AOC - General Information

[spronk]

tiny changes are having massive ripple effects in the game - for example Rangers were massively OP a few weeks ago, but they were bugged (the weapon was being treated 30-40 levels higher than it should have been). Demos were massively OP due to stuns/roots buggy, small tweaks will make them much shitter (dunno if this weeks patch fixed the 12 sec stun problem). Conquerors are absolute shit right now at high levels (every non soldier class owns them), but a few small stun tweaks and they should be ok.

aka pick a class you really like, because chances are a month from now the class will be quite different. Especially since tons of talents still don't work.

atm conquerors, necros, and rangers are the weakest 3 classes. demo, Bear Shamans, and POMs or DTs are probably the strongest (this is all at 80 with shitty gear, since there is no endgame crafted/PVP/raid gear available yet to testers).

[Jabberwhacky]

Sweet. 2 hours patching to log in to a character select screen that won't load any of my characters avatars, then get in game to find that my previous graphics settings getting me 20-25 fps now get me 5, just to hit ESC and have that crash the entire client. But don't worry guys, it's just beta.

[Tred]

Did you read the patch notes? They acknowledged that specific crash but felt the other optimizations were worth pushing the patch through. Yah it sucks but they at least said it would happen.

"The client will give assert error whenever you open up the Options Menu (F10/Esc). This should only happen the first time the menu is accessed per playsession."

[Big W Powah!]

I still dunno what to play, heh. Bear shaman up to 13 is abso-fucking-lutely win. HoX is the same. PoM I didn't really care for the just chain cast aspect of, but getting into a higher-developed skill set might make weaving spells (not spell weaving zomg) a bit more fun. It felt like "hit one nuke and one heal over and over" kinda stuff. Then again, couldn't get him past 5..=\ Its -gotta- get better. ToS was fun too, but not too great for me. I think I'll probably give PoM, Bear Shaman, and maybe a tank type a go sometime. Conquerors look fun.

[Senen]

Originally Posted by Tred

Did you read the patch notes? They acknowledged that specific crash but felt the other optimizations were worth pushing the patch through. Yah it sucks but they at least said it would happen.

"The client will give assert error whenever you open up the Options Menu (F10/Esc). This should only happen the first time the menu is accessed per playsession."

Heh accept this happens everytime you log in I only had one char playable till I finaly said fuck it uninstalled the shit and chalked it upto worse then VG. I'm amazed yet another company thinks its ok to be so close to release and have the game in such a horrible state.

[Tred]

Only happened to me the first time and hasn't since. *shrug*

[TwiNCannoN]

there's a lot of "attempt to continue / quit client" assertations in the new build, just hit continue, works most of the time.

[Jabberwhacky]

I didn't read the patch notes. Are they even shown in the patcher? I've never noticed them.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Grumpy Old Fart

And the comments about PoM above are total horse shit. PoMs are the #1 PvE class under 30 (and maybe over, but I haven't passed 29 yet) in my - and many others' - opinions. They kill fast, AE good, heal themselves and others wonderfully, never die, and are just all-around a fun class to play. I don't know what the fuck you're smoking, but you didn't play a PoM to 30. You might try leaving those ADD fingers off the melee buttons and try working out a good spell rotation (and re-spec to get the +mana-when-hit talents). AoC has a great spell/skill queuing system that makes everything flow perfectly once you get the hang of it.

While I'll agree they get better, to be honest 5-15 is total shit, and there's no magical way to play a game that only has 2spells that have some crappy splash effect that doesn't even work most of the time when mobs are both in melee range unless you're lucky they're as stacked as possible. Heals are worthless at these levels, you run out of mana fast. Combined to low hp and low armor, usually anything over 2mobs and you'll have to kill one then sprint away. It is the same for many classes at these levels, but there's some that level much better for early levels.

However once you start getting decent feats, it gets much better. Getting the mana on hit AND good AE feats require you to be a tad higher than 30 though. You get saintly guardian at 21 maxxed, then you need 5points in imp smite, 1point in cleansing flames for a new AE, 4more points in holy vengeance or whatever the name is for more dmg, then you can get purification of mitra(I think), which would be lvl 31. So AFTER 31 the class starts getting really good, before that, not so much, you'll either run out of mana fast(which isn't too bad I'll concede, you can just rest, and respec at 31 for saintly guardian) or have no good AE.

But yeah it seems PoM is one of the best if not the best solo pve class. Demonologist is up there too, since while they can't heal, they can pull big pack of mobs and kill them before dieing spamming AEs. Everyone else suffer from a lack of very good AE, with maybe the ToS a good 3rd place because they get a decent AE around lvl 40 iirc.

Balancing around solo pveing, or balancing at all in the current state is pretty worthless though. If anything, they should balance around current demon/pom power instead of nerfing shit down into oblivion and be content with it(yay rangers). It's also hard to tell where classes could really stand when a good 1/4 of feats are simply straight out broken, or underpowered. I'm sure assassins wouldn't be bitching that much about pvp if their feats were working for example.

[Tred]

Originally Posted by Jabberwhacky

I didn't read the patch notes. Are they even shown in the patcher? I've never noticed them.

Yah they're there. Just use your mouse to scroll down and you should see them.

[ModernDayDruid]

Patch made game much better for me performance wise. AoC has never run better for me (been in beta 4 months).

In 4 hours of play one crash, but the client recovered from the crash itself, first time for me. FPS in the 40s on average, very little stutter compared to pre-patch gameplay. Load times to zones under 10 seconds, sometimes under 2 seconds.

Seems like they did something with the graphics. Some things look better (reflection of light off of metal surfaces especially) and some things looks slightly downgraded (textures on buildings). However draw distance seems to be further out without any slider manipulation. I stood on the cliff in the Archerion Ruins (or whatever it's called) and could see fighting quite far off, down in the valley. That was really impressive.

Honestly I would have been surprised to see the game run this well even a month after launch. I've always had decent performance, but that entailed putting up with a lot of problems too. The issues I had are 90% gone.
Another week or two of tweaks and I'm going to be extremely satisifed with the client at launch.

[gnomad]

Originally Posted by ModernDayDruid

Patch made game much better for me performance wise. AoC has never run better for me (been in beta 4 months).

In 4 hours of play one crash, but the client recovered from the crash itself, first time for me. FPS in the 40s on average, very little stutter compared to pre-patch gameplay. Load times to zones under 10 seconds, sometimes under 2 seconds.

Seems like they did something with the graphics. Some things look better (reflection of light off of metal surfaces especially) and some things looks slightly downgraded (textures on buildings). However draw distance seems to be further out without any slider manipulation. I stood on the cliff in the Archerion Ruins (or whatever it's called) and could see fighting quite far off, down in the valley. That was really impressive.

Honestly I would have been surprised to see the game run this well even a month after launch. I've always had decent performance, but that entailed putting up with a lot of problems too. The issues I had are 90% gone.
Another week or two of tweaks and I'm going to be extremely satisifed with the client at launch.

Have to agree it is running much better and more stable, but.....

The tedium and boredom is still there and that is what will be a deal breaker for me and probably many others. The game has too much of a railroad track linear feel. I just feel like I am being lead around by the nose and am expected to be a mindless drone.

The first 20 levels thru Tortage will bore most people to death if they have played any other MMORPG's and my gawd I can't even imagine playing a second character thru that mess.

Whoever thought that the same starting area for all classes/races was a good idea must have zero creativity.

Hell even the starter area for EQ has more going for it and you can leave anytime you want. This is nothing but whack a mole with no crafting, or anything else to break up the boredom.

Shit you can't even get laid in the Bearded Clam whorehouse

[Jabberwhacky]

Performance has gone through the roof for me too. Still get some annoying load times, the kind where I can start to run around before everything is done loading, but it's not too bad.

I will say, if you're bored with the quests, fucking grind. I hit 9 doing solo stuff and was forced out into the Daytime (gasp) because I couldn't continue the solo until 10. I died literally 10-15 times trying to do various quests, and it was really fucking lame (Barbarian). However, I then find a lvl 11 HoX in that Pict area (past the panthers) and we partner. I just hit 11 after like 10, maybe 15 minutes tops, and I'm only back here because servers are down for patch.

Lotsa loot, lotsa exp, the only real problem was that he was doing about 90% of the damage. His fire breath dominated this shit while I sat there trying in vain to kill them 1 by 1 since my only real AE is god damn Sweep. Anyways, it was entertaining, and has a very Tabula Rasa feel to it, what with the massive AE killing of relatively weak mobs. But ya, solo blows. Fuck solo. Partner with some imba class and have some fun.

[TwiNCannoN]

Originally Posted by gnomad

The first 20 levels thru Tortage will bore most people to death if they have played any other MMORPG's and my gawd I can't even imagine playing a second character thru that mess.

Tortage is like the Barrens for me at this point heh, completely mindless autopilot.

Still, the first time around I don't know how someone could hate Tortage. It may be the only starter instance but it's far superior to most other MMO's starting areas. It's a touch ironic that after Tortage is where the 3 races split off into different areas. Even so, I can see the point of making one super polished starter area as opposed to multiple. The quality really shows.

[Snugglebear]

So what's the dilly folks? Do you just grind through to 80 and PvP (PvE raid optional) at the end? I want to know.