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Game nosedives after Tortage
Nirvy
Member Posts: 73
Well was REALLY enjoying the game, found a few F2P friends, quested, PvP'ed and loved the voice acted quests. There were very few kill this quests, or take this here, the quests were interesting, had a lot of lore and background.
My GOD does this quality drop out of tortage, from the excellence of that first 20 levels, to kill xx bears, and cats, oof and kill the boss bear. Quests become very generic, no story compared to Tortage.
I was on the verge of Subbing, but now im stuck. Does the Tortage level of quests,polish and story come back, or was that just there to lure people in? Im currently so disapointed, can anyone tell me if the higher end stuff which i assume has more content and padding is as good as tortage?
Thanks.
Comments
say it isn't so. I haven't left Tortage yet. Don't make me a sad Panda on my nation's birthday.
Playing: BF4/BF:Hardline, Subnautica 7 days to die
Hiatus: EvE
Waiting on: World of Darkness(sigh)
Interested in: better games in general
i havent left tortage also buti heard from my guildies that the game drops but to hold strong as all gets better later on....for instance no more vocals from NPC's
I have to agree that tortage is heaps of fun but then once you leave then comes the grind. Although if you have the Kitai expansion you can quest from level 20 -40 which is pretty good and you dont notice so much of a grind.
From 40 to 80 the game is very boring and there is next to no grouping until you reach max level unless you have friends that you know who will play with you. I have been subbing on and off since release and return only because graphic wise the game is fantastic but I find there isnt much in the way of comunity compared to the other MMOs i have played.
People will argue that point but when at max level people specifically ask for people to group with that have experience and most refuse to take on players that are new to the game. PVP is hard to break into because of players with lack of gear going up against players with max pvp gear, but if you can stick it out and die a few thousand times you will get there in the end.
Currently I am subscribed to Conan and do enjoy the graphics and combat but other than that theres that something that the game lacks.
When the game first released; Tortage was great, but then it went rapidly down hill never to look up again. However ever since Gaute Godager stepped down (thank god) and the new Game Director has stepped in, he has worked to create more end game content.
Keep on going at it, it gets a bit dull in the middle, but Khitai isn't bad and everything after Level 50 starts to look up. The end game instances are great.
Meh tortage is fun the first time you do it, after making several alts it becomes quite boring. Tortage seems a bit like that due to the fact all destiny quest followup fast 1-20 thus giving you a stronger story sence, toratage has its fair share of find xx and kill xx to tho infact 90% of the quest are made out of them. the destiny quest line is what makes the diference there.
so no, 90% of the game is pickup that, go there and kill xx quest , just like every other current mmo.
The serious drop in quality was what infuriated many of the original players - it was perceived as a con. Then when end game was completely brocken all hell broke loose as you know.
Well, these days the end game is supposed to be working, mostly. But I hear the 'gameplay' to get there is dull.
Funny, I much prefer the game outside of Tortage. Frankly, I can't stand Tortage.
I hate Tortage. I felt like the game was 200000 times more fun after it. Tortage had too many quests, too much running back and forth, felt like a forced tutorial that you couldn't skip.
After Tortage headed over to Gateway of Kitai, loving the zone, will keep me going for a while...
I had an enjoyable time playing through to 80 after Tortage. There are great zones and fun quests after leaving that place. My personal preference is for Cimmeria and Aquilonia over Stygia, which is desert.
The only feature that I would say drops off, but still remains in part, is the voice overs from the quest givers. Everything else, scenery, music, combat, graphics, all maintain the same quality. In fact graphics seem to improve with each addition of new content. This game is actually stunning if you can max out the visuals! I agree the gameplay is standard MMO fare. There is nothing revolutionary about the quest driven game design. That said there are still a lot of fun and challenging quests to be had and some fabulous Conan inspired zones and dungeons to explore on the long road to endgame.
"The Pen Is Mightier Than The Demo"
I think the dungeons are a very underrated aspect of the game. Some of the best dungeon design I've seen in mmos are in AoC.
Tortage is great for first timers who like to quest. After Tortage it becomes run of the mill questing, with some nice instances as exception. The only thing I find annoying is the huge amount of silly fed ex quests. Receiving a quest in one country, having to chat to some npc in a different country, only to come back to the original country for the action part of the quest. There seem to be many of these in AoC.
If you don't like journey quests just don't accept them. There is really no shortage of available quests.
"The Pen Is Mightier Than The Demo"
It doesn't nosedive, it just becomes a good themepark mmo with standart quests which can often be still better than many of other mmo's quests.
Is leveling based mostly on quest grinding in Age of Conan?
Btw, when i was doing a free trial like a year or two ago, i didn't like Tortage at all, don't know what so great do you find there.. just a dull quest grinding, like in all other mmos.
I might try it again though, wonder if pvp is ok..
I think the thing that kept me going was my guildies and just seeing new sights and different zones as I leveled. I would agree that Tortage is a high point. I don't see Tortage so much as luring the customer in as they just ran out of steam or creativity or maybe there was a sudden shift in ideas.
There are lots of cool things they could have added to make the game a richer experience, but they don't have the funding or the creativity to do them. It's a beautiful looking game though.
It's quest based all the way to max. Once in the 70's you'll be able to AoE grind solo if you so choose depending on your class, needless to say it works out better with mage types. In the same bracket there is the DMC grind, basically a full party runs around gathering up loads of mobs in a certain area in Keshatta AoE'ing them to death, rinse and repeat. The areas for this are really just for the last few levels though.
There are also repeatables such as the Villas which scale to your level which cooldown every 6 hours or so. Grab the quest and kill everything in the building, nothing exciting. They added a couple of new solo repeatable instances last week but i haven't ventured into them yet.
If the quest grind becomes boring make sure you break it up with doing the group instances like Black Castle, Sanctum etc on the way up. Decent gear and more fun than constant solo. Or alternatively roll on a PvP server, the leveling process is usually more fun having to look out for other players as well as adds of mobs.
You also have - though my memory of them is a little hazy now - your journey quests every 10 levels. These continue your personal story past Tortage, with all the scripting, voice acting, etc. Of course, your's is the same story as everyone else's, but hey, that's MMOs for you. They are very cool though!
Game Story:
Destiny quests go from lvl 1-->80 starting with Tortage. After Tortage the story is told in between the substorys that unfold in the lvling areas as "the vanir" and enemies in Wild Lands. The story goes through the game, but not as much as in Tortage. Large parts of the main story is told on lvl 30 & lvl 50 at least.
Game mode:
Tortage was built to introduce you to the game, and act as a RPG part of the game that really stood out. After that its more standard MMO with teams, instances and substories with text as storyteller. There is however still voiceovers, about two quests for every lvll 20-80. Does not sound much maybe, but its still some.
There was never a plan to let the whole game have VO, as it would cost too much. Still, a lot of the quest text in the game is well above alot of other quests I have read...so no fears there.
Dungeons that try to trick you and makes you think is sort of a trademark of AoC also. A lot of challenge indeed.
Tip of the day: Take it slow, enjoy the game, enjoy the quests, first time is the best!
It's true that the quests are not so good after Tortage. However there are some gems inbetween. One big problem for F2P players is the level gaps in quests, This has still not been adressed by Funcom. The way Funcom solved it was to introduce offline levels and pve exp increase potions and items, on my alts I can increase pve exp with over 120% and hitting the cap in exp recived.
But F2P players dont have these items or potions or offline levels(not for free anyway). So they will be stuck at certain points. From 20-40 you can be picky and just do what seems intresting as there's 4 zones from 20-40. Use aoc.yg.com and pick quests with blue rewards for your class.
From 40+ you need to do EVERY quest you can find, before you start in 40+ zones make sure you wrap up as much of the 38-39 content in the 20-40 zones.
As F2P players dont have access to many dungeons, try getting a team and do EPIC zones in between(bosses in epic zones drop blue loot), and if you decide to do a epic team quest, make sure you do them in the epic zone as the epic bosses in normal zones dont drop loot. While all bosses in epic zones do drop blue boe and bop loot. The armor that drop in 40+ epic zones do look reasonably good!
Good advice, its why I stated in another post that I hated The Field Of The Dead as its exactly as you say you need to do all the quests and there does seem to still be a little bit of a gap I'm lvl47 on my Sin and and the quests I have I'm fighting lvl48/49 mobs. Its one of the reasons I gave up before coming back to Unchained. Because of this I would concur do as many pre 40 queats as you can so you hit The Field Of The Dead as 41/42 it will be more fun that way I'm sure, I'm dtermined to get out of TFOTD and to cap this time but Funcom could really do with putting in a few more 40+ zones to fill out the mid game.The good side though is that some voice acting comes back and many of the quests have great stories behind them for me AOC has some of the best quest stories of any MMO, hopefully TSW will carry taht on.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
I've found that all areas after Tortage offer something new and it never feels like i'm levelling through rehashed places which is a welcome change from other MMO's. Some of the scenery in this game is some of the best I have witnessed in a game and it doesn't take long before you are in the next area as levelling is a breeze.
I felt like the Conan world opened up to me after Tortage. The game is huge and theres is quests to lvl upp two alts with not repeating to mutch of the same quests. Now with all the new players there will be more life in the big cityes and playfields and that is what AoC has been lacking.
Level 25 so far, and I agree there was a hit in quality past Tortage, but I still enjoy the game a lot more than other MMO's. Maps arent huge, and are instanced yes, but then they are around the size of your Baldur's Gate, Gothic, Oblivion or Dragon Age, and the game plays a lot like these great RPG's. I thought I needed an open world to like a MMO, but consider this, if you are to kill x mobs over and over again, isn't it much better to have FUN doing it thanks to spectacular combat and graphics that make you wet your pants like in AoC, or have a huge empty seamless world with flat textures and fall asleep killing 5 mobs, as in all other MMO's? I prefer quality over quantity.
The story aspect in AoC is actually on par with LOTRO so far (played it for 3.5 years), even surpassing it in immersion thanks to dialogue. It plays much more like the RPG games mentioned at start of this post. Even if the NPC's don't have a voice anymore. Makes me smile to see Blizz' going semi-FTP with their abomination of a game, makes me want to say 'I told you so', but today, Idon't want it. After seeing AoC, Blizzard would have to pay me 20/mo to consider installing WoW (playing it would be another 30/mo lol). That game is the culmination of the worst characteristics of MMO's all in one. AoC is the way to go, the way of story-driven single player legends like BG, Gothic or Oblivion series, expanded for massive multiplayer, but keeping their core traits - immersion, dialogue, fun combat, great looking world, and atmosphere. Keep your hamster-wheel game for yourself, Blizz' :P
Looks like I'll be staying in AoC untill GW2 at least, maybe even after that. Unless the game really drops in quality later on.
My Guild Wars 2 First Beta Weekend "reviewette" : http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4944570/thread/349125#4944570
What? AoC is one of the smallest MMOs I ever played and I played a lot. Andthere is no way you can level up 3 characters without repeating the same quests after Tortage, there are still some gaps where where all 3 will have to do the same quests, like 40-50, unless you grind mobs or villas.
Sorry, but what AoC is lacking is still content, it is far too small and Funcom have been very slow with adding new stuff.