Getting owned in eots

The eye of the storm.

What's up with the alliance getting owned so much in this battleground? Is it just me?

So, since my rig is not strong enough to run AOC, I decided to wipe the dust off wow and fire it up for a bit. I figured I would let Wow tide me over until I decide to get a new Pc in about a month.

I got on my 70 warrior and decided to re-spec protection, I hardly have time to play and I figured maybe I could run some instances if I planned it out in advance. Groups always need tanks.

I had some descent protection gear, but I wanted to get this 1h sword from the bg vendor which required 20 eye of the storm marks.

No problem I thought, boy was I wrong. I think I may have won 2 matches out of 16. One of those wins seemed like the horde were purposefully letting us 4 cap. The second win was just eaked out in a very close battle.

Very few of the losses were close however, most were blowouts. Some were a bit close but they always seem to start of well, but somehow during the course of the battle something goes wrong and we end up losing.

No one wants to plan in the beginning, and even if you do decide on a strat, 2 or 3 people do their own thing anyways. What could the problem be? Is it impatiance, does the horde have better gear? Are alliance players inferior? Is it me?!?!

If anyone has some ideas on how the alliance can win in this bg, i'd love to hear it!

Despite what's said, prot spec is not too bad in pvp. It has its place, sure you dont get many kills, but I do serve as a good distraction and attract alot of players trying to kill me. Usually this can help turn the tide in certain cases. Plus they always need tanks for AV.

AOC to have EPIC mini sieges!

Alot of heated debate has been going on since more siege details for age of conan have been revealed. It looks like the starting size for warring guilds will be 48 vs 48. While this number is not set in stone, it has been met with great skepticism from AOC fans.

Myself, Im not really sure its that big of a deal, as long as the fun factor remains. If you figure 8-9 keeps, thats about 900 people involved in keep warfare per week, which is a pretty descent number. Also, this is only a starting number, as game stability improves im sure that number will grow.

Im far more concerned with how this numer will affect resource, maintenance and siege weapon crafting. If a hardcore pvp guild wants to min max and only have 50 to 60 guild members. Is that size adequate enough to maintain a battlekeep?

My second concern would be who gets to select the players eligible to defend or attack, after the pvp points for a guild have been tallied. Will it be the players who contributed the most? Or will the guild leader have total control over the selection process.

Another concern I have is whether people are able to enter the siege after its started, especially if someone goes afk or loses connection. Depending on the timeframe of the attack window(i've heard anywhere from 1 to 2 hours) with only 48 people per side, I would imagine there would be some turnover. Sometimes things come up?

What I would like to see, if this siege system is going to be limited in this way, is some type of queue for entering and leaving the battle. For example my guild consists of 70 players, 60 show up for the seige. The top 48 are selected and begin the battle. The remaining 12 would be in a re-inforcement type queue based on their pvp contributions. After a guild mate dies 5 or 10 times for example they would go to the back of the queue line and the next available guild mate would enter the battle. This would continue rotating giving everyone a chance to experience the battle who wanted to.

Granted that type of solution could be problematic for large sized guilds, but a guild of around 100 active players would probrably fare well in that system. It would also add importance to not dyeing, and since the re-inforcement members of the guild would prolly be less seasoned it would add a nice flavor of realism to the battle.

For me, right now I dont know enough about some of the other mechanics in the game to know if these siege numbers are good or bad.

But hopefully funcom will enhance and improve on this foundation as the game matures.

Age of Conan - PVP MAYHEM!!!

Let loose the dogs of War!!!

Crush your enemies(friends too), see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women(avatars)…

Age of Conan is taking off the gloves for this epic pvp ending to the open beta. So everyone in it needs to post some kick ass vids and posts with the final word on the game.

Will it be a thumbs up or thumbs down! Only this weekend will tell.

Check out the details here!

AOC Sieges to be accessible to casual guilds

The official Age of Conan website has an article up with details on PvP sieges.

Most of the article details the mechanics of how pvp sieges will be
scheduled and who will have the first taste of leading guild combat against
an enemy keep.

When guilds compete for the right to attack a battlekeep the deciding factor is determined by the amount of "Guild PvP points" each guild has. These are accumulated by kills in pvp and gaining pvp levels.

The discussion of pvp rank determining who gets to attack keeps has been a hot topic.

Funcom however has implemented a system where when the attacking guild as set to lead the

siege there guild points are reset to zero.

I think this news is very important since, this should allow the more casual guilds to eventually accumulate enough points to be able to attack one of the eight keeps.

This definately seems a step in the right direction to further blur the line between hardcore and casual

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you... just do it between 4 to 6 on tuesday...

Are PvP sieges in AOC Casual Friendly? The more I read the more it seems like it will be a major undertaking. Scheduling PvP and raid times really lacks immersion.

Your Thoughts?

You can find the article from IGN here - PvP sieges

PvP XP in Age of Conan!

There's a new article about PvP and Raiding in Age of Conan over on IGN. Some interesting information about pvp experience. From what I can tell pvp experience levels are kept seperate, you gain and lose experience based on how much you kill, or how much you die.

It looks like their will be 10 levels. Your xp level can drop to 0 for any level, but you wont drop from level 5 to a level 4.(hmmm this seems vaguely familiar to me....) The way it sounds im not sure if its a good thing or bad. It should eliminate people from grinding pvp if they know that dying too much is a negative. But I wonder if casual gamers will be put off by this. I think if implemented correctly, it may not be as bad as it sounds, as long as the penalty for dying doesnt hurt your pvp xp too much in the early levels. It was stated that you lose xp faster than you gain it, and that definately seems like a bad idea. If I get 10 kills and 10 deaths I want to come out even, not with a negative xp score.......

However, if its implemented in a way where the closer you are to level 10 the harsher the penalty, i think that is something i could live with. This could be good for casuals or bad considering how you look at it.

The good - you wont have to grind for hours and hours to get good gear.

The bad - you have to win...often.

Which probrably requires more play time than usual. But at the end of the day it is a game and I do think hardcore players should be rewarded. As long as the game is not overly gear focused it may be ok. But if gear dramatically trumps skill, I believe it will be a put off for a lot of gamers.

What do you think?

Whats so Casual about Welfare Epics?!

Woot! Finally hit the big 70 with my draenei warrior and im ready to do some pvp battlegrounds to get geared up! This is gonna be great!

Im sure thats what alot of casual gamers thought when they finally reached the mountaintop and dinged 70. From what I read on numerous forums getting your welfare epics was like playin in EZmode!

The initial excitement of the massive upgrades my warrior would get initially carried me thru the first week or so of grinding, I even put in more time than usual, there was a great satisfaction when i got to equip my first epic 2hander....

Fast forward a couple of weeks and all of the excitement had turned into a chore.... Dont get me wrong, I still enjoyed pvping from time to time. But when the only tangible accomplishment shown for competing in the battlegrounds are marks and honor.... eventually it starts to lose its luster......

Blizzard designed the BG's with some thought towards casual gamers, but, when you can only get an hour of playtime a day, it gets old having to spend that time doing the same thing for weeks on end.

Granted, some will argue that you should mix it up, do some instances perhaps, But why do an instance for an item if you only have a 1 in 5 chance of getting it... if it drops...

The fun factor takes a serious hit when your riding thru Alterac Valley and see a 30 horde ride right past you so they can cap the GY and Tower....

Im sure there has to be a way to make the battlegrounds actually feel like a battle instead of a mini-game.....

Perhaps if the wins and losses in the BG actually affected the game world, or there was more to gain than just upgrading my character....

Perhaps if the primary reason for fighting was to kill horde, and the epic gear was just an afterthought...

Perhaps when the BG's are so engaging you dont notice the tons of honor you've gained...

When most people queue up for BG's to farm honor instead of winning the war and having fun somethings wrong....

But thats just my 2 cents.. I'd love to here what others think!