Age of Conan's renowned combo system streamlined on Testlive
by Adrian Bott 
Oct 14th 2008 at 10:00AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Patches, PvP
One of the innovations Age of Conan provided when it hit the MMO scene earlier this year was an original, fast-paced combat system, involving attacking in multiple directions. As levels are earned, 'combos' are unlocked (for most classes, anyway) which, once triggered, require multiple keystrokes to complete. There's no denying that combos can be some of the most satisfying effects in AoC: firing off a whole barrage of arrows, for example, or dealing a powerful DoT, or even triggering a fatality as frequently happens.Now, though, in a recent patch to the Testlive server, the system (described by one enthusiast as 'DDR with knives') is being streamlined, or as some players are putting it, 'dumbed down'. Combos that required multiple keystrokes have been changed, so that fewer button-presses are required. Some are reportedly even down to being one button in addition to the trigger. The objective seems to have been to increase the pace of PvP, with more frequent attacks required in place of heavy burst damage. It's a controversial change, and we should point out that it's only on Testlive so far.
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Reaction to the proposed changes has been, to put it mildly, mixed. We've been extremely impressed with the contents of 'Patch 3' so far, but it looks like this is one change that is dividing the community. Any Age of Conan players who want to contribute to the testing can access Testlive; there are NPCs available to insta-level you to 80, or you can copy a character across.
Don't worry about being morphed into something out of Lovecraft: the bug that turned characters into bone-white headless level 1 'commoners' on arrival at Testlive seems to be fixed now.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jess said on 11:07AM 10-14-2008
AoC's combat system (and graphics) were its two strongest points. Why change the one thing that isn't broken in the game? Why change a combat system that people love and works fine, when 80% of the rest of the game is in dire need of saving? I'm no game industry expert, but after playing AoC for three-months, I can tell you the combat system was the last thing that needed to be addressed!
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mikejl said on 11:18AM 10-14-2008
Personally .. I like the idea of one and two button combos. I think the longer combos ones actually detracted from the face paced combat.
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Vrain said on 12:02PM 10-14-2008
This is a change for the better in my opinion. While I liked the healing style in AoC the melee just seemed like needless button mashing to me. After a few months I really wanted autoattack back. Granted I had a Tempest as my main and a Conqueror alt that didn't get too high, but I heard alot of complaining in vent over how the long combos wouldn't hit since the opponent could just move out of them.
As long as they fixed the 1-shotting issue (I think fixed in the gem nerf) the faster combat should be a nice chance.
The new director seems to be really on the ball with imrpoving AOC.
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Abriael said on 2:58PM 10-14-2008
AoC's combo system was a chore for certain classes (tanks for instance), and made PvP quite a mess of people just spamming the same key (because combos almost never land anyway). So that's a welcome change at least for me. But that's one of the smallest problems of the game, that, in the end, is simply boring as hell and lacks flavor.
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