How was DAoC pvp more "skill" based than other games?

[Aroidan]

Whoever listed that 8 man composition had it slightly wrong... Almost all 8 man alb groups had a Minstrel in it for speed and Added CC and other support abilities.

 

The reason DAoC was more skill based was because at the end of the day the gear and RRs only really gave a class more utility in a group. A RR0 could still beat a RR10 the reason it was less likely for a RR10 to beat a RR0 was because of a thing called Experience. Regardless how bad of a player you were if you hit RR10 you had learned some basic tactics for how to handle what your class was weak against and strong against and good spots to launch an ambush etc.

 

If I encountered an archer class 1 vs 1 I could beat them by properly using /face /stick commands and getting into melee. If they were good they might still be able to drop me before I got into melee but once I did they were screwed. This lead to a lot of stealth bating as well. 2 or 3 archers would get together to hold the mile gates. So a healer and a tank would get together and wait for them to pop out of cover and take a shot. If the healer was decent I could protect them while charging down the stealther or making them run and the healer could cast a quick stun on them letting me close the gap. If the other archer came out of stealth to try and take us out it became a game of does the healer stay close enough for guard or not etc. There was also some luck involved like, would my heal procs go off and so on.

 

The reason I stopped playing was 2 fold. The game was AMAZING pre ToA after that artifacts and Master Levels required massive groups of 40+ to complete and some of the raids took 8 or more hours to complete. This was simply not fun anymore and you needed the master levels to compete in RvR. On top of that Artifact leveling was a pain and not fun. Also New Frontiers was not good. Granted I like the look of the new keeps and the upgrading of them but I prefered the old map layouts and keep positions and mile gates etc. I also hated all the towers. Suddenly there was way too much to keep track of and do in RvR.

 

All this being said the thing that really screwed PvP and has made it about a gear progression was the advent of Bind on Pickup. Get rid of this mechanic and allow the top tier raid gear to be sold means you can get rid of the stupid expertise stat which means that now a PvPer can get the gear he needs by either buying it or raiding for it.

[CommandoPower]

it isn't.

CC that lasts for 30 seconds.

 

And longer. But this was only mezz type abilities that broke on damage. You also had classes that could free you and purge (self CC break). Granted it sucked when you got caught with your pants down and no way out but to watch your friends die, but that didn't happen much in my experience.

 

 

No CC breaks.

 

Everyone could get purge, self CC release vs everything. Which then gave you immunity = to 3 times the max duration of that CC. Other classes could unmezz you. Tanks got vastly reduced times on CC's, tanks got patched to be able to do a CC breaking "roar".

 

Any hit interrupts spell casting so you cant cast any spell if you are getting hit.

 

Yup, it meant that you could shut down caster damage mostly. But to be fair casters did far and way more damage than any other class. They blew people up HARD. Being able to stop them, mostly, was the only thing that kept them from being completely and totally overpowered.

 

Even then you could get RA's that would give you 2 uninterruptible faster casts instead of 1, and another that made you completely uninterpretable for X seconds...but gave you a moderate damage % penalty.

 

Permanent stun.

 

The horrible stun from that game was 9 seconds max. The casted (Ranged) stuns had their duration reduced by your resistances so they were in reality 6 seconds or so. Melee stuns lasted the full 9 but required a shield and high investment into shields or certain conditions to pull off.

 

You could purge this stun.

 

After you got stunned you gained immunity to stun for 3 times the duration of the original stun and could not be stunned again WHILE stunned to bypass this. That's 27 seconds of immunity.

 

Currently in SWTOR I regularly get chain stunned. The max duration is theoretically 8 seconds, 1 second shy of your DAOC stun. However the immunity time is vastly shorter and resolve is broken, thus I have been stunned in excess of 15 seconds straight here before (longer with very short breaks of not being stunned), which never happened in DAOC.

 

 

Archers used to kill casters in one hit until they introduced bladeturn. Now it requires them 2-3 hits.

 

Simply did not happen past very early on in the games life unless the caster thought they could war 20 levels old gear lol.

 

Maphack is a must. If your group doesn't have maphack, they can't roam open pvp since 1 group mez = dead party.

 

This is something that only happened late in the games life and they started banning people for it when they figured out how to sniff it out.

 

BUFFBOTS. Players basically need 2 accounts just so they can have twice the stats than the rest. Even if gear was easy to get, paying for another account gives a big advantage.

 

Buff bots didn't become commonplace until far later, and then both sides had them and everyone was buffed.

 

I agree that they were lame and buffing classes needed redesign, but you do not understand the game at all. The people screwed by buff bots were those with self buffs. They were intended to have advantages over people that they did not get.

 

I remember that all too well. 90% of the time in a one on one "fight" it was "stun-nuke-nuke-nuke-dead". I've never seen such insane CC as there was in that game.

 

You gotta be kidding me, it happens all the time here lol. Sometimes with 1 person other times with 2. We just now got past operatives and scoundrels doing that to EVERYONE. CC is far more plentiful in SWTOR than it was in DAOC with lesser counters and immunities.

[FourTwent]

Buying new abilities w/ RP's (realm points) was a second fun way to spec your character, and always gave something to look forward to.

 

so instead of having gear advantage. you had flat out ability advantage.

 

yea, that sounds like 'pure skill' /sarcasm

[Rallic]

Really? I loved DAOC crafting. I guess mostly because it actually made useful things that I cared about.

 

Yes but the swg crafting took that another step in how and what you made.

DAoC has Good crafting but swg was one of the all time best. I can't think of any that had what it did for crafting.

[Vales]

I seriously disliked DaoC and no it did not take more skill than other MMOs.

In fact it allowed for more abuse than many others.

Buff bots come to mind.

Eternal CC chains

Interupts did not just push back casts but made them uncastable

Class balance was the worst in history of an MMO

 

DaoC is probably the most overhyped game after WoW imho.

[Rallic]

I seriously disliked DaoC and no it did not take more skill than other MMOs.

In fact it allowed for more abuse than many others.

Buff bots come to mind.

Eternal CC chains

Interupts did not just push back casts but made them uncastable

Class balance was the worst in history of an MMO

 

DaoC is probably the most overhyped game after WoW imho.

 

Lol you didt play DAoC long it would seam as you know all most nothing about it.

I never once had a bufbot. Still don't as I still play from time to time..

 

Cc was and is easy to get around allways was. And took players not braking it.

Interupts was and is one of the best things about casters , mental and eldrich main toons for me.

Balance class vs class I have to give you that one as there is allways a fotm op class. But that's The same in all games.

For me its not about class vs class its a realm vs realm ie why it don't mater that archers or any other class are op for a time . The nerf bat rolls from class to class in a never ending game of qq.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Rallic

[CommandoPower]

I liked DAOC for what it was.. .but it was by far NOT perfect like so many fanboys claim

 

We don't think it's perfect. Most of us had gripes with it. It's just simply the BEST PVP game we've played.

 

imbalanced classes... stealth was king in that game... till toa came out

 

I hated stealthers until I realized that they were almost soley responsible for people grouping up automatically because running around solo meant stealther death. After that? I hated them lol. But I appreciated that they caused the game to be naturally team based with few rambo type players.

 

Overall stealthers were a phenomenal asset to DAOC simply because they made people automatically group up and fight in groups.

 

Mythic could just not balance the classes.. .they couldnt do it in DAOC and couldnt do it in Warhammer.

 

The irony is that I have not seen better balancing even in games with a fraction of the classes, 2 factions, and mirrored classes.

 

I'm not saying class balance was perfect by any means. Simply no worse than future games with 10 times more variety lol.

 

what you get in DAOC is what we call ELITISM.. it was really bad in DAOC...in order to make some 8 man teams.. there were requirements...

 

Which is why I zerg surfed or pugged. Not everyone was elitist. In fact it was mainly certain groups rather than most people. Your gonna say something like blah blah blah would lose to X. My response is going to be I HAD A BLAST .

 

its funny some mention it was friendly and helpful etc. that was the case before WOW came out. And the masses started entering into the genre. Attitudes changed from then on. Rudeness and swearing became more accepted.

 

in early years of AC, EQ, DAOC... people frowned on swearing in the open channel. And poeple would literally tear you a new one if you swore. helping each other was standard for MMOs... nowadays if you ask a question you will be called noob.. ridiculed for not knowing...

 

I'll agree with you there, though some games like City of Heros remain mostly friendly.

 

Yeah most games today require gear as the progression in PVP... however DAOC had its own.. it was REALM RANKS... same damn thing.. a RR10.. now its RR13... can easily beat a RR1... 1v1...

 

Thing is though, it took A LOT of time to get that high. Like ridiculous amounts of time AND you still didn't have the same kind of difference you do with fresh 50's and Battlemasters. They could be alot more easily killed than battlemasters unless they threw all those points into defense, in which case their offense wasn't being raised near as much.

 

RA's were still about choices and tradeoffs, not about an all around "your **** uber now".

 

a rank 1 just doesnt have the proper tools for PVP like purge which you buy when you rank up...

 

however, this is Mythics downfall... a new person coming into the game and starting at 50 goes out gets geared up.. thinks cool im competitive to play...

 

then they wiped fast... they cancel account... this was typical...

 

That pretty much stopped when they added battlegrounds. You got geared via PVP, you got PVP experience, and you gained Realm Ranks all while leveling in an extremely fun PVP battleground. Still siege based, still open world, still all the fun of DAOC end game PVP, in a small focused package.

 

maintaining a solid number in daoc's life was hard for them... they had a hard time getting new subs after you had a LOT of guilds that were "ELITE" feeding on the newcomers into the frontiers...

 

cant tell you how much RAGE you heard in chat over this. But of course, peoples memories tend to fade as years go by.

 

Nah it was pretty much TOA. Forcing people to PVE in a primarily PVP game to be competitive at PVP killed it.

 

oh and one last thing about DAOC.. there was NO OPEN WORLD PVP.. it was all instanced...

 

you entered into a battleground by loading in.. also went into the frontiers loading in... it was a separate area of the world... your homeland was SAFE... always...

 

I think your idea of instanced and open world is kind of flawed. Unless an area as big as your homeland with no player cap counts as an instance?

 

I specifically loved the later attitude of taking and defending keeps of oh midgard is taking a keep... blah who cares... we will get it back when they all log off...

 

this was another problem... wasnt fun taking empty keeps after awhile... especially if your realm was dominating the other 2... of course this is the worst case scenario...

 

That's the funny thing. Nobody understands this in games today. We all cared. You did not want those dirty hibs, albs, mids taking your keep. That was YOUR keep. People called into work to stop relic raids lol. This is what is referred to commonly as REALM PRIDE. You cared about your realm and you honestly wanted to help it for no better reason than because it was your realm.

 

Me and many others spent many late nights preventing those said keep takes and taking it back if they took ti while we were gone. Even against superior numbers. Because that was our keep dang it and YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!!.

 

 

P.S. oh and daoc only has 1 server... yeah its barely running with only the RR13s running around or trying to level up another ...

 

Considering it's a PVP game and the age of it that's honestly fairly impressive.

 

warhammer about the same.. what are they down to? 2 or 3 servers? exactly why mythic was dissolved...

 

Warhammer got hosed by EA and the catering to the WOW fan base. Straight up. It also only had a fraction of the Mythic staff. Alot of them left to go to other companies and if EA tried to hire me, so would I. I wouldn't work for them even if they offered me $10 an hour more. I like my soul tyvm.

[TehMerc]

Far too much nostalgia going on in here for my liking :x

 

It wasn't skill based, it was class based. Stack the right classes or be punished was the name of the game.

 

No thanks. Do want Siege PvP however, best fun I've had in a long time.

[ChasteDaley]

I remember DAoC fondly. I was a Minstrel and loved the utility I brought to a group.

 

Speed and ...um....what was that ability...it made your whole group move fast and were immune to CC for like 10s.

 

I just remember that requiring skill to use before the mez or for the other team to fake you into using it so they could CC you after.

 

It wasn't a perfect game but I did love that I felt like I could make a good group better.

 

I feel that a little in SWTOR. I might feel it more with more open PvP.

[thaxtl]

That ability was called SoS.

[Rallic]

Far too much nostalgia going on in here for my liking :x

 

It wasn't skill based, it was class based. Stack the right classes or be punished was the name of the game.

 

No thanks. Do want Siege PvP however, best fun I've had in a long time.

 

Yes and no to this . In 8m vs 8m you needed the right set up , but a pug group of good players beat hands down a bad group that didt know how to play , even if they had the "right" set up.

 

I pugged a lot but ran in a good premade to. I think it took more skill then any thing we have now.

I did so hate the toa, stopped playing over it. Came back with the classic server , and left after they closed it down.

 

Now I re-up from time to time just for fun.

 

I think back to the days of mmg to hmg running and yes it got boring. But there was so much more then that. Keep raids being the most fun I had in DAoC . Shadowbanes city banes being bigger so funner.

[Candykissesxoxo]

I don't believe DAoC was any better than any other game out there today. It's all about the times imo. When it first came out things were different..mmo's in general were fairly new and giving little to no rewards didn't matter because it was good enough to just go out and do it and have fun. Times have changed..mmo's have changed and today it takes a bit more to satisfy the average mmo vet.

 

 

DAoC had it's issues just like any other game out there. More skill? I laugh when I see people saying that. Having gear on an equal lvl and easier to aquire? Maybe easier to aquire but when top geared people face top geared people in any game, if the balance is decent, is skill not measurable? "well what about having fotm classes being OP?..that doesn't take skill.."

 

Guess what..In top end arena in wow if a class was OP every f'ing team had one..good players adapted. So when you're facing mirror team after mirror team with the same comps having equal gear, does that not take skill to get the W?

 

People crying about gear disadvantage usually means they didn't make it to the top end. Competing in the top end takes skill in any game. DAoC had advantages that gave people the edge as well. Unfortunetly TOR has no competative pvp or way to rank anyone's "skill"

[Raudd]

What made Daoc the best RvR ( realm vs realm) game until now?

Simple:

RvR gave you sense of accomplishment. There were 3 realms, all had they own rvr zone connected to each other. All realms had 2 relic (iirc) kept in there keeps. This relic keeps had relic guardians ( very very hard to beat ) "sent" from the other keeps. If you took those other keeps, the guardians depopped, made it easier to take the relics.

 

If you controlled other realms relic( which meant take it, got it back to your keeps ) you got 10-20% extra damage for melee/magic in rvr but also pve too.

 

Relics raids were epic in scale. You needed to take 5-6 keeps to depop the guardians, but of course the defending realm went to defend those keeps, you had huge fight out of it. You used battering rams to break walls, infiltrators climbed up on the walls to gank peoples inside, you had trebutchets (sp) to damage peoples inside. You needed logistic to resupply ammo for those.

 

After you took those keeps you had to defend them because if the defending realm took 'em back, the guardians at the relic keeps repopped.

 

Also lets not forget about the third realm, hitting the attackers and the defenders alike.

A relics raid ( because of this "guardian keeps") took 100+ peoples coordinated flawlessly if the defenders came out.

 

Let me tell you about a raid which made me rvr oriented ( i was a giant pve guy b4):

It took 28 hours. Literally. Groups roaming all over the rvr lands taking/retaking keeps. Joined a group for several hours , went to work. Came home after work, logged on and got the message that the raid still going on , so joined a group to take keeps again for several hours. Went to sleep. Woke up, logged on and saw the raid still going on ( peoples logged off/logged on all the time , kept the raid going )so i joined a group on the final attack on the relic keep. We took the relic and started to head back to our territory. We got hit by a defending group, few groups from the third realm ( they knew if the kill us they will have the relic we worked 28 or so hours for) ,but few of our groups joined us too to bodyguard us. Finally made it back to our keeps , and felt like heroes. Felt like we did something great, something awesome .

 

It was almost 10 years ago, and i still get goosebumps if i think about it.

 

PS: Sorry for the rusty English, not my first language

[Rallic]

I don't believe DAoC was any better than any other game out there today. It's all about the times imo. When it first came out things were different..mmo's in general were fairly new and giving little to no rewards didn't matter because it was good enough to just go out and do it and have fun. Times have changed..mmo's have changed and today it takes a bit more to satisfy the average mmo vet.

 

 

DAoC had it's issues just like any other game out there. More skill? I laugh when I see people saying that. Having gear on an equal lvl and easier to aquire? Maybe easier to aquire but when top geared people face top geared people in any game, if the balance is decent, is skill not measurable? "well what about having fotm classes being OP?..that doesn't take skill.."

 

Guess what..In top end arena in wow if a class was OP every f'ing team had one..good players adapted. So when you're facing mirror team after mirror team with the same comps having equal gear, does that not take skill to get the W?

 

People crying about gear disadvantage usually means they didn't make it to the top end. Competing in the top end takes skill in any game. DAoC had advantages that gave people the edge as well. Unfortunetly TOR has no competative pvp or way to rank anyone's "skill"

 

 

 

I lol any time some one tryst to use arena is a PvP sentence. That is in the most lose since of the word PvP but its the *** end of PvP .

 

Look.arena is set up, theres nothing to be ready for , both teams know what and when, and where..that is not PvP to me. It's WWF with eping nerds trying to be etuff . Wow PvP and SWTOR PvP are a slap in the face as is to all PvP

 

Yes it had bugs , iv yet to play any MMO ever with out them. It's the way the pvp played the levels of classes and skills used . Called targets with 100 people not braking cc all working together.

 

Fotm classes came later in DAoC as for a long time it took a very long time to level up. not so much now, and like all mmos fotm are there. But in a game that PvP is 8man to 100man raids a few fotm mixed in don't mater a lot.

 

 

DAoC would be a top MMO of it had todays gfx. Hands down they could release the game with nothing more then a xpac for the GUI and gfx and do good.

 

And for me its not about is DAoC better then SWTOR or not as its apples and Oranges. It's could SWTOR give us a DAoC sort of world PvP with a 3rd realm using the same classes just another faction like huts or separatists. With space station and world takes.

 

I think they can and should but that's me and the PvP/RvR I like.

I can't stand arenas I think they are a bad joke on pvp. But randomly world PvP with mass server wars I love.

 

 

 

Ps: using my droid to post , to much truble to go back and fix all the words it changes, ,,,, should add that to my Sig lol.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Rallic

[Rallic]

I don't believe DAoC was any better than any other game out there today. It's all about the times imo. When it first came out things were different..mmo's in general were fairly new and giving little to no rewards didn't matter because it was good enough to just go out and do it and have fun. Times have changed..mmo's have changed and today it takes a bit more to satisfy the average mmo vet.

 

 

DAoC had it's issues just like any other game out there. More skill? I laugh when I see people saying that. Having gear on an equal lvl and easier to aquire? Maybe easier to aquire but when top geared people face top geared people in any game, if the balance is decent, is skill not measurable? "well what about having fotm classes being OP?..that doesn't take skill.."

 

Guess what..In top end arena in wow if a class was OP every f'ing team had one..good players adapted. So when you're facing mirror team after mirror team with the same comps having equal gear, does that not take skill to get the W?

 

People crying about gear disadvantage usually means they didn't make it to the top end. Competing in the top end takes skill in any game. DAoC had advantages that gave people the edge as well. Unfortunetly TOR has no competative pvp or way to rank anyone's "skill"

 

 

 

I lol any time some one tryst to use arena is a PvP sentence. That is in the most lose since of the word PvP but its the *** end of PvP .

 

Look.arena is set up, theres nothing to be ready for , both teams know what and when, and where..that is not PvP to me. It's WWF with eping nerds trying to be etuff . Wow PvP and SWTOR PvP are a slap in the face as is to all PvP

 

Yes it had bugs , iv yet to play any MMO ever with out them. It's the way the pvp played the levels of classes and skills used . Called targets with 100 people not braking cc all working together.

 

Fotm classes came later in DAoC as for a long time it took a very long time to level up. not so much now, and like all mmos fotm are there. But in a game that PvP is 8man to 100man raids a few fotm mixed in don't mater a lot.

 

 

DAoC would be a top MMO of it had todays gfx. Hands down they could release the game with nothing more then a xpac for the GUI and gfx and do good.

 

And for me its not about is DAoC better then SWTOR or not as its apples and Oranges. It's could SWTOR give us a DAoC sort of world PvP with a 3rd realm using the same classes just another faction like huts or separatists. With space station and world takes.

 

I think they can and should but that's me and the PvP/RvR I like.

I can't stand arenas I think they are a bad joke on pvp. But randomly world PvP with mass server wars I love.

[CommandoPower]

I lol any time some one tryst to use arena is a PvP sentence. That is in the most lose since of the word PvP but its the *** end of PvP .

 

Look.arena is set up, theres nothing to be ready for , both teams know what and when, and where..that is not PvP to me. It's WWF with eping nerds trying to be etuff . Wow PvP and SWTOR PvP are a slap in the face as is to all PvP

 

Yes it had bugs , iv yet to play any MMO ever with out them. It's the way the pvp played the levels of classes and skills used . Called targets with 100 people not braking cc all working together.

 

Fotm classes came later in DAoC as for a long time it took a very long time to level up. not so much now, and like all mmos fotm are there. But in a game that PvP is 8man to 100man raids a few fotm mixed in don't mater a lot.

 

 

DAoC would be a top MMO of it had todays gfx. Hands down they could release the game with nothing more then a xpac for the GUI and gfx and do good.

 

And for me its not about is DAoC better then SWTOR or not as its apples and Oranges. It's could SWTOR give us a DAoC sort of world PvP with a 3rd realm using the same classes just another faction like huts or separatists. With space station and world takes.

 

I think they can and should but that's me and the PvP/RvR I like.

I can't stand arenas I think they are a bad joke on pvp. But randomly world PvP with mass server wars I love.

 

 

 

Ps: using my droid to post , to much truble to go back and fix all the words it changes, ,,,, should add that to my Sig lol.

 

She makes a good point. Arena teams you pretty much have your battle plans and likely opposition down pat. Memorized rotations and what you need to do. Your in a very very controlled setting. It's a completely different type of gameplay from dynamic open world PVP and I find a less challenging one because you have less variables.

 

I've seen alot of people who did well in arenas and the like FAIL HORRIBLY at open world PVP. Lack of awareness, inability to adapt to changing situations, unable to cope with battle plan falling apart, can't rely on tried and true methods all the time, etc.

 

 

It's a different world. I was a zerg surger and PUG player. I thrived in chaos. It was my job to try and do the most effective thing for me to do at any given time. This might have been taking out DPS, taking out a healer, or guarding my own people. Maybe I was using my AOE to mass interrupt, maybe I was using my pets to keep one caster interrupted, casting on another, and occasionally casting on a 3rd. I kept in mind to root not just for myself, but for others too. Maybe we had numbers, maybe we were down 2:1, maybe both other realms had us sandwiched and I was trying to lead them into each other.

 

I had to adjust on the fly no matter what insanity happened. As it so happens I can do raids, I can do arena, I can do alot of things. But nothing beats the ever changing living animal that is open world PVP when it comes to challenging you with new and unexpected situations on a constant basis.

 

It's simply a day and night difference, and skill requirement, for open world PVP. Requires more skills AND higher levels of the same skills you use for arena, only without the I do Y then X then Z mentality. Because that'll just get you killed.

[Sorrum]

it isn't.

 

CC that lasts for 30 seconds.

No CC breaks.

Any hit interrupts spell casting so you cant cast any spell if you are getting hit.

Permanent stun.

Archers used to kill casters in one hit until they introduced bladeturn. Now it requires them 2-3 hits.

 

Maphack is a must. If your group doesn't have maphack, they can't roam open pvp since 1 group mez = dead party.

 

 

What are you talking about? Have you ever played the game ?

 

I swear.. have you ever even seen a video of it ?

[LightAvalon]

CC that lasts for 30 seconds.

 

Yeah mez can last a really long time. That's why your group has to spread out so they are not ALL mezzed. Plus you could spec for purge to get out of it anyway and at least it had diminishing returns

 

No CC breaks.

Purge. Cleanse etc.

 

Any hit interrupts spell casting so you cant cast any spell if you are getting hit.

Loved this system. Highly encouraged teamwork. If I was a caster and I was getting locked down by someone I had to call it out in my group to get an instant peel.

 

Too lazy to address the rest.

 

 

Anyway as for why I loved DAOC pvp.

 

Realm points. - Loved going out to fight and continually improve my character. Every time I killed people I'd get points I could spend to get more abilities or skills. Mythic also had a leader boards that showed who had the most amount of realm points, who gained the most that week, who gained the most for your class. It was a lot of fun trying to get the most amount of realm points each week.

 

Death matters. - I'm sure everyone that raided in WoW can relate to this. How long do you think it takes after a boss wipe to get everyone together again to roll on out? That's kinda how DAOC pvp is. You have your full group and you spend maybe 5-10 minutes depending on how you're traveling to the fight location. Then you roam around and find action. If you die you do not re spawn 10 feet away. Nope you go back to your home base and you have to make your way back. Death matters.

 

PVP is self sustaining. - Once you get your best gear you're done. You can pvp to your hearts content and will not have to do anymore pve until they expansion you QQ. You even get a ton of money from pvp.

 

Community/Respect - This is kind of a lost art. Nowadays everyone is "red it's dead". DAOC had a sense of community where you continued to fight the same people from your server or fought along with the same people. If you saw someone having a 1v1 you'd sit back and let them finish it. If you saw a group vs another group, you'd wait until they were done.

 

Handling zergs - In DAOC you could actually kill zergs with a full group. This is mostly due to the fact that zergs would cluster on top of each other and be easy AE Mez targets. Also zergs would get less realm points depending on how many players were damaging their target.

 

-EDIT- Forgot to include why it was skill based.

 

High team coordination - due to the interrupt system this game relied on a ton of group coordination. Virtually every single had a cast time, none of this insta crap (at least not for awhile). Basically anything that hit you would interrupt your cast and you would be unable to cast again for at least 5s. On the flip side though, if you were free to cast for this duration you could do a ton of damage or heals.

 

What this generally lead to was pvp groups consisting of a few melee, a few casters, and a few healers. Since you cannot cast if you are interrupted you can kind of imagine how hectic that fight is going to be.

 

Basically any time 2 groups met everyone would spread out because if you were clumped up, you were a target for a huge AE CC. Healers would prekite and get in the back. Casters usually do the same thing. Tanks would charge in but they'd have to make sure not to get over extended. People had to focus down targets to kill them. You would have casters trying to lock down healers, CC other casters, etc etc.

Edited February 7, 2012 by LightAvalon

[ugig]

So what did the pvp revolve around? Group vs group pvp? How big? What was the goal? Control of resources? Was there a way to rank people? How did you gauge how skilled a player was?

 

Part of the draw was not knowing how skilled the player was, when you attacked you had a very real danger of getting killed, now you could get a general idea by the title they had, but these titles were different based on the realm where an Albion might be a Gryphon Knight at realm rank 5, a midgard might be an Isen Vakken (cant remember the exact ones)

 

But the rank doesnt mean they are skilled so you went on reputation, and took chances instead of only picking on those with "less skill" or sure things.

 

The PvP revolved around group vs group or raid vs raid mostly, but you could get into fights 1v1 all the way up to 100's vs 100's or any combination of them.

 

The main goal was control of relics, each realm had 2 relics, one that boosted your realms melee dmg and one that boosted your realms spell dmg and healing, each relic was like 2% and they stacked, but to gain benefits you had to own both your relics first, for example if Albion captured Midgards Spell relic they would recieve a 2% boost to their spellpower, but if they lost their own relic then they would be back to base spellpower. so the main goal was capture of the enemy relics and defense of your own. For this each realm had various castles and lookout towers that could be sieged and taken or destroyed.

 

I think some people believe DaoC was a more skill based game because of things like casters not being able to cast while being hit (need some skill to position yourself and be aware) and for melee, their attacks were style chains with reactionary style chains that you needed to be aware of what you were hitting and what was hitting you and know what styles would work best in what situations, in short there was less button mashing facerolling and more calculated use of ones skills.

[VandredTOR]

Let's see..

 

- Casters had to know how to use thier stuns, snares, roots, insta-casts, etc to stand a chance against a melee. If they did know how to do this, they could easily blow melee up.

 

- Melee play was much more interactive. It was all about reactional attacks, positionals and chains/combos. This is how you got the most damage and if you couldn't pull them off, you were useless. Some of this has existed in other games, but none as much as DAoC. I'm sure this whole idea is "too hard" for the modern gamer.

 

- If you were good, you could do some awesome stuff. On my sorcerer, I could take on 4-5 guys my level and win if I did everything exactly right. Timed my CC, used my stuns at the right time as compared to my mezzes, used my roots, maintained my distance, etc.

 

- My sorcerer sounds OP, you say? Sure, against certain classes...but a stealther could drop me in 2 shots.

 

- Stealthers destroyed casters and bad players in general...but my mercenary ate them up. (see rock/paper/scissors developing here)?

 

- If your 8-man was a well oiled machine, you could take out 20-30 zerglings.

 

Were there issues during the life of the game, of course? Were there OPed classes along the way? You bet (oh hai frost axe).

 

Most of it got worked out...and the game was just fun.

[Daffuzz]

I recently resubbed DAoC and remember how fun the pvp is there. Basically there sooooo much to do and sooo many ways to tweak your toon out. You have gear that is for resists, dex/con plus all your gear has abilities on it u can use, there is just soo much you have to watch or you'll get smoked. None of the recent games that have pvp come even close to the amount of information you have to manage to be good at that game.

[ugig]

Let's see..

 

- Casters had to know how to use thier stuns, snares, roots, insta-casts, etc to stand a chance against a melee. If they did know how to do this, they could easily blow melee up.

 

- Melee play was much more interactive. It was all about reactional attacks, positionals and chains/combos. This is how you got the most damage and if you couldn't pull them off, you were useless. Some of this has existed in other games, but none as much as DAoC. I'm sure this whole idea is "too hard" for the modern gamer.

 

- If you were good, you could do some awesome stuff. On my sorcerer, I could take on 4-5 guys my level and win if I did everything exactly right. Timed my CC, used my stuns at the right time as compared to my mezzes, used my roots, maintained my distance, etc.

 

- My sorcerer sounds OP, you say? Sure, against certain classes...but a stealther could drop me in 2 shots.

 

- Stealthers destroyed casters and bad players in general...but my mercenary ate them up. (see rock/paper/scissors developing here)?

 

- If your 8-man was a well oiled machine, you could take out 20-30 zerglings.

 

Were there issues during the life of the game, of course? Were there OPed classes along the way? You bet (oh hai frost axe).

 

Most of it got worked out...and the game was just fun.

 

After ToA and the advent of stacking dex and casting speed, sorcs became nearly unkillable with anything but stealthers, their lifetap when specced right hit like a truck and the cast speed increases plus dex meant it was damn near instant, and for some reason sorcs had a higher hit point pool than normal casters.

[cokn]

All I hear is "more time played = some sort of advantage" which is pretty much the same in any mmo. So it wasn't gear that gave you an advantage in DAoC, it was realm rank? What is the difference?

 

While I will admit, there are a fair amount of Rose Colored glasses being worn, the time investment vs rewards for DAoC were great. At RR1, you could compete but would most likely want to group to achieve your kills. At RR5 you were pretty much as good as you were gonna get as you then had the full abilities of your class. After that, it was all gravy but nothing that gave you a huge advantage.

 

What I liked most about DAoC (50 Inf, 50 Scout, 50 Necro, 50 Cleric, 40 Buff Bot) was as people have mentioned, when you stepped into RvR with your fully crafted MC set, Spellcrafted and Alchemied up, you knew that what determined the winner was the user behind the keyboard. I would spend hours at the milegate in the afore mentioned stealther wars where we would have Shadowblades, Nightshades, Infs, Hunters, Scouts and Minstrels all vying for control and kills. When it came time to assault a keep, I would sneak my inf and climb the walls to kill the casters nuking our assault party, then jump off and hide to do it again. You REALLY got a feel for you class and your class played as it should have.

 

I will temper this with what I did not like and what I think ultimately lead to its downfall. PvE was not the best. They had somewhat of an EQ mentality especially with TOA which I attribute the mass decline of the game to. They added elements that had no reason to be in the game. Also, with the advent of WoW, DAoC did not update their control scheme, UI, player movement, etc. This is a painful experience for people not familiar with the game. At its height, DAoC had roughly 250k - 300k Subs worldwide. This is before WoW and the MMO revolution so, those were decent numbers. I have yet to see a game bring what DAoC had to PVP, they just don't make those games anymore. Any aspiring game devs out there, grab a shoestring budget and remake DAoC with a better control scheme and updated PVE (adjust crafting to so it isn't such a slog but keep the core philosophy behind DAoC's crafting) and I promise people will play.

[Zintair]

Lotta people keep repeating the same thing so I'll throw some new tidbits out there.

 

1) 3 realms

 

The only other game I've played that was MMO and PvP based that had 3 opposing factions was Planetside. This system allows DAOC to have semi-balanced servers where one realm might be the dominant one but the other two could at times gang up and take them down. A VERY effective system and if implemented correctly could solve server balance issues (at least in theory/ my opinion)

 

 

2) Armor dyes

 

Yeah it sounds cheesy but damn 8 mans and guilds looked ****** at times with dyed armors.

 

3) Realm pride

 

I know some people didn;t have any but many in the game did and when it came to defending your realms keeps lots of people answered the call especially if it was controlled by one of the better guilds on the server. Faction pride goes a long way to retaining subscriptions and adding flavor to a stale genre currently floundering as it tries to figure out where it's headed.

 

 

4) Keeps and Siege design

 

 

As a Shadowblade I was able to stealth up walls and attacks casters while they harrassed my realm. If I was talented enough I could stealth up the wall, 2 shot a caster and then use Vanish and Safe Fall without so much as attracting the attention of defenders.

 

Also Guards and Keep Lords were fun too, and the ability to upgrade them and improve their gear, the keeps walls and doors, the entirety of repairing the doors and crafting siege engines, it was so war-like and I've never experienced anything like it.

 

 

5) Stealther Wars

 

I was on Guinevere and I can't tell you how many times I would roll around with a group of 7 other stealthers and we would encounter an Alb group of Infiltrators and Scouts and just see everyone popping out of stealth trying to get openers off was just so epic. usually only a few made it out alive but the fights were just epic as poisons were going everywhere and you see roll animations as classes got their PA/CD chain off haha epic.

 

 

 

Finale - It took great skill to dominate as an 8 man in DAOC but you could survive as you learned the ropes. Life was difficult for some factions of some realms but if you made friends and had allies you usually were ok.

 

The thing I enjoyed most about the game was it was released before all the ****tard WOWheads ruined the MMO community forever. Before where a community in an MMO was for the most part respectful and helpful is now a joke.

 

Gone are the days of this and I for one would rather MMOs stayed in the shadows of the background of the gaming world where we all could enjoy them in peace. But no... business and $$$$ has forever polluted and corrupted the industry like everything else in this world.

 

 

And people can hate on Mythic all they want. But they have created two MMOs that allowed the players to have some of the best times of their MMO gaming careers. Sure it was mostly player and community driven but in the end that was their intention.

 

Did they lack the finer aspects of balance? Yes

Did they have a tendency to turn a nerfbat into a sledgehammer? Yes

 

 

Still,

 

if DAOC 2 came out, not only would I play but would consider even paying up to 20-25$ a month for it. It was THAT much fun.

[HileyQuiggley]

First off I played DAoC for 10 years. Ive taken brief leaves for other games and always went back. I have 9 accounts, Ive sold another 10 or so and I have RR's all the way up until 11. I have every class 50 and alot of multiples. So I know the game fairly well.

 

The reason it is a skilled game is this. The classes are not mirrored, so out of all those classes there are many different setups. Some fights are situational, tower defense, keep defense.

 

People that complain about the CC or caster interupts have either 1. Not played the game or 2. Where very poor at it. Also yes Radar was used by some of the groups/people around but that wasnt an I win ability. Just because you get mezz off first means absolutely nothing.

 

Caster interupts, they do the most damage, they have CC, they have abilitys to help keep them at range from aggro. They are wearing cloth and wielding a stick you think your going to stand toe to toe with a dude with swords and chainmail?

 

CC, yes if you dont have stoicism (base 25% reduc), purge breaks all forms of CC, Determination can get up to 55% reduc with realm abilities. Immune timers are fairly long, you cant just mezz and mezz again right away. Almost everyone has purge also. Purge is the single most important RA accross all classes. Charge is also another RA that alows increased speed and immunity from CC for a short duration.

 

Template building was my favorite part of the game. Your character was unique, you figured out what PvE armor you needed with different procs on the armor or use abilities and then you filled the holes with crafted gear. You could have 75 base to your primary stats that you use and a extra stat cap of 26 totaling 101, 200 hp with another 200 cap so 400. Also your weaponskill +11 or spell lines.

 

You can solo, group, or zerg. There are battlegrounds also with keep sieges and tower captures. No time limit only a level and RA cap. New Frontiers is a huge open area, almost to big with an also huge water area. You had to take boats to the other realms territory or if you had a keep captured you could port there. Bridges going over waterways that always had stealth around so you new if you where solo to be carefull.

 

Also the opening of Darkness Falls is a great experience. Whoever has the most Towers/Keeps has control of DF. A PvE area but also a PvP area until the previous owners where killed out.

 

You actually got a reward for killing people not gear. That was for PvE and crafters, the realm ability system is the best ive seen. Realm ability doesnt make one person better all the time. When I first took my savage out in RvR I wanted to only solo on him. I hit rr5 in no time taking on multiples at very low RR and I didnt even have purge. Ive lost my fair share of fights also. Im not the best at any class, never spent to much time on a single one.

 

You have reactionary styles, if you block or parry or evade an attack. You have styles you can use that benefit you. Either a stun or Bleed effect or extra dps. When you solo you have to time things just right. If you stun the other person you should know when his immunity will be back up. Some fights are over very quick, some can last a very long time. Just ask someone who has been a Pally vs Warden or Pally vs Valk or either way you put those.

 

You only needed a buffbot if you where solo or you didnt have any friends. Now days there are buff merchants who although not as good as a bot, they are almost as good and you will get by just fine.

 

Another thing on the templates, you would set them up how you play. If you rely on defence and wearing an oponent down you templated heal procs and +shield parry etc. If offense you wanted some good use abilities, proc weapons from ML10 and other weapons you could swap in for different procs. So many types of ways you could figure something up.

 

If you never played the game you seriously missed out on one of the greatest games that might ever come out. Its not to late to give it a try either, they have added new things and made gear even easier to come by.

 

When I first started playing if you had 1 plat you where rich beyond belief. Now I have about 3 mithril, which is not a real currency its 3000 plat. I just feel like ive beat the game, not possible but ive done everything it seems, had the crafters, the classes, the fights, all server types. My time to move on. I enjoy SWTOR and hope it gets better, all games have there flaws and DAoC had its fair share. It is a very polished game after 10 years though as it should be.

 

If you read all this cudos. Its a skill game, a random dude cant just stroll up and own because he has the best gear.