Gear won't matter anymore?

[Cromathaar]

This is a MMORPG game not a session-based game like Dota. MMORPGs are about making progress OR competing. AoC has neither ingame nor outgame tools for competing: no ladders, no rankings, even KD scores have been removed from public access. Adding Unchained ruleset for minis will remove the progress and still bring no tools for competition. Just like when Tournament mode was released. Did it make AoC a cybersport discipline? The effect was right the opposite. No progress + no competiotion = failure.

Funcom listenes to whines from PvE servers all the way long when it comes to PvP. I personally have no idea why. At first there were a lot of guards added everywhere, then Tortage was locked for PvP, then they've invented their great "dig instead of fight" mechanics for Bori, then they removed premades from classic minigames and now this Unchained mode. Every move is directed to satisfy "moooom, i play 10 minutes a week and i'm killed agaaaaain, it's just not faaaaaaareee, it's all because they have better geeeeear and higher leeeevel and a preeeeeemade and ventreeeeeeelooo, mooooom doooo sooomething!" guys.

Funcom should better concentrate on fixing its network code which allows speedhacks and combers as well as drawing any gear and any number of tokens for any character.

All above is my personal opinion. You may agree with it or you may not.

[-tomhet-]

This is a MMORPG game not a session-based game like Dota. MMORPGs are about making progress OR competing. AoC has neither ingame nor outgame tools for competing: no ladders, no rankings, even KD scores have been removed from public access. Adding Unchained ruleset for minis will remove the progress and still bring no tools for competition. Just like when Tournament mode was released. Did it make AoC a cybersport discipline? The effect was right the opposite. No progress + no competiotion = failure.

Funcom listenes to whines from PvE servers all the way long when it comes to PvP. I personally have no idea why. At first there were a lot of guards added everywhere, then Tortage was locked for PvP, then they've invented their great "dig instead of fight" mechanics for Bori, then they removed premades from classic minigames and now this Unchained mode. Every move is directed to satisfy "moooom, i play 10 minutes a week and i'm killed agaaaaain, it's just not faaaaaaareee, it's all because they have better geeeeear and higher leeeevel and a preeeeeemade and ventreeeeeeelooo, mooooom doooo sooomething!" guys.

Funcom should better concentrate on fixing its network code which allows speedhacks and combers as well as drawing any gear and any number of tokens for any character.

All above is my personal opinion. You may agree with it or you may not.

i understand your point of view but to me unchained is going to give people playing alts and f2p some survival skills.
personaly i find it no fun to do random minigames when im the only not f2p on team pvp10 and rest of team pvp0-pvp2 f2p, im on the slaughtered team with no chance to win in that case.
also its not fun to join a random minigame and oposite team having 3 f2p players bellow lvl2 who i can easily kill due to my superior gear and better experience with game mechanics.

its my hope this move makes minigames more competitive and atract more people to do them.

but its long sworn battle against funcom for them to add rankings, arenas, open world/guild objectives for pvp, integrate factions into pvp and into guild vs guild, achievemnt system for pvp.

all they ever added was horse races and guild rp games all of wich no one asked and no one uses, the guild ranking system is just awfull investment given no one realy cares about it, only ones caring about it are small rp guilds who are forced to farm and craft so they can gain the small rp incentives that are gained by guild renown.

[Doomkiller]

U can blame Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online for Unchained Minis
AoC has to compete with them for PvPer's attention
Unchained minis r the answer of AoC to GW2 and ESO PvP

[Rathothis]

i understand your point of view but to me unchained is going to give people playing alts and f2p some survival skills.
personaly i find it no fun to do random minigames when im the only not f2p on team pvp10 and rest of team pvp0-pvp2 f2p, im on the slaughtered team with no chance to win in that case.
also its not fun to join a random minigame and oposite team having 3 f2p players bellow lvl2 who i can easily kill due to my superior gear and better experience with game mechanics.

its my hope this move makes minigames more competitive and atract more people to do them.

but its long sworn battle against funcom for them to add rankings, arenas, open world/guild objectives for pvp, integrate factions into pvp and into guild vs guild, achievemnt system for pvp.

all they ever added was horse races and guild rp games all of wich no one asked and no one uses, the guild ranking system is just awfull investment given no one realy cares about it, only ones caring about it are small rp guilds who are forced to farm and craft so they can gain the small rp incentives that are gained by guild renown.

I don't think the horse race has much to do with RPing. I also don't think it took anything near as much developer time as creating proper pvp incentives would. So we'd hardly be worse off without the horse race... but pvp wouldn't be in any better state.

As to Cromathaar's points, well if you want to increase player numbers in pvp, you need to make it more accessible to casual players. Simple as that. But if you're happy fight-clubbing with the same ever decreasing number of vets, then I'm sure it is all good for you.

[Roargathor]

The only people who are directly opposed to the unchained minigames are those who "worked hard" to get their uber gear, and feel their effort would be trivialized because nobody will be joining the gear based Minis again. I understand why, but to be honest, I don't care. At all. I'm nearly pvp 8. I've done my share of bori and countless minigames to grind out a set of armor. I really don't care if it ends up being meaningless in unchained mode. The only reason I spent so much time grinding gear was so I could be competitive. I don't care about a gear advantage.

Those of you who think that's whan an FPS is for and MMORPGS are for grinding progress and gear... You're being very closed minded about this, and because of your line of thinking, the game is in it's current state when it could be thriving if the devs stayed the original course (pre 1.05). It's not that I just disagree with you philosophically, it's that you are wrong, and your ideas have proven fatal to entire servers. By listening to players like you, the devs have completely ignored the potential AOC once had at being something truly different and amazing in so many ways. It's time to admit that gear/aa grind has stifled the game, and defending the vertical progression model all you are doing is driving vets and potential new players to other games that aren't afraid to innovate.

[Cromathaar]

As to Cromathaar's points, well if you want to increase player numbers in pvp, you need to make it more accessible to casual players. Simple as that. But if you're happy fight-clubbing with the same ever decreasing number of vets, then I'm sure it is all good for you.

Just to be sure that we don't have any misunderstanding between us. I would gladly fight for open-world bosses or in guild vs guild wars or whatever and sign for minigames just for fun. And it would be very cool if minis were Unchained in that case. BUT. There are no OW bosses, no guild wars, nothing. Minis are the only way to PvP in this game except meaningless gank and lagging/crashing sieges. FC is not doing a bad thing, FC is just starting from the butt. As usual.

[Rathothis]

Just to be sure that we don't have any misunderstanding between us. I would gladly fight for open-world bosses or in guild vs guild wars or whatever and sign for minigames just for fun. And it would be very cool if minis were Unchained in that case. BUT. There are no OW bosses. no guild wars, nothing. Minis are the only way to PvP in this game except meaningless gank and lagging/crashing sieges. FC is not doing a bad thing, FC is just starting from the butt.

I do agree with you that this game needs more pvp objectives outside of minigames. I also think that this should get priority in further development work (though it doesn't really look like it's going to happen). But I don't think that the absence of open-world pvp objectives is a valid reason to go for vertical progression in minigames.

[Cromathaar]

I do agree with you that this game needs more pvp objectives outside of minigames. I also think that this should get priority in further development work (though it doesn't really look like it's going to happen). But I don't think that the absence of open-world pvp objectives is a valid reason to go for vertical progression in minigames.

The bad thing is that there's no *other* vertical progression. Unchained minis are good for new players or gearless alts but they will certanly divide the community further (as if it isn't anough already) which will definetely result in some part of current players leaving the game since almost every modern MMO game offers more motivation for PvP than AoC does nowadays (tbh even WoW that is considered to be 99% PvE game offers more with its arenas and seasonal rankings). Not to mention that ArchAge is coming this year both in US/EU and Russia which will lure a massive amount of PvP oriented players.

I say bring us Unchained minis but bring them AFTER introducing new WORKING PvP mechanics. Otherwise it would be just the same as removing any loot from raids and dungeons keeping them "just for fun".

[clenghat]

Really? Don't you see that minigames are the last piece of competitive PvP in the game? Sieges are dead since they don't really give any meaningful rewards anymore (not to mention eternal lag/crash issues), open world PvP is dead from the very beginning since there are no open-world PvP objectives, Bori mechanics was (and is) a total fail. PvP levels and PvP gear were a crunch made in rush on summer 2008 to give people at least *some* reasonable motivation to do PvP. Then FC just cut out premades. Can one play with a couple of friends if they want to do some *team-based structured PvP*? The answer is no. You need to get 6 ppl group, find another 6 ppl group on a deserted server (and yes, 500 ppl online *is* a deserted server) and then you can play a couple of matches. The system is *so* cool that there are barely 10-15 *matches* per week on Fury. That was a punch in the face but most people kept playing farming PvP experience and PvP tokens (which were brought to the game after Bori has failed, remember?). Cheaters with combers, radars and speedhacks? It was (and still is, let's be honest) hard but they still could stand that. Now you want to say that their time (which is payed subscription time mostly) doesn't matter?

People are always trying to find the easiest way. Sometimes it is called exploiting but it's natural to any human. A monkey used a stick for the very first time because of the same reason. You've brought people the opportunity to dig PvP levels out instead of fighting (hello, Bori). Two options are better than one, right? 90% of players preferred to dig. 5am when there was almost noone online - the best time for digging it was. Some even transferred to deserted Hyrkania in order to dig peacefully just to transfer back having 10 PvP lvls and tons of tokens.

And what now? You give people another easy way to play minis. No more raiding, Khitai or minis itself (or even digging!) are required. Cool! There is SO MUCH MOTIVATION around Hyboria for PvP. Why would anyone care about PvP levels and PvP gear turning into pumpkins? Oh wait... farming PvP levels and gear WAS almost the only motivation for PvP in Hyboria... That awkward moment when you realize that your lead PvP designer is a retard...

Sieges dead? Then what was that thing i did on Sunday and tuesday. Must have been something else in Cimmerian End, with someone other than players. Since dead things don`t do much i mean.

[Suctum]

So a player who has one or several fully geared and AA high level PvP toon(s) is missing out what with unchained? Your getting the same exact toon, just so is every other player...


The player who has only a slightly geared and marginal AA toon is getting an even playing field.

The player who just turned 80 and has crap blues and 2 AA points is getting the same.

Decent players will still do well and bad players will still be bad. The only difference I see is that players that rely on thier super-charged T3+ gear now need to rely on a little movement instead. Those who have the movement and the T3+ gear now need to play a little more conservative.

And this is still only for one mode of minis. This is what most people who spend more time PvPing have asked for...so why the complaints now? This is a great step in the right direction. For those people who want PvP levels and gear but don't want to PvP all that much you still have shrines and regular minis.