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

[Xsorus]

Like I stated, skill was determined on how well you did at killing your enemies, if you did well, people knew who your group was and feared you. No one feared bad players and they're not remembered.

 

Plus you could see in the world chat when someone killed someone.

 

SO it'd be

 

Player 1 has been killed by Player 2.

 

So if you see a string of Player X has been killed by Player 2, it probably means player 2 just pbae'd the crap out of a zerg.

[Aidank]

as much as i like to slap people over the unfounded love for DaoC, i do have to say the following in DaoC's defense:

 

pretty much everyone in DaoC PvPed.

 

substantially less than 20% of WoW players have ever reached even middling arena ranks and almost 3 out of 5 have never stepped into an Arena at all... hell almost 2 out of 5 have never even PvPed.

 

Well, that's mostly a community problem, not the game designer's faults. After a couple of my friends quit I went pretty much an entire arena season looking for someone that was half decent that I could 3v3 with because literally 2/3 of the playerbase didn't even turn with their mouse.

 

You can lead a horse to water...

[Xsorus]

Basically 8 man group would roam in open world pvp. Of course, whoever is leading has to have maphack cause whoever gets the drop on someone has the most advantage. Only a few participated in it.

 

I didn't even do it, I enjoy defending keeps more. My wizard basically had 4 buttons. Fireball then insta + fireball then realm rank direct damage then darkness falls staff proc. Usually kills any caster I target on the keep.

 

Basically if a caster gets in range, he dies much like an operative killing someone in 3 hits while in a stunlock.

 

Not true on first part

 

Second part, Learn to Pan.

 

Third Part.

 

Wizards didn't have an insta besides VP from Realm Ranks.

 

you basically had Bolt (cast time) and your DD, since you're talking about Early Game...

[pherball]

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.

 

I've been CC'd more often in TOR than I have ever been in DAoC. DAoC had proper DR and immunity to CC; TOR does not. I could easily get around CC in DAoC w/ Purge, which was on a longer RUT/CD than what we have in TOR.

 

 

I know it must be shocking to some people that people actually rvr'd because it was enjoyable and not a grind for gear.

 

I RvR'd because it was fun, and I loved it. I also RvR'd b/c of the realm rank system. When an enemy saw your nameplate it was your realm rank, not your actual name. So people knew what rank you were immediately. 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.

 

Fast forward to TOR, and once you are Battlemaster there is very little long-term incentive to log into the game other than dailies/weeklies. OWPvP is broken, and people are afk'ing themselves to Battlemaster in Ilum. TOR's PvP right not is not sustainable.

Edited February 2, 2012 by pherball

[Javacup]

It doesn't surprise me that dragonrage trolls the thread and then finally tells us that he avoids all organized 8v8, and sits in a keep with a zerg.

[xxdragonragexx]

LOL that game also favors people who have way too much on their hands. At that time, the best gear was craftable. I had to put mods in it. I can put whatever mods I want.

 

But here's the kicker, a realm rank 100 character will have more crits, more damage, and more utility than someone that is realm rank 1. Those guys spent years building their characters.

 

If you think fresh 50s in this game couldn't stand on competitive grounds against a battlemaster then in that game, you need to spend a lot of time just to have the same stats as the person playing for a long time.

[Powerr]

ill talk in sec Edited February 2, 2012 by Powerr

[Javacup]

LOL that game also favors people who have way too much on their hands. At that time, the best gear was craftable. I had to put mods in it. I can put whatever mods I want.

 

But here's the kicker, a realm rank 100 character will have more crits, more damage, and more utility than someone that is realm rank 1. Those guys spent years building their characters.

 

If you think fresh 50s in this game couldn't stand on competitive grounds against a battlemaster then in that game, you need to spend a lot of time just to have the same stats as the person playing for a long time.

 

Oh my god shame on mythic for giving some advantage to people who played the game more often. A skilled <rr5 group will still dominate a terrible rr10 group that plays too much.

[Xsorus]

LOL that game also favors people who have way too much on their hands. At that time, the best gear was craftable. I had to put mods in it. I can put whatever mods I want.

 

But here's the kicker, a realm rank 100 character will have more crits, more damage, and more utility than someone that is realm rank 1. Those guys spent years building their characters.

 

If you think fresh 50s in this game couldn't stand on competitive grounds against a battlemaster then in that game, you need to spend a lot of time just to have the same stats as the person playing for a long time.

 

Believe this was already stated by me, early in this thread.

 

The Gear progression you see in Modern MMO's was converted into a Realm Rank Progression in DAOC.

 

As for who had to much time on their hands, Not correct, It more aptly rewarded people who were actually good at PvP, because unlike modern MMO's, DAOC did not reward losing, You did not get anything for not killing the person you were fighting.

 

Meaning the more you won, the faster Realm Rank you got.

 

You didn't need Rank 10 to compete against Rank 10's either, like I stated in earlier post, if you group was good, and you worked well together, Usually around Rank 5 you could start putting up a fight against the higher rank guild groups if they were just bad.

 

The game didn't punish you completely being bad though, cause even if you were terrible you could still zerg around with a large group and wreck other zergs and get Realm Points, so you would eventually get Rank 10 even if you were terrible.

[MalFunkShun]

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?

 

Pvp revolved around a multitude of things. Keeps for example. By owning more keeps than the other realms, your realm had access to a PvE dungeon (Darkness Falls). It was also a good way to get extra renown (used for pvp leveling). These keeps could be upgraded by having stronger guards, gates, etc.. By controlling more keeps, you could reduce the amount of guards where an opposing realm kept Relics. Relic raids were insanely difficult to pull off, usually due cross-realm spying. These relics were then used to give your realm a buff. (Damage, renown gain, and I forget what else)

 

You would be looking at either group v group (8v8) or zerg vs zerg. Typically each zerg would have between 50-75 people. Mind you, when the 3 factions collide, it was a hell of a fight. The only "resources" in the game were the Relics (which happened a lot in the early morning hours, yeah, it was that hard to get them).

 

There WAS a way to rank people actually. DAoC's website actually had a counter for all your renown (pvp points) gains for the week. IIRC it also showed how many kills and deaths you had as well. They typically updated these leaderboards weekly. One was for Overall Renown, and another for Weekly Renown.

 

Honestly, you gauged a person's skill by how often you died to them, or how often you killed them. Some of it could be attributed to someone's realm rank, some could be how often you see their name killing someone in chat.

 

Another thing that made PVP great for DAoC was the simplicity of it. Casters had the highest DPS. The downside to this was that if they were damaged, they completely lost the ability to cast that spell... there was no "pushback" feature like EVERY mmo has today. You would have to recast it. They also had the lowest hitpoints, and worst armor.

 

ANY melee who got a hold of a caster would usually tear him apart. Since the caster literally couldn't do anything... except run.

 

I could list more reasons... like how unique the game was in terms of spells and classes.. Theurgist's main DPS came from summoning pets to attack you... LOTS and lots of pets. Which either could stun you, or just DPS you. I hated them, and I even played a caster.

[pherball]

Oh my god shame on mythic for giving some advantage to people who played the game more often. A skilled <rr5 group will still dominate a terrible rr10 group that plays too much.

 

That was the best thing about DAoC. You were still more than competitive beign lower realm rank if you were good. Once you get up to RR10-11-12 you're basically buying things that aren't really necessary, or providing much improvement. A group of RR5, which was pretty easy to get as an 8man, could still consistently take out the highest RR groups.

 

Battlemaster in TOR pre-Ilum garbage was probably the equivalent of RR4-5 in DAoC as far as time invested (514k RPs @ 100-200 a kill).

[TheRealBrave]

LOL that game also favors people who have way too much on their hands. At that time, the best gear was craftable. I had to put mods in it. I can put whatever mods I want.

 

But here's the kicker, a realm rank 100 character will have more crits, more damage, and more utility than someone that is realm rank 1. Those guys spent years building their characters.

 

If you think fresh 50s in this game couldn't stand on competitive grounds against a battlemaster then in that game, you need to spend a lot of time just to have the same stats as the person playing for a long time.

 

Realm Rank 100? Okay you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Mavella]

DAoC around the time of its first expansion (Shrouded Isles) required little PvE to actually get into PvP once you reached level 50. If you saved up enough gold while leveling you could afford to craft a set of gear which capped all your stats and resistances no matter what class you played. There were a couple pieces of armor that had chance to heal for a small amount if that piece got hit which were a little superior to crafts but it wasn't a total deal breaker to not have.

 

You could also get Realm Rank 4L2 by 50 which allowed you to get RR5L0 within a week or two of getting 50 allowing everyone to get their core set of realm abilites (PvP actives and passives aquired for participating in pvp). Past RR5 you would pretty much have more passives making your character slightly better than the average RR5L0 player. Again not a huge difference but a little reward for sticking with a character for a year or more allowed you to push into the RR8-9-10 area if you were an active pvper.

 

The RvR had a purpose. It wasn't about completing daily quests or a rating. The only thing akin to a rating in that game would be LWRP (Last week RP total) for a character, a high amount obviously meant you were scoring a high amount of kills and participating heavily in RvR. There was also a lucrative PvP/PvE dungeon that each realm could access depending on who controlled the majority of keeps. A lot of PvP happened in there and it was easily one of the best places to level up and aquire money for the first couple years of the game. There was also the Relic system which provided a 10%/20% bonus of magic / physical damage depending on how many enemy relics you held in big keeps within your frontier. They were attack-able at any time and well worth controlling or preventing your enemy from controlling considering the bonuses they provided.

 

Casters were extremely powerful which is why the interrupt system was so punishing in that game but skilled casters were easily some of the most dangerous enemies you could come across. Giving them a small window of opportunity could easily result in them pumping out tons of damage in a very short time. 2-3 PBAoE casters could easily wipe out zergs of 40+ players in a matter of seconds if they caught them in the most favorable of conditions (zerg clumped up all nailed with CC or just not paying attention, attacking a keep door, etc).

 

 

The CC system was also pretty balanced since it gave quite a long time of immunity, melee stuns giving 5 * the duration in immunity and casted roots/stuns giving a minute of immunity after being broken or fading. Mezzes could also be purged via realm abilities, decreased in duration significantly for many melee classes, and cleansed by support classes. This system also allowed for single groups (8 people) to combat much larger groups of more unorganized opponents and be able to win. I participated in a 8v32 and actually won due to impressive teamwork on our part.

 

 

 

Sadly their second expansion (Trials of Atlantis) added a significant PvE hurdle to be able to successfully enter the RvR stage (a month+ to level and easily a month+ to finish all the required ToA PvE content). This where many players mark the decline of DAoC because it became more and more about PvE before you could successfully RvR.

[anasa]

Daoc needs more skill mostly cause of it's 10 years old interface. It's so hard to play at high level.

But the thing that makes DAoC great is the that - if I renew today after 3 years, my RR9 shadowblade is still there. Ready to kill after I make a her a new template armor.

 

If I renew my WoW Paladin who has been inactive for 6 months, she'll be an outdated piece of trash.

[Javacup]

The toa pve was actually a bit of a joke, between necro + cleric duo, or stacking animists, you could roll through any encounter with 1-2 people dual boxing.

 

My biggest complaints

- Window dragging

- Screenshot spamming

- Lag casting

- Playing mordred, portal macroing away whenever someone is about to lose a fight (yes, applied to groups often too)

- That little lag spike whenever a group comes into clip, kind of a dead giveaway you had incoming

Edited February 2, 2012 by Javacup

[Xsorus]

You can easily tell a Modern MMO player who plays casters vs one who played a DAOC caster.

 

Modern MMO caster, does not pan, and will wait till Melee gets to him, DAOC one, will pan and is paranoid as hell of letting a player get to him.

 

It very easy to determine when watching a video.

 

Modern MMO's in general just don't pan at all.

 

This was very noticeable in Rift for example during White fall BG, My group would side swipe the enemies or hit them from behind when they were in Middle, and they would never see it coming.. and really, you should be able to see it coming in that game, as it wasn't exactly hard to see the group running by.

[fungihoujo]

as much as i like to slap people over the unfounded love for DaoC, i do have to say the following in DaoC's defense:

 

pretty much everyone in DaoC PvPed.

 

substantially less than 20% of WoW players have ever reached even middling arena ranks and almost 3 out of 5 have never stepped into an Arena at all... hell almost 2 out of 5 have never even PvPed.

 

Yes... but other mmos have enjoyable pve- including this one. Thus, many players are pvers. DAoC pve was absolutely awful, so there was nothing else to do, and if say, a server capped at 500- those 500 would almost all be wanting to pvp.

 

TOR- if you have 500, chance are half don't pvp much or at all, another chunk split their time between all aspects- and you might end up with 100 or likely less actually interested in pvping most of the time.

[KrustyDog]

Well, that's not much different from games like wow, and I don't really see how that makes a game skill based.

 

In arena past around 2200 rating pretty much everyone had the exact same gear, unless they had some pve legendary or some trinket but those weren't really all that common.

 

So what your saying is 5% of the people had the exact same WAY overpowered gear. 5% is a far cry from "all the people."

[Powerr]

DAoC was very very high skill cap game.

 

Noobs were soooo bad, and the best players were killable yet, dominant.

Killable in the sense you could kill the best caster in the game rank 11 or whatever in 4 good melee swings. Yet dominant in the sense, they could just drop people in 3-4 nukes.

 

Now, different types of team setups were what made the game so competitive

 

You had:

 

Caster extend groups

The Albion realm caster extend group consisted of generally a cabalist (body 50% debuff + disease), 2x sorcerers (1 CC spec, 1 body nuke spec), a theurgist or 2 (spam pets that chase enemies, ice pets snare, earth pets hit hard, wind pets stun lock), an armsmen or paladin tank(peel bot! most essential! HAS TO SNARE ALL MELEE, SLAM [9sec stun] targets and call for burst) 2x healers [high realm rank meant they would have realm abilities such as group shields against melee and magic, purge, higher heal stats, mastery of physical defense]

 

Melee train groups

The midgard realm was most unanimous for this setup

 

2x beserker (turn into a bear and hit like a truck), skald(super speed and cc class), warrior(peel class) , runemaster(PBT aka group buff that makes targets miss 3 or so attacks in a row), shaman (spec buffs aka str/con, dex/qui and buffs that healers didnt have, AND MASSIVE INTERRUPTS/BUFF SHEARS (steal buffs), healer(mez spec), healer(heal/melee attack speed buff spec aka CELERITY)

 

Hybrid Groups

Hib had strong hybrid groups composed of casters and melee etc etc etc

 

Anyways in DAoC your group moved so fast that the most efficient way to roam was to /stick your driver who was mainly the CC sorc on alb, CC healer on mid, or bard on hib.

 

Imagine a game where groups of 8 run around a planet (frontier in daoc) and RESPECT other guilds fights, if you saw 2 realms fighting each other, there was MUTUAL RESPECT from all players and they would not RED ITS DEAD.

 

Imagine a game where your reputation was the only thing that mattered. People that assjammed fights were blacklisted and called out on the forums, never to get groups again. If you didnt have a good guild or good rep, you would simply never get in a decent 8 man.

 

Honable fighting at its finest.

 

gosh darn i miss daoc

 

if you werent a MASTER at panning the camera, kiting, snaring your target as melee, NOT OVEREXTENDING, you were as good as dead.

 

If you overextended or "fell behind" aka got rooted or just slow to pull back, your team lost, and you probably got yelled at.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Powerr

[Aidank]

So what your saying is 5% of the people had the exact same WAY overpowered gear. 5% is a far cry from "all the people."

 

The problem was the most people just didn't pvp... If you actually tried, and played with other people that actually tried, getting 2200 wasn't difficult. You can't really blame the game for the fact that the majority of the playerbase was so afraid of actually pvping.

[Xsorus]

Yes... but other mmos have enjoyable pve- including this one. Thus, many players are pvers. DAoC pve was absolutely awful, so there was nothing else to do, and if say, a server capped at 500- those 500 would almost all be wanting to pvp.

 

TOR- if you have 500, chance are half don't pvp much or at all, another chunk split their time between all aspects- and you might end up with 100 or likely less actually interested in pvping most of the time.

 

DAOC actually had a very good PVE system, sorry to say.

[Girwen]

I think my fondest memory was sadly a bug in this game. It was just so many giggles. I had a enchanter i was messing with in the teens and a patch messed up the way pets worked. I could stand on a bridge and wait for anybody of any level to come by and send my helper after them. Rarely failed that after they got done with the horse ride and into a battle my pet would attack them out of nowhere and i would get credit. It was much much giggles.

[Javacup]

DAOC actually had a very good PVE system, sorry to say.

 

Like I said in my previous post, you could abuse it but yeah.

 

Actual raid groups doing ML's/dragons and such was fun... But animist/thurg mass pet attacking messing with bosses defenses, buffed necro pets being nearly unkillable to melee, spiritmaster pets close to necros.

[Vylettes]

Positioning mattered. Casters/Healers couldnt cast at ALL if something hit them, they would get interrupted. I remember the first day of WoW going omg I can cast while people are hitting me!!!!

 

Working as a team, even while leveling, was also important. Healers were mostly that, healers. For a healer to solo a npc it was usually a much lower level npc since they didn't have a lot of damage. Put a healer + a dps or tank together and the power of the group would increase dramatically for pve.

 

8 man groups had specific make ups. You needed a class that could give group speed, 2 healers (that way if one healer was being interrupted, the other healer could still heal), and damage dealers and a crowd control class. All the specific things like crowd control/healing/high damage were all specific to characters. You did not have one char that could heal/dmg/cc all in one. That made the character rolls a lot more focused.

 

You even had an entire other subset of classes that would NEVER get a group, ie the stealthers. They were not good at all with groups since most of their moves came out of stealth and they didn't have any cc-reduction abilities. But the stealthers ruled the bridges and thoroughfares of the pvp zones if they caught you alone.

 

But, since the game was seriously based on skill, someone who couldnt play their class would just drop dead to someone who knew how to play their class due to interrupts etc, it wasnt a game for the masses. People who sucked can play WoW but not DAOC, which means a lower population for DAOC than WoW and other games.

 

Every other game I have played since, its more like every man for themselves, even in group scenarios. The only every man for themselves gameplay in DAOC was the solo 1v1, which was mostly stealthers. You did not play badly or stupidly while in a group because you would get a reputation and no one would group you again.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Vylettes

[Xsorus]

Like I said in my previous post, you could abuse it but yeah.

 

Actual raid groups doing ML's/dragons and such was fun... But animist/thurg mass pet attacking messing with bosses defenses, buffed necro pets being nearly unkillable to melee, spiritmaster pets close to necros.

 

Hib and Alb had it rough on ML's and Dragons, because of the way Theurgist/Animist worked it didn't require a huge raid and didn't foster realm pride like midgard did.

 

Mid's didn't have that classes, so that meant if you wanted to take on a Dragon or an ML encounter, it meant bringing people...

 

I remember doing ML raids, with 400 people in Midgard, 400 people.. moving around killing things.. was hilarious..