Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures Update
3 is now live on servers. What does this mean for you? For starters the
second part of the much anticipated PvP update the Notoriety system is
now live and with it several new combat changes and Ten Ton Hammer is
here to break it down and explain how this will affect your playing
experience.


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px; height: 210px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/47571" title="Outlaw"> src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/47571" alt="Outlaw"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 122px;"
height="391" width="640">

Outlaw
Camps have been established for criminals and murderers.

The
Notoriety System

This system will make some big changes to the way PvP
combat is carried out across PvP servers. This part of the update won't
affect PvE servers so much, but PvP servers need to be aware of these
recent changes. Griefers beware, your free ride of slaughtering low
levels without consequences is at an end. Now you will have to suffer
the consequences of your actions.

With the new Notoriety system now
active if you engage an enemy of a level so low that you will not get
PvP experience from the kill (we will refer to them Innocents) then you
are going to start earning murder points. The first offense will flag
you as a criminal. Any offenses carried out during this time will reset
your criminal timer and if you persist then you will be flagged as a
murderer after you build enough murder points and then your life will
become a bit more complicated. Let's take a look at what exactly
happens to our innocents and anti-social misfits.

Innocents

Innocent people are what everyone starts as. These people
have not engaged in slaying those of lesser power and thus have no
murder points. these guys are pretty much the goody two shoes of the
world until they decide to cross over to the dark side. They can be
attacked by would be killers, but until these people take up arms
against those of lesser power they will remain innocent and can carry
out life as usual.

Criminals

If you engage and kill an innocent you will be flagged temporarily as a
criminal. What this does is make you free game for anyone to take out.
They can kill you without building up murder points of their own. You
are simply free game with a giant bullseye on your chest. If you
refrain from killing more innocents you will eventually return to your
normal status over time. Criminals can't trade with city traders and
any player that trades with a criminal will then be flagged as a
criminal themselves, so be cautious if that trade window opens up. If
you group with a criminal or murderer, your group will also be flagged
as criminals for the duration of the criminal/murderers stay and up to
five minutes after their departure. Don't worry, you will get a warning
window when a criminal is invited or has invited you to a group.

Murderers

If you have attacked and killed enough innocents to build
yourself a enough murder points your criminal status will be converted
to murderer. This carries several consequences. For starters, NPC
guards within cities will attack you on sight. You can't trade or use
vendors within the city and if you are attacked this section of the
Testlive patch notes href="http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=35914">explains
it best.

Dying
while flagged as a murderer results in the following: a. 100%
increased loss of PvP XP for the murder b. 100% increased gain of PvP
XP for the person killing the murderer c. 100% increased chance of
dropping an item.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: left; width: 200px; height: 210px;"
border="1">

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/47573" alt="Ganked"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 163px;"
height="392" width="476">

There's
little worse than getting spawn camped. Murderer specific spawns should
help keep this from happening.

Players also need to be aware that if a
member of their group performs a criminal activity, those in the
vicinity of the offending player will also be flagged as criminals.
Murderers and criminals while outcast from normal society can still
gain access to vendors and traders through their guild city vendors and
the new Outcast Camps that have been added to several areas. These hubs
serve as a gathering spot for our local criminal element and provide
them with vendors and a way to begin redemption through quests that can
reduce their murder points. Murderers will also have their own respawn
spots that can only be seen by other offending players. This should
help curve getting ganked on a respawn.

Exploiting
a Mechanic

There are some members of the community that have voiced
concerns about the new Notoriety system and how it could be exploited
by lower level players with the intent of griefing the community by
attacking the higher levels first. One such question was asked by
Vandalia on the official AoC forums.

You expose a flaw in the system.



Its ok for a lower level or several lower level characters to attack
you with no criminal penalties where as you have merely defended
yourself.

This leads to a very large opening to be
exploited.
Unless the higher level has attacked FIRST there should be no crime in
defending oneself
.

You expose a flaw in the system.



Its ok for a lower level or several lower level characters to attack
you with no criminal penalties where as you have merely defended
yourself.

This leads to a very large opening to be
exploited.
Unless the higher level has attacked FIRST there should be no crime in
defending oneself.

Game Director Craig 'Silirrion' Morrison
was href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=2050789#post2050789">quick
to put to rest any concerns
stemming from this
question.

This will be accounted for by the system. We
have gone to lengths to ensure that we have closed off as many of the
obvious roads for 'griefing' with this system as we can. Lower level
players will have to be actively targeted by a higher level target to
have them generate murder points. A lower level actively attacking a
higher level players first will flag them as 'free prey' for the higher
level player and they can kill them at will without fear of gaining any
negative impact. The team have done a lot of work to ensure this system
is as smooth as we can make it.

As to the original poster, this isn't a
system to reward this kind of behavior. It is a system where someone
who consciously chooses to be 'that' type of player isn't disallowed
from doing so, but has to live with the consequences of doing so
without having his normal game-play completely removed. We do not wish
to reward that kind of game-play. It's about choices for the player, if
they choose to be notorious rather than a good citizen they are allowed

to do so (Hyboria is a brutal world after all!), the results are
negative though, it's up to each individual whether they can live with
that life as an outlaw and murderer. I am sure some will!

With that said, this route to
griefing
seems to be well in hand by making those that swing first pay the price.

Combat

The Notoriety system is not the only major change in this patch. The
combat system also got a few alterations. Melee and ranged combo
attacks have been shortened by removing some of their steps to make
them easier to execute. This will make PvP a bit easier for ranged and
melee who often find themselves unable to land a combo against those
bunny hopping enemies that bounce from place to place. This change
doesn't come without a price though. With the increase in speed given
by these new shortened combos comes a decrease in damage. It's sort of
a counterbalance. You can land them easier but for less damage. For a
further balancing effect the Demonologist, Ranger, and Herald of Xotli
have been given a healing debuff.

style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px; height: 210px;"
border="1">

src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/47572" alt="CC"
style="border: 0px solid ; width: 200px; height: 133px;"
height="133" width="200">

Crowd
Control changes will keep you from having to just stand helplessly
by while your opponent beats you like you owe them money.

Crowd control abilities have also
gone
through some changes. Now if a player is snared, stunned, feared,
charmed, or rooted they will break out of it after receiving a certain
amount of damage. This will give players a fighting chance to defend
themselves and not have to stand there while their opponent beats them
into the ground unopposed.

This new update brought a lot of
changes
to the game and while the Notoriety system won't affect the PvE servers
quite as much as the PvP servers it is still a big change to the game.
With the combat changes making things a bit faster paced battles will
be heating up all over Hyboria and in the Border Kingdoms as Innocents
and Murderers collide. Choose your side and try not to be a casualty of
this new war.

You can read more from the source
patch
notes.

  • href="http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=35914">Testlive
    Patch Notes on Notoriety
  • href="http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?p=2065608#post2065608">Update
    3 Live Patch Notes
  • href="http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showpost.php?p=389948&postcount=53">Magnetar
    Explains Combo Changes

 


  • Discuss the latest update on our
    forums.



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

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

About The Author

Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.

Comments