currently the largest
Currently, the largest problem with Age of Conan, in terms of PvE, is the lack of any real endgame. There is no undiscovered country. In the early days of Everquest1, when players reached level 50, they had a wealth of content to entertain them. It took weeks for players to learn how to enter the planes, and weeks more to learn how to coordinate teams of players to succeed there. All of it was new, exciting, and most of all, gave everyone the feeling that they were doing something that no one else had done, and with great rewards.
There is no such place in AoC, no zone which plagues players with the need to know just what lies beyond. Moving aside game balance issues and the delayed entrance of massive pvp battles, there must be something to keep players interested at the end game.
Currently, I am working on leveling my second char to level 80. I\’m doing this because I feel there is little for me to do with my current level 80 char. I applaud the development team in creating such a wonderful combat system alongside a streamlined leveling rate. But with nothing to come at the end of this, there is nothing to keep me playing the game.
Admittedly, AoC is a relatively new MMORPG, needing time to develop and mature. This is merely an attempt to give my personal opinion on what made the great MMOs great. Saving an exciting endgame scenario there could be a system for further improving characters post lvl 80.
In EQ, they introduced an alternate experience option. Wherein players could choose to spend their experience points towards further increasing their abilities and skills. This could be easily done in AoC, giving players the option to gain further feats past lvl 80 or perhaps more skill points in exchange for exp gained through killing enemies.
As it stands, once a character hits 80, the only thing they have to look forward to is acquiring better gear and perhaps increasing their skills in gathering and crafting. The crafting system, while still in development, still would offer little to players once complete. Seeing as how equipment obtained through crafting pales in comparison to most raid lvl gear.
If the position of the staff is for pvp confrontation to encompass the majority of endgame content, then that is perfectly fine. The problem is, that it just isn\’t there. Even if massive siege battles were available, it takes a massive investment from guilds to even be able to participate. I look forward to seeing just how these encounters play out, but I have my concerns.
What will be the reward for winning such battles? Will guilds be able to acquire additional cities? Will they get points to spend on some reward? Will there be gear of something to gain from succeeding here?
Beyond these issues, Aoc has some serious balance issues to be looked at. Healers for one, are seeing much debate on the forums. The Priest of Mitra class is top dog in healing, but most players are reporting that the healing is not needed. A Tempest of Set\’s higher damage output is usually preferred as they can provide adequate healing for a group. For dps classes, the clear winning is between Herald of Xotli and the Barbarian class. In all the pregame content I read, the assassin was hailed as being the number one damage class, but in reality, they pale in comparison to these other two classes in the endgame. Rangers have a plethora of useful skills to help them in grouping, however, players I have talked to are reporting that many of these crucial skills are currently broken.
Is it the responsibility of the player to bear these issues long after the game\’s release? Or is this simply a momentary lapse in the developers efforts to create a complete and balanced game?
In closing, I have found AoC to be one of the most intriguing and original MMOs that I have played yet to date. There is great promise for a wonderful game that will keep players worldwide interested for many years; the problem is that all these great things seems either incomplete or broken completely.
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