[AoC] Brainstorming

[Mosg2]

I posted this in another thread, but I figured I'd repost it here as its own topic for discussion.

I think that Tempest of Set would make an incredible multi-boxed toon. They have a shield and decent armor and three heal spells which are ALL group heals (Two HoT's with 0.3 and 1.3 cast times respectively, and one 1.5 second heal that will do 75-100% of each nearby party member's health). They have the best PBAE in the game with a static pulse ability that does damage AND returns mana... Not to mention the fact that the PBAE "spreads" so that each group member gets the ability too. They also have decent nukes. To me, they're relatively even better suited to multiboxing than a Shaman is in WoW. They've got the whole package.

The only other thing I would consider is to possibly add a Priest of Mitra or two to the group. They have lots of knockdowns and knockbacks and even better heals than the ToS.

With all that in mind... I know one person is using AHK to multi-box two instances on one computer right now that is posting on the boards. Is anyone else having success running multiple instances of it? It is definitely a system hog and I'm scared to try and run more than one instance... I may just use this as an excuse to go full-hardware and get 4 other drone systems haha.

[bbj]

this is a message a guildy posted on his experiences after almost 2 weeks of AoC.

its a bit critical.

More Points of View

Damn but the game is unstable. You will blow your cap trying to keep up with the rate at which they are releasing patches. The patcher itself is a piece of crap and sometimes forget where the fuck it is. This results in multiple downloads of the same and (and twice for me now) possibly previous patches. I have resorted to keeping a full copy on my laptop so I can download a working copy at work everyday, and then copying it to my PC if that screws up.

Do NOT play a clothy on a PvP server. You will get owned, by everything and everyone. If you enjoy getting corpse camped and raped continously by guys 10 levels lower than you, play on a PvP server.

Play a huntard. 40 different traps, disorientating effects and slowing arrows, makes this the retard class of choice. You can kill monsters 10 levels higher than you, gank 5 okes at a time and takes very little skill to play. You will own everything in front of you, behind you to be honest in three fucking zones away.

Don't raise a problem ticket. I did, and was notfied that I was number 180 in the queue. 4 Hours later I was number 176. WTF</ACRONYM> ?

Do not take a gathering skill. I thought levelling a profession in WoW was stupid, but this is so off the charts it is crazy. Gathering cotton is screwed, so you write off one whole skill (and of course everything dependant on cotton), I would have thought they would at least have the gathering skills working for a production release. The skills basically work that you can gather Ash, Sandstone, Copper or whatever, and then when you have 20 of those you can hand it in to progress. Problem is that you then have to go back to those to get a 'rare' resource from an Ash tree, Sandstone outcrop or copper mine. Drop rate is 1%. Note I said drop rate! This conceivably means you could never get it. I collected the 20 of everything to hand in to get the 'rare' quests (except cotton), and now have 60+ of all of them again, and have not got a 'rare' resource. This is fundamentally retarded and with the way that resources are distributed (and camped) makes it nearly impossible to achieve. Unless of course you are a huntard, in which case all these bases are yours (and those in the next 3 zones). This is just designed to be a time sink, and adds absolutely no value to your rpofessions. You are not skilled, just lucky....I mean wtf?

Money means absolutely nothing, as there is nothing other than potions to buy. The AH is primitive, the mailing system even more so, and you can't make any meaningful money. I have no idea how you are supposed to make the 10 Gold to buy a bag, I have nearly 0.1% of that at level 23.

There is no class balance. None, nada, zip...fokol. You will get pwned...by a hunter....from 3 zones away.

The number of bugs are simply boggling. Just simply boggling.

People keep saying that we need to be considerate, and that the game is new, there will be bugs etc. You know what? Fuck that. I feel hard done by when it screws up my cap to be a glorified beta tester.

End game...it is all about the end game....if that sucks, this game will be toast in < 6 months.

[Otlecs]

BBJ, that's interesting stuff, but as I read it, this isn't intended to be a thread for people to post their opinions about AoC. It's brainstorming how best to multibox, so let's try to keep it on-topic.

I'm not really planning to multibox AoC, but as I haven't been able to persuade my wife to give it a go since she saw it (and hated it) in Beta, her copy of AoC was still sitting on the desk so I activated her account and had a very quick play with two level 6 Rangers.

I decided to use two machines, one of which is the one I've had persistent problems with Keyclone not passing extended keys, so I used the ever-faithful "Multibox" software, which is unsophisticated but never fails to work.

Having to reform the group every time you zone is a right pain. Having to actually *type" /follow instead of just being able to hit a key is even more of a pain, but they obviously synergise really well.

I disabled both autotarget and autoface on my main character, but left autoface enabled on my drone. This worked spectacularly well.

With no round-robin (see above) and no castsequence macros, I had to use seperate bindings for actions I didn't want them to perform at the same time (like traps and the Slam knockdown ability), but that didn't take long to get used to.

Interesting thoughts about the Tempest of Set. I've got a level 16 Tempest, and he's squishy. REALLY squishy. I'm on a PvP server, so this is quite a big deal, and more than once I've parked him to level another character while I wait for the spawn campers to go away.

Do the heals from multiple ToS in the same party stack? That's worth a try actually. If they do, then that would be a big surivivability boost and the potential to lock somebody down with Cobra Stare / Shifting Sands is tempting.

The game is nowhere near as suited to multiboxing as WoW, and I can't imagine trying to manage more than two character with the number of times you end up with a stuck character at the moment ;(

[Drizzit]

There is no class balance. None, nada, zip...fokol. You will get pwned...by a hunter....from 3 zones away

So if this is with one hunter. Wonder what 5 hunters can do (well if that is the party cap). So with 5 you can probably camp everyone lol.

[Ozbert]

Remember that this game is VERY hardware intensive. If you're used to running multiple WoW clients on a single machine, think again with AoC. A meaty machine might run two clients reasonably well.

If, on the other hand, you're a crazy-boxer with one machine per clone, and all those machines are powerhouses, then best of luck to you

[Mosg2]

I'm going to post up my multiboxing experience on a separate post later today when I get home from work, but right now I'm going to just lightly comment on what BBJ's friend said so that nobody gets the wrong idea:

1. It repatches for me about every 3-4 days. This takes about 5 minutes. No complaints from me on this.

2. Almost every class in the game is a "clothy" when you're talking in WoW terms. Levels 1-20 do not really represent class balance as most classes just have the shared abilities that all Rogue or Warrior or Priest class sets get. For the record, the most durable classes in the game are actually the "clothy" Priest classes because of the amazing heals that they get. As you climb higher and higher above 20 it gets harder and harder to 3 shot someone from stealth. By the time you hit 40 the classes are *fairly* balanced in pvp. Not great, but somewhat equal--Good for a week and change after launch

3. Hunter's damage is all level front loaded. From 1-40 they are a powerhouse, and then it starts to taper off. Remember, melee/physical dps classes generally do gear based damage whilst casters do ability based damage. This means that at different bands different classes are better. Rangers really equalize/get a little underpowered post 40 when they can't 3 shot anyone anymore.

4. Yeah, the ticket system is overloaded right now.

5. You don't have to take gathering if you don't want to... But you're allowed all of them and it's the only way to help your guild build a keep.

6. They just reactivated the traders a few days ago and the economy is starting to equalize out.

I think that, all things considered, I'd say it's the smoothest launch I've ever seen and I've been around for everything from EQ1 onwards. No excessive downtime, not many GAME BREAKING bugs, a very polished combat system etc.

Also... I'm able to dual box on an Athlon 4800+ Dual core, 4 gig of ram, 8800 gtx overclocked computer with medium settings at ~55fps average. It's not that bad

[Drizzit]

I think that, all things considered, I'd say it's the smoothest launch I've ever seen and I've been around for everything from EQ1 onwards.

Could you tell me a little story about the launch of WOW. The only launch i was around was guild wars (well almost launch, was on vacation that week, so a week later i was playing and there where no problems that i could see).

[Allokra]

I have mentioned this in another thread but I managed to run 3 accounts on one computer so far. All with playable frame rates...2 on low settings and 1 with medium settings...it might be the limit for my machine. It is all very annoying though...I run the three account son different settings and resolutions but it somehow keeps changing back to the last settings I used for any account (they are all installed in separate folders)...plus I found...3 lowbie necromancers...arent really tearing it up hehe

[Mosg2]

@Allokra:
Yeah, I have two different installs and they all default to the same f'ing settings. It's horrible. I have no idea how to change this up at this point.

@Drizzit:
I would say that WoW was the second smoothest launch I've seen, but it was still not great. For the first two weeks at least there was horrible loot lag. Basically, to get anything done you needed to not loot anything or else you'd get stuck, have to disconnect and then relog back in. Not so much buggy, but they also didn't ship enough units out to certain places too. I was lucky enough to get my two copies no problem, but some friends had to wait weeks.

[darkives]

I'm loving AoC currently, I have run 2 accounts on 1 computer, but I am using 2 comps atm.
I play a Guardian (best tank class) and a Tempest. Both level 53 right now. The tempest dies even if a mob thinks about hitting her, so I have to be really carefull with her aoe spells. But she does all the damage when I am grinding, then guardian is very soft on dps in defensive mode. (he has frenzy stance, does a crapload of damage, but might as well be wearing cloth = takes a arseload of damage) (arseload is ofcourse > crapload).

Cant remember what level, but about 30 the tempest gets a short duration personal buff that does damage (feat specs) - lots of damage to multiply targets. So she basically stands there and the aoe sparks fly, all while the guardian tries to keep the mobs off of her.


I love the idea of 2 or more tempests tho, I might roll them up later and see how they go.