AOC - General Discussion II

[matmanx2]

Originally Posted by Kolle

i agree about the combat. aoc just takes what you are doing in other games and make you press 2-5 extra keys. there's nothing special or extra going on with it to justify the extra button mashing. if mashing extra buttons to perform one attack move is so much better, then why not add another 10 or 15 key presses to each attack. wouldn't that make it more awesome? well, i suppose 15 extra keys is a little silly. how about 1 extra key? 2?

Responding to the part I made bold. Oh but there is something special going on. You are trading stamina for damage + effect providing you entered the key commands correctly. This is an additional layer of strategy and skill over pretty much any other MMO on the market right now.

I realize the system AoC is using may not be to everyone's taste but for the most part it is a success in the areas of: 1) Providing a more active, hands on approach to MMO's and 2) Rewarding player dexterity and stamina management over gear and level. If you think this is a bad thing then I would kindly direct you to the WoW thread. You might find it more to your taste.

[PerritoBites]

Originally Posted by Fratley

AoC would be a better game without healers. Replace all their stupid over-aggroing heals with health regen buffs -- massive win.

I somewhat agree with this... While RPG MMOs aren't quite yet ready to avoid the combat trinity, this game does reduce the healer work in this game. The problem is that heals work with short healing buffs that heal every couple of seconds and this means that mobs will agro instantly towards the healer. There is nothing you can do about this since the only way to heal is to keep the HoTs up. IMO, they should completely remove agro from the HoTs in this game and increase the agro the direct heals use.

[Twobit Whore]

Without heals you can't have damage and without damage you have no risk of death and with no risk of death how can you have rewards for victory?

[Vehn]

Age of Conan Sells Over 1 Million

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Caocao

Ok so I'm lotus atm(20) for pvp, and I open up from stealth then do grim corruption then vicious strikes followed by lethargy. My question is am I doing it wrong, or is there just a better pattern to follow? I kill almost any thing my level if I get the stealth attack off.

You should level more.

[machineman]

Originally Posted by Leviathan

The combat system is the main reason most people I know enjoy playing AoC. To each his own.

It was designed purely with console gamers in mind, and optimized for a game pad. So if you fall into that category, then yes. IMO, it doesn't work for a PC-based MMO. It's just a combination of whack-a-mole and Simon.

[machineman]

Originally Posted by Vehn

Age of Conan Sells Over 1 Million

Also Shipped is different than Sold

[spronk]

Those are actual sales, not shipments. No doubts by now that AoC is huge and will probably hit a million subs within 1-2 weeks. What the churn rate though is totally up to Funcom and how good they are at finishing up 50-80 and endgame. The fact that the June patch is only going to fix 55-60 is a bit disheartening, hopefully it'll do more and they just haven't told us yet.

Harvesting in this game absolutely blows, I wrote a quick bot last nite (dont care if my account gets banned anymore, 50+ sucks balls) just to farm granite for obsidian (t2 harvest quest) in a private instance, just let it right click every 2 minutes - private instances don't respawn nor do adds come on node harvests (bug, since the msg appears but nothing comes). It went for 12 hours and harvested over 300 granite and 0, yes thats right, 0, fucking obsidian. The shit is totally broke, only 2 of my 6 harvest t2 items I've found in hundreds and hundreds of node farms.

A guildie also said that raids reset when private instances reset (villa, etc) so a guild of 80s can go in and farm up an epic set every day. lol, its gonna be pretty funny when they release the pvp system and the people who shoot up to the top are the people who are in full raid pve gear. Nice how most of the 6 man 80 instances are unitemized too.

[Vehn]

meh it's all random. I got ebon ash on the very first ash harvest, and got cottonwhisp on my 30th cotton harvest. Still going at it for the other one's though. My friend said it took him ~1,500 copper to get 1 tin >.>

[machineman]

Originally Posted by spronk

Those are actual sales, not shipments. No doubts by now that AoC is huge and will probably hit a million subs within 1-2 weeks.

I dunno, sounds like shipments to me based on their own press release:

"DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan will pass the astounding “One Million Copies Shipped” milestone in less than three weeks after the launch of the game."

Don't forget there is a large backlash as well and many folks are cancelling, the retention isn't nearly as high as WoW or even LotRO was.

I personally don't think they will ever hit 1 million subs.

[Horse]

Originally Posted by Elerion

Because there's pretty much no way to do the fancy combo animations during movement without experiencing unnatural "sliding".

Note as I said earlier that it doesn't matter for the combo in question. As long as you are in range when the combo finisher starts casting, the combo will hit. It does obviously mean that you have to catch up the victim afterwards though.

Are you sure about this. I've tested it exclusively and my friend was easily able to run behind me whenever he saw a casting bar and the combo doesn't land.

[Elerion]

He can run behind you, yes. You have to turn to track the target. He can't run out of range.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by machineman

It was designed purely with console gamers in mind, and optimized for a game pad. So if you fall into that category, then yes. IMO, it doesn't work for a PC-based MMO. It's just a combination of whack-a-mole and Simon.

I'll wait until I see how they manage to fit the 5 directional keys with moving in a fps way in a decent form before I'd agree with that. Currently, doing what I do with my mouse/keyboard on a gamepad is simply impossible as far as I'm concerned. Maybe TWO gamepads.

The zones and all the instancing stuff might be because of console(or bad coding), but controls, hardly, they will SUCK on consoles, it takes just way too much keys to be efficient at this game. 5 directional, about 15-20abilities depending on class, and you have to position correctly(aka rotate fast but precisely) to land combos on maximum amount of mobs, let alone moving players.

You might hate the controls, but it's the most involved gameplay you can find currently, since AC and it's strafe casting and runcasting stuff(which weren't even intended to begin with). Yeah it sucks for grinding to have to press 5keys to do what you do in one in wow, but in PvP it adds a whole level of skill being able to press those keys in the correct order/timing while avoiding attacks/casting spells, then finishing those combos in range, or cancelling them to turn on active blocking after double tapping backward to parry the incoming Fire Lance that'll rape you.

Not talking about PvP on a group level, because some people might prefer wow or daoc(not the launch ones though), but on an individual skill requirement, this game is over anything before. If you only PvE, it's probably gay though, and damn if someone could foresee this game pve would suck, I'm sure everyone is surprised.

[Hatorade]

So I respecced from PVE tank to Straight DPS on my Dark Templar. I have the frenzy stance and volcanic rage from the general tree. It is truely the complete opposite of what my class use to be able to do. I use to be able to tank 6-8 mobs of even level and kill them all solo. I can now only tank 3-4 but they die in 5 secs tops(less if I pop volcanic rage) as aposed to the 20 it was taking.

PvP wise I am much more squishy due to frenzy stance and I don't really like it. I have a much better chance of killing someone that is for sure but there chance to kill me is also much higher.

[Oblio]

Originally Posted by Hatorade

So I respecced from PVE tank to Straight DPS on my Dark Templar. I have the frenzy stance and volcanic rage from the general tree. It is truely the complete opposite of what my class use to be able to do. I use to be able to tank 6-8 mobs of even level and kill them all solo. I can now only tank 3-4 but they die in 5 secs tops(less if I pop volcanic rage) as aposed to the 20 it was taking.

PvP wise I am much more squishy due to frenzy stance and I don't really like it. I have a much better chance of killing someone that is for sure but there chance to kill me is also much higher.

Can you post your Feat Tree please? I started playing at EA but I am only level 34 DT because I went on vacation for 10 days and have had company in town plus a new job; bottom line is I have had no time to read up about our skills/abilities/feats so I feel like a total fucking noob. Any help you could offer me would greatly appreciated, life isn't going to calm down for me until next weekend so again any blurb of info you can offer would be awesome. Thanks!