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Thread: Current state of the game

  1. #1

    Default Current state of the game

    Ahoy!

    Time to write again about the game's current state.

    My perspective
    To give you an impression of what my perspective is, I'll start talking about me (yay!). Been here since early access with a short break, played all classes to level 80 and full T1 (or better) equip twice, guild officer for several years, raid leader (T1 to T4) for several years, avid solo dungeon runner, occasional forum harmony problems - not allowed to talk about details -, made several suggestions implemented in the game later, suck in PvP, spend my life working and gaming (yay, real life!).

    Raiding
    Raid dungeons are more or less okay, but suffer from population problems.

    Our guild alliance had regular T1, T3 and two T4 raids. T1 and T3 died due to interest / players in the last months. Both T4 raids have serious participation problems. Same seems to be true for several other raids. There're regular, very respectable raids looking for additional players in Global on most days - i. e. they're lacking regulars, which shouldn't happen with the "good" raids at least.

    The T4 group I currently happen to lead had to cancel some raids due to lack of players, and currently, we have to fill empty spots via Global. Nothing against guest players (to the contrary - got some pretty cool players to help us), but again, that shouldn't happen with a regular raid, at least not that often. Delays the start, brings a lot difficulties to the raid (language, tactics explanation, loot distribution and so on).

    The death of our T1 raid was really sad for me, personally. T1 is easy enough to fool around a little in there and spend time on training new raiders / trying out new classes. Lack of players and motivation killed that. The new loot offers (pets, token exchange and so on) are a nice thought (advocated them on the TL forums extensively). Sadly, it came too late to do anything in my range of vision with the exception of 2-3 people buying weapons in T4 that don't use to drop.

    Too little, too late.

    Group content
    Kithai / Turan / Unchained dungeons don't offer much of an incentive to run them anymore for veteran players.

    Personally, I've gotten most stuff I ever wanted from Kithai dungeons for all 12 classes about a year ago.

    The new unchained dungeons are nice and all, but completely lack a carrot to make us (or me, at least) to grind them. The gear is nothing to write home about with the exception of some soldier weapons (yay, ub0r soldier loot again! *yawn*). The loot they give might be suited to quickly equip new players / characters, but the skill/experience/gear required to run them is too demanding in my opinion for that purpose. I've seen pretty experienced players fail, really utterly fail on Scorpion Cave. I don't think I'd have the nerves to try that with so called noobs.

    The new dungeons focus, in my opinion, too much on running around from A to B to C back to A then to B and C or was it A? oh **** we all died.

    The classes, the class abilities are one of the unique points of this game - better use them then "running around", which can be done in more or less every game. It's AoC, not Mario Brothers.

    One thing: Never ever design encounters that discriminate against colour blind people. About 8% of your customer base probably are colour blind. It's a slap in the face to present them with a dungeon relying on the ability to tell a green from a red light in a split second*. Really, it's stupid. Also, it's AoC, not Senso.

    Sepulcher thingy is okay, though too demanding to the tanks. Scorpion and Caravan are more or less okay (except as noted above) - actually requires DPS, nice change of pace. Final boss in Caravan is stupid, though, at least the barrel throwing part. Remove the adds, encounter is stressful enough without them. Ubahn Karl thingy is not attractive - too long, too stressful, to much running around, Senso action, running around, running around and - yay - running around.

    *Disclosure: I'm not color blind.

    Solo content
    Yeah... what solo content?

    People used to come only to do quests, solo dungeons and so on. Thus, they were available for grouping, random raids and so on. Not the case anymore much, though. Quests are all done, everything from solo dungeons farmed to death.

    Community
    We're loosing players. Fast. That is a problem.

    Forum
    This forum has a problem. I'm happy to see how the merge turned out. And I'm still amazed about how Funcom claimed the merge to be impossible. The sheer audacity to lie so much into the customers' faces... oh my, I wanted to keep silent about that.

    Yes, the forum.

    The forum has problems. Sadly, it's one of these not-supposed-to-talk-about-it-things. About harmony, biases, volunteer work and these things. If somebody above the level of first level customer service at Funcom is interested, send me a message and/or get an appointment via Teamspeak. Else... don't.

    Payment method trouble
    Payment by "Lastschrift" / direct debit apparently was cancelled without notice some weeks ago. It seems Funcom missed updating to the new SEPA banking procedure.

    This is a boring, but important topic. I don't know much about how common "Lastschrift" / direct debit is in other ****ries, but in Germany, it's really, really common. People buy their groceries, pay their electrical bill and even their taxes in that way. It's great. It works. It doesn't require a credit card (which is not a very common thing in Germany btw.). Offering a service without accepting direct debit is like trying to sell something in a yard sale against a foreign currency without offering change. Whatever you might want to sell, however great it may be, however good your pices might be - you'll loose customers by that.

    We lost about 4 regular raiders to that problem so far. Players important to the raid's ability to succeed. And people I'd like to call friends.

    Because of Funcom not caring to update their payment procedures.

    Yeah... no. Absolutely no. Not. ****1ng. Acceptable.

    This concern may trouble European / German players more than US based players - on secound thought, though, European (and yes, German players) subscriptions have kept this game alive for many years.

    The Future
    What to do now?

    I don't really know. I've started to play Fallout 3 (again).

    Maybe the new raids will increase activity again, but I'm sceptical. T3, T4 and T3.5 were not in a state really drawing people in when they were relased, at least in my perspective. If T5 will be the same, i. e. horribly difficult, bugged, annoying... the time spent on them might have been invested better in a poem or planting a tree. That's at least something to have for years to come.

    That's it for now.

    Khaletohep

    P. S.: PvP
    Don't care much about PvP. Still not interesting to me. Progression too slow, horrible balancing, not fun to play.
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 2nd September 2014 at 15:02.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

    Khaletoheps AoC-Youtube-Channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Khaletohep

    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
    http://www.nachtwind-gilde.com/guide...-age-of-conan/

  2. #2

    Default

    pretty much sums it up (more or less what I wrote a while ago http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2013/...hurts-aoc.html)

    Basically we are stuck with zero veteran progression since 2012 (and that is being generous to Funom).
    Retired

  3. #3

    Default

    It's hard to get excited anymore when funcom displays complete in-competence to solve even the simplest of problems. In addition they seem to have completely forgotten about one server and ignore any questions about what they are going to do about it. I want to continue paying money to them but they aren't making it easy for me
    Usedtissue Necro 10//Emptycan ToS 7//Puggles HoX 6//Ammagaden Guard 5//Trollololo Conq 5//Bottlecap DT 2

    PM me to sign the Minigame buddy sign-up petition: (http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthr...40#post2135540)

  4. #4

    Default

    Face it, what the game needs, but might never get, sadly, would be long-term-content, read: "another addon with fresh areas".
    Since the gear-gap fresh-80<->veteran is pretty big already, it would also have to raise the level-cap to start gear-progression over again, setting the gap to zero again.
    The new levelling-content outside of dungeons/raids would potentially also attract new/returning players and would as a major update also attract attention of the media, creating a further influx of new players - if FC for once managed to advertise it properly.
    To further increase the influx, AoC would have to go F2P for all 'old' content, putting the paywall in front of the new dungeons/raids.

    Since all of this requires a full team of devs...it will never happen.

    /Flame on.
    The Noob Comic, best parody on MMO-gaming ever. Funcom featured @Page 318
    Gone with the blastwave For those special post-nuclear moments...
    Apprentice Shield of the Risen opener

  5. #5

    Default

    Encounters with hard-to-see colours (which are few) can be made a lot easier by increasing gamma - it's not by chance that FC by default sets it to higher than 1. While these encounters can be made somewhat more accessible to people with vision problems by e.g. giving information about colour by hovering the buff icon (iirc Kun Whu and Grand Vizier's does this, Medjian's doesn't), ultimetely FC shouldn't restrict themselves in terms of mechanics because of something like that. If you think colours are difficult to perceive in AoC, then try doing tone puzzles in TSW (and cry yourself to sleep unless you're a musician or something).

    I strongly disagree with your assertion that dungeons are unrewarding or too challenging, or that this is related to player decline. Firstly, it's quite easy to gear up in aoc - if you do regular HMs multiple days a week, you can gear up to some of the best gear you can get before T4 in a month or two. And doing Ardashir Fort is insanely rewarding - you can get a headpiece that is about equal to ones costing 196 rares in a couple of runs, there are a bunch of very good blue weapons there, not to mention cool vanity.

    Challenging and plentyfull dungeons is possibly AoC's strongest point. In most MMOs, dungeons are ridiculously easy, completeable by any group, and give no sense of reward when you complete them. The fact that T4 players can (!) struggle to complete Sepulcher, Coils or full Caravan is fantastic. In just about any other MMO, they would faceroll through them in 10-20 minutes. Though I think Coils is great, you may have a point that many people didn't enjoy it, especially the last two bosses.

    Funcom simply produces the best dungeons in the MMO business - try other MMO dungeons like those in WoW, Rift, GW2 if you don't believe me.

    The reason the game is losing players isn't hard dungeons or lacking rewards. It is because:
    1. The game is getting old. The graphics are no longer as impressive as they once were, and competition is increasing. When people list off MMOs, they no longer mention AoC like they did in 2010.
    2. The community is toxic, deriding the game and Funcom, turning new players off from the game. Trolls like Schtunk and Raeleigh are allowed free reign in NPH.
    3. Funcom can't invest much in AoC any more, with the turmoil the last few years. The sad thing is that, because of the previous points, they probably shouldn't, from a financial viewpoint. However it's noteworthy that Funcom has gotten a lot done the last few months (pvp changes, T5 unchaineds, loot changes, balance changes, hiring new people).

    The MMO genre itself seems to be stagnating though, it's not just AoC. Almost every MMO released since WoW has "flopped". Rift, GW2, TSW, Lotro, SWTOR, ESO, Wildstar... all are losing players. Even wow has lost a lot of players, with tons of dead servers or server merges, and Chinese players who don't subsrcibe make up a lot of the playerbase. So take heart, AoC is far from alone in its' doom and gloom
    Last edited by Greyloins; 2nd September 2014 at 15:55.

  6. #6

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    So take heart, AoC is far from alone in its' doom and gloom
    The problem is not that AoC is in good company there, its the simple fact that it is just about the only MMO worth mourning about if it were to go down.
    The rest of the MMOs mostly is just the same picture with different colors again, again and again.
    The Noob Comic, best parody on MMO-gaming ever. Funcom featured @Page 318
    Gone with the blastwave For those special post-nuclear moments...
    Apprentice Shield of the Risen opener

  7. #7

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    I strongly disagree with your assertion that dungeons are unrewarding or too challenging, or that this is related to player decline. Firstly, it's quite easy to gear up in aoc - if you do regular HMs multiple days a week, you can gear up to some of the best gear you can get before T4 in a month or two. And doing Ardashir Fort is insanely rewarding - you can get a headpiece that is about equal to ones costing 196 rares in a couple of runs, there are a bunch of very good blue weapons there, not to mention cool vanity.
    Are you sure we're disagreeing about anything here? I don't feel that way.

    2. The community is toxic, deriding the game and Funcom, turning new players off from the game. Trolls [...] are allowed free reign in NPH.
    Here, I definately agree.

    And Harmony incoming in 3... 2... 1... Oh, sorry, longer text starting with something positive about AoC, so it's a longer countdown.

    5... 4... 3... 2... 1... *watching*
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 2nd September 2014 at 16:04.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

    Khaletoheps AoC-Youtube-Channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Khaletohep

    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
    http://www.nachtwind-gilde.com/guide...-age-of-conan/

  8. #8

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    Encounters with hard-to-see colours (which are few) can be made a lot easier by increasing gamma - it's not by chance that FC by default sets it to higher than 1. While these encounters can be made somewhat more accessible to people with vision problems by e.g. giving information about colour by hovering the buff icon (iirc Kun Whu and Grand Vizier's does this, Medjian's doesn't), ultimetely FC shouldn't restrict themselves in terms of mechanics because of something like that. If you think colours are difficult to perceive in AoC, then try doing tone puzzles in TSW (and cry yourself to sleep unless you're a musician or something).

    I strongly disagree with your assertion that dungeons are unrewarding or too challenging, or that this is related to player decline. Firstly, it's quite easy to gear up in aoc - if you do regular HMs multiple days a week, you can gear up to some of the best gear you can get before T4 in a month or two. And doing Ardashir Fort is insanely rewarding - you can get a headpiece that is about equal to ones costing 196 rares in a couple of runs, there are a bunch of very good blue weapons there, not to mention cool vanity.

    Challenging and plentyfull dungeons is possibly AoC's strongest point. In most MMOs, dungeons are ridiculously easy, completeable by any group, and give no sense of reward when you complete them. The fact that T4 players can (!) struggle to complete Sepulcher, Coils or full Caravan is fantastic. In just about any other MMO, they would faceroll through them in 10-20 minutes. Though I think Coils is great, you may have a point that many people didn't enjoy it, especially the last two bosses.

    Funcom simply produces the best dungeons in the MMO business - try other MMO dungeons like those in WoW, Rift, GW2 if you don't believe me.

    The reason the game is losing players isn't hard dungeons or lacking rewards. It is because:
    1. The game is getting old. The graphics are no longer as impressive as they once were, and competition is increasing. When people list off MMOs, they no longer mention AoC like they did in 2010.
    2. The community is toxic, deriding the game and Funcom, turning new players off from the game. Trolls like Schtunk and Raeleigh are allowed free reign in NPH.
    3. Funcom can't invest much in AoC any more, with the turmoil the last few years. The sad thing is that, because of the previous points, they probably shouldn't, from a financial viewpoint. However it's noteworthy that Funcom has gotten a lot done the last few months (pvp changes, T5 unchaineds, loot changes, balance changes, hiring new people).

    The MMO genre itself seems to be stagnating though, it's not just AoC. Almost every MMO released since WoW has "flopped". Rift, GW2, TSW, Lotro, SWTOR, ESO, Wildstar... all are losing players. Even wow has lost a lot of players, with tons of dead servers or server merges, and Chinese players who don't subsrcibe make up a lot of the playerbase. So take heart, AoC is far from alone in its' doom and gloom
    And yet all of those games manage to release timely updates and content. The dwinding populations accross MMOs has several reasons, and factors that cant be summarized but I believe its mostly the fact there are too many of them out there
    ... Its like butter spread too thin over the slice of bread. Nothing that can be done about that but try and to mantain the core subscribers playerbase. Problem is even those diehard subbers that stuck out for over 6 years are taking off. For good this time. This gloom and doom topic always comes up when population issues become more evident. In the past server merges fixed that issue. Only this time there are no more servers left...we're down to 1 last active server. Thats it, no more gimmicks. How long will it last? How much longer can AoC remain sustainable, cash flow positive without a marketing and developer resources strategies, trying to bring new players and keeping the old ones interested? Doom and gloom isnt here for no reason, its more like the op said, its the facts.

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Greyloins View Post
    2. The community is toxic, deriding the game and Funcom, turning new players off from the game.
    It might be toxic but no more than community present in other games.

    I was recently browsing forums for Wildstar and GW2. Stuff that gets posted there made AOC's premiere trolls seem like kittens.
    Retired

  10. #10

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Wulfgaarr View Post
    And yet all of those games manage to release timely updates and content. The dwinding populations accross MMOs has several reasons, and factors that cant be summarized but I believe its mostly the fact there are too many of them out there
    ... Its like butter spread too thin over the slice of bread. Nothing that can be done about that but try and to mantain the core subscribers playerbase. Problem is even those diehard subbers that stuck out for over 6 years are taking off. For good this time. This gloom and doom topic always comes up when population issues become more evident. In the past server merges fixed that issue. Only this time there are no more servers left...we're down to 1 last active server. Thats it, no more gimmicks. How long will it last? How much longer can AoC remain sustainable, cash flow positive without a marketing and developer resources strategies, trying to bring new players and keeping the old ones interested? Doom and gloom isnt here for no reason, its more like the op said, its the facts.
    Indeed. One additional observation: it seems to me that many people who still are subscribed to AoC have considerably reduced their activity in game. At least that is true for most of the people I play with - we used to run 6-mans a lot, but now most people just log for raids. Maybe activity will pick up a bit again after the summer (there's always one or two players returning when days get shorter), but most likely it will be at a lower level than last year, and at a yet lower level than the year before, etc.

    The problem with this, of course, is that vets who are just semi-active themselves are unlikely to make an effort to recruit and coach those few new players who are just discovering AoC. In my view, this is a much more significant factor than the community being "toxic", or one or two trolls in NPH. Sure this forum can be full of bile, but it's little surprise given how Funcom squandered our sub money on failed projects, instead of reinvesting it into the game. I doubt this is a huge factor which keeps players from trying out the game. Leveling a toon up to 80, only to discover that nobody is interested in playing with you, strikes me as much more of a problem.

    Maybe the lore and achievement system will help a little bit with this. Another important element would be for FC to lift some FTP restrictions, so new players and vets can mix a bit better. But in the end, of course, a game with little prospect of new content will continue to dwindle.
    Rathothis|Tempest of Set || Tigrathes|Dark Templar || Isitnofret|Herald of Xotli
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    Sudatorius|Noob barb on Rage

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