AOC - General Discussion II

[Grumpy Old Fart]

Running the daily "Scan" in Auctioneer in WoW is a great time to peruse some AoC sites for giggles. Today's dose:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

New Letter from the Game Director
Posted: - 11.07.2008

Age of Conan Game Director Gaute Godager is back to tell us about the plans for the near future.

Greetings fellow players.

While it has been some time since I last gave you an update, I wanted to touch base and let you know what we are working on at the moment and where we are going in the times to come. I want this update to focus on what is actually happening to the game now, what we have done, and also some of the reasoning behind our choices going forward.

As you all know we have been live for some seven weeks by now, and what a period it has been! While Conan has sold more and performed better than even we could have hoped for, we also know that there have been things we had to work on. I will not try to hide from this fact, but I hope you have seen our steady stream of improvements and additions, in fact, even more than I would have thought possible! I am definitively proud of the team and what they have done after launch, and I think everyone agrees that we are making Conan better, all the time. We are also keeping almost the entire development team ON the Age of Conan live team for the foreseeable future, meaning we can make exciting new content updates on an ongoing basis. Still, let me underline that our main – main – focus at the moment are bugs, stability and performance! I might not talk very much about the details here, but the frequency of the patches and their contents speak for itself.

While we have been busy evolving the game and services on all levels, we also promised new content to you. Not all of what we mentioned in the June update came as fast we would have liked, and while there are several reasons for this it is the word “quality” which won. As a result, the massive PvP updates took longer than anticipated. It was vital to take a second look at the design, and make it even better prior to moving it to live. I am however very glad to say that we have now deployed the PvP updates to our internal test live server (for an overview of these features, please go here. )

As soon as QA gives the go on the internal quality they will be fully deployed to test live, and then to live. While I would have wished these features to be out already, I am happy to say that the update will be an awesome one, and include all of the things we spoke about, including the fugitive system, PvP levels, PvP rankings, the first wave of PvP item drops as well as other PvP consequences. It also involves several general changes to the PvP part of the game (crowd control, damage against other players and dueling as examples). This is all done to make life as a PvP’er more meaningful, and more fun. These are massive changes to how our PvP will work in the future, and based upon your feedback from test live and live we will naturally continue to hone this important part of the game. When these changes will eventually hit live is up to the quality and balance, but we expect some great feedback from the test live server in the next few weeks, enabling us to get them out during early August. While we spent some extra time on this, I am sure you agree that getting these important features right was more essential than just getting them out. This is always the preferred course of action I think, and this is a focus we aim to keep.

As we mentioned in our June update, we are also working on making some great new dungeons and areas throughout the level ranges. This is not «just» quests (which we are making on a constant basis), but fully fledged areas with hours and hours of new content and entertainment. We have made a tentative live update content plan (when it comes to new locations) for the next year, and while I won’t even start discussing the overall plan, there are a few close enough on the horizon to be worth mentioning. This includes Ymir’s Pass, which is coming as a new big Adventuring Region in the level range 55-60. We are now working hard to ensure it comes out as soon as possible (this summer if the quality is right). Shortly after, we will add another level 80 dungeon in the Thunder River area. At the same time we will also add another dungeon to the same Outdoor Adventuring Region – being a level 80 group instance, with bosses and cool loot. This is a few examples of the many new areas to come, both for solo, groups and raids, and these will all come as part of the live updates.

I am also happy to tell you that after the first start of the massive siege PvP we put some significant resources on improving this part of the game further. There still are improvements we would like to make, including a focus on optimization and resource management (to increase performance and fun factor, respectively), as well as making siege engines, mammoths and other “wall breakers” more balanced. As more and more of you join the sieges we really want your continued feedback on this feature, and I hope you will let us know what you think on the forums.

When it comes to the overall performance of the game I also have some good news. While most players have a great time with the game, we also know that we have ways to go for those with the oldest machines. We have therefore continued to look at our memory handling and how to increase general performance, and updates on this are continously in the works. These will be brought to the live servers as we finish them, and while I won't go into specifics I know that those of you with older machines will notice improved performance in the weeks and months to come. On the other side of this spectrum you have the Direct X 10 part of the engine, which is now being worked on. What features it will have and how it will look will be unveiled at Leipzig in August, and I think those with machines who can run DX10 will be stunned by what we have achieved. We will put this into the live game as soon as the quality is good enough (during the fall).

While all the things we have done, and will do to the game, are essential, we have also gone through how we are organized. Our great success and many players has meant that we have worked around the clock to deliver the best service we can, but even this hasn’t been enough in some cases. Over the last few weeks we have therefore worked incredibly hard on hiring more GMs, customer service reps and people who serve our community, all to deliver a better service. We acknowledge we still have some ways to go before we can say we are truly happy, but we are moving towards a full coverage of our services. In the US we have added one more office building to facilitate more customer service and community people, while in Europe we are establishing a larger office in Zurich, Switzerland. This office will host customer service reps in Spanish, German and French, together with localization staff and our Euro community team. We have started the hiring process for the Zurich office, and in early fall we will have our European-only customer service center established, in addition to our already existing one in the US. We are certain this will further improve your gaming experience.

As a part of the process of adding lots of exciting new content we have also learned some important lessons when it comes to communicating dates, and we will be even more vigilant to keep to the timelines we communicate. While this is a constant nightmare when it comes to games as complex as MMO’s (as things often takes longer than anticipated to get right), it is a tradeoff in many ways. You always want to know what we are making, we want to tell it to you, but this also means that things won’t always end up on live as soon as we want it, because quality must win. As a part of this we have also worked hard on our routines for creating better update notes, so you get to learn about all the changes we implement from Funcom.

I know many of you have also asked about your buddy keys, and we have now come to a level where we are able to activate them. During the next week you will therefore be able to use your buddy keys, inviting friends to the game with you. You should also check out the massive new update we are putting to live, and not the least drop by our test live server to test the new PvP features.

That’s it for this time! I hope you all get a healthy dose of vacation this summer, and that you are enjoying Age of Conan.


Summer greetings

Gaute Godager
Game Director, Age of Conan – Hyborian Adventures

All of Gaute's relying "on the great feedback from test live" would be great if there were more than about 20 people playing on test live, I guess.

Oh hey, that "Slammer's Girdle of the Bear" is under-priced!

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Draegan

You have to spec into purge, plus chains doesn't break on damage. I chained a level 68 TOS as a 62 demo and he didn't "unchain" until I killed him after a few nukes.

Necor's fear = gay.
TOS's CC = gay
POM's CC/Knockbank = gay

It's all gay and you get gibbed from it.

Just keep using Chains, it's not unbreakable by any means. Just because you did it once doesn't mean much It holds as often as it breaks.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Necrolyte

Just keep using Chains, it's not unbreakable by any means. Just because you did it once doesn't mean much It holds as often as it breaks.

Lower ranks of it breaks. I've used it plenty of times and it's stayed more often than not.

[Cybsled]

Usually my HOX gets rooted, nuked to shit, then I hellstep to them, word of command to make sure they dont run, pop fire lance...and they block all the dmg and kill me with one last nuke -_-

[Falmer]

None of the cc in this game seems to break on damage reliably. Every time Immoltation got through double tap when I was fighting rangers, it meant me sliding around like a faggot with the ranger happily shooting me, same goes for stuns and roots on those odd occasions purged decided to stop working.
Not having the pvp patch for another months is kinda meh, but at least I can get my conq to 80 and hopefully they'll rebalance the classes a bit more.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Falmer

None of the cc in this game seems to break on damage reliably. Every time Immoltation got through double tap when I was fighting rangers, it meant me sliding around like a faggot with the ranger happily shooting me, same goes for stuns and roots on those odd occasions purged decided to stop working.
Not having the pvp patch for another months is kinda meh, but at least I can get my conq to 80 and hopefully they'll rebalance the classes a bit more.

? PvP Patch should already be going in on TestLive soon. A couple days ago, they put in a complete PvP Tab with PvP Invulns etc, Murder Points, PvP XP Bar.

The next July 16th patch was the last push they wanted to do before implementing the PvP, so hopefully we'll see the PvP stuff on TestLive shortly.

[Lonin]

Originally Posted by Necrolyte

? PvP Patch should already be going in on TestLive soon. A couple days ago, they put in a complete PvP Tab with PvP Invulns etc, Murder Points, PvP XP Bar.

The next July 16th patch was the last push they wanted to do before implementing the PvP, so hopefully we'll see the PvP stuff on TestLive shortly.

Did you read the post by Gaute? He says they will try to push it live in August.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Lonin

Did you read the post by Gaute? He says they will try to push it live in August.

To be honest, I didn't read it, I just was on TestLive and saw some of the PvP stuff trickle in the past few days. August isn't too bad, but for now there really is nothing to do, so hopefully the PvP system is fleshed out.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Necrolyte

I don't know where people are seeing this.

The only root that can do that is Demo Gates of Hell/Chains, and it has a chance to break on damage--once in awhile it'll rape you but most of the time it breaks early.

That's 1 class in the game that can do that. Furthermore, the same Mage classes in the game get Purge, which dispels it..

Not to mention the stun and the knockback to help your poor root spell.

[Nerion]

Oh my gaw, freaking Necrolyte is here even....

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Nerion

Oh my gaw, freaking Necrolyte is here even....

Wah wah, I've been here since the background was white and Furor was Famine in Ultima Online and the guild leader was Merlynn.

[Schatze]

I'm glad the impale/OR with a full suit of +damage gear is being nerfed hard and nerfed soon.

On the other hand a slight improvement in baseline damage for guardians would be indicated. One shot as a guardian is dumb as fuck, but so is doing the least amount of damage.

It's ridiculous that two soldier classes can beat on each other face to face for 10 minutes and regen the damage dealt to each other. As well, cloth shouldn't mitigate as much as it should in PVP. However, this would screw casters as it would affect non guardians.

My PVP experience is limited to stuff on PVE servers, so maybe there the picture is different.

[Inconsiderable]

Originally Posted by Schatze

I'm glad the impale/OR with a full suit of +damage gear is being nerfed hard and nerfed soon.

On the other hand a slight improvement in baseline damage for guardians would be indicated. One shot as a guardian is dumb as fuck, but so is doing the least amount of damage.

It's ridiculous that two soldier classes can beat on each other face to face for 10 minutes and regen the damage dealt to each other. As well, cloth shouldn't mitigate as much as it should in PVP. However, this would screw casters as it would affect non guardians.

My PVP experience is limited to stuff on PVE servers, so maybe there the picture is different.

One shots are stupid and need to be changed. On top of the list is Cyclone of Steel with its unbelieveable stupid instant fatality game mechanic. How bad can a coder be? Damage gear? Grab fatality gear and instagib people with every combo.

Guardian: With the incoming charge nerf they shouldnt deal any serious damage anymore. What they need are "guard" abilities, to help their team mates. Defensive stuff like redirecting damage and so on.
Dark Templar: I do not even know where to begin. Its an all around fail by design. Best thing that comes to mind is also more support with a better heal and so on. Who cares about 25% lifestealing attacks if you are useless and cannot even deal any damage at all? So far all DT I saw were a waste of partyslots.
Conqueror: Depends on spec right now. But overall conq needs increased dps and less burst damage (charge nerf helps here, too). That instant kill needs to go.

Barbarian: Best / most important PvP Class. Either you kill or disable every single barbarian against you or you are up for a quick loss. If Cyclone of Steel would overall deal more damage than your target has hp left and you get a fatality proc, you instantly kill the target with the first attack (of many). Now add in 80% fatality chance on CoS and you get one fucked up class. No idea how Funcom is unable to fix this gayness, but it is unbearable right now. 'round 60% of my deaths are to CoS by now.
Assassin: More balanced than barb. Charge fix will also help here. Could do with some talent-based improvements, but overall they are rather balanced in PvP compared to most other classes.
Ranger: After Barbarians, the next class that needs to be taken care off. Far too high burst damage that needs to be lowered. Luckily rangers are boring to play so there arent many around.

Necromancer: I guess most necromancers would like to kick Funcom in the balls. With improved pet pathing and pets actually listening to commands as well as improved PBAEs again (PSS became a joke) they would be balanced.
Demonologist: Balanced.
HoX: Again the instantkill abilities. If HoX would stop hitting everything for 3000-5000 damage, they could be considered balanced.

PoM: Vital for every group. Balanced, but their talents need major work. Exorcism 2.5 seconds cast time is beyond stupid and the other talent tree is useless.
Tempest: Overchanged imo. Too fast leveling speed shouldnt be fixed by changes like that. Puppet of Set needs to be nerfed badly, they need area damage on lightning strike back and all ultimates (beside puppet) need to be buffed. Also thunder is abit weak, mainly due to vital shock being useless and serpent transmutation having a stupid 15m cd.
Bear Shaman: Needs more HP and +5% to all melee invuls, slightly more dps, but alot less burst damage.

Overall soldiers are sucky beside bugged charge and conq's combat rezz. Rogues minus assa plus hox need a heavy nerf to burst damage. Too much of a melee game with barb, hox and conq being that strong. Casters are fine, but BS could do with some more survivability in pvp. I'd also like to see more AE again (ToS + Necro AE comeback; even melees should get more AE) to make positioning more important again. Instead of taking it away (tos) or making it deal no damage (necro), they just need to adjust the radius. 4 meter on PSS is a good example. Very small area, easy to avoid. 9 meter on Demologist AE or even 6 meter on ToS LS was abit high in comparison.
You should be able to avoid being bombed by spreading out. 9 meter radius and spreading out doesnt really help either.
And active block could make a pvp comeback, its a waste of stamina right now.

[Cybsled]

HoX: Again the instantkill abilities. If HoX would stop hitting everything for 3000-5000 damage, they could be considered balanced

We have one ability, firelance, which can even get close to the damage you speak of. Even then, 5k? Maybe pre-nerf or if you got really lucky and every hit = crit which you had exultation of xolti running on. But nevermind it's a top attack, the easiest GD spot in the game to mitigate damage. Which most people do if they know to use active blocking. Which a great deal of people fighting a HOX tend to do, because they know %90 of HoX have spec'd down the Avatar line because all the other talents are broken as shit and don't even work properly or as advertised. After our lance is mitigated, we're stuck with trying to land other combos, but we usually get knocked on our ass or CC'd and raped by this point. If we didn't already while trying to land firelance and they activated the 3m CD so we can't even consider it as an option for the immediate future.

[Falmer]

Originally Posted by Inconsiderable

...

Lots (not all) of instagibs and overall gayness of burst damage is caused by the fucking gems. Before they do any seriousl rebalancing, they need to nerf the gems into the ground. If they try to balance classes around scaling with +400 magic damage or +250 melee damage, it will be fucked up for anyone who doesn't run around with a full suit of gemmed gear. I know this is kinda easy to say for me as I'm currently playing an alt and my HoX has like 3 fully gemmed items, and people who actually put the time (although getting enough cash for 30-40 T6 gems a legit way...) might feel differently about the issue, but gems really are fucked up and class balance shouldn't be tuned around them. I just hope they don't force people to farm them to be competitive in pvp/pve.

Other than that, I hope they implement the melee (the non-retarded version) and spell changes that are meant to be in the 16th patch despite the seas of salty tears on general boards. I wish they'd also perhaps boost the white damage a bit and lowered combo damage accordingly to really make people hit themselves more often than once every 4-5 attacks, since when my HoX currently hits for like 200 white and 2.5k combo damage, there is little reason to do so.