Game Director's Letter - September 2013

[Mustaine]

I read the GD letter and began to contemplate a response that was less than pleasant ...

BUT then I saw the GD responses en-masse and was impressed. THIS amongst all things is your greatest asset ~ communication. I realize you're trying to un-fvck things and doing more with less.

/salute

[Scaevacas]

this burst of communication is great to see. Especially after about a month of no communication.

Hopefully the communication channels stay open.

The sieges are complicated because it is a mess of code and systems and hacks that scares me to commit people too. I feel like it could be a development black hole - you throw resources at it forever and you never see anything for it.

reminder: I'm available immediately and have submitted my CV, still waiting for a response!

[bandytaz]

If you do make something with PVP weapons and fix stats. I think you need to make something to Bori too otherwise people run again there to grind.

Meh, you can't change mentality of wanna be pvpers. Some of us never felt need to exploit system to get advantage and (hopefully) never will.

I don't grind bori and I don't raid, because both activities would bore me to death. Just don't think what other people might do and keep doing what's fun for you.

(though changing bori would be pretty cool, even if it was minor change like somebody suggested in this very thread - body parts for sacrifices and that's it, no digging or anything like that).


Unfortunately AoC development is really slow these days (too bad Joel wasn't leading when there was more people and more resources for AoC), but I liked the Q&A in this thread - you bought me with that. I guess I'm gonna stay premium for another 3 months to see what's gonna happen next.

[Mustaine]

... I guess I'm gonna stay premium for another 3 months to see what's gonna happen next.

YAY for us ...

[Chaman-bourru]

World PvP - Another area where I have already made some tentative initiaties. People weren't exactly thrilled with the idea of the Hyborian Race, but it *is* a direct attempt to increase the world PvP. We'll see what comes next after that.

PvP gear - We can take a look at making this better *and* I believe the tradeskill system will also help in this regard.

I made my case in PM to Szemera a while ago but i'll bring this up again.

You've got a small team, pvp stuff is complicated to set and we can't expect much (compared to what players crave). Improve the sandbox options so players have the opportunity to creat PvP content themselves. So far you guys grant funcom points to player event. And that's great. But if this was pushed a little further i believe there would be more dynamism. More open-world initiative.

By reward i mostly mean crates of PvP xp and eventually campaign badges for those participating to make it worthy, progression wise aswell. An occasionnel alternative to minigames.
It's more content for us with, i believe, minimal ressource needed from your side. Considering the size of the community it shouldn't be too hard to surveil either. And of course if this goes well diffrent rewards and tools could be implemented to encourage the creation of events and make them easier to organize with diffrent rulesets in the future.

It's a win / win.
I'd like to add that from my experrience open-world events are more newbie friendly than mini-games. And helping them progress pvp wise by actually PvPing with a team would be a good thing.

[twinklez3]

Bitter vet here. Merges is not content. There has been little or no new content- particularly in pvp.

Where is the return on my subscription investment in this era of FTP mmos that constantly release new free content?

[raist718]

Bitter vet here. Merges is not content. There has been little or no new content- particularly in pvp.

Where is the return on my subscription investment in this era of FTP mmos that constantly release new free content?

QFT

Wait for the response from the director of "don't pay for the game then, i don't care".

[Thizon]

Been lurking these forums for a while to get an excuse to get back and unchained minis is such a excuse but when i read what you wrote in this thread i just had to make a temporary comeback as an active poster in these forums.

If you have issues with sieges and dont want to put in resources due to bad change management in the past is a wise choice imo. I can fully understand that

BUT if you really want to do something for the pvp crowd than do this:

1. Shut dowbn the sieges if you dont have the resources to clean up the mess.
2. Remove the bori concept
3. Take a sneak peak at GW2 and eternal battle ground.
4. Copy the towers from gw and place 1 in each corner of a map and one in the center, 5 in total. Holding a tower gives you 2% more mitigation and damage. The distance between them makes holding all 5 close to impossible.
5. Copy GW2 siege weapons and make them buyable for silver.
6. implement 4*supply lines(similar to gw2) to each tower and as long as those are open the tower is repaired over time.
7. Add quests that are activated when you get in range of a tower or supply line. Ie defend/attack the tower/supply. Once again check out gw2.
8. Add a simple ranking system that is reset each week based on kills and done quests. Implement titles for each class which you earn thru the ranking system.
9. Holding a tower makes you earn points over time to the ranking

This would give content to guilds for sieging, small goups versus supplies and individuals for kills.

It would also create a scene for 5-10 team tournements, ie player generated content.

Back to silence, have a good one.

Brutaly

[Ideadz89]

I dont really know why funcom made 3 arenas and none of them as a sign up minigame......BOOOM new pvp content and it wouldnt cost that much...

[FirepowahQQ]

Remember in pvp

- Stamina tap
- Health tap

PvE values, why they are on PvP items eating budget?

- Critical rating
- Critical dmg rating

Those are PvP values as they give burst dmg, why they are not in PvP items

Every pvper tries to increase their Crit dmg rating, while none of the pvp gear increases it. So they are forced to go farm pve side for it.

Sillirion's team was clueless about PvP, yet they just probably slapped some random numbers on pvp gear