Frankly, most of the character classes in the game have quite a bit of
flavor and flair; their own uniqueness that brings a sense of
individuality to each player. Although some players argued that this
wasn’t the case at the time of release, as the weeks progress
more patches continue to bring more unique options to the character
classes. As an example of this, one of the classes that players were
most concerned with – the Necromancer – has
received a large dose of love from the Funcom developers, giving them
more pet options to choose from and making them a true pet-based AoC
class.



Along with the patches, the feat trees that are available to AoC
players bring a certain sense of individualism to each class as well.
Each feat tree is filled with a variety of different options to choose
from when you spec a character, and I’d imagine that Funcom
will continue to hone the classes until each brings with it a
particular feel to the AoC gaming experience. My Brute-based Conqueror
certainly plays differently from his Carnage counterpart, and even more
distinctly from the 2H or 1H based Barbarians in the game.



At the time that this review was written, a large number of the classes
were still undergoing their own “revamps” from the
AoC developers, and I’m sure the character class patches will
continue on into the future. In a few more months the drastic changes
should be leveled off and players should hopefully have a
“stable” class by that time.



Delving into Dungeons



Another one of the more solid features in style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan has
been the dungeon experience. Despite the unfortunate lack of
group-based dungeons throughout the earlier levels in the game, the
group and instanced dungeons that do exist are quite entertaining to
play through.



The beginning of the game, during your time spent in Tortage,
you’ll encounter some of the most entertaining solo-based
dungeons in your first 40 levels of AoC. With its story-based
interactive play and key objectives to go find, the Tortage dungeons
are fantastic and truly an enjoyable experience to play through.
Unfortunately, the quality does slip a bit as a player ventures out of
the island city, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the
instanced dungeons are sub-par.

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Dungeons in Age of Conan feature a variety of gruesome monsters.



Quite the contrary, anytime I could venture into an instanced dungeon
space on my own, I took the leap and really found some entertaining
adventures to enjoy. The team at Funcom is working hard to integrate
more content into the game, especially story-driven quests like what
was experienced on Tortage, but at this point the land outside of
Tortage simply feels less interactive than what was going on with the
bustling new player city. If Funcom can continue to build on their
solid dungeon foundation, they’ll continue to attract
players, but at this point there simply isn’t all that many
to enjoy.



However, once a player reaches level 37, all of those problems come to
a quick and epic end. Upon hitting that magical number, players will be
tossed into the Sanctum of the Burning Souls, a group-based combat
dungeon filled with tough monsters and epic bosses. As Ten Ton
Hammer’s editor-in-chief John Hoskin href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/34794">voiced,
this group-based dungeon is really an exciting and refreshing
experience after having a number of levels where quest-grinding was the
only way to advance. Exploring through the Sanctum also gives players
the opportunity to finally find interesting loot, and I’ll
explain the lack of loot progression in the outside realm in my next
section.



In essence, the Sanctum of the Burning Souls is an encounter that
should be seen through every level section within style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan. Low
level dungeons are a great way for players to really get a feel for the
group-based encounter, and if there aren’t enough of these
areas within a game new players simply won’t know how to jump
into these situations once they reach the harder encounters.



Being Social in a Social
World




Speaking of group content, it’s important to mention a few
things about Age of
Conan
’s grouping mechanics. With combat being
one of the more important aspects of style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan, it
makes sense that group-based combat would also make up an important
section of the developers mind set, and players will find a number of
features that make AoC stand out from their competition.  



One of the more interesting features you’ll find in
AoC’s group encounters is the “passive”
group buffs that occur only when a player is grouped in a combat
situation. For many of the character classes in AoC, certain group
situations will proc certain group-based abilities to activate. For
example, the Conqueror has a fantastic group ability called
“Furious Inspiration.” If this ability procs when
the Conqueror is in combat, the Conqueror may automatically resurrect
one of his fallen allies and allow them to rejoin the battle. The
Barbarian – on the other hand – gets a bonus
whenever he groups up with other Barbarians, utilizing the ability
“Rampaging Horde” (which is documented in our class
interview). Each class has one of these buffs along with his or her
standard buff abilities.


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Grouping in Age of Conan is terrific once you find your group.

However, my experience in finding a group proved to be one of the most
difficult aspects of my experience in style="font-style: italic;">Age of Conan. Like
most MMOGs, finding a group can often be a difficult proposition, but
the tools in Age of
Conan
really don’t make it any easier. Funcom
has stated that they are working on many of the functionalities of
grouping and guilding, but overall the toolset is rather lackluster.
Along with the fact that finding a group isn’t the easiest
proposition, the game is also based on an instancing sort of system, so
even if you find a group you often have to switch instances in order to
actually be in the same area as your teammates. Couple that with the
mini-map often not working to display all of the groupmates, and you
have yourself a sticky situation.



Creating a solid grouping toolset needs to be one of the top priorities
at Funcom, and essentially all of the social function within Age of
Conan need a major overhaul. Each patch may bring in some more useful
features for socializing within Age
of Conan
, but things need to continue to improve if
there’s ever going to be a cohesive hierarchy of
well-communicating guilds within the top echelons of the game.



To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Age of Conan: Unchained Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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