Few words on class balance

The man that fears no one (especially PVE players) - CirithGorgor - posted a thread that I thought we would NEVER see on AOC forums: Official Thread - Class Balance Tweaks.

Here is a re-post for you non-subers out there:

02-18-2014, 04:18 PM	#1
CirithGorgor Senior Designer	Official Thread - Class Balance Tweaks So, one of the goals of the PvP gear changes was to try and avoid any class changes. However, after some thought and some data gathered from the first testlive event this no longer seems like it will be a realistic goal. Therefore we are looking at making some changes to class balance to compliment the PvP gear changes. The changes we are currently looking at (these are not set in stone), without going into specific numbers at this point are: Void of Madness : Normalise this ability into a single stacking buff (to remove the random factor), replace crit damage with life tap and base spell damage with mana tap and slightly lower other buff elements (based on max stack vs current individual buffs). Burst of Aggression : This will now apply the Fighting Spirit effect for a short period and will not be possible to activate while that effect is in place. Overcome the Odds : A particle effect will be added to this ability, a minor snare will be added. Blessed Conquest : A minor snare will be added. Retribution : The retributive damage from this ability will only be able to hit the same player target once every X seconds. Conqueror Disciplines and Formations : Weapon damage gained from these abilities and the bonus provided from battlefield commander will be lowered. Stall the Advance : The retributive damage from this ability will only be able to hit the same player target once every X seconds. Defensive Stance and Frenzy Stance : A larger cooldown will be added to swapping between these two stances. The vulnerability debuff in Frenzy stance will be increased. Flesh to Worms : The duration of this DoT will be reduced. Taking the Shot : Increased cooldown on this ability. This thread should be used to firstly provide feedback on the proposed changes and secondly to provide suggestions on any minor changes you believe we could make to get better class balance in PvP without negatively affecting PvE. These suggestions should be minor and based on existing abilities and not a full class revamp. This does also mean the last set of changes to PvP Tier 3 Soldier armours are likely to be reverted to their present TestLive state.
	Last edited by CirithGorgor; 02-18-2014 at 04:50 PM..

It grew into 500 pages long festival of blames, half-baked theories and wishes. That and PVE crowd coming to complain that every single change will alter the game and the very fabric of reality it self in a ways we cannot imagine (and will probably also cause polar shift, the dead rising from their graves and VAT tax going 2% up).

Mind you it is great that we have such thread and that people participate, but some are just here to spread the hate - while stroking their soldier mains saying "my preciousssss"

I pity any and all dev that needs to go through this thread :D

So what is the state of pvp balance in PvP? Well, it is more or less NOT BROKEN. See? I am not saying it is balanced, it is not broken so every class has a shot at every other class and a realistic chances of emerging victorious from the encounter. It wasn't always like that. I remember how back in 2008 I couldn't kill certain Conqs because of .... bugged cunning deflection. And combo skipping, remember THAT? How about insta-CC spells (the OPness era of 1.6 assassin)? And how about no global immunity to major CCs? Yeah, that assassin charge + root + instant snap kick knock back + skipped GC and DWW was hell of fun, right? No, not really. Oh and remember STAMINA ISSUES? Instant respawn that allowed to pick up flag on spawn till the end of minigame? I could just keep going, but it would all point to the conclusion: In my humble opinion things are most "not broken" since ever.

Now to the balance: what is balance? How do you define it? My take on it is to state that "balance" in which classes are performing similar in terms of their function as archetype (rogue, priest, soldier) and are close to requiring same amount of effort and taking similar risks to perform well in PvP. Assassin, and I hope there is no argument here, is a true glass cannon as it can deal a lot of damage but he will die fast. Balanced? Close enough. Dark Templar deal less damage, but his damage to survivability ratio is off the charts. In short: Dark Templar can fill in the role of damage dealer while still being a superb tank. Assassin can DPS very well, but can't tank shit. So while Dark Templar might take similar effort to land combos and DPS down the enemy (or even a little more effort than assassin since his damage IS lower) his survivality is unmatched and so he takes very little risks.   The problem is that solider classes have lost their archetype focus and became "rogues in armor" having a raw damage to take down a cloth armor user while keeping the HP pools and mitigation of tanks.

The changes are needed. Hell, I am even for gutting assassin class down and changing stuff around too! I hate stagnation and if anything is going to get us closer to "balance" is continuous trial and error which is the only path to the game's improvement. I am all for it. And if CirithGorgor need to upset few players to get the game moving in the right direction then so be it, you can't make an omlet without breaking few eggs. Besides, EVERY SINGLE DAMN CHANGE IN THE LAST 5 YEARS always got people upset even if the results were noting but positive. Respawn system anyone? People were SUPER upset about it and threatening to leave the game and all that and yet.....do you even remember how old system looked like? Me neither.

Interview with Matt 'Cirith Gorgor” Bennett

The man who won over PVP crowd's hearts took his time off making even more awesome changes to talk to me about few things regarding Age of Conan:

1/ First thing first: who the hell are you? Ever since you have popped on the forums people have been speculating whether you are completely new dev or someone promoted from within the company.

I'm originally from the UK, which I'm saying so that it will explain my spelling for the rest of this article, but I'm not new to the company. I've been with Funcom since 2009 and for the majority of that time I have been a part of the AoC project.

I joined the company over in Oslo as an 'AI Designer' for the Rise of the Godslayer expansion, which is one of those professions which always seemed to get missed out in previous dev team profiles. Really the position was a cross between dedicated scripter and gameplay designer. 

While I worked on quests, outdoor events, the mini-encounters between Khemi and Gateway to Khitai and visual effects; my main focus was on Dungeon and Raid encounters where I had a hand in pretty much every dungeon/raid that launched with Rise of the Godslayer.

Shortly after launch the AoC project moved from frozen Oslo to equally frozen Montreal and after that move I gained senior responsibilities and ran the content approval process for PvE content. While directly working on Ai District, Vile Nativity, Threshold of Divinity, (my particular favourite being the internally named 'Riddle of the Ziggurat'), Jade Citadel (Imp -> Emperor), Temple of Erlik, the Isle of Iron Statues and a starting point of several Dragonspine instances.

After a bit of time off the project to help out with TSW launch and on another new start-up (which has since moved elsewhere) I returned to the AoC team around a year ago and from there you are probably a bit more aware of what I've been up to.

2/ In recent weeks you have been posting a lot of stuff on forums and even used the community feedback to directly adjust certain aspects of the content. Care to explain this different approach?

Well since coming back, I've inherited a lot more responsibilities within the game, partly due to the team size and structure and partly due to good faith from my superiors. So since being given these greatly increased responsibilities I've decided to step up to the plate and take more initiatives. We have a really knowledgeable and passionate community and so I decided I wanted to utilise that more than I have done in the past and I also accept gaps in my own expertise which with careful analysis of player feedback I am able to fill. 

I also really think that game communities deserves to have their collective voice's heard and give feedback which will be taken into genuine consideration about where the game will go, especially in a subscription oriented game and I'm really happy with how this is playing out at the moment and I really do hope the community is feeling like their voice is being heard.

I personally think that my best decision as a designer has been to start the initiative to become more transparent with the community and receptive to feedback.

3/ What exacly are Senior Designer's responsibilities in Age of Conan? Are you switching between TSW and AOC development are are you solely dedicated to AOC?

Well technically I'm actually Lead Content Designer but Senior Designer is more understandable on the forums.

Honestly my responsibilities range anywhere from AI / puzzle scripting of PvE encounters and making visual effects to working with the Game Director on new 'seasonal' events and setting out visions and implementing the stats for new items.

Its also the responsibility of a senior or lead to pass on their experiences and training methods to those under them in the team hierarchy.

And yes my responsibilities at the moment are totally dedicated towards AoC.

4/ How are you handling the itemization process? How all those numbers, budgets and power scales come together in order to create perfect item? Do you have working knowledge of all the classes in game or is it pure math?

While I have played all classes and of course have knowledge of them I certainly wouldn't claim to be an expert on all of them, that would really be a full time task.

In terms of gear though the first step is to really have a vision (which might well change after further evaluation and feedback) of what a specific gear set / weapon / potion / tier of items is intended to achieve both long-term and short-term. When that's in place we have tools which do a lot of the maths for us but going through the process item by item can still be a pretty time consuming task.

Along with the gear we also need to think about the acquisition of the items, be that in terms of a price point or more likely in terms of how long will it take to be acquired and then balancing of motivation to acquire a particular item versus potentially frustration that could be generated as part of that acquisition system.

5/ When it comes to AI and scripting how do you balance "fun" and "difficulty level" on the bosses? Do you have rough idea how the fight should look like and build around it or is it more trial and error process and nothing about the dungeon is set in stone?

Usually we have a rough narrative direction for an instance, usually related to the playfield that the instance is a part of. The important part here is that the narrative is flexible so that an instance is not restricted by story rather the story is influenced by the instance, that way fun and the player experience comes first.

The next step is then to determine what the player experience inside the instance will be, there might be outside influences which effect this, such as the difficulty tier, links to systems or underused/new mechanics. Then we will try and map that player experience onto the narrative outline to get a high level idea of what we want to achieve.

Then we'll go low level and look at individual encounters/puzzles. Encounters are always designed from a player's perspective and with player experiences in mind; myself, I have a list of elements which I try to incorporate as much as possible in some way into anything I design. Without wanting to go into massive amounts of detail those elements are at a high-level:

Movement

Player-Interaction

Player Control (Agency)

Environmental Interaction

Epic (memorable moments)

Making Failing Fun

Puzzle Element (only really relevant for raids)

The most important step in design though is to get something playable as soon as possible and iterate over it; its very very rare that the initial concept will prove to be the final concept, and the same really goes for anything design related.

In terms of match difficulty against fun factor that's actually really tricky. We have to accept that for some players fun and difficulty are mutually exclusive, but this is where Unchained Modes are the longer term solution. 

Something else we have to accept is that for a lot of people there is the 'path of least resistance' or in other words the easiest route to achieve progression. In almost all cases this means doing the easiest content at a given difficulty tier rather than what would be most fun. Now the solution we have at the moment for this is what you have seen recently with the quests that give out big rewards for completing broader brackets of content and that's probably something we'll look at expanding in the future.

6/ It seems unlikely that Age of Conan will ever have more classes or rised level cap above 80. How do you see future progression and character development for the years to come? Is it important from your point of view?

I can't really speak to much about it until things are set in stone otherwise its going to cause an inevitable amount of backlash if those plans have to change for whatever reason. What I can say though is that it will be hard for there to be much more vertical progression, at least without completely separating PvE and PvP in terms of stat gains. However that does not mean there will be no progression there is a lot we can still do with horizontal progression and there is certainly a very good precedence for almost purely vanity based progression being viable if you look at games like Guild Wars 1, especially in PvP.

7/ With the world bosses and new questing system Age of Conan is taking a turn for more dynamic content. Is it conscious change in the direction or just 2 content additions that just have same idea behind them?

Yeah absolutely its a conscious decision. Its no particular secret that the team is much smaller than before and resources are at a premium. Therefore as designers we need to be as smart as possible when we are creating new content and make sure it is as sustainable long term as possible, without becoming tedious or stale of course, dynamic content using existing world locations (which are really nice to visit again too) achieves those goals pretty well. We also have to look at the direction the MMO industry is going in at the moment and for a large part of it that is with more dynamic content.

8/ You nick "Cirith Gorgor" suggest that you are Tolkien fan. How about Conan lore? Are you into REH's writings or are you just fantasy fan in general?

Very astute, for those that don't know Cirith Gorgor is the point where the Black Gate separates Mordor from the rest of middle earth. On the whole I'm actually more of a low fantasy guy, which puts things like Song of Ice and Fire and the world of Hyboria right up my street. One of my favourite experiences as a designer on the project was trying to recreate the experiences that Conan himself had when venturing onto the Isle of Iron Statues in the “Shadows in the moonlight” story. My absolute favorite Conan story however is the Scarlet Citadel, Tsotha-lanti is such a bad ass, and I'd love to be able to make this place a reality in a content patch; but that's just a pipe dream of my own.

9/ You singlehandedly made more changes to pvp in couple of weeks than whole team did in couple of years. Why would PVE dev dabble with PVP at all?

Well I'm not going to comment on past focuses because that wouldn't be fair; but I would like to point out that in no way was that ever related to game direction. 

Both myself, the current Game Director and Producer agree that we really need to do more for PvP in the game. Ok so I'll be honest PvP is a bit of a scary prospect for someone who has previously specialised entirely on PvE but I guess you could call it a new year's resolution of sorts. I had a bit of down time to think about ways we can give something to the PvP community without breaking the bank in the terms of new resources, particularly code related; and well the results of this is what you are starting to see gradually making its way towards the live servers.

I'm pretty pleased with the progress that has been made so far and I'm really looking forward to the potential prospects we have with open-world questing.

10/ How does it feel to be first just an AOC player and then actually to join the development of AOC? 

Yeah so I started out as a player on the old Ymir EU server not long after launch. As a recent graduate of a game related degree course back in the UK I was constantly on the lookout for positions opening up and then I saw 'Quest Designers' pop up on the Funcom website. I immediately thought this is the job for me and sent off my CV and got a test back from Funcom. I spent a full week fine tuning that test and sent it back, I heard back a few weeks later finding out my application had been unsuccessful, I was absolutely 'gutted'.

But persistence can pay off and later that year the AI scripter position opened up and this time I was able to see out my dream of joining an MMO dev team.

Its pretty crazy making that first step from player to designer; but its also a pretty important step for an MMO live environment dev as you have to be able to think like a player and have experiences you can relate to.

Stat Redistribution - PvP Gear Tier 3

Once again Senior Designer Matt "already beloved by all" Bennett outdone himself by posting  PvP Gear - Stat Redistribution - Tier 3 thread showcasing improved pvp amors for all classes. I can't really speak for others than assassin players because I play only assassin nor I am all that interested in the rest of archetypes, but it seems like the soldiers got hit with huge nerf bat. My stance on that? Hell, it's about time. 

Here is the post for all of yo non-subscribers slackers out there:

Yesterday, 02:18 PM	#1
CirithGorgor Senior Designer	PvP Gear - Stat Redistribution - Tier 3 Following on from the changes made to the PvP weapons here is what we are currently looking at in regards to adjustments to the Tier 3 PvP armour. As always, stats are not final at this point in time. The intention is to make this gear a viable and competitive alternative to T4 Raid Gear. As with the weapons the gap between PvP Tier 1 and 3 will be closed, and as with the weapons the intention is to have the gap somewhere around T1 > T2 (10% difference) and T2 > T3 (5 - 10% difference) with a much higher stat allocation being given to the PvP specific stats on the lower tiers. Obviously there has been a considerable reduction to the overall protection gained from Medium, Heavy and Plate sets, after evaluation it simply could not be justified to maintain these high levels of armour, constitution and relatively high damage output (particularly for medium) along with the best protection levels. The same logic applies to the critical rating on the more tanking orientated sets. Again as with weapons the intention for T4 PvP gear will then be to provide alternatives to these sets for different play styles without increasing the budget by any considerable amount. Note - Please ignore the +30 Hate Decrease Rating that is visible on the large pieces of the Cloth > Medium sets; this is a temporary bi-product of increasing the power scale and does not use up any of the stat budget allocated to the items. The following posts are split by Archetype:

Now for the armors:

New PvP T3 armor

Old PvP T3 armor

Of course just looking at armors won't tell you all that much so I took the liberty of doing the number crunching for you:

 New T3 armor totals:
2801 Armor
2152 Critigation Amount
420 Constitution
445      Dexterity
1680     Combat Rating
233      Critical Rating
246      Critical Damage Rating
2407     Tenacity
1680     PvP Combat Rating
215      PvP Hit Rating
0        PvP Armor
1140     PvP Protection

Old T3 armor totals:
2296 Armor
1154 Critigation Amount
+371 Constitution
+483 Dexterity
+700 Combat Rating
+85        Critical Rating
+230 Critical Damage Rating
+2012 Tenacity
+740 PvP Combat Rating
+201 PvP Hit Rating
+264 PvP Armor
+719 PvP Protection

PVE T4 armor totals:
2600 Armor
1921 Critigation Amount
+393 Constitution
+637 Dexterity
+5        Natural Stamina Regen
+1627 Combat Rating
+373 Hit Rating
+245 Critical Rating
+154 Hate Decrease Rating
+275 Critical Damage Rating
+50         Offhand Rating

Armor & Critigation:

Pvp armor value is gone, but armor in total is increased and now even beats T4. Critigation got huge boost and also beats T4. This might give assassins a little more upper hand against rangers which where crit-killing assassins way too often.

Suggestion: good change

Constitution:

Again a pretty good upgrade. New value gives +3360 Health as compared to old +2968 Health. This isn't all that much on melee cloth user, but if you add 2 x +25 const from weapons you will get +3760 Health which translates in 792 HP difference. I won't mind having that extra life.

Suggestion: good change

Dexterity:

Dex got small nerf. The loss of dex is compensated by more combat rating. Old set had 483 dex and new has 445 which is nothing compared to whooping 637 on T4 set. If anything the T3 should keep the old 483 or even go beyond 500 dex (with the reduction of overall combat rating). This has a pretty major impact on assassin survivability as the dex is the source of evade rating. PvP armor had already laughable evade chance and now it has even lower.

Suggestion: bring back dex to at least original value of 483 or bump it up to 500. Other solution is slapping some pvp evade rating on the armor.

Combat Rating:

Superb upgrade which bring T3 almost on par with T4. Nothing to add really.

Sugestion: good change

Critical Rating & Critical Damage Rating:

With it's 233  new pvp armor is closer to T4's 245 which is acceptable. T4 still maintains an edge when it comes to damage (from both combat and critical rating), but suffers greatly compared to T3's survivability (the armor got boost in almost all survival related stats). I think this difference in crits in acceptable, especially considering that only pvp armor has tenacity to REALLY take advantage of those crits.

Suggestion: good change

Protection & Tenacity:

Those two stats might not have anything in common, but in fact both of those values got pretty major buff even thou those preformed pretty good in the past with much lower ratings. Tenacity on old T3 armor was high enough so when assasssin equipped Master Assassin perk (+1800 tenacity as far as I remember) it brought up overall stat to 105% Tenacity. Obviously with the upgrade equipping Master Assassin will give an overkill on Tenacity. This is both good and bad. An overkill on tenacity will be even higher than now so it might feel a little wasteful. However this opens up assassin to new possible perk builds coupled with new possible builds granted with new protection. Right now undisputed king of pvp are the hybrid builds (example here: http://goo.gl/ch8bNj) because it gives assassin best things of all trees: both damage and the protection. With protection being as high on it's own now it can open up the assassin to more experimentation with lotus/general or corruption/general builds. Lotus builds will be more effective because it's biggest advantage, which is protection, got upgraded. At the same time Corruption could be more viable since it's biggest weakness - lack of protection - got smaller. This is nicely coupled with Tenacity change: since master assassin perk is no loner oh-so-best-choice lotus/gen and corruption/gen can supplement their builds with things like castration perk (to generate sufficient shard amount). Sins of the Flesh could also enjoy more exposure, especially now that tanks will get less of a walking-behemoths the -15% healing debuff could come in handy. 

Suggestion: might turn out nicely

Stat Redistribution - Tier 3 PvP Weapons

And so as foretold by Game Director Letter – December 2013 T4 pvp gear is coming and T3 pvp gear is getting an upgrade. Neat eh? Well since this is handled by Senior Designer Matt "already beloved by all" Bennett aka CirithGorgor he simply jumped into the task (instead doing it the usual funcom way) and already posted  Stat Redistribution - Tier 3 PvP Weapons thread on TL. For those of you who don't have access to TL forums (and are milking me for free news) here is the whole post:

CirithGorgor Senior Designer

Stat Redistribution - Tier 3 PvP Weapons So following on from posting new additions to PvE loot on the Testlive forums I want to continue with this same trend when it comes to PvP items too. As mentioned in the recent GD letter we do want to look at the Tier 3 PvP gear, particularly the weapons, and make them more competitive in their primary purpose (PvP). Now bear in mind these are still Tier 3 weapons and so they might not be quite as powerful as T4 Jade Citadel weapons but they should be a lot closer and we do need to leave room for the now announced PvP Tier 4 items to come in (which of course should be more viable in PvP than their PvE equivalents). That said the following posts will contain the screenshots of where we are at the moment, as always all stats are WiP at this point and please try to keep feedback constructive.

Here are the revamped weapons

In this post I will only cover assassin's dagger "Highlord's Dirk".

The differences are:

78,9 dps vs 81,4 dps

48 crit rating vs 50 crit rating

56 crit damage vs 60 crit damage

Old PvP dagger

T4 level of power

T4 level of power

This is rather disappointing as the dagger hardly changed at all except small DPS bump. I do understand that PvP T4 is intended to be a march for T4 PVE gear (BTW it should be BETTER as PvP weapons should be best for PvP) so I am not setting my expectations to Shiv of the Autumn Night's level, but at the same time in it's current shape PvP T3 is still just "pretty good" as opposed to "the weapon of choice for non-raiding pvpers".

Even if pvp T3 weapons can't reach T4 pve weapons in their current shape those are not even viable alternative to T3 crafted weapons and those are the most wide spread and used weapons in pvp

Since Highlord's Dirk has so little of stats diversity it is easy to compare it other non-T4 daggers.

Constitution:

Hightlord's Dirk needs constitution to be a viable alternative to other daggers. This added survivability is especially important considering that assassin is cloth wearing melee fighter with shortest weapon range in game. In other words: from purely melee mechanics perspective assassin is at biggest disadvantage compared to any other class in game. Both Requiem of Pain and Skirmisher Dirk have constitution and to add insult to injury Skirmisher's Dirk, a pvp T1, is still looking as a viable offhand alternative to revamped Highlord. 

Suggestion: add 25 constitution to Highlord's Dirk

Critical rating and Critical Damage rating:

The adjustment of CR and CDR on Highlord is negligible. It needs noticing that assassin class in PvP is pretty much based on CR and CDR as those stats are needed to take advantage of Tenacity. Assassin players are using master assassin perk which bumps up Tenacity up to 105%, but all of that is useless if assassin doesn't crit often enough.

Highlord dirk with its 50 crit rating and 60 crit damage doesn't even scale up to Spine of Dagon and Blade of the Ancient Sands which both are packing 55-56 CR and 65-66 CDR. If anything Highlord must match those since it doesn't have the massive benefit gemming that of Spine of Dagon dagger can take advantage of. If you look at gemmed T3 crafted dagger it surpasses T4 in few things.

Suggestion: bump critical rating to 56 and critical damage rating to 66 on Highlord's Dirk

Weapon Damage

Weapon damage is very important for Face Stab damage - the staple of assassin damage. Putting it at 81,4 DPS only matches Blade of the Ancient sands (also at 81,4) and is far from Spine of Dagon with it's 84.

At very least get it up to 82 so at very least it can beat some pre-T4 PVE daggers. Putting it up to 82 still places is behind anything T4/T3 crafted.

Suggestion: bump weapon damage slightly to 82 dps

1 year review - 2013

I am kicking off 2014 with fabulous post about what the hell have happened in 2013 in Age of Conan. Nothing much? Probably. Well we shall see in few paragraphs. Grab your favorite brand of bossonian brandy and dive me into ocean of broken promises and half-assed content.

First thing first lets take a looksie at last letter of 2012 which was heavy with the promises for 2013:

1. new freaking minigame
2. crafting revamp
3. new raid
4. new dungeons
5. single server technology

With that feed to us by Funcom who wouldn't go for 1 year sub offer? You did? So did I. And what we did get? We got FUNCOMED. The FC studio dropped the news that it is "re-structuring" and thus we will get fuck all in terms of content. Great timing guys with the sub offers. Masterful job, really.

After the previous game director - Silirrion - stepped down Joel Bylos taken up to the task of game directoring. I don't want for this review to sound like I am giving shit to JayBe here so right off the bat I want to make clear that I think he inherited nothing else than a "shit-storm" (a sandy shit storm to be exact) and he pushed with the cock he got. Given the circumstances (which were beyond his control) I think Joel did a good job.

Keep in mind that I don't even pretend to be objective here. This is my review and so it is written from Fury's PvPer that raids T4 and has little love for all things PVE.

That said I still want to vent few things out so here we go:

Outdoor zones:

• Dragon's Spine

I have criticized DS on this blog many many times so there is no point in going at it again. The zone itself is pretty, but it lack a substantial content (aka "depth"). One you have completed the main quest chain (which is like couple hours TOPS) there is really no reason why you would want to go back here again (for other reasons than to just get into the DS dungeons). A major major letdown, sloppy job, waste of resources and a thousands curses upon thee. 

Raids and Dungeons:

• Sepulcher of the Wyrm

The dungeon remained broken for several months and it offers really sub par loot (unless you are a DT). The visuals are quite nice, but that is pretty much it. Did it twice, never finished it.

• Coils of Ubah Kan

A miniature raid that takes hours to complete. Stupid amount of Bosses and needlessly complicated. This could have easily been broken into 2-3 smaller dungeons. Did it once.

• Halls of Eternal Frost
• Scorpion Caves
• The Caravan Raider's Hideout

I can't really tell since I haven't done them. Fury is stuck in LFG Palace/KK/Monastery mode and the unchained dungeons are considered "too much of a hussle". I have to give a honorable mention to the loot and it's distribution since it is a major improvement over the itemization in SDS dungeons. The loot is delivered in form of quest reward which comes in a form of a personalized loot chest. I like that as it prevents loot rot. Also, to my surprise, FC dev  posted all the items on TL forums and asked for a feedback on them. Furthermore he actually implemented the suggestions (mine too)! This new approach is a welcomed one.

• Temple of Erlik loot changes

As with unchained dungeons TOE got new loot (adjusted accordingly to players feedback). I guess this might be a good incentive for some guilds on Crom to re-visit this raid.

• World Raid Bosses

I am a little torn on this. On one hand the bosses are like gigantic pinata that you whack until candy (loot) falls out, but on the other hand it is a content that is undeniably very popular. I will admit that I have done the bosses more than once already and the quest to kill all 12 bosses that gives legendary loot only sweetens the deal. It is far from what I would call a "good" content (for example why dragons, yetis and such? Why not nemedian general or pictich warlord as boss?), but it is a content nonetheless and one that I am actually taking advantage of.

Mounts:

• Yothian War Mare

I call it the biggest blunder of 2013. Not only this mount is a sickening money grab, but it is also seriously underdeveloped (lack of animations, can't attack etc.). Luckily this monstrosity backfired on FC as it is considered pretty vulgar for anyone to buy this mount yet alone ride it around. Why not horses thou? Why Funcom hates horses? What is wrong with horses?  I can't think of 5 different horse designs on top of my head. No...lets ride gigantic lizards instead...

Community and Marketing:

• Forums merger

I can remember a post from one of the devs in 2009-ish saying that they will NEVER merge the forums (EU + US) because of how the billing works. Lies. Forum merger was rather successful and it worked out great for the community.

Events:

• Age of Conan’s 5th Anniversary

Solid event. Funcom then re-used this tech to create world raid bosses. This wasn't my dream anniversary (we don't get nearly enough Conan in this Conan game :X) but it lived up to the expectations.

• By the Light of the Moon

The event was a bit cheesy (shouldn't all of those Halloween events be that?), but it was a good addition after years and years of lost souls crap. Decent story, decent rewards and a promise of more events to come in the future as JB's stance on events is to add something new every time, but also to keep the old stuff.

Subscription:

• 40 AA points to level 80 characters on Membership 
• Age of Conan is on steam
• Account wide unlocks (social armors, bags)

Very good changes. I think that JB is pressing maybe just tad too much to give people more AA as you literally can't fart these days and not to get some prowess or mastery out of that (depends if you fart around players or mobs). Events and dungeons are loaded with AA experience and free 40 AAs are only sweetening the deal. I have nothing against this apart that I sure hope it is done with purpose aka to pave the way for new AA systems to come in the future (JB mentioned this in one of his first posts on AOC forums).

Systems:

• Server Merge & server move

A smashing success and a biggest achievement of new game director. The process of moving every EU server to US and merging all of them to create big ass Fury, Crom and Rage went very smooth and was very beneficial to the community as a whole. I can honestly say that I can't even remember when the servers moved to the US as my latency is much better now (not necessarily lower, but there are less hicks-up on the server side which happened a lot on Fury-EU). 

Ok ok, so far this looks like a super positive review? Well it might seem so, but for me it was by far worst year since 2008. Apart from doing some world bosses and 3  hours worth of quest chain in Dragon's Spine I was pretty much doing...well minigames and some raiding. That is it. There was no crafting revamp (third year in a row!), no class changes and not a single addition to the pvp. I want content that I wish to do, not a content that I do because there is nothing else.

Regardless of that I am very hopeful for AOC future as the development team showed some new approach to content creation and the communication with the player base is very good as of late. 

Here is to another 5 years AOC!

The Secret Hyboria - need for new direction in writing

If I had to point to the very thing that keeps me in in AOC I would say it is the Hyborian setting, true to REH's writing and painted with magnificent visuals and music.

However I am starting to notice a very disturbing trend: over-Lovecraftian story and gradual loss of low-fantasy setting.

Over-Lovecraftian story? The hell is that? Well its no secret that some of REH's works were influenced by his friend's creations - H.P.Lovecraft. While Conan stories DO have some supernatural elements in them (pretty much ALL of them) it is very easy to see where Conan just beats down some smelly ape in true "heroic fantasy" fashion ("Rogues in the House") and when the weird and unexplained takes over and Conan is just witnessing it ("Scarlet Citadel", "Elephant Tower"). AOC took that "weird and unexplained" route and jumped on Lovecraftinan wagon (confirmed in this interview). That is fine and I love me some Lovecraft, BUT here is my beef: Conan stories had super natural elements but those were NOT solely based on said super natural element. It was about large military conflict, epic quest or titanic struggle against overwhelming odds.

I simply love Tortage, Conall Valley, Wild Lands, Noble and Common district because those zones tell gritty stories about grim reality of every day life in Hyboria. I adore the storytelling behind pushing back Vanir raiders, beating off Nemedian invasion or simply cutting down on dreaded Picts population.

I find that to be the very essence of Hyboria and it is all old world stuff in AOC.

Khitai? I think it had very nice balance of main story line (crater and the entity) and the struggles of the factions. 

House of Crom was simply done right. It was a proper place for such Lovecraftian story telling (and the 6-man dungeon's final boss "the Prince" is the very essence of Lovecraft) and it was served with a moderation.

The Savage Coast of Ardashir: apart from BIG mistake of making the zone itself lvl50 this was a nice comeback to the classic, pulpy Conan with pirates and kozaki and Turan's military trying to make sense of it all.

Secrets of the Dragon Spine? It just feels and plays like The Secret World. Literally you can't take a dump without uncovering some ancient and terrible secret. Secret this and secret that and Indiana Jones style archaeological dig site and oh-not-so-well-done lizard people (no idea why FC chosen NOT to follow DarkHorse conics's design on this, it was perfect!). It all creates a package that I wish to quickly forget about it. SDS flopped, BIG TIME and probably the only good thing that came out of it is music.

Overly Lovecraftian writing was coupled with lack of content (the SDS zone itself is a joke, 3h joke in fact) and needlessly long dungeons.

SDS updates stretched out for a whole year like a bad car trip on a long Sunday and I feel like a kid sitting in the backseat moaning: ARE WE THERE YET?

So are we? I bloody hope so as I can hardly stomach any more Dragons Spine updates. Of course I can hardly blame Joel Bylos for this as he had to finish up what was started.

I want to see fresh take on Hyboria and I want to see kingdoms of the west. I want to see Aquilonia and Nemedia going at it again, I want see test the chivalry of Zingara, I want to stalk the streets of Shadizar in Zamora and rain fire on the damn Picts arm to arm with the legendary Bossonian archers.

I want AOC to be again about "sharp sword and straight patch to the enemy", that and "tits and ass" (as envisioned by Gatue Godager). No more lizards, no more sand getting into my pants, and no more sweaty workers uncovering secrets. Leave secrets alone, damn it!

[Guide] Assassin and raids

For a nice change of pace today I want to share few hints about raiding with your assassin. My raiding experience so far is not all that great (Mitra knows I am no PVEr), but I have completed T3 and T4 and so far raiding  T4 on regular basis.

Lets clear up one thing right off the bat: I am not a number cruncher. What I will post here is by no means "the best possible specc" nor the rotation that I will show you is bound to grant you nothing but optimal results.

I am, however, providing solid build and a well timed rotation. Feel free to judge for yourself.

I am not a DPS freak when it comes to raiding so I am not obsessing about reaching for that top spot on DPS charts. Using the build and the rotation I am providing here I can go for several raids without single death and I feel like I am contributing to the team in a meaningful way by not only doing "pew-pew", but also by bringing to the raiding table helpful buffs.

Before we go on any further I want to say that this guide is heavily geared through T4 raid (with the exception of "door duty" during General fight). Other raids like T3 might need a little different approach or even different builds (more damage based).

My raiding philosophy is "better safe than sorry" so there might be a slight overkill on anti-aggro stuff (still distraction group buff is too good to pass up) but it goes a long way if you are just starting out on T4 with nothing but aggro magnet Brittle Blade full epic armor set.

My raiding build - http://goo.gl/EjjGJh 

My DPS raiding build - http://goo.gl/KW8EWY

My balanced raiding build - http://goo.gl/bBic09

Few words of explanation:

Lotus tree

Common mistake in different speccs is going for Dull Pain and Lotus Tainted Blood + Lotus overload. That is a lot of points that are usually completely wasted as it is tank who needs to worry about protection in certain fights. Sure, from time to time there will be fights where AOE magical damage is present and in those situations those feats are justified, but going DP+LO as a default specc is uncalled for.

Corruption tree

Necrotic Empowerment and From the Darkness are matter of personal preference. I use Necrotic as a primary source of shards because Crystallized Lotus Extract is kept as a back up if I need to pop in Crimson Lotus Pollen very fast. Also if you are really using your miasmas the way you should you will burn A LOT of shards. If you don't have 3 shards instantly available you are really wasting Crimson Lotus Pollen as instant aggro dropper. Besides I like Necrotic as my main source of shards as it regens them slowly and feeds me them constantly thought out the fight.

Aggro management:

Assassin is one of the best single target damage dealers in the game so it makes him a natural DPS class in raid scenario. With great damage comes ... great responsibility since it also means that it is quite easy to pull aggro from tank. Assassin class is very unforgiving so getting Boss on you will, more often than not, result in you dieing a horrible, horrible death. Luckily Assassin is more than competent when it comes to managing his aggro. Those abilities can be divided into three categories: passive -hate, active -hate, aggro list droppers, and aggro reducers.

Here is what we get:

Passive -hate: those are the permanent -hate buffs that you get from certain perks and feats. High base
-hate is needed for Assassin to be dealing sustained and high damage. Without solid -hate even the best aggro management tools won't be enough as you will be constantly re-building hate and  pulling aggro.

Sources: items with hate decrease rating, Spirit of Nightfall passive, Soothing venom (AA), Subtlety, Distraction

Active -hate: those are buffs that you get for a short period of time from Cover of the Dusk

Aggro list droppers: Bosses have a hate list and whoever is on top of that list will be attacked by the Boss. Aggro list droppers will move you down on that list so you won't be target.

Sources: Spirit of Nightfall, Wiles

Aggro reducers: those simply reduce the amount of aggro you have already generated

Sources: Crimson Lotus Pollen, Trickery.

While each of those feats and perks can work alone it is best to combine them together into combos for most benefit.

Cover of the Dusk - you can use this solo as it works wonders. This is a great way to open the fight as you will be generating very little hate and soldier will at the same time get a lot of aggro so he can tank better.

COD is also a nice thing to pop before you unload your heaviest attack (for example Kidney Shots + Liberation + Steeped Lotus Extract + Soul Destruction).

Spirit of Nightfal + Crimson Lotus Pollen - SON gets you instantly lower of the hate list and CLP lowers you aggro so you don't pull it again. Using just Spirit of Nightfall might not be enough because if you continue to do DPS there is a high chance of you poping up again as #1 on hate list. At the same time CLP, while it lowers your aggro, might not register with the Boss fast enough before he kills you.

Wiles + Trickery - exactly same principal as above which is combining aggro dropper with aggro reducer. I am using this combination often preemptively as it doesn't have any shard cost.

In regular Boss encounter I will open with Cover of the Dusk and then proceed to DPS the target. When I am feeling like I have done a good amount of DPS (especially if I have crited a lot) then I will drop Wiles + Trickery to lower my aggro and continue to DPS. At the same time I will have my fingers close to Crystallized Lotus Extract + Spirit of Nightfall + Crimson Lotus Pollen (on my keyboard alt + a + s +d). Lotus Extract provides me with 3 instant shards so I can be 100% sure that my Lotus Pollen will go off (it needs 3 shards to work) and drop a lot of aggro. Spirit of the Nightfall, which is free of shard cost, will make sure that the Boss will instantly changes the target. 

So this way I am usually rotating Cover of the Dusk and Wiles + Trickery and keeping my CLE+SON+CLP as a back up for emergency.

If you are not required by your Raid Team to have Distraction feat  then you will be more than fine with just Cover and CLE+SON+CLP. If you are required to have Distraction (like I am) then you can easily invest those 2 points into Wiles + Trickery as it is a worthy addition. Hell, will having such amazing tools you can also get less -hate items and go a little more DPS heavy in terms of armor pieces composition.

What about the rotation?

With rotation best thing is to show one. I am using lotus dart and soul strike for the poisons rotation and I am dropping naked Face Stabs during Swift Strikes animation. The whole rotation is timed on Grim Corruption cool down so when I am down with whole sequence the next GC is ready and I can start the rotation again.