Rare tokens

[Kurt2013]

Yes, i by far did not want to turn it into a newbie vs vet debate or blame someone onesided. Still even your example illustrates what is wrong: The newbie group struggles hard to get just one (!) token in normal mode or wipes alot in hard mode...surely more than one hour real life time. The vet can change this in 15 minutes!

Now imagine the motivation to repeat this day after day...with alternative the solo instances (and of course thanks to murphy, there will be just THAT ad for the nm you were looking for, when in the middle of the solo part...).

On another note, it might be just a big barrier for new players to advertise on their own. From my experience in crom it is that you do see mostly the "KK, hm, AA xp" runs advertised, but this does not mean that the demand for "nm, maybe hm...bring time" is not there. Often enough you can find groups. Thing is just how often do you take the initiative and patience and at what intervals...again compared to a seasoned group who probably happens to enjoy the quick boss runs as well (mainly because most know what to do and CAN do what they are supposed to do and thus things are fast and rarely wiping).

[Chillee]

Yes, i by far did not want to turn it into a newbie vs vet debate or blame someone onesided. Still even your example illustrates what is wrong: The newbie group struggles hard to get just one (!) token in normal mode or wipesalot in hard mode...surely more than one hour real life time. The vet can change this in 15 minutes!

Now imagine the motivation to repeat this day after day...with alternative the solo instances (and of course thanks to murphy, there will be just THAT ad for the nm you were looking for, when in the middle of the solo part...).

On another note, it might be just a big barrier for new players to advertise on their own. From my experience in crom it is that you do see mostly the "KK, hm, AA xp" runs advertised, but this does not mean that the demand for "nm, maybe hm...bring time" is not there. Often enough you can find groups. Thing is just how often do you take the initiative and patience and at what intervals...again compared to a seasoned group who probably happens to enjoy the quick boss runs as well (mainly because most know what to do and CAN do what they are supposed to do and thus things are fast and rarely wiping).

There are a lot of guilds who will accept new player members. If your guild can't do anything rewarding, get out of it.

What is the point of gear if its just given to you, but you don't know how to use it? Why would a new player want the epic gear necessary for hard raids and instances, when they struggle to do the easy instances in easy mode?

When a problem is as easily solveable as one like this, I don't see why anyone would want FC to devote time and resources to dumbing down the game, or worse, taking away players' incentive to run many of the instances.

[KullOfValusia]

There are a lot of guilds who will accept new player members. If your guild can't do anything rewarding, get out of it.

What is the point of gear if its just given to you, but you don't know how to use it? Why would a new player want the epic gear necessary for hard raids and instances, when they struggle to do the easy instances in easy mode?

When a problem is as easily solveable as one like this, I don't see why anyone would want FC to devote time and resources to dumbing down the game, or worse, taking away players' incentive to run many of the instances.

That is YOUR point of view...you are either a great gamer or you have a far greater tolerance threshold for mind numbing grind(some old school gamers are like this.)

Whoever is RIGHT or WRONG on this issue I CANNOT say. HOWEVER, I can only direct you to how business, your life(if you live in a moderately developed society), and yes even Funcom works..and that is RESULTS. And thus I point to the 700~900 players who are on US Set each night on primetime and ask you is this success for a 20 million dollar game?

And to further elaborate on this point, the game is solid on a foundational point of view. The combat, the graphics, the theme... EVERYTHING is solid. Although some may say PvP is a problem,but even with NO PvP this game shouldn't be getting 700~900 a night.

Therefore the only real culprit is gameplay and these constant barriers that new players face from the lonely "long march" from 1-80 to the HORRIBLE chasm/wall they face once they hit that 80 mark which further alienates new players.

[Kurt2013]

There are a lot of guilds who will accept new player members. If your guild can't do anything rewarding, get out of it.

What is the point of gear if its just given to you, but you don't know how to use it? Why would a new player want the epic gear necessary for hard raids and instances, when they struggle to do the easy instances in easy mode?

When a problem is as easily solveable as one like this, I don't see why anyone would want FC to devote time and resources to dumbing down the game, or worse, taking away players' incentive to run many of the instances.

You misunderstand me. My guilds are fine and i don't want freebies.

The main point is making such a currency important for general progression after t3 (or even if you don't raid, after you got rank 4 in all factions (which is way faster and easier now than to get gear for even one item (!) through rare tokens if you play casual)) more available to those who need it AND make it available through many ways of content.
Is it positive, that someone can play tough content (some old world IS harder than certain "hard modes" in khitai) that takes even longer time (you could even count raids in that), but does not get any rare tokens?
More ways to get rare tokens (again, not necessarily faster or for free!!!), will be good to even out the balance in classes as well (or do you think it is fine, that one class can do isle of iron statues hm in green gear while another has trouble even finishing it after one hour in purple gear?).

It takes maybe one or two runs to understand and do the easy modes. Getting the same group to do the hard mode will be a completely different matter...so please don't say it is easy (though for some classes it IS easier). People ARE willing to do their part to span the gap, i believe...but it is nicely put...a bit tooo much of a gap at the moment, if you have to devote most of your aoc gaming time to that purpose and neglect other parts you favour.

[tman1991]

I got lost at the 700-900 players on Set each nite..

Really? I'm on every nite and thats a bit of a stretch.

[KullOfValusia]

I got lost at the 700-900 players on Set each nite..

Really? I'm on every nite and thats a bit of a stretch.

Its beginning to taper off . Last night was abysmal, if you counted between 8~11 pm there were about 600 players on or so, perhaps 30% of that being 80s.

In all cases, these numbers are stupendously abysmal... at this point we are a fraction of one shard on WoW. I genuinely fear for the game. A healthy game would be 3 or even 4 US servers with around 1.5 to 2k players on each night.

[Chillee]

That is YOUR point of view...you are either a great gamer or you have a far greater tolerance threshold for mind numbing grind(some old school gamers are like this.)

Whoever is RIGHT or WRONG on this issue I CANNOT say. HOWEVER, I can only direct you to how business, your life(if you live in a moderately developed society), and yes even Funcom works..and that is RESULTS. And thus I point to the 700~900 players who are on US Set each night on primetime and ask you is this success for a 20 million dollar game?

And to further elaborate on this point, the game is solid on a foundational point of view. The combat, the graphics, the theme... EVERYTHING is solid. Although some may say PvP is a problem,but even with NO PvP this game shouldn't be getting 700~900 a night.

Therefore the only real culprit is gameplay and these constant barriers that new players face from the lonely "long march" from 1-80 to the HORRIBLE chasm/wall they face once they hit that 80 mark which further alienates new players.

1-80 is a long march? You can get a toon to max level in a matter of days now. And lower level content is some of the best in the game. SOBS and level 60s amp are great instances. Some of the questing in some zones is a blast. That's a "long march"? People who don't want to experience them are pissing away some of the best the game has to offer. And there are a lot of players below 80 right now to group with. This isn't the game's issue. No matter how many times you QQ about it.

The wall that separates a new 80 from veterans - pve wise - is not the grind to get gear. There is no grind. The grind is in AAs. FC needs to do something to alleviate that grind for nubs, or just let them buy more in the store. From a gear perspective, you don't need much gear to do old world 80s and K6 easy modes. And if you do those along with t1/t2 for a short while, you can be t2/t3/K6 ready in a month or less, even as a casual gamer.

But if a player logs on and expects to immediately do the ultimate end game content on day one, he can't and shouldn't be able to. That's why it's called "end game". I've yet to see an MMO where that's the case. FC should do something to give new players an avenue to get their AAs in a fast manner, but with gear? Nope. Those are the very players who are focused on lootwhoring rather than the experience, and at that point, when they've been handed the gear that they'd otherwise have to actually accomplish something to obtain, there's no reason for them to log in anymore. The game is good in that regard. The only complaint I'd have with gear is how there are people who've done dozens, even hundreds of t1/2/3/4 and have yet to get their weapons. When it comes to armor, any class can be decked out in raid gear in no time. From the nonsense you post in almost every thread, I can only assume you think that everyone should be handed a full set of T3 or T4 class armor when they're leaving tortage, instead of strom's level 20 sabre.

The issue for new players, and pugs in general, isn't gear. You can do t4 in k6 gear, and you can get a full set of K6 gear by solo and running a few dungeons for a month or so once you have a decent set to be able to do things like statue isle. How is that a "wall"? The issue is people don't want to L2P. They want to get gear good enough to overcome their fail. Not because they aren't talented or smart or whatever, but because they're too lazy to learn a fight or the best way to play a particular class. No gear can compensate for people who don't want to concentrate and be aware of what's going on above and beyond what you need to do House of Crom.

The game's "grind" is not its problem, pve-wise. It's buggy existing content, lack of new content, and horrible management of the game overall that is killing AOC. The fact that the game was brutal and hard was what drew hundreds of thousands to the game initially. They need to get back to closer to what they originally promised instead of trying to be a low-rent WOW.

[Kurt2013]

If you use offline levels and grind like hell or use fishy means, then yes. But this is by far the usual, the intended or the best way. Of course, if you have the resources and friends and mentality to grind yourselves to 80 in a few days, you will have no worries about other grind content too, i guess
I personally agree with you on the old world content and people missing out, if they skip it. But can you deny there is a big difference in gameplay before 80 and after you reached that point? What had motivated players to the game initially might suddenly go up in smoke...
My first 80 took months. And at certain points i needed a break and try out other classes and chars. Even now, if i want to "play" the game during 1-80 it takes weeks.

The barrier might be different for different player types. I have now no problem getting AAs (they come with time and even casual play...even pvp!) or gold (it goes up ok, if you do faction quests).

You probably overestimate the time a casual player plays per day...i simply do not believe the number of t2/k6 ready in month or less. If you exclusively play that char AND play more than 4 hours per day AND have friends and resources, than it is possible...but i don't talk about extremes, it is the average that counts when you design things.

And rare token items already have different prices (from under 100 to several hundreds). Speaking of "instant" end game content is completely wrong in this context. No one will get rare tokens faster, if you allow for example 1 rare for crows nest with a chance of a random drop in addition, because the 30 minutes spent there is still longer than the 20 minutes for fire nm. The point is to have SOME progression towards that endgame while doing other content. If your stairway is too steep, you don't have to reduce the height, but you can introduce more steps to get more people to the top.

And please be honest...can a K6 group with blues do t4? especially if it is the tanks and healers? Can a raidgeared group do that? Can they do it the intended way or with "help"? And even if, is it enough fun with rares/time ratio to do this repeatable?

[Jaedelyia]

I think we should just be able to share the token between our toon. Like a shared token bag or something.

Because for now, you have to play with the toon that you want to stuff, and even if you are in the "Let's-just-play-and-let's-the-tokens-stack" state of mind, it's always a bit of grind, and you force yourself to play more with that toon.

It would be much more fun if you could like, do the different instances each day with different toon and still can buy the reward you want for the toon you want.

I mean, come on, you have proven you were able to master your character well enough to beat this boss 10 time and earn 20 token, forcing you to beat it again 100 time isn't going to prove anything more. Allowing you to kick the boss' ass with your 7 other character, however, is more fun for the player. I've earned them, dammit.

[KullOfValusia]

It all depends on what people over at Funcom are thinking.

If the mentality is "people play this MMO for X gear". Then AoC is doomed to fail and PvP will never get fixed and take the game in a different and better direction.

Why do people still play CounterStrike(or used to a short while back)? After nearly a decade? There is no progression no leet gear to get... but people still come back again and again.

But people have strong convictions if Funcom believes that further gear/AA grind is the way to go, well I wish them the best of luck. Its a dead end in my opinion and their move to Lego mini figures game hints they understand where the technology and the market is heading.