Daoc promises more nose choices, bigger zergs, and arena rvr

[Nebu]

It's a crushing grind Nebu. I'm not quite sure how you're disproving this.

You're right... and I'm not trying to disprove your statement.  Above I stated:

Personally, I enjoy RvR quite a bit and find that part of the endgame worthwhile. The downfall of all of this is clear. I think that though improved, the grind to 50 combined with the ToA armsrace will deter most newcomers from giving this title a try. This is a shame since the one thing this game needs most is an influx of new blood.

I guess what I'm trying to say (but articulating poorly) is that Mythic has taken a step in the right direction by lessening the grind.  I think there are many more things they could do, but doubt they will at this point.  

I hate the PvE... it's terrible and a mind-numbing bore.  It does nothing to train players for RvR and is little more than a retention timesink.  I have tolerated it only because I see it as a necessary evil to get to the game I enjoy, RvR.  I think they could (and should) keep reducing the treadmill and entrance costs to RvR.  I'm just not sure that Mythic is willing to admit that they can't compete as a PvE entity.

Edit: Don't take me too seriously here. I like poking and prodding DAoC players. How you put up with so much garbage just mystifies me. (I play WoW with two ex DAoC catasses, their exploits are burned into my memory.)

I don't take offense at all... I actually think you're dead on.  I have a terrible love-hate relationship with DAoC that's pretty disfunctional.  I think that the RvR in DAoC is one of the best implementations of PvP I've encountered (why oh why did Shadowbane have to be such a clusterfuck). It just kills me that I have to wade through the river of shit that is PvE to get there.  If Blizzard can create a PvP environment that's even close to what is in DAoC, I'll be joining you in WoW.

[squire]

ToA killed the casual player being able tocompete and New Frontiers made it so you don't contribute much in RvR unless you're a caster or archer.

The best fun in the game is in the battlegrounds. If Mythic were smart they would examine the level 20-24 and the level 35-39 battlegrounds (the ones people actually go to) and check out the fighting there.

I started over on a new server since my main (Shadowblade) really has no role anymore. I am able to find actual newbies to level with and have made a good group of friends that are pretty new to the game. I did this on a mid to low population server (Tristan). I can see where the low pop servers might be dicey but there are still newbies in the game levelling their first characters.

I'm the same addict type as Nabu, I love RvR when it works but now it rarely works. If WoW improves upon their RvR then I'd be there. Mythic doesn't seem to know what made their game fun (It's the open field RvR where all classes can contribute, stupid) and they keep putting in stuff that gets in the way.

[chinslim]

I think what made BG RvR fun are these factors 1) no AE CC 2) no RA's/RR's 3) You don't die in less than 3 seconds and fights seem to last longer 4) no Speed 5(people can react in time to incoming) 5) no long-term stuns.  6) Uber groups move on relatively quickly, leaving a level playing field behind.

While I've always thought DAOC has the most potential for fun, and the best MMO concept out there, the last time I played, the game was alot of frustration.  The first thing I think Mythic needs to do is increase class versatility and overlap utility so forming groups will be much easier.  Each realm has over 12 classes now, but there is still only 1 class per realm with speed 5, 1 class considered the primary buffer, and 1 class the primary healer.

But so far, I'm enjoying WOW.  WOW PVP, in my experience, has been alot like DAOC BG RVR for the factors I listed above.  Since you quest and run into PVP simultaneously, you almost never become bored by the lack of PVP or by PVE grinding.

[AlteredOne]

At one point in DAOC, my guild had over 100 active members, and was one of the top 5 biggest guilds on our server.  Now there are about ten semi-active members, most of whom farm ToA artifacts endlessly with buffbots.  The ToA "arms race" is truly ungodly.  You can get artifacts for nearly every equipment slot, and take weeks leveling each one.  The true catassers might have multiple artifacts on a half-dozen high-level toons at this point.

Agreed on looking at the Battlegrounds for solutions, but I think Mythic is way behind the curve at this point.  Last year's "Frontiers" free expansion was supposed to be the great RvR revamp.  Instead it drove a ton of people out of RvR, once they got over the novelty of the new gigantic keep sieges.  I spent a couple weeks participating in massive ranged standoff battles, before I realized it simply was not fun.  90% of the players were just "farming realm points," with almost no tactics or strategy involved.   The other 10% were the uber-groups, who were simply more efficient at farming the sheep herd.

[Shockeye]

I guess it's expensive to lose so many customers.

Thus, we are announcing a price increase starting on February 3rd to the prices listed below.

    * $14.95 per month
    * $40.35 for 3 months
    * $71.70 for 6 months
    * $137.40 for 1 year

No matter how many expansion packs they throw at it, DAoC is not equal of the current crop of games and I don't believe they should be charging like they are.

[Krakrok]

It's still selling better than EQ2 on Amazon.

[Arnold]

If the PVE grind wasn't so crushing in DAoC, I might re-activate my account someday.

I made it to level 10 or 12 =/  Why the fuck do companies put what I want under a mountain of torture?

[eldaec]

That would be £7.67.

So still cheaper than, for example, the abortion that is EU DAoC (£8).

[chinslim]

If anyone's still playing DAOC, then they're probably addicted to DAOC anyways.  $2 won't drive them away, but I'm shocked, shocked they didn't offer a multiple account(buffbot) discount plan.

[AlteredOne]

A price increase is counter-intuitive, but oh well.  If I were Mythic, I would be looking for ways to draw customers back.  They hoped for a big boost from Catacombs, and it looks like it flopped.  So instead they said "let's try to get more money out of our existing customers."

So, as the poster above said, they are counting on milking their addicts, because they will certainly not lure any new or returning players, by raising the price.

AO has the right idea, with their free year offer.  They are admitting "we're an old game, come try us for cheap."  But they didn't get it right, either, in my opinion.  They'll just get a bunch of riff-raff looking for freebies, who will not be willing to pony up $15/month for a 4-year-old game.

Either these second-tier games need to lower their prices to attract new business, or they need to introduce time-limited "casual" player pricing options.

[sidereal]

Reeks of squeezing everything you possibly can out before the building burns down.

[eldaec]

Personally I suspect most potential new players will remain unaware of the price increase regardless of whether they sign up or not.

$15 is not a lot of money for anyone putting 20 hours a week into a game.

19c an hour is not excessive charging.

If you are playing much less than 20 hours a week, then...

1) There are more casual friendly games out there.
2) You are in a tiny minority of daoc players.

Try hanging out with friends in a bar for 19c an hour.


The crushing grind remains there and in full effect ofc.

[schild]

Summed up in a sentence:

No game older than City of Heroes should be charging $15 a month; it's bad taste.

[chinslim]

A price increase is counter-intuitive, but oh well. If I were Mythic, I would be looking for ways to draw customers back. They hoped for a big boost from Catacombs

DAOC dug themselves into a deep, deep hole with all their cumulative "addons"  It seems as if everything Mythic has done to improve the game has backfired.

SI: nobody plays in the original zones anymore

TOA: nobody plays in SI anymore

New Frontiers: pissed alot of people off

/level 20: It means there's no 1-20 community for new players to meet veterans.

ML's, artifacts, realm abilities as a vehicle for fixing class and combat mechanics shortcomings (MOC for caster interruption, Bodyguard so tanks can do their job,  Phoebus' Harp for fixing instrument issues, etc): created a neverending grind in order to make a character RvR-ready.   The underlying game mechanics also still suck.

It's as if Mythic were better off keeping their hands off DAOC.

The game was at its best before SI, when you could still reasonably find groups before the uber SI expansion classes took over powerleveling and nobody(nor any group) was RR7+ and wtfpwned everything else.

[eldaec]

The game was at its best before SI, when you could still reasonably find groups before the uber SI expansion classes took over powerleveling and nobody(nor any group) was RR7+ and wtfpwned everything else.

The death of levelling groups in DAoC had nothing to do with SI (which at least provided Avalon City as an alternative to killing the damn pirate trees), and everything to do with /level, buffbots, and the efficiency of PLing.

Becuase of buff bots, many people bought a second account, becuase they already had a second account PLing became a serious option.

Oh, and necromancers. You can blame SI for introducing necromancers. (A class that is quite brilliant at xp farming, but useless for anything else)

[Soukyan]

The game was at its best before SI, when you could still reasonably find groups before the uber SI expansion classes took over powerleveling and nobody(nor any group) was RR7+ and wtfpwned everything else.

The death of levelling groups in DAoC had nothing to do with SI (which at least provided Avalon City as an alternative to killing the damn pirate trees), and everything to do with /level, buffbots, and the efficiency of PLing.

Becuase of buff bots, many people bought a second account, becuase they already had a second account PLing became a serious option.

Oh, and necromancers. You can blame SI for introducing necromancers. (A class that is quite brilliant at xp farming, but useless for anything else)

And RAs as a fix for classes. See that is the true underlying problem. Classes were never fixed/balanced/etc. properly before the bandaids were thrown on and that is the reason that all these MLs, artifacts, RAs, blah blah blah are necessary for different classes. There is one good thing to it. You can choose the length and direction of the grind you want to pursue based on the class you pick. ;)

[chinslim]

My WOW priest can:

-spec talents for a brief period of uninterruptability

-spec a talent to make heals less interruptable

-has a "phase shift" spell to reduce PVE aggro

I pay at the most, 50 gold(which doesn't break the bank at level 60), for respecs.

No post-level augmentations like RA's or ML's, and no need to wait a few times every year for a dwindling realm population to kill some epic dragon for a chance to roll on a respec.   Cheap respecs matter when it's an issue of making your character fit into groups better, and thus an issue of basic gameplay.  Mythic simply makes it harder to be group-friendly.   Great policy.

[HaemishM]

Actually, a lot of Mythic's problems with class balance could have been solved by the addition of collision detection for player avatars (no need to give tanks special abilities to allow them to protect others, just stand the fuck in front of them), and the removal of all crowd control abilities in RVR. Forever and ever a-fucking-men.

Not that anyone would do it, or thinks is technically feasible or anything. I'm just saying.

[eldaec]

Actually, a lot of Mythic's problems with class balance could have been solved by the addition of collision detection for player avatars ......

Not that anyone would do it, or thinks is technically feasible or anything. I'm just saying.

Amen to that.

And my understanding from very old half remembered dev posts is that it is technically feasible. The engine already includes the feature - just needs to be turned on (though only for realm enemies in order to prevent griefing).

[HaemishM]

By technically feasible, I mean doesn't make the server shit itself when more than 3 people get into the same area.

[Soukyan]

No, it really was easily feasible to do collision detection in that game. For fucks sake, EQ had collision detection. Not that that was a good thing there, but...

[AlteredOne]

DAOC has collision detection for walls and trees.  I assume the same code would work for other players, but they set a flag defining players as a non-collision object.  Obviously there is more processing in calculating collision with moving objects, but it's hard to believe their engine could not have supported it.

[Numtini]

/level really didn't affect PVE levelling groups. It was bots. The situation from 20-50 wasn't any better. Just soloers with healbots and uber equipment.

[Nebu]

...and the removal of all crowd control abilities in RVR. Forever and ever a-fucking-men.

AMEN!

I'd like to meet the dev that thought being grappled, stunned, rooted, mezzed, zephyred, and ST'ed during RvR would be "fun" for the players.  Crowd control or anything that removes control from the player's hands for a period of time is a BAD IDEA.  I have an rr6 melee toon with several means of purging cc and still find cases where I'm unable to do anything for a majority of an encounter.  

As for the extra money, I'm not sure how it will affect things all that much.  I don't think it will have much effect on the existing player base and the number of new subscribers must be exceedingly low. What I think may happen is that it will serve as yet another deterrent for new players.  It's almost as if Mythic is giving up on new blood and just trying to ride the current wave as long as they can.  I know that if I were new to the MMOG genre, I'd much rather pay for WoW or CoH... especially considering they don't need you to have 2 accounts.

[Paelos]

Collision detection would remove most of the need for crowd control spells and actually create a use for tanks as protector units. Then again, it would piss off the majority of caster idiots in the game so it will never happen.

[eldaec]

Collision detection would remove most of the need for crowd control spells and actually create a use for tanks as protector units. Then again, it would piss off the majority of caster idiots in the game so it will never happen.

Casters (and archers) would have by far the most to gain from collision detection.

Imagine how much stronger Pbaoe boxes, or bolters behind tanks at choke points would become if the reaver bombs can't charge straight through enemy lines.

The people who would lose out are the hybrids (esp reavers, valks, VWs etc), often having short range insta spells, they often do well charging through enemy lines to drop their instas on the squishies.

(Note that only alb even have primary cc on a cloth caster)

[trias_e]

If only I had a dollar for everytime someone who doesn't know what they are talking about starts bitching about DAOC crowd control.  The most unbalanced the game has ever been other than the first few months was when tanks got determination and cheap RA's.

[chinslim]

If only I had a dollar for everytime someone who doesn't know what they are talking about starts bitching about DAOC crowd control. The most unbalanced the game has ever been other than the first few months was when tanks got determination and cheap RA's.

DUH.

This is the problem we've been ranting about: instead of addressing fundamental problems with PVP mechanics such as crowd control, Mythic "fixed" the problem by adding on realm abilities such as Determination.  So the end result was only tanks of a certain RR became desireable for groups and the crowd controllers were made to feel useless.  

Had Mythic bit the bullet and designed ubiquitous crowd control out of the game, they could have rebalanced the crowd control classes to make them useful in other ways.

[HaemishM]

Crowd control spells in PVP are WEAK CRUTCHES. Period. They are skillless, one button wins in most PVP games I've ever seen. They generally end up causing so many balances issues. First, you have to make sure someone can't be chain CCed, because that blows monkey balls to be stuck HELPLESS while being pounded on. Then, you have to put in increasing immunity timers. Or you have to give certain classes CC breaking powers, which usually work for shit. Then there are resists that need to be added, and the CC classes then bitch because they can't stop someone from pounding them into paste. So you give them instacast shit, or something equally stupid. Suddenly you have such a huge cluster fuck of complexities layered on upon the other that it's unmanageable. All because of one segment of spells.

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about things like roots or snares. I'm talking about those kinds of things that freeze a character, like mesmerization or charm or stun. You know, the stuff that makes you stand there like a zombie and take the ass pounding with no recourse. Not fun. Roots are fine so long as you can fight back and you aren't rooted long enough to be killed from full health to death before the root breaks.

And in the end, the only reason CC spells are in PVP is to keep the casters from getting smeared without recourse, because they are all wearing the equivalent of cheesecloth. Double yay?

Give avatars collision detection, and all of a sudden, tanks can protect casters without needing special abilities. You can build a wall around your casters. Melee has a purpose.

[sidereal]

Give avatars collision detection, and all of a sudden, tanks can protect casters without needing special abilities. You can build a wall around your casters.

Kinda.  You'd need either a threat radius algorithm or a 12:1 tank to caster ratio to prevent someone from just walking around the wall.  I like the threat radius.  If you want to ignore the tank and walk by to get to the caster, quintuple critical hit.  Die.  Or you can have stickiness like blockers in NFL games.  Once you're 'engaged' on someone you have to struggle to get disengaged, and it's easy for them to stay engaged with you.

[trias_e]

That is a very interesting idea.  An auto-block type assignment for tanks similar to linemen in football.  Thats the only way I could ever see collision detection making any sort of impact on PvP.  Other than grief of course.

As far as CC goes, it doesn't bother me in small amounts, but in certain PvP systems would not be needed at all.  As far as DAOC goes, some CC was absolutely essential to keeping the game playable, which was the point.