Age of Conan Diary#1

Well, the patch that came out on July 10, Thursday, was fixes to most classes except Guardians and Conquerors–Conqs being the still broken class.

The biggest issue with the Age of Conan is the over reliance on group questing.  Yes, Yes, Yes, the idiots saying “But its a MMO” aren’t thinking in terms of flexibility and the disadvantages of having immature players on-line.  In THEORY group questing should be a fun social activity where everyone has an important role in the group. Yeah, this is true if YOU ARE IN A BETA TESTING GROUP where everyone is playing together because they have to and, eventually they become best buddies or cooperative associates.  In real-life, a player tries to join a group and then the group has many different ideas and agendas for what the group should quest and how they will achieve that goal.  At any moment, the second some one feels he got what he needed, a member will leave the group–sometimes it is a case of “I’m taking my ball and going home” in other cases it is “I finished this group quest now I’m leaving before helping my group members complete their goals.”  Is this what the group testers at Funcom had in mind for FUN?  The group quests need to be flexible enough to allow players to either group with another person–not be so difficult that 5 or 6 people are needed as is the case now. 

In addition group quests need to be flexible enough to allow the paying customer to solo if they wish.  Grouping happens naturally with solo players because they just join up with another solo player, which means these players will have an easier time of working together toward a common goal.  Soloing (means playing a game as a solo payer) lets players catch up with other players that do have high-level comrades or consistent group members whom always play together.  A solo player may want to approach a problem a certain way instead of having the 16-year old mage insisting on doing it their way only because they set up the group.  Plus, a group with a high-level player means less experience per kill for other group members.  Now the idiot reading that is saying “Don’t invite high-level players,” which then exposes the difficulty with enemy level-scaling.

Level-scaling was criticised when Bethesda’s Oblivion had monsters whom changed their stats to match the level of the player.  Sure, it was difficult–not fun, but a challenge–but the reward in overcoming challenges is being able to grow in abilities making the player feel more powerful.  The children who play Age of Conan (Rated M for Mature by the way) can appreciate this example:  A freshman in high school is looked down upon and can’t fight for themselves as they are picked on and the last for everything. Then that freshman gets more responsibility and “cred” as a sophomore, then as a junior, then they earned their way as a senior. This once freshman can now walk the halls unbothered, is now the first for everything–getting the first choice of the best, has the most freedom, and can look down upon or bring misery to the lower classes.  OK pay attention for the connection to my point: A player who fights monsters that are scaling to the player’s level means the player will never be rewarded with improving their skills or taking more quests (responsibilities) because the monsters can always kick the player’s ass regardless of how much experience the player has–the player will not be able to go back to that level 2 monster and take revenge for killing the player when he was a weak level 1 player, because that monster will ALWAYS be the same level or a level higher than the player.  THIS SCALING IS NOT FUN!!!!!! That is why the mod for halting enemy scaling was popular for Oblivion: The player is rewarded for going through the hardship of leveling in the region and can easily kill once higher level monsters. The freshman is now the senior. Of course going into a higher level region means the once uber-player is now again at the bottom of the food-chain, but the player again works to level so again they are at the top of the food chain and are rewarded for being at the top until they move on to the next higher level, just as the senior in high school is again low-level freshman in college.

So, if grouping wasn’t so forced on the player and the monsters didn’t scale to the player (Funcom has monsters scale to the player by ability scores and not level number), then I’d say Age of Conan is an excellent game to play.