Age of Conan - Brief Update on Changes

First off...wow!

What a whirlwind of a few days. Making changes, playing with specs, and quitting a guild...oh my!

First off, the guild.

As I had discussed previously I joined a raids guild to try and see how I would feel about working that path. I had my first chance to work with these guys Tuesday night on a raid I have done 4 times...Vistrix.
To say it was a disaster is an under achievement. I was blown away at how bad the tank was, and how the "stick to one strategy and don't stray" attitude worked...badly.
I kept seeing the same people die 3 different times, and no adjustment to strategy. At that point I had to leave for the night due to work the next day.

But, this is only a piece of the issue.

When I joined, it seemed the guild was not into meeting the new guy...and I can understand how people react when someone new comes in..but, there was hardly any conversation.
The night of the raid (Tuesday), as I joined the vent channel, someone (who happened to be a guild leader) says "Who is this Amatheon?". I was taken aback, and while in game just typed "Uh...hello, I can hear you"
No "Hey welcome" or anything afterwards as well. When I asked about going on the raid, I could hear the frustration from that same person as he said "Well, I did want to take my DT, I guess he can wait".

I felt out of place...like the 3rd wheel.

Maybe this is why I have always stuck to large casual guilds, as this really just makes someone not feel like they should even be there.

But, it kept on after the fact. The next day after patch, I went into the new zone, and was shocked when I was attacked by a 6 man boss. He was just wandering in the vicinity of other mobs. Usually most 6 mans have a specific locale they hang out at. This guy was just all over the zone.
I noted this in guild chat, and was instantly assailed with "Dude, 6 man bosses are all over this game...get over it".

WOW!

Luckily I took my time and went to my alt, who was not in a guild. That is when I saw a new advert, with their website...

House of Heroes

A great website, lots of information, and a laid out guild policy (missing from the other guild).
I chatted quite a bit with the leader...who is a woman from Tennessee. Family, etc.
This sounded good.
They discussed their raid situation and the times meshed with mine. As well, they wanted to TALK with me, and I logged into their vent and chatted for a bit.

It felt right.

Who knows, it may never be, but, I have not been a guild person very much, so lets see how this plays out...

Enough on that, lets look at changes.

Speccing characters feats is the number one thing to do once you get into the game since the patch, but it has been difficult as they have changed quite a bit.
I used a page called "Ask Kalanthes" to build my feat list before doing it in game. It is just one free respec, so I needed to make it count.


I had a blast. I gained a new skill that looks awesome when it goes off, and makes me a better "off tank" as well (will aggro up to 4 mobs...nice!). As well, several of my skills and fatalities have new animations, so that was a treat.
I also continued on my new character, a Herald of Xotli. Quite fun really, and his specs were easy at such a low level.

One nice feature added is when you level up, you can see how you gain adjustments now to your various attributes...basically when you level, you know what is happening!



Look at the left side, and you can see all of the messages of the attributes gaining points.

Otherwise, the patch just helps everything make more sense.
Little things also let you become more in tune with your character.
For example, like most MMO's, damage is flying through the air in a number dance..
AoC has went a step further and adjusted "Critical" visuals.
They pop up in large font, separate from the rest of the damage and stick in the air for a moment so you can give yourself a pat on the back for the deadly damage you have done.

Finally performance in DX10 has improved...but only for Nvidia cards.

I had to actually pull my ATI card due to massive slowdowns. I could not get it to even out for the life of me.
And it was drastic...going from 40-60 FPS down to 1 FPS.
I kid you not.
I put back in the GTX260 I purchased a couple of months back for the LCD tests, and it is smooth as butter.

Hope ATI or Funcom figure that out real fast.

Anyways, should be a fun weekend. I will try to get some new screenies of the different visual effects and new damage display systems.

I expect a LOT of fun is ahead!