Interview with Matt 'Cirith Gorgor” Bennett - July of 2015

[Evito]

Damage was done years ago, by the time T5 came around majority had already left. Players drifted away because of a lack of progression from new content and new gear upgrades, that goes for both dungeons and raids. We had no new raid between early 2012 and late 2014, and likewise we have had no new dungeons since mid 2013. As for PvP'ers Silirrion alienated and drove away most of them long ago.

[Chaman-bourru]

I greatly prefer horizontal progression to vertical progression. When in a raid or dungeon, my goal is to defeat the given boss. Managing to do so only because the groupe / raid accumulated enough gear doesn't interest me. Nor does it interest me to see myself do X more DPS on a given boss simply because i have new gear and despite pressing the exact same buttons as before. Personnaly rather than doing the same bosses, the same way, over and over again i'd rather have an horizontal progression with challenges to tick of a list and brag about that.
Doing W2 with 6 people that's impressive, that's the kind of challenge that should be rewarded. The achievement system goes in that direction but it's still (in my opinion) too generic and too individualized. I'd love to see guild achivements there aswell.

And same goes for PvP. I'm an old fart but in the old days reaching PvP5 was just a matter of prestige. It was extremely tedious to get there, but also extremely unnecessary at the time. Now earning PvP levels is compulsory and PvP 10 has for most people nothing to do with prestige but to do with efficience. And that's moronic.
I've never really understood anyway the point of having, in PvP, a power progression that rewards winning instead of experience (read time spent pvping). Now it doesn't matter much because we have solo russian roulette style PvP so every one gets to win now and then but as a result winning is nothing to be proud about, it's not an achivement anymore.
Horizontal progression that inclueds solo progression aswell as guild progression would be terrific.

What i'd want for AoC is to be exciting again. And it doesn't necessarly goes with new content. I'd love to log on and have riddles to solve, scavanger hunts where you'd compete against other guilds/players, weekly random challenges to achieve in exchange of vanity rewards. Instead of the usual "hmmmh i need X more tokens so i'm going to do K6/minis tonight to buy a new chest piece"... depressing.

I was going to say "A lot of vets here" but i guess we reached a point were we can only say "mostly vets here".
I'm guessing most players who left the game weren't PvP 10s with full T4/5 gear. Hence focusing on a vertical progression might just be a short terme solution.
You see a relatively good amount of players comming back to AoC for it's unique lore, combat systeme, atmosphere, etc. yet still stopping after a couple of months back on the game at best. Focusing on keeping these players entertain seems to be a safer bet to me to extend AoC's ending lifespan

[Lurvi]

We had great content/changes coming the last few years imo, keep at it!

Unchained dungeons was a great success if you ask me. Im drooling so much over Onyx unchained, dare I say it, Xiba?
PvP festivals lacked some detail and polishing, but was something, comparing to Shrines of Bori, and the disaster of pug minigames that they're unable to reverse for now...
T5 raiding, sure a bit too late, and some really lame setbonuses, but something.
Some class tweaks that helped, but they need to distinguish good and bad feedback from testlive forums sooner, instead of wasting time of useless changes.

I agree 100% with Cirith when he says he doesn't see the need to add a higher tier to PvP-gear. What's the need? Horizontal progression sounds more promising in that regard. Anyways that isn't and shouldn't be a concern.

Here's something that I didn't get, and here's the issue:

Players want to progress so they have a reason to compete"

What does Cirith mean by compete? There is no competition (we have russian roulette, like Chaman says), cause we don't have any good systems/rankings or reasonable game-mode, except player organized events, which are super rare with the effort needed to make them happen. Even during PvP festivals, players struggle to organize in a 6 man party.

Please, please, please. Give codetime to the minigame queues asap, so we can sign in duos or trios at the very least. It would help the social aspect of PvP a lot. My former guild on Fury went from having people on vent/ts all the time to rarely when pug minis were introduced. Just the other day I logged onto the TS of a Fury guild that migrated alts to Crom, and it was empty, but they had plenty of members online spamming minis alone. Just to give you an idea.

PvP shouldn't be so much about progress. The current progress rendering a player useful at PvP ~4, or even below that with some mixed PvE gear is quite fine.
PvP should be about playing good PvP, and usually that happens when you're with someone. Solo queue without real ranked based balance is absolute horror. At the very least let us be social again. It will help the festivals too, with less lone wolfs running around.

[Thunderclese]

OMG YES, FINALLY Queen of the Black Coast! Use that one for sure. I would also love to see a PICT scenario in the Thunder River area. Some very good stories in that locale.

[Rathothis]

Many thanks to Slith for the interview, and to Cirith for his candour!

I do have to question the motives behind a "dungeon finder" when what really is needed is a "player finder"

I suppose the main reason why they prioritize the dungeon finder is TSW. But then again, at least we get it ported into AoC. And while I share your feeling that dungeon finder runs in other games often suffer from a lack of communication, I still befriended several people whom I met in such runs. I guess one of the key issues will be for FC to provide genuinely new players with some indication as to the difficulty of the various dungeons, so they don't sign up for things at random and get frustrated.

Re horizontal vs vertical progression, I like Cirith's stance on PvP gear. In spite of the changes last year, progression still is painfully slow unless you do what is efficient instead of doing what you want to do. Adding another layer on top would only make things worse, unless very significant changes are made both at the entry level and regarding progression speed.

Also like Cirith's candid analysis of what went wrong with Shadows of Vanaheim. Still haven't bothered to purchase that adventure pack due to lackluster reviews. But if they take Cirith's points into consideration, I might well buy the next one. Personally, I'd like to see e.g. an adventure set in Zamora - something along the lines of the tavern scene in Tower of the Elephant.

[Roragar]

I suppose the main reason why they prioritize the dungeon finder is TSW. But then again, at least we get it ported into AoC. And while I share your feeling that dungeon finder runs in other games often suffer from a lack of communication, I still befriended several people whom I met in such runs. I guess one of the key issues will be for FC to provide genuinely new players with some indication as to the difficulty of the various dungeons, so they don't sign up for things at random and get frustrated.

Yep im figuring its another shared resource that we will see appear in TSW as well as AoC along similar time frames, im not opposed to it, anything being added is a plus in my opinion, just disappointed overall I guess.

I also think one of the main things they need to address alongside the dungeon finder is the map locations of said dungeons, its all well & good with the ability to queue for the dungeons but I hope that upon completion they return port you to your location. Some games kick you out at the entrance & with AoC's lower level dungeons being as sporadic as they are Ive found that new players in Cimmeria have no idea of the Black Castle in KP etc which is very confusing.
A whole new interface for the dungeons/cooldowns tab would be extremely handy for new players.

[Mysticblood]

or some millionair playin AOC crowdfund some new content

This is the one and only reason AoC had an expansion in the first place. IMO it's not enough to get more money unless you have people like Cirth in charge, otherwise it's just spent and nothing happens.

[Melekaiah]

This was an open and honest letter.

This i like.

Cirith, if we can get something like this every 3 months, I think we will be quite happy.
Every 6 months is good too. so long as you have something actually released in each 6 month window.

I am looking forwards to t6 and t4 changes
the dungeon finder will be a great and needed addition. finally global spam will lessen and i agree it should take presedence over crafting revamp.
check my suggestion for the mentoring system on test forums. something along those lines would be a good addition while you are adding group finders.

I do hope the crafting revamp does come out.
if you do find the crafting revamp isnt really doing what y ou want. tell us what you have, and get some feedback again as to what we would like. maybe theres some compromise that can be made?

[Khaletohep]

Thanks for doing the interview - to both Slith and Cirith. More substantial news than the usual marketing stuff. Sounds pretty fine overall.

Some thoughts on single topics:
- Lower the priority of work on solo arenas. That concept bring more complaints and grief than enjoyment / customers, similar to the Rage server concept (whose failing, yes, was predicted before it was even opened, and rightly so). Balancing classes for 1:1 combat in an MMO is very hard, if possible at all. And solo arenas will force you into that corner.
- Nice to hear that the gear gap problem in PvP was finally recognized.
- Very nice to hear some honest words about the Vanaheim content problems. And yes, the concept is a good one, esp. the flexible group capacity. New adventure packs would be welcome, esp. if price and quality corresponded better. Would be nice to see some fixes on Vanaheim, though. Is there any way one can help with that?

[Kurt2013]

Thanks for doing the interview - to both Slith and Cirith. More substantial news than the usual marketing stuff. Sounds pretty fine overall.

...

Thank you both, yes. You summed it up well, what i wanted to post myself.

I would like to add just a suggestion, since i differ in Melekaiahs (and Ciriths) evaluation of the crafting revamp. Imo a dungeon finder caters mainly to the already existing crowd, it will be a nice convenience addition, but i can not envision people subbing, using the shop or coming back to play, unless a short time after, funcom will release actual content. A successfull crafting revamp can address a way larger crowd, imo...and a crowd that stopped playing too.

But as things are, let me suggest you open up a survery, faq and discussion forum (open to both f2p and subs) to explain the current plans for the crafting revamp and let players discuss it (e.g. what will change, what will stay...so far). It will cost funcom only setting up the forum and do the usual moderation...while they work on the dungeon finder. Then, when actually starting to work on the revamp, they will have a huge supply of ideas, critique, suggestions and a list of "not to do" things, probably.

The faq will also give players some time to prepare and finish some projects in the old system. Please do not do any "surprises" with such a scale of changes.