Hate To Say It, But Age of Conan Is Going To Suck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwViR6wcMLM

The game looks amazing. Everything about it sounds like it'll be the perfect MMORPG. Especially combat. But, after finally seeing a solid video of the combat, it looks like it's going to get tedious and boring very quickly. You basically press the arrow keys to move your sword, and then wait until you or your enemy gets lucky with their combos and spells. You're basically pressing random buttons until someone dies since it'll be almost impossible to get a real strategy. When you have more than a few enemies on you, the game gets really annoying since you can only attack one at once, not counting spells. That video explains it all. Can anyone in the beta comment on the combat being fun? It sounds fun, but from one of the only videos actually showing off the combat, it seems like it'll become boring very quickly.

 

I concur, granted it is an mmorpg but until they make something where you can fight like those Prince of Persia games (hell I'd settle for Ocarina of Time kind of fighting), mmorpg combat will always be hitting buttons on a skill bar rather than actively blocking/dodging/attacking. It probably doesn't help that the animations look pretty boring.

 

From what I read, every Beta user said its a sweet combat system...Either way, its something new to try and if it fails then it fails but at least the gaming industry will learn something new and it will help them create a new combat system that might turn out great...

I for one think the game looks sweet and I really want something to replace WoW

 

Oh, I thought this game already came out.

 

I've been playing the beta for the last two days. Yes, the combat is a bunch of button mashing (1, 2, 3) but it's more interactive than what WoW is. There's also Dodge and Strafe modes so it does make thinks interesting. The main thing is the player has to always be involved with the controls during comabat. Personally I think AoC is on the right path to greatness.

 

still it's way better than point and click but sure is not as good as most people expected

 

That clip looks kind of dry to me, but I guess it's because I don't like MMORPGs.

 

I managed to play some of the pvp weekend. NDAfor the pvp is out btw.

I think melee combat is definitely better than other MMOs. You don't have auto attack button but instead 3 directional attack buttons..later you get 2 more.

Here's why its more than just button mashing: in PvE, mobs have 3 bars around them that show where they're more inclined to parry, block and dodge. And the 3 bars are stackable and dynamic through the course of the fight. So if you tend to hit one direction alot, the mob will adjust and stack its defenses towards that direction. As if that's not enough, there are combos that only works in one particular attack direction. So if you see a mob heavily defended in the direction of the combo you intend to unleash, you'll have to open up its defenses by first using the other direction keys, wait for the mob to shift its defenses, then use your combo.

So yeah it requires the player to pay a bit more attention than just auto attack and button mashing the specials. Problem I find right now is you can easily sidestep away from a combo to render it ineffective.

And no you don't just attack one mob all the time...even at low levels you have ae attacks like Sweep which will hit several mobs around you. It has collision detection so the more mobs around front of you the more you'll hit.

It has potential but there's alot of tweaking and balancing they need to do to the combat system and classses. The combat animation is really good especially when you manage to get a fatality special which has its own distinct (gory) animation.

 

The whole MMORPG's genre has been beaten to death now. I mean, game developers really need to get over the whole WoW thing. It was successful but not every MMORPG is going to bring in the mega bucks like it did. I am sick and tired of seeing the same type of MMORPG's being rolled out. "OMGZ, a brand new medieval age RPG, it's like totally original, just like the 15,000,000 RPG's that came before it"

We need more RPG's like eve online, city of heroes and any other different genre of RPG that I missed.

 

Well there'll be more of other genres if players flock to them. if there was a scifi mmopg with the same success of WoW, everyone would be trying to copy it no doubt. They can try to be as original as they want but if it isn't pulling in the subscriptions it'll just flop.

 

goodtogo i couldn't agree more with you, and the success of wow is largely based on WC3, not its originality

 

I'm excited about this game - I really like the idea about sieging other players' structures. Warhammer keeps getting delayed, and looks like it is going to suck even more when it does come out. WoW has been dominating everything for a long time - I'm hopeful that AoC will bring in something new.

 

what would be cool to see is an MMORPG based on the Fallout universe.. I'd definitely be into that.

 

City of Heroes did pretty well. If they would have stopped their damn nerfs, it would be among the all time best. Eve online did pretty well also. Of course they dont come close to WoW but still they didnt lose money and that's what matters.

That would rock

Yeah agreed

 

I disagree with this - WoW is A LOT more successful and is played by many more people than WC3. If WoW was just piggybacking then this wouldn't be the case.

The reason why WoW is so popular is that it is easy for new people to play and is a very well put-together game. You don't get over 10m subscriptions and most of the MMO market share for nothing.

 

You're sure extracting a lot of information from one youtube video, huh?
Shame you're wrong on a couple of counts.
I'm not sure where you get the "wait until you or your enemy gets lucky" bit from. Both you and your enemy have directional attacks, whose strength vary depending on the opponent's directional defense. How is that "random"? Combos consist of a number of directional attacks, which means that, for example, if your opponent is defending to the sides, your left-right-left-right combo is going to be a waste of time. A single frontal hit might be better. No, it's not the deepest of strategy, but compared to typical MMO fare, like the combat system in WoW?
And yes, you can hit multiple people at once. You don't even need to target anyone to attack. With my old character, even my regular attacks could hit multiple enemies at once. (I think that depends on weapon. A dagger won't, but polearms have a nice area of effect)
Yes, combat in Conan is fun. It could be better, but it's certainly a big step up from stuff like WoW, and I'm enjoying it.

And as said above, WC3 has nothing to do with WoW's popularity. WC3 did not sell 15 million copies. Most WoW players have not played other Warcraft games.
It's just a well-polished game that's easy to get into, has a ton of content, and which all your friends are already playing.

 

WoW is indeed polished. While I do like AoC's combat system a few things concern me. One of which is the starting area. It is instanced and linear..I'm not sure I like that but it does accomplish its purpose which is to introduce players to the ui and basic combat system. That's one thing WoW/EQ did very well with their racial based open-ended starting zones.

Then there's the PvP. Some good some not so good. I realize its only a very tiny portion of the game we're seeing so nothing is really conclusive at this point. The PvP beta weekend hasn't made me go out to rush and preorder the game but then again I doubt anything would these days.

 

WoW is good but I think all in all I like/liked Phantasy Star Online more, it has more appeal to me and that JP touch.

I still play WoW once in a blue moon but on a private server, I cant stand retail.

 

I'm playing the beta, so far its decent. The attacking system seems pretty unique, but its just me pressing '2' alot


Level 5 for now, gonna play some more after lunch.

 

You know, MMORPG was never my thing. Even though this game , I must say,looks tempting...

 

Of course it is. Blizzard has continuously been 'improving' (or nerfing depending on who you talk to ) WoW for the last 4 or 5 years. WoW was no spring picnic when it launched back in 2004.

If the beta of AoC is any indication, and the interest in the game by the player community holds for the next couple of years, I think Conan will be amazing.

A Fallout MMO? That would be awesome. I remember coming across an article eluding to the possibilies of Fallout becoming an MMO in one of my GFW or PC Gamer mags. Will have to look for it.

 

You know a Fallout MMO has already been sort of announced? (That is, Interplay has said multiple times that it's going to be the project that makes them profitable, but I don't think they've started development on it yet)

And I'm not sure what'd be so special about it. The nice thing about Fallout are basically the singleplayer experience. The setting, the storyline, the NPC's, the content.

None of which would carry over to a MMO.

As for AoC, it won't be a WoW killer, but I definitely think it's going to do well enough to be profitable and survive.
(If nothing else, Funcom has already proven that they're able and willing to put in all the necessary work to rebuild a complete train wreck and regain the confidence of their player base)

 

Man, I was pretty psyched for AoC, not as much as for WAR though. After they lifted the NDA for pvp I've been hearing nothing but complaints about the pvp. What bothers me is that the major complaints are not due to the game not being polished enough or being too buggy (which might have to do with the fact that its beta) but have to do with more basic design problems.

Theres also a lot of talk of imbalance (rangers being overpowered, casters underpowered etc.) but that is actually no problem since it can obviously be balanced, and the beta was just for level 20 characters etc.

 

Been playing the weekend beta, and with some adjustments this game will rock, thats why they are doing all this testing, eventually AoC will be an excellent game, it's nice to see all the hard work being done to improve it!

 

I think Conan has great potential, but I hate the stupid combo system. It just doesn't work. It sounds neat when some people describe it, and some fanboys claim it really achieves what its intended purpose was; however, for all practical purposes there is no reason not to just mash buttons 90% of the time.

 

Is that based on your own experience with it?

Anyway, even if I agreed with you (which I don't. I think the combo system works well, even if it's not as awesome as I'd have hoped, and as it might become), that's still 10% better than other MMO's.

 

after Bethesda bought the Fallout IP from Interplay, Interplay kept the rights to make a Fallout MMO if, and only if, they raised a certain amount of money and either had developed, or started to develop the game by 2014. If they fail to do this, Bethesda eats them up. story here - http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/46532

also, I agree, trolling over 1 youtube video isn't really investigative work. keep your comments to youtube where no one reads them anyways.

 

Yes I am on this weekend's pvp Beta. Just because the combo system might be functional 10% of the time you use it does not mean its 10% better than other MMO's. Its a pain in the A$$ 90% of the time. I am not alone in this belief. Browse the Conan forums. Lots of people think the combo system is clunky and stupid, probably even the majority think this.

 

I wouldn't argue with Jalf.

He's NBR's official AoC fanboy. ;]

 

Ok, i won't. I cannot prove that the majority of beta testers think AOC's combo system is annoying and clunky, but the fact that there is a lot of controversy about it should tell you something.... http://forums.ageofconan.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

I predict that when this game is released, reviewers are going to be highly critical of the annoying combo system. However, the game will still probably get average scores of around 8.5 out of 10.

 

Quick question. Can you see the general beta forums?
Because I can. And I believe they might be a bit more nuanced than someone who played the game for a couple of hours.

Yes, there are people complaining about the combat system for various reasons. There are also people saying it works well. And then there are a *lot* of people saying it's fairly fun, and an improvement over other MMO's, but that it's still not as good as they'd hoped.

Yes. It should tell me that it's a MMO.
Show me a feature in *any* MMO that players aren't complaining about.
And if that argument isn't good enough for you, here's a different one:
The fact that there's controversy about it is that they promised something better than usual. If they'd just said they'd make the same crappy combat system that every MMO so far has used, no one would have complained, becuase that was what they expected. Not because it was "better", but because, well, obviously Funcom wasn't interested in making a good combat system.

They didn't do that. They said "let's come up with a different, and *fun* combat system. That raises people's expectations. And of course not everyone will feel their expectations have been fulfilled.

I've heard/read a lot of complaints about the combat system over the last months, yes. However, most of them did not say "it is broken", like you do, just that "it's not as good as promised".

No, I'm not what you'd call an AoC fanboy (I've criticised it more than I should on this forum, if you do a bit of searching, and certainly on the beta forum)
But I think there's a significant difference between "I played the game a little bit over a weekend, and didn't figure out the combat system", and "the combat system is broken 90% of the time".

 

*nitpick*
Bethesda bought the entire Fallout IP from Interplay, who kept nothing in the transfer. Later, Bethesda agreed to license the rights to a Fallout MMO back to Interplay.


Anyway, from my brief experience with the Conan Beta, it feels like it will achieve at least the same popularity as City of Heroes. At this point in time, it is a decent and fairly well executed MMO, which isn't all that common. It wont be WoW till it can stick the combat just a little bit better. It feels like a fresh take on MMO combat (still not as fun as Planetside), but it should really be better documented and tighter in execution.

 

Conan will not be for everyone...

It is designed to be a niche game for adults.

It might suck for people who find it "too hard" or perhaps "offensive".

Those people will be better served with other games.
Perhaps the OP will be better served staying with WoW.

 

Yeah, its for adults, seeing its supposed to have topless women!

 

I should clarify, that when I say the combat system is broke, what I mean is it is very annoying. This is due in part to it being clunky and the fact that most of the time, mashing the buttons is just as effective.

Dont you think that most people are going to get tired of entering the combos after 40+ hours of gameplay? These combos are kind of neat when you start using them, but after a while you just wish there was a single button you could mash. IMHO!!!!!!!

 

mate of mine played the beta.
He is disapointed. He told me that its an "empty game with no fun"

 

I have a Belkin N52, and you can easily set multi key combos to one key and save it to a game profile, it's only about $34.

 

That's kind of an unmerited statement. The way this AoC beta was set up wasn't really an MMO. The PvE element was a solo-based tutorial up to level 5. So there was no interaction with other players during the PvE. The PvP portion was set up for level 20 5-man team battleground groups. It was a chaotic mess since at the start no one really knew anything about the classes and the various combat tools. The only 'real' mmo interaction was in the staging area for PvP and it was basically a single room within some city and players couldn't really do anything except chat. Yeah, it seemed like an empty game but the beta played out much differently than the real game will once released.

Imo, the PvE was much better than the PvP. However, overall it was a fun 3 day experience. I spent 12 hours experimenting with all the classes and game settings. AoC will do well if given the chance.

 

It was okay in the end. I'll try it out again when its released or if I get another beta key, but until then, I'll keep an eye out on it.

 

That's the thing. You've played a bit over a weekend. I've played on and off for 4 months now.

You don't know what it feels like after 40+ hours of gameplay.

But of course, your mileage may vary. Some will (and do) hate the combat, some will (and do) love it, and others, like me, simply think it's more fun than "regular" MMO combat. Not awesome, not as good as it could become, but still decent entertainment.
It does depend a lot on your class though. There's something *extremely* satisfying about whacking a group of 6 enemies with every swipe with your polearm...

 

Ever play Lineage2 Jalf? we used to gather 50+ mobs and do the same thing...

Conan will rock for me.

Which class btw Jalf?

Think I'll end up a Dark Templar... I want to return to my Shadowknight roots.

 

A bit. I didn't much like it. I've better things to do with my life than grind XP and gold.

But to the best of my knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong), your *regular* attack in L2 couldn't hit more than one mob, could it?
What I meant was that even without using a special attack of any kind, I can hurt everyone in wide arc in front of me. Which is nice

 

Lineage2 was a long grind... until the frenzy bug... level 80 in a week, give clannies your info and "boat" to 80. Had to quit after that... as much as I hated the grind it was everyone doing it and everyone banded together.

Also, polearms were AoE for everyone who used them.
Certain classes used them better than others, but even a priest class could use a polearm with some penalties.

Our clan would all grab polearms and pull the entire catacomb.... we'd die some but it didn't matter even with the penalty (we had 76+ bishops anyway - woohoo you just lost a quarter pull of XP whoopie)
Fastest non-cheat XP in the game AFAIK.