Just thought I'd pop by say hello, and give you boys an update on the latest AoC patches.
In short, what Bond said back in June. This game needed another 6 months. Well it's just about 6 months and he was right. The game is now, where it should have been at release.
Seiges are working, 1-shotting is gone, gems are nerfed, the pulsing gems (which people were stacking after the damage ones got nerfed) have been changed. The combat system has had a radical change, in that the combo steps are lessened, and pre-loading isn't viable because of the miss penalty it incurs. Spellweaving is now the dangerous and brutal thing we thought it was going to be. Dangerous for the caster doing it, but extremely brutal and deadly for the recipient.
Necros and Demos are extremely viable classes again, and although still squishy are dps machines. Tos remains powerful, but not in the way it was before. Experienced Tossers are still very dangerous, but the IWIN Tos brigade now have to actually learn some abilities or die.
The same goes for Bear Shamen. Their massive burst dps has been cut, and it's a more even curve. Although, with the correct feats they can still pretty much own you if you are not careful. Same with assassins. Our burst dps is somewhat lessened in pvp, but to counter that, they have given us a snare. This helps with those double tapping casters. Speaking of which double tap is now on a 6 sec cd for each direction. Cssting concentration actually works, and it is possible to be interrupted. Good news for melee. Casters are frantically readjusting feats points.
CC breaks on damage, which is good news for all. Apart from maybe berserker spec Barbs who used to like stun locking and killing you. This isn't possible now. Not from full hit points at least.
The new rogue fast dismount works from moving. And looks extremely cool.
The guards hit like elites, and will pretty much 2 or 3 shot you if you misbehave. The murder system at the moment needs some work. For example, a level 60 pokes her nose in Khesh. Gets apped to 79. I kill what I think is a 79. But the game sees me having killed a level 60, and I get murder points. A fix is on the way next week for this.
Tradeskills, and in particular alchemy got a serious, and badly needed overhaul. There are world drop recipes for new tradeskill items. For example, alchemists can now make stacks of 10 potions, which are better than vendor bought ones. Instead of the old way of 1 potion per 1 combine, which was ridiculous. Same applies for stacks of 4 hour food/mana/stamina items. There is also a tradeskill "untrainer" if you want to switch profession.
They have been running GM events the past few days. Hordes of undead in Khemi, and Bushbur. Nothing different from any other GM events on other games. Apart from the Bushbur one, where our whole raid got flagged with some murder points. Since Bushbur is a lowbie zone, and pvp enabled. And well, you can imagine the aoe that was flying and the lowbies being toasted. Not the ideal place to put level 80 elites and bosses FC.
You can only rez at the nearest spawn point. This in my opinion is stupid. Because, although you are shielded as long as you stay within a small distance of the rez pad, it means that in certain areas, especially with murderer gangs on the loose, travel is extremely dodgy if alone. I guess they implemented that to stop the "kill me I need a port" routine we all indulged in. I think this needs a rethink.
I've had murder status a few times now. But only one where it was deliberate. The others were due to killing apped people, which as I mentioned will be fixed next week. Being flagged a murderer is a bit of a pain, if you don't intend to stay that way. You cannot travel by normal means, guards will attack you on sight, and vendors merely respond with a rude gesture. Therefore you have to use the murderer network of shady (and expensive) travel and vendor camps. There are quests that you can do to redeem yourself and get back to being an innocent. Quite simple kill and collect jobs which is a good thing in my opinion. Simple of course, if you have gotten only a few points here and there. Maxed out murderers will have a long hard grind to be accepted back to the normal world of travel and trade.
The criminal status, is different from murderer. This means that if you initiate an attack on a person, you get flagged as a criminal for 5 minutes. During which no guards will assist you, and other people can attack you and not get criminal status. It's sort of handy in Khesh, where criminals cannot hug guards. Experience stays the same for killing a criminal, but for a murderer you get an extra 100% bonus. This is solo exp. Group exp is based on damage applied. Oh and if you are too low level for a zone you get flagged as "free prey" - which puts a cute little bunny rabbit icon on their name. And means you can kill them for sport, with no consequence. I killed a level 32 bunny rabbit ToS in Kesh the other day.
In my opinion overall the changes are pretty awesome. There are some of course, who are not happy about it. These people tend to be the 1-shot IWIN brigade, who have now found out that they weren't the "uber-pvp gods" they thought they were.
"FUCK YOU...and your OP snare, that better get nerfed" says the former 1-shot-1-trick-pony Bear Shaman after the assassin rips him seventeen new arseholes. Oh the irony. I fucking love it.
"Good game, well played" says the skilled Bear Shaman to the assassin after adapting to his new build and winning a fight that lasted more than 3 seconds.
Two true scenarios. The 1-shot talentless pricks are crying. The skilled players are shining.
Have to mention also, that the pvp gear looks absolutely awesome. I saw a level 5 ToS running around, and its actually scary. The ranger stuff I think is just "too cool" - yep it looks that good. Assassin is droolworthy also btw. The gear actually does make a difference too. I tested on a level 4 Ranger. Unloaded full dps on him from behind (no shielding there) and got him to maybe 35%. Without gear he would have been dead. Several times.
Shielding makes a difference now too. A noticeable one. For example, I fight a BS, I know where his main combos are going to land, shift my shields accordingly and mitigate maybe 25%. This didn't work before. Neutral shielding yielded the same mitigation as directional changes in shields.
You can see some of the new combo system, (and the guards kicking the shit out of me)
Kheshatta zergball HERE - and YES, that was a fatality I did on a horse
Love Cantra <3 XxX
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and this is before any class balance has been introduced, there are obviously a few glaring holes in the current system but atm its a very playable very enjoyable game, even the pve dungeons work.
