Home » Games News » AoC's Future Direction
Hello,
I have been away from the game for the past 10 months or so because I have been in medical school. I have, however, have had a lot of experience in game and have been following the changes made to game very closely. I was also the first pvp 5 Bear Shaman on Tyranny over a year ago.
Age of Conan has made leaps and bounds since release, and funcom has really tried to listen to the community to move the game forward in what they believe is the best direction for the game. I am going to lay out a few of my thoughts, and my recommendations for moving the game forward after the expansion goes live.
1. PuG vs. PuG // Pre-made vs Pre-made option
I know this subject has recently been addressed by Sirrilion in a recent post. To paraphrase his response, he believes that this option cannot be done without first have cross-server minigames. His two basic arguments are that it would be unfair for the current premade teams, and that they "should not be punished" for their organization. His second argument is that there simply aren't enough people signing for minis to split the queues. I do think there is some merit in these arguments, but I would like to point out two things.
First, one of the reasons that there isn't a large enough population to split the queues is derived from the fact that the minigame queues aren's separated in the first place. Puggers that sign up individually are very often put on a pug team vs a premade, and there team really has no chance in the minigame. In turn, they are spawn camped, and after a few more attempts of signing up and continuing to get completely destroyed, they stop signing up for minigames altogether. So the fact that there is no separation in the queuing system is one of the reasons for the perceived lack of population for minigames. If there was a separation in queues then there would be a lot more people singing up for minigames and there would probably be enough people to separate the queues.
The second thing I would like to point out is that by separating the queues you really aren't "punishing" the well organized teams. These "well-organized" teams DO NOT want to be facing pugs. The most fun minigames are the ones when a team is well matched by another premade team. By separating the queues the premades will not be punished, yet they will enjoy being matched against an evenly matched opponent. Yet, they should be rewarded for the harder efforts of facing other premade teams and having to organize themselves. So, when this separation in queue is done, there will HAVE TO BE a reason for people to sign up for the premade vs premade queue. I am glad to see the PvP 1.5 gear entering the game and think it is a good addition. (I am also glad to see you listened to feedback and are adding in the PvP T3 skins - That is very impressive, good job). However, when the minigame queues are separated it will be tremendously important to give players an incentive to organize teams and do premades vs premades. I propose that you give different tokens for the pug vs pug sign up then you give for the premade vs premade signup. I suggest that the pug vs pug signups gives the current minigame tokens needed to obtain the pvp 1.5 gear, but I suggest that the premade vs premade minigames give Bori tokens. This would give the casual player the incentive to pug vs pug (to get the pvp 1.5 gear), but also give players the incentive to premade vs premade because they can obtain the "best pvp gear" (i.e., the bori gear). Thus, this will also allow those casual players and those players who do not enjoy doing The Shrines of Bori, the opportunity to get the best pvp gear in the game. If a player does not want to grind nodes, they should still be able to get the best pvp gear by doing premade vs premade minigames.
So, I believe that splitting the minigame queue system will be beneficial even without first enabling cross-server minigames, however, I still do encourage cross-server mingames to be invested in and think that it will dramatically improve the pvp system of AoC.
I would also like to note that making these fixes to the minigame system are of the utmost importance. Although it appears that making these changes would be "PvP oriented", these changes will dramatically influence all players, even those who mainly focus on PvE. If PvE-focused players had the opportunity to PuG Vs. PuG they would do it, and this would give them another aspect of content they enjoy doing. Most PvE players do not minigame simply because they do not have fun doing it, (as they continually sign up, get put on a pug team vs a premade and lose over and over again). So, making the above changes to the minigame system, would not only benefit the PvP players and the PvP system of AoC, but also would be changes that would positively effect PvE focused players.
The final point I would like to make on why this is so important is that the problems with Pug groups being put up against premades, is actually one of the main things that drives new players away from this game. There is no doubt that AoC has had troubles maintaining its player base. The first reason was because of the instability of the game at launch, then the lack of content, and then many of the balance issues and class issues (mana and stam regen for example) that were introduced in 1.5. Yet, two other things that drove new players away. First, was the underhalls and white sand ganking that was occuring, and the second is the problems with the minigame systems (new players singing up for minigames and being put on a pug team vs a premade over and over again). The white sands / UH issue has been dealt with and this is great for the game, yet the minigame system has not.
Lastly, these changes to the mingame system will also tremendously make AoC more attractive to the casual gamer. There is something nice about world of warcraft, when you can just log in and quickly enter into a balanced pvp encounter (a pvp battleground). By allowing pug vs pug minigames, casual gamers can log on for an hour, do a few minigames where they can actually have fun, rather then be spawn camped by premades.
I know there are a lot of reasons above for why this system needs to be implemented ASAP, but yes it is because it is very important!
2. New 12v12 Minigame Map
As stated many times, a new 12 vs 12 minigame map needs to be done ASAP. This needs to be something besides capture the flag, and probably something similar to an arathi basin style battleground. Many people are bored of capture the flag, and would like a minigame that has a different objectives. One of the reasons I bring up the idea of arathi basin style minigame, is that it allows for the less skilled, organized, or geared team to still have fun. With the current 6v6 setup in minigames, one team usually dominates the other team. This means that when the teams fight 6v6 one team will beat the other team 95% of the time. If a 12 v 12 arathi basin style mingame was implemented, it would require teams to split up to try and control multiple points at the same time. This means that even if one of the teams is stronger than the other, the weaker team will still have the opportunity to win some battles (say when they outnumber the opponent at a particular node.) This ensures that people always have fun when they do minigames, even if they are on the weaker team and lose the minimatch (they will still get at least SOME kills).
3. Changes to the Shrines of Bori
Although I haven't played the shrines, so I am definitely not an expert on this topic, after reading the forums, there clearly needs to be some changes made to the Bori system. The idea that a team can still gain tokens/experience while they control the zone is good. If the shrines only relied on getting, say hearts from other players to sacrifice, what would the team that is controlling the zone do once they dominate the other team and drive them out of the zone? So I like the idea that a team can still gain tokens/pvp experience while there is no pvp to be had. Yet, there needs to be changes made in the system that will reward people for pvping. Currently, my understanding is once a team engages in pvp activity their rate of pvp XP/token gain is severely diminished. Ilyia made a post along the lines of saying that since the pvp resources are dropping and can be picked up by the enemy, that engaging in pvp activity thus does not lower the lower limit of token gain. I believe this argument overlooks the fact that, even though pvp resources are not being lost when pvp occurs (because they are picked up by the enemy), the lower limit of pvp xp/token gain is still severely reduced because while people are pvping they aren't harvesting simultaneously, so in turn there aren't as many pvp resources in play and thus the lower limit of tokens gain in the region IS reduced.
So there needs to be changes made to the system, ones that encourage pvp. From what I hear, it is too hard to catch an enemy shrine over 75% to get tokens from destroying it. I think that maybe reducing this to destroying an alter over 50% may help some. Also, I think that limiting the number of players a guild can have in the zone will help even the numbers, so to help the problem with "whoever has the biggest zerg can kick others out of the zone and be the only ones who can get tokens." Also I think that having players drop there hearts that can be sacrificed is a good idea. I know funcom is worried about exploitation of the system if this was enacted, but just make the rate of drop from a player diminish just like pvp XP does. Again, I am not an expert on this subject because I haven't done them, but from what I hear world pvp has become a lot rarier since these have been put on live, and there needs to be some changes made to encourage rather then discourage pvp.
I also wanted to make a comment referring to a post made by Sirrilion. He stated in a philosophical post (in defense of the Shrines), something along the lines that people in general do not engage in pvp because for the act of pvp itself but to advance there character and gain better gear. While I agree that people mainly engage in pvp activities with the end goal of gaining new gear and advancing there character, the pvp system should be designed for players to engage in fun activities while trying to obtain that goal. Thus, even if the end goal is for players to get the best pvp gear, players should enjoy the process. A process that involves hitting nodes over and over again is not a fun process.
4. BK Buffs
BK Buffs are a great idea. It gives incentives for guilds to own and maintain a battle keep. It is very unique to age of conan, and I believe is something that is really cool. You have to own a battle keep, build it up, defend it, and by doing this it actually improves your character. That said, I do not agree with people saying that BK buffs should not work in minigames. However, to cater somewhat to the casual gamer, and to help balance minigames to some degree I think that the BK buffs should be looked into. At least in 1.4, and I think it is still currently true, having BK buffs are pretty much equivalent to having a whole another set of armor. I do not think that this should be the case. I believe that having BK buffs, should definitely benefit your character, like I said that is really cool. But I think the magnitude to which they benefit are too much. Having BK buffs also really hurts the casual gamer. For example, if I am a casual gamer, who wants to just log on and do some crafting and a few minigames, but do not wish to be involved in a huge guild, I should still be able to do this. My brother, who was this person, was really annoyed that he was at such a disadvantage because he wasn't a member of a large guild and was always at a disadvantage because he didn't have BK buffs. So I think reducing the strength of these buffs would be a good idea, and maybe even giving non-guild players an in-game mechanism to get something similar to, but not as powerful as, BK buffs may be a good idea. Although obviously the former would be much easier to implement.