Offhand proc

I was contacted by Mystique (who’s name may or may not have been inspired by Marvel’s X-Men) to do a post on offhand.

Few facts:
- base offhand proc chance is 10% (naked, without gear)
- for every 5 dex you gain 0.1% chance to do offhand damage
- offhand damage proces from Main Hand Weapon , not your offhand Weapon
- offhand damage can proc even if attack is blocked/parried/evaded
- stance damage (+unholy dmg or poison dmg) is added to offhand attacks

Offhand definition:

Offhand damage is an extra damage that can proc from main hand weapon that is used in both combos and white hits.
Offhand damage will proc only once, but for your viewing pleasure it will be broken down into many pretty numbers to clog your screen and stroke your epeen.
In a nut shell offhand damage gives you chance to dubble your damage output.

source: http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=105050 by pants
for all details visit the provided link – it’s the definitive guide on offhand proc.

PVP lesson in mastery

Everyone had one of those minigames: your team is beaten left and right, you get insta-killed and it seems like everyone sucks. I had game like that today. Unfortunatley I forgot the golden rules of true mastery and made an ass out of myself, for which I had to apologize. Long story short, here are five golden rules that will get you closer to being true master in PVP:

1. Let your weapon do the talking - dagger through the skull says more than thousand words. Don't talk smack even if you can back it up - bad winer is worst than sore loser. Don't be cocky..

2. Accept that you won't change people - Anthony Robbins spent his whole life trying to discover how to affect and change people throu Linguistics - so far he haven't found his holy grail. So if Tony couldn't hack it, sure as hell you won't change people by typing few words on the screen in a minigame that went wrong - especialy if those words are "how come you suck?". People do all kinds of crazy shit like joining 80lvl minigame at lvl63, but they just don't know better and pointing out their flaws won't make them better.


3. Endure and in enduring grow strong - it is my favorite quote by Dak'kon from Planescape:Torment and it's a true one. Bad games happen, there is no way to avoid them - instead of ripping shit apart endure it, the game will end eventualy and you will be glad you kept few things to yourself.


4. When in doubt, say less - this is a good one. In minigames when you are not tying "gg", "gj team" or "flag room" you are probably typing something that will make you look like an ass so just go default and type less, less...


5. Nothing to prove - the most important thing: you got nothing to prove, you are here to have fun. Don't get me wrong - there is nothing wrong with a little competition, and having competitive mindset will give you an edge in PVP, but don't let it consume you and get you down.

You know what, screw it, go for #1 and have fun along the way with all skull spliting, but just don't be ass to others. This is what this post is all about.
Thanks.

Upcoming PVP changes

In reply to the [Suggestion] Revamp mini games down at Test Live forums, Didek - Age of Conan Developer - gave us a little sneak preview of minigames changes:

The minigame tiers will be adjusted for patch 1.04. Level 80s will have it's own tier.

PvP exp for participating and winning is in the works but I can't promise when this will go in. Quite a few other changes are in the works as well

Don't forget there is a new GUI for signing up in patch 1.04. This should make it easier to get games up and running.

Sounds good to me.

Beating the dead horse

The VirginWorlds podcast collective did some more Age of Conan bashing (oh there is a shock). Our only media outlet - Hyborian Herald Podcast - died quite a while ago, but other members of collective came on AOC pretty hard in their yearly review (can't blaim them for that). Check out "Massivley speaking", "No prisoners, no mercy", and "Spouse aggro" for some good podcasts related to MMOs. In "Massivley" they had a part of the show called "new year predictions" and one of the host accualy made a prediction that AOC will go "belly up" in 2009 same way the Tabula rasa did in 2008.
On another subject - I kinda envy the Lord of the rings online crowd - apparently lotro is one of best mmos around and their new expansion is a killer. Too bad I am not a fan of lotro lore.. It kind of sucks when you play the mmo everyone (including yourself) shit on...Crom laffs at all of us..

EU and USA assassin community joint post

Every wanted to post something on US boards? (probably not..) and would you like to ask your EU friends on EU boards a question? (hardly). Now you can!
The Assassin community joint post in US and EU boards - hit the link and post whats on your mind and your friends across the pond will be able to post a reply in their own thread. It's magic!

Minigame bugz

Because I want to do more than bitch and whine I have been doing my share on Test Live forums to help DEVs clean the game from the bugs.

I think that video material will help the Devs much more than just couple of words in the post so here is my report:

Video:
1/ First part shows that after respawn my HP is 0, I have pernament shield on me, can't attack, can't be attacked, can't log. It is third time this happened to me over period of 2 months. I have seen this affecting one other player

2/ Second part shows me getting under the map after being knocked back on the ramp. I think FC is already aware of that.



Screen:

The screen shows Necro spellweaving behind the pillars in the halls minigame. If Necro was blocked by lets say guardian or BS it would be unkillable by melee. It took 3 of us attacking necro 1-by-1 to get him killed. Clearly it is an exploit.

6 months of FAIL

I have decided to do 6 months reviews of Age of Conan development from PVP Assassin perspective - this will be one of many reviews because I am sure I will stick with this game to the bitter end.

The good:
Client - Funcom impoved the stability of client which is like ..."meh" because I have never had problems with it. I guess the FPS rate got better so I can run this game on medium and enjoy fluent PVP. Good job here.
Rating: 9/10

The bad:
Crafting - crafting is nonexistent in this game. All I do is craft some food for my personal usage and thats it. Gems are broken beyond belief so I did not even bother to progress any further.
Rating: 1/10 EPIC FAIL

Itemization - Ever since I did about 15 epic KESH runs I am wearing same gear - Midnight set + PVP lvl2 stuff. If you don't raid you will have nothing to upgrade your gear. Everyone looks the same. Funcom boasted about their freaking 1500 armor sets and social clothing, but I yet have to see them.
Rating: 1/10 EPIC FAIL

PVP minigames - minigames are broken. People play on the same map over and over, Totem Torrent is out of the question and there are no rewards for capturing the flag - if you go for them I usally means you are getting you ass farmed and your team wants to end the game quick. There is no deepth to minigames. I do minigames and I do them a lot, I just wish they were better.
Rating: 4/10

PVP XP - Its harder than HARD to progress in PVP XP - instead of having few tiers where you get new gear and bonuses FC made getting to lvl 5 super hard and time consuming. After all that killing and XP farming you get you assassin set which will make you look like stygian WHORE. Also FC allowed "guild leave + farm your guild mates" which allowed total noobs to farm their lvl4 in matter of 2-3 weeks. FC ignored that issue regardless of player's feedback
Rating: 1/10 EPIC FAIL

Class balance - Just roll Necro or a TOS FTW. TOS got 6 month of non stop ownage with +3k critz while being a healer and Necro get insta crits from spell weaving and there are no signs of nerf coming.
Rating: 1/10 EPIC FAIL

Criminal/murderer system - it is broken. You will get flaged criminal for defending yourself.

Open world PVP - log on, go to KESH, zerg or die. Here is your content, enjoy.
Rating: 0/10 LEGENDARY FAIL

Guild dyplomacy tools - There are none. There is no support for guilds and server politics in AOC.
Rating: 0/10 LEGENDARY FAIL

Guild city - Ghost towns. Same crappy buildings with bare walls inside them. Fun!
Rating: 0/10 LEGENDARY FAIL

RP support - beside GMs that take actions on petitions regarding naming violations there is no support for RP in this game. We got fancy emotes but we can't even sit in a tavern and drink a beer in a WORLD OF HYBORIA FOR FUCKS SAKE! Lack of social clothing makes it even harder.
Rating: 3/10 (for emote system)

80lvl content for non Raiders - you can grind Villas for crap money. If there are no people for minigame you got nothing to do except bitching on guild chat.
Rating: 0/10 LEGENDARY FAIL

Updates - it takes for ever for Funcom to do any update. I understand things take time, but they could do small additions to keep the community happy and they don't. Bugs also take for ever to fix (female attack speed being the prime example).
Rating: 2/10

Keeping the dates/giving out ETAs for updates - they doesn't.
Rating:1/10

Don't care about:
I don't care about PVE/Raid content. I don't have an alt so I haven't done any Ymir's pass quests. Raids are just not for me.

I know this 2008 review was very negative, but I wrote how I feel about game and FC - in six months they could do SOOOO much better. Funcom has a lot of work to do in 2009 - I hope my next review will be exact the opposite because things will take turn for the better.