Age of Conan at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

Evan Michaels: We’ve discussed it a bit, especially since magic was relatively uncommon in the Conan stories. In the past, we talked about artificially controlling the number of mages on a particular server, but we didn’t really want to go there.

However, I think you’ll find that things will balance out on their own, regarding the melee/magic users. The mage classes are really quite good. The Demonologist and the Necromancer are some of the best soloists in the game. Two guys on the combat team pretty much play one of those two classes; they are mage type characters in almost every single game that they play. With those two representing the Mage archetype, I think that mages will be fine.

Given the IP, people like the up-front, hands-on action that can be gleaned from whacking people with your mace, sword, or large object. And I have to admit that it’s fun. When I play the Barbarian or Guardian, for instance, I love getting up in people’s faces and doing a knock back sort of maneuver then killing them with my blade.

Evan: It’s a really tough situation, when you try to balance both PvP and PvE at the same time. To an extent, as a developer you must make a concerted effort to do your best to balance things, but also realize that you’re never going to make everyone happy.

Everyone’s opinion on PvP balance is different. Who’s overpowered and underpowered, what’s the optimal spec, who’s the best and who’s the worst, buff and nerf, and blah blah blah. It goes on forever!

Of course, it’s half the reason people play MMOGs; it’s for that back-and-forth, tugging and pulling. I’ll admit that I’ve done my fair share of whining on message boards. I was very talkative on the AO forums about my thoughts on class balance, and I think it’s perfectly normal for people to talk.

But you have to remember to put everything into perspective. We may not want to make a certain class good in a certain area. While the people playing that class may desperately want to be good at this certain attribute, we have to step up and say that that is not how we designed it.

Then there are areas of classes that are obviously broken. We do find out that certain abilities work differently then we expect, or players discover they don’t have a way to defend themselves against particular abilities. That’s when we implement new things.

It’s a daily process for us. We look at character development balance all the time. We talk about random abilities for random classes on a hourly basis. Stuff comes up, we gather around a computer, look at it, play with it, mess with the numbers, and figure it out. It’s a fun job, but it’s really challenging. I think we’re really getting there and our goal is to make these classes as good as possible.

Evan: Formations are something that we’re not really considering at the moment when looking at how the combo system works. We’re primarily making sure it works in just normal combat. I try to make sure that the character itself plays well.

In addition, we’ve created feats and abilities that are focused around group combat and how they interact with groups.

Evan: They’re different. I like the arguments that people bring up when comparing the different “tank” classes. Blizzard did a good thing in finally getting two sets of raid tanks, so players could have arguments on determining which tank class was the best.

And that’s actually what we’re aiming for. I want people to argue over whether their tanks are viable in raid type situations. If we can get them close enough so that people can argue about it, then I’m happy. We don’t want only Guardians to tank during raids.

Evan: The Dark Templar is a little more “Paladin-ish” – if you’re comparing to WoW – in that he’s by far the best at holding aggro on multiple mobs. He has the most tools for doing that. He has the reactive unholy damage. He has the AoE stuff. Snares, roots, etc. So, he’s by far the best at AoEing.

The Conqueror is interesting because he’s more of a DPS – Evasion style of tank. The Conqueror doesn’t use a shield, so he’s kinda up front and suicidal in a way. But he’s still viable as a tank class. The evasion versus health argument is always an interesting one, because there’s pluses and minuses to both in any tanking situations.

I played a main tank for two years, so I could go on and on about that, but I think there’s a viable argument for both of those classes.

The Guardian is more of a straight-forward tank. He has the most HP and the most armor. He wants you to pick him because he’s simply brute force.

The Dark Templar is more versatile because he has the group heals, along with the Conqueror’s auras that are more of a general support sort of effect.

Like I said, the Dark Templar is more of an AoE tank and the Conqueror serves that DPS role.

Evan: Not quite, but if he’s in the frenzy stance it comes close. He does more of a Bear Shaman sort of DPS. But he’s got dual roles because he can tank and DPS really well. He might be the one that takes the adds at first, kills them, then switches over to frenzy stance to do DPS on the boss mob that the Guardian or Dark Templar is tanking.

It’s kinda cool, because we’re really working on the dynamic of the tank classes in the game. The buffs that they get when the other people in the group are taking hits are really cool. They all have their own theme.

For example, the Dark Templar has these “Sadism” buffs. It increases their damage when their groupmates are hit and increases their lifetap value. Eventually, when it stacks up to ten – all these tank buffs can stack up to ten – it gets this “maximum” sort of effect. When the Dark Templar reaches this max value he starts pulsing AoE damage.

The Conqueror, when he has this buff, actually starts healing his team. When he’s stacked up to ten, the Conqueror actually has a chance of rezzing dead members of his team.

For the Guardian, I think he starts getting an increased chance for retaliation defense procs and stuff like that.

All the tanks have their own little theme, and they actually work together really well. We’re really trying to promote variety with that system, because if you’re in a group with six people, the Guardian buffs won’t trigger off of another Guardian. But a Dark Templar’s will trigger off a Guardian, a Conqueror’s will trigger off a Dark Templar, etc.

This way, the three tank classes can work together without stepping on each other’s toes.

Evan: We are adding some “click” taunts into the game. These are mostly “rescue” sort of taunts that are only used in emergencies. Basically how it works is that all of your combos will have increased hate generation added to them, so you’ll be able to pull things off your teammates much easier.

Evan: I think that’s a tough call. Some people are going to find it hard to adjust. It’s really not the same as sitting there spamming heals non-stop. I did it in Anarchy Online on my Adventurer in raids. I’ve raided with a Priest in WoW. I know what conventional healing is like, and I know that moving to our healing is a bit of an adjustment.

Healing your teammates is very important, especially when faced with a monster like this one.

That said, I think our brand of healing is a lot more fun. I’ve actually been working on the Priest of Mitra recently, and I’ve been revamping their feat tree. So I’ve been playing pretty extensively with the Priest of Mitra, and it’s really fun! I’m finding that I can do damage and healing at the same time, which makes me a bit more versatile to my group other than just spamming heals.

However, the theme for the two major healers in the game – the Priest of Mitra and the Tempest of Set – will be different. The Tempest of Set does better healing by doing more damage. The Priest of Mitra is the opposite; she does better damage by doing more healing.

They kind of have an inverted orientation, but it’s the same end result where they have to juggle both at the same time. For example, the Tempest of Set has this ability where every time he nukes, he has a chance of casting a heal for no mana. Every time he nukes he also has the chance of putting a buff on himself that will make his next heal more powerful. Finally, he has a chance to make the targets of his team heal pulse AoE damage and things like that. The Tempest is definitely very offensively oriented; he starts the fight with damage and ends it with healing.

The Priest of Mitra really increases his damage potential by setting up a solid healing base. I was working on a specialized feat recently where each target you hit with a cone heal grants you a stacking buff on yourself that increases your holy damage. Or there’s another where every tick of healing from one of your spells gives you the chance of allowing your next damage spell to be cast for free. Like I said, they’re really focused on getting a solid healing set-up in their group before doing the nuking.

The Bear Shaman is obviously different than both of these two, because he’s melee focused. Unlike the other two healers, the Bear Shaman’s team heal procs from melee hits. It’s a very interesting class, and it will be interesting to see how former healers from other games react to our healing classes.

Do you think it’s a good idea to overlap classes to the point of having arguments between each class? How do you feel about the way the priest archetypes are designed?
Let us know on the forums!