As it stands right now, I feel like the game isn’t very casual friendly. With the amount of pvp players who hunt down anyone in sight using whatever the current meta is, it has me worried about the people who only play casually- myself included. I play often, but not in a PVP sense. Neither of my files are very PVP oriented at the moment- especially with Thermo Fist being as oppressive as it is. I want to hear the thoughts of the community as a whole about what they think about people who play casually and don’t want to engage in PVP activities- including the people with high renown who flee from PVP.
(Edited to add in a poll)
I like seeing them.
As long as they mind their business, they’re alright.
I have friends that just outright refuses to join back in game because they’ll get hunted due to having high bounty, which they got from freeing NPC executions casually back when it still gave 3k bounty over 100k bounty
While I can handle myself fine and can adapt, it will turn off people from coming back to play the PvE part of the game, so yeah
Other casual players are usually pretty cool. I enjoy them since it’s surefire that they won’t come out of nowhere to kill me for no reason. I like it when you can just chill with randoms you found in the server, minding your own nonsense like making potions together.
Metamancers and sweats suck however, since they’re using the best sets of gear just to stomp you into oblivion.
I must be lucky or keeping my renown low is working, but I have only been jumped once by a pair of assassins who weren’t even good at the game. One was a fire conjurer I stomped using fire warlock, and the other was a warlord I think? I don’t remember because I didn’t fight him, I was playing with another forumer (Goopman) and he fought them off.
And I’m pretty sure 90% of the toxicity behind renown is the deckhand system. People who purposefully metamance to get them are going to have a natural advantage when it comes to simply just getting around, having boats, and all of that. With enough renown these guys literally can give you free stats. It’s awful how only sweats, Metamancers, and (rarely) a hardworking modest guy have access to these blockheads.
Sorry to add this but @Key was acting like a sweat earlier.
The casual experience is not good at the moment. You can hop on to PvP with friends occasionally, sure. Maybe try to brew a few of the new potions, or finish off a title you may have been working on. There’s just not really anything to do in AO right now that doesn’t require a large time commitment. Most casual players don’t care about reaching Perfect Brewing or Jewelcrafting. They probably don’t really even know how Jewelcrafting works (had to explain this one multiple times to a buddy of mine who’s returning to AO). All of this on top of the grueling bounty-hunting combat tag system that condems bad players to death if they dare to step within half the map of the person hunting them, which I highly doubt is enjoyable.
Until the replayability of the Darksea and updates beyond that are released, the casual experience for AO doesn’t really seem great.
I agree with most of what you’re saying, but it feels a bit harsh to assume that somebody doesn’t know how jewelcrafting (or any other system in the game) works just because they play the game casually.
The system is somewhat confusing when looking at it from the outside, as are the tables themselves. Primary effects, secondary effects, success rate, upgrading, socketing, unsocketing, and sockets themselves all make the system a bit hard to grasp if they haven’t been keeping up with patch notes.
i know some “pvp elitists” (for lack of a better term) who seem to look down on casual players… like… why?
casual players are awesome, most aren’t toxic and i envy them having a life outside of a videogame
I’m a casual player and am frustrated by not being able to opt out of PvP. I don’t want for some random guy to gank me out of nowhere when I’m trying to sell sealed chests or something. There should be a setting to turn off PvP. It’s that simple.
For the record: this thread is coming from a PvE player who has over 300k renown and tends to flee from PvP encounters. This has led me to being called a cancerous individual for the game by one of the people trying to chase me down (and failing due to faster ship diplomacy)
The only reason I want renown so high is because I want to have good deckhands (which is another can of worms in and of itself) so I agree with this sentiment.
This all makes me question why global PvP is even a thing. Looking at another MMO (Runescape), PvP is completely optional- only if you enter a specific area (the Wilderness, which can be the Dark Sea or the area around Munera Garden in AO terms) or join a designated PvP world which lets PvP happen anywhere. Vetex has said that he wants global PvP in the game so that he doesn’t upset his die hard fans, but I’ve rarely seen a generation 1 or 2 player that’s a PvP sweat. I don’t know if they’d care that much.
It doesn’t help that as things stand, Thermo Fist Warlords are an oppressive build. A friend of mine who holds similar opinions to me calls it a crutch, and for good reason. (if the fighting styles were tier listed, they mark thermo as S tier while all others are C) If you aren’t a thermo fist warlord user, you need to have way more skill than your opponent in order to even stand a chance against the current metamancer.
I feel like the PVP sweats are just going to go to the path of least resistance when it comes to getting kills no matter what, but it doesn’t help matters when the goal is so clear cut. At the top level there should be a variety of builds used. I know things are getting balanced over time, but
it’s ridiculous right now. It makes me want to stop playing for fear that I’ll be forced to engage in content that I don’t want to be a part of.
I’ve been trying to up my pvp game, at least with my light conjurer, but I personally really like trying new stuff to see what I like most. That’s why I have eight save slots, seven of which are maxed out. On my main roblox account, which has 6 of my 8 slots, I have over 200 hours in the game, but I still suck at pvp as I spent much of that time trying to grind and get damn gear to survive being ganked. so I can actually stand a chance in pvp. Idk if I can consider myself casual, but I honestly don’t consider myself to be all THAT serious about the game either as I don’t wanna ruin other ppl’s days by ganking and farming renown for deckhands or a leaderboard number. It’s just not fun to deal with when you are physically unable to handle the receiving end of it, either due to skill or just a lack of good gear.
Vetex could disable opting out of pvp if you reach lb status altogether so those who don’t care about it don’t have to deal with bs metamancing and ganking, but those who went through the trouble to get to lb levels of renown still gotta deal with that challenge.
Could see that. Ever since I became an Admiral and a Cardinal, I never get a break with a lot of people always on my back. It’s just… full of dread every time I join on those saves. I never have fun playing on the saves that are on LB status because I don’t know who’s gonna jump me when I’m minding my own business. I don’t know why vetex listens to the vocal minority instead of the silent majority. A lot issues revolve around the current deckhand system, and the current leaderboard system as a whole. Maybe if deckhands costs galleons to hire instead, and replacing the current LB system with a system that was similiar to AGR… toxicity would be far less, and people can get more fun out of the game.