Regarding Itemization

[Mrbloodworth]

We know right now people are feeling like all armor in Age of Conan is the same and brown. I assure you this is not the case, for along time now we have had a "GM area" where we spawned lots of NPC's that had all sorts of armor appearances so we could tell when art was completed. We have one of these for armor, weapons, and social clothing. Hundreds upon hundreds of appearances.

Anyway to cut to the chase I took your guys concerns and shot an email to Ole Herbjornsen our Lead Designer to ask about Itemization. Ole came back with some very encouraging news. They are going to put blue loot on bosses in the outdoor playfields now and not only on bosses in instances. In addition 3 sets of epic armours for each class (for a total of 36) will allow the item designers to move more of the unique stuff down to lower tiers and over from purple and blue towards green.

The gfx artists will also produce a lot of extra weapons which will further increase the visual variety. He expects these things to be coming into the game within the next week or two.

Some responces to players:

Just because there is more variety in the wings doesn't mean its going to be purple dragon armor with flames shooting off of it, the armor will still retain its "realistic" look and most are based off Hyborian cultures.

You guys are confusing the point, this does not change item stats or accessibility of end game items. End game items, epic items still exist. We put in blue drops for outdoor bosses to give people not in instances the chance to acquire better gear that is one change, the main change this addresses is simply the introduction of more appearances that can be used so people feel they can further customize the look of their characters. "Epic" item refers to an item tier and not necessarily "drops in epic mode of a zone"

To be honest though, bosses in Instances are alot harder (even on normal or whatever mode) you go through. I'm an assassin, yes, a squishy character, and I have no problem solo'ing an outdoor boss. The point of the matter, is that you are making the blue's so accessible that they lose all their value in being HARDER to obtain. Yes, I understand now, that the Epic, you refer to is the Tier in which they will be in, however, just because they are "end-game" items, doesn't mean they aren't easy to get. To me it just seems like you are making it simpler to get the better stuff, when in reality, it should be harder.

Again I believe you are confused. Yes there may be some "blue" items dropped by outdoor bosses but that could be only 1 set for example per type or only a couple pieces per boss. This is not giving out "better items" easier.

Quite simple we are putting items into the game using more of the armor appearances that we have. In turn by creating new appearances we have a larger range to work with and can trickle down appearances that used to be in reserve for other items.

I'm not going to clarify this again because I think it should be pretty clear this is about "fashion" if you will primarily and your concerns are of a balance nature which we are not addressing here and should not be impacted anyway.

Linky

If this was posted somewhere else, i'm sorry.
Other than that, my personal opinion is, this may turn out bad.

Never mind, i was just as confused about the wording as everyone else, i understand now. And this is a really good thing.

[Slayerik]

Probably should go in AoC forums :)

[Mrbloodworth]

Probably should go in AoC forums :)

WTF? I thought i put it there........ Mod?

[Trippy]

Probably should go in AoC forums :)

Yeah probably

[Mrbloodworth]

Probably should go in AoC forums :)

Yeah probably

Help a brother out who hasn't had all his coffee yet?

[schild]

The itemization stuff does sound good, but it's not enough. It's getting better pretty quickly though.

[Mrbloodworth]

[Morfiend]

I hope they fix some of the cloth drops to be more in line with what the HoX needs. That is one of the biggest problems of the class right now.

Man, I feel like a Ret pally all over again.

[Rasix]

Can't you use assassin cloth drops?  Or do those even exist?

[Mrbloodworth]

Can't you use assassin cloth drops?  Or do those even exist?

Cloth is cloth.

[Lantyssa]

Can't you use assassin cloth drops?  Or do those even exist?

It's doubtful +dagger damage will be of much use to a Harold.

[Morfiend]

Can't you use assassin cloth drops?  Or do those even exist?

It's doubtful +dagger damage will be of much use to a Harold.

Bingo.

From what I can gather, we need +Str +Stam +Fire Damage. You dont find many drops with those 3 stats on them. Even in the end game most Heralds are saying that they have to wear a mixture of Demo and Assassin gear, which leads to wasted stats. Also, from some research that has been done, not much cloth has +Stam on it, which we very badly need.

[Mrbloodworth]

Can't you use assassin cloth drops?  Or do those even exist?

It's doubtful +dagger damage will be of much use to a Harold.

I use +dagger damage and % to crit, on my necro 

[Lantyssa]

Heralds of Xotli can't use daggers.

[Mrbloodworth]

Heralds of Xotli can't use daggers.

oh. 

[Brogarn]

Heralds of Xotli can't use daggers.

Err... ya they can. At least according to AoC wiki and my often faulty memory. But they can't dual wield them and I imagine they're much better off with the 2h.

[Abelian75]

Pretty sure all the major HoX combos require a 2-hander, so if they can use daggers I'm not sure why you'd ever want to.  In any case they are certainly intended to be 2-handed edges wielders.

[Lantyssa]

Guardians can use light armor, too.  It is not quite as pointless, but is pretty close.

[palmer_eldritch]

An HoX can use daggers but all the combos require 2-handed edged, so the ability to use a dagger is totally useless. Dunno why we even have it.

[palmer_eldritch]

Can't you use assassin cloth drops?  Or do those even exist?

It's doubtful +dagger damage will be of much use to a Harold.

Bingo.

From what I can gather, we need +Str +Stam +Fire Damage. You dont find many drops with those 3 stats on them. Even in the end game most Heralds are saying that they have to wear a mixture of Demo and Assassin gear, which leads to wasted stats. Also, from some research that has been done, not much cloth has +Stam on it, which we very badly need.

There is a fair bit of +stam cloth (I am finding at 61), which I guess is because that's what assassins need.

I am also finding that mana can become an issue, so +mana gear does have a use. Simply spamming fire breath in a long fight can use up your mana fairly quickly.

Having said that, potions can restore stamina and mana faster than you are likely to use it, whatever your items. A plentiful supply of potions is more worth spending your money on than a horse, in my opinion.