WOW PVP Gear Progression vs. DAoC Skill Based PVP

[Adzzy]

If you had ever 8 man'd in DAoC then you'd know that skill in timing, CC, counters, and kiting played huge rolls in whether or not you group surivives. If you didn't use your artifacts or ToA abilites at the right time you were dead. Saying that DAoC took no skill is pretty hilarious. DAoC took much more skill than WoW did for PvP/RvR.

 

Daoc had no twitch skill though, which a lot of people adhere to as part of skill, it was so slow, keybinds vs clicking was a non issue (i even tried it once to prove a point on my server for a week...ended up with the highest rp total in the game for that 7 day period....), melees would hit every 3 seconds and run of stamina sans buff in under 10 swings, casters would get interrupted by a whiff and have not much to do but run around waiting for someone else to peel, it wasnt unusual to have several abilities with 30 min cds etc

 

There's no way anyone would accept the speed of that game today.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Adzzy

[Bloodylittle]

Daoc had no twitch skill though, which a lot of people adhere to as part of skill, it was so slow, keybinds vs clicking was a non issue (i even tried it once to prove a point on my server for a week...ended up with the highest rp total in the game for that 7 day period....), melees would hit every 3 seconds and run of stamina sans buff in under 10 swings, casters would get interrupted by a whiff and have not much to do but run around waiting for someone else to peel, it wasnt unusual to have several abilities with 30 min cds etc

 

There's no way anyone would accept the speed of that game today.

Exactly...it gave the person time to counteract with skills that REQUIRED watching what your opponent was doing. It also had backup styles that could change based on what transpired previous swing.

 

Running around spamming buttons in today's MMO is hardly skill. It's just what people know from WOW.

[Laoi]

Atlantis brought a lot gear but most of daoc gear is use based.

still I slow killed 50's solo with a 42 theugist in daoc.

I believe that to be impossible here

 

ToA added alot of playerskill to the game tho. sure u had to get the gear and the MLs to compete cos otherwise u would simply lack all the abilities that ToA brought to the game but rly it took like 1 week to get all that at release and takes a day max nowadays. overall it made all the classes much much harder to play correct and allowed for much more worked out tactics than the dumb 3 tank assist train that was standard pre ToA.

[Masahiko]

DAoC was a piece of crap, there's a reason everyone left it. WoW may not have had the best system, but the underlying fact is they had the best game. Blizzard's level of polish allows them to get away with mediocre design and poor mechanics, because everything works flawlessly. There's no issues with ability delay, or people falling through floors, or quests not giving credit. That's why it's so successful. Anyone that says otherwise is delusional. Until you fix the bugs that make PvP a pain, you cannot innovate.

 

People only left daoc when they added ToA and it became a gear grind (literally as you had to level artis).

 

I wont argue that in the time that wows been out it has been polished to a higher mirror shine. I would argue that it was alot of fun to attack different places before bgs became the focus of game play.

[me_unknown]

Exactly...it gave the person time to counteract with skills that REQUIRED watching what your opponent was doing. It also had backup styles that could change based on what transpired previous swing.

 

Running around spamming buttons in today's MMO is hardly skill. It's just what people know from WOW.

 

if you played like that in wow or here than it is your fault. i do not need such a slow gameplay to "counteract with skills that REQUIRED watching what your opponent was doing".

this is how i was pvp'ing in wow and this was the reason why there were good pvp'ers and the rest of brainless button smashing fodder.

 

actually, with a 1.5GCD for me it feels a bit slow here. i am already smashing the one button to counteract the opponents action while the gcd is only at the half way through, waiting for it to finish.

 

edit: the only issue for me currently is to accomodate with the ui here. the cast description of a target casting currently is so damn small and hard to read even if you are not within a fight. also the animations for long time casts are not very unique and easy to distinguish during a fight.

Edited February 1, 2012 by me_unknown

[Feztonio]

give crafters some love. let them all craft some part of lvl 50 starter-pvp gear. perhaps use warzone commendations as part of the fuel and make them craft it for a specific person.. rather than being able to craft 10 chest pieces and then drop them on the AH for a billion credits each.

 

maybe even give the crafter some xp or valor.. some benefit for making each piece.. like back in original SWG when you got xp for training skills to other players.

 

no starter set and removing the original starter sets is just being a buncha d-bags

[AssistSenn]

DAOC's skill based system was/still is the best system out there.

 

Period.

 

Period indeed. It's not even remotely close for PvP progression.

[DarthHarlem]

Dark age of Camelot was and is still a great pvp mmo. I've played many mmos over the years and anyone will tell you, there is still no mmo that can touch DAOC's pvp system. They are still the top dog. It was skill demanding and the pvp had a purpose. I played for years since its launch and as recent as early last year. It has its downfalls but again, there is nothing better.

 

I think my biggest grief is that when I go from mmo to mmo, I am still trying to find a better pvp system. Which I still have not found. Aion was probably the closet, but its flaws rivaled the pvp in swtor.

 

I attempted to try out WoW but the pvp is more, well like a family game. May as well play some multiplayer game online. I think even some of the free korean based mmos pvp was better. Capture the flag for pvp? Come on man.

 

If you wanted to get good at a class, become known for your skillplay if you like to solo, group, or lead 100 man defenses or invasion forces, then daoc would be a perfect fit for you. Its simply an amazing pvp game. There is stil lnothing like defending your relic gates with 50 or so people against a 100 or more enemies with your keep walls down and your trying to work every tactic you can just to hold when the the third faction rushes in and kills everyone. Ha simply the best.

 

My highest class was my scout, who was level 50 and realm rank 12. Great game, if not for the flaws, I'd still be playing.

 

Funny how when I found out that some of the devs that created that game were working on this one, I got excited. They really disappointed me!

[Ancient_karp]

The WoW generation would never stand for the DAoC system. Most of them are terrible at pvp and can only be competitive if they a) outlevel their opponent or b) out gear them. As most of them aren't capable of managing more than 4 buttons, more abilities won't help them.

 

Think I'm kidding? I played both DAOC and WoW on a pvp server. In WoW, the only time I was ever attacked in the open world was if the other person was higher level or in better gear. If we were the same level, they ran.

 

Most pvp MMO players are terrible and would quit if forced to play in a game with a level playing field.

[Dharagada]

DaoC and WoW had different types of PVP.

 

WoW's PVP became almost completely centered around arenas, yeah you had BGs and the occasional world pvp but those are almost a side note. Some like arena play some don't, regardless of your whether you like or not though it did require skill to play arena well, especially at the higher brackets.

 

However I'm not a fan of arena being the pvp focus for MMOs personally. The problem becomes that when your PVP becomes centered around small arena play like WoW is in order for every class to be truly viable they all need to perform pretty much exactly the same, the least little shift ends up giving to much power to certain classes and comps.

 

In good RvR type pvp things become more chaotic, classes don't have be so much the same because you can do different things and still effectively help your side accomplish their objectives. You have have giant parties/raids going up against each other, smaller parties of no more than 4 people running around etc. The issue of course is that if any side has a significant size advantage they would win regardless, which is why uneven number of factions is necessary for good world or RvR pvp. Assuming there is faction balance RvR becomes more about tactics and coordination.

 

DAoC had it's flaws, the CC thing did get a bit crazy there, but it was probably one of the best RvR pvp games out there and it's a shame no one has tried to yet make an updated version of their PVP model.

Edited February 1, 2012 by Dharagada

[FichutheDude]

Okay so players from other types of MMOs seem to misunderstand a couple of things.

 

In games that have raiding you have gear progression. PVE gear has been the bane of PVP in games that have both. Why? Because each raid tier is generally harder requiring higher ouptut, health and defenses. Raid drops are usually aimed at gearing players up for the next challenge.

So what happens when these players enter PVP with their powerful raid gear? At the end of vanilla wow players that raided end game content basically won any pvp by massive gear advantge.

 

 

So what games like WoW did to address this was release PVP gear that is at the same item level as the current raid gear. They also added a stat that made PVP gear better for PVP. Wow still has problems with powerful PVE items showing up in PVP.

 

What is different from the way swtor does gear and wow is that right now a casual player can get a full set of pvp gear in about two weeks in wow. There is a slightly better set that comes from rated games that takes a quite a bit longer to complete.

 

The ironic thing about this is that in rated pvp "pvp that matters" the gear difference is almost non-existant or very small. The two exceptions being a player who has a powerful pve item, and new characters that need to finish getting the basic set.

 

If there wasn't this gear in a game with PVE you would be complaining about getting rolled by everyone who raids. Bioware will wake up and make pvp gear easy to get eventually. The complaint about gear over skill misses the point entirely, you let everyone get the gear so it can be about skill is what is actually going on.

 

 

 

 

Indeed . But the amount of player running around with that super rare Tuscarian Glacier Axe of Apocalypse was so rare anyway . How many people had Dragon Gear or The best cloak in the game? Plus it never gave a super advantage anyway.

 

The chance you had to face him 1 vs 1 was so tiny that no one cared. RVR was open world and not instanced grindingbattleground made for the casual gamer. Casual does not mean play less. It's mean instant gratification gaming.

 

You had realm Wide objective with relic to capture and a sense of purpose within your realm and alliance(which needed coordinate effort realm wide) . PVP in WoW or Swtor it's a grind fest of bigotry. DaoC PvP will never happens against. Not with instanced PVP. The concept of realm effort and open frontier was the true reason DaoC was unique with the strongest PVP. Hell I actually enjoyed getting owned by the best Infiltrator of the server. It's was so rarare to meet such a player and they had strong reputation server wide. Nothing like PVP of today.

[Starbuckx]

DaoC has the best gear and Progression system I've ever played. I want a game that has the same system as that again but without any of that trials of atlantis crap.

[Modecrypt]

DAoC, Pre-TOA, was an amazing game and it mystifies me that no one has really tried to imitate it. It wouldn't attract all of the carebears from WoW... but I imagine that it would still be a profitable venture.

[Kolbenito]

Indeed . But the amount of player running around with that super rare Tuscarian Glacier Axe of Apocalypse was so rare anyway . How many people had Dragon Gear or The best cloak in the game? Plus it never gave a super advantage anyway.

 

The chance you had to face him 1 vs 1 was so tiny that no one cared. RVR was open world and not instanced grindingbattleground made for the casual gamer. Casual does not mean play less. It's mean instant gratification gaming.

 

You had realm Wide objective with relic to capture and a sense of purpose within your realm and alliance(which needed coordinate effort realm wide) . PVP in WoW or Swtor it's a grind fest of bigotry. DaoC PvP will never happens against. Not with instanced PVP. The concept of realm effort and open frontier was the true reason DaoC was unique with the strongest PVP. Hell I actually enjoyed getting owned by the best Infiltrator of the server. It's was so rarare to meet such a player and they had strong reputation server wide. Nothing like PVP of today.

 

I would have probably enjoyed that type of PVP game. I was an FPS player at the time and my first MMO was WoW at the end of '05.

 

On the point of gear, I speak from experience as being one of the overpowered. Near the end of Vanilla on my Warrior (character I played for 6 years) I was in full Conqueror's Battlegear with Dark Edge of Insanity. Result, I could two shot people during a Charge -> Mortal Strike. I once killed everyone trying to defend a flag with a Whirlwind -> Cleave in Arathi Basin. This is not skill, I knew it then too although it was great for luls.

 

That is my only point. This is a brand new game, and it has non-trivial raiding. The same exact thing would happen in Swotr if the only gear progression was through raiding - same as it was in Vanilla except for the miniscule number of people who got rank 14.

[goxwerd]

a lot of good points in this thread actually..

 

 

Made me realize that unlike other games that have come out in the last 2-3 years that borrow from wow along with other games. ToR is seemingly more and more is just pulling directly from wow but doing a bad job of it There is little to nothing of their own vision and it is beyond me how they didn't take the good from other smaller games and include it.

 

 

The token grind fest is basically this entire game. There is almost nothing in this game that isn't playing for badges. Heck it isn't even a real grind either its just that is the entire game. Do a ton of trivial pve or pvp to get stuff to use to do the exact same trivial pvp and pve.

[Bnol]

Weird concepts. So what if you have to raid to get your gear. Go raid.

 

Not everyone wants to raid, some people just want to PVP. Same thing goes in reverse, some players have no interest in PVE. This is why a game like DAoC will not be that successful is that you have to do both to progress your character, and there are a lot of people who have no interest in doing both and would rather have them more compartmentalized.

 

DAoC is for another breed of MMORPG player, and that breed is obviously not a big enough population to take a chance on. Certainly aspects of DAoC could be utilized in a game, but it is unlikely that you will see a AAA MMORPG that is just like DAoC.

[Scarloch]

I agree with the comments that PvP gear based on progression (grind) makes for a poor PvP game. It becomes very frustrating to face a pre-made all in top tier PvP gear that basically has more damage/mitigation than you. No matter your skill, you statistically are behind the Eight Ball, so to speak. I experienced it in WoW, WAR, and Rift. However, it's the only solution for games that have PvE raid gear progression.

 

However, DAoC had it's own grind. Anyone could level to 50 and get a decent PvP suit and go PvP, you had realm level and realm abilities (RAs) disparity to deal with. A newly minted level 50 RR1 would have a hard time vs. an RR5 or even harder vs. RR10+. Although, once you got a few RRs under your belt, you could find things more competitive, even if you were out RR'd. The golden age of DAoC was post-SI and pre-ToA in my opinion. Spell crafting made templates easier to make and there wasn't the awful PvE grind of ToA.

 

The brilliance of DAoC was 3 factions and world objectives that mattered (e.g. realm bonuses or DF access). As long as you have only 2 factions and instanced battlegrounds or warzones, you just can't have the type of dynamic world PvP DAoC offered.

[CrunchyGremlin]

Not everyone wants to raid, some people just want to PVP. Same thing goes in reverse, some players have no interest in PVE. This is why a game like DAoC will not be that successful is that you have to do both to progress your character, and there are a lot of people who have no interest in doing both and would rather have them more compartmentalized.

 

DAoC is for another breed of MMORPG player, and that breed is obviously not a big enough population to take a chance on. Certainly aspects of DAoC could be utilized in a game, but it is unlikely that you will see a AAA MMORPG that is just like DAoC.

 

interesting.

Not successful but generally known as the best PvP in an MMO ever.

 

No their lack of "success" was not the PvP model it was PvE aspects and other PvP balance issues that was their problem.

 

gear grind is what PvP games fall to when their PvP is going to die because the PvP game content doesn't inspire interest. But of course the gear grind can't continue.

Its a doomed to fail system simply designed to keep people interested long enough to make some money on the game.

 

 

PvP gear grind supporters complain that others don't like the gear grind because they wont do the work to get the gear when they themselves wont do the work to get the gear.

Edited February 1, 2012 by CrunchyGremlin

[Ancient_karp]

The brilliance of DAoC was 3 factions and world objectives that mattered (e.g. realm bonuses or DF access). As long as you have only 2 factions and instanced battlegrounds or warzones, you just can't have the type of dynamic world PvP DAoC offered.

 

Don't forget stat caps, crafting that had value, interesting class dynamics (interrupts, etc), realm objectives, etc.

[MPagano]

DaoC was a great game and all, I love it to death, but when it came to PvP in that game, the winner generally boiled down to who struck first and who had CD's up.

 

Skill in DaoC only mattered when it came to 1v1's. In 8v8, whichever side got that initiating aoe mez off first won most of the time, and seeing the other group first was generally either a matter of luck, server lag being kind, or having a radar program.

 

 

It's still better than TOR though, where gear makes a big difference, to call DaoC the pinnacle of "skill-based pvp" is a laugh though. That title belong to Asheron's Call.

 

Hahaha so we can just ignore you based on that last statement.

 

 

DAoC was and is king. The issues that game had were manageable and could be rectified easily with some recent designs of newer games. PvP in other games like WoW and ToR is inherently and fundamentally flawed. That's the difference.

[Torleen]

WoW took the idea of Token Economy and drove it to the extreme. Everything in WoW is a grindfest. They even made PvP a grind. The world will never be the same.

 

The grind is great for some aspects of an MMO but not all.

 

There should be no grind in PvP...at least not for stuff that directly impacts PvP. If you wanna grind for an awesome mount then sure. If I grind for gear that I can then use to beat you even though you are better than I am...that's just stupid.

 

We can't go against each other just for fun anymore. No, now it's all about dailies, weeklies, champion gear, Battlemaster gear, then T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 T9 etc....

 

Make the game fun to play or most of us will quit. Dangling higher tier gear in our faces is a joke.

 

The developers here clearly were overly influenced by a single game...WoW.

 

PVP "grinding" should be getting together with your friends, practicing/sparring, perfecting your build and play style. Rather then "I have gear because I did the same stupid repetitive task over and over again and now I beat people who are more skilled then me because of an unfair advantage I have..."

[Ahhmyface]

Daoc had a worse grind and a worse gear grind than TOR, and then they added in realm ability grind.

 

Daoc was a great game, but you're talking out your ***.

 

/R11 nightshade, R6 berserker, R7 ranger, R10 armsmaster, R5 eldritch

 

7 years and 320 days (24hr) played. find a player that knows more about daoc, i dare ya

Edited February 1, 2012 by Ahhmyface

[Ancient_karp]

Daoc had a worse grind and a worse gear grind than TOR, and then they added in realm ability grind.

 

Daoc was a great game, but you're talking out your ***.

 

/R11 nightshade, R6 berserker, R7 ranger, R10 armsmaster, R5 eldritch

 

It got better with the classic servers late in the life of DAoC. You could PL a toon to 50 in 24 hrs and get them geared and ready in a weekend. RR5 took another weekend.

 

Granted, it was a nightmare hell to get to 50 at release. I remember when there wasn't even much content after level 35 or so. It was rough at release.

[Ahhmyface]

Yep,i remember days before spind was itemized and realm points even existed.

[Kitsummerisle]

Too bad you need to grind Bmaster gear, then full PvE set to strip modes, that's going to be a grind fest and cause some of the worst PvP you will ever see.