AOC - General Information

[Tred]

Shoot you full of arrows?

And the poll about characters - I'll be rolling a Dark Templar for sure.

[Schatze]

Guardian. I want to be a tank, and at 20-=mid 20s I've found that the character is pretty damned viable in PVP too. Not to mention besides ability scaling the character will scale even more as it gets access to heavier armor. I figure tempest for leveling up, juggernaut if I eventually end up tanking. Haven't looked over the generic fighter tree.

[Korioni]

Preordered this today... I'll probably try out Assassin, Demonologist and/or HoX.

[Ashes Emberblade]

Going tempest of set for sure. Spent all day in a premade healing in pvp and it was insanely fun.

[Duppin]

So, I'm sure I'm going to get flamed for this, but it seems like there's an open beta going on that I can't find any information about?

Or is it one of the "preorder and you can start beta" sort of things?

[Pyros]

Open beta is over I think? It was a fileplanet beta thingie. Game is starting rather soon.

About the PoM bug discussion, bear shamans are bugged too and can get the same kind of numbers. Barbarians are also bugged and can heal themselves. Not sure about other classes, but it's not an isolated thing that makes the pom all powerful.

Also in the other thread about the bug, someone reported it might be fixed, since he didn't get it to stack again since last patch.

It is a random thing though, sometimes one of the talents that provides a buff will not completely wear off(probably has to do with the spell being recast right as it wears off or some crap, and taking into account the buffed value as your new base value), and over a decently long period of time, will stack high enough that you get much more power than intended. It wears off on logging off, or crashing.

Anyway, PoM isn't that good for pvp. For PvE undoubtely, but for PvP, all the CC are rather slow cast and/or low duration. Landing a 3secs cast 6m AE knockback that does enough light effects for an helicopter to land safely isn't terribly easy unless you're facing retards. In comparison, ToS 0.5s cast single target stun and 1.5s cast AE root are much more efficient, and you also get them very early(pom only get repulse early, then next one is like lvl 35 and next one lvl 50+).

It's definitely not the bestest class ever. But it'll level fast, so the chances of you facing a higher lvl pom are probably higher than facing a higher lvl bear shaman for example.

[Hatorade]

Well Color me impressed. I am definately buying this game now. PVP is just awesome. Awesomely fucked if your not in a group. The FFA bloodbath is nuts, everyone trys to gank you. Assassins are fucking lame 40% health gone before I even see them, rangers kill me as a guardian every time they get to shoot me from afar and charge isn't up. Charge is awesome hits every time for 60+ dmg. Running away in a large battle usually causes confusion due to so many people.

Polearm guardian is definately the way to go for leveling/pvp dmg is nasty even in defensive stance. The combat and skills are definately what I was hoping for at level 20ish. Combos that actually require left and right to activate. Anyways I have gone from meh I will give it a look to really really looking forward to it.

Oh any char you login in as right now has a +20 level item that levels you to 20 and gives you decent gear. I dunno what the level cap is now but I see plenty of 25+ running around.

[Nevaar]

I am curious in querying the collective wisdom here. Has any game released after being developed with one initial design in regards to the PvP and then had a FFA setup be more or equally successful?

Obviously its clear that AoC was designed with the PvE design until later levels where its basically FFA in the Border Kingdoms except for your group/guild. Does it seem like the FFA servers have much long term potential or staying power?

As far as I recall no other game has been able to pull it off. In EQ1 the Zek servers were somewhat of a niche. In DAoC the mordred/andred servers were ghost towns a couple months after their inception. WoW has no FFA. EQ2's are still faction based and even then the pure PvP servers are minimal.

Why are AoC's FFA servers going to have longterm success? Is there something innovative about their FFA system? If so I haven't seen it so far. Is much of the interest in the FFA servers due to the stigma of PvE servers from WoW .. even though AoC's 'PvE' servers offer full scale high level FFA PvP in the Border Kingdoms? How is AoC going to pull off what no game has yet, without a fleshed out FFA PvP system less then a week before launch?

Nev

[Tyen]

In the words of Samuel L. Jackson "I wouldn't start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."

PvP always has been a niche market, and even though it has a stable amount of users, it never compares to the PVE crowd. I like PvP myself, but I understand that this area is few and far between in MMOs. Yes, AOC may have some great shit but that doesn't mean it's turning it around for vanguard.

[TwiNCannoN]

It's not really innovative but a lack of factions always makes for a nice PVP environment. In WoW/DAoC/other faction based games, there's no emotion in your kills, I mean at best you'll be able to tell their class or maybe recognize their name but past that they're a statistic. Simply being able to communicate with your opponent - while opening the floodgates of shittalking, granted - makes PVP much, much more personal. Just imagine having to do stuff like form small pacts and alliances with people who very may well stab you in the back at any given time. Or if someone ditches your guild, what you'll be able to do to him if you see him in the wild. Again, this isn't specific to AoC so it's not like Funcom is innovating much here - it's just the nature of factionless PVP.

There's a few small things that AoC does (some probably unintentional) that can make it pretty cool, not being able to target someone from a distance and not immediately being able to tell someone's class is actually pretty neat, I had a "stand off" with some guy in the Khopshef desert once, me on one sand dune and him on the other, just staring each other down. I almost wish they would remove being able to see enemy players' levels and just give a very broad consider system in place to make it that much more interesting. Obviously it doesn't matter once you hit 80, but the actual pvp while leveling up can be surprisingly fun at times. Or a total spawncamp ganker shitfest right now in closed beta.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Ashes Emberblade

Going tempest of set for sure. Spent all day in a premade healing in pvp and it was insanely fun.

Im also rolling tempest, but it is kinda annoying that you cannot go out and solo pvp; your mana management is group based. Alone you do not spam cone heals, which means your overpriced nukes (10x more mana than demonologist) kill your manapool before anything dies.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Nevaar

I am curious in querying the collective wisdom here. Has any game released after being developed with one initial design in regards to the PvP and then had a FFA setup be more or equally successful?

Obviously its clear that AoC was designed with the PvE design until later levels where its basically FFA in the Border Kingdoms except for your group/guild. Does it seem like the FFA servers have much long term potential or staying power?

As far as I recall no other game has been able to pull it off. In EQ1 the Zek servers were somewhat of a niche. In DAoC the mordred/andred servers were ghost towns a couple months after their inception. WoW has no FFA. EQ2's are still faction based and even then the pure PvP servers are minimal.

Why are AoC's FFA servers going to have longterm success? Is there something innovative about their FFA system? If so I haven't seen it so far. Is much of the interest in the FFA servers due to the stigma of PvE servers from WoW .. even though AoC's 'PvE' servers offer full scale high level FFA PvP in the Border Kingdoms? How is AoC going to pull off what no game has yet, without a fleshed out FFA PvP system less then a week before launch?

Nev

Asheron's Call DT server. Game that was pretty much entirely designed with pve in mind, released only one pvp server that was full FFA, after some times it was the most populated server in the game. Semi harsh death penalty made regulating the FFA crowd easier though. Guilds would decide of bind points as their "town", and there were wars at these stones to force the guilds to move to a less advantageous one(vendors and portals control).

AoC will have trouble getting there though, the first zones are totally not designed to support FFA in any way or form, the total lack of penalty for death and the ability to lock full zones pretty much ruin it.

AC was an open world, and while portal camping was common, there was always a backup portal near the main one to counter, and also it had mostly a skill based system(even though it had levels), in which everyone was a little one man army, meaning you could actually beat 10bad players alone. This is not happening in AoC, and as such I don't really see the ffa server as interesting, besides the whole griefing thing.

[Man0warr]

Rallos Zek was awesome the first couple years, tons of FFA, then people started to care more about loot/raiding and a bunch of alliances formed to raid and all the PvP guilds (Hidden Power, The Mercs, The Regulators, KAAOS, etc) all left for other games or quit - Darkenbane stayed around for awhile though.

[Vehn]

CB servers down for another 5.5 hours... Really hope they don't delay the downtime...

[Tuco]

Originally Posted by Tyen

In the words of Samuel L. Jackson "I wouldn't start sucking each other's dicks quite yet."

PvP always has been a niche market, and even though it has a stable amount of users, it never compares to the PVE crowd. I like PvP myself, but I understand that this area is few and far between in MMOs. Yes, AOC may have some great shit but that doesn't mean it's turning it around for vanguard.

Vincent Wolf says that, not Jules.