I think one of the best parts of MMORPGs is growing your character carefully and also making your own gear, not just getting to the CAP quickly.
Over time, Age of Conan has become obsolete from this point of view.
I think this could easily be fixed. We all know very well that the infamous craft revamp has gone to hell.
However, I believe it would be possible and easily to add equipment to the standard recipe book, even without having to revamp the entire craft.
It would be nice to have armor sets (recycling existing skins is fine), which are epic already at (maybe 20) 40 - 60 and 80 levels.
In order to push the players to the old dungeons (a bit like it was for the purist) the recipes could be obtained from a quest in the dungeons of respective levels and always in these dungeons each boss drops a token necessary to craft an item.
I explain to Black Castle and/or Sanctum of Burning Souls you complete the quest to get the weapon and armor sets (including accessories, rings, shields, cloak etc.) then each boss drops 1 token that must be used in addition to the normal ones materials for craft.
Example:
2h Sword damn the soul of your dead ancestors
Material:
2 Superior Hilt Piece 20 silver 20 copper 2 soul token (drop from any lv40 dungeon boss)
item 40 require 40
68 DPS
+25 hit ratings
+32 critical rating
+32 fatality rating
+38 critical damage rating
+200 combat rating (unholy)
1 gem slot
Similarly for PvP I would introduce recipes that use the PvP materials found in Bori, to craft PvP gear.
19, 39, 59, 79 where whoever enters and wins a mini of that level earns 1 token for crafting those respective pieces of gear, this should revitalize PvP at low levels as well
Low level dungeons could focus on Blues and lvl80+ on Purples. This could revive Onyx too.
For PvP Blues there still wouldn’t be Chest and Helmet and they would still require PvP Rank. It seems the only way to solve this is as always suggested ‘‘Remove Rank Restriction’’ its a pointless mechanic anyway since the Gear requires you to obtain Tokens via PvP. They could add a Chestpiece and Helmet of course. Doubt its a big effort at all.
For lvl 80 PvP same without Rank restriction purples.
PvE T1-T2-T3 Gear would still be obsolete since people tend to ingore them due to the abscence of Critigation. Just introduce some Critigation less than T4.
Some would argue this would make Khitai Purples obsolete. Whoever thought that introducing Godslayer Purples with worse stats than T3 but with Critigation making people neglect the latter is plain stupid.
But this isn’t the case with all pieces. Some Khitai pieces ‘‘Do indeed have better Stats than T3’’
So i doubt they would become obsolete after all.
Of course one final Rule. I wouldn’t put T3-T4-T5-T6 in the crafting system unless they would require some Tokens obtained through the Raids and some Crafting Material including Recipes.
It should be a Workaround to minimize Token Grind not replace it. Same for PvP T2-T3.
In Regards to recipes, the Random Drop Chance of one out of X amount of Drops is good.
The Random Drop Chance of one out of X amount or ‘‘No drop at all’’ is bad. People will only like it if there is a chance for ‘‘Some recipe at least to drop’’ even if they end up with a duplicate, some Group member might want it.
I wouldn’t add crafting to Khitai Purples or Unchained mode pieces. I would add Atlantean Shards to Khitai Dungeons and Unchained Mode Dungeons and fix the Groupfinder Bugs introduced recently that make it impossible to kill the Acheronian Demigod, for he drops the Best Cloak in Game after WB Cloak and Fallen Empire Rings are second only to RF Rings.
I would add a similar token conversion system like in Old World to all Tokens. Only that T3 to T4 token Conversion would require more T3 Tokens and 1 Gold to be converted, otherwise people would just jump into T4. What amount? No idea. x3 T2 plus Silver give us x1 T3 Relic. Maybe x3 T3 + 1 Gold a T4? I think up to x6 T3 + 1 Gold is fine because after all we got enough Raids for T4 and we already got RF as well.
I wouldn’t remove T3-T4 Relics from RF. Just limit the amount to only once per week.
Introduce PvP Zone Fury Server Quests Daily in the propper Zones and a (Minus) -PvP xp buff penalty if you kill anyone that is lower than your level ‘‘Range’’ That means lvl 19-29 players can PvP each other. lvl 29-39 players can pvp each other. 39-49, 49-59, 59-69, 69-79. This was the original Mechanic anyway and will prevent lvl 80s to Troll other Players.
And make the buff stack otherwise some idiot would buy the 100% XP Ring with other buffs and abuse it without caring.
Lastly. PvE Class Balanced and Progression Balanced Gear is t1-t2-t3-t3.5- T5 -t6. I never liked the changes of t4 because its just too much uncontrolled DPS. Its fine but nothing like Traditional Old School Tanking!
I couldn’t care less if T4 Gear for Tanks would just Glitch out and vanish all together…
It causes even unintended Solo Tanking (the Concept of Solo Tanking is bad) and also makes playing in DPS spec as Off Tank too dangerous because you will eventually pull aggro.
Not to mention how it takes the focus of propper tanking and ‘‘Aggro Rotation’’ (An Old Forgotten Player/ Group Tanking Skill) away and encourages ‘‘Stupid Parsers’’ that ruined Tanking Tactics. I got so tired with all those Pyjama Tank Tali DTs around…
Lastly, as a loyal to the Crown of Aquilonia Black Dragon i am getting very angry when my Black Dragon Armor counts for nothing compared to that T4 Fearless Souls ‘‘D!ld0 Hat Helmet’’ Armor.
PvP can’t have any balance with P2W or End Game PvE stuff and Exiles runes. Period. No matter how much they dont care about it, there is no valid argument. They are Game Breaking.
Add Khitai Rank Combos to Excavator Faction introduced by the Secrets of the Dragonspine Expansion. Best Update done to Age of Conan ever. I refuse to ever buy Khitai Again.
