My annoyance with AA

[mrcorp]

* All old world guards will now behave the same way as the ones in Khitai.
* Subscribers will now receive 1 AA point every time they level.

Just announced today on Testlive in case anyone is interested.

[cins]

While it's awesome, that still doesn't change the fact that no templar with two brain cells will use anything but VoM.

My own biggest gripe that no one mentioned is the rogue gimmicks. Rogues were useless, they exist for dps and mages did it better before Godslayer (still do actually). FC's solution to that was adding gimmick abilities to rogues that were mandatory for some bosses. Amusingly enough, this screws over new rogues because they have to train 2 perks to be able to do all hardmodes while others only need 1. More important than that, it still doesn't change the problem with rogues and mages both being dps. Hell, even soldiers can become dps now (thanks to AA!) so rogues are more pointless than ever (I'm not even mentioning that pom and tos can also do insane amounts of dps). The only reason anyone ever wants a rogue in pve is because TW/FH is mandatory; the entire worth of a rogue in pve can be summed up in his/her ability to press those 2 buttons at correct moments, so long as TW/FH is used correctly no one cares what else rogue is doing. If mages had TW/FH equivalents, no one would ever look for a rogue. Rogues get no respect and AA does not help at all despite pretending to solve the problem.

[Prima]

I'm agreeing, although it might not sound like it at first.

I don't mind so much the principle behind rogues having something unique that is required for groups. Many games with lots of classes struggle to keep them all relevant, and while AoC's solution is not subtle, I think there is potential for the idea of a group-critical archetype dedicated to "debuffing." Especially in a day when most soldiers and healers could also easily take over the role of DPS (which I don't disapprove of; I think that's true to the spirit of AoC).

The problem here for me is, the debuff abilities are something tacked on as an afterthought, rather than a role that rogues are built around from the ground up like tanking and healing for soldiers and priests.

Anyway, it is regrettable that AA has become something so important just to get groups (either for a critical ability or to maintain performance) rather than something to customize your character or playstyle more. While HoXes get closer to the latter than most, the fact is, one perk is still clearly better from an overall performance standpoint, which means the others, while fun and even situationally powerful, just don't get used much. I feel like that's inevitable if you build any AA system around performance-enhancing abilities.

In a way, I wish it was more like WoW's (otherwise horrifyingly simplistic) talent system. For example, in the first tier, everyone gets a speed boost. But you get to choose the flavor: short burst, on a cooldown? or passive +%? a charge? etc.

[MashMash]

* All old world guards will now behave the same way as the ones in Khitai.
* Subscribers will now receive 1 AA point every time they level.

Just announced today on Testlive in case anyone is interested.

So, 80 aa points when you hit lvl 80? I'm assuming it doesn't mean aa lvling, cause we already get 1 expertise & 3 mastery for that per ding.

[Argantes]

So, 80 aa points when you hit lvl 80? I'm assuming it doesn't mean aa lvling, cause we already get 1 expertise & 3 mastery for that per ding.

no, 79 AA points :P

[lok502]

* All old world guards will now behave the same way as the ones in Khitai.
* Subscribers will now receive 1 AA point every time they level.

Just announced today on Testlive in case anyone is interested.

I wonder how that will apply to offline levels and free 50 characters.

[Mantic0r3]

offline lvls will work since u just get x amount of xp when u hit the button, the lvl 50s...should too if i remember correctly u got a char which was equal to what u could have gotten while lvling to 50 (even including lvl 30 destiny) so...if they do all that i would be suprised if they miss it now

[Kurt2013]

It is not that simple, because offline levelling is not just giving the xp. You can find it out when you compare the skillpoints a char gathers while playing questing, just killing mobs (pure xp) and offline levels.
Just killing (powerlevelling) gives no extra skillpoints afaik, questing gives around 2 points per quest and offline levels give a blunt amount of skillpoints per level (around 30-40 i think)...
But i think considering AA, it is easy to fix, if it should not happen automatically. More problematic is how they want to deal with non-khitai accounts that get khitai expansion when the chars are 80 already?

[Buffarse]

Many games with lots of classes struggle to keep them all relevant

You're right but thats usually because they really have no idea what they're doing to be frank. I've been playing a LOT of League of Legends recently and they have to "balance" over 100 classes. Of those 100 or so at LEAST 80 are viable choices in PVP - they are THAT well balanced.

If you take a look at the latest professional league statistics for they European Championships, over the 112 games played there were 81 different classes used. So on a professional stage where 100,000+ euros were on the line the classes were balanced enough that professional players used 80% of them. AoC can't even balanace 12 effectively. Don't mistake this for a perfect 1 to 1 balance for all classes, it's not. There are counter classes for every class e.g. you play a tos and the opposition may choose DT because they KNOW DT will easily kill a ToS. The DT however will have it's own "opposite" classes so the choice of class makes a massive difference to the outcome of the game. THIS is what true balance looks like. Perfect 1 on 1 balance CAN'T ever exist.

It's not perfect, there are tweaks happening every couple of weeks, but on the whole it's surprisingly balanced overall. The other point is the capabilities, playstyle and variance between the different champions, even of the same type (i.e. their equivalents of DPS, tank, healer etc.) is VAST. You have support classes that can heal, some that give mana, some that stun, some that root, others that buff abilities and so on. You can even play some champions as support, magic damage or melee damage as needed.

This isn't to big up LOL particularly it's just to highlight that it's a common misconception that you can't make a game balanced when you have more than a handful of classes. Even with 100+ professions/champions/class to chose from, you just need to be clear what you're balancing and forget the notion that all classes will be balanced against all other classes.

Buff

[Mantic0r3]

It is not that simple, because offline levelling is not just giving the xp. You can find it out when you compare the skillpoints a char gathers while playing questing, just killing mobs (pure xp) and offline levels.
Just killing (powerlevelling) gives no extra skillpoints afaik, questing gives around 2 points per quest and offline levels give a blunt amount of skillpoints per level (around 30-40 i think)...
But i think considering AA, it is easy to fix, if it should not happen automatically. More problematic is how they want to deal with non-khitai accounts that get khitai expansion when the chars are 80 already?

skillpoints? u mean climbing and stuff? totally irrelevant since they want to remove them completly and most usefull stuff is allready gone. But interesting that u can different amount of skillpoints, never checked^^

your non khitai thingy is np since u get this bonus while having abo and khitai if dont have either of them u dont get the bonus and obviously have no right to claim it later.