Will the full release revive AO?

Game Discussion
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Maybe. But before that verdict is made we’ll need to look at why AO is dying/died in the first place.

Overlooking the fact that AO’s largest problem at the moment would probably be just lag and optimization, that way people could fight in a city without thousands of particle effects going off as well as blinding anybody nearby in a smoke cloud the size of Hiroshima.

A lot of the issues in AO come from a concept standpoint. Objectively its a good game, strong combat system, a lot of mechanics to keep things interesting, naval combat, exploring the dark sea. There’s plenty to do…but a lot of it is just HARD to do or HARD to keep track of. Take combat for example, it changes all the time with a tweak that makes or breaks builds but the devs refuse to acknowledge the largest issue at hand: the MAGE build. It can deal large amounts of damage across large areas with virtually no drawback or consequence.

  • Weapons need aim, which is hard because the only reliable constant with AO’s aiming is that it’s unreliable.
  • Berserkers actively put themselves in harms way to deal damage, only to not even hit the target because they weren’t fast enough or were just a micro-meter off target.

Meanwhile mages have placed explosions, pulsar and cannon spells, and a dozen and one ways to obliterate entire islands from a safe distance. But the dev’s wont fix any of these issues. A key in this would be general stubbornness, it’s a magic game so magic has to be center stage, and another is that the top players are all meta-mancers who’d throw a fit if their precious build got touched even a bit.

Combine that with how hard it is to get items, weapons, and gear, and you have a game that takes forever getting into, and even longer to get good equipment, only to find 30 hours later that you chose the wrong magic/fighting style and now you can’t deal damage for shit.

No casual player, no new player, hell even a lot of loyal players want to put up with that constant grind just for a chance of having fun. I’m speaking from a point of not having played AO for almost a year and just now getting back into it. I’m still seeing most of the same problems that made me stop playing in the first place.

Will the full release save AO? maybe. The game went from nearly NINETY THOUSAND players (at it’s peak) to just one thousand. And it can be described in one simple word: tedium. You can only dangle a carrot in front of a mule for so long until it decides “fuck it, i’m finding another carrot.”

I’m sure I’ll get a dozen replies telling me that I’m wrong, and that the game’s still fun, and that it’s just a skill issue, but the numbers do not lie. If you have a game that was the anticipated sequel to one of Roblox most popular games, only to have it fumble 99% (That’s not a joke either. The drop, represented as a percentage, is nearly 99%. You can’t make this up.) of it’s player base, then SOMETHING. IS. WRONG.

So what do I think would save the game? Just letting the builds be equal. Get Mage out of the meta because at least half of the player base doesn’t wanna do mage. I personally find it uninteresting. I want to have fun as a berserker, as a warrior, conjurer or warlock, not have to be forced to select Venom, Crystal, Metal or Explosion magic on every god damn build.

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no.

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Magic? Sure. That’s a problem that comes with the nature of how magic is in this game and Vetex’s reluctance to make changing it accessible. Fighting Styles, on the other hand, are piss easy to change. Go to the tutor of another FS, simple as that. Spend like 20 minutes in Fort Talos to get mastery maxxed and you’re good to go.

This. This right here is one of the biggest problems with AO. While tedium in main progression makes sense (level jumps from story to story to encourage exploration and looking at other islands), much of the other tedium doesn’t. Sunkens have no right to be 1/3000 from an already boring activity, Hecate Essence shouldn’t be 1/12 in the FAR REACHES, which themselves shouldn’t take nearly a half hour of sailing to get to. Most of the higher-power gear is tedious to obtain, which SUCKS.

Here we go. Given your previous post about “ripping out the heart of mage” or whatever, I should’ve foreseen the hatred coming. Yes, mage is one of the better builds. Yes, the playstyle can be annoying (most mages play zoner, rushdown is better). No, that doesn’t mean it is the biggest problem.

Which have their best use, in my experience, with landing cheap hits on opponents from range (mostly for applying statuses for synergies). All magic builds have access to this and it isn’t the most broken thing in game.

Isn’t this spell just an upgraded version of blast with extra size + pierce? I don’t see the problem with it over other moves, it reminds me of Flying Phoenix.

Please, give me an example of the way that a normal mage can destroy everything on an island from a distance they can’t be hit from.

No shit. Of course the top players will be metamancers, they want to keep their positions. They do whatever they can, even if it is scummy - which most of them are.

Weapons need aim a bit less than mages, assuming both are using speed. They just have a more versatile moveset, so some weapons need less aim than others. Aim will still be a factor on both sides, but not nearly as much as you depict it. There’s more to combat than your aim.

That’s how rushdown builds work. Get close up in their face to do high damage. If you’re not hitting the target, that is a SKILL ISSUE. Fighting Styles have hitboxes which can be really fucked at times, sure, but that goes both ways - just like snare. If you’re not fast enough, get more speed. I doubt the validity of the second claim, given attacks from FS usually have some form of AOE.

So what you’re saying is, kill off a pure class because people don’t like playing it. Even though some of Mage’s problems, as you described them, extend to hybrids. There’s also more to mage than size. Heat Mages, like Fire/Ash, are probably better in 1v1s because of their synergies and speed. If I were to say “gut warlock” because of my opinions on the class, it’d be equally as valid as your opinion. That’s what this is - an OPINION. Not a solution to the game’s lower player count.

Linking this, as it showcases the biases of the OP. Very anti-mage and very rude about it.

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I think that last post sounds ironic, but I genuinely think there’s some intent behind it and I don’t trust any statement saying otherwise

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also wait a minute this post focuses on mage in the first half wtf

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No you don’t understand at all how player counts work lol. That was literally on release after the game was in development for years and this was hyped up SOOOO much. Like you can’t tell me you actually believed that the game would consistently get 90k or so players? :skull: like wtf. I’m lwk happy and surprised the game even gets a thousand players. Ao is not a game that gets big or popular on roblox. It’s not a lazy cash grab slop fest with flashing lights. It’s an in depth rpg story game with actual effort put into it. Snot nosed 10 year olds won’t play ao cuz it’s “booooring” they wanna go shoot their fancy anime balls that do 5000000 damage while screaming in their jojo and one piece or whatever. The reason the game got so many players at once on release is cuz it was soooo hyped up and a release date was set. Timezones exist. People are busy and have lives. Some people take long breaks from ao and come back. None of those 90k ppl can realistically play at the same time again and a lot of ppl as i said have lives. Like you can’t just doompost saying ao is a flop and lost 99% of its players like what the hell that sounds like rage bait or like you severely don’t understand anything at all

Yeah… this is bait :sob::skull: “ao lost 99%!!! Of its players bcuz of BUILDS BCUZ OF MAGE. If mage was nerfed and the builds were made equal 90k ppl would play ao consistently! This would save the game!”

Like do you understand what you have said? I don’t think you do

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i feel like full release would be seen by anyone who doesn’t already know AO as just another content update, because that’s all it really is
it could draw back old players, but i doubt it’d really be enough to get a bunch of new players unless vetex finds a way to build a bunchh of hype

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it truly is unfortunate that in any game with combat, there will always be a meta.
theres meta in fucking TERRARIA of all things, where PvE is literally the MAIN FOCUS of the game.

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If that’s what you gathered then the only thing you’ve proven is a low reading comprehension.

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Lol what :sob: idgaf about the stupid meta pvp bullshit everyone keeps crying rivers over. I just called out the fallacies you have how apparently the game is dead and doesn’t get blox fruits numbers cuz of the meta and how apparently the game lost 99% of its playerbase (utter nonsense as i said)

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  1. If you think I’m being “rude” about mages, thats a you issue.
  2. yes, I have a very clear bias against mages because they suck balls. Its obviously the most powerful build in the game, and every other form of combat is severely neglected. Thats not to say they’re entirely awful, every build has its pros and cons, but Mage has almost all of the pros and none of the cons. So yeah, I have a bias against mages because most are played by sweaty tryhard morons who ruin the game for other people.
  3. I’m not saying kill of mage either. I’m saying either bring the other classes up to its level or bring it down to theirs so people can have fun they way they want to.
  4. I’m aware of how rushdown builds work, and I’m not saying berserkers shouldnt function as they do. I’m saying there needs to be a reasonable compensation for a build as dangerous to use as berserker.
  5. Weapons need far more aim than mages. Weapons more often than not have more constricting hitboxes while mages just have big spheres they need to point.
  6. And the fact that all top players are meta-mancers contributes is the cherry on top as it proves my point. There is no way to scratch the surface of a Mage’s power without being one yourself.

I hope most of this gets resolved in the full release, at least thats what it looks like. What I’ve listed are the concurrent problems, with many having been present from launch until today.

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It is. My only gripe is how LARGE that gap is, y’know? The difference between a meta-mancer and someone just wanting to have fun is as large as a canyon.

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Idk dude as they say if you can’t beat them then join them

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If everyones “crying” over this “meta pvp bullshit,” then it stands to reason thats a problem, no? The game had an peak of about 85 thousand players, maybe more, only for it to have dropped to 1.3k, maybe 1.9 on a good day. There are very clear problems that are killing the game and getting salty at people who point them out wont help.

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What a cop out answer.

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Yeah you didn’t read what i said about player counts at all. This might come as a shock but 99% of the people who play this game aren’t on the forums and on vetcord and they don’t give a fuck about builds or the meta or anything like that. They just play the game. Read what i said again about player counts as ao is not really “dead” and you using the day 1 peak player counts as what ao “should have” for players and otherwise is a flop is a mistake belief and a misunderstanding of how player counts work in general

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lol, I thought this was a joke post. Now it’s funny for an entirely different reason.

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Hate to say it but the combat really deters people and I don’t think ao would get as popular without a combat rework granted the game is pretty good as it is now and is constantly improving

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Don’t see how it’s a me issue when by most people’s standards ,you are being rude and insulting towards mage players. Please see the last post you made, look back, and tell me that it’s perfectly acceptable behavior and not at all toxic.

This is debatable. Sure, everyone talks about size mages because yes - they are powerful. Easy to use and very damaging. However, the player is likely not the most skilled and a better player can beat them - they’re also countered by the act of parrying. Other builds have more versatility and more potential - Conjurer being the first that comes to mind. Mage isn’t some overpowered demon build, it is an easy to learn build that plays well at range and has powerful synergies or strong raw stats.

Very presumptious. You cannot have interacted with the majority of all players who have played mage. Your experiences with mages may not be positive (or you just can’t seem to beat them), however that doesn’t mean that they’ll all assholes. Some play it for the better spells, some play it for synergies, SOME PLAY IT BECAUSE HIGHER TIER SPELLS LOOK COOLER. You can’t define an entire group like that, especially because a lot of mages don’t PvP. Are they also worthy of getting their heart ripped out, all because they chose a stat build they liked?

I assume you specifically mean berserker. The truth is, not every class WILL be equal. Juggernaut will be outclassed by Knight, Warlock will outclass Berserker in some aspects, and there’s a whole host of other intricacies I can’t get into. Nerfing magic means a nerf to Conjurer, Paladin, Warlock, and Savant alongside Mage. Buffing weapons means a buff to Conj, Warlord, Savant, and Knight alongside Warrior. You’d have to tune moves for a class specifically, which is already partially done by tiers - that’s your problem. Mage isn’t inherently overpowered, it’s just that Size benefits mages well. That’s mostly because some mages have to bigger than others - be it for logical reasons (explosions are big, light isn’t) or balance reasons.

Isn’t there already? It does extremely well close up, your problem is just closing the gap. You have your ranged poke too - Shot. It’s not like fighting styles are the- actually no they probably are the worst combat style so far, they take more skill than others to utilize effectively in PvP. However, the results they give for that skill are great. There is reasonable compensation already and they’re getting more techniques in Full Release.

Can’t argue on the “big sphere” part, outside of Javelin (which usually isn’t very big) and BEAM, which doesn’t have that big of a hitbox if you want damage from it. However, heavy weapons (not strength, just heavy) have good sized projectiles as well. Tempest also exists, which requires zero aim at all (given its nature). Something like P-Shot certainly does, though.

Yeah, there is. It’s called skill. Play better than the mage and you’ll probably win - know how to parry their attacks when you can’t dodge them. If they’re a size mage, exploit their high endlag. It isn’t the hardest thing ever. Skill > Build, Mage is also more predictable (some of the time) than some other builds. Use that to your advantage.

By this logic, Helldivers 2 died. It had over 450k players peak (on pc) at launch, last month it only had the average of 25k (on pc). Did that game die? No. The community is going strong, currently shitting their pants over the Illuminate invading Widow’s Harbor. Just because a game doesn’t have the same player count it did on a big update or at launch doesn’t mean it died. I see new players in AO all the time, too. It isn’t dead.

Additionally, there’s a reason for there being more mages than berserkers. People find magic cooler (or perhaps more fun) than fighting styles. It’s up to their personal preference. Do not fault people for that.

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this happens with like 99% of games out there including roblox games its not that rare (although ao did have a harder and quicker falloff then most for playercount), imo the issue is more of the inconsistent update schedule and the lack of replayability then unbalanced builds but both of those will get better with full release because
1: all the major features aside from like 2 will of been added so updates will likely be much quicker (aside from a select few updates that introduce a kingdoms capital island or dark sea expansions or something similarly big)
2: full release is already adding a crazy amount of content and theres still a ton more planned, which means much more replayability, especially considering things like progressing multiple files for all the new stuff like spirit weapons and new fighting styles