AOC - General Discussion II

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Schatze

As well, your testing measured is completely bogus and you don't even try to hide it. Sunday evening? The time when servers in most game are at their least active except for some very odd hours?

Uh, you do know that Sundays are the single most active day in MMOs right?

[Draynar]

Weird can't find any undocumented patch notes this time?

[machineman]

Originally Posted by Schatze

I'd like to see some real numbers. Not from Mr. Hatchet, not from a thoroughly useless poll, but some piece of actual data. Until you have real numbers it's just going to be squabbling.

Well, until Funcom provides real numbers on actual subscribers (and they won't) it's anyones guess and these are as likely as any. But every poll/chart/graph I see, from whatever source be it here or Xfire or wherever, shows AoC play trending severely downwards.

Is if official? Of course not... but if that's the data we have to go on, it's a given until shown otherwise.

[spronk]

Funcom will have to give some sub info in its stockholder report which I think is due after July 30th.

The stock is kind of funny too, it basically stood in the low 20s most of last year, moved up to mid 30s as Conan got closer, spiked up to $55 end of May when AoC was released, and has since slowly dropped back to $32 (today). Investors so far aren't very confident AoC is a big money maker.

[Inconsiderable]

After a week I had 20 non-guildmembers on my friendlist. All people I met in other games that went on the same server and people I wanted to play with. By now only 5 of these people are still playing AoC.
So many people I know it quit the game for various reasons and even my own guild is fighting inactivity (hell, most guilds on our server only raid because they know else they are going to lose members because there is nothing to do).

If this game keeps most or even many or hell HALF of the subscribers after the first months it would be a big surprise. I bet of that 700 (?) or so sold AoCs they will keep 200 at best.

[Vehn]

seems like crafted gear has taken a big hit today. Many of the items have lost there gems / gem sockets, with GM's saying that you will NOT be reimbursed for them. Pretty bad bug for those who have invested a ton in their gems.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

After a week I had 20 non-guildmembers on my friendlist. All people I met in other games that went on the same server and people I wanted to play with. By now only 5 of these people are still playing AoC.
So many people I know it quit the game for various reasons and even my own guild is fighting inactivity (hell, most guilds on our server only raid because they know else they are going to lose members because there is nothing to do).

If this game keeps most or even many or hell HALF of the subscribers after the first months it would be a big surprise. I bet of that 700 (?) or so sold AoCs they will keep 200 at best.

Well, it still seems to be selling well, so new players are offsetting some of those losses, but if Funcom doesn't get its head out of its ass and fix the higher level game, memory leak, female attack speed, etc. soon, then the game's going to get a permanent reputation as buggy crap, and then no amount of fixes will bring back players in the numbers Funcom's hoping for.

[Draynar]

Originally Posted by woqqqa

Well, it still seems to be selling well, so new players are offsetting some of those losses, but if Funcom doesn't get its head out of its ass and fix the higher level game, memory leak, female attack speed, etc. soon, then the game's going to get a permanent reputation as buggy crap, and then no amount of fixes will bring back players in the numbers Funcom's hoping for.

Don't forget the awesome 10k ping spikes that disconnect you that happen damn near constantly. I'm giving them till my next renewal is all myself.

What is -1 +1 internet's stuff mean? Thought originally it was tied into post count but guy below me has -2 and 650 or so more posts.

[Gilgamel]

Bah damnit, I finally kill my white whale last night with like a 4 guild confederation last night and then today they fix the fucking tooth. AND he just dropped books. Fucking lizard.

As to the playerbase I think there is some retention issues among 80s. But like some other people have said there are a shitton of new low level people making up the difference. I went through tortage on a necro a couple of days before the nerf and it was still crowded as hell at like 4 in the afternoon EST, and the noob chat was full of people.

[woqqqa]

Originally Posted by Draynar

Don't forget the awesome 10k ping spikes that disconnect you that happen damn near constantly. I'm giving them till my next renewal is all myself.

What is -1 +1 internet's stuff mean? Thought originally it was tied into post count but guy below me has -2 and 650 or so more posts.

Basically, it's a rating system for users. If you like someone, you can give them a + 1 internets, if not, a -1. (just click on the little scale icon under a posters name to vote them up or down)

As for the lag spike thing, either I've been lucky or the player's hardware also has some partial effect on it, because I've gotten it very infrequently.

[Hatorade]

Still no love for the Dark Templar, our skills are so fucking convoluted that I have no idea what our leeches actually heal for or if they are effected by +magic dmg or melee. There is zero feedback from the devs, and we get a talent that does +poison dmg (in the same tree as all our +unholy dmg) that we have to spend 5 points in to get our AoE fear. So an aura that procs +magic dmg that works with NOTHING else we have. If it was unholy dmg then it would be redundant as we get that aura already. Its like they ran out of ideas and were like well lets just make it another element and get some sleep.

More:
Martyrdom :

- Feated it increases the damage the dark templar takes without ANY increase in healing or stamina regen.
- more damage is received in Frenzy stance than in Def. or no stance.

Sacrificial Fury :

The damage component of this doesn not appear to scale with level.

Pact of Malacodor :

While the increased damage component of this is very nice the amount of health sacrificed seems unreasonable.(takes like 3k hp in frenzy stance)

Consuming Balwark :

- This does not appear to scale with level or points.
- The proc rate does not appear to scale with points and is rediculously low with 3 points.

Cabalistic Hunger :
Due to the fact that many of our magic damage procs do <100 damage @ level 80, and this skill only gives 1/2 percentage point increases points in this skill do not scale.

In fact, scaling is the BIGGEST issue for the DT.

The feat Dread Shadow is available at level 70 but you need a level 80 combo to use it.(been broke since release)

[Tolanin]

i think its pretty funny necro has gotten like a month of tweaks when for the most part the class works fine and the melees ass/dt etc all need 10 times more work.

the gem gear bug is pretty lame, thats gonna drive alot of 80s nuts, those pieces of gear werent easy to make for most people.

[Clericnon2boxed]

all the fucking gems I had to go thru, I dont feel like logging in and finding out its all crap now

[spronk]

lol, the "fix" for the arena key quest only fixed it for people who had the broken, blank quest in their quest log - if you never did the quest or abandoned it its still broken for you. a funcom person said on forums it'll get fixed next week fo sho though, kinda funny that every patch for the past 3 weeks the arena has been bugfixed and its still not working.

oh if your a caster you can spellweave while hidden now (bug), its pretty cool. sw in front of a gate or door and you can do some hilarious stuff, especially since if you time it right you can cast other spells while hidden.

the reason for the probable gem nerf is how stupid their game mechanics are. people were socketing up 50% evade, getting 50% with double tap back, and basically being melee immune. Or lower stats for magic resist. The whole crafting thing is retarded, nobody at Funcom sat down and figured out how many sockets someone could have, and how they could have possibly socketed it to be OP. And of course in typical fashion they just panic and remove it all instead of making the evade/resist gems be unique-equipped (can only wear 1 of it total) or something else that would make a ton more sense.

Funcom really needs to hire some better game designers, i really don't get the feeling they are fully thinking through game mechanics. For example, the PVP "anti-ganker" system they are going to put in - you get a bounty if you kill too many nubs, and you can lose an item. Well, UO did this long, long ago and people figured out quickly just to run around naked or with shitty, cheap items. The exact same thing is gonna happen in AoC, even worse though. You'll see tons and tons of 80s in crap gear spawn camping all the lowbie zones, trying to build up as much "antirep" as possible, before getting PKed by a friend. Just doesn't seem Funcom is really thinking about stuff before implementing it.

[Gilgamel]

None of my gems got removed, and all my sockets are still there.