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Thinking about resubbing and I have a lot of questions
swarmofseals
Member Posts: 16
Hi all -- MMO veteran here. I've played UO, EQ1, DAoC, WoW, WAR, EVE, Aion, and Age of Conan. Most recently I've been playing Aion (since launch until now) but that game lost a ton of its appeal to me with the most recent changes.
I played AoC for about two months following launch and I have to say that it was initially amazing and then crashed and burned for me harder than any other MMO has. I loved the flavor and the graphical style was excellent. The class design seemed solid even if there were a lot of balance issues (always true in MMOs). The quests were entertaining and the combat system made the game more interesting than your standard MMO. As we all know though the game really wasn't finished at launch and the content dropped off like a rock around level 50. The first few months of patching broke more things than they fixed and were filled with nerf after nerf. When they failed to fix the Arena Entry quest for like the fourth patch running in which they claimed to have fixed it, I just gave up in frustration.
Now I'm considering coming back. I'll admit I've heard mixed things, and I really could use some guidance. I don't mind that the game has flaws -- after all, every MMO out there is flawed and has a player base that is full of complaint. And it's not like there are any promising MMOs on the immediate horizon. Old Republic, Tera, and GW2 all have promise but frankly I'll believe it when I see it, and those are probably 6 months to a year out at best.
I'll break my questions up into three categories: PvP, PvE, and Subscription/Offers
PvE:
I like the solo PvE in AoC a lot. I assume that the lack of content at 50+ has been corrected over time. Generally I'm fine with PvE being my main focus in this game, but I do have some questions about the group content:
1. How long do dungeons take, particularly in the endgame? I'm curious about both raids and the six mans in Khitai.
2. What is the raiding culture like, and how is this reinforced by the game mechanics? My first expeirence with raiding was in WoW with the early Molten Core and Blackwing Lair raids. These 40 man instances were hell for me even though I was in the top guild on my server. They took so damn long (like 4-6 hours) and the reward to participant ratio was not so great. Organizing 40 people was pretty terrible, especially as you're guaranteed a few jerks in a group that large. Whenever there were wipes it was always a blame game.Does raiding take the same commitment in AoC or is it more accessible?
3. How are the encounters? Is it a lot of boring tank and spank or are the fights more developed?
4. Is it possible to get similar gear quality from six man instances as it is from raids?
5. How hard is it to get groups for sub level-80 dungeons?
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PvP:
I like PvP, but I'm not really a hardcore PvPer. The most fun I've had in PvP is probably WAR's scenarios. Aion's Dredgion was also a lot of fun, but the fact that it was only available at very specific times was a big problem for me. I like the idea of open world pvp, but at the same time I hate it when this devolves into a gankfest. When I open world PvE I usually like to solo, so the idea of roving bands of twinked out gankers killing you constantly is pretty problematic for me. As I'm probably going to start from scratch I'll be at a pretty severe disadvantage. I also don't want to have to join a guild before knowing much of anything about the community just to afford myself some level of protection.
In general I've kinda soured on faction based PvP. In both WAR and Aion the big fortress sieges were fun at first but quickly lost their luster. When there are literally hundreds of players involved its hard to feel like anything more than a numbers game. I'm glad that AoC's PvP isn't based around this system.
The idea of getting PvP experience from PvE content does not bother me. I was never one of those people that freaked out about farming guards for AP in aion. So the principle of Bori doesn't bother me, although the implementation might. I don't know.
So that all leads me to a few questions:
1. My impression is that I'd probably like a PvE server better than a PvP one. I think I'd be content with my PvP experience being restricted to minis, sieges, and borderlands. That said, I've also heard that on the PvE servers PvP is utterly dominated by one or two guilds. Is that true on EU servers as well as US? Is there any hope for even a modest PvP experience on a PvE server? Given my description of what I'm looking for, what do you think the best choice for me would be?
2. I've heard people say that sieges are buggy but playable. I haven't been able to get much more detail than that. What are the major bugs with sieges? Also around how many people tend to be involved in a siege?
3. Vaguely how often do minis pop? I've heard that pugging these can be pretty futile. How feasible is it to find a spot in a premade given competent play and a reasonable amount of time to gear up from the start? Are minis only available at 80, and are lower level minis just as dominated by twink premades?
4. I've heard wildly varying things regarding the prevalence of cheating. I know a lot of people exploited to max AA, which will take a long time to get legitimately. I've also heard different things about the use of hacks. Does this vary a lot from server to server, and if so how?
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Subscriptions/Offers
1. There are a bunch of special offers available at the moment. The tortage survival pack, digital CE upgrade, might of crom pack, and the three limited time subscription offers (owl pet, wardlord's cache, and the wings of power). Which of these, if any, are a good deal? I frankly don't know what any of these items do. I know that some of them boost your XP gain rate, which may or may not be particularly helpful. I know that a lot of mature MMOs have pretty fast leveling. You can certainly turbo level through WoW super fast now, and even Aion is much quicker to level up in now than it was at launch. I don't feel the need to level up as quickly as humanly possible, especially not if I'm going to level so quickly that I miss a ton of content because I outlevel it before I get a chance to do it. That said, if grinding is still a big part of the leveling process I can see the exp modifying items being pretty helpful. What about the other items? What do they even do?
2. What about the veteran rewards system? How helpful are these points?
Normally I sub month to month in MMOs, but there are a lot of advantages to getting a longer sub to AoC. The prices are a lot lower and they do give you some incentive in terms of free game time, items, and more veteran reward points. It's hard to turn down a 40-50% price break for a 7 or 14 month sub + goodies, but at the same time it's also hard to commit to that many months of game time. How would you all advise me on this one?
I know that's a lot of questions, so thank you a bunch in advance for just reading, let alone responding!
Comments
I can only answer as far as my knowledge allows.
PVE
1. Dungeons vary, usually upto 2 hours unless learning a Godslayer mode.
2. Raiding is very easy for T1 (most of the time pugging is fine). T2 is a little more difficult but most guilds will pug in a few. T3 is usually guild only and fairly difficult.
3. Most leveling dungeons are mostly tank and spank style. The higher level dungeons (including Khitai) are quite a bit more varied.
4. There is a token system in Khitai dungeons that offers great rewards. This has been the subject of much debate.
5. Depends on the dungeon (Sanctum / Amp fairly easily) while others are much harder to find groups for.
PVP
1. No knowledge of EU, on Wiccana there are guilds who use Bori to get to pvp 10. On wiccana, there are pre balanced minis setup that do not include these folks as well as guild pvp nights. PvP levels 0 -3 are pretty rough regardless.
2. Sieges are laggy a good chunk of the time. There have also been bugs that allowed one side or the other to crash the siege. Usually defenders did this to avoid losing. Due to the break up of Wiccana's Bori Alliance there have been quite a few sieges going on Wiccana.
3. No clue on EU, Wiccana favors pre balancing minis.
4. No clue on cheating. No one I know was involved.
Subs
1. I am not a big fan of leveling but you can level just fine. The free levels and xp boost help speed you along nicely. I like the greater community at 80 so I hurry up my leveling on alts as much as possible.
2. The Veteran award points give you mounts, big bags, and quick teleports to locations (I really like the major city ones).
Thanks a bunch for the reply!
Are raids similar in length to dungeons or are they much longer?
Also, on the Wiccana server how choosy are the major guilds? Obviously I don't expect to be able to get into one right away but, assuming I'm a good player and do enough work to get my toon leveled up and geared some is there any chance there? Or are they mainly closed?
Meh, pretty much every guild is recruiting, seeing how the playerbase is shrinking every day. A little comment on the PvE content, though, AoC offers such rubbish that the difficulty isn't even on par on WoW's Serpentshrine Cavern that was released back in 2007. FC development tools=increase dmg of the mob by xxxx%.
Rawls, AoC is indirectly challenging WoW in terms of how good PVE is built. The new 6 men are pure poetry and plesae do not comment if you have no idea what you are commneting about
They're only challenging WoW's PvE in your own private world.
The top few guilds on Wiccana are full on their T3 raid groups but most have openings for their farm night raids (ie Tier 1 & 2). This is were you would start anyway, so I would not worry.
Note to the above trolls: The new Khitia six mans in AoC are far more challenging and entertaining than the AoE fest that Wrath dungeons are. I can get my frost badges on three toons in a little more than a hour.
Thanks again all who have contributed.
I just want to make it clear that personally I don't care exactly how the pve in this game stacks up against WoW. I've already ruled out playing WoW for a number of reasons, several of which have nothing to do with any aspect of the gameplay. So mainly I'm concerned with how AoC stacks up against everything else, and so far it sounds pretty good. I'm looking for a solid PvE experience with at least a modicum of PvP potential, preferably without some big faction vs faction campaign.
A quick question about the AA system: does the time training version work like EvE insofar as you continue to train the skills offline? If so, I assume that most people use the time training option to continue to "level up" alts.
Also, does anyone have a little more input on how worthwhile the Might of Crom and Tortage Survival Pack are?
Thanks again!
You are correct about the AA training. I have time training going on all of my level 80 toons. You can not time train AAs before level 80.
Tortage Survival Pack - This pack contains some items that will get chars faster trough Tortage, not really needed maybe, but sometimes people want the tuturial part of the game to go faster, and these items might help. Not sure if its more helpful on a PvP server though...perhaps maybe...
Might of Crom - This is a larger pack that has items for the whole lvl range, and pots that speed up both XP & AA XP. Last thing a little useful on lvl 80 maybe. Some items might help with lvls, and some are just fluff. Mounts might be a cool thing though. As the Tortage pack these are things that can help you/make things go faster/ cool to have...
But they are not a must, it`s about how much you want to spend on the game. As a long term sub I have most of the items from the Might of Crom from previous campagins, and some are really useful yes. Bigger bag being one of them (Tortage pack?)
AA system:
Offline training AA only from lvl 80, before that its play to get points. All skills can be gained trough playing or waiting in the end.
Offline lvls:
The game also have "offline lvls" as every 4th day the account get a free lvl you can place on a char lvl 30+, but be careful, to many lvls jumping might make it harder to play the class with lack of training.
I have not experienced the new dungoens in Khatia but I hear they have built in puzzles and what not and are supposed to be very good and well thought out. There is also so much end game in AoC it boggles the mind.
You have a whole expansion aimed at end game without a level cap increase this take the pressure off and allows you to explore the new expansion at leisure, which I find very good. You have 12 factions(+ 2seceret ones), choose a few and work your way up with them, this does not mean you cannot take quest from other factions as you do get tokens that you can then use to up your rep with your choosen faction.
For the normally (pre-expansion) 6 man dungoens i would choose AoC's over WoW's everyday of the week and twice on Sundays, as they maybe both Tank and spank, but Wow's are so easy (easy = boring)these days and so impersonal(due to the Xrealm macth up).
But I think it is an opinion thing so will not be as condescending as Johnsavant is.
They added two bugged bosses with endless waves of ninjas that oneshot you and call this tier 4 and at the same time most of the tier 3 bosses are unavailable to the general population (has anyone even killed Thoth-Amon yet?) with hundreds of fixes still an ongoing process. So much for endgame raiding.
When you fanboys realize that 6 man dungeons are not endgame raiding content, then talk to me.
Same goes for the haters such as yourself really. Maybe uncalled for, but whats wrong with writing something that shows respect for each other? Its always black or white.
AA trees for the general population will take a long time to fill up. This will give you something to work towards that is for sure.
There are some guilds that have exploited the aa's so that they have already maxed out their toons. There are current exploits where you can max your aa trees in a day and those are rather game breaking wouldn't you all agree?
Tier 3 and Tier 4 raiding was introduced months ago and wasn't finished when it was released. Funcom allowed the players to bang their heads against unfinished/bugged content. Only recently has it been improved to a point so that guilds can reach Thoth Amon and get practice in on him. Tier 4 didn't even have completed loot tables until recently...
If you are enjoying mid game content, you will be in a happy go lucky world and not see what Funcom is actually doing. The guilds at the forefront of the game are the ones getting punished by poor development and exploits.
Casual gamers will probably not really notice or even care about these issues.