Joel Bylos Interview 4/25/13

[Pompripossa]

Very positive to have "gearbalanced" premades.

In fact it's equal to sign pugminis with a couple of friends (best content looking back).


Just the ability to play alt characters to full extent means alot, atleast for mee .

[KullOfValusia]

I thought about PvP "progression" and rewards and people are correct there should be some benefit to being a awesome pvper. BUT... I think a way to balance these rewards is to make all the benefits associated with it, external.

What does that mean? It means any PvP perks you get for attaining a high PvP rank should ONLY benefit your teammates/guild mates(for sieges), it affects no stats or gives additional abilities to your character. That way the almighty k/d ratio or leaderboards(if we get one won't be affected by non skill related abilities) at the same time there will be clear cut advancement/progress made by your character .

[Baasura]

Lol people are still crying about this? I have 2 ful t3 pvp geared chars, one full t2 and one almost pvp 7 and full t2, and i couldnt care less about my gear if this changes will bring more people to the game and to pvp.
And all you gear dependent people will still have normal minis and open world where gear will still matter.
And buhuhuhu i wont be able to 1 shot people in blue gear any more seems to be main reason for this crying.
Saying that soldiers will be OP is also kind of silly since they are OP now anyway. Also believe me they are more OP when they have pvp 10 gear and you have pvp 3-4 gear than when everyone have pvp 10

[Chaman-bourru]

I don't care much about gear... but i don't worship balance either. So i have mix feelings about this change.

It's good, because new-players won't get destroyed as much in minis as they do now... maybe a bit more player retention. But it's also kind of draging the game more towards e-sport and i hate the mentality that goes with it. Not to mention there will be even less incentive to duel or fight in open-world if nothing is done there aswell to at least reduce the gear gap for newcomers.

This might reduce the QQ but i doubt it will make the random minis more intresting.

[kalston]

Well I disagree, but then again I love competitive gaming. The mentality is not always a problem - tbh I far prefer it to the mentality we have in MMOs. It's not like AoC is going to become popular like LoL and stuff.

[Baasura]

I don't care much about gear... but i don't worship balance either. So i have mix feelings about this change.

It's good, because new-players won't get destroyed as much in minis as they do now... maybe a bit more player retention. But it's also kind of draging the game more towards e-sport and i hate the mentality that goes with it. Not to mention there will be even less incentive to duel or fight in open-world if nothing is done there aswell to at least reduce the gear gap for newcomers.

This might reduce the QQ but i doubt it will make the random minis more intresting.

While i do think that any move to improve pvp is good one i must agree with you that world pvp is what this game needs and where true fun lies.

[Roargathor]

The whole PVP Unchained thing might just fail hard. The people that despised progression based PVP most likely left a long time ago, leaving the crowd you see nowadays. Who are these changes going to satisfy? Add to that the anonymity of this unchained PVP thing; if everyone is PVP 10 it'll just be dozens of nobodies-you-know fighting for nothing - no progression and no recognition. A big part of PVP is fighting people you know and have played with or heard of or... etc.

I'll wait and see. I've definitely been interested in trying a lot of other classes out but not had the will to grind them sufficiently enough to be competitive.

Good players are always going to be better than bad players. The reputation of good players will still be there, and will probably be worth more now the the playing field will be more even than before.

[Roargathor]

Sweet news from new GD.

He will take progression out of PvP.

There are a good number of vets who would re-sub in a heartbeat if AOC went back to more skill based PvP. It would take more than that to keep them long term, but it's a good start. Most of the current population don't understand where this game came from and the long history of bad decisions made by the former GD that led from one mass exodus to another. I'll sum it up for those who don't know what happened. Warning, WALL OF TEXT INCOMMING...

In the beginning, AOC was touted as having a skill based, NON-Gear centric combat system, with guild driven PvP heavy endgame. The game was released unfinished, with broken features, but the combat system was more or less as promised. Skill based, with little to NO dependance on items. And it was good. Until the glow of release wore off and the lack of polish and content became obvious to the players.
Then there was the GEM debacle.. The original GD, Gaute, resigned from FC, stating that he was not satisfied with the handling of AOC post release. He knew what was about to happen to the game and didn't want his name to be apart of it. Funcom replaced him and decided to stop the bleeding of subscriptions as best they could, knowing that they could not deliver the type of content that was promised to the PvP minded, they opted to go the easy rout, and decided to turn the game into WOW with normal maps. The made items matter. A LOT. This made the PvE crowd happy for a short time until they consumed the anemic endgame content and went back to wow.
The population was low and stable until the ROTGS expansion. We got a little bump, but the gear grind was so bad that most of the new players left soon after. Seiges were never fixed. PvP "content" came in the form of PvE content (Bori), and everything is kind of a blur up until now.

TL;DR version

The game strayed from it's original PvP vision, and that is the biggest reason for why it has suffered.

"taking away progression from PvP" if that means taking items out of the equation, is something that has been asked for since 1.05 was implemented. Countless posts have been made over the years asking for something like this. It will be a welcome change for many, but wont be enough to bring back a significant number of subs. I would propose that once the single server tech is in place, there be an "unchained" option for every PvP zone. That would do wonders to bring world PvP back to life and with it alot of subs back to Funcom.

[McFiend]

"taking away progression from PvP" if that means taking items out of the equation, is something that has been asked for since 1.05 was implemented. Countless posts have been made over the years asking for something like this. It will be a welcome change for many, but wont be enough to bring back a significant number of subs. I would propose that once the single server tech is in place, there be an "unchained" option for every PvP zone. That would do wonders to bring world PvP back to life and with it alot of subs back to Funcom.

I couldnt agree more. since 1.05 the game has never felt the same.

[SelfRez]

I know the intension of this unchained mode is good...but it wont balance the PVP as long as the differences of the classes and PVP gear are solved. Certain classes have more advantage from full PVP gear than others. Give a Conq / Guard / DT full set and after that its just like hitting a wall... not fun at all when you are playing a class cannon.