Refuge of the Apostate hitted Live Servers!
This week we saw the flash release of the new content announced a couple of weeks ago, after a quite speedy testing phase the instance has been released, and despite some usual bugs it is the first step toward a defined direction that has been drawed by the Game Director.
The reduction of the farming aspect of Age of Conan is being shaped day by day, first came the introduction of the exchange with veteran tokens, now the new instance, after will follow a rework of the faction reward, so the path is quite defined even if I'm eager to know what will change, and how much these changes will affect our experience.
Beside this aspect, there's also much more on the go, and it's my opinion that FunCom is willing to make use of the new Movie incoming this summer to shake the game from it's actual status both to prepare the ground to face the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic (rumors says it will be out in September) and to keep AoC alive till the release of their main project (at the moment at least) The Secret World.
Of all the upcoming changes we don't have many information, there will be 2 districts in Paikang, 2 new ACG instances (Active Generating Content [I'll check the spelling later:P]), but what is interesting me the most are the upcoming changes to the Crowd Control skills, to the Animation lenght and the introduction of the new ruleset.
Crowd Control Changes:
This change will affect the PvP side of the game, and I feel it is really much needed, the weight of the CC in the game mechanics at least for PvP it's just to heavy, most of your time while PvPing will be spent under the effect of CC being it a major one or a minor one, despite the new AA Anti-CC it still makes the experience not enjoyable.
Accordingly with the few information provided the major pace of this change will regard the "melee cc" due to the possible introduction of an attack before the execution of the skill, this will somehow affect the gameplay of the melee fighters, especially for a class like the Barbarian which is relying on the CC.
It will be interesting to see:
1) How will they work on the resistances to the CC especially for the Silence, which will be reviewed again;
2) How much melee will be affected by the change;
3) How much casters will have benefits/penalties from this changes.
Animation Rework:
When FC speaks about "The exploit we are not supposed to talk about" they are clearly referring to the comboskipping.
This change will aim directly to delete or at least reduce the occurrence of this exploit, by fastening the animation speed and by removing the root effect at the end of the combo (HoXes rejoice you won't be stuck anymore while using PoIF) they'll make the PvP much more dynamic and frenzied, faster combos will be harder to skip (if it'll be possible at all) and again this will affect badly all the classes that are "abusing" or take insane advantages from this "exploit" (Barbarian, Conqueror and Bear Shaman are the first coming to my mind).
Let me be clear anyway, FunCom classified the "Comboskipping" as an exploit, it is of course a practice which is on the very edge of the "Legal play" it is unfair by definition because male can skip better than female, because class X can skip better than class Y, but actually not Comboskipping will make your effectiveness in PvP far below the average.
This will be a really interesting change, and i'm absolutely looking forward to see what they'll do.
Paikang Districts and the 2 new AGC instances:
More introduction on the PvE side, this is not a bad idea itself, and if it will help in lessening the farming factor of Age of Conan i'm all up for this change. There's a huge lack of information beside some new posted in the Monthly Development letter on official forums so I can't really formulate anything detailed on this, but I have just one question:
Wouldn't you appreciate more new bosses for the T4 instance and a related bug fixing for it?
As a PvPer I would do. T4 is actually what is frustrating the most the player base PvEside, from my point of view obviously.
Blood and Glory ruleset:
I've already spoke my mind about this, but the news about CC and Animation rework will change things a bit.
These changes WILL change the life of the PvPers, these changes WILL affect also the chances of either success or utter failure of this new server for Hardcore PvP.
I've heard whispers about a possible PoM revamp in the meanwhile, and yes I do believe that a fresh level 80 PoM is in need of some love, but so does ToS and HoX.
Will they revamp these 3 classes before the Blood and Glory will be released?
If I was a member of the Developing class, I would suggest them to focus on revamps and class balance before facing such a huge challenge like the B&G release.
Anyway only time will give us the answers we are seeking, I have to say that FunCom is working and apparently is working hard to shape a new form for this game, results are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but I see a positive will in all this.
Let's just wait and see what the future will bring.
Till the next blog entry and may the Wrath of Xotli be with you!
Arcalimon
Welcome to the Temple of Xotli a blog for the Herald of Xotli Class of Age of Conan.
Friday, 8 April 2011
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Refuge of the Apostate - The new upcoming solo instance
Finally back!
I've managed to test that new instance just yesterday and it was not that bad.
Our journey towards the Refuge of the Apostate begins in Kara Korum when we decide to move up to Ghost Hills (most probably when we will be chasing a Brittle Blade officer [Rank 2 quest]), while fighting our way through the village we will meet a girl near a resspad, she is willing to exchange words with us, warning us about the great peril toward which we are moving our footsteps. Obviously we decide to go in despite her advices so she will charge us with a task, because she has no desire to get back in the nightmare.
We will then climb the slope heading toward the first house on the right, and entering it we will bravely go throug the trapdoor that leads inside the refuge.
The instance is splitted into levels:
The first level consists in a mine, where we will find several mobs busy in attending to their jobs, but they won't hesitate to attack us on sight, the level of the instance is what i would define a simple "Run through" you'll go across the map from point A to point B finding a gate during your trip, gate that will be opened after you'll kill the HoX looking boss but with Necro skills. Note for the HoX: At least in the TL versione the mobs of the virst zone are very likely to resist the spells, so watch out.
The Second Level is called the "Staging Area" it looks like a mix of a Chessboard and it has clear references to the "Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor - Qin Shi Huang" [if you want to learn more http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/441] and his army of stone. You'll have to go through this area in which there's an interesting puzzle runnig throug the canyons while slowed preiodically by a specific spell and fighting the "Stone Warriors" that are impressively similar to the ones in this picture, you'll have to pay attention because sometimes walking on the wrong pad will activate some "Tomb Raider looking" (thanks slith for reminding me where I saw that traps first) traps based on arrows. Your first aim is to reach the exit of the room passing through the Canyons, to do so you'll have to reach the highest level of the room where a nice puzzle awaits (i won't spoil it).
The Third Level is a Library, there's a good number of mob in it, but as for the first level it's "Run Through" zone without anything really particular to be done in it.
Then comes the end of the instance when you'll reach a room with an hall in which you'll be able to see 5 bosses in front of you, they are just reflection of the real boss, but you won't be able to fight them immediately, just because they will underestimate you and send you within a nightmare (or soul trip) you will be chained like if you were fatalized by a necro.
While in this mode you will have to reach the platform where the "chained soul" is in order to free yourself, what has to be noticed is that there's a countdown in this mode, at the end of it you will be fatalized, while trying to reach the platform, reflection of the boss will appear and they will knock you back (repulse animation) also applying an hinder movement, that reflection can appear up to 3 times as far as I had the chance to see, and the Hinder movement stacks till reaching 100% condemning you to death.
If you'll manage tor each the platform to free the soul you'll fight the last boss, personally I haven't found anything special about that boss, it's a common fight only special feature is that he will periodically call his reflection starting a nasty attack which could one shot you, so you'll have to seriously nuke him down.
Conclusion:
The instance looks nice, it's not so hard and easy enough if you pay attention to what you are doing, I do believe that it should be a bit better enriched for what regards the story behind it and also inserted in a "chain" of quests that will lead you there, without getting there because others told you that it's there.
I found pretty interesting the 2nd level and its references to the "Stone Army" it would be awesome to have some more details on why that statues are there, and on who the hell is that apostate, that cultural reminder was really appreciated by me honestly.
As for the reward, they should adjust the loot table, it's a one-man instance, the loot should not be random imo, but it should be something usefull for the class keeping in mind that for a regular raider all the items will be useless but for a fresh 80 a blue item dropped there would be a great loot and great step forward on the long road called "Equipping my toon".
Screenshots will come asap!
Take care!
Arcalimon
I've managed to test that new instance just yesterday and it was not that bad.
Our journey towards the Refuge of the Apostate begins in Kara Korum when we decide to move up to Ghost Hills (most probably when we will be chasing a Brittle Blade officer [Rank 2 quest]), while fighting our way through the village we will meet a girl near a resspad, she is willing to exchange words with us, warning us about the great peril toward which we are moving our footsteps. Obviously we decide to go in despite her advices so she will charge us with a task, because she has no desire to get back in the nightmare.
We will then climb the slope heading toward the first house on the right, and entering it we will bravely go throug the trapdoor that leads inside the refuge.
The instance is splitted into levels:
The first level consists in a mine, where we will find several mobs busy in attending to their jobs, but they won't hesitate to attack us on sight, the level of the instance is what i would define a simple "Run through" you'll go across the map from point A to point B finding a gate during your trip, gate that will be opened after you'll kill the HoX looking boss but with Necro skills. Note for the HoX: At least in the TL versione the mobs of the virst zone are very likely to resist the spells, so watch out.
The Second Level is called the "Staging Area" it looks like a mix of a Chessboard and it has clear references to the "Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor - Qin Shi Huang" [if you want to learn more http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/441] and his army of stone. You'll have to go through this area in which there's an interesting puzzle runnig throug the canyons while slowed preiodically by a specific spell and fighting the "Stone Warriors" that are impressively similar to the ones in this picture, you'll have to pay attention because sometimes walking on the wrong pad will activate some "Tomb Raider looking" (thanks slith for reminding me where I saw that traps first) traps based on arrows. Your first aim is to reach the exit of the room passing through the Canyons, to do so you'll have to reach the highest level of the room where a nice puzzle awaits (i won't spoil it).
The Third Level is a Library, there's a good number of mob in it, but as for the first level it's "Run Through" zone without anything really particular to be done in it.
Then comes the end of the instance when you'll reach a room with an hall in which you'll be able to see 5 bosses in front of you, they are just reflection of the real boss, but you won't be able to fight them immediately, just because they will underestimate you and send you within a nightmare (or soul trip) you will be chained like if you were fatalized by a necro.
While in this mode you will have to reach the platform where the "chained soul" is in order to free yourself, what has to be noticed is that there's a countdown in this mode, at the end of it you will be fatalized, while trying to reach the platform, reflection of the boss will appear and they will knock you back (repulse animation) also applying an hinder movement, that reflection can appear up to 3 times as far as I had the chance to see, and the Hinder movement stacks till reaching 100% condemning you to death.
If you'll manage tor each the platform to free the soul you'll fight the last boss, personally I haven't found anything special about that boss, it's a common fight only special feature is that he will periodically call his reflection starting a nasty attack which could one shot you, so you'll have to seriously nuke him down.
Conclusion:
The instance looks nice, it's not so hard and easy enough if you pay attention to what you are doing, I do believe that it should be a bit better enriched for what regards the story behind it and also inserted in a "chain" of quests that will lead you there, without getting there because others told you that it's there.
I found pretty interesting the 2nd level and its references to the "Stone Army" it would be awesome to have some more details on why that statues are there, and on who the hell is that apostate, that cultural reminder was really appreciated by me honestly.
As for the reward, they should adjust the loot table, it's a one-man instance, the loot should not be random imo, but it should be something usefull for the class keeping in mind that for a regular raider all the items will be useless but for a fresh 80 a blue item dropped there would be a great loot and great step forward on the long road called "Equipping my toon".
Screenshots will come asap!
Take care!
Arcalimon
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Herald of Xotli and AoC, there will ever be peace?
Dreamworld has been released and Hyboria is now living under a new graphical shape and fighting against new bugs.
Even if the update was not "class" related once again there's something that is affecting the HoX adding problems to our apparently nearly-forgotten alter-ego. The game runs smoother and that's true and we've been showed some interest with the tweak of our Phoenix Cloak animation which has been sensibly modified and adapted, we're no more a traffic light in the middle of the fight, this change is purely aesthetical but better than nothing I would say, but... there's always a but.
Especially after the second patch which was aiming to sort out some bugs like the permanent fire dot from Jhebbal Sag and the absence of reward from some minigames there's an issue that is resulting to be very annoying not only for us but also for the other players that have the bad luck of ending up in group with us.
Sidenote: Missing tokens after winning a Minigame has not been fixed even though it's a random event, after winning a Jhebbal Sag yesterday i didn't get the update on the quest so I didn't get the 3 tokens, shame.
Back on the track of our topic, I will start saying that it is mostly graphical related and it provokes lag spikes to all the players joining a minigame, adding lag to the already known lag spikes that are randomly affecting the field with peaks of 4.800ms if you are lucky.
So be aware guys (and I hope, I sincerely hope that: 1) not all are experiencing this; 2) it will be fixed) that everytime we will use Desecrating Essence and most probably Avatar of Xotli (if there's any Avatar specced HoX around please do confirm this chance) we will be entirely frozen giving to all the minigame players a free lag spike, huge lag spike, it's common to hear your comrades on vent screaming out "Hell that HoX transformed again, i'm lagging badly".
In fact, as far as I've been told by a guildmate yesterday during the morphing transition there's a really small portion of time in which our character will lose its equipment staying naked before the new demonskin resulting from the DE skill is applied on the character, this transition is provoking huge amounts of lag, even if I can't understand the linke between this graphical transition and the related effect on the connection.
The result of it is that we stay frozen for the whole lenght of the Desecrating Essence form, ending up dead in 99% of the cases or if lucky below 40% of hp which will result in death soon after, wasting our chance to unleash our full power in the few seconds of our transformation, as well as ruining the game experience of many.
Try to wonder about a minigame with 3 hoxes using Desecrating Essence together, it will be a pain.
Desecrating Essence is our "top" skill it's fundamental for both Avatar/Poss, Poss/General, Poss/Avatar specs, we rely on it, there's a perk which is giving us an insane boost to the stats when under our demonic shape (RSoX), and being polymorphed it's the best solution to max out the damage output for both physical attacks as well as magical attacks.
This bugs is cutting our legs.
Herald of Xotli it's already hard enough to be played, with poor survivability and slowness to build up a proper dps output, we need a time we don't have to do a lot of damage so we must rely on kite and we NEED our Demonic Form to have a nice peak of damage, with this bug we are prevented to use one of our best skills.
Most probably it will be fixed and everything will be back on a "normal status" soon, but this brings up to a me a thought once again.
We need attention, we need a rework, we don't have any viable choice beside the striaght forward road that leades us to a Possession/General build, without the equip speccing differently it's pure fantasy and even though I have a great esteem for those brave HoXes that are running Avatar/Poss I'm also aware that I can't do that without having a good backup of gear, and for good backup I mean a full Wolves set from Khitai (due to protection) or a full minigame set (pvp 7 and a shitload of tokens), even with this requirements matched, living as an Avatar/poss it's a paing, it may work in a 1vs1 context, it will be a lot harder to be performing in group pvp contexts.
The Herald of Xotli needs attention. The Herald of Xotli needs a revamp.
When it will happen, or when they will realize it, it's entirely another thing.
In the meantime.. let's try to survive this issue like we did in the past and let's keep on spreading our hellish flames on the fields.
Till the next time.
Arcalimon
Even if the update was not "class" related once again there's something that is affecting the HoX adding problems to our apparently nearly-forgotten alter-ego. The game runs smoother and that's true and we've been showed some interest with the tweak of our Phoenix Cloak animation which has been sensibly modified and adapted, we're no more a traffic light in the middle of the fight, this change is purely aesthetical but better than nothing I would say, but... there's always a but.
Especially after the second patch which was aiming to sort out some bugs like the permanent fire dot from Jhebbal Sag and the absence of reward from some minigames there's an issue that is resulting to be very annoying not only for us but also for the other players that have the bad luck of ending up in group with us.
Sidenote: Missing tokens after winning a Minigame has not been fixed even though it's a random event, after winning a Jhebbal Sag yesterday i didn't get the update on the quest so I didn't get the 3 tokens, shame.
Back on the track of our topic, I will start saying that it is mostly graphical related and it provokes lag spikes to all the players joining a minigame, adding lag to the already known lag spikes that are randomly affecting the field with peaks of 4.800ms if you are lucky.
So be aware guys (and I hope, I sincerely hope that: 1) not all are experiencing this; 2) it will be fixed) that everytime we will use Desecrating Essence and most probably Avatar of Xotli (if there's any Avatar specced HoX around please do confirm this chance) we will be entirely frozen giving to all the minigame players a free lag spike, huge lag spike, it's common to hear your comrades on vent screaming out "Hell that HoX transformed again, i'm lagging badly".
In fact, as far as I've been told by a guildmate yesterday during the morphing transition there's a really small portion of time in which our character will lose its equipment staying naked before the new demonskin resulting from the DE skill is applied on the character, this transition is provoking huge amounts of lag, even if I can't understand the linke between this graphical transition and the related effect on the connection.
The result of it is that we stay frozen for the whole lenght of the Desecrating Essence form, ending up dead in 99% of the cases or if lucky below 40% of hp which will result in death soon after, wasting our chance to unleash our full power in the few seconds of our transformation, as well as ruining the game experience of many.
Try to wonder about a minigame with 3 hoxes using Desecrating Essence together, it will be a pain.
Desecrating Essence is our "top" skill it's fundamental for both Avatar/Poss, Poss/General, Poss/Avatar specs, we rely on it, there's a perk which is giving us an insane boost to the stats when under our demonic shape (RSoX), and being polymorphed it's the best solution to max out the damage output for both physical attacks as well as magical attacks.
This bugs is cutting our legs.
Herald of Xotli it's already hard enough to be played, with poor survivability and slowness to build up a proper dps output, we need a time we don't have to do a lot of damage so we must rely on kite and we NEED our Demonic Form to have a nice peak of damage, with this bug we are prevented to use one of our best skills.
Most probably it will be fixed and everything will be back on a "normal status" soon, but this brings up to a me a thought once again.
We need attention, we need a rework, we don't have any viable choice beside the striaght forward road that leades us to a Possession/General build, without the equip speccing differently it's pure fantasy and even though I have a great esteem for those brave HoXes that are running Avatar/Poss I'm also aware that I can't do that without having a good backup of gear, and for good backup I mean a full Wolves set from Khitai (due to protection) or a full minigame set (pvp 7 and a shitload of tokens), even with this requirements matched, living as an Avatar/poss it's a paing, it may work in a 1vs1 context, it will be a lot harder to be performing in group pvp contexts.
The Herald of Xotli needs attention. The Herald of Xotli needs a revamp.
When it will happen, or when they will realize it, it's entirely another thing.
In the meantime.. let's try to survive this issue like we did in the past and let's keep on spreading our hellish flames on the fields.
Till the next time.
Arcalimon
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Dreamworld engine - Impact on the Live Servers
So far it will be a personal impression on the new engine, having tested it yesterday during the evening in the BloodRavine map, on the T3 instance and roaming around some zones of the world.
What to say? Some bugs are expectable for this release, given its importance and size, a patch of 1.1GB it's indeed a great work, but on the overall I'm firmly convinced it has been really a smooth release.
First loading time have been a bit long, but I was downloading resources in background so it's quite normal, but after that, after some time spent in the zones i notice faster loading times, better and more polished graphic and better performances, my regret is that I had no time to test the water effects, nor to see them.
The game is smoother, movements are really fluid even though I noticed a generalized slowness in the run speed, apparently we are all slower than we were used to be before. I've heard of some bugs related to the Jhebbal Sag maps about Necros being unable to kill their pets, having them plymorphed in some kind of E.T.'s coming from some extradimensional space, but beside this bugs I really guess FunCom did a good job this time.
Ok let's admit it, it may not be exactly what the game was needing but, so far, it's a demonstration that if they are willing to put serious efforts in an activity they are capable of doing a good work.
HoXes do not despair, even if it is not mentioned in the patch notes (or at least it wasn't when I last checked) our fix at the Phoenix Cloak animation has been introduced, now we have finally an animation more in line with the bubbles of all the other bubble-user classes(animation only though).
Sadly, our old bugs are still all there, I lost all my hairs yesterday after using my mighty and strong demon form, I don't know if you may know the fictional character "Stewie" from a Matt Groening's cartoon "The Griffins", but if you know him, well.. I felt right like him, bald and sarcastic noob, not able to keep a sword right on my hands!
In fact, my dear HoX fellows be aware that we are all capable of using our swords without the need to have it right on the hands, we are able to make them levitate or to keep them on our back and landing damages like we were using them!
The Bug of Xotli we are, and the Force is weak in us!
On this subject I believe that mental powers are really the new horizon of the HoX, would be nice to have us morphed in some kind of weaponless class like the "Black Hand of Set" from the "Hour of the Dragon" novel, dealing insane damages only using our accursed hands...
But that's a digression on other arguments which are not the focus of this small post.
This new release also added some kind of Exchange Rate System based on Veteran Points.
Some usefull informations:
5 Veteran Tokens are worth 100 Imperial Insignas;
5 Veteran Tokens are worth 15 Marks of Acclaim;
35 Veteran Tokens are worth 100 Marks of Acclaim;
These are just some examples of the bartering for kithai reputation items.
My opinion on this it's that it is a good move, many will have the chance to see their endless grind lessened by this addiction and it will probably also encourage people to subscribe for more time because veteran tokens can be earned only through subscriptions.
A new Conan Movie is incoming, my impression is that FunCom is trying to consolidate its playerbase reading themselves to expand it in the near future making use of the Advertising for the new film.
As a medium term player I really hope this move will succeed, for we need more heads on AoC, but they will have to look deeply on some game aspects which are in serious need of attention, especially after the announcement of new PvP reserved ruleset coming on TestLive hopefully in may.
Now I've got to leave you, I need to deeply reflect on my choice between wolf and tiger mount, please stay tuned if you've liked the posts, and don't be afraid to leave comments, suggestions, requests!!!
Remember to sacrifice skulls to Xotli, it's alway a good thing to please our good, hopefully better times will come!
'Till the next time!
Arcalimon
What to say? Some bugs are expectable for this release, given its importance and size, a patch of 1.1GB it's indeed a great work, but on the overall I'm firmly convinced it has been really a smooth release.
First loading time have been a bit long, but I was downloading resources in background so it's quite normal, but after that, after some time spent in the zones i notice faster loading times, better and more polished graphic and better performances, my regret is that I had no time to test the water effects, nor to see them.
The game is smoother, movements are really fluid even though I noticed a generalized slowness in the run speed, apparently we are all slower than we were used to be before. I've heard of some bugs related to the Jhebbal Sag maps about Necros being unable to kill their pets, having them plymorphed in some kind of E.T.'s coming from some extradimensional space, but beside this bugs I really guess FunCom did a good job this time.
Ok let's admit it, it may not be exactly what the game was needing but, so far, it's a demonstration that if they are willing to put serious efforts in an activity they are capable of doing a good work.
HoXes do not despair, even if it is not mentioned in the patch notes (or at least it wasn't when I last checked) our fix at the Phoenix Cloak animation has been introduced, now we have finally an animation more in line with the bubbles of all the other bubble-user classes(animation only though).
Sadly, our old bugs are still all there, I lost all my hairs yesterday after using my mighty and strong demon form, I don't know if you may know the fictional character "Stewie" from a Matt Groening's cartoon "The Griffins", but if you know him, well.. I felt right like him, bald and sarcastic noob, not able to keep a sword right on my hands!
In fact, my dear HoX fellows be aware that we are all capable of using our swords without the need to have it right on the hands, we are able to make them levitate or to keep them on our back and landing damages like we were using them!
The Bug of Xotli we are, and the Force is weak in us!
On this subject I believe that mental powers are really the new horizon of the HoX, would be nice to have us morphed in some kind of weaponless class like the "Black Hand of Set" from the "Hour of the Dragon" novel, dealing insane damages only using our accursed hands...
But that's a digression on other arguments which are not the focus of this small post.
This new release also added some kind of Exchange Rate System based on Veteran Points.
Some usefull informations:
5 Veteran Tokens are worth 100 Imperial Insignas;
5 Veteran Tokens are worth 15 Marks of Acclaim;
35 Veteran Tokens are worth 100 Marks of Acclaim;
These are just some examples of the bartering for kithai reputation items.
My opinion on this it's that it is a good move, many will have the chance to see their endless grind lessened by this addiction and it will probably also encourage people to subscribe for more time because veteran tokens can be earned only through subscriptions.
A new Conan Movie is incoming, my impression is that FunCom is trying to consolidate its playerbase reading themselves to expand it in the near future making use of the Advertising for the new film.
As a medium term player I really hope this move will succeed, for we need more heads on AoC, but they will have to look deeply on some game aspects which are in serious need of attention, especially after the announcement of new PvP reserved ruleset coming on TestLive hopefully in may.
Now I've got to leave you, I need to deeply reflect on my choice between wolf and tiger mount, please stay tuned if you've liked the posts, and don't be afraid to leave comments, suggestions, requests!!!
Remember to sacrifice skulls to Xotli, it's alway a good thing to please our good, hopefully better times will come!
'Till the next time!
Arcalimon
Monday, 28 February 2011
Blood and Glory - The lights and shadows of this idea
Back after a hard week of study for university exams and going to discuss about the new idea thrown in by Sil on forums about the new ruleset temporarily called "The Blood and Glory".
My reaction about this new went through 2 different phases, i switched from an excited feeling to a more critical overview of the thing.
Truth be said, I believe that the idea behind this proposal it's quite good and can represent a great mean to satisfy (partially) the PvP needs of the AoC community which have been lately frustrated and twisted, especially with the latest revamps and the introduction of the Shrines of Bori, Bori is a game mechanics that i personally don't like, but I'm doing that every now and then, and not on a regular basis because it represent the only way to obtain easily and fast what you won't obtain easily and fast with all the other PvP mechanics.
This is a truth.
Creating a reserved ruleset for a PvP only server without guards is a good idea, will prevent the chicken run to guards in the pvp zones and should at least on the paper give a boost to the "Group PvP", it will allow you to finally GROUP UP WITH YOUR FRIENDS feature, this one, that has been removed with the latest patch, choice that one that I consider honestly unbelievable.
Many sarcastic posts proposed to remove grouping from PvE as well, and even if it is obviously absurd, the sarcasm behind these posts clearly draws how much this choice has been unfamous.
Back on topic anyway, this idea could work, thinking about it I really believe it would be a serious challenge to live in a world where only your friends and your effective skill will be your shield against the deaths, even though there are some indents that are in need to be consdiered.
On a general point, the hardest concerns are related to the class balance, the class system as it is now is impronted to a great advantage of some classes against some other, developing a new pvp reserved enviroment without providing everybody with the same tools it's a foulish idea, classes gimped to oblivion will never have the upper hand against a zerg of godmodes classes.
I can foresee a server full of Guardian, Rangers and Assassins and Necros with pets.
Who's gonna roll an healer or a HoX or a Demo in a server where the vast majority of the classes can shot you with a simple 1 click combo?
This point should not be underestimated.
Another big issue is related with the AA system, this new ruleset is supposed to be PvP oriented, so Prowess and Expertise should be our bread, how can we manage to obtain enough points to be on pair with all the time spent, since one year till today, on the live server to boost our perks?
How many will be available to redo the grind from 0?
How are they going to address this issue?
These are all big questions.
The gear is another issue, on this server, I personally expect to not be forced to do PvE to get enough gear to do PvP, so how am I supposed to gather enough equipment to be competitive?
How will gear effect the Blood and Glory ruleset?
Simply if it stays as it is now, it will be a big no-no, AoC is actually too much gear dependent, you can be skilled as you want, if your enemy has a better equip than you do, you are dead. Period and full stop.
Bori chapter. FunCom did a great thing here, they opened a poll asking their players to expose their opinion on Bori, should it be available or not?
Bori has been declared as one of the better introduction of this game, it was surprising for me to see the partial results of the votes.
Last time I checked, on a basis of 300 voting guys 290 voted "No, it should not be present" only 10 voted "Yes it should be present".
What does it mean?
It means that the community dislikes Bori, and that the community is aiming at a REAL pvp content, which Bori clearly isn't.
This means of course from my point of view that the community is acting to prevent the creation of 1 big guild that will own the zone forever completely preventing all the others to go there.
Fury is an example of this, according with my information.
As Silirrion said, this will be a fresh start, you'll be able to have only one character there and no transfers will be allowed.
This is partially a good idea.
Partially why? Because rerolling from 0 means that you will lose all the progression you earned in one year of expansion, specifically all the perks, this is good on the other side because it will bring you back on pair with all the rest (who exploited the AA and who is far behind the others) of the players, but... how many will really consider an option to be forced to develop the AA from 0 again?
Many are honestly not willing, and Sil said that AA system won't be removed from the game, so this is almost a dead end road, but it should not be ignored.
Beside all these points I think the idea behind this proposal is good, what will make the difference for it being a huge success or the epic and ultimate fail for this game is the development that there will be behind it.
They should boost the actual content (read sieges and world objectives in general) before releasing this new content, they should work on balance and revamp all those classes that are now far beyond all the others (no i'm not exclusively referring at the HoX, we're not alone even if we are probably in the worst position), and address all the game related issues of lag, bugs, exploits.
Only after all those measures they will be ready to release this new content, hopefully they will seriously listen to the playerbase opinion on this matter.
We will see what will happen, for sure i will test it on TestLive servers if and when it will be released.
Stay tuned!
Arcalimon
My reaction about this new went through 2 different phases, i switched from an excited feeling to a more critical overview of the thing.
Truth be said, I believe that the idea behind this proposal it's quite good and can represent a great mean to satisfy (partially) the PvP needs of the AoC community which have been lately frustrated and twisted, especially with the latest revamps and the introduction of the Shrines of Bori, Bori is a game mechanics that i personally don't like, but I'm doing that every now and then, and not on a regular basis because it represent the only way to obtain easily and fast what you won't obtain easily and fast with all the other PvP mechanics.
This is a truth.
Creating a reserved ruleset for a PvP only server without guards is a good idea, will prevent the chicken run to guards in the pvp zones and should at least on the paper give a boost to the "Group PvP", it will allow you to finally GROUP UP WITH YOUR FRIENDS feature, this one, that has been removed with the latest patch, choice that one that I consider honestly unbelievable.
Many sarcastic posts proposed to remove grouping from PvE as well, and even if it is obviously absurd, the sarcasm behind these posts clearly draws how much this choice has been unfamous.
Back on topic anyway, this idea could work, thinking about it I really believe it would be a serious challenge to live in a world where only your friends and your effective skill will be your shield against the deaths, even though there are some indents that are in need to be consdiered.
On a general point, the hardest concerns are related to the class balance, the class system as it is now is impronted to a great advantage of some classes against some other, developing a new pvp reserved enviroment without providing everybody with the same tools it's a foulish idea, classes gimped to oblivion will never have the upper hand against a zerg of godmodes classes.
I can foresee a server full of Guardian, Rangers and Assassins and Necros with pets.
Who's gonna roll an healer or a HoX or a Demo in a server where the vast majority of the classes can shot you with a simple 1 click combo?
This point should not be underestimated.
Another big issue is related with the AA system, this new ruleset is supposed to be PvP oriented, so Prowess and Expertise should be our bread, how can we manage to obtain enough points to be on pair with all the time spent, since one year till today, on the live server to boost our perks?
How many will be available to redo the grind from 0?
How are they going to address this issue?
These are all big questions.
The gear is another issue, on this server, I personally expect to not be forced to do PvE to get enough gear to do PvP, so how am I supposed to gather enough equipment to be competitive?
How will gear effect the Blood and Glory ruleset?
Simply if it stays as it is now, it will be a big no-no, AoC is actually too much gear dependent, you can be skilled as you want, if your enemy has a better equip than you do, you are dead. Period and full stop.
Bori chapter. FunCom did a great thing here, they opened a poll asking their players to expose their opinion on Bori, should it be available or not?
Bori has been declared as one of the better introduction of this game, it was surprising for me to see the partial results of the votes.
Last time I checked, on a basis of 300 voting guys 290 voted "No, it should not be present" only 10 voted "Yes it should be present".
What does it mean?
It means that the community dislikes Bori, and that the community is aiming at a REAL pvp content, which Bori clearly isn't.
This means of course from my point of view that the community is acting to prevent the creation of 1 big guild that will own the zone forever completely preventing all the others to go there.
Fury is an example of this, according with my information.
As Silirrion said, this will be a fresh start, you'll be able to have only one character there and no transfers will be allowed.
This is partially a good idea.
Partially why? Because rerolling from 0 means that you will lose all the progression you earned in one year of expansion, specifically all the perks, this is good on the other side because it will bring you back on pair with all the rest (who exploited the AA and who is far behind the others) of the players, but... how many will really consider an option to be forced to develop the AA from 0 again?
Many are honestly not willing, and Sil said that AA system won't be removed from the game, so this is almost a dead end road, but it should not be ignored.
Beside all these points I think the idea behind this proposal is good, what will make the difference for it being a huge success or the epic and ultimate fail for this game is the development that there will be behind it.
They should boost the actual content (read sieges and world objectives in general) before releasing this new content, they should work on balance and revamp all those classes that are now far beyond all the others (no i'm not exclusively referring at the HoX, we're not alone even if we are probably in the worst position), and address all the game related issues of lag, bugs, exploits.
Only after all those measures they will be ready to release this new content, hopefully they will seriously listen to the playerbase opinion on this matter.
We will see what will happen, for sure i will test it on TestLive servers if and when it will be released.
Stay tuned!
Arcalimon
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
[Prince of Terror] How does it work?
Hi guys, I finally managed to obtain this perk and I was running around yesterday with it in minigame to test it.
First of all a little description of what it does:
Prince of Terror:
+89 Magic Damage (Fire)
+375 Protection (Fire)
+66% Weapon Damage (Fire)
Duration: 15 Seconds
Casting Time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Chance on Damage, Spiritual Wrack (-10% Holy and Unholy damage) 200 proc per minute
Switches the damage type of the combo from fire to Unholy and improves the BtD combo with an increased chance of critical damage for the DoT.
This is the description of the skill itself I would like (try at least) to go a bit more in detail about what a HoX may lose/gain from removing RSoX to use PoT.
This is very depending on the setup of perks and equip you have so I will give you my example so you can do your calculations on a solid numerical basis.
I'm running around with a most classical Possession/General, 56/23, using in PvP Chest, Legs and Helm from T1 PvP set, boots and belt from PvP minigame set, 2x Dreamer's Keepsake, pvp5 Cloak, pvp5 necklace, pvp5 sword, t2 wrist and t3 shoulders and gloves, PvP level 5 with T3 BK.
My original setup was: Chromatic Warding (3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Red Shadow of Xotli.
My stats: 340 strenght and 230 Intelligence without RSoX and 440 strenght and 330 Intelligence with the passive boost of RSoX.
Resistances; passive resistances from AA at 2, beside Electrical which is at 3.
With this set up my PvP magic damage was at 1055 Bonus spell damage fire, with resistances between a minimum value of 28% up to a max value of 31.5%.
It's quite clear that removing RSoX it's putting our magic damage down to Oblivion, in fact as soon as i removed RSoX I notice my pvp magic damage fell under 1000.
It's obvious that this gap will be increased while under Desecrating Essence, given that without RSoX we will lose our massive stat increase.
Now my actual setup with PoT:
Build: it's the same Poss/Gen I actually don't find doable a switch to an Avatar/Poss or Poss/Avatar, General tree still gives us more than Avatar does.
Perk setup: Field of War (pvp perk at 2 points, being trained at 3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Prince of Terror
Equip: the very same described before.
Stats: Strenght 340, Intelligence 230, PvP Bonus spell damage 1033, Resistances between a lowest value of 26.7% up to a highest value of 28%.
Little overview: I'm standing above 25% of magical resistances, admittedly the difference between 26% and 28% it's probably not that much, the magic damage it's only 22 points below the average I had in a normal form with RSoX so it's highly acceptable from my point of view (soon i'll have field of war at rank 3 so i will go on pair probably), yes of course while in form the gap will be present but on the overall this setup from my point of view fills the gap existing due to the absence of RSoX, and more than this, honestly a possession HoX does not rely that much on remaining under Desecrating Essence for a long time, that's more an Avatar feature.
Test during fights:
Ok then, now let's come to the real test.
Prince of Terror being an instant cast spell it's extremely dynamic, it can be used whenever you want, immediately giving you a good burst of damage.
I'm actually not suffering from the absence of RSoX, and the damage output it's pretty much the same, what is nice is that Pillar of Infernal Flames has a huge benefit from this perk, boost to magic damage, boost to melee damage, auto-debuffing, switch to unholy damage, it works great.
We should also consider that PoT and Exultation of Xotli can be applied together, this will then result in a nice situation:
90% + 66% = 146% melee damage istantly for a lenght of some seconds resulting in a good burst of damage, let's just consider that my melee dps goes up from 209 to 290 only with the +66% of melee boost!
For example, yesterday I managed to land a BtD for 800 melee damage for each hit plus a boosted dot at 700 on a soldier.
Conclusion:
Prince of Terror has impressed me, it's a perk that can be used in many situation and grants you a good boost, used properly and cycled with other skills like Demon Maw, Tome of Erlik, Desecrating Essence will allow you to have a boosted damage pretty much for the whole duration of the fight.
Anyhow the differences between PoT and RSoX are really not so deep to allow me to say that one is better than another, I'm strongly convinced that is more a matter of personal tastes and gameplay.
So even if I do believe I will hang on with PoT for a while, my suggestion for you is: Try it out, make tests, make experiments!
Hopefully my numbers posted above will help you a bit to understand what are we talking about
Catch you around!
Arcalimon
[Note: Thanks to Kayava, Igramul and Kelvar who helped me about this topic]
First of all a little description of what it does:
Prince of Terror:
+89 Magic Damage (Fire)
+375 Protection (Fire)
+66% Weapon Damage (Fire)
Duration: 15 Seconds
Casting Time: Instant
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Chance on Damage, Spiritual Wrack (-10% Holy and Unholy damage) 200 proc per minute
Switches the damage type of the combo from fire to Unholy and improves the BtD combo with an increased chance of critical damage for the DoT.
This is the description of the skill itself I would like (try at least) to go a bit more in detail about what a HoX may lose/gain from removing RSoX to use PoT.
This is very depending on the setup of perks and equip you have so I will give you my example so you can do your calculations on a solid numerical basis.
I'm running around with a most classical Possession/General, 56/23, using in PvP Chest, Legs and Helm from T1 PvP set, boots and belt from PvP minigame set, 2x Dreamer's Keepsake, pvp5 Cloak, pvp5 necklace, pvp5 sword, t2 wrist and t3 shoulders and gloves, PvP level 5 with T3 BK.
My original setup was: Chromatic Warding (3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Red Shadow of Xotli.
My stats: 340 strenght and 230 Intelligence without RSoX and 440 strenght and 330 Intelligence with the passive boost of RSoX.
Resistances; passive resistances from AA at 2, beside Electrical which is at 3.
With this set up my PvP magic damage was at 1055 Bonus spell damage fire, with resistances between a minimum value of 28% up to a max value of 31.5%.
It's quite clear that removing RSoX it's putting our magic damage down to Oblivion, in fact as soon as i removed RSoX I notice my pvp magic damage fell under 1000.
It's obvious that this gap will be increased while under Desecrating Essence, given that without RSoX we will lose our massive stat increase.
Now my actual setup with PoT:
Build: it's the same Poss/Gen I actually don't find doable a switch to an Avatar/Poss or Poss/Avatar, General tree still gives us more than Avatar does.
Perk setup: Field of War (pvp perk at 2 points, being trained at 3), Decisive Strike (4), Will of the Sublime (4), Ethereal Escape (4), Prince of Terror
Equip: the very same described before.
Stats: Strenght 340, Intelligence 230, PvP Bonus spell damage 1033, Resistances between a lowest value of 26.7% up to a highest value of 28%.
Little overview: I'm standing above 25% of magical resistances, admittedly the difference between 26% and 28% it's probably not that much, the magic damage it's only 22 points below the average I had in a normal form with RSoX so it's highly acceptable from my point of view (soon i'll have field of war at rank 3 so i will go on pair probably), yes of course while in form the gap will be present but on the overall this setup from my point of view fills the gap existing due to the absence of RSoX, and more than this, honestly a possession HoX does not rely that much on remaining under Desecrating Essence for a long time, that's more an Avatar feature.
Test during fights:
Ok then, now let's come to the real test.
Prince of Terror being an instant cast spell it's extremely dynamic, it can be used whenever you want, immediately giving you a good burst of damage.
I'm actually not suffering from the absence of RSoX, and the damage output it's pretty much the same, what is nice is that Pillar of Infernal Flames has a huge benefit from this perk, boost to magic damage, boost to melee damage, auto-debuffing, switch to unholy damage, it works great.
We should also consider that PoT and Exultation of Xotli can be applied together, this will then result in a nice situation:
90% + 66% = 146% melee damage istantly for a lenght of some seconds resulting in a good burst of damage, let's just consider that my melee dps goes up from 209 to 290 only with the +66% of melee boost!
For example, yesterday I managed to land a BtD for 800 melee damage for each hit plus a boosted dot at 700 on a soldier.
Conclusion:
Prince of Terror has impressed me, it's a perk that can be used in many situation and grants you a good boost, used properly and cycled with other skills like Demon Maw, Tome of Erlik, Desecrating Essence will allow you to have a boosted damage pretty much for the whole duration of the fight.
Anyhow the differences between PoT and RSoX are really not so deep to allow me to say that one is better than another, I'm strongly convinced that is more a matter of personal tastes and gameplay.
So even if I do believe I will hang on with PoT for a while, my suggestion for you is: Try it out, make tests, make experiments!
Hopefully my numbers posted above will help you a bit to understand what are we talking about
Catch you around!
Arcalimon
[Note: Thanks to Kayava, Igramul and Kelvar who helped me about this topic]
Monday, 7 February 2011
[Dreamworld Engine] Another look at the new engine
Out of interest i logged back on the TL server to verify how was the development going, especially to verify the performances of the engine after the deactivation of the AA feature.
I was still very impressed by the test I made a couple of weeks ago, the system was smooth and the detail level was very impressive, on the average the FPS were good.
I saw many posts full of concerns here and there and it's understandable, the fear to have another beta content released on live with the followup of bugs, instability, crashes and whatever, but I must admit that even without the AA feature activated the result is pretty awesome.
First of all as usual my rig:
Intel i5 - 750 overclocked @ 3.2 GhZ
GeForce GTX 570
4 GB Ram DDR3
OS Windows 7 - 64bit
I noticed a great difference in terms of mere fps numbers, in Chosain Province the amount of FPS increased from 30 to almost 60, the overall quality seems unmodified, the surrounding is astonishing, detailed and the light/shadow management is still great.
Being entirely honest I didn't noticed any big difference between my first test and my latest test, if not for a strong increase in FPS in full DX 10 settings, which is encouraging.
If in the graphical section I dare to say that there's nothing to report (and that's a good thing from my point of view) it's a different story for the Client side.
Loadings are extremely slow and tricky, especially when you are zoning from an "Old" zone to a Kithai zone, it will take quite a while to load the area and to let you play, also, even if apparently the loading is completed as soon as you spawn in a zone you will notice NPCS and surrounding being loaded while you move.
This of course creates some issues and some mini freezes on the screen as well as major lag spikes sometimes (but not often) resulting in a crash.
Of course this has been reported on TL forums, and community is waiting for an answer to this.
Beside those client issues I'm still convinced that the development of the Dreamworld Engine is going in the right direction, and i'm still convinced it will be really appreciated when it will hit the Live Server.
I do also agree with their choice of removing AA from the client as soon as they noticed it was not performing correctly with the client.
On the downside of this thread I have to mention the fact that multithreading is not being treated in this update series (2.1) and it's not considered a focus for the staff, things this that is making me quite disappointed, in 2011 a game like AoC should manage properly the multithreading to allow a better approach to its astonishing graphics.
Patch notes on TL forums are also including a large list of fixes and tweaks to some issues in game, rebalance of some elements on the PvP side (especially about the new minigame Jhebbal Sag), and on the overall appears to be a good "starting point".
I'm still hoping that in the future we will se some more balance between classes with some more revamp hitting the ground especially for our belove and forgotten class.
That's it for today!
Till the next blog entry then!
Arcalimon
P.S.: Some screenshots taken from Khemi, enjoy!
I was still very impressed by the test I made a couple of weeks ago, the system was smooth and the detail level was very impressive, on the average the FPS were good.
I saw many posts full of concerns here and there and it's understandable, the fear to have another beta content released on live with the followup of bugs, instability, crashes and whatever, but I must admit that even without the AA feature activated the result is pretty awesome.
First of all as usual my rig:
Intel i5 - 750 overclocked @ 3.2 GhZ
GeForce GTX 570
4 GB Ram DDR3
OS Windows 7 - 64bit
I noticed a great difference in terms of mere fps numbers, in Chosain Province the amount of FPS increased from 30 to almost 60, the overall quality seems unmodified, the surrounding is astonishing, detailed and the light/shadow management is still great.
Being entirely honest I didn't noticed any big difference between my first test and my latest test, if not for a strong increase in FPS in full DX 10 settings, which is encouraging.
If in the graphical section I dare to say that there's nothing to report (and that's a good thing from my point of view) it's a different story for the Client side.
Loadings are extremely slow and tricky, especially when you are zoning from an "Old" zone to a Kithai zone, it will take quite a while to load the area and to let you play, also, even if apparently the loading is completed as soon as you spawn in a zone you will notice NPCS and surrounding being loaded while you move.
This of course creates some issues and some mini freezes on the screen as well as major lag spikes sometimes (but not often) resulting in a crash.
Of course this has been reported on TL forums, and community is waiting for an answer to this.
Beside those client issues I'm still convinced that the development of the Dreamworld Engine is going in the right direction, and i'm still convinced it will be really appreciated when it will hit the Live Server.
I do also agree with their choice of removing AA from the client as soon as they noticed it was not performing correctly with the client.
On the downside of this thread I have to mention the fact that multithreading is not being treated in this update series (2.1) and it's not considered a focus for the staff, things this that is making me quite disappointed, in 2011 a game like AoC should manage properly the multithreading to allow a better approach to its astonishing graphics.
Patch notes on TL forums are also including a large list of fixes and tweaks to some issues in game, rebalance of some elements on the PvP side (especially about the new minigame Jhebbal Sag), and on the overall appears to be a good "starting point".
I'm still hoping that in the future we will se some more balance between classes with some more revamp hitting the ground especially for our belove and forgotten class.
That's it for today!
Till the next blog entry then!
Arcalimon
P.S.: Some screenshots taken from Khemi, enjoy!
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