[Samaell]

I will take Funcoms side on this one: They do take their sweet ass time releasing new content but when they do release it, it is usally pretty solid high-quality hardcore content.

Their primary focus should be to do everything in their power to increase the population and I still hope they have some sweet re-release tricks up their sleve to appeal to new people (especially in PvP regards). When it comes to me, I have completed almost everything you can do (on one toon). Full PvP10, Tier 3, and Full AA. What is left for me? No point in doing 6mans with main toon, even if they are new, no gear no aa, nothing to obtain. The only thing left for me is to grind out other toons OR kill other PvP'ers which even then loses its fun because their is not enough people my level to kill. I wish I could do t4 but with not even a single guild on Tyranny attempting it I don't see it that happening for a very very long time.

[zensome]

Originally Posted by sado2020 Uhm it's kinda Funcom's job to keep their players interested in the game? Its not the playerbase who is responsible for sticking with funcom like its a long term relationship

I'm just stating a POV. Yeah, it is FC's job to keep the player base interested; and they are, just not here in the united states. Look at EU, pop is steady and they have a huge player base. Is their any difference in the content?

[zensome]

Originally Posted by Mhydrian Well lots and lots of people dislike raiding. So askign raiding guilds what they want is kind of what usually kills MMOs if you ask me. Course now there is no one left but hardcore raiders in this game. And I doubt there is any hope attracting the others back. Main problem I have is getting groups going. You can log in and not see one advertisement for hours. You can LFG for hours. Your best bet is to create a group yourself. But then you will likely be stuck doing the 5 boss rare farm in HoC......certainly this game does not lack a serious grind. And I think this is the problem. The new group instances drop garbage loot. Unless you are running hardmode and are lucky enough to see a epic drop that you need. But generally speaking if you tried to actually do the instances with the gear that drops there you would fail over and over. Especially for tanks. Additionally you have to have certain AAs to even do most of the content, you need certain gear, certain AAs, and the encounters are always mind blowingly annoying. Almost every hard mode dungeon has autofail built in. Where every player must do everything perfectly or else its a wipe. Like instant death AOE blasts, debuffs that instantly kill you if missed. Debuffs that must be removed, buffs that must be removed. Or instant wipe. The result is no one wants to play this garbage. And why should they? So its nigh impossible to get good pug groups going to do group content. Lots of people don't want to be responsible for instant wipes. All of the group content is just a boss farm with annoying mechanics. The dungeons feel cheaply put together, with a few mobs sprinkled in front of the boss to make it seem more than a staged boss encounter. At this point there is not much that can save AoC. Diablo 3 around the corner and Guild Wars 2 soon as well. Both of those games will have infinitely better group play. TSW is going to fail, I would not be surprised if AoC ends up still retaining more players than TSW does in the end. I think its time Funcom really took a look at themselves and reevaluate what they are doing. Maybe you are trying to do too much on a small budget or maybe you are just managed very poorly and waste time and resources. But I can tell you from a players point of view, you don't seem to do anything substantive. I know a bit about programming myself...done a lot of work with game mods, scripting and so on. Its hard to believe that you guys can't do something more than what you are doing. Some fixes I could do myself in a couple weeks time...if I had access to the files, editors, and code. Some things are not even that daunting from a programming point of view. Yet nothing happens. I imagine TSW is siphoning off all resources from AoC. What is going to happen is you are going to release a new MMO that fails and will have alienated and destroyed your existing MMO in the process. You might actually need a following or player base in the future you know. Right now I can't even contemplate logging into AoC. I would love to get a group and do a full sized dungeon run with some good gear upgrades. But that is not going to happen. I will log in, the game will be empty. I will maybe get a group after 2 hours of making one myself and then we will do HoC for 45 mins and get a few rares....I need hundreds. I am not gonna keep paying to do this krap.

I dont think dumbing the game down even more is going to help the problem. Most people left due to lack of challenge.

The trash blue gear drops from the new dungeons are actually better than the worthless epic drops from raids and they give you rares on an easy mode kill.. You can gear up and get your aa quick even running vanilla dungeons.

It sounds like you need to prove yourself worthy of getting into the good k6s groups. Most of the servers have their cliques. They log on, form up with the same 7-8 people and run all night.

[deathangel]

Originally Posted by Samaell I will take Funcoms side on this one: They do take their sweet ass time releasing new content but when they do release it, it is usally pretty solid high-quality hardcore content.

I agree. House of Crom (and especially Nativity) was solid new stuff. I wish there was more of this coming.

I would love to see them quit messing around with class revamps and Facebook crap and so on and:

- make 2 new 6 men with hard modes (harder ones, with some real reason to go there rewards wise -- Nativity style)
- make 2 new mini maps to please the pvp guys

With the declining population, I would absolutely love to see some 12 men stuff. I don't know... make a Pillars super hard mode, bump the trash and bosses to T2 level and allow 12 peeps to go in as a raid or something. Or make T1 hard modes for 12 players... something new that you can do when not enough for raiding a T3+ are on.

[TeamVernia]

Originally Posted by zensome I dont think dumbing the game down even more is going to help the problem. Most people left due to lack of challenge. The trash blue gear drops from the new dungeons are actually better than the worthless epic drops from raids and they give you rares on an easy mode kill.. You can gear up and get your aa quick even running vanilla dungeons. It sounds like you need to prove yourself worthy of getting into the good k6s groups. Most of the servers have their cliques. They log on, form up with the same 7-8 people and run all night. I log on and get flooded with ninja invites.

This. Make some friends. If you aren't in a guild with people capable of playing at higher levels, then become friends with people who are. Raiding is a great way to meet good players. Identify the good guilds and get to know the people in them. Most importantly... don't feel like you are stuck in a guild. Guild loyalty is great, but if your guild has no desire to progress (but you do) then find a new one. Population is the main issue in this case, I believe.

[zensome]

Originally Posted by TeamVernia This. Make some friends. If you aren't in a guild with people capable of playing at higher levels, then become friends with people who are. Raiding is a great way to meet good players. Identify the good guilds and get to know the people in them. Most importantly... don't feel like you are stuck in a guild. Guild loyalty is great, but if your guild has no desire to progress (but you do) then find a new one. Population is the main issue in this case, I believe.

Well.. if you want to attract new players through easy mode dungeons and raiding .. cool.. but you should raise the gear requirements for any new content implemented. Or just get rid of gear all together and go back to a skill based game. I remember a time you could duel naked and still crush anyone in your path. Where did those days go? :,(

[sado2020]

Originally Posted by zensome I'm just stating a POV. Yeah, it is FC's job to keep the player base interested; and they are, just not here in the united states. Look at EU, pop is steady and they have a huge player base. Is their any difference in the content?

Huge population is subjective, more than enough to help funcoms stocks to go above 3 dollars a share...hardly

[Xanzyx]

I think the problem with PvP content is that it becomes a paralysis of analysis which is the result of Community Feedback. No one can come to any agreement on anything. Funcom should just get back to basics and make something enjoyable that people want to do over and over without it becoming a chore or feel like something they dread signing up for.

Scrap all the crazy nonsense and add a couple mini games with different simple objectives that drive the game but isn't dependent of them. Kind of like a FFA but with side objectives that are there for fun but do not reflect the outcome.

The biggest problem is most everyone that remains won't have anything to do with PvP. That is not Funcom's fault. They could add everything anyone has ever suggested on these forums as an idea for PvP. It still would not be enough to bring back, keep, or lure new subs. It would always come back around to "Funcom sucks". Deep in the recesses of your mind you know it's true. It's true about every game.

[gduncan]

Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns-IIn-DG-c

Ignore anything about GW2 but listen to what he says about how customers should pay for an MMO. It is bang on the money IMO.

PS I paid for T4 when I bought RotGS. I do not consider it new content.

[Evito1916]

I don't like the idea of 12 mans tbh. Not a raid, not a group, I dunno, I don't like it for AoC, but that's me.

I would say for PvE that I'm so bored of the content I think 5 new 6 mans would be nice. 4 of them in the mold of the RotGS 6 man style where you run in, little bit of trash or none and there's your boss, a couple of easier ones, and a couple of tough ones. Then then 1 time trial kinda like Xib/Tian An where it's a good 20 minute dungeon with multiple bosses. I'm happy they're finishing the raids, that needed to be done. But we also need something to pass the time while we're not raiding. I sure as hell don't want more solo grind.

The PvPer in me doesn't really want new mini games, although a new 12 man would be nice, I sure as hell don't want another Sag that will be such a disorganized mess and only pop twice a day anyway. I want something interesting to do that involves group PvP in a setting that doesn't port me into a zone where I'm stuck with 5 people that I don't know, with no organization that may or may not randomly go AFK or have no idea what they're doing. Sadly, team balance, gear and everything else is so bad that I just don't care to go 40-0, or be on a team that just gets steamrolled, and those are your choices.