WAR fans can breathe a sigh of relief…
April 25, 2008 – 1:31 pmBecause with game design like this, AoC won’t draw as many players away from WAR as I previously thought.
- You must raid for the best PvE gear (a la WoW)
- XP-loss on PvP death… Must kill 2-3 people to regain the loss of 1 death
- Only the best PvPers will be able to get the top PvP loot
- Raid gear will be more accessible than high-level PvP gear
Admittedly, I don’t know all the specifics here because I don’t follow AoC one bit, but the raid grind in Age of Conan seems eerily reminiscent of World of Warcraft. The only way they can salvage this, IMO, is to make the raids more accessible than WoW (no keying/faction grinding/etc.), make them less time consuming, and increase the drop rates. I don’t know how many AoC fans are interested in running a DKP system for yet another MMORPG or putting dungeons “on farm” just so they can deck out their guild…
The XP-loss on death is something I can handle but it comes down to your ability to escape or disengage. If I don’t want to be part of a fight vs. some overpowered guild or insanely decked out opponent, there should be ways for me to escape or avoid the fight all together. I’m not talking about PvP flags… I’m talking about crowd control and sprint.
I can also buy into the best PvPers getting access to the best loot… as long as there isn’t a huge disparity! I’d much rather these pieces of equipment be slightly more powerful and a lot more flashy and recognizable. They should be status symbols more than anything… He shouldn’t be able to chop your head off in a single swipe as you peck away at his uber breastplate.
Raid gear more accessible than PvP gear? Seems oddly out of touch with their vision as a PvP game. PvE should definitely play a role in the endgame, but to have it overshadow PvP is a bit strange IMO, especially if people are too scared to engage for fear of instant death due to better gear and XP loss…
So, it seems I can accept 2/4 of these announcements under certain conditions. The trouble for AoC is, I think more people will side with Keen on these issues and it seems pretty lame to be announcing this stuff after you’ve gone ahead and sold a bunch of pre-orders. This is the first I’ve heard of it (then again, I don’t really follow AoC, do I?).
16 Responses to “WAR fans can breathe a sigh of relief…”
One small correction. XP loss on death is only for PvP levels (1-10).
It is NOT for PvE.
By Bildo on Apr 25, 2008
Sorry, I’ll rewrite that. It’s what I intended, but didn’t get it across properly.
By Snafzg on Apr 25, 2008
$%#@&!!! !@$%!!!!
^^^ My thoughts on raiding treadmills.
It’s important to also note that the PvE gear will be great PvP gear too. There isn’t an extra stat in AoC like there is in WoW. I’m completely dumbfounded by Gaute’s statement that PvP gear will be slightly better for PvP.
By Keen on Apr 25, 2008
Have they released any further information on the raiding? Is it going to be a treadmill? Will is share traits of WoW-raids or will it be less “hardcore?”
Seems like an odd statement for him to make. The only thing I can gather from it is that while PvE raid gear is more accessible, the high-end PvP gear will be better. It was definitely a vague statement…
By Snafzg on Apr 25, 2008
According to Funcom, and keep in mind I don’t have any experience in raiding in AoC, raids will take an average of 45 minutes to 2 hours, and the emphasis will be on boss fights, not trash clearing.
They’ve also stated that you shouldn’t have to grind the same raid over and over to get “geared up” and move on to the next one. How they’re going to handle this with a looting system remains to be seen.
There are things that matter more in PvP than PvE according to the beta leaks out there. As in the stats you assign to your characters as you level. One of which is disruption, or your chacracter’s ability to disrupt a caster’s spell, presumably ideal for a melee fighter.
Now this is all just guesswork, but I’m thinking those offended are making far too much out of what is purely a hype-marketing tool. it’s an IGN preview just week’s before IGN’s own Open Beta.
I wouldn’t go getting all up in arms until we see how the game actually handles these situations.
Me? I’m in for the long haul regardless, even if I hate how this section of the game turns out. Why? The same reason I played WoW and LotRO despite hating their own versions of the raid game. I loved the majority of the PvE and PvP.
Nothing’s perfect, not even WAR (which I’m also very much looking forward to).
By Bildo on Apr 25, 2008
Lots of typos in there… begging your forgiveness, but I’m hopped up on Pepsi Max.
By Bildo on Apr 25, 2008
Well, I’m definitely jumping on the hype train with this post since I don’t follow AoC, however, I think the four bullet points above are very different from what WAR fans hope to see in their MMORPG of choice, hence why I posted about it here.
I actually think there’s some potential from what I read at Keen’s site, but it will probably scare more people away than it will draw in.
By Snafzg on Apr 25, 2008
Funcom said straight up “The best gear in the game comes from raids”.. that alone is the nail in the coffin for a PvP centric game.
By Keen on Apr 25, 2008
Wow… now that’s just silly.
By Snafzg on Apr 25, 2008
The best gear in WAR comes from raids as well.
It just happens to be a pvp raid…
By Bo on Apr 25, 2008
I think there will be a fair amount of PvE in the city raids with the three public quests you’ll need to complete before capturing the king. Also, I think they mentioned that certain features would unlock once you overtook a city, like access to the skaven sewers beneath Altdorf.
The thing is, PvP will be intermixed with the PvE, so I don’t think it will be too bad.
By Snafzg on Apr 25, 2008
I so wanted to be woo’d by AoC, and the more I hear about it, the more tepid our relationship becomes. Would it be so horrible, really, for a MMO to arrive on the scene that doesn’t try to pigeonhole the ultimate end game content as either mass raids or mass PvP? (with apologies to WAR)
By Syp on Apr 25, 2008
“Funcom said straight up “The best gear in the game comes from raids”.. that alone is the nail in the coffin for a PvP centric game.”
Not at all! DAOC was/is the best example of what PVP in an MMO should be. What gear you got in PvE and from crafters, is what made you viable in PVP. And your PVP success garnered points that could be spent on a PVP spec line.
WoW should not be held as an example of what PVP should be in an MMO! The point of a PVP centric game is always PVP, thus PVE SHOULD get you the gear you need to PVP at a competetive level. The rewards of being a great PVP warrior should be better PVP skillset or special abilities, as well as bonuses for your realm, not better PVP gear so that a 5 year old can walk into battle and mop up a hard core raider because his gear is PVE only.
By coppertopper on Apr 25, 2008
ps - raids for good PVP gear should not be more then 10 people, with great (but not ridiculously so) gear available to 20+. DAOC was ruined by an expansion that favored large raid groups, thus giving the bigger guilds complete domination in the REAL end game - world PVP. They eventually reduced all those good gear mobs to 1 group (8 person) encounters.
By coppertopper on Apr 25, 2008
“Obviously, a ruthlessly controlled, extremely organized group of super-hardcore players will be more efficient at many tasks in the game, but our intention is for players of all stripes to have the same basic opportunities to be effective in WAR.”
WAR wins again!
After reading some of the articles K&G were referencing, and seeing how it is only guilds that can build PVP keeps, yeah I am growing a little dismayed at AOCs idea of world PVP myself. There rules for keep retaking seems a little complex. Can mixed groups, not just guilds, take a keep? In DAOC everyon could zerg a keep, but only a guild coiuld claim ownership, and at that only 1 keep per guild. I hope AoCs PVP ruleset isn’t at guildcentric as EVE is.
By coppertopper on Apr 25, 2008
Shadowbane was a PvP centric game. DaoC was a RvR centric game.
They are two very different styles of play. Notice the “PvP Servers” on DaoC which were not near as popular. Although I played on them more then the normal servers.
By Bo on Apr 27, 2008