Upcoming Changes to Membership, Offline Levels, & more

[Jerohn]

You get what i mean anyway. TSW or CEx - who cares until not for AoC.

[Anubium]

Funcom, I still strongly think you should not delete all the earned offline levels. We earned those, and its a slap in the face to take them away. If I want to make a character on a pvp server or a new account, then I don't want to request and relevel up another character when I've already done three bears, two demos, two tosses, two poms, two guardians, one hox, one conq, one dt, one ranger, one barb, one assassin and two necros since I started the game. I have one free spot right now, its being held by a lvl 5 demo on fury to check out global if I get bored enough (rarely) on crom.

So I really don't need to relevel up again. Especially since the third bear was made for purist achievements and was kept because the WB first box dropped the portent I used for a black dragon pet.

I can see not continuing the offline levels being given out for subscriptions but am totally against having you remove them.

What is your rational for removing the offlines anyway? The only reason I can see is that you want us to buy a lvl 80 premade character and I have no intention of doing that. I would like to keep my offlines that I've already earned.

[krippa]

Why veterans searching so hard for reasons to give TSW team their money? Everything you pay to FC will go to TSW and everyone knows that. Why veterans cant just get it as a gift - free AoC?

Ehh, even TSW development is slow. Most money goes towards new projects.

[Belsvard]

Why veterans searching so hard for reasons to give TSW team their money? Everything you pay to FC will go to TSW and everyone knows that. Why veterans cant just get it as a gift - free AoC?

AoC still exists because is profitable, if its not, they will shut it down (and they'll probably do it after CEx)

[Cappa]

i want my legendary spider mount for year sub !

[Kurt2013]

Now that the challenges are on TL, i am sure funcom can answer a few questions about them (especially if they think they add to the play value of the game):

- are they handled like quests or achievements or something completely different (e.g. will i need a certain number of free slots in the journal to even get them via a script, will there be npcs to manually get them or are they in a seperate gui like achievements)?
- will there be differences in rewards/options/handling between f2p and subs?
- will they be spammed like the shop?
- will thex include lottery rewards (like worldboss) or player chooseable rewards (like quests)?
. how realistically doable and how dependand on other players are these challenges? Finding a simple 6 man group is close to impossible on fury now and takes a lot more time than even a month ago on crom now. So, is progress there linear, capped at a population dependant level like your main story is (e.g. you are forced to raid) ?
- will there be different challenges depending on server type (pvp/pve)?
- will there be charbound challenges AND accountbound challenges (like with claims) ? Or just charbound? (like quests) Or are all unlocked (once done by a char, like purist achievement) for the account?
- will the rewards go to claim or inventory? Will they stack up (like some boxes) or not (like some potions)?

And to the testers:
- Since they market the daily logins and daily challenges as part of membership revamp, do you think they are a positive or negative change? Can they compensate in any way for the loss of funcom points and loss of vanity gear options in the shop? (access to gilding tokens)

[Texan615]

I still hope like hell we continue to get our monthly Funcom points, scaled up accordingly due to the price inflation on crit/dmg 4 hr pots.

For example, it costs $50 for 6,000 points, or $.0083 per point. I used to buy a blue crit and blue dmg pot at the same time for our raids, at 45 pts each, so 90 points total, or the equivalent of $0.75.

Now, doing that same thing would cost me 375 points total, or $3.13. Yes, the new 4hr pots are slightly more powerful, but worth over 4 times the previous amount, I think not.

In a month I would buy probably 5 of each type of 4 hr pot for our raids, which would be $3.75. However doing so now would cost me $15.63 a month, an increase of $11.88. This is an increase that's more than my monthly sub now.

Losing the 200 points we receive every month makes the situation even worse, at a minimum we should receive 800 points per month just to keep up with the pot price inflation so we can continue to buy.

Right now, I and many others have completely stopped buying 4 hr blue pots from the store because of this ridiculous situation. However the sad thing is that it only takes 1 person to buy these pots with the new prices to offset 4 people that no longer buy them due to the increased prices. So unfortunately Funcom probably is seeing increased revenue, which will only reinforce bad behavior, but keep in mind you are doing so while pissing off many of your customers, some of which have already quit and more will probably follow unless you do the right thing you know you should do.

And don't take away our offline levels we already have. I'm ok with no longer having offline levels accumulate, but don't take what something we already have. I don't recall seeing anything about veteran tokens, but don't take those away as well.

[ErikT]

I don't recall seeing anything about veteran tokens, but don't take those away as well.

For veteran tokens they have said that we will no longer earn any new ones, but we will keep and be able to use any that we already have.

[Spreadicus]

I've been watching things from afar for awhile. Waiting to see if anything changes from the status quo or waiting to see if the proverbial plug gets pulled. I have to say that opening up all the playfields to players who bought your content is a huge improvement to the free to play model. I am happy about this but it is just a small step in the right direction.

Not making a TL;DR so don't read if you can't be bothered. This post is for the devs anyway. the people who have the power to change anything in this game.

I have no opinion on the xp bonuses, as many have said they don't benefit veteran players who are maxed out. I don't honestly know how to appease players in that category. Once you hit the ceiling this game has there isn't much left to do but make a new toon or stand around khemi waiting for minis. There is world pvp which is very enjoyable at max level end game.

The increased journal capacity is a welcome change but I think you should just make that unlimited. How much space can text data possibly consume in an sql database? Can't remember how many times I had to clear out old quests to get new ones. It's annoying. Stop making us do that.

You want people to come back to this game? Well so do I. So allow me to outline a few steps to consider since you all seem to be taking things a bit more seriously regarding feedback which is good. I have given this game a negative review on steam due to the issues it has/had but i'm not unwilling to change that if i see more of this sort of positive change.

Below is the steam review I wrote in December 2015

Update 12-2015:
I have changed my recommendation from "recommended" to 'not recommended"

I'm what you would have called an AOC Loyalist, playing since launch and all. But I have issue with some of the practices of this company. They were trying for awhile but seem to have given up. It is not the original dev team mind you. They were just handed this project and told to figure it out basically. And they are failing.

I will give an honest review of the state of the game from my point of view.

FIRST OFF IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING THIS GAME FOR YOUR KID IT HAS HALF FRONTAL NUDITY (BREASTS). ITS MA RATED!

PVE side
You can level to 80 but along the way you will have a very hard time finding groups for any low level dungeons even on the most populated server, the crom pve server. Unles you play on EU prime time. They have a higher population. I had to power level my buddy to 80 due to all the missed content because of lack of groups. At end game (Level 80) you can do 6 man dungeons which aren't bad and are quite rewarding. and you will be able to do 24 man raids.. If you can find a raid.. on Fury PvP raids are rare or non existent , on Crom PvE they are somewhat more frequent.

The 24 man raid.
These generally consist of 4 groups of 6 combined to form a 24 man "raid". Most bosses are tank and spank time sinks with need/greed loot rolls that are open to all regardless of class. This leads to ninja looting on occasion. Most raids will be very controlling in dispersal of loot. There are on average 2-3 pieces of epic gear that drop per raid boss and raid instances can vary in how many bosses. from 1 to 8. Raids can take a few hours to complete so set aside some spare time on raid night, especially progression raids. expect a lot of elitist attitude. and don't be surprised if you come away completely empty handed.. a lot... I raided for 6 months once to get a piece of tier 2 gear. PvE Can be very Grindy.

The 6 man dungeon
There are many variations of these. from revamped low level dungeons called "unchained mode" to the khitai expansion pack dungeons. They are mostly quick and like i said very rewarding. I would recommend these starting out for quick epic gear. Problem is you have to be subscribed to play most content in the game so dont go in expecting a free ride, this game is hardly "free to play". You will find yourself having a difficult time getting to max level as a free to play member.

Free to play model
Very poor. you are limited to 10 gold currency, can do no dungeon content aside from low level dungeons and a couple of tier 1 raids. Not even content that you paid for. You CAN do all the pvp content. Festival,minigames and world pvp. These guys could learn a lot from the other dev groups out there using f2p successfully but they won't.

Global chat
A fun time if you have a thick skin.. Think barrens chat in WoW. This is worse. But they do ban people for blatant non political correctness like using the N word or spewing homophobic slurs etc. I rather enjoy it. This alone kept me coming back for years.

The PvP Festival
The pvp festival, which pvp players enjoy more "often" than our pve counterparts, consists of daily pvp zones that switch around at approx. 8pm est every day to a new zone. In these zones all pvp is encouraged and guards will not intervene! this is great if you're like me, bad if you're not... plus you get pvp daily quests you can do to get pvp xp which is ok. We enjoy them more often because they happen daily on the PvP server, weekly on the PvE server.

The monthly PvP event.
This feature takes place on the 3rd week of every month starting on Tuesdays and lasting for 7 days. It takes place in one randomly picked zone (it cycles through 5 zones) and you and your friends must fight for objectives such as control domination, kill count, and the like. the rewards are pretty good. This event draws crowds of old and new players alike so get into a group/guild for it. They have group dm, solo dm, group domination. and chosen of ghullah in which you become an epic boss and try to score as many kills as you can before you die . They are at random locations in the zone and happen every 20 mins or so. There is no real notification system,you'll just have to keep your eyes open.

As for the rest of PvP, You have open world pvp which comes with ganking (Fury) and all that fun and now mostly happens in the daily pvp zone due to there being no guards. You have minigames you can queue up for which consist of 3 x 6v6 ctf maps, 1 x 6v6 dm map where you can smash the enemy spawn and end the match quickly and 1 x 12v12 domination map which half your team goes afk most of the time because win or lose you still get a token which you need to buy pvp gear. But you get more if you win. Problem is there jut aren't enough people left playing to even get minigames or world pvp.

PvP Balance
Don't hold your breath. It is non existent and will remain that way.

The minigame queue which i will describe below is horrible. The "balance algorithm" they supposedly installed in 2010 or so cannot seem to balance teams. So you'll end up on a good team or a bad team. One team will have all the high ranking pvp players and healers while your team will be all low ranking players and no heals, aka cattle. This is an ongoing problem.

Minigames
The thing is, in age of conan you CAN'T join pvp minigames with a group or a friend/friends. Unless you are doing a full 6v6 tournament like a premade match and you have 2 full groups ready to go.. The public queue is completely random. You CANNOT decide who is on your team. This will induce episodes of rage. Granted there is a 50% chance you'll get your friend/s on your team.. They will never change this aspect. We have tried and failed to convince them for years that making it a random queue is a bad idea. They are afraid of premade stomping pugs which to be honest i would rather deal with.

PvP Gear dependance is fairly high in pvp but having high gear wont make you good. AAs (Alternate Advancement Feats - do your own research) also play a role. They have lowered the requirements to obtain pvp gear significantly so it's easier than ever to get in the game. By pvp 3-4 you are already a pvp contender and it took me and my buddy less than a week and a half of steady pvp.

Sieges (48v48)
No one sieges. Forget about this aspect. If you try to siege a battlekeep you'll have a consortium of guilds allying to defend it from you. Not to mention it costs a fortune in game currency to launch an attack. Everyone wants a battlekeep but no one wants to be hassled defending it. With the way the system is set up, who can blame them.

Expansion packs
The expansion pack "Rise of the Godslayer" requires an ACTIVE SUB to use its content even if you buy it you still must subscribe monthly to use 75% of it. So don't buy it if you aren't going to subscribe. They fail to mention this. However you do gain access to the alternate advancement tree by owning this and the khitan race. you can also venture into the starting zone of khitai. That's about it. YOU DON'T GET AA FEATS TREES IF YOU DON'T OWN THIS EX PACK
Other "ex packs" also require a sub like Turan and Dragon Spine.

Guilds and progression
It takes a long time to get off the ground and the way the system in this game is set up, it rewards large guilds not small ones. You can make a small guild but you'll never get anywhere without a guild city and those take time, money, lots of manpower and resources. To put it bluntly a guild consisting of say 200+ active unique members farming resource nodes an hour a day would take 6 months to a year to build a guild city to full tier 3. . Some people sell these guild cities that are abandoned... I recommend buying one in this case. Again this game rewards zerg numbers. small guilds get pooped on usually. There is no alliance system and no faction system. You cannot kill guildies but you can kill anyone else.


If you like pvp i suggest you don't bother with this game as it will only ruin your day and make you want to put a fist through your monitor, however if you insist then try Fury pvp, Rage is deadlocked.

I'm so happy I quit this game.

Here I will outline some basic steps to get people back into the game in my view. First and foremost. Send out an email detailing positive changes to all accounts, Let people know that good things are coming

1. Remove "random only" queue for public minigames - It's time to acknowledge that the "balance algorithm" doesn't work as intended and is just a bug in the game at this point. This is a controversial topic and there are people on both sides of the proverbial fence I understand this. Anyone who actually enjoys pvp and doesn't do it just to farm tokens wants this reverted back to the old system. Or perhaps a compromise. Enable group queue on Fury pvp only. Leave Crom the way it is. I could live with that personally. I know it has been said that the code is too complex but it's your game. How can you ever expect to be taken seriously in the industry if you don't know your own code and can't figure it out?

2. Equalize all gear in minigames like was promised before for the unchained mode minis. Make it so that gear no longer matters in minigames, that anyone from a level 10 to level 80 being pvp 0 to a 10 will be able to battle on equal footing gear/level/stats wise. Feats and AA of course should still matter. What i mean is, get rid of tiered queues at 20 level increments. Just make one queue and equalize all gear to a standard set for each class.

3. Get the cross server tech working that you promised us. - this would go a long way to bringing back old players who got bored due to no activity on their respective servers. It would also negate the need for future merges.

4. Lower the cost of siege warfare - Trebuchets are outrageously expensive. This makes sieging prohibitive and undesirable. Instead why not allow architects to craft trebs? put it on a timer of like 7 days per stack of 100 plus some base materials and a few gold. Who wants to spend hundreds of gold on a siege anymore? nobody.

5. Add a dungeon queue similar to the one in wow - I know that this feature is not popular with wow vets but it is useful in that even vets and maxed level players can team up with lowbie players to complete older dungeons for stuff. Most players in this game who are leveling up can't get groups to do the dungeon content and usually have to resort to begging a level 80 to run them through it holding their hand. It isn't fun for anyone. I had to power level my friend when I leveled a new ton with him because by the time we got to kesh we had hit a level ceiling and could not progress because we missed all the early dungeons due to no groups. - i know this would be a lot but it would be worth it.

6. Nerf necro dots - lol worth a try

7. Reduce requirements to build guild cities - This game no longer has the population to support mining so many resources. How can you expect anyone to bother with this system anymore? It is discouraging to new players to say the very least.

8. Implement a vote kick feature at the least for minigames. This would give players the ability to police themselves and get rid of undesirables who go afk or join just to troll people and contribute nothing valuable to the team. A vote kick should also come with a cowards shame cooldown so they can't just rejoin.

9. Enable vanity gear in all areas of the game - no brainer right here. No other game restricts the use of vanity gear. People make arguments against this I know but the silent majority would not mind at all. Frankly if you can't tell what a persons class is on first glance then you need to do more homework. The fact that I can't use my hard earned vanity gear in minis and pvp zones is , quite frankly, infuriating.

10. Get more seasonal events going. Like a St. Pattys day event at some random tavern where you have to go fetch kegs of beer for a leprechaun and have drinking contests and drunken brawling! How about being creative? Or just steal ideas from other games. I won't tell if you don't.

11. If you want people to actively subscribe then offer better incentives. Give us free funcom store points for every month of active sub. Doesn't have to be alot, 500 would be fair. I would consider subbing again If i were actively playing (which i am not currently but we will see) and that was part of the offer.

12. Add incentive to doing House of Crom. This dungeon had a lot of potential but it felt like wasted potential. The only thing it's good for is farming an alt to get a vanity outfit. The gear drops in there are terrible compared to what it takes to go in there and farm it.

13. Fix the timer for the daily pvp event zone switch. It currently switches to a new random zone at 8 pm eastern time!! and this is US prime time! This causes pvp to die out instantly in the world pvp zone. Because in order to continue having fun, everyone now has to migrate to a new zone. It is annoying and it turns people off. Adjust this zone switch to a later time. And add more zones to the cycle. Maybe even some more types of events like open world capture the skull. That sounds fun to me i don't know about you.

14. Finish the gem/crafting revamp

15. Maintain a heavy presence on social media - I see a post from Funcom once in a blue moon if even on twitter and never on Reddit. Those are free public platforms that companies use every day to promote themselves. Is it really too much to bother with?

16. Fix issue with saving settings on logout - This has to be a very annoying thing. Apparently it worked fine in the beginning of AoC but somewhere along the way someone decided to break it and it never got fixed. So now when players try to save their settings, they log on the next time to find their settings have not saved.. Please fix .

Will add more later If I am able. But those are my recommendations or as we say in my industry, "Items for consideration" so Just consider this feedback from an old school vet that misses this game.

p.s. fighting pets in an arena? smh..

p.p.s if any of my old comrades want my steam to stay in touch, pm me.

Edit: Update

[ossur]

Important: Offline Levels are being completely removed from the game once the new membership system goes live. We’re aiming at the end of June or shortly after; this is subject to change, but you should use your offline levels by then, as they will disappear after the changes go live!

What!? I have almost 150 offline points to spend, how do I do it to the end of june?