June 2016 – albionstore

Miracle Or Apocalypse that Pigs Can Fly in Albion Online?

A family of pigs were spotted this week flying over the City of Queensmarket. The animals belonged to a nearby farm in the neighboring province of Eugen’s Bridge. The pigs sent the town in to panic with some inhabitants going as far as to declare that the apocalypse had arrived. The City Guard attempted to keep the town’s folk under control while sentries where ordered to chase after the strange phenomenon.

It wasn’t until hours later that a young mage appeared in the town and witnessed the utter devastation left in the pigs wake that we finally found out the cause of the strange happenings.

As it turned out the young mage by the name of Merlin was practicing transmutation on some farmer’s live stock. He confessed his crimes to the City Watch who have taken him in to custody within their barracks for the moment.

Not long after this the farmer entered the town with his numerous kin seeking compensation for his livestock and the head of the young mage.

The town’s people too were livid with the mages action which resulted in the almost complete destruction of all in order in the city. Cries went out demanding a public hanging whoever the guards refused to address the growing crowd.
As tensions rose in the town a loud bang from the town barracks was heard and a lone raven flew out the guard tower.
Inside the barracks bleating sheep were heard. The town’s people swarmed in to the barracks only to find a herd of sheep adorning Royal armor and sigils. There was no sign of the young mage.

The sentries that took after the pigs are also missing have been presumed dead after not returning that night or at dawn the next morning however their horses were found standing alone in a far away field by shepard tending his flock.
There was no sign whatsoever of the sentries. What else had Merlin done to these pigs? Perhaps we will never know.

Albion Online Tips about the Throwing Weapons

Today I will write down some thoughts and skills that I think, fit this unique weapon type.

–THROWING KNIVES/DAGGERS–

Certainly a more common weapon. They come in all forms and shapes and can be used for precise throws. I also experienced some throwing action with steel knives (went poorly :), and hope to lead this in the right direction.

(Skills)

Rapid assault: throws multiple knives in succession on the target (medium-high dmg, fast skill recovery, may hit additional enemy nearby for less dmg)
Vital spot: quickly throws a knife at vital spots, to reduce movement speed (medium dmg, fast skill, that slowly wears down the movement speed of an enemy)
Dip in Poison: Cotes a couple of knives in poison, to increase dmg and/or inflict x status effect (bleed, paralyses, sleep …)
edit: Make use of an energy drain effect, that saps the enemy’s Energy with each hit
Aim for the throat: well aimed throw to silence the enemy (medium dmg, silence)
Fan it: use all your readied knives, to cover an area with them (medium dmg, aoe)
edit: (maybe) make use of a ricochet effect (still under discussion)

(Role)

The knives seem well suited as a starter weapon. They are light weight and can be thrown quickly, but lack overall dmg, compared to axes. Their role should evolve around skill shot and harassing the enemy. Being a sneaky sidearm for rogues or a fast solution for specialized warriors.

(Bonus)
Knife shape should increase with tier level. Starting with small and thin needle like knives and ending in throwing machetes or something similar, that would generally hurt more.

–THROWING AXES–

Let us start with a quote from historian Procopius, on Throwing Axes:
“…each man carried a sword and a shield and an axe. Now the iron head of this weapon was thick and exceedingly sharp on both sides while the wooden handle was very short. And they are accustomed always to throw these axes at one signal in the first charge
and thus shatter the shields of the enemy and kill the men.”
Furthermore, Procopius states that:
“[…] the Franks threw their axes immediately before hand to hand combat with the purpose of breaking shields and disrupting the enemy line while possibly wounding or killing an enemy warrior. The weight of the head and length of the haft would allow the axe to be
thrown with considerable momentum to an effective range of about 12 m (40 ft). Even if the edge of the blade were not to strike the target, the weight of the iron head could cause injury. The francisca also had a psychological effect, in that, on the throwing of the francisca, the enemy might turn and run in the fear that another volley was coming”

Considering Throwing Axes, they were handled at medium range and could break shields and cause serious wounds. I did throw some steel axes myself and would readily support these claims.

(Skills)

My proposal would be, to give Throwing Axes skills, that serve the described purpose at hand;
Wound: causes the enemy to bleed for x seconds (medium dmg, fast skill recovery, bleed)
edit: Fear: causes the enemy to retreat in fear for x seconds (medium dmg, moderate skill recovery)
Heavy Throw: a quick and strong throw (medium-high dmg, fast skill recovrey, no other effect)
Shield breaker: a well aimed throw, that ignores x amount of target’s physical defense (high dmg skill shot)
Aim for the head: a well aimed throw, that deals medium dmg and stuns the target for x seconds (medium dmg, cc skill shot)

(Role)
Looking at a thrown axe, i believe that it serves a good role at dealing medium to high damage, with it’s utility concentrating around bleed, armor bypassing (shield breaking) and irritating the enemy at a medium range.

(Bonus)
I like the idea of getting something unique, if you specialize into something. For Throwing Axes, i would love to see high level tiers become 2h axes, being thrown over head.
–THROWING HAMMERS–

I haven’t seen any real Hammers being used as throwing weapons and it might just be an idea, but a strong warrior could certainly throw a hammer head instead of an axe. Now what differences should we expect? More trauma like damage (concussion) and broken bones? Maybe simply go with that:
(Skills)

Hit the leg: quick throw at the legs of your opponent, crippling movement speed (medium dmg, good slow, fast skill)
edit: Charged hammer, raises the hammer too call upon the might of the sky. Shortly afterwards the hammer will be thrown in a line, knockinback all enemies in the line and reducing their movementspeed.
Hit it hard: well prepared power throw at anything in front of you (high dmg, long cd heavy hitter. Maybe with short stun)
Hit it high: well aimed throw at the head (high dmg, concussion = enemys skills recharge slower, medium cd)
Make some noise: hit two hammer heads against each other to interrupt the concentration of nearby enemies (no dmg, aoe spell interrupt, medium cd)

(Role)
No one wants to be hit by a hammer… really. There should be game changing consequences, like irritating masses or picking out one enemy to break his legs with your hammers. I believe this just might work right with the skill set.

(Bonus)
Dwarfen 2h hammer as highest tier weapon (with a short shaft).. maybe.
Conclusion

Most of this stuff is not new and just recycled from the last beta. I believe that these weapons do have a purpose in AO, especially when looking at the Axe throwing barbarians. I would love to see them back in action and with more versatile roles. If you have anything to add, please do.

Albion Online Currency Rework Suggestion

The tax collector: This results from the officers/leaders who increase guild taxes to +40% which makes it even harder for people to get albion online silver for the things they need and thus leave the guild in search of a new guild.

Small Guild Problems: The same as the above, only with smaller guilds comes higher taxes to remain even remotely competitive with the larger guilds.

Pyramid Schemes: A very common issue not only in Albion thus far, but in any MMO where leaders can tax their members for a marketable currency, is that many guild officials just can’t be trusted.

Guild Zergs: Under the current system, there is no real detriment to guild’s zerging maps. In fact, the current system actually promotes zerging as it’s more profitable to the guild.
Positives of Platinum Currency/Guild Fame

Fair Progress: If a guild only currency were incorporated several aspects of the game would be able to be brought into balance such as zone control and rate of progress.
With zones requiring Guild Fame/Platinum to be purchased or declare war guilds would have to work (as a community) to earn the points they need to participate in conquests.

The rate of progress can also be slowed as a currency detached from the markets would allow the reintroduction of needing currency to build/upgrade buildings
Synergy and Trust: Removing the temptation of a leader being able to steal money as well as members feeling exploited for their albion online silver earnings
While Pyramid schemers kill their own guilds, having to increase taxes to fund wars and expansions sounds great on paper, but it’s not a fun mechanic for any regular member involved. Especially when only 5 people from your guild will get to experience the content that everyone just paid for.

The issue of small guilds vs big guilds is actually given manifest through the albion silver fueled guild system. Adding a guild only currency to the game would allow the devs to more finely tune guild gains to allow small guilds to be competitive with larger guilds.

To give an example of one way this could work, the devs could make the guild fame (F) gain be based upon the Task (T) and Number of members in the guild (N) with a simple formula like such as. (T/N=F)

To promote grouping, yet detract zerging, the formula could be expanded to be (T/N)(P*1.5)/A where P = guild members in party and A=P>10 in the vicinity.

Conclusion

Since we’ve been waiting 6 months, for the guild quality of life patch that still hasn’t come to help improve community building, perhaps this can be added to that quality of life update to help give the developers a real tool in combating many of the serious issues that plagued Albion’s beta up until this point and drove the majority of it’s community away. Though I’ve become inactive on the forums, I still have hope that Albion can be an amazing game. At it’s core Albion is everything that I’ve wanted in an MMO for so long, but in it’s current state it feels bare boned. Albion may bounce back after the server is wiped. However, if it still lacks a well fleshed out guild management system and the necessary check systems to balance the game, I don’t foresee those numbers holding, nor Albion being able to draw back players for it’s full release. I see SI as having one last chance to save an amazing game concept. I think SI gave players TOO much power in some areas while not giving enough in others which created a system that’s a nightmare to manage, (Impossible to do so from JUST in game) easy to exploit (which destroys communities) and ultimately leaves the majority feeling frustrated while trolls run away laughing.

If you were a part of an Albion guild that divulged into barbarism leave a comment explaining how your guild fell apart and what you think the driving factor was. SI you absolutely must take this issue serious. MMOs only succeed when they’re successful at promoting community building functions while deterring community destroying functions.

Albion Online New World Map Features Royal Islands & The Outlands

The Albion Online team has revealed the game’s world map that will be deployed when the Final Beta kicks off in July. Rather than “East & West” continents, players will find two Royal Islands and an entire continent called The Outlands. The idea of Outlands is to give more room for guilds and hardcore PvP players, something a huge playing field will give.

The Royal Islands are two separate islands: the King’s Isle and Queen’s Isle. They have resources up to Tier 7 and consist of green, yellow and red zones. Every player starts their adventure on either of two islands, the harbors of which allow them to travel to The Outlands. As the islands are governed by the Royal Expeditionary Forces, they are relatively safe and murderers will face consequences for their actions.

The Royal Islands are the perfect place for gatherers, crafters, roleplayers and small scale PvP.

The Outlands are completely covered in black zones, with resources up to Tier 8. There is no law enforcement. Players and guilds are free to claim territories and wage wars, plundering and murdering as they please. The land is bigger than both Royal Islands combined, making sure players have enough room to fight and conquer. The most powerful creatures will also be found in The Outlands, roaming around the best resources and secret treasures.

You can read more on the Albion Online site.

What Should Monster’s Drop do in Albion Online?

I have seen in several post where people mentioned item drops from monsters, so I thought we could discuss about this matter. Does monster drop enough different kind of stuff or should there be more variations? What else they could drop besides silver and some suplement crafting material? Or are current drops good enough?

Just grinding silver/fame in same dungeons over and over again gets really boring at some point and maybe that’s why the monsters could drop also something else. It can be something with low or extremely low droprate, but maybe that way the expectation gets a little bit higher, when you are thinking at entrance, that this is the night. I am not talking about anything pointless crab, but something cool, really good and extremely rare. And I don’t mean that every common monster or humanoid should drop something more or maybe they could, but with negligible change. Mainly I was thinking extra drops from powerful creatures or bosses.

Maybe some vanity items, but what kind? Maybe more something related to mounts, more faction stuff..

Maybe something that could advance open world pvp conlifcts, like a treasure maps to red/black zones for example. It would be ideal if pve and pvp could support and feed each other.

I don’t want bosses to drop usable weapons and armor or at most some faction gear, like there is something already. What if bosses might drop legenday ruined armor or weapon, that you could salvage to good crafting stuff, like you salvage everything else? Or maybe something you can repair with huge price? Or combine ruined gear to other ruined gear to reforge something?

Are there already some items that shouldn’t drop from monsters?

Albion Online Ability for Guilds System will Benefit the Game

I feel that removing the ability for Guilds to ally would greatly benefit the game. So too would limiting Guild size/membership limit to say 100 players. I personally believe that if Alliances were removed for the next Beta test it would improve the competitive integrity of the Guild system. By dividing the players up in to a smaller but still numerous groups (Guilds) it would mean there would be more Guilds fighting for the territories available. It would benefit both the “hardcore” players and the “casual” player base.

With Guilds unable to ally together Guilds wouldn’t be able to group together to form an unstoppable massive force such as an alliances with many hundreds of players and own most of the map. A hardcore and skillful Guild will still do extremely well against lesser Guilds and the casual guilds/players won’t be automatically at a disadvantage when coming up against larger numbers.

More Guilds would force more combat between more players as a whole across the whole game. More people/guilds fighting for the same amount of land will amount to more confrontations and more action! Which I am sure we would all love to see. It would also encourage more better recruitment tactics and methods for there would be more Guilds battling for more players and hoping to recruit the best.

I suppose for point 1, PvE focused Guilds may be forced in to GvGs in order to control some territory. Yellow Zone and maybe even Red Zones shouldnt be too difficult if they focus on it. A Guild probably shouldn’t be full of non combatants but if they are then I guess not owning land is a consequence for going down that road. PvE and Crafting Guilds can still operate out of Guild Islands and cities pretty effectively. No Alliances shouldnt hinder them at all really.

In regards to point 2 I think that a limit of 100 is more than enough for a guild to be effective and allow many of them to play together.

True but removing the alliance system puts the responsibilities on to the players and the guilds. Isn’t this what a sandbox style game should be like? It would greatly reduce the 2 unofficially allied guilds combat prowess in the field however they still can be very effective. It just prevents them from being too over powering and brings a consequence to having large numbers as it would be harder to communicate and maneuver and “friendly fire” would bring some sort of balance to zerging.

I am now beginning to see the flaws in my OP. These are some great points and really counter what I was saying. I am now beginning to agree with Korn in respect to the only way to prevent Zerging and Mega-All-Powerful alliances is through the game mechanics itself such as Focus Fire Prevention and other Anti zerging algorithms.

I was just trying to in some way come up with an idea to improve the competitive aspect of the game. I still think there should be a mechanic in the game that limits how much territory a guild and alliance can hold to prevent them conquering too much and allow for more Guilds to fight over available territory.

Let’s Stop Comparing Albion Online to Other Games

A lot of people lately have been comparing AO to a lot of different games, it usually falls under three categories:

Trolls. I ignore those because it doesn’t really matter what you say/do.
People who want to make AO into a clone of X, because X is dead. I engage with those, showing that maybe the reason why X is dead is because they were not perfect games, or maybe they were not a good fit for the time.
People who want this game to succeed, so they use whatever game they had an awesome time with as an example to try an improve this game. This is where I fit in. I had an awesome time with UO. I know it’s strengths and weaknesses. I want AO to learn from UO’s mistakes and use the good stuff they had and don’t try and repeat some of the mistakes UO did.

The truth is the game steals ideas from so many different games that at this point you can’t compare it to anything.

Some examples:

The combat system is borrowing elements from many MOBA games, but the macro design of PvP is taken from UO.
The economy is borrowing ideas from EVE Online, Archeage, WoW and Black Desert Online.
The GvG system is a mini game that is a copy and paste of Domination from countless games, but mostly resembles CoD’s Domination.
PvE is unique in the game, but is also probably seen as the most boring and mundane content in the game currently. Most people wish they’d find a game to copy PvE content from.

The game isn’t a copy of another game, and just because it worked there probably doesn’t mean it will work here.

Buy Albion Online Gold in Upalbion.com to Avoid Getting Ban

I think most of the players are in need of Albion Online Gold, but it’s not easy to collect by yourself. If you are not a max-leveled and well-geared crafter, it’s very hard to make Gold in Albion Online. For a battle class you can get Gold by doing leves, farming myth to exchange item to sell and some other ways, but you can only get so little by doing all those hard works, and that’s not even close to the cost of upgrading your Adept’s Fire, besides, there are other things you need Gold for.

What can you do to enjoy the game without boring farm? Here is an option, fast and easy. Just buy some Albion Gold. If you are worried about getting ban by trading Gold, then you don’t have to.

Upalbion.com can buy what you need from the Market Board then trade the items. This way is slower than other delivery ways, but as long as you feel safe, we would do this for you!

This trade method is the safest delivery way, but it will take more time to finish this whole process. If there are a few orders at the same time, you may need to wait for some time with patience. Therefore we recommend you to use the safe way, you give us an item or some items while trading, like you are selling your stuff. We all know that trade in game is unavoidable, so it’s just like a normal trade. We use this method to deliver gold to our thousands of customers since Ver. 1.0 in 2015, none of our buyers got banned.

If you need, we also can provide another way, we deposit your albion gold to your FC chest.

Comparing the three methods, the face to face trade is the best way, fast(2 mins delivery), simple and safe.

You can choose any delivery way you prefer, just contact us via Online Support to tell us the way you want, then you will get our professional and friendly service. And you can also search the latest albion online news and guides in the website.

Albion Online Bug When Leaving the Auction House

After walking away from the auction house, and having the window auto-close on you (because you are now too far away from the ‘vendor’) keyboard shortcuts no longer work, including spells, mounting, inventory, guild, etc.

Steps:

Walk up to auction house ‘vendor’
Click in the “Search” box
Begin typing in the text box (I typed “Cape”)
Without hitting “Enter” or clicking anywhere on the auction house screen, click your mouse to move away from the “vendor”
Upon the screen closing, you no longer have working keyboard hotkeys.

NOTE: If I go back to the auction house and click in the search box and hit “Enter” or I click on something on the screen, (i.e. moving the mouse focus away from the ‘Search’ box) my hotkeys return and function again when I walk away.

Albion Online: All about the Warbow

The Albion Online team has released a comprehensive new video to show all of the capabilities of the game’s Warbow, a formidable weapon that deals physical damage. Narrated by NPC Gordon, the Weapon Master of the Royal Expeditionary Forces, it’s a great visual look at how the Warbow performs.

The video is all about the Warbow, a deadly weapon in the right hands. Gordon not only goes over every skill option, but even elaborates on supplemental equipment options and various tactics to use in both PvE and PvP combat. Check it out!