Elder Scrolls Online Thoughts Part I

Obviously, the big upcoming MMO release is Elder Scrolls Online.  I had not paid much attention to it during development as I really was not ready for the disappointment that I just knew would happen.  I have played all of the Elder Scrolls games from the start.  Even with a bit of disappointment with Oblivion, I classify the Elder Scrolls games as the best single-player RPGs this side of the original Baldur’s Gate.

I figured they would totally screw up an Elder Scrolls MMO by using the WoW template for everything and I just was not prepared for that.  Hot key combat, quest hubs, standard character classes and raids to me is the anti-thesis of what made the Elder Scrolls games great.

So, did they screw it up?  Yes and no.  Read on for some impressions.

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The Fate of AoC and Where I am Headed Now

So, I have decided to put down Age of Conan for the time being.  The PvE is still awesome, maybe one of the best around PvE wise.  Tons of stuff to do at the level cap, interesting instances and lots of faction grinds.  Really not much different than WoW in that respect, with better graphics, a more visceral approach and a different combat system.

But, I am just about PvE’d out.  I like to PvE and PvP in my MMOs.  Mix it up if you will but AoC’s PvP is dead in the water.  It should be fun.  It really should be.  Most of the pieces are in place.  A great combat system, mini-games, sieges, PvP areas….its all there.  But is just is not implemented well.

The mini-games pop so infrequently that you can go for hours without seeing one.  Then, when they do finally pop, you find yourself against a twinked pre-made that proceeds to obliterate your poor PuG in humiliating fashion.  Then its back to the queue for another four hours and the cycle continues.  No fun.

The PvP areas and Shrines of Bori are a complete mess.  Basically you PvE to get PvP levels.  There are people in game that are the highest PvP level in the game that have never killed anyone in PvP.  Ever. How wrong is that?  It is, frankly, depressing.

To top it all off, hacks are bad in AoC.  There is a program called AoCbuddy that is used frequently by players in the game.  It allows for teleports, speed-hacks and radar.  Apparently it has been around for a long, long time, yet Funcom has not done anything to address it.  I know almost every MMO has hacks but I have never seen one so blatantly used as I have AOCBuddy.

Put all that together and it makes for a bleak PvP experience.  Its very sad because when I am able to get into a PvP fight with someone around my level and not using hacks, it is incredibly fun.  So are the PuG vs. PuG mini-games I have been in.  The game absolutely cries out for meaningful PvP but Funcom keeps ignoring the PvP’ers.

Long story short, until they fix the PvP, I am gone.  I love the PvE but it is not enough to keep my subbed.  I need some variety.

So, what am I doing now?  Well, I found Global Agenda.  This was a game I completely ignored when it was released.  It was nowhere on my radar and I can’t even remember when it was released.  However, last week I was looking through You-Tube for some WAR PvP videos and I found that one of the guys who released some of the best Warrior Priest videos had quit WAR and was now making Global Agenda videos.  I was intrigued so I clicked on one and was instantly impressed by the fast-paced combat.

I downloaded the demo and, soon after, bought the game.  Gonna have a full review up tomorrow, as well as a PvP video I am working on.  Stay tuned!

Of PvP: WoW and AoC.

In one of my earlier posts about WoW the comments veered off into a discussion about which game, WoW or AoC,  had the more skill-based combat system especially in PvP.  Pitrelli contends that AoC is “who spams most buttons wins”.  After playing a melee character extensively in AoC and playing WoW for 5 years, I have to totally disagree.

Before I go any further, let me get this out of the way; I do not dislike WoW’s combat system. Matter of fact, I love WoW’s combat system.  I have always said that WoW is a MMO that plays like a FPS.  Fast, responsive and tight.  It has a great feel.

Now, back to the discussion.  Pitrelli had two major gripes in the discussion we had:

1.  Combat in AoC comes down to “spamming buttons” due to his perceived lack of counters or reactives.

2.  Combat in AoC is slower.

Let’s take this one at a time.  First, let’s take a look at the “spamming” argument. For sake of argument, I am going to use only melee characters for this discussion.  The casters in both games play very similarly.  Melee is where the difference lies.

In melee the most important factor is the range.  After all, if you can not get close to your target, you can not do damage to them as melee.  In WoW if you are not in range and you use an ability you get a simple message that you are not in range and nothing happens.  The ability does not fire.  Nothing gained, nothing lost.  I have not lost rage/mana/energy.

In AoC the experience is totally different.  If I am not in range and I use an ability, the ability does fire.  It goes off but I gain nothing because my target is not in range.  This is bad.  Why?  Because when the ability fires it goes on cooldown, it uses my stamina and it locks me in place for a second or more while the animation plays.  Obviously, you do not want this to happen.  You want to make sure you are in range when you use that ability.  Missed combos can be death in AoC.

What is the result of these two systems?  In WoW, when I played my feral druid and was attempting to attack a mage, I simply spammed Claw (or whatever) until I was in range.  No harm done.  Once I was in range the ability went off and I went to the next one.  In AoC I can not do that.  I must be much more deliberate with my ability usage.  I do not finish a combo unless I know I am going to hit the target.  I am very deliberate when I go through my attack sequences and I spam a lot less.

But what about the contention that it is a spam-fest because of lack of counters or reactive abilities?

Completely incorrect.

Counters and reactive abilities are very important in both WoW and AoC.  In WoW, silences, stuns, knockbacks and other counters abound.  Don’t want that Priest to get off a heal?  The rogue kicks him.  Don’t want the shaman to get out of rang?  Death-grip him back.  WoW is full of counters like these and it is one reason WoW has engaging PvP.

Guess what?  AoC has just as many counters.  Already on my Conqueror, not even level 40, I have a silence, two knock-downs, a “bubble” and a charge.  As I level I get another bubble and a few other reactive tools to add to my arsenal.

Pitrelli’s second argument, about combat being slow, is harder to argue.  I believe the perceived slowness is more an unfamiliarity with the combat system because it plays so much differently than any other MMO out there.  Because you have to be much more deliberate with your key presses than you do in WoW, it can feel slower especially in the early levels before you get a lot of abilities.  However, once you get higher, combat becomes frenetic.  There is much more to keep track of in AoC than in WoW.  Range is much more important, as is position.  Combine that with moving through your combos, active blocking, counters and your double-tap buffs and combat can get really crazy.

I will not argue that combat in AoC is better than WoW.  That is a completely subjective opinion.  Pitrelli, and anyone else who has played AoC, has every right to say that they prefer WoW combat to combat found in AoC.  However, AoC’s combat is more complex and it is a more “skill-based” system than WoW.  Some people will like this, some won’t.  Some people will like the complexity but dislike the feel of AoC combat and that is fine too.  I will only say that it is nice to see a MMO break away from the standard MMO combat that we have seen since EQ.

For that, I thank Funcom.

A Most Productive Day

I had the day off from work today and it turned into one of the most fun and productive days I have had in AoC.  I started off around level 22 on my conqueror and was finishing up some quests in Old Tarantia before heading off to the next zone.  I ended up at level 30, having completed scores of quests in the Gateway to Khitai zone.  Not only did I gain eight levels but I had tremendous fun doing it.

Getting from Old Tarantia to the Gateway of Khitai requires a bit of travel and sight-seeing.  From the docks of Old Tarantia, one mus take a ship to Khemi, the capital city of Stygia and from there a ship to Khitai.  The ship to Khitai requires either expenditure of coin or a promise to help protect the ship and caravan on the journey.  Being short on coin, I signed up to protect the caravan.  Hey, free passage is free passage, right?

My Conqueror at the start of his Khitain adventures

Of course, along the way we find ourselves in a canyon area, which is the perfect place for an ambush.  I was enlisted by the Caravan leader to earn my keep and scout the canyon before the caravan proceeded.  Inevitably, I found myself pinned down by archers in the canyon and had to scale the canyon walls to kill each one in turn.  After succeeding in defeating the would-be brigands, I returned to the caravan and we completed the journey.

The first steps in Khitai are the perfect example of just how brutal the Conan world can be.  The first quest area is an ambushed trading caravan pinned down by enemy forces.  Your initial quests are from this caravan, as you fight off waves of attackers, find supplies for the sieged caravan or trek to the Great Wall to ask for assistance.  The quests are nothing extraordinary and are along the same lines of any other quest-based MMO but the story, the atmosphere and, of course, the graphics set AoC apart from other MMOs.  This is a barbaric world, filled with dead bodies, half-eaten corpses and vile death all around.  It is 100% Conan.

The adult-rating holds true in Godslayer

After helping out the caravan, I made my way to a small village surrounded by enemies.  This is the next quest hub and sends you on various quests to help the village residents.  It was here that I was treated to my first gank in Khitai.  Matter of fact, the entire evening was a solid mix of PvE and PvP.  I intend to post more in-depth about my PvP adventures later this evening or tomorrow, so let me get back to the remainder of the evening.

I quested for a couple of hours solo which got me to level 24 or so.  About this time I was invited to a group by a Priest of Mitra.  Figuring a Conqueror and PoM (healing class) was a good combination, I took him up on his offer.  I am glad I did.  For the next six hours we made our way across the zone, finishing quest after quest.  From killing undead Samurai to killing Yak and feeding their meat to a dog, we did everything.  And we had tons of fun doing it.

At the end of the night I joined his guild.  The guild is very small and brand new, they do not even have a city yet, but I figure it will be fun to help grow a small guild and see one built up from scratch.  I look forward to seeing a guild city built and the guild grow into a raiding guild.  It has been awhile since I have been a part of that growth process and I miss it.

We picked up another healer along the way, a Tempest of Set, that I uncouthly killed after mistaking him for a player who had attacked us earlier.  I rezzed him (yes, a tank class with a rez AND a battle rez!) and he joined us for the rest of the evening.

By the time I logged off I had reached level 30 and completed the first set of Khitain gear.  This gear has a totally different look than the other gear in the game and keeps with the Asian feel of the expansion.  I look positively samurai-like at the moment, which is a nice change of pace from other MMOs.

We also set up a time tomorrow night to venture into the first six-man instance in AoC, the Black Castle.  With two healers and a tank, we should not have a problem finding three more folks to head into the castle with us.  I am extremely excited to experience my first “dungeon” in AoC and I will be writing about it more tomorrow night.

I am going to leave you with a few more pictures from my initial taste of Khitai.  I hope you enjoy them!

Khitain vista

The zone is huge and, yes, you can get to the towers back there!

First glimpse of the Great Wall

The Samurai look I ended the night with.

A merry band of travelers: Tempest of Set, Conqueror and Priest of Mitra

Finally an Expansion Done Right!

Forget the fact that Godslayer finally opens up AoC and makes it feel like a real wide-open MMO, instead of the small zones from the original.

Forget the fact that Godslayer has tons of fun quests to work through.

Forget the fact that Godslayer adds a many new instances as well as a couple of raids.

Forget the fact that Godslayer has phenomenal Asian inspired art, armor and weapon design.

Forget all that.  Those facts make Godslayer a very good expansion.  But none of them, one or all together, make Godslayer a great expansion.

What makes Godslayer a great expansion is one simple thing:

They did not raise the level cap.

Finally a MMO developer takes a queue from Mythic and DAoC and does not raise the level cap.

HALLE-FREAKIN-LLUJAH!!!!!

Finally another expansion that I do not have to level for 10 more levels before I hit the endgame…..again.

Finally another expansion that does not completely and totally invalidate everything you have done for the past two years.

Finally another expansion that allows old content to coexist alongside new content and allows it to stay relevant.

Finally.

I loved the way DAoC did their expansions.  No level cap increase, more content and other ways to advance your character.  People still did older dungeons and content right alongside the newer shinier stuff.  DAoC’s character advancement could best be described as horizonal rather than vertical.

This is what Godslayer does for AoC.  Yeah, you have the alternate advancement thingy for further advancing your character but it does not invalidate the older content at all.  People are still doing it as well as the newer stuff.

Ever hear anyone look for a group for Blackwing Lair after TBC came out?  Nope.  Not unless it was for nostalgia purposes.  The gear in there was for level sixties for godsake!  Why would you want any of that stuff when you were 70, much less 80?!?

Same thing happened to Kharazan, Black Temple, Sunwell Plateau, Gruul’s and Serpentshrine.  No one does them anymore.  Tons of content forgotten and never experienced again.  Thousands of new players who will never get to experience it.  Wasted content.

And it does not just apply to raid content but to smaller dungeons as well.  Sure, people still do Deadmines, Scarlet Monastery, Zul’Farrak and the other low-mid level instances but as soon as they hit 58 they head straight to Outlands.  UBRS, Scholo, BRD and other 58-60 content is mostly forgotten.  Same for level 68-70 stuff.  People head straight to Northrend instead.  The gear is better there for godsake!

But not in AoC.  Not with this expansion.  Tonight I saw people looking for groups for the level 80 Godslayer instances.  Tons of people, in fact.  But I also saw a ton of people looking for Onyx, Aztel’s and the 24-man original raids.

You do not need to increase the level cap in an expansion to keep people playing.  Despite Blizzard’s insistence on doing so.  Give players new ways to improve their characters, interesting areas to explore, new gear that does not need to be more powerful as long as it looks freaking cool and we will continue to play.

DAoC showed everyone that 10 years ago.  Somewhere along the line we forgot.

The best laid plans, a wrench and all that….

So, yeah.

I had originally meant to come back and talk about my final class decision in AoC the very next day after the post.  However, due to a family thing, I have not been home for the last few days.  Indeed, I have either been at work or the taking care of some stuff since then.  Luckily, it looks like everything is going to be back to normal at least semi-soon.

When I left I knew I would not be back for a bit so I grabbed my laptop.  I figured I could get some AoC time in while sitting around at the hospital.  Yeah, that doesn’t work so well.  AoC and my laptop do not mix.  It can run it, albeit with most of the setting turned down, but the keyboard and AoC’s combo system do not play nicely together.  I played for about an hour total and got nothing out of it but frustration.

So, in desperation, I started looking for a game to play temporarily.  After perusing my single-player games, I found nothing I wanted to play. I finished Dragon’s Age.  I finished Oblivion and Fallout 3.  I didn’t especially like Neverwinter Nights 2.  Meh.  Nothing to play on the single player front.

I briefly (very briefly!) flirted with downloading the WoW trial, just to have something, anything to do.  I squashed that pretty quick, I am proud to say!  Good thing I have grown a resistance to that disease over the past year!

Looking through my e-mail, I came across the latest Warhammer Online Newsletter.  I have not played WAR in almost a year and a half now.  Hadn’t even really kept up with the changes in the game.  WAR burnt me so bad that I didn’t even want to hear about it.  This was the MMO to end all MMOs for me.  And it crashed.  And burned.  And insulted me while it did so.

I was a closed beta tester for WAR.  I was in before the keep system was and I saw all the faults and potential problems with the game.  The lack of depth, the poor combat, the poor engine and all the other problems WAR has had since release.  But, it was Mythic, damn it, Mythic!! The company that had produced my favorite MMO of all time, DAoC, they could surely make this game something special.  They did not.  They failed and part of my MMO fandom died with it.

But now I found myself staring at the Newsletter, unable to play AoC, and looking at the free ten day “Welcome Back” promotion.  My laptop could probably handle this, I thought, and I have nothing better to do.  So, I loaded it up and back into WAR I went.

The game has certainly changed.  For one, the performance is eons above what it used to be.  Even on my laptop it runs better than it did in the olden days.  I have since fired it up on my desktop once and not only does it run better, but it looks better too.  Sharper, with more fancy lighting.  I am not sure what they did to it but it doesn’t even look like the same engine.  The graphics in the beta and release days were okay, maybe a tad bit better than WoW, but not much.  The game now looks phenomenal.  Not up to the AoC standards but sharp just the same.

The first thing I noticed was that there were only four servers left.  Four!?!?! There were over 60 at launch!  How could a game falter so much?  How could it falter so much and still be going?  Luckily, the servers that are left are still well-populated.  At least the one I rolled a new character on was popping.  There was no wait time for Scenarios and I was able to jump right in to one immediately.

I imagine I will have so more impressions over the next few days and, no, I have not quit AoC.  Indeed, I played it this morning a bit and am still enjoying it a lot.  I am strongly considering re-rolling on a PvE server in AoC.  There are just too many twinks at low level in AoC and cheaters who rely on that AoC cheat program.  I may look at making AoC my PvE game and WAR my PvP game.  I can still PvP in AoC at endgame and in mini-games.

A Journey to a Decision

As detailed a bit in my last post, I have abandoned my Bear Shaman at level thirty.  Not because he was not fun nor because he was not powerful, to the contrary he was a very fun class and quite powerful, but simply because I have not mastered the Age of Conan mêlée system enough to handle a class as complex as the Bear Shaman.  I felt lost at times, especially during PvP.

So, I have decided to slow it down a bit and pick an easier class.  I will come back to my Bear Shaman soon enough and hopefully be well-versed enough in the game that I can play a bit more effectively.  To that end, I needed to pick a class to play and concentrate on.  I needed to find one that was fun and easier to pick up.  One that would take me to eighty and beyond.  I spent the last week trying various classes and leveling each of them.  I have finally come to a decision but first I want to detail each class I played and my experiences with each.

Tempest of Set

Leveled to eighteen

Strengths:

• Class is a healer so is always in need.
• Despite being a healer, the class can put out a lot of DPS.
• Easy to pick up and play.

Weaknesses:

• Incredibly boring to play at first.
• A bit squishy at low levels.
• No combo system.

Conclusion:

The ToS would be a fantastic class in WoW.  Or LotRO.  Or Aion.  Or any other MMO.  But in AoC it lacks the combo system, which is the single biggest differentiator between AoC and any other MMO.  Other than the healing, which is AoE like the Bear Shaman, the class would feel right at home in WoW.  Now this is not necessarily a bad thing and the class does get better as you level, but at low levels it is very boring.  You have basically two attacks; a lightning strike and a charged blast.  Both have the same animations and do single target damage with “splash” damage.  This makes the class very dull at low levels.

I know this changes at around thirty when you get “Stormfield”, which is an AoE centered around your character but at low levels it is very underwhelming.  The melee system in AoC seems so alive and this, by contrast, just seems “same-old-same-old”.

Assassin

Leveled to 20

Strengths:

• A lot of damage.  Very quickly.
• High aptitude for stealth.
• Did I mention a lot of damage?

Weaknesses:

• Freud would have a field day with this but daggers are very underwhelming.  Just not big and mean enough!
• Daggers also have the smallest reach of any weapon in the game.
• Not a heck of a lot of survivability.  Hit and run.

Conclusions:

The Assassin was a very fun class to play.  He pulls off the “stealth” thing better than the WoW Rogue and without feeling like a “cheap” class as the Rogue does with his stun-locks.  They put out a lot of damage, very quickly but are also very squishy.  Hit and run is the name of the game with the Assassin.  However, despite the potential of high damage, I had problems with control.  Daggers have no reach at all, meaning that you have to be right on top of your target to damage them.  No problem in PvE but in PvP I would finish a combo only to find I had wasted it on thin air.  While not as complex as the Bear Shaman, that alone made the Assassin a very challenging class to play.

Herald of Xotli

Leveled to 20

Strengths:

• Melee combat with stellar AoE damage.
• You get to turn into a demon.
• Best of both worlds; magic and mêlée.
• You have a huge two-hander (Freud again?) to deal out damage.
• You are a raving lunatic running around with a burning sword!

Weaknesses:

• Light armor, so very squishy.
• Only one truly viable feat tree.
• Demon form bugs a bit and you change back only to find your character is now bald!

Conclusions:

I had a blast on the HoX.  Charging into battle with a flaming monster of a sword, breathing fire and turning into a demon.  You can’t beat that!  The two-hander provided reach so the mêlée system was easier to pick up and the fire breath AoE was devastating.  I really, really liked this class.  The AoE made the class easier to play even though it used the combo system.  All in all, I really enjoyed the HoX.

There were a few downsides however.  First, there is only one viable Feat tree.  The viable one centers on the magic side of HoX and the demon-form mêlée tree is, by comparison, very underpowered.  All of the must have feats are on one side, making the other side anathema to HoX players.  This is very unfortunate and will hopefully be rectified soon.  Secondly, the demon form will bug occasionally causing graphic glitches and disappearing hair.  Not a big deal but irksome at times.

Ranger

Leveled to 19

Strengths:

• Lots of DPS.
• A very good stealth class.
• Tracking.
• Familiar feel.
• Powerful in the beginning.

Weaknesses:

• OP in the beginning but levels off by endcap.
• Lots of them around.
• Not neccessarily needed for groups.  Do good DPS but other classes can fill that niche.

Conclusion:

I felt right at home with the Ranger.  The class uses the combo system that mêlée does but still feels like a hunter/ranger type class.  Having played a hunter in DAoC and a hunter in WoW, I felt completely within my element.  Rangers are the king of low level PvP.  Their stealth combined with their ability to track make them excellent in PvP and ganking.  Their ability to use crossbows and bows also give them a number of playstyles and feat specs to choose from.

They start out like gangbusters in the early game and are certainly on top of the heap for low level PvP, however I have read that they come back to earth by level 70 or so and end up as a middle of the pack class.  Nothing wrong with that really and I have heard that talented Rangers can still defeat any class out there.

I also like that you get to use the combo system while still being ranged.  It certainly gives the Ranger an edge for me when compared to the ToS or the other ranged classes in the game.  He is different enough to stand out for this reason alone.

Conqueror

Level to 20

Strengths:

• This class and the barbarian are the classes the mêlée system was designed for, total annihilation with multiple weapon types.
• Lots of Armor and defense with good damage.
• Lots of group and personal buffs.
• Complex without being overwhelming.

Weaknesses:

• Not DPS but not a full tank either.  Can not use a shield.
• Totem-like flag system needs fights to stay in one area for full impact.

Conclusion:

As you can see, not a lot of weaknesses here.  The conqueror is an extremely fun class that feels at home in just about any situation. I could jump right into the mêlée in PvP and feel like I was actually doing something.  The buffs the Conqueror gives are phenomenal and they can really add to the team.  Although not the best tank from what I have read and heard, they can tank and especially off-tank, both in 6-man instances and raids.

So, those are the classes I played over the past week.  After sizing them all up, I had narrowed it down to three: Ranger, HoX or Conqueror.  I finally threw out HoX because of its survivability and the one broken feat tree.  This left me with Conqueror or Ranger.  Both very good classes and both classes I had fun with throughout the leveling process.

So, which one did I pick?

Well, I will be telling you that tomorrow, as well as giving a full report on the classes and my adventures with it thus far.  Please check back then and be sure to leave your guesses or suggestions in the comments!!