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Should I return? Advice please.
Duplo1
Member Posts: 45
I played AoC at launch and lvled a PoM to 80 on Tyranny fairly quick. I loved the lore and the combat and picked up a full set of tier 1 gear. However, I quit due to lack of content.
Is it worth returning right now? Will I find that content that was sorely missed before? Will I find a ghost town? How easy will it be for me to get back into endgame content if there even is any to be found? Is the game still bugridden?
Hopefully I get constructive responses from people that have experienced AoC for an extensive amount of time recently. Please no Fanbots and Haters.
Comments
Hello.
Lets see, you have full Tier 1, so that means you did get some raiding done.
Content? What is Content for you? Raiding only, or other stuff?
I do not think Tyranny is a ghost town at all (EU Player myself) as I have heard.
Whats new? How about several instances (lvl 80) and some new playfields if you have a alt that need to get to the top. Tier 3 raiding is on test server now, and is looking quite good from the testers, also very challenging it seems. Tier 2 Raiding is also complete now, so you can tackle that first maybe?
Best advice: Read some older topics, for lots & lots of info about changes last 12 months+
Only 1 of those three instances added is a group instance worth doing...I havn't heard much about it so not sure if people do it aside to check it out.
they did add a bit of raid content but there is still a dire lack of content and stuff but that is because the company decided to develop for the expansion, the limited resources allocated to the original were spent bug fixing and doing revamps of level 20-80.
IDK, I heard Tyranny is dwindling rapidly....do to PvP issues, lack of stuff, and some people who Xfered to PvE servers from there stated the community is just childish and crude.
---------
This isn't an endgame MMO people still run out content fast at lvl 80 but maybe T2 and 3 is worth a month of play time, IDK. TBH if you want to return you should probably wait till the expansion is released..it is pretty much just end game stuff.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
Thanks. I will wait then for the expansion.Hopefully it will be a change in the right direction. Id hate to see the Conan world be wasted on a dying game.
[Mod Edit]
Here is Funcoms take on what has changed: http://ageofconan.com/updates/#/us/content/ click the left and right arrows.
Patch 1.06 will be out before the Expansion and is on the test server right now getting heaps of praise:
"Update 1.06 also adds something the players have been requesting for a long time – a token system for raid loot. The token system is added to Tier 1 and Tier 2 as well as Tier 3 raids. Hopefully this will help alleviate some of the randomness (or perceived lack thereof) in the loot drops.
Under this Token System, a player will first obtain a 'relic' drop from slaying a raid boss. These relic items come in several varieties, including one type that is archetype specific. When used in your inventory, these relic items add tokens to your character.
You can then use tokens to purchase items from an in-game vendor that are priced in some amount of tokens plus gold. The token vendors are located in Old Tarantia near the Temple of Mitra, and in Kheshatta near the npc Nefersuktum. You will need to enter a door at both of these locations to access the vendor instance. There is a Royal Collector vendor in King Conan's Castle that will sell special armor to soldiers in exchange for tokens.
A number of rewards are now available only through tokens, a number of rewards are available through both tokens and as a drop, and a number of special rewards are only available as a drop. This means quite a bit more gear available through T3 overall than was available in T2. This allows us to offer a lot more choices to the player, give the player a safety-net that is free from the randomness of loot rolls, but still retain the "what's on the corpse?" factor which we feel adds a lot of anticipation and excitement to encounter completion.
For example : the entire T3 set may be purchased via tokens, but the belt, gloves, wrists and shoulders can additionally drop off bosses. Therefore players have a choice whether to spend their tokens on these pieces, or get the drop and spend their tokens on some other reward that cannot drop."
Patch 1.06 is on test servers now and people are really having fun with T3. Thoth Amons stronghold is up too and having its test run.
February 2009 Content update
Here is a raid diary of T1 from June 2009
Wing 3 went live this year too:
"Raiders will be happy to know there are new challenges for them to test their skills against! The ‘Black Ring Citadel’ Wing 3 raid dungeon instance is now accessible from between the already existing entrances to Wing 1 and Wing 2 and provides level 80 raid-groups with new challenges such as the sorceress Athyr-Bast and the demon Leviathus."
Update 1.06 will also add another Tier and new Dungeon, The expansion will have several more.
Ok so you picked up a Tier 1 set of gear, T2 is out there and was improved upon, a few group and single dungeon instances go added in as well as a whole high level playfield.
The whole stat system changed too with a big revamp so if you log in now the GUI has changed a bit to show you exactly what your gear is aswell as cutting back on gems and introducing some new ones.
Several Crafted only sets which are equilivent to Tier 1 on the whole are now craftable and sell for loads.
To be honest to sample some of the above will be enough to take you through to the 1.06 update with even more new stuff and then the Expansion.
At the end of the day it is up to you, Godslayer will have a huge amount of content which is right up your street.
Nah I played after the last patch 1.05 for a couple weeks during the win backs....nothing else been added since and that was almost 6 months ago...so I'm up to date, sadly.
Anything about fixing the lag and crashes when any caster class attends a siege in 1.06? reading through all Funcom's puffery/hype is pretty boring.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
Sorry but theres been like 7 or 8 patches since then, raging from bug fixes to improvments. Go read the funcom forums.
[Mod Edit]
Originally posted by BishopB:
Are a lot of the trolls just angry kids with old gaming hardware?
Sorry but theres been like 7 or 8 patches since then, raging from bug fixes to improvments. Go read the funcom forums.
[Mod Edit]
You stated the same thing about the penalties for ganking and lowbies farming higher levels...which happens and you tried to use ad hominem to ignore the real issue that lowbies still gank higher levels and there is a buggy dishonor kill system.
Has any new content been added since 1.05? NO 1.05 was so bad it did take many patches to fix the myriad of bugs, there is a whole forum about how bad that patch was and how the developers ignored the feedback from the test server and pushed it through, then the population has been in a free fall since. Ironically 1.05 before being released was looked on as the second coming and there was so much hype and puffery about it as well.
Here is the 1.05 has so many issues why was it put in the game forum forums.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php
Aion is doing much better than AoC did four months out per Xfire....it has no endgame raid instances and is to much solo grindy for my taste though, there is so much stuff to do in that game but is so much solo grind...it had way more grouping stuff though, I grouped up from level 20-50 99% of the time and the XP grind was at least 4 times that of AoC...is just I did everything so am bored.....it is a good game, warhammer ( only with a group) and EQ 2(solo as necro) had very fun leveling as well but yeah endgames aside from EQ1, DOAC, and WoW have been lacking lately.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
There have been alot of improvements in AOC. The expansion is adding alot of new stuff and improvemnts in raid boss loot drops that im so looking forward to. veteans awards and the double xp potions have alot of people raiding! ;D
To those disenters who think this game crashes during whatever...show me a game that doesnt get crashes here and there. You cant find one!
(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH The Raving Rabbid and his loyal mount Vistrix attack Thoth Amon. Thoth runs frightned to his mommy)
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
Here is Funcoms take on what has changed: http://ageofconan.com/updates/#/us/content/ click the left and right arrows.
Patch 1.06 will be out before the Expansion and is on the test server right now getting heaps of praise:
"Update 1.06 also adds something the players have been requesting for a long time – a token system for raid loot. The token system is added to Tier 1 and Tier 2 as well as Tier 3 raids. Hopefully this will help alleviate some of the randomness (or perceived lack thereof) in the loot drops.
Under this Token System, a player will first obtain a 'relic' drop from slaying a raid boss. These relic items come in several varieties, including one type that is archetype specific. When used in your inventory, these relic items add tokens to your character.
You can then use tokens to purchase items from an in-game vendor that are priced in some amount of tokens plus gold. The token vendors are located in Old Tarantia near the Temple of Mitra, and in Kheshatta near the npc Nefersuktum. You will need to enter a door at both of these locations to access the vendor instance. There is a Royal Collector vendor in King Conan's Castle that will sell special armor to soldiers in exchange for tokens.
A number of rewards are now available only through tokens, a number of rewards are available through both tokens and as a drop, and a number of special rewards are only available as a drop. This means quite a bit more gear available through T3 overall than was available in T2. This allows us to offer a lot more choices to the player, give the player a safety-net that is free from the randomness of loot rolls, but still retain the "what's on the corpse?" factor which we feel adds a lot of anticipation and excitement to encounter completion.
For example : the entire T3 set may be purchased via tokens, but the belt, gloves, wrists and shoulders can additionally drop off bosses. Therefore players have a choice whether to spend their tokens on these pieces, or get the drop and spend their tokens on some other reward that cannot drop."
Patch 1.06 is on test servers now and people are really having fun with T3. Thoth Amons stronghold is up too and having its test run.
February 2009 Content update
Here is a raid diary of T1 from June 2009
Wing 3 went live this year too:
"Raiders will be happy to know there are new challenges for them to test their skills against! The ‘Black Ring Citadel’ Wing 3 raid dungeon instance is now accessible from between the already existing entrances to Wing 1 and Wing 2 and provides level 80 raid-groups with new challenges such as the sorceress Athyr-Bast and the demon Leviathus."
Update 1.06 will also add another Tier and new Dungeon, The expansion will have several more.
Ok so you picked up a Tier 1 set of gear, T2 is out there and was improved upon, a few group and single dungeon instances go added in as well as a whole high level playfield.
The whole stat system changed too with a big revamp so if you log in now the GUI has changed a bit to show you exactly what your gear is aswell as cutting back on gems and introducing some new ones.
Several Crafted only sets which are equilivent to Tier 1 on the whole are now craftable and sell for loads.
To be honest to sample some of the above will be enough to take you through to the 1.06 update with even more new stuff and then the Expansion.
At the end of the day it is up to you, Godslayer will have a huge amount of content which is right up your street.
[Mod Edit]
Not worth subbing for money, if you get in free you might give it ago. Conan is dieing, and im sure the next expansion will prove me right. I will not be attending in the funerals.
Cool cat
I beg to differ. I came back to AOC about 2 weeks ago. Tryanny has a very healthy population from what I can tell. (its not for the faint of heart though) lots of ganking goes on, but i personally like it. Adds a nice edge to the game having to watch my back when im leveling. Im constantly running into people and am enjoying the hell out of it. The expansion should be an awesome addition.
CsM III
The game has seen many great updates, fixes, optimizations, and new content. But for those wondering if they should come back, I would wait until the major 1.6 patch is released in the coming weeks.
With that said, the games population is healthy, Wiccanna is packed with people at most hours of the day and night, and I hear Tyranny is as well.
Glad to hear its getting better. I had hopes for the game around a year ago when i picked it up really liked the look of it. Have thought off and on about trying it again and may do so.
Please prepare for a huge wall of text, as I have a pretty long winded opinion on this subject.
I played at release for 6 months, and for 4 or 5 months starting with their big patch in summer.
Now it really depends on what you are looking for in the game. I was pleased... and dissapointed.
First why I was pleased. At the beginning of summer, AoC is what it should have been at release. The bigs were fixed for the most part, the game ran pretty decent, the retarded 1-shotting for all melee classes was fixed, and the gems were finally nerfed. The patch was coming where they finally did the gear upgrades that were promised, and the big balancing act that was supposed to revamp the classes and restore balance.
That's where the bad started to come in.
The gear improvement is in - but it is still very, very simplistic. The options of different gear types is still very limited. I stand on what I said earlier - the gear system is what it should have been at release. But at this stage of the game, it is very underwhelming.
The balance changes basically nerfed some classes and buffed some, but to be honest, the balance was still crap. Skill HoX's were just retarded - I was able to single handedly DECIMATE every single class except for a necro - which I had completely no chance at all against. The Paper-Rock-Scissor balance was FAR too heavy. My alt character - a barb - had to switch to completely new specs, but to be honest, sure he was better with a 2hander, but he didnt do the DPS of the other DPS classes, and in PvP he was a bit more survivable, but overall weaker vs more classes than he was before "balancing".
Judging by the recent dev post saying something along the lines of "Players think they want a fair fight, but in truth they want something more like a 80/20 win/loss chance", it seems that they are completely clueless when it comes to balancing.
Content - This is the other place where the game fell apart for me. There is more than release, yes... but it is still very limited. PvE first - Once you hit 80, it will only take a week or 2 to gear up to maximum outside of raids. Basically just like WoW is nowdays - over simplified and basic. At that point, your options are raid, or if there isnt a raid going on at the time, reroll. The only point to even run instances anymore is to farm the rarer recipies, which arent really worth it with AoC's economy (which is crap, half the time you craft an item and it sells for less than the mats are worth) not to mention the rarest recipies are still far too common when everyone on the server has access to them and the mats are not very rare or particuarly expensive. Too much supply, not enough demand.
Raiding - it's somewhat decent, but again, progression is far too fast. I've seen some people argue that "they like it because a casual player can do it", but lets be real - even if you are a causal player you will progress thru everything very fast, and then what do you do when you dont need anything anymore? Your again stuck with the option to reroll. Also, while the population isnt "dead", it's quite hard to get raids sometimes. I was in one of the larger guilds on Tyrrany and it was pretty common that we were just a few people short, or missing an extra tank or healer, and just couldnt find one so we had to call it.
One thing that speaks loudly about the amount of content in the game, and something I really, really hated, is that if I logged in game outside of a raid, nearly every single person online was on their characters under level 80. Why? Because the reason I said earlier - you dont have anything to do but reroll outside of raids. I personally cant stand rerolling over and over (I already had 2 80's and that is enough for me).
Now PvP. Broken. That's all there is to say really. Just broken.
Minigames? Broken. If they happen it will 9/10 times be a complete stomping of one premade vs a pug team. As soon as the game pops, if you happen to be on the pug, as soon as your team mates see they are going against a premade they leave game. They are almost never replaced. So basically its 2-3 people vs a premade. No chance and its not even fun. Even if your on the premade, its no fun at all.
World PvP? Broken. The majority of the world PvP you find will be trying to walk thru town and getting ganked by a crew on the rooftops camping as soon as you get away from the guards. The guards? Broken. There have been times I have been on a lvl 60ish PoM and got attacked, done nothing but heal myself (and no, I didnt have the spell that does damage around you when you heal on), and instead of attacking the ranger shooting me, the guards killed me. Tarantia Commons was the only place to usually find a fight away from guards, but even that was broken - if you find a fight the enemy will sprint to the edge and jump in the water. Note - you still cant attack in the water. World PvP is ruined by the guards and the water.
The PvP reward system? Broken. The criminal system is very poorly implemented. You need to grind a freaking retarded amount of kills just to get each piece, and its near impossible to find that many kills without camping a respawn away from the guards, which is just boring. We actually got more points than anything by having someone leave guild so we could fight them and just reinviting them back after. But the levels still progressed painfully slow.
The PvP raiding? Broken. Even a year and a half after the game came out, they are still broken. My last raid experience? An allied guild had a defense so we got invited to their guild to help them. Horrible lag,and not PC lag either.. We were a bit outnumbered, and were getting completely stompoed. Right as the enemies took us out and were getting close to winning - red bar, disconnect, raid over, we win. We were losing and even we were pissed, cuz its just so horrible and unfair. If you check some recent youtube videos, youll see nothing has changed and videos of raids crashing not even 5 minutes in.
So in the end, AoC's PvP system? Dueling. Which is horribly balanced as mentioned earlier.
My opinion on the game, I found the PvE weak and limited, and the PvP was painful.
I seen so many people saying how AoC is the best MMO out now and such, and I really dont know how these people could think that, unless if they havent been playing for more than a week or two. It's what a release MMO should be, but is in very poor shape, and is in no way in shape for an expansion. Half the game is still broken!
To give you an idea of how much I hated my time in the game... Lets just say I hadnt played WoW since TBC first came out. I hadnt even thought twice about going back. AoC made me hate my MMO time so much, I actually missed WoW. Not because it was a great game or great memories, but because of these simple facts - If I wanted to run a 5man at anytime, I could. In AoC it was near impossible even at peak time sometimes. The entire time I played AoC when it comes to PvP, I seriously found maybe 2 or 3 decent fights - the rest were camping or complete stomps. If I wanted to PvP on WoW I would actually be able to do that at any time and have an actual fight. When it comes to raiding, that's about the only think WoW does right, so why settle for sub-par raids with horrible progression and raid attendance?
AoC's main strength was the ability to play casually and level up multiple characters in a reasonable amount of time, and be able to get them geared up for raiding. But you know what? That was WoW's strength as well, at the time I thought, why not play a game that does the same things but has better implementation.
So I ended up going back to WoW for the first time in years - which QUICKLY brought me back to my senses. 5mans in WoW suck and are retardedly easy. PvP in WoW sucks and has gone down hill since vanilla WoW. I dont particuarly enjoy raiding because of the insane time constraints either. Overall it's not the most enjoyable game I've played.
But I cant lie - it was far more entertaining than my time on AoC was.
Please prepare for a huge wall of text, as I have a pretty long winded opinion on this subject.
I played at release for 6 months, and for 4 or 5 months starting with their big patch in summer.
Now it really depends on what you are looking for in the game. I was pleased... and dissapointed.
First why I was pleased. At the beginning of summer, AoC is what it should have been at release. The bigs were fixed for the most part, the game ran pretty decent, the retarded 1-shotting for all melee classes was fixed, and the gems were finally nerfed. The patch was coming where they finally did the gear upgrades that were promised, and the big balancing act that was supposed to revamp the classes and restore balance.
That's where the bad started to come in.
The gear improvement is in - but it is still very, very simplistic. The options of different gear types is still very limited. I stand on what I said earlier - the gear system is what it should have been at release. But at this stage of the game, it is very underwhelming.
The balance changes basically nerfed some classes and buffed some, but to be honest, the balance was still crap. Skill HoX's were just retarded - I was able to single handedly DECIMATE every single class except for a necro - which I had completely no chance at all against. The Paper-Rock-Scissor balance was FAR too heavy. My alt character - a barb - had to switch to completely new specs, but to be honest, sure he was better with a 2hander, but he didnt do the DPS of the other DPS classes, and in PvP he was a bit more survivable, but overall weaker vs more classes than he was before "balancing".
Judging by the recent dev post saying something along the lines of "Players think they want a fair fight, but in truth they want something more like a 80/20 win/loss chance", it seems that they are completely clueless when it comes to balancing.
Content - This is the other place where the game fell apart for me. There is more than release, yes... but it is still very limited. PvE first - Once you hit 80, it will only take a week or 2 to gear up to maximum outside of raids. Basically just like WoW is nowdays - over simplified and basic. At that point, your options are raid, or if there isnt a raid going on at the time, reroll. The only point to even run instances anymore is to farm the rarer recipies, which arent really worth it with AoC's economy (which is crap, half the time you craft an item and it sells for less than the mats are worth) not to mention the rarest recipies are still far too common when everyone on the server has access to them and the mats are not very rare or particuarly expensive. Too much supply, not enough demand.
Raiding - it's somewhat decent, but again, progression is far too fast. I've seen some people argue that "they like it because a casual player can do it", but lets be real - even if you are a causal player you will progress thru everything very fast, and then what do you do when you dont need anything anymore? Your again stuck with the option to reroll. Also, while the population isnt "dead", it's quite hard to get raids sometimes. I was in one of the larger guilds on Tyrrany and it was pretty common that we were just a few people short, or missing an extra tank or healer, and just couldnt find one so we had to call it.
One thing that speaks loudly about the amount of content in the game, and something I really, really hated, is that if I logged in game outside of a raid, nearly every single person online was on their characters under level 80. Why? Because the reason I said earlier - you dont have anything to do but reroll outside of raids. I personally cant stand rerolling over and over (I already had 2 80's and that is enough for me).
Now PvP. Broken. That's all there is to say really. Just broken.
Minigames? Broken. If they happen it will 9/10 times be a complete stomping of one premade vs a pug team. As soon as the game pops, if you happen to be on the pug, as soon as your team mates see they are going against a premade they leave game. They are almost never replaced. So basically its 2-3 people vs a premade. No chance and its not even fun. Even if your on the premade, its no fun at all.
World PvP? Broken. The majority of the world PvP you find will be trying to walk thru town and getting ganked by a crew on the rooftops camping as soon as you get away from the guards. The guards? Broken. There have been times I have been on a lvl 60ish PoM and got attacked, done nothing but heal myself (and no, I didnt have the spell that does damage around you when you heal on), and instead of attacking the ranger shooting me, the guards killed me. Tarantia Commons was the only place to usually find a fight away from guards, but even that was broken - if you find a fight the enemy will sprint to the edge and jump in the water. Note - you still cant attack in the water. World PvP is ruined by the guards and the water.
The PvP reward system? Broken. The criminal system is very poorly implemented. You need to grind a freaking retarded amount of kills just to get each piece, and its near impossible to find that many kills without camping a respawn away from the guards, which is just boring. We actually got more points than anything by having someone leave guild so we could fight them and just reinviting them back after. But the levels still progressed painfully slow.
The PvP raiding? Broken. Even a year and a half after the game came out, they are still broken. My last raid experience? An allied guild had a defense so we got invited to their guild to help them. Horrible lag,and not PC lag either.. We were a bit outnumbered, and were getting completely stompoed. Right as the enemies took us out and were getting close to winning - red bar, disconnect, raid over, we win. We were losing and even we were pissed, cuz its just so horrible and unfair. If you check some recent youtube videos, youll see nothing has changed and videos of raids crashing not even 5 minutes in.
So in the end, AoC's PvP system? Dueling. Which is horribly balanced as mentioned earlier.
My opinion on the game, I found the PvE weak and limited, and the PvP was painful.
I seen so many people saying how AoC is the best MMO out now and such, and I really dont know how these people could think that, unless if they havent been playing for more than a week or two. It's what a release MMO should be, but is in very poor shape, and is in no way in shape for an expansion. Half the game is still broken!
To give you an idea of how much I hated my time in the game... Lets just say I hadnt played WoW since TBC first came out. I hadnt even thought twice about going back. AoC made me hate my MMO time so much, I actually missed WoW. Not because it was a great game or great memories, but because of these simple facts - If I wanted to run a 5man at anytime, I could. In AoC it was near impossible even at peak time sometimes. The entire time I played AoC when it comes to PvP, I seriously found maybe 2 or 3 decent fights - the rest were camping or complete stomps. If I wanted to PvP on WoW I would actually be able to do that at any time and have an actual fight. When it comes to raiding, that's about the only think WoW does right, so why settle for sub-par raids with horrible progression and raid attendance?
AoC's main strength was the ability to play casually and level up multiple characters in a reasonable amount of time, and be able to get them geared up for raiding. But you know what? That was WoW's strength as well, at the time I thought, why not play a game that does the same things but has better implementation.
So I ended up going back to WoW for the first time in years - which QUICKLY brought me back to my senses. 5mans in WoW suck and are retardedly easy. PvP in WoW sucks and has gone down hill since vanilla WoW. I dont particuarly enjoy raiding because of the insane time constraints either. Overall it's not the most enjoyable game I've played.
But I cant lie - it was far more entertaining than my time on AoC was.
Soooooo basicly you played for 11 months and nothing was fun for you? Think some dude with his own basement and leathermask wants to meat you....
What this thing about a MMO should be your life for 3years+ or its a fail.... Nah AoC offers loads of interesting twitch and turs for the pve player. The levering process. AS you said yourself. 7 level 80; it must be totally your game(or it might be compulsatory FotM). You have some crafting to do(aldogh need attention imo). You have t0-t3 raids. And a some engame groupdungdeons. You can also try some zerging in border kingdoms or try to reach pvplevel 5 or maybe; RP? (What in a RPG that is sooooo ghe........) Personally I suck at pvp so I should do like many others and cry "NERF EVERYONEELSETHANME OR I WILL QUIT AND CUTMYSELF TO GET ATTENTION".... Hey thats also what many players like to do.
Please prepare for a huge wall of text, as I have a pretty long winded opinion on this subject.
I played at release for 6 months, and for 4 or 5 months starting with their big patch in summer.
Now it really depends on what you are looking for in the game. I was pleased... and dissapointed.
First why I was pleased. At the beginning of summer, AoC is what it should have been at release. The bigs were fixed for the most part, the game ran pretty decent, the retarded 1-shotting for all melee classes was fixed, and the gems were finally nerfed. The patch was coming where they finally did the gear upgrades that were promised, and the big balancing act that was supposed to revamp the classes and restore balance.
That's where the bad started to come in.
The gear improvement is in - but it is still very, very simplistic. The options of different gear types is still very limited. I stand on what I said earlier - the gear system is what it should have been at release. But at this stage of the game, it is very underwhelming.
The balance changes basically nerfed some classes and buffed some, but to be honest, the balance was still crap. Skill HoX's were just retarded - I was able to single handedly DECIMATE every single class except for a necro - which I had completely no chance at all against. The Paper-Rock-Scissor balance was FAR too heavy. My alt character - a barb - had to switch to completely new specs, but to be honest, sure he was better with a 2hander, but he didnt do the DPS of the other DPS classes, and in PvP he was a bit more survivable, but overall weaker vs more classes than he was before "balancing".
Judging by the recent dev post saying something along the lines of "Players think they want a fair fight, but in truth they want something more like a 80/20 win/loss chance", it seems that they are completely clueless when it comes to balancing.
Content - This is the other place where the game fell apart for me. There is more than release, yes... but it is still very limited. PvE first - Once you hit 80, it will only take a week or 2 to gear up to maximum outside of raids. Basically just like WoW is nowdays - over simplified and basic. At that point, your options are raid, or if there isnt a raid going on at the time, reroll. The only point to even run instances anymore is to farm the rarer recipies, which arent really worth it with AoC's economy (which is crap, half the time you craft an item and it sells for less than the mats are worth) not to mention the rarest recipies are still far too common when everyone on the server has access to them and the mats are not very rare or particuarly expensive. Too much supply, not enough demand.
Raiding - it's somewhat decent, but again, progression is far too fast. I've seen some people argue that "they like it because a casual player can do it", but lets be real - even if you are a causal player you will progress thru everything very fast, and then what do you do when you dont need anything anymore? Your again stuck with the option to reroll. Also, while the population isnt "dead", it's quite hard to get raids sometimes. I was in one of the larger guilds on Tyrrany and it was pretty common that we were just a few people short, or missing an extra tank or healer, and just couldnt find one so we had to call it.
One thing that speaks loudly about the amount of content in the game, and something I really, really hated, is that if I logged in game outside of a raid, nearly every single person online was on their characters under level 80. Why? Because the reason I said earlier - you dont have anything to do but reroll outside of raids. I personally cant stand rerolling over and over (I already had 2 80's and that is enough for me).
Now PvP. Broken. That's all there is to say really. Just broken.
Minigames? Broken. If they happen it will 9/10 times be a complete stomping of one premade vs a pug team. As soon as the game pops, if you happen to be on the pug, as soon as your team mates see they are going against a premade they leave game. They are almost never replaced. So basically its 2-3 people vs a premade. No chance and its not even fun. Even if your on the premade, its no fun at all.
World PvP? Broken. The majority of the world PvP you find will be trying to walk thru town and getting ganked by a crew on the rooftops camping as soon as you get away from the guards. The guards? Broken. There have been times I have been on a lvl 60ish PoM and got attacked, done nothing but heal myself (and no, I didnt have the spell that does damage around you when you heal on), and instead of attacking the ranger shooting me, the guards killed me. Tarantia Commons was the only place to usually find a fight away from guards, but even that was broken - if you find a fight the enemy will sprint to the edge and jump in the water. Note - you still cant attack in the water. World PvP is ruined by the guards and the water.
The PvP reward system? Broken. The criminal system is very poorly implemented. You need to grind a freaking retarded amount of kills just to get each piece, and its near impossible to find that many kills without camping a respawn away from the guards, which is just boring. We actually got more points than anything by having someone leave guild so we could fight them and just reinviting them back after. But the levels still progressed painfully slow.
The PvP raiding? Broken. Even a year and a half after the game came out, they are still broken. My last raid experience? An allied guild had a defense so we got invited to their guild to help them. Horrible lag,and not PC lag either.. We were a bit outnumbered, and were getting completely stompoed. Right as the enemies took us out and were getting close to winning - red bar, disconnect, raid over, we win. We were losing and even we were pissed, cuz its just so horrible and unfair. If you check some recent youtube videos, youll see nothing has changed and videos of raids crashing not even 5 minutes in.
So in the end, AoC's PvP system? Dueling. Which is horribly balanced as mentioned earlier.
My opinion on the game, I found the PvE weak and limited, and the PvP was painful.
I seen so many people saying how AoC is the best MMO out now and such, and I really dont know how these people could think that, unless if they havent been playing for more than a week or two. It's what a release MMO should be, but is in very poor shape, and is in no way in shape for an expansion. Half the game is still broken!
To give you an idea of how much I hated my time in the game... Lets just say I hadnt played WoW since TBC first came out. I hadnt even thought twice about going back. AoC made me hate my MMO time so much, I actually missed WoW. Not because it was a great game or great memories, but because of these simple facts - If I wanted to run a 5man at anytime, I could. In AoC it was near impossible even at peak time sometimes. The entire time I played AoC when it comes to PvP, I seriously found maybe 2 or 3 decent fights - the rest were camping or complete stomps. If I wanted to PvP on WoW I would actually be able to do that at any time and have an actual fight. When it comes to raiding, that's about the only think WoW does right, so why settle for sub-par raids with horrible progression and raid attendance?
AoC's main strength was the ability to play casually and level up multiple characters in a reasonable amount of time, and be able to get them geared up for raiding. But you know what? That was WoW's strength as well, at the time I thought, why not play a game that does the same things but has better implementation.
So I ended up going back to WoW for the first time in years - which QUICKLY brought me back to my senses. 5mans in WoW suck and are retardedly easy. PvP in WoW sucks and has gone down hill since vanilla WoW. I dont particuarly enjoy raiding because of the insane time constraints either. Overall it's not the most enjoyable game I've played.
But I cant lie - it was far more entertaining than my time on AoC was.
Soooooo basicly you played for 11 months and nothing was fun for you? Think some dude with his own basement and leathermask wants to meat you....
What this thing about a MMO should be your life for 3years+ or its a fail.... Nah AoC offers loads of interesting twitch and turs for the pve player. The levering process. AS you said yourself. 7 level 80; it must be totally your game(or it might be compulsatory FotM). You have some crafting to do(aldogh need attention imo). You have t0-t3 raids. And a some engame groupdungdeons. You can also try some zerging in border kingdoms or try to reach pvplevel 5 or maybe; RP? (What in a RPG that is sooooo ghe........) Personally I suck at pvp so I should do like many others and cry "NERF EVERYONEELSETHANME OR I WILL QUIT AND CUTMYSELF TO GET ATTENTION".... Hey thats also what many players like to do.
Did you even actually read what I said?
I specifically said that upon reaching 80 there is a very, very limited amount of content. 1-2 weeks of end-game content outside of raids is weak.
I dont know where you got the idea of 7 level 80's - again I specifically said I had 2 level 80's and I didnt want to reroll another, but that's the only thing to really do in the game.
I did do a bunch of crafting, because as mentioned, farming recipies was the only thing to do in 5mans, as there was nothing else to do 2 weeks in.
I mentioned the raids - just because there are up to t3 raids does not mean that there is not problems of A) the progression is notdone well (or even neccessary in most cases),
the raids are not particuarly exciting, fun, or even do-able with the available players.
I mentioned PvP in depth as well, and how broken and crappy it is.
Seriously - WoW gets alot of bad things said about it because there is very little to do in the game outside of raids, and how easy it is to gear up new 80s/how little content there is outside of raids. AoC only has a fraction of the content WoW has. They are trying to emulate the same play styles as well, except their verisons are broken. How could people be happy and try to spin these parts of AoC as something good, when these things are considered weak parts of WoW?
The combat 'could' be fun, I'll give AoC that - it's always had potential. But it very rarely is actually fun. As mentioned, finding a decent PvP fight came only 2-3 times in MONTHS of playing. The PvE is just mediocre at best. One thing I forgot to mention is the PvE is completely killed by retardedness as well - kiting bosses outside of the room and all the add's reset but the boss dont reset? Bringing bosses all the way thru entire floors of dungeons for easier positioning? Even in pugs all the people exploit the dumb bugs like this. Come on now... thats just amatuerish game design.
The reason I mention the amount of time I played the game isnt because I had loads of fun in that time - it's because I really WANTED to have fun. I WANTED to give AoC a fair chance, and I thought it was going to actually shine if I stuck with it long enough. I really wanted to like the game.
All giving it a real chance did was make me completely miserable the longer time I spent on it.
If there are people out there having fun on it, I wish you the best and give you props for sticking with it. I just would not feel right if I did not share the misery I had playing the game - I was horribly dissapointed and in giving them a chance, I spent far more money on the game than they deserved.
I'm going to be really upset if they screw up The Secret World by releasing it way too early as well....
You play WoW- enough said. Seriously, the amount of achievements demanded by WoW players is outrageous. You see, most of those who like AoC pvp like it because it take some skill and positioning (as a melee) instead of random button smashing. I don't need a SINGLE PVP reward - to me PVP itself is rewarding ... therefore I duel most of the time on testlive.
But there is something I am very upset with. FC went to far and made this game WoW (because of "beep" Wombies like a player above) copy - namely ... you have to raid and in future have 6-10 pvp gear in order to be able to PVP. Terrible
... I am wearing blue and green gear as it is now and was one shotted by a barb from full HP the other day. In good old days before wombies shit over this game it was ... "oh ok he has pvp lvl 5 .... but if I do stuff right I will be able to beat him". Now it is "oh ok he has t2 full set - and he is a caster - probly I will be one shotted"- so fuck off wombies.
First off, my mentionong of WoW wasnt to say it was a good game, it was to show how painful AoC was in the same areas. I specifically said WoW isnt great in those same areas - but it was better than AoC is. That's very bad news for AoC.
Second, the achivements demenaded by WoW players is outrageous? WoW is very weak in that area unless you are a raider. I come from Asherons Call and with a fraction of the budget, AC implemented more in their monthly updates than any of the modern MMO's do in 6 months. But I'm straying off subject here - point is WoW has very little to do outside of raids unless you play an alt, (or go for the actual WoW "achievments" - which I dont bother because they are completely pointless) and AoC has even less. The same exact problem for both games - low amount of content outside of raids, easy content outside of raids, required raiding for progression, and crap PvP so theres not even something fun to do between raids.
Next, AoC PvP doesnt take very much skill - only 'slightly' more than other games (only to aim in front of you, really, which is nothing if you are a mouse mover). I mentioned I was a HoX which was a hybrid of melee and spells, and no matter which way I spec'ed I could completely decimate every class but Necro (and an occasional ToS if the proper spec) - to which necro I had NO CHANCE AT ALL. That is not skill. Thats too much of a reliance on Paper-Rock-Scissors balance - P-R-S is a common thing in MMO balance, but not to the extent where classes have no chance at all vs eachother.
That said, PvP in duels is NOT very rewarding - and you said yourself you PvP in duels. Why anyone would play an MMO to duel is beyond me? You might as well play a 1v1 fighting game if you want to fight like that, because hell at least those games are made for it and balanced for it - your not guaranteed a 90%+ chance to win just for being the right class with the right gear (unless you happen to be playing at a tournament level with the lowest tier character against the highest tier character). Read the interview I mentioned a couple months ago where the devs mention how they believe the average player desires a balance of something like 80/20% chance to win - you will quickly realize they are completely out of touch with balancing.
When it comes to PvP combat - if it is actually enjoyable combat, I do not need anything as a reward from PvP either - another example being fighting games which I do enjoy. But AoC does not provide a good form of PvP - which is the problem. Duels dont cut it in games with Paper-Rock-Scissors balance, and the biggest problem with PvP in the game is that you cant find a decent fight - I swear I tried for MONTHS and found 2-3.
Believe me, I seen the potential of the games PvP. That's why I WANTED to like the game so bad - not because the PvE is any more interesting than any other MMO - because the PvE is pretty bland. The PvP -could- have been the most skill based PvP out there. But they dropped the ball with the implementation, balance, and ineptitude of not fixing it with all the time they have had.
Your final paragraph shows what I was saying perfectly - the balance is just crap. Not that WoW's PvP balance is any better nowdays. But at least you could find a PvP fight on WoW outside of duels - good luck finding a decent minigame or world pvp fight on AoC. Never happens because the PvP is too broken.
What exactly is so horrible about balance (besides casters)? I am pretty sure I can kill your hox with my bs.
Now about minis - yes, they are horrible if you come in iwth a pug that isn't even communicating with each other. But if you manage to get that good to get a spot in server best premades when facing other premades it becomes hell of a lot fun. Premades are the only way to enjoy minis tbh.
Also the balancing - well to me it was always that extra drive to beat a pet necro or a demo in duel. I don't run away from duels but you can do that - simply duel everything that you thing is duelable on your class. If you don't like losing to game mechanics ...
PVP is hell of a lot fun because it takes positioning and straffing and jumping and everything else that might make it a bit unreal, but still it is the only MMO I have been in which takes some skill other than knowing your opponent and play a turn based combat - this is WoW IMHO. Actually I don't like that much group pvp, because you don't have enough room to dance around the playfield as you do in controlled duel - but still when in good group team a good player will never be bored - debuffing, buffing, healing, killing, ccing and all that while trying to sneak behind opponent's back with the biggest motherfucking combo loaded - BUM FATALITY ... your head is mine bitch! That struggle for every piece of territory is unbelievable ... if and when FC implements new minis this game PVP will become pure gold.
Sieges - Crom reports lagless sieges but don't know how true this is.
um hmm odd i quit wow to play aoc again on my 1st return.for people who gripe about global in aoc realy must not have been in wow.wow game grindy easy ,tho new instances have helped it .but that just sperated players more in some ways. only good thing i see they did was allow all players from all servers be in the new instances.
so no waiting time for a instance that way.but um you played aoc for 11 months an didnt find it fun?i played wow for about 3 months it was fun at the start an got worse to me.last day i played i had a human paladin follw my undead knight around spaming dual .all the while two guys in global were miss telling their cybering each other...that with invites then boots because the kiddies found some one "beter" .grouping was just for a instance an that was it.
SporeDot aoc may not have been for you .but ya played for 11 months an you say you had more fun in wow?to each their own you probly should look at games like champions online an wow clones .dont try eq1 an such as their harder games grindy time sinks but imho fun at times.some one mentioned eq1s lacking a end game or raid end game ...really?lol i say.
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
I recently resubbed to AOC, played at launch for a month or so and got 1 toon to lvl 26 then quit till a week or 2 ago.
Rerolled on Wiccana, found a good decent guild to play with and have been having fun with the game. Thats enuff for me personally.
I dont have to over analyze a game based on what will I be doing in 7 months. Its a game not a marriage lol.
IMO if you wanna try it then do, if you like it keep playing it until you dont anymore. Pretty simple way to look at things
True, it's not. I wanted to like it because the combat has alot of potential. But after awhile it's just painful.
Just wanted to add it wasnt 11 consecutive months as well - release was mostly leveling and trying the stuff at launch until my guild left. Was a few months in summer this year when I went back after I seen all the hype bout the game improving. Was like 4-5 months this summer, and the last at least 50% of that was trying to give the game some extra time to see if maybe I was missing out on something - I wanted to make sure I didnt miss out on any content or anything and wanted to make sure I experienced all of it. At the end of it, I regret spending as much time as I did.
It's true that the game really did make me miss WoW - you dont know how hard it becomes to find raids or even 5mans in the game once your guild doesnt need them anymore. You dont know how pathetic it feels to even find a decent PvP fight after you try for months and only get dissapointment after dissapointment. I missed WoW not because the gameplay, but because you could actually PvP, you could actually run instances.
I also remembered how WoW had pretty much no reason to run instances outside of badges. But you know what? After being able to find maybe 1 instance run per night if you were lucky, being able to run an instance with no gain from it was appealing. Being able to PvP whenever, even if the PvP sucks, was appealing when you have been deprived of PvP for months.
And no - I dont really need WoW clones. AoC is in the same boat as WoW to be honest in that it is designed the same way outside of combat mechanics - level alts, do 5mans for a couple weeks, than nothing but raids. Their both marginally difficult PvE. I'd prefer a harder game such as EQ - my problem with AoC (and WoW) is having nothing to do but reroll. I'd prefer challenging PvE, and actually having PvP available. What I'd really love is for more skill-based games to enter the market - Asherons Call was my fav MMO - but the only one that came out recently was DF which was a horrible dissapointment as well...
If your having fun, more power to you. I hope it lasts longer than it did for me. I hope you dont regret spending your time and money on the game, just to give it a chance to prove itself to be as good as people on here say, like I did.
SporeDot i understand what your saying an the clarification on the 11 months makes bit more sence now.you might like eq1 now its harder than most games out their but not near as hard as it used to be. but you will have some of the same problems you have with aoc.geing people to do what your intrested in atm. pvp in eq is an has always been a joke.ill probly buy the expasion next month to it.if your starting out just buying the new expansion gets you all of the past expansions .
i realy liked warhammers pvp tho so many complaned aobut it it was pathatic.i played both sides an seen when one side was over powered .casters ther for bit were way op that melee .but least its pvp missions were clear on what to do.some realy do like champions online pvp.the pve bored me to tears an the bugs ate the rest of the fun.
their are some games bases on pvp comeing out that might not be to bad.but for me i like pve more than pvp.an imho wows pvp blows an sucks at the same time.an it pve is boreing easy.one of the few games i played where grouping hurts your xp.city of heroes, everquest 1 have a group bonus system more int the group better the xp over all.
any way hope ya find a game that is fun for ya.aoc is fun for me.as well ascity of heroes , an everquest 1 are my games atm.
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." Robert E. Howard, The Tower of the Elephant (1933)
I am in the same position but decided to wait for the expansion. I quited a while after Ymirs pass came out, but I just doubt that OT:Common and the other free patches will have added enough, I think it is better to wait for the expansion.
Games like AoC needs a few expansions to be the game it really can be, EQ2 had the same problem, it is fun now but it took 3 expansion before it had enough content to be fun (yeah, it have more expansions now but EoF made it fun for me).
Age of Conan is one of the worst MMO's I have ever played in my 14 years of gaming. Not only that the community is full of a bunch of 30 year old men who act like little 9 year olds that have a bad case of social retardism.
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