Age of Empires Online

In our next update, we’ll be removing Faction Points and we’ll make some modifications on the Light of Sight bonus.

Faction Point Removal

As we continue to review our gameplay mechanics, we occasionally find something that we feel was once interesting but never lived up to its potential. Faction Points are one of those features.

The update will work like this: anything sold for Faction Points will now be sold for a fair coin value (except Lucky Chests). If you would like to make the most out of your Faction Points before then, you can either spend them or convert them to coin by purchasing Lucky Chests.

Originally, we felt that they would be a great mechanic for promoting the different types of gameplay in Age of Empires. The idea was that each region/booster would have its own Faction Points, and those who felt like focusing on that area of gameplay would be rewarded for doing so.

For competitive players, this meant dedication to PvP would result in a selection of Rare and Epic gear. For those who enjoyed the Campaign, this meant increased rewards for sticking with Mycenae/Nubia/Massalia for the level 10 to 20 experience.

Yet, as we’ve increased the number of different gameplay modes and methods for leveling, we’ve found that most of you enjoy variety. We’ve grown an appreciation for allowing you to level how you want. The limitation never worked out quite as well as we intended and we feel the game will benefit overall without them.

Gear LOS Updates

Gear with Line-of-sight has had some inconsistent behavior, and we will be addressing it in the next update. There were three main issues:

• Equipment with a range bonus often had a matching LOS bonus. We don’t like stats being heavily dependent on one another; this sort of pairing limits tuning flexibility.
• This LOS bonus was hidden. Hidden variables are frowned upon – information that affects gameplay should rarely be intentionally withheld.

• There were some items that broke this tuning convention. We don’t like inconsistency!

As a result, the following changes will take place:

• All hidden LOS bonuses will now be visible.
• Equipment found after the update will no longer have LOS automatically paired with range (old equipment will remain unchanged).

In the end, we feel these changes will allow more freedom and access to the variety of gameplay that Age of Empires Online has to offer. Thank you for your continued support!

You can discuss the updates here:
http://forums.ageofempiresonline.com/forums/286670/ShowThread.aspx#286670