Joel Boyles - Advanced PVP Advice

[Skill-Weave]

In order for PVP to blossom again and have old players return, old system mechanics must return and be embraced and rewarded for the actions the individual pvp player does.

Combo Cancelling was one of the main features of the game that set Age of Conan apart from other games, a feature that was removed and scared away 90% of the dominate pvp players. Now I know, a vast majority of people left in this game are going to sit here and try to elaborate to me how it's an exploit, but these are the very same people that can't do it and will claim they can and how easy it is, yet not a single one of them ever played premades or dominated in any world pvp during the time of combo cancelling or even now.

If PVE servers are surviving and all the pvp servers are dead, then that would only lead to one conclusion, the people left playing now do not PVP and truly don't want to, but they will always be here to stick their nose in business that really isn't any of their interest or concern, but like any product we pay for, every person has an opinion and this is mine.

Combo Cancelling functions much like the reload timer bar in the game Gears of War. In Gears of War, when firing your machine gun, you obviously have to reload. When you do reload, there is a bar that is presented with 3 divided sections and a sliding timer bar that scrolls over these 3 sections giving you a small advantage if properly timed right to get a damage boost and a fast animation to reload. The first section on the bar is the "error" section, which if you time yourself to early, your gun jams and you get a very slow animation which displays the character hitting his gun like it's jammed and you get zero damage boost. The 2nd section of the bar displays a small portion that if time right, allows you to get the damage boost and fast reload time. If you miss the 2nd section of the bar, which is the area you always want to time correctly, it skips in to the 3rd portion of the bar, which reloads normally with no damage boost.

So as you can see, Combo cancelling functions exactly like this for each individual combo step players execute on their class. Even though it was not intentional, it was an exploit that was beneficial to the game, which as I said above, should be embraced, not rejected. The better players under pressure were able to do this with every single combo and versus other amazing players, it created such a fast paced tempo and added another dynamic layer to the duel, battle which equated to a higher skill curve.

Another section that once was in Age of Conan that was amazing for PVP was being able to use the same Crowd Control Combo at a different level for different PVP scenarios, let me explain. For the Bear Shaman, if you wanted to use your Knock Back combo that was an instant cast at the time, you would initiate it and it would do an animation depending on the level of combo it was. So say it was Shrewd Blow IV, this would give you a longer animation and have different variant effects on the type of armor the person was wearing. At level IV it was a longer animation, but you could knock back heavy armor targets, but at level II, the animation was slower and would only knock back Medium Armor targets and under. People use to bind different levels to act on a pvp situation quicker depending on what they were fighting, another dynamic layer in the game which has now been removed.

Crowd Control Cast Bars, this one was probably the most annoying of the 3 for me, all which made me leave the game along with my entire guild Carnage, who everyone knows dominated PVP in the NA scene.

After the CC's got tampered with over time, it had become obvious that the game was becoming watered down to the point that anybody could compete at the game as long as they had AA and Gear, that was the goal of the previous AoC development team, to casual-ify the game for your everyday gamer, which clearly didn't work in a niche market type game.

Being an Assassin in the game, you relied on being quick, precise mobile. With the last changes on CC's, they destroyed any type of swift skillful combat the game had to offer. Who wants to stand still and cast a crowd control ability while in PVP? I mean really? Do you truly think that people wanted to stop in a stand still animation and just look at another target in PVP and watch their cast bar move as they wait for it to CC somebody? Every single CC in the game was altered to this or some type of combo step, making for extremely boring and dull game play. There is a reason why they call twitch.tv "twitch" because that's another factor in gaming, reaction speed is huge in pvp, without it, you're removing a functionality one person may be greater at then another.

You may not agree with what I have to say, but that's fine, but you should just remember, Silirrion never agreed either and it's clearly obvious where the game is now. Casual gaming isn't the only way to make money, look at League of Legends, SC2, Counter-Strike, DayZ, all player versus player games that rely on skill, teamwork and reaction speed, if SC2 was watered down, it would just be another crappy RTS that had come and gone by now.

I don't expect AoC to ever make a serious come back, but if you were to try and do something, changing the above things I mentioned above back to there original state or close to it and adding in new features such as Arena's with actual rankings and real rewards and competition could truly help the game out.


Another concept you could try to help the PVP section of the game is, completely remove gear in mini games, open a sub-website that has Free 2 Play for PVP only and allows for players to sign up for Mini games using any character they want and making teams for competition and jumping in to any mini game that is available to the game. Pvp players DO NOT WANT TO GRIND, We just want to play for the mind game. It's like telling a poker player he has to grind to level 90 before he play a game of poker, we don't want to do that.

But if you could find a way to allow us to only pvp only in mini games and no other aspect of the game, I truly think this would do extremely well, especially since it's F2P using micro transactions and advertisement on the loading screen in.

[Korando-AoC]

I hope developers will not listen to your suggestion about combo skipping.
It is an exploit, like every other exploit like using radars and stuff like that.
Damage must be aligned with the animation, introducing "features" which make "unpredictable" or just modify combat system basics is for sure not what this game needs.
Combat system is the stronger aspect of this game imo, as it is.

This game needs more PvP content (arenas, tournaments, goals, ranking system), a revision of PvP gear and weapons (PvE weapons and also gear for some classes are actually too much OP compared to PvP ones), an increase of PvP AA for winning minigames and also faster PvP level progression.

Some classes should be a bit tuned, but class balance is even not so bad atm imo.

[Rydon]

It's only an exploit if FC say it is. What the op is saying, is that if FC were to reinstall it to the game as a working as intended function, it no longer becomes an exploit.

Combo skipping didn't increase the damage of your combos. It was because you could do combos quicker that meant you would do more damage. If it's a system that's readily available to all melees, it surely isn't a problem.

[barbaricwildcat2]

maybe im harsh here skill weave, but having been spammed for years is the players' desire to pvp and the complaint of lacking content to do so

combo skipping with still the 5 pve objective maps wont boost pop, it just wont

[Fly927]

I agree with everything Skillweave said PvP should be mobile and based on reaction times not who has the best gear and can tank hits till their CCs and combos cast PVP should be based on speed any noob can play the game its the speed and accuracy in which you play it that sets you aside and Real PvPers will appreciate this and stay supplying constant subscriptions way after all the PvErs have jumped ship to the next Mmo or Call of Spunkgargleweewee. Think of all the most popular video games over long periods of time they all are successful because they have a way players can prove they are better than other players, you can't win a PvE game but you can win at PvP, don't you want to Win?

[RentonsHouse]

Casual gaming isn't the only way to make money, look at League of Legends, SC2, Counter-Strike, DayZ, all player versus player games that rely on skill, teamwork and reaction speed, if SC2 was watered down, it would just be another crappy RTS that had come and gone by now.

I think they can actually have both if they approached it like a car transmission being either automatic or stick shift.

Using the car analogy, each key ability or combo etc. has two forms, an "automatic" or "stick", where "stick" requires a lot more skill to use, but is more powerful than the automatic version if you know how to use it (and weaker if you don't). This would give new people a pathway to improve their PVP skills, where they would start mastering the "stick" version of abilities over time.

I agree they should add back combo-cancelling. Despite those who deny it, it was a tactic that required precise timing and player skill. So what if it wasn't intended, it made the game better. They could just balance around it rather than remove it just because they didn't purposely put in there.

[Lerael]

Yeah, waste time and resources on a new combo cancelling mechanic. That will obviously bring back the 2 or 3 bear shamans that left the game after the fixes.

Joel, just ignore everything they say and keep working on reducing the gap between geared and non geared players. That's all we want.

If you fix soldiers, overpowered ccs, necro dots and the gear gap, the gameplay will be perfect.

[konungr]

Why do people always say the pvp is based off gear? I see undergeared fresh toons enter mini's or in open world pvp all the time and do very well, based on their skill and understanding of the class and game mechanics. If I can take two weeks to gear out a toon in Khiti gear, I can compete in pvp with anyone, in any kind of gear...so it really isn't a question of gear.

The long animations that the barb (for example) waiting for a combo to finish is frustrating. But the class is still playable and can be viable in any situation in a mini game. Combo canceling was GOOD for the game, it added to the pvp skill level and mobility to combat. But it is gone. We have to understand it and move on from it.

Getting rid of hard earned gear in mini games is a bad idea. It's like farming Abyss for one piece and it never dropping...for months. When it finally drops I want to use it, wherever, and whenever I want to. I want to change my gear up, and see what works better for different situations. Will a fresh 80 be confused about stats and probably have to learn the hard? Probably. But despite it all, I feel like if I have a question I can put it in global and get answers when I need them, even if people have had to listen to me promote open world pvp in global chat.

What pvp needs in this game is more maps, a ranking system, and a compelling reason for pvpers to stay on pvp servers. Everyone ran to Set (myself included) to pve end game content. The gear, rings, neck, weapons are all better than the pvp gear for pvp. I want that gear...but at what cost? I now have many 80's across accounts and rarely play my main anymore because I just don't find Set enjoyable. People I used to battle...now walks right by me in open world...I feel like they are sad they aren't allowed to kill me. Catch pvp gear up with pve gear, and I will be happy enough to bring all my toons home to Tyranny again.

[Spartaacus]

The Game does not need more PvP content, Stop crying for PvP content.

No matter how many fancy pvp content funcom can come up with, it will all be watered down and ruined by the unbalanced pvp factor.

If PvP itself class/gear/AA/CC etc are not even close to balanced and have serious issue, how does new "pvp content" going to make any different?

You want some new pvp content? Seige, Khemi Arena, Khesh Arena.
Booom all there, you zone in, you started PvP GUESS WHAT?
Its the same everywhere else! Players with T4 poop gear will poop on you, casters will still insta cast you to death, CC's are still imbalanced, Gear/AA still Play a huge factor over skill. Whats changed? within a month of new content people will realize its just the same old crap over and over, newbies getting farmed, Top PVE gear and OP classes Wins. BAM guarenteed.


Remember what we said its going to happen to Deathwish server?
it was almost 100% true, the posts we made 'months' before deathwish release are like prophets now...

[Spartaacus]

Why do people always say the pvp is based off gear? I see undergeared fresh toons enter mini's or in open world pvp all the time and do very well, based on their skill and understanding of the class and game mechanics. If I can take two weeks to gear out a toon in Khiti gear, I can compete in pvp with anyone, in any kind of gear...so it really isn't a question of gear.

The long animations that the barb (for example) waiting for a combo to finish is frustrating. But the class is still playable and can be viable in any situation in a mini game. Combo canceling was GOOD for the game, it added to the pvp skill level and mobility to combat. But it is gone. We have to understand it and move on from it.

Getting rid of hard earned gear in mini games is a bad idea. It's like farming Abyss for one piece and it never dropping...for months. When it finally drops I want to use it, wherever, and whenever I want to. I want to change my gear up, and see what works better for different situations. Will a fresh 80 be confused about stats and probably have to learn the hard? Probably. But despite it all, I feel like if I have a question I can put it in global and get answers when I need them, even if people have had to listen to me promote open world pvp in global chat.

What pvp needs in this game is more maps, a ranking system, and a compelling reason for pvpers to stay on pvp servers. Everyone ran to Set (myself included) to pve end game content. The gear, rings, neck, weapons are all better than the pvp gear for pvp. I want that gear...but at what cost? I now have many 80's across accounts and rarely play my main anymore because I just don't find Set enjoyable. People I used to battle...now walks right by me in open world...I feel like they are sad they aren't allowed to kill me. Catch pvp gear up with pve gear, and I will be happy enough to bring all my toons home to Tyranny again.

PvP is based off on gear, if you can't tell then somes wrong with you.
The couple people you see with lowbie fresh toons are mostly those of us who rolled new toons and those of us who still understands pvp and know how to pvp.

you put a decent player with T4 gear he instantly becomes godlike.
How do these players with T4 gear suck so much is beyond me...