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 Post subject: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:22 pm 

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 10:59 pm
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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. :twisted:

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 :oops:

Love Cantra <3 XxX

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Tranca
Level 80 Assassin


I had a look at some of Cantra's videos, and well, which father wouldn't
be proud when his daughter shows behavioural patterns that resemble the
ones of a serial killer.


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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 4:12 pm 

Joined: Sat Jun 28, 2008 12:51 pm
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Sounds nice but i dont think they will stop the zerging grps from dominating pvp ranks, so not a game for me atm, WaR, aside from being a little boring, due to my level in comparison to guilds, is picking up nicely, had a great night last night in BT, and when we finally all 40 will be even mor efun, with our premade we own face in scenario and once Order picks up and talks to each other im sure we will dominate oRvR aswell.

WAR is just picking up :) 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.

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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 5:01 pm 
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Will only play Aoc, when [boss] says we go back :)

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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 5:03 pm 
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Thanks for the info tranca, miss gaming with you. I'm enjoying war right now, but if the guild wanted to move back to aoc I'd go cuz I miss the combat system.


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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 5:15 pm 

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 9:16 pm
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I may come back to AoC later, i miss my necro so much:)


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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:10 pm 

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 10:59 pm
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Silvane wrote:
I may come back to AoC later, i miss my necro so much:)


Well necro's are probably one of the most powerful caster classes now Mael. Both types of necro actually. Like I said squishy *if* you get in their face. But if a Nec gets onto me, and I have no charge available, I may as well sit back and watch the show, because I'm toast. Same with a Demo. And if they jump into spellweaving for a bit, omfg.......the age of spellweaving has arrived. No shit.

I killed a Nec yesterday, and later she hid behind a rock did some spellweaving, jumped out, and well...it wasn't pretty. My hp just ticked away, in HUGE chunks, potion no chance to help.

The big changes for me, are being able to fight in longer battles. Before if I fought a BS, no matter how crappy they were, chances are I would get slaughtered quick. Now if I fight a BS, even a skilled one. I actually have a chance of winning. Same with barbarians. Before if one charged me from ambush, I'd be stunlocked, unable to do anything, and killed. They can't do that now, because CC breaks after a certain amount of damage. Any CC, stun/mezz/root...

Consequently dual wielding respecced reaver barbs are now making a return. And doing what they did in the past, crazy dps, but remaining killable themselves. I'm also seeing more and more hybrid type rangers, who with the right timing and skills, flicking between Xbow and Bow are a real menace. Conquerors, I never knew much about, but seeing a ton of dual wield ones who are routinely kicking my arse if they get the start on me.

Guards and DT's too seem to have picked up in dps, or perhaps they are just getting very skilled at stance dancing, and flicking to frenzy easier and more often with the shortened combos. You can no longer think, "meh its a grd or a dt , will take a while but he's mine."

No more memory leaks, grey maps or broken group windows. And a shiny new drag and drop raid grouping system.

Overall it's a completely new and different game to the one we all started on.....

Oh and yeah, once again. Necros...fucking Necros, really...fucking Necros. Get the picture :lol:

[Edit]: Forgot to mention what they did to the 3D engine. Well I don't actually know what they did to it. But it's now a Ferrari compared to the 1987 Vauxhall Astra we had back in May. Runs like a dream on my pc, and unlike Bondurant, I cannot launch missiles or start wars from mines.

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Tranca
Level 80 Assassin


I had a look at some of Cantra's videos, and well, which father wouldn't
be proud when his daughter shows behavioural patterns that resemble the
ones of a serial killer.


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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:35 pm 
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Ye, i left after the pvp patch, and then they already fixd the 3d engine, maybe even better now , i dont know.

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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 5:54 am 

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 10:59 pm
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Remember these two. Fun times with you guys. I miss it. Guild on Fury are nice folks. But they ain't [Boss].

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Tranca
Level 80 Assassin


I had a look at some of Cantra's videos, and well, which father wouldn't
be proud when his daughter shows behavioural patterns that resemble the
ones of a serial killer.


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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 1:50 am 

Joined: Sun May 25, 2008 10:59 pm
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Quick update since I've had time to assess the full impact of the pvp murder system, and the other odds and sods implemented.

NPC Guards: They suck. They really do. 1 or 2 shotting a clothie, cannot be cc'ed and snare you just for good measure. Upside though is that, guilds often move outside the npc areas to have at it.

Sieges: Really kick arse now. Ballistas, and Trebuchets in action, blasting down walls. Awesome stuff to see. Problem at the moment in sieges is if you are a melee class. Since after the latest patch AoC really has become Age of Casters. And true to form, the IWIN brigade have ditched their bear shamen, and started rolling ToS, Demo or Nec. Even PoM's are seriously powerful nuke machines if specced correctly.

I guess there isn't a huge problem regarding balance. I mean I can kill any class, and any class can kill me. The problem is that there are so many casters appearing, that if you don't have your own heavy ranged artillery to counter it, it's curtains for you.

Tradeskills: Although far too lazy to do anything but alchemy (which now kicks ass btw) tradeskills seems to have been well received with world drops of rare and quite nice craftable weapons and armour. Some really nice graphics too. Drop rate seems about right too, because if you look in auction hall, the place certainly isn't flooded with new gear going at cheapo prices. So it seems that the recipes really are rare, and once you memorise it, you are one of the few people who can actually craft that particular item.

Ymirs Pass: Really nice 55-65 type zone. Plenty of quests, and a really great encounter (even at 80) at the end of one of the quest chains. Reward is a cloak, which is level 60, but better than almost any 80 cloak you can get.

T2: Seems to be all functioning unlike before. Not being much of a pve person I don't care about that. But it's fixed and works anyway.

Server merges: Will happen before the end of the year apparently. Rumour has it that Wildsoul will merge with Fury. I guess the pvp shit will hit the fan if that happens, given the size of the e-peenery on both servers top guilds. Can't wait actually.

10 minutes ago: Just bumped into a full Santa Alianza (Spanish guild of cheats, expoliters and lamers) raid in Onyx. We had a full raid also. Mental, really mental goings on in those wee corridors with Elite mobs joining in the fun too. Wiped them, and of course because they are exploiters, we spawn camped them till they cried into their paella and cheap hotel brochures.

The infamous pvp exp exploit: Where people could make themselves a murderer, and then leave their guild, and allow themselves to be chain killed giving double pvp exp, and no diminishing returns. Santa Alianza (see above) suddenly appeared when we sieged them with a full guild of level 5 pvp people, all kitted out in the uber gear. Anyhow, Funcom to their credit, went through their database, and checked peoples k/d ratio. Then picked out the cheaters, and rolled them back to pvp level 1. Even if they were pvp 3 before they started cheating. And also removed all their gear. Laughed long time at that one.

Did I mention that the guards suck....

Lots of Love Tranca XxX

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Tranca
Level 80 Assassin


I had a look at some of Cantra's videos, and well, which father wouldn't
be proud when his daughter shows behavioural patterns that resemble the
ones of a serial killer.


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 Post subject: Re: AoC - update
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 9:20 am 
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hehe pvp sounds awesome, actually the 2 sieges that we did have in aoc, were the best experiences i've had sieging in the year, although i do miss tol fights in lotro...

when does your sub expire tranca, gonna give war a try? i think you would love witch elf...

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