Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
hella good rant
carpal
Member UncommonPosts: 99
over on the US forums, the community has finally had enough...
Under the General Forums: Age of Conan: PVP Feedback from Khemical.
So, let's all take a moment and review the community and involvement of PVP by Funcom in the world of Age of Conan.
So, since launch we have gotten pvp levels that in reality, don't mean a thing, we all can agree on this. I mean, what good is pvp 5 which takes 5x longer to get and more hardwork then a repetitive PVE dungeon that can give you gear that is 2x better in item stats.
Let's take a look at mini-game maps. We have 4 maps, we are creeping in on 2 years since launch the game has been alive and kicking and we have 4 maps still, that's it, not to mention the lack of support in pug vs premades, x-server mini games and AI that will assemble teams correctly when you load in if it is a pug vs a pug. 1 team could have 3 heals while the other gets none, or one team gets 3 mages(mage shields), while the other team could be all melee.
Then we head out to the BK's, we have nothing to do out there, ever. Shrines of Bori was put on Test Live as a promotion for the game to get us to talk about it and have us sub, then taken away again and told we may get it by expansion pack release? That is easily 5-6 months away, on top of that, who is to say they're releasing it with the expansion pack. So were basically back to square one with the BK's, who really wants to farm pvp resources that mean absolutely nothing in this game.
Let's take a look at sieges now, they're still half ass, people glitching out when stuff explodes, all guild cities look exactly the same, there really is no strategy to them other than, bring as many fkn casters and tanks as you can. I mean what good is a siege with out strategy, just stand on the cheapest spot and drop aoe bombs and collect kills and call yourself god. Let's talk about the lag, they said they fixed it, it's clearly not fixed, the latency goes up and down like a tsunami wave when we hit big battles, which really kills the fun for melee, the main pvp fun of the game.
World PVP, I mean does it exist? sure. It only exists if you have a population online, it consists of zergs and gaurds. Not only is world PVP absolutely weak in this game, we have gaurds to save people who usually start the fight and then it turns in to an exploit fest mixed with murder points(another broken pvp system). I mean seriously, the only PVP space we have with out mobs, gaurds or rez pads interferring is, the middle of kheshetta road, which lies between Kheshetta City and Oasis.
Glory, the glory system was given to us 2 weeks ago, it is quite obvious that the system is rigged to give players of the PVE/Crafting community the edge for doing absolutely nothing. They could go afk while their 6 man group kills an elite mob and still recieve the points that are literally 10x more than a pvp kill, which I might add, is way more challenging. If you go afk in PVP, your a dead man, gaurenteed. Crafting? what a joke Funcom, seriously, what were you thinknig making that system. You really believe it's because they had mats saved up and that's why they're getting high points. Your either niave, your out right lying to the community once again. Glory is an absolute joke compared to any other category for points, once again you have slapped the pvp community in the face.
Arenas, I don't even know where to begin with this atrocity of failure. You put in Arena's with no ranking system, you hide it in some back corner for nobody to even find it, not to mention people need a guild to use it and have a certain level requirement, that alone screams FAIL. Then on top of it, we get no PVP XP for using it, hell I may aswell stick to Epic Kheshetta for my duels. Then you have another Arena that is like level renown 17, now if your a pvp guild and you don't care for PVE or Crafting, how long do you think it would take a guild that is focused on pvp only, to get to renown 17, do the math. Let's also discuss how you made mini games time based, so when people go in and dominate 1 team, we all sit there for 10 minutes to get our points because the system was thought out so poorly, like every other aspect of PVP.
It is quite obvious that the whole PVP department of Age of Conan is put on the back burner and is always the "last thing to work on". You can sit there all day Silirrion and write me a story and say you work hard on this, you do that, but your words mean nothing to the PVP community at this point in time. Your lies, your deception, your teases, your miscommunication towards PVP players and lack of efforts to keep us pleased in this game has grown old and pathetic. When this game was sold to us, it was said it had a 75% player base for PVP, you have literally left us in the dust and turned Age of Conan in to a World of Warcraft, something a 2 year old can play.
Classes in PVP, all the classes in Age of Conan have been watered down tremendously. This is so the mass of newbs that wanted to play, would still have a decent chance in group pvp, this is what you call corporate sell out. PVP before was extremely fast paced and bad ass. PVP now is extremely slow, 1 step combos are your main damage abilities and movement doesn't really mean a thing anymore. AoE procs and tab targeting classes which is a WoW combat system design, are their main focus in Age of Conan now, because the average newb can't keep up in the game. Not to mention, they slowed the game down drastically by removing 50% of our stamina since patch 1.04. Then Silirrion tells the PVP community he is going to fix it before 1.05 was released, we are now moving on to 1.07 and he has not done a single thing to fix stamina yet for the PVP community.
PVP in this game is extremely fun, I enjoy it when the population is there, but the lack of commitment to keep the pvp community alive is getting old, you can call me Negative Nancy, but can you blame me? I have been in this game since it's Alpha Phase and Open Beta, NOTHING in PVP has changed, except for the worse. There has not been one thing implemented that actually worked for the PVP community to keep us busy and rewarding fun PVP encounters. The last thing they put thought in to is PVP, since Silirrion was put in to office. He has ripped the heart and soul of PVP from Age of Conan, to feed what he only knows best, PVE Players. Thank you Silirrion for destroying what could have been one of the best PVP MMO's of all time, you will be remembered, that's for sure.
Comments
"They've finally had enough"
?
at first I was reading and thought "dang.. it sucks still.."
then he said the game was just another wow
so i thought "oh, so it may be fun afterall"
Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions.
I haven't PvP'd seen launch and to be honest I am not good at it. If I did it more I am sure I would get good at it. Our guild has PvP night on monday but it is a joke. We go out and join a few mini maps and have fun and I enjoy that.
I am probably one of the strongest supporters for AoC on these forums but I admit that in the PvP department, AoC is far behind.
Funcom promises new PvP stuff and yet it gets pushed back. I don't work there so I don't know all the details. All I know is that they do need to focus on PvP more than they have.
I want to get into PvP more and that is one reason why I am leveling a conq at the moment. I enjoy the game and believe that the PvE content is one of the best I have played but I hope for more for PvP.
"I don't give a sh*t what other people say. I play what I like and I'll pay to do it too!" - SerialMMOist
Its obviously only the hardcore PvP community, and they are right... (from their Point of view)
In other threads it seems that the PvE community is more happy with the game every other patch
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
lol this is exactly what I thought...
One guy reposting a rant by one other guy and it's 'they'... :P
Not saying what the original writer says isnt valid or right, I don't care about PvP in MMORPGs at all anymore at all, but gotta love the attempt to cause drama in the OP's wording
Yah, I recently came back and am still quite unimpressed. Granted I really didn't play much to begin with, my highest char is 52 and I have about 3 or 4 others around 25, but it is quite boring to be honest. I have always played on Cimmeria, the RP-PvP server and the pvp is just blah. I mean you kill someone and there is no point to it other than raising your pvp level. Around Tortage it's really lame as most the pvp takes place around the zones entrance, so you kill someone and they insta respawn right behind you, you get no loot and there is no penalty at all for the loser other than a death on their oh so precious k/d ratio. Also, another thing that really irritates me is that everyone gets the ability to hide/stealth where in almost every other game it's a rogue only skill. So pvp in AoC is everyone stealths and jumps out to kill you at zone entrances or where guards are near, thats about the jist of it.
Currently Playing: Toying around with AoC and bored with Darkfall
Thinking of Playing: Fallen Earth or Darkfall after this months update.
Have Played: EQ1, EQ2, WoW, WAR, Vanguard, EvE, Requiem, PW, Lotro, Lineage2, AoC, SWG...
I think the OP is being a little unfair,take a look at Eve the game of the year [lol].
Eve does not even have but a few animations in the entire game,so that takes how much effort after 7 years?Empty space takes VERY little effort to fill when compared to a game like AOC that is full of graphics/animation and meshes.Eve you do NOT even have a player ,after 7 years no player?all you have is an Avatar,so no effort into making player models or their animations/skinning ect ect.AOC has to create player models,create their animations,texture them.
Game gear,In EVE [GOTY remember]your ship gear is static again no animations ,other than the firing modes,where as in AOC you have to create the animation of the weapons,then blood splats,death animations,climbing animations,swinging of weapons it all takes work.A game like AOC has to make massive PVP work under MUCH tougher conditions,because you can have 20-30 players in a VERY Small high poly area all with a lot of animation going on,where a game like Eve has spread out combat and literally no animation.
Aoc you have to create all the gear and texture it all,it has to look good when you fit it onto the player,in Eve a module just has to virtually fit into a slot based on set stats,it does not matter how it looks,you'll never see it other than seeing your mining weapon or the guns,still there is a LOT less effort into making Eve components when compared to AOC.
In AOC you have to fit buildings with interiors,Eve does not have interiors so again AOC takes more effort.
I used these two games as comparison to give a REALISTIC comparison of expectations.Aoc is a LOT younger yet you expect MORE than a game considered goty? .Aoc has about 1/8th the staff working on AOC and again you expect more?Aoc takes a TON more work to design ,yet you expect more than the game of the year,i think a tad unfair?
IMO other than Vanguard a great looking game with a lot of effort,what other developer has put in the same effort as Aoc,outside of the top 5 games?Wow /FFXI huge games but cheap effort on the graphics[ffxi has an excuse ,made for Ps2].Everquest is a giant game with decent graphics but SOE is a giant .The OP needs to remember that AOC TRIES to deliver the entire package,they might fail a bit on content or a bit in gear or a bit in PVP,my point is you can't expect perfection from AOC when nobody else is delivering it.I feel AOC has been unfairly labeled as a game that MUST be perfect to play,sure it fails to meet expectations in certain areas,but i feel they have tried to continually improve the game,it takes more effort to improve AOC than Eve takes and has had less years to do it.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think you and MANY others miss the point of PVP?I will use myself as an example.
When i played a lot of Quake and UT99 the best pvp games ever,my Fun satisfaction was in outwitting my opponent/s,the speed to witch i could react and think was invigorating.There was no loot,there was no severe penalty for my opponent.
What i am gathering ,is that people need to see others suffer to have their fun?makes little sense,a sort of barbaric attitude really,even in real WAR ,i doubt the military after a victory,think of it as being FUN.FUN is SUPPOSE to be what YOU can gather from it,not what other players can suffer from it.When you think realistically,these are games,what more can you actually gather from a PVP kill,other than you win?Remember this is gaming,we can't deploy a military to defend a city 24/7,people want to move about a game freely and enjoy the game,if you create too much meaning,then it is not a game anymore,it is like being deployed in the military..sir yes sir !.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think you and MANY others miss the point of PVP?I will use myself as an example.
When i played a lot of Quake and UT99 the best pvp games ever,my Fun satisfaction was in outwitting my opponent/s,the speed to witch i could react and think was invigorating.There was no loot,there was no severe penalty for my opponent.
What i am gathering ,is that people need to see others suffer to have their fun?makes little sense,a sort of barbaric attitude really,even in real WAR ,i doubt the military after a victory,think of it as being FUN.FUN is SUPPOSE to be what YOU can gather from it,not what other players can suffer from it.When you think realistically,these are games,what more can you actually gather from a PVP kill,other than you win?Remember this is gaming,we can't deploy a military to defend a city 24/7,people want to move about a game freely and enjoy the game,if you create too much meaning,then it is not a game anymore,it is like being deployed in the military..sir yes sir !.
Sorry, to resurrect this but I just read it on the official board and it seems the devs just don't care about PvP. It is funny that I said no one would use the arena without rewards and everyone disagreed with me but I was right! Yeah that's still my biggest gripe, the "AoC is improved" slogan kind of leaves out that the PvP this game was supposed to focus on has been very neglected and restricted to pretty much 1 area in Kesh and is fairly fruitless reward wise and not very popular after reading the points of the OP.
People try to down play the PvP situation but it is important to many players and right now PvP is very very tacked on which is sad because it isn't that hard to revamp PvP stuff and it can satisfy many more hours in a week than the low amount of PvE content.
@Wizardry AoC is a different type of game from eve...it is fantasy so compare at least to WoW, LOTOR, Guild Wars, EQ, or DoAC. But yeah quake and unreal were good PvP games and then now they involved into Halo and Call of Duty, now the FPS games have ranking systems or titles or new weapons or other rewards for playing. Street fighter is the same and they all keep track of K/D or win/loss ratio but those are more balanced than MMOs, and AOC has been on the weak end of balance as the OP stated. But MMO PvP requires other players and that requires rewards to advance a character while being fun. I agree WoW was pretty fun so people did those battle grounds and arenas often but they got rewards so would do them more often, more people would be playing so it made finding games funner.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
If you just look at the AoC development so far, it is clearly seen that the PvE aspect of the game has much improved, while the PvP side is simply neglected. The biggest kick in the groins for pvpers is the latest statement that Shrines of Bori and some other promised stuff will come AFTER expansion, and the expansion's release date hasn't even been announced.
I agree that the PVP is an issue that needs some attention. Someone mentioned LORTO and the pvp situation in aoc is like LORTO where no where near enough resources have been spent on it and where the PVP has so much promise. I for one feel that Funcom at this point just doesn't have the resources in house to deal with the things they need to do on the pvp side and the pve side at the same time.
The brutal truth is there are more upside in number of players that play pve both in the game now and as future subs Funcom could attract to the game. So any business has to manage the available resources to best improve the Financial prospects of the company. Not every MMO company has the resources of Blizzard where they can do it all and all at the same time. It seems like it has taken 2 years to just put the PVE side of the game on solid footing once the exp comes out hopefully there will be some pvp stuff in there and more to come after that.
I just do not agree,PVP should NEVER play the major role in a MMORPG,that should be left to first person shooters.The way most of the content is designed it has single player RPG written all over it,it showed me nothign that influences PVP.
However i will say this,some of the maps do have some strategic positions,far more than any other RPG pvp game i have seen,however with only one way in and out,it would still leave PVP as a second thought.
That was the main knock i had on AOC,was it seemed very linear,witch is why i say it looks more like a single player game,transformed into an MMO.However so is 99% of the rest of the MMO genre,only FFXI truly asks for grouping,witch is SUPPOSE to be the reason for playing online.
I still don't understand the PVP griping?Is it strictly rewards people are after?If that is the case,it would turn PVP into just another WOW,login everyday to chase after loot runs ,pretty sad gaming imo,true PVP belongs to FPS games where everything is equal and you are more worried about strategy than gear or finding the most o/p class.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Heard DAoC and Regnum are still going good if you want PvP.
As for AoC, I don't really have a problem if the PvP is second to PvE - That's how it should be for a game like this. You can't win both sides most of the time.
Not sure why you would say only multiplayer FPS and other types should have PvP, why would that be true? Diablo, Daoc, guild wars and WoW and many real time strategy games would beg to differ. oh and my favorite game is unbalanced - street fighter 4 but even low tiers can win with skill against top players. would like to have a word with you. So WoW is bad on PvP when it has very active PvP battle grounds and arenas. I can't test it now but I'm sure most servers in Warcraft had more battle grounds and many many more active arena teams than all AoC server activity combined. They had a bad PvP system at release but it had good gear rewards so many people did vanilla WoW's pvp grind. It wasn't the best system but IMO it is not OK to copy Warcraft like AoC did and do a very inferior job at it. Also FPS are not very balanced less mirrored maps and after someone gets rocket launcher, sniper or X weapon and goes to X spot the game is very unbalanced....So in mirror map FPS you start fair and then get the good weapon and go to spot X and then just like all PvP and MMOs make the fight as unfair as possible. In all MMOs everyone aside from E bayed players start at zero so everything after that is fair IMO.
Most people bashing PvP had issue and try to blame "gear". But all the top players have all the best gear so the play field becomes pretty even in MMOs. I played a Warcraft Hunter and was in a top 20 arena team for 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5. Hunters were the least seen class in any top 100 arena team they were about half of 1% and I didn't have all the top gear starting out so in any PvP game skill plays a factor...but yeah I hate AoC's pot chugging and stealth or sprint away and that kind of removes skill imo for world PvP and battle grounds so AoC would need a good revamp.
But all the MMOs I have played are very grouping centic on the PvE side. EQ1 and 2 were great for grouping up and many things required it. WoW was perhaps lite until end game but it had many grouping instances all the way up. Warhammer and Aion I grouped 100% after the starting area so it would be the equivalent of AoC's level 20-80. Then which I am having a hard time understanding there is end game and most players are fine with AoC focusing on PvE and that is fine but it has not released content to get anywhere close to where the PvE giants were around 2 years out...the expansion may remedy it but I have not seen the crazy amount of new raid zones yet. 2 years out- WoW 40 man (MC 8 boss, Ony and 4 world boss, BWL 10 boss, AQ 11 boss, NAX 16 boss) 24 mans, AQ 2- 9 boss and ZG 12 boss.....I am being conservitive on bosses there were probably more. Then they released expansion at 2 year mark, but it is the same with all PvE MMOs, EQ1, 2. FFXii and the new FF RPG out soon and LOTRO where people group up to kill big bosses.
My point is they should work harder at PvE content if they wish to skim on PvP so they are doing something well and there is something for people to do to keep them playing and so they have something to market and a better defined market. Because they marketed to PvP and then shifted to PvE but they could probably do PvP much better judging by the lack of resources a quick revamp to the PvP stuff they have now would be easy. However, they don't seem to know much about PvP as they released rewardless arenas in an unpopulated district and the failure of border kingdom resources probably keep them from doing PvP stuff.
The one thing I know about MMO players is they will work long and hard for a shiny piece of gear or a title to advance their toon but wont do anything unless they are need something or it advances them...that is 95% of MMO players and the best example is raiding where killing something should be hard and require many wipes but the real hard part is keeping the guild farming it for the 30th time when most are decked out.
Funcom has reviewed all of its assets relevant for
impairment testing. This process has led to
recognition of an impairment loss of around
3,1 MUSD for Age of Conan due to a decrease in
numbers of subscribers for the game. Funcom Q4 10 report.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=2926123&postcount=7 500 mains/alts on Tyranny in past 30 days - instead of merge servers let's open a new PvP server, again! http://forums-eu.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=106427
Those types of games excel at what they do because that is ALL they do. We are talking about a MMO here people. Sure PvP has been placed on the back burner but look at it from the companies point of view. Would you prefer to make 80% of your player base happy with improvements to the PvE and risk loosing the other 20% OR make that little minority of 20% happy and risk loosing 80% of your customers? Simple math.
This is the reason why there are so many PvE focused games out there. This is also the reason we have NICHE games like Darkfall/Fallen Earth to fill the PvP void. I understand that these aren't made by big devs like AoC is but thats the point of catering to the niche market.
One day mayhaps Funcom will do something about the PvP but from a practical standpoint I don't see it happening until the majority of players are placated.
[Mod Edit]
- Case: Thermaltake Kandalf Black Chassis
- CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz (OC'd 4.2GHz on Water Cooling)
- Memory: Mushkin 8Gb (4x 2Gb) DDR3 1600Mhz
- HDD: Dual Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM
- GFX: (2) XFX Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire - New upgrade!
"I like wow, I like aion and I like AoC all for different reasons.....the later cause i get to see boobs, but still its a reason!!" - Sawlstone
Sorry. It seems you let your personal definition of 'the purpose of MMO's' auto-discard all other opinions. Quite a few will probably agree with you but a lot of us have different opinions - Yet here we are
Without going into the 'not even a real mmo' a game such as Guild Wars shows that a heavy PvP focus does in fact work in this genre. Just like AoC, and unlike most FPS games, it requires a lot more than just 'mousingmotor/aiming' skills.
I would however agree that a full PvP focus MMO would have a lower chance of being profitable compared to a MMO aimed at PvE. The PvP'ers may be vocal but the PvE'ers are paying the bills
As such the development focus of AoC is hardly surprising...
We dont need casuals in our games!!! Errm... Well we DO need casuals to fund and populate our games - But the games should be all about "hardcore" because: We dont need casuals in our games!!!
(repeat ad infinitum)