Age of Conan’s Surprisingly Complex Combat, Pt. 2

Whew, you came back.

We’re taking a look at Age of Conan’s combat system, trying to dispel the opinion that it was over-hyped before launch and give some credit to the developers that praised its complexity. I’m new to all of the techniques I’m going to describe, and have just started to practice them in the game, but hopefully that means I’ll be able to describe them in layman’s terms (I promise I’ll avoid l33tspeak and limit game specific jargon).

Since I’m relatively inexperienced with other MMO’s as well, I would love for someone more experienced to prove some of my assumptions wrong. I know that several of the techniques used in Age of Conan existed in previous games, so I’ll try to show how the systems unique to Conan change the way combat works in this particular game.

The Combo System

Instead of a single attack button, AoC (Age of Conan) players start out with three: Left, Front, and Right. These attacks can be used by themselves to cause damage, but most of the time the player will use a combo. Triggering a combo starts a slow timed button press sequence that lights up various combinations of Left, Front, and Right attack. Later in the game, as the character’s abilities increase, a Lower Right and Lower Left attack are added, and the timed sequences become longer.

That explanation is pretty much as far as I had gotten with my understanding of the system. This does make the combat more engaging, but when movement and awareness of the enemy is added to the mix, the depth of the system becomes apparent.

Most of the damage done by each combo is stacked on the last button in the sequence, so in order to be effective in PVP combat the player must learn how to “joust.” A couple of seconds is left between each attack in the combo sequence, so the player can time the button presses preceding the final attack outside of his opponent’s melee range and then close in to land the final damage-laden blow before moving outside of their opponent’s range once again. By doing this, the player minimizes the damage they receive while maximizing what they deal out. If this sounds complicated, wait until the shielding system in introduced.

The Shielding System

Tah-dah! Okay, let’s move on. When a player attacks an NPC enemy in the game, they see three shields (more like gray parentheses for enemies, yellow for player’s own shields) that correspond to the Left, Front, Right attacks. If the player continuously attacks the enemy from the right, it will move all three shields to its right side. So the player must vary their attacks based on area has less shielding.

Players can also set their shields just like the NPC’s can, though almost no one does. Most players (including me), run around the entire game with one shield protecting each direction (Left, Front, Right). But since every combo in a character’s repertoire can end on any of the three basic attacks, it is important in PVP to know the class of your attacker and the combos they are likely to use. For example, if I saw a Ranger pulling an arrow back in his bow, I may want to direct my shields all toward the Front because I know that most of their combos hit hardest there.

For an assassin the shielding system is important in for defense and offense. Since the class is weak on defense, making use of the shields increases the amount of damage they can take before dying. On offense, the assassin knows that the one area that is never shielded in the opponent’s back. The damage bonus and accompanying stun of a backstab is vital to an assassin, though any class can also take advantage of this weakness. Since an attack to an opponent’s back is always successful and also stuns the enemy, finding a way to get behind them gives the player an enormous advantage.

The Dodging System

(I know, the picture below isn’t really dodging, but it’s pretty isn’t it?)

Another ability Age of Conan players have is dodging. By double-tapping any of the movement keys, the player’s character will dodge in that direction. Each of the directional dodges gives the player a bonus of some sort, as well as removing them from the path of their opponent. Dodging forward stuns the enemy, dodging backward raise the player’s evasion, and dodging to either side makes the player immune to spells.

Using the forward dodge allows the player to circle around to their opponent’s backside and attack. If the player primes their combo before the dodge, then strikes, the enemy will be stunned, allowing the player to circle while priming their next combo to unleash on the opponent’s undefended back.

It’s also possible to interrupt the animation of the dodge, which is fairly long, by tapping the active block button, but that seems like more of an exploit than a legitimate strategy and is probably something that will be removed at some point.

Conclusion

I attempted to implement some of these strategies, and a new control scheme last night. It will take a while to get used to the level of strategy involved in using these techniques, especially after playing the first three months by simply standing still and clicking combo buttons with my mouse. The new control scheme was a bit of a failure. I tried to move all of my controls onto the keyboard, using the number pad for movement (right hand) and the left side of the keyboard for abilities, but it’s frustrating trying to learn an entirely new way to play. In the end I decided it wasn’t going to increase the fun I was getting out of the game, so I’ve just edited the default controls to make circle-strafing easy and place my combos within reach of my left hand without moving it. I’m still pressing the directional attack with the mouse.

I’ll probably never be an elite (l33t!) Age of Conan PVP’er, but just understanding the techniques others may use and implementing the ones that are fun for me, I think I’ll improve quite a bit and limit the frustration of PVP.  My brother listens to me rambling on about these methods and eventually just said, “That sounds like way too much work. I think I’ll just enjoy playing and avoid gankers,” so I realize adding complexity to MMO combat isn’t always viewed positively. Some people really like the traditional MMO combat specifically because it is simple and relatively mindless. After all, is anyone really playing an MMO for combat?

Hopefully I haven’t completely turned anyone off to Age of Conan. All of the systems I’ve described are very easy to ignore, and most of the community doesn’t use them (I didn’t even know there was such a thing as active block until yesterday). A lot of the complexity is useless the majority of the time if you play on a PVE server because PVP opportunities are limited.

I think this is one of the successes of AoC, though, that the combat system is relatively scalable, so players can choose the style of play that’s most enjoyable for them. Anyone can level up to the cap using just the basics, but knowing how it all works increases the player’s ability to stay alive and their damage, so some of the negative aspects of the grind are alleviated.

All of this information is lifted from the Age of Conan class forums, specifically the Assassin’s forum, but each of the classes have a stickied post with links to numerous guides detailing various aspects of the class. I would recommend getting used to the game before taking a look, however, because it’s pretty intimidating to sift through the strategies. Happy spawn camping! (Seriously, though, you know who you are, please leave me alone)