitting at once. I was one of the sheeple at the time. I have returned and am having a hell of a time. I have a level 24 Assassin and am loving it. So overall, what is wrong with the game anyways?

What I find good:

• Amazing graphics
• Beautiful music
• Great setting
• The most satisfying combat system I've ever played
• Awesome animations and fatalities
• Assassin is the coolest class I've ever played in any MMO. The look, the style, the animations, the fatalities... all awesome. eg
• Fun PVP. Free for all can be a pain sometimes but when you team up its a lot of fun

Overall I'm having a lot of fun and want to know what people find to be the biggest problems with the game? I play on Tyranny server and don't have any population issues. I know you may recognize me from the Vanguard thread, I guess I have a soft spot for underdogs. I still play Vanguard, but am interested in AoC because it seems to have a company behind it that hasn't completely given up on it. I mean the constant Ads, injecting it into TV shows, the expansion etc.

 

So what is really the problem with AoC. I'm genuinely curious because I'm having a lot of fun with it right now. Have you even played it since release?

 

Some pics for you:

 

GPrestige

One thing I'd like to say, if you quit at launch and never played since... perhaps its time to try it again?

Instamatic

I disliked that you had to reach a pretty mid-range level before you could start any crafting.  I've always been more of a crafter or businessman so to put off that aspect for so long and leave me only combat questing was too much for me.

gaiusmarius

 Moved to the correct section.

Thanks.

DiSpLiFF

 i played at launch - fail 

 

i came back a year later, i thought the game had come a long way. But in my minds  had one major flaw which was the combat system. This was especially apparent in pvp. I played a conq and really hated that i had to pull of 3 chain moves while chasing someone. 

Sevenwind

I just want to say some great screen shots. I like that alternate reality zone you go to in Tortage. I wish there was something more like that in the game.

 

djazzy

Originally posted by DiSpLiFF


 i played at launch - fail 
 
i came back a year later, i thought the game had come a long way. But in my minds  had one major flaw which was the combat system. This was especially apparent in pvp. I played a conq and really hated that i had to pull of 3 chain moves while chasing someone. 

 

Wierd, I thought the combat system was the best part of the game.

Frostbite05

the games great now the main problem is that its very very very hard to recover from the kinda launch this game has had.

ProfanityJC

The game had so much potential, but was borked so badly at launch and the arrogance and some outright lies of the developers at the time of launch left a taste so foul in my mouth that I am 99.99% sure that I will never even try another Funcom game of any type, regardless of how well the community regards it.

Funcom is dead to me.

Padre-Adamo

 Sony recovered from the EQ2 launch very well.

 

I recently just did the trial of AoC and after 3 days purchased the game and 6 months game time. This game is simply awesome. It deserves another shot from people that played from launch and from new players alike!

peenk

I was hyped about this game for about 2 days.  I like open pvp games and this was at the moment (about 2-3 months before release) looked to be pvp similar to my #1 pvp game of all time, Shadowbane.

In any case, after reading up on some stuff about the AoC, on my 2nd or 3rd day I read the article that says that the game can be played via xbox 360 controller, and when I asked on forums, I found out that the game is to be released on 360 some time after the PC release.

Maybe I should have given AoC a try, but somehow I'm glad they never got a single dollar from me.

Needless to say that was a game killer for me.  I own every console, but I hate when PC games are being developed for consoles as well.  I never preorder any games that are released for PC+consoles at the same time, and I usually wait for lots of reviews to see if they are worth buying.  It's a kb/mouse vs joystick thing.

On a side note...(rant)

I loved Modern Warfare and I was excited to get Modern Warfare 2 thats coming out on the 10th of this month.  Was planning on getting it through Steam, but fucking game is worth $60 ... I KNOW that consolers pay $60 because Microsoft/Sony pocket $10 off every purchase, but why the fuck is it the $60 for PC?   I dont get a CD, I dont get manual, I dont get a box, I dont get SHIT but have to download it and I still have to pay $10 over regular price? ... So now I'm going to wait before getting MW2 cause I'd rather buy myself some beer and wings at the next UFC fight night in BWW, rather than give it to some douchebag in Infinity Ward.

/rant off

Sabradin

Originally posted by GPrestige


Let me start off by saying that I played at launch. I was a casual player and only got to level 43, so I never really experienced whatever they had offered for endgame. I also quite enjoyed the game, but quit probably because I was worried about all the people quitting at once. I was one of the sheeple at the time. I have returned and am having a hell of a time. I have a level 24 Assassin and am loving it. So overall, what is wrong with the game anyways? 

 

Not worth playing at 80.

Not worth rerolling.

Simiel

They just got a bad start, but as far as I know, they are getting back on track, hopefully they can start advertising again and get some subs back.

Aceundor

 Based on what I have read on various forums I think there are 3 major reasons for people dislinking AoC as it is today

1) Combat system. Its a taste thing, some people simply dont like it. 

2) Instancing. Funcom overdid it in AoC and you have to accept the load screens. Its the price you have to pay for the amazing graphics

3) FFA PVP - Some people simply cant take it. "Roll on a PVE" everybody says, but by then the experienced is ruind for many people and they refer to the "childish" community, all the ganking, class balance, age of casters, etc. It boils down to that they loose in competition with other players, this agrevates them and they leave. 

 

Then there is a ton of people who didnt like the launch and are still bitter about it, also there are lots of people who simply prefer high fantasy universes. Just look at all the people joining Aion lately, I cant really understand it, thats not for me, nevermind content or gameplay. Cant take the pink glossy setting. I beleive some have the same reaction to AoC, and its dark gritty low fantasy setting. . 

Jadar

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with the game, but I'm not captivated by it, I'm not compelled to login every chance I get. Personally, I would like to have more large scale story/quest arcs. As a fan of all the various books and authors that have worked with Conan, I think Funcom has done a good job of capturing the essence of the universe. What's missing though, is the narration; at least after the Tortage sequence.

finaticd

Originally posted by arenasb

Originally posted by DiSpLiFF


 i played at launch - fail 
 
i came back a year later, i thought the game had come a long way. But in my minds  had one major flaw which was the combat system. This was especially apparent in pvp. I played a conq and really hated that i had to pull of 3 chain moves while chasing someone. 

 

Wierd, I thought the combat system was the best part of the game.

 

The game mechanics are not well made,,,combine that with the mediocre PvP and PvE settings and you have a lackluster title.

I resent the fact that people blame AoC being empty, player wise, today do to release.....many players just retried it a few months ago and AoC is missing something or something is driving thos players who retried it along with verterans away in droves.

Between a slow development cycle, lack of content, broken game mechanics that never got overhauled...and many more reasons there is a lot wrong with AoC, otherwise it would be doing well instead of being one of if not the biggest MMO disaster in history.

 

EDIT: If AoC had a great combat system as you suggest...imo people would have stayed...Aion for example is hard and when you die you lose time and the game can be a mess.  People are playing AIon still do to the combat system being good and it is after the 1st month.

 

 

Kaelaan21

Originally posted by Jadar


I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with the game, but I'm not captivated by it, I'm not compelled to login every chance I get. Personally, I would like to have more large scale story/quest arcs. As a fan of all the various books and authors that have worked with Conan, I think Funcom has done a good job of capturing the essence of the universe. What's missing though, is the narration; at least after the Tortage sequence.

 

I thought that FC started adding narration after Tortage in a recent patch. I completely agree though, I liked Tortage from an RPG standpoint and looked forward to fully narrated quests, but they didn't. Gave me a false tutorial experience. But, on the flip side, there are people that say that they hate narration. Isn't there a checkbox to disable it if someone doesn't like it?

 

I think people these days just want to scream and bitch - just for the sake of screaming and bitching. I laughed my ass off when people threw temper tantrums because FC decided to cut drukin brawling from the game. People were shouting, "Liars! It's right here on the f**king box!" Seriously, people are going to cry and whine about fluff!?

 

Other people have posted that the combat system is a personal preference. Too many people here are in the mindset of "Omg! I hate this... the game sucks! I hope it will die! I hope that FC looses their shirts in the stock market! I hope that the devs become sterile so they can't breed to create the next generation of horrible devs!" Seriously, people need to get over themselves. The argument of having trouble getting chains off is usually because people are also coming from games that allow them to be a one-man-solo-pwn-mobile and run around as a lone wolf. AoC combat system really shines in groups when your mates allow you to pull off your styles. Very simular to DAoC (except without the hib base line 9 second insta stuns.... bitches).

 

Unfortunately, I already have another game I play and still have a life (i.e. choose to remember what a vagina looks like) - so I had to make the choice and left the game because of time reasons. But, seriously, it is a nice game and has has a long time to be polished up.

maji

It has only a single starting area. I personally love to try out different chars and whatnot, and playing through exactly the same content every time until like lvl 20? BAH!

Also I had constly the feeling of beeing restricted in the game. Like there are some meadows, I went to check out what's behind them,but there is a fence I can't get over or around. I mean I'm a fricking hero, why can a stupid fence stop me? I mean, isn't it a 3D game? I mean I can't really move up and down since I'm always standing on the landscape. And half of the time I can't move left or right either, since there are barries I can't get around, be it mountains / fences / ocean or whatnot. It's just far too restricting.

 When I first read about the game I thought about vast landscapes I can travel in any direction, continents to explore, and if I want to, I can team up with friends and start building our city at any place. The result was sooooo disappointing.

Of course, the graphics are nice, I like the setting and I love the music. But the stuff mentioned just kills any fun. Especially the starting area thing.

Jackdog

The entire game design and the CS for me it just completely missed the mark. I only played to mid 20's but found the drops to be very bland. The gane was too easy, last time I played was at 1.05 and when I died, there was no real death penalty. None at all. Stats were supposed to take a hit, but I checked and none did. No risk ...no reward goes against every rule of game design. I also felt like a rat in a maze, I have seen FPS's that gave me more leeway to explore than AoC did. The customer service was as bad if not worse than SOE's.

For me at least the question is not what was wrong with AoC but rather what was right about it.

 

 

djazzy

Originally posted by finaticd

Originally posted by arenasb

Originally posted by DiSpLiFF


 i played at launch - fail 
 
i came back a year later, i thought the game had come a long way. But in my minds  had one major flaw which was the combat system. This was especially apparent in pvp. I played a conq and really hated that i had to pull of 3 chain moves while chasing someone. 

 

Wierd, I thought the combat system was the best part of the game.

 

The game mechanics are not well made,,,combine that with the mediocre PvP and PvE settings and you have a lackluster title.

I resent the fact that people blame AoC being empty, player wise, today do to release.....many players just retried it a few months ago and AoC is missing something or something is driving thos players who retried it along with verterans away in droves.

Between a slow development cycle, lack of content, broken game mechanics that never got overhauled...and many more reasons there is a lot wrong with AoC, otherwise it would be doing well instead of being one of if not the biggest MMO disaster in history.

 

EDIT: If AoC had a great combat system as you suggest...imo people would have stayed...Aion for example is hard and when you die you lose time and the game can be a mess.  People are playing AIon still do to the combat system being good and it is after the 1st month.

 

 

 

Well that is purely an opinion on your part. I much prefer AoC's combat to Aion. I rate AoC's combat as the best I've played in an mmo, Aion is maybe 5th or 6th. Also I quite like the setting that it is in, much grittier than some pansy elf game.

jaysins

 I see people complaining about the combat system but for me that is the best part. It's all subjective so I'm not going to criticize others preferences because that's basically stupid and more than a little ignorant. I will though say why I really enjoy the game and the combat.

For starters I love having to hit several buttons to perform a move. Sometimes in the heat of the battle I get worked up and mess up but this to me is a good thing. When you let yourself get to worked up in a game, like real life, their can be performance consequences and  having mechanics that will affect your combat is more realistic and rewards players who can keep it together. For my main melee character I rarely miss anymore and even switching between several melee characters can usually get them down after twenty or so minutes of readjustments and such. I just personally really enjoy it and wish something like this existed for the casters in the game. I don't think the melee combat system is hard or frusterating once you get the hang of it and personally I like higher learning curves. The biggest thing for me though is I feel like combat takes a lot of skill and that if you really know how to play your class as well as the class you are going up against it provides such a huge advantage and one that scales very well even if you are facing an opponent with better gear or even a higher level. This is what keeps me coming back to AOC. I find the pvp extremely versatile and engaging and feel like my work to understand the mechanics of the combat and the classes has paid off more so than the gear I have acquired.  Now I would like to see some changes to the game like casters use mana for running and some other things but overall I enjoy pvp combat in AOC more than any other MMO I have played which includes WOW, EQ, brief experience with Warhammer. Again it's all subjective but for me it's the best part of the game. 

I really enjoy the zones that are here. I understand people wanting a seamless world without instancing. I also understand the reasons for it and the limitations of a sandbox environment at this time. The better the graphics the more stress you put on a pc and with AOC's already high requirements I can imagine this being a limitation of technology. Just look at GTA IV and how it runs on either console with the texture popping and other issues as well as the limited graphics (though the world itself is amazing) when compared to games with much less encompassing environments. I look at this as a design choice imposed on game designers these days. AOC chose to go a certain way with this game and if you don't like it than play a game that went the other route like Darkfall  for example. I don't see the point on complaining about this as it is a choice that cannot be undone and if sandbox is your thing than AOC wasn't designed for your taste, that's just how it is. It's not bad game design just a necessary design choice. You need to play games targeted at yourself and I don't see the point in working yourself up over things like this. The technical defects of AOC sure but game designs are just that, what the game is and why take it personally if it wasn't made exactly how you want? Find a game that suites your wants and enjoy it instead of getting bent out of shape about it. 

Raids are pretty fun in this game but need some more variety. The new edition of the Iron Tower is a lot of fun and certainly more creative with the bosses than many of the other raiding scenarios and I definitely would like to see this trend continue with other dungeons in the future. They definitely need some more variety and I'd love to see the elite mobs toned down but more in closer proximity to one another as fighting one or two extremely difficult mobs is not as much fun as when you do huge pulls imo. This is because I feel like with one mob you are just doing the same thing and coordination isn't as important where as if you do a huge pull there are much more variables and team work with coordinating stuns, kiting, having other classes that aren't tanks having to take agro briefly, kiting aoc casters being more careful as tanks can't hold ago on huge groups as easy etc. In some instances having the tank pull off a couple mobs and just run away till the group can deal with it is so cool as it forces the group to focus on multiple things like their current mob and also things like using stuns, buffs etc to keep the decoy alive and all that. This for me has been an issue in every mmo I have played and AOC definitely is guilty of this, though like I said Iron Tower is a step in the right direction. I want raids less redundant and strategy and teamwork to play a larger role.

Finally, rebalance sieges. This had been a problem in AOC for a while and certainly one of those things Funcom needs to be held directly accountable for. They are fun when they work but they need to be much more stable and it keeps switching over defending and attacking being much easier than the other. 

All in all I really enjoy this game. I don't see the point in harping about design choices as you can't expect a game to just cater to you. Certain fundementals you either have to learn to live with or find a new game as they cannot change and it's apart of what that game is and isn't. Things like sieges and the casters being so dominant though are things they should try and work on. I don't like the new gear stats personally as I hate gear grinding but they are not game breakers for myself as I still enjoy combat more in AOC than any other mmo I have played. I think they have a really fun game here though it's not for everyone.  Hopefully they make the game better until something more tailored to my personal tastes comes out. 

RavingRabbid

My only complaints about the game are:

1.  Raid loot boss drops need to go to a smart system so that the same 5 classes stuff doesnt always drop and prevent dupicate items.

2. Cross server pvp need to be implemented so that people on pve servers arent just farmed for points. The pvp gear is nearly unattainable. If your on a pvp server your good to go.

3. Need more to do after reaching lvl 80.

(AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH engages King Conan in plunger to Sword combat)

Yamota

Answer to as what I think is wrong with AoC:

1. Incoherent world. You are zip zapped between various zones and you never feel that they are part of one big world. Just loosly connected puzzle pieces.
2. Too small world. Cant say for a fact but I feel AoC has the smallest world in any MMORPG I have ever played, maybe WARs world is smaller, dunno.
3. Boring PvP combat. I played various classes and the PvP fights was so quick that it left very little for tactics.
4. Not enough group incentives. During the month or so that I played I had a tough time trying to find a group. Probably because most of the content was solo-oriented.
5. Over-instanced world. Every damn zone was instanced and rarely had more than 50 people in each zone. Hardly what I would call massive.
6. Poorly designed classes. Like I mentioned I tried several classes and could not find any that I liked. I usually play heavy crowd control/utility classes but which one is that in AoC?

So with this flaw general boredom made me quit within a month and I dont think I will ever play it again.

 

Wookiee6648

There is nothing wrong with the game IMHO.  It got a bad rep at launch and some people just  thought the game was an over all fail when it isn't.   I loved the game (tho i didn't like that the voice acting ended after level 20) and it was fun to play and easy to learn but still a challenge.

Best thing to do is if you quit, to just go back and try it for a few weeks again, they fixed a lot of things and added a lot more.  This game is a good one and a lot of people should give it another try if they are looking for something to play.

Darth_Osor

None of the poll options really fit me...Played at launch and quit before my first month was up because it was so bad.  Gave it another shot with 1.05 and quit again.

Game is pretty and sounds good, but it's like that hot, stupid chick with no personality...you can only look past her having nothing to offer other than her looks for so long.

Instancing,instancing, instancing.  It's frickin ridiculous.  It doesn't even really feel like a MMO.

Zones are too small and linear.  I feel like a rat in a maze playing the game.  Too much of the gorgeous world is inaccessible because of invisible walls.  I LOL that I can swim up waterfalls, but can't climb a small hill.

Quests are bland.  I get particularly annoyed when the same NPC has a string of unrelated quests, but doesn't give then to you all at once...get 10 ice worm stomachs, ok now get 10 mountain ape hearts (not snow apes, mountain apes), ok now get 10 snow leopard claws...WTF couldn't you have given me the whole list the first time?  The quest sharing tool is a joke compared to LotRO's.

Crafting is atrocious.  Crafted gear wasn't even equal to crappy green world drops most of the time and far inferior to quest and world drop blues.  Gem slots were too restrictive.  Gathering rare crafting materials, especially leathers, is painful.  Not enough space to store all the mats you need to complete different crafts is just a bonus.

Class balance is bad in PvE...I can only imagine what people that mostly PvP think about it.  Well, actually I can read the forums and no EXACTLY what PvPers think.  My Necro had more survivability getting beat on by 4 equal level mobs than my Guardian had.

Combat system was OK, but personally I don't find having to hit 3 keys to perform an attack revolutionary...more like tedious.  Missing on one of those rolls of the chain gimped your damage.  This is compounded by the fact casters had no such penalty and could just stand and nuke with very little chance of being interrupted.

Itemization is better than at launch, but still mediocre.  Level 10 whores and scrub city guards had better looking gear than most of my toons.  I still had instances of finding same quality drops 10 levels higher what I already had that weren't as good. 

Absolutely no policing of filth in Global chat.  I never played WoW, but I have played about 10 MMOs and AoC community was by far the worst, and IMO lack of GM crackdown on idiots encourages all the douchebaggery.

Attention to detail.  Stuff like a merchant in Conarch Village that I and I'm sure 100s of others reported as unresponsive back in May 08 still wasn't fixed a year later.  Fatalities not matching up to weapons, like impaling someone with a 2H blunt.  Hide still not working right, like getting popped by mobs way lower than me when my hide was max, and not being able to hide if someone else in the group was in combat even if the mob had no LoS on me.  No LFG channel after a year...seriously?.  The list goes on...

 

Edit for typo.

Khaunshar

The killer for me and my guild: Its too short.

Levelling, even at release, didnt take long, its all sped up now again. Even with quest-gaps and content-holes ,we were at the cap really fast, and dozens even before us.

There just wasnt much content, and the levelling itself wasnt overly interesting content outside some instances, because its all so dumbed down, easy and shallow. Nice questtexts, beautiful landscapes, and then you realize you likely wont ever die because everything is far far far too weak.

Instances/Dungeons are a mixed bag. They are usually well-crafted, but they are just chock-full of randomly placed, poorly scripted mobs. And the raiding is also very short, and rather bland.

The last straw was the design of the high-end dungeons like Atzels Fortress. Buggy, the mobs are just big, tough bags of hitpoints with totally unfairly overpowered NPC casters, and due to the healing system, the little crowd control and the way damage works, its just a 2h long hack+slay without much tactics through an area where somebody just dumped 100 mobs without any sense into a small space.

Not to mention the utterly uninspired bosses.