Game is too hard. Make it easier

[JohnPayne]

Nobody does the house of crom raid. Why? It's too difficult, the rewards aren't worth it. Why not make it easier so people can actually enjoy it or make the loot T5 and better, considering T4 is too easy for the rewards.


Some khitai dungeons are in need of nerfing as the reward is not worth the time involved.

You can't get in k6mans without purple gear (in most cases: pugs). You need rare trophies to purchase purple gear. Nobody wants to do 6man easy modes to progress. New characters need to do solo instances to gear up. It takes too long to get gear with 19 hour cooldowns on solo instances. Reduce or remove this cooldown restriction.

Pvp gear takes months to gain (minigame tokens). Pve gear is much easier to obtain. Pve gear is more powerful in many cases. On low population servers, or dead-hours, minigames slow down or die out once the majority of players receive all their badges, and are waiting on cooldowns. Reduce or remove cooldown restrictions from minigame quests.

Blood and glory can't do t4. You need alts to do t4. You can't have alts on blood and glory. Remove this server's alt restriction.

New players are excited to pvp at 80. They join a minigame on a fresh 80, and get rolled by DT's and Conq's in T4 gear. New players realize they need T4 gear, but can't get into T4 raids without gear. So they grind khitai, but realize they can't get into khitai groups without purple gear. They try to solo purple gear, but realize there's a 19 hour cooldown on solo instances. It will be 2-3 months+ before they can get into T4 memory cloud and enjoy pvp with their shiny new gear. I make that assumption with the optimism that they joined a guild and talked to a vet about progressing in this game, because there is little to no online guide on how to play Age of Conan. Meanwhile, vets in blue gear get invited to T4 and the new players feel excluded from the fun. Most people quit the game when they can't pvp (because they get 1 shot) or won't get invited to groups (because lack of gear) to progress their character.

If you're a PVE-only player, and are offended by the word PVP, disregard any mention of PVP, and you will find the same logic applies to everything I said about new players getting involved in Age of Conan and quitting in 1-3 months of frustration.

TLDR:
Sorry that you can't progress your character and play with the vets: You have ran into a grind restriction. You must wait xx hours and obtain xx gear to continue. To bypass this restriction, you must know many veterans who will carry you across the finish line.

From a Vet who is at end game already and finds it easy since im here already...

[JohnPayne]

Cry more about being a casual and not wanting to put in the time and effort to succeed.

If only you knew how many toons I have grinded, the servers I've been on. The point of this post is to bring light to the state of the game -> people are quitting. Investigate the reasons why. If you're unable to come to conclusions, then listen to what others have to say.

Anyone with common sense (or a business degree that taught them a formula for common sense), will realize, that time spent divided by reward potential equals total value potential. If total value potential is less than other opportunities, then the lesser opportunities will be disregarded. In this case, I need not explain, because it was listed in my original post, some things need to be adjusted to equalize total value potential.


In my honest opinion: You read the title and responded to the title of the post alone, but did not read my arguments (or have not played the game long enough to understand the point behind my suggestions). Constructive criticism is encouraged, general trolling will called out.

[JohnPayne]

Not really, I clear T4 twice a week and T3 twice a week, I'm doing pretty well.

Though I'd be an idiot to not want to see server merges.

How many of your blue geared alts were carried through 6mans, memory cloud? The point of my post was to re-enforce the encouragement of new players earning their way through the game. Not how to be carried by full team of friends to obtain gear.

How will this game retain new players if everyone carried a mindset exactly like yours? Was every single alt of yours full khitai purple before going to T3, T4? Or just your first character? How did your first character get there? How long ago did you start it? When you started it, was everyone else in the same boat as you?

These are simple questions to ask. If you want to maintain a healthy population, the real question is: How will you retain players new to the game who have little to no groups to join? Guides to follow? Ways to obtain gear without waiting on 19 hour solo dungeon cooldowns? 4 hour minigame cooldowns? Purple gear requirements, AA requirements? And on top of it all, the general experience requirement on how the instance is performed? Which the new player was not invited to until they aquired all previous requirements in the first place.

[-tomhet-]

Nobody does the house of crom raid. Why? It's too difficult, the rewards aren't worth it. Why not make it easier so people can actually enjoy it?

i dont want easier i just want loot stats to be better.

Some khitai dungeons worth nerfing: Pillars of Heaven. Coppice of the Heart. Den of the Crowmen. Nobody in their right mind does these.

this seems to be a problem existing on your server only; those 3 dungeons are done daily multiple times by global pugs on crom
especialy den of crowmen and pillars.

only kithai dungeon who might need a little nerf to make it more popular is The Jade Dugout wich despite not being particularly hard does require a lot more coordination then other hm dungeons.

You can't get in k6mans without purple gear (in most cases: pugs). You need rare trophies to purchase purple gear. Nobody wants to do 6man easy modes to progress. New characters need to do solo instances to gear up. It takes too long to get gear with 19 hour cooldowns on solo instances. Reduce or remove this cooldown restriction.

takes a couple of weeks to get mix of t1/t2 epic armor wich is very reasonable and allows new players to gain minimum group play experience.
again on crom some gloabl normal mode pugs do happen although im not sure just how often.
most crom guilds always acomodate new players and casuals to fill up guild run hm runs wich are perfect for new players learning game and gearing up for t3+ raids.

and there is already ingame enough solo content and its already promised to have more solo content at some point with unchained attilus mansion&slaughterhouse wich will happen someday.

Pvp gear takes months to gain (minigame tokens). Pve gear is much easier to obtain. Pve gear is more powerful in many cases. On low population servers, or dead-hours, minigames slow down or die out once the majority of players receive all their badges, and are waiting on cooldowns. Reduce or remove cooldown restrictions from minigame quests.

Blood and glory can't do t4. You need alts to do t4. You can't have alts on blood and glory. Remove this server's alt restriction.

New players are excited to pvp at 80. They join a minigame on a fresh 80, and get rolled by DT's and Conq's in T4 gear. New players realize they need T4 gear, but can't get into T4 raids without gear. So they grind khitai, but realize they can't get into khitai groups without purple gear. They try to solo purple gear, but realize there's a 19 hour cooldown on solo instances. It will be 2-3 months+ before they can get into T4 memory cloud and enjoy pvp with their shiny new gear. I make that assumption with the optimism that they joined a guild and talked to a vet about progressing in this game, because there is little to no online guide on how to play Age of Conan. Meanwhile, vets in blue gear get invited to T4 and the new players feel excluded from the fun. Most people quit the game when they can't pvp (because they get 1 shot) or won't get invited to groups (because lack of gear) to progress their character.

If you're a PVE-only player, and are offended by the word PVP, disregard any mention of PVP, and you will find the same logic applies to everything I said about new players getting involved in Age of Conan and quitting in 1-3 months of frustration.

overall pvp is horribly implemented ingame and absolutetly unfair in every aspect of it.
pve on the other hand is quite nicely implemented and only people in pvp servers dont have full access to it because its dying servers.
the so called hc pvp servers were doomed to fail from start they have no extra pvp content just lame mechanics like players dropping all gold wich lead to players making f2p accounts to store gold.
overall its worst possible server to be with no economy and such low population even minigames hardly pop.
and added extra on eu side russian credit card heros have full t4 and t3 crafted weapons and ibis were those raids arent even happening there .

aoc is a pve game with poorly implemented pvp.

and overall your ranting is only valid if your on an empty server crom server doesnt have that issue.

[Khaletohep]

I actually agree with the opening post regarding to some dungeons.

A high difficulty and slow progression is good for
- keeping players occupied (i. e. less development effort) and
- giving players a sense of acclompishment once they succeed.

It is bad for
- keeping content away from less-than-optimal players and (more important) player groups (e. g. a raid group with high fluctuation),
- keeping content away from less-than-all-day-long-players (e. g. people with jobs, kids, other hobbies),
- frustrating players,
- having content abandoned by players because of a bad effort/reward ratio.

On some parts of the content, the difficulty / time needed is currently way off, esp.
- low level group dungeons (levels 30 to 79),
- T3,5,
- Dragon Spine outdoor area (even with the recent addition of Marks of Acclaim to quests),
- the first Dragon Spine dungeon and
- PvP advancement.

The amount of work put into T3,5 and Dragon Spine is, though that is sad to say, more or less wasted. The content just isn't used by a significant amount of players.
To use the time and money already invested, a rework might be useful. That should take less time than to create completely new raid dungeons, and for most players, this content will be just as new.

The PvP advancement is, imho, very annoying, as it keeps new players interested in PvP from doing PvP. The planned unchained mini games may change that, but I'm skeptical. Imho, it would be easier to lower the amount of PvP XP needed, especially for levels 1 to 5 by half or more.

[JohnPayne]

i dont want easier i just want loot stats to be better.




this seems to be a problem existing on your server only; those 3 dungeons are done daily multiple times by global pugs on crom
especialy den of crowmen and pillars.

only kithai dungeon who might need a little nerf to make it more popular is The Jade Dugout wich despite not being particularly hard does require a lot more coordination then other hm dungeons.


takes a couple of weeks to get mix of t1/t2 epic armor wich is very reasonable and allows new players to gain minimum group play experience.
again on crom some gloabl normal mode pugs do happen although im not sure just how often.
most crom guilds always acomodate new players and casuals to fill up guild run hm runs wich are perfect for new players learning game and gearing up for t3+ raids.

and there is already ingame enough solo content and its already promised to have more solo content at some point with unchained attilus mansion&slaughterhouse wich will happen someday.




overall pvp is horribly implemented ingame and absolutetly unfair in every aspect of it.
pve on the other hand is quite nicely implemented and only people in pvp servers dont have full access to it because its dying servers.
the so called hc pvp servers were doomed to fail from start they have no extra pvp content just lame mechanics like players dropping all gold wich lead to players making f2p accounts to store gold.
overall its worst possible server to be with no economy and such low population even minigames hardly pop.
and added extra on eu side russian credit card heros have full t4 and t3 crafted weapons and ibis were those raids arent even happening there .

aoc is a pve game with poorly implemented pvp.

and overall your ranting is only valid if your on an empty server crom server doesnt have that issue.

All your arguments only apply to crom, the most populated of all 6 age of conan servers. Soon to be the most populated of all 3 age of conan servers. What happens when the population on the one and only PVE server plummets because new players cannot get into 6mans? T1/T2 raids take hours. And 24 people. And wipes when enough of those people suck. 6mans take 20 minutes. Anyone with half a brain will skip T1/T2 raids. 1 week of faction quest blues is better than wasting time on T1/T2 raids.

It's not about the color of the gear, it's the state of the game. How will age of conan retain players? By requiring grind? Or by reducing cooldowns? This is such a simple concept, I don't understand how so many people overlook it.

[Bibik]

Not really, I clear T4 twice a week and T3 twice a week, I'm doing pretty well.

Though I'd be an idiot to not want to see server merges.

Server merges are "needed" only because game fails to retains customers.
When devs wanted to nerf something on TL, may it be in 2010, 2012 or 2013, only self-called veterans playing in top-tiers guilds said it is not needed game is soooo fun and soooo skilled. That was the case with T3 nerf discussions way back in the time. Top-players saying game will lost bunch of veterans with that nerf (maybe it was real, was more a "threat-argument" to me) but never seen that playerbase loss was heavier with the rest of population.

But the reality is, players in top-guilds have blinded themselves and stay in their ivory towers, and then when comes the times of recruiting they see that community is thin.

I've don't read all the op's suggestion, but i agree with the beginning : most of the game must be scaled-down to pug level, while keeping new content challenging for veterans, for 1 year or so. I'm still amazed that, since i'm playing in 2010, only 1 raid tier is opened to pugs and kithan runs are concerning the same 4/5 dungeons.

[Texan615]

If only you knew how many toons I have grinded, the servers I've been on. The point of this post is to bring light to the state of the game -> people are quitting. Investigate the reasons why. If you're unable to come to conclusions, then listen to what others have to say.

Anyone with common sense (or a business degree that taught them a formula for common sense), will realize, that time spent divided by reward potential equals total value potential. If total value potential is less than other opportunities, then the lesser opportunities will be disregarded. In this case, I need not explain, because it was listed in my original post, some things need to be adjusted to equalize total value potential.


In my honest opinion: You read the title and responded to the title of the post alone, but did not read my arguments (or have not played the game long enough to understand the point behind my suggestions). Constructive criticism is encouraged, general trolling will called out.

I read your entire post. Let me tell you about myself, I started playing AoC the week it came out, so I've been playing this game for over 5 yrs. I've leveled every toon in the game, I currently have 21 lvl 80's spread out over multiple servers, so lay off your comment about how many toons you've grinded, I bet it's way less than what I've done.

And yes, I sorta agree with you about it's hard for newer players to play with the veterans. However, what I see lots of times is the new players want to jump right into top tier content and they are not ready for it. People see T4 gear or top 6 man content gear and they feel they are entitled to it without spending the time and effort to properly earn it. I spent years and years moving my way from T1 to T4 raids, not to mention all the Khitai/6 mans along the way. That's my issue.

I'm gonna guess you are on a pvp server and feel you are outgunned by Khitai and/or T3/4 gear. And I totally agree that pvp gear should be best in pvp and pve gear should be best in pve. However, Funcom seems to be incapable of properly balancing pvp vs pve gear in pvp.

As for your comment about new people getting locked out of top tier content, I had a few people that had never done full T3 in my raid tonight and we did a full clear. BTW they are guildies and were invited to one of the US top raid guilds, so to think content is reserved for the "elite" is bullsh!t, like I said some were new and had never done it before, yet they were invited to guild and raid. Oh and btw, we also have some "noobs" in our actual T4 raids so they can get experience and gear. So to think top tier raid content is reserved for the "elites" is not true at all, you must be looking at the wrong guilds etc.

[JohnPayne]

I read your entire post. Let me tell you about myself, I started playing AoC the week it came out, so I've been playing this game for over 5 yrs. I've leveled every toon in the game, I currently have 21 lvl 80's spread out over multiple servers, so lay off your comment about how many toons you've grinded, I bet it's way less than what I've done.

And yes, I sorta agree with you about it's hard for newer players to play with the veterans. However, what I see lots of times is the new players want to jump right into top tier content and they are not ready for it. People see T4 gear or top 6 man content gear and they feel they are entitled to it without spending the time and effort to properly earn it. I spent years and years moving my way from T1 to T4 raids, not to mention all the Khitai/6 mans along the way. That's my issue.

I'm gonna guess you are on a pvp server and feel you are outgunned by Khitai and/or T3/4 gear. And I totally agree that pvp gear should be best in pvp and pve gear should be best in pve. However, Funcom seems to be incapable of properly balancing pvp vs pve gear in pvp.

As for your comment about new people getting locked out of top tier content, I had a few people that had never done full T3 in my raid tonight and we did a full clear. BTW they are guildies and were invited to one of the US top raid guilds, so to think content is reserved for the "elite" is bullsh!t, like I said some were new and had never done it before, yet they were invited to guild and raid. Oh and btw, we also have some "noobs" in our actual T4 raids so they can get experience and gear. So to think top tier raid content is reserved for the "elites" is not true at all, you must be looking at the wrong guilds etc.

I agree with your first statements, that new players don't realize they need to put some work into earning their way into higher tiers. But when a game is nearly dead, why restrict top content to the top 1%? It used to be the top 10%, but 9% of them left. So make it easier. These arn't exact numbers, I'm just trying to make a point.

You can assume all you want about me being "out-gunned". I believe I have been and will be on all future winning premade teams. Lol. I just want more people to play this game, and the dying state is breaking my god damn heart.

The balance of PVP vs PVE gear is irrelevant. It's the obtain-ability. How many guilds are in game that can do anything from T1-T3? How many guilds in game have T4 on farm? Compare. Does it require a raidforce to have pvp gear and enjoy pvp? No. Is pvp gear the best? Not for most classes. Why does pvp gear take longer to obtain than T4 in a strong T4 raid guild?

In addition, I can think of a certain person who allowed your guild to progress past emperor many months ago, because every single other person of his/her archtype were unable to do their job. And this person I speak of, agrees 100% behind everything I stand behind. Elite raidforce my ass.. You're another carried lootwhore noob!

[-tomhet-]

All your arguments only apply to crom, the most populated of all 6 age of conan servers. Soon to be the most populated of all 3 age of conan servers. What happens when the population on the one and only PVE server plummets because new players cannot get into 6mans? T1/T2 raids take hours. And 24 people. And wipes when enough of those people suck. 6mans take 20 minutes. Anyone with half a brain will skip T1/T2 raids. 1 week of faction quest blues is better than wasting time on T1/T2 raids.

It's not about the color of the gear, it's the state of the game. How will age of conan retain players? By requiring grind? Or by reducing cooldowns? This is such a simple concept, I don't understand how so many people overlook it.

population on crom will dwindle soon when eso comes out for sure because they arent bringing t5 any time soon and pve servers are very vulnerable to lack of content.

game is dying because funcom refuses to implement pvp systems, wich if well implemented dont separate pvp & pve populations rather it integrates it to a whole.

instead you have 2 types of pvp servers wich have the exact same pvp content of a pve server.

and honestly pvp lost its meaning when any guy with too much time to spare could go farm nodes and hit pvp 10 with less then a 100 pvp kills.

not to mention yet again the amount of players using autocomber, teleport, radar, and other third party programs wich further debase overall pvp experience, for example there is a particular polish demo on crom wich openly admits to speed hack and and multiple players fraps him sent to funcom even when he was back in fury... yet there he is still online justifying shamelessly his hacking with class balancing favoring soldiers...
adding to that there is guilds actively guard hugging running off after 2-3 deaths and suporting members who hack and exploit geometry in minigames and open world.

so like i said aoc is a pve game crom is only healthy server for now and pvp is very poorly implemented non rewarding and lacking systems to even justify existence of pvp servers.