Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures : Post 1.5 Interview

Posted Jul 03, 2009 by Jon Wood

MMORPG.com:

How was 1.5 received by the game's community when it finally launched?

Craig Morrison:

I think it has gone very well all things considered. Most players seem to appreciate the new build of the items and that they can now easily see how the items tie into their character. Likewise I think the new content has been very well received ad people are really enjoying the experience in Tarantia Commons, and the guild changes have also been welcomed.

Of course there are some things that need to be addressed, as we knew there would be, and, as we knew it would be, it is in the class balance area that most of the feedback lies...and of course in that area the feedback is never anything short of vocal!

We had always known, and been quite upfront with the community in advance, that there would be some things we had to address after the update was released to the live environment. With something on this scale we knew that there would be elements that would require additional tweaking and adjusting and were prepared for that. As we also expected the greatest challenge there is in the class balance.

The follow-up to the update is very important so we can adjust the areas of the balance that weren't quite right 'out of the gate' as it were. That is what we are already working on now, I think with the new systems we didn't quite get the relative strength of the spell using classes against the melee damage in PVP. That's the main area where the feedback is very vocal, and rightly so, as that area is the part that does still need further adjustment.

I think in PVE things have come together quite nicely by and large and there is less to tweak there, which is encouraging, we do know though that we have to make the adjustments for PVP promptly and properly so that we ensure the PVP game-play is also as fun.

There are also a couple of the raids that are not quite there yet in terms of having the correct difficulty and we will need to tone them down a notch (although several guilds have already surprised even us and defeated those encounters with a dedicated effort even before we tone them down. They still need adjusting of course, but there were some mighty efforts by those involved in those kills!)