The only thing that comes to mind that wouldn't be a huge custom endeavor is having a significant multiplier to realm points for kills around a keep while it's under siege (for both sides). That would make both taking a keep (especially heavily defended) and defending a keep much more lucrative than it already is without the incentive coming from just keep trading.

This would fix your problems the best way i think. (but i wouldnt make it huge)

It will make it more attractive to both sides of the action (you would get action with takeing keeps and you know there is a bonus to come and help defend).

Severian wrote:I find it interesting that in a 16 year old game, where everyone (especially 8 mans) say that 'the meta has already been figured out long ago, hence why it is like it is', that we are still having debates on how to improve the health of RvR in this game. Hasn't all this been tested before? Don't we have plenty of trial runs and experiments with various rule sets to pull from already to figure out what works best? Whatever worked best in the past, let's do that here. Throw 1.65 out the window on this one.

I think new frontiers were actually quite nice. I wouldn't mind that being in the game, but with old RAs, despite some of them being clearly a bit OP. But that's not 1.65.

There is a fair amount of meta that hasn't been considered.
The significant things people are still figuring out are gvg mechanics in general.

Tanks/MDPS:
-Not having charge access severely limits their mobility and makes them much more inclined to go after the nearer things rather than the far.
-Having a 9 second shield stun even on hybrids or dual wielders severely changes spec and play of incorporating much more weapon swapping mid fight that you don't see on live very much as this was nerfed in a more recent patch.
-Without there being shear bots to severely cripple tank damage output, tanks are more inclined to kill enemy tanks as a defensive maneuver for their team, but this is more realm specific, especially to alb/hib that typically incorporate at least one, if not more casters, in their setups.
-Endo range for not just alb, but also mid, is retarded. I put this under tanks/mdps because endo problems most affects tanks 10fold more than anything else.
-No det on any hybrid. This coping mechanism is to just not group them apparently. If you want end in your group, don't play alb.

Support:
-Support are learning to cope without having unlimited power that they've had on live for many years now, mainly because of mytherians, toa bonuses, and the like.
-Coping without having a cure for a nearsight. Healers have learned to spam spreadheal. The rest well, time to bust out the staves or just run away and afk.
-Support are learning that there is no nearly instant cast speed warp to cast on engagement, and are learning with how to deal with multiple tanks spread out on inc flying in at them at speed6.

All:
-Many are getting used to the old ra's again. They weren't around very long in daoc's history. Albs using sos offensively is a relatively new thing. In 2003 it was very rare for an alb group to use it offensively against the groups I played with. If anything, minstrels would use it to wilson, which they still probably do on this server, but offensively speaking, it was rarely ever used back then in this manner.
-Prevent flight is absolutely nasty, and extremely difficult to deal with as a support.
-MOC is interesting, in that it is both easier, and harder, to deal with on this server. The duration makes it easier to deal with, but the hard part is the immunities. If a healer mocs that is stun and mez immune, there isn't much you can do about it. On live, you can do the same CC, but also add in zephyr or assist the target immediately with dps. Here, it's hard to tell how many tanks a healer could tank if not diseased. 4? 5? thats insane. On live a healer absolutely cannot use moc2 to heal himself with that amount of tanks hitting it.
-Learning how to play without all buffs. I know mid deals with this a lot. Alb somewhat, and of course hib never have to and are always fully buffed.

Learning uthgard specific issues that never existed in any form of daoc. such as:
-Melee range. Call it lag or whatever, but a healer (I think it was adwila, might be wrong) posted a stream of a paladin hitting his cleric easily 400-500 units away from him. Nag's old minstrel video of uthgard 1.0 showed this as well. I've witnessed it myself as well on uthgard 2.0
-Melee's quad hitting occasionally (a bug that has been confirmed, and I've witnessed it myself as well). This is a bug in their combat update message system where a validation is failing. Theoretically speaking, a savage could octuple (sp?) hit if abusing this. That's pretty much a 1 round on any caster or even a fully buffed support.
-Speed pulse mechanics are not live like at all. I play a minstrel, if you don't know what I"m talking about, play one.
-I'm not sure how live works, but casted stuns aren't breaking speed for people here. I've stunned a hunter who had hastener speed and did nothing else, he purged and still had the speed.
-Xian claimed amnesia apparently is bugged as well where it is instantly dropping speed on casted targets. I'd need to play some more as I haven't been amnesiad much while my speed was still up but yes this would be a very big deal for mid tanker groups.
-Snare mechanics brought up by Top. Snare on this server affects people for the full duration. Live does not work this way at all. Live gives you the full snare effect initially, but your characters speed ascends to full speed over the course of the snare.

So yeah, the meta is vastly different than anything I'm used to personally. Is it reminiscent of 2003? Sort of is the best answer I have. Is the meta new? Yes most definitely.

I played hib and amnesia definitely doesn't drop speed instantly unless its the end of the tick.

You summerized well Uthg clasic .. yes it is abit different but we ll get used with it , i do play alb and not having pala in grp is a pain i must say .. pots pots pots .. in Alb you have to pve ..so you can rvr .

The same story ever. All want 8vs8, no one want adders, but all fgs like kill all smallmans. Its imposible play duo or trio.

It's an old game. These types of servers don't attract new players, just old players looking for nostalgia. Lots of 8v8 groups involve old friends who have persuaded one another to play RvR for nostalgic reasons, so they will be less inclined to group with people they don't know.
And as to the casual vs elite player or 'us' vs 'them' statements, all mmos are the same. If you can't play for a set amount of hours on most days then how can you prove yourself to the players who are looking for good RvR players? As a casual my advice is to play a character that you can solo or accept that you probably won't find many 8v8 invites.

The 8v8 mentality is so backasswards on this server. They don't want to add on fights, or be added on, but then why do they just swarm over solo fights or smallmans looking for other smallmans to fight? You oxymoronic turds drive me crazy.

Falken wrote:The 8v8 mentality is so backasswards on this server. They don't want to add on fights, or be added on, but then why do they just swarm over solo fights or smallmans looking for other smallmans to fight? You oxymoronic turds drive me crazy.

extremely rare that solos/smallmans that come to emain won't jam all fights they see to earn rps if they feel they can survive.

The entire 8v8 ideal is a recipe for disaster.

Elitist attitude is what keeps the population dwindling, leaving a large chunk of the classes in the game without a group.

We all have to do our part -- start grouping the valewalkers, the thanes, the necros. I for one aim to fit these underserved classes in my groups and prove that they can be just as valuable, especially in zerg settings as the game is intended.

Thydrum wrote:The entire 8v8 ideal is a recipe for disaster.

Elitist attitude is what keeps the population dwindling, leaving a large chunk of the classes in the game without a group.

We all have to do our part -- start grouping the valewalkers, the thanes, the necros. I for one aim to fit these underserved classes in my groups and prove that they can be just as valuable, especially in zerg settings as the game is intended.

exactly what many "8man-only" players don't realise. Without a baseline zerg, there is no game. No new groups will form if there is no starting point. At some point existing groups will always fold and quit, and if there is no new one growing out of zerging with noobs then where would they come from?

Keeps and Relickeep are also not made for 8man taking them. For a healthy daoc you need a casual population running around with 10-20people just pugging all classes, and another zerg of 50-100people slowly moving from their portkeep to the milegate




8vs8 fights are great, but my best memories are wiping far bigger numbers through superior tactics. Running up to the albzerg at amb, kill ~ten, fight through them into the gatehouse, kill another ~10 and then retreat out of the windows and pull off slowly extending the zerg in a looooong line. Just to see another group, sometimes even from the third realm crash into the side or back of that line...etc....

THAT's what made DAoC RvR really epic.


Fully controlled fights get boring really fast, situations that are never safe and adapting on the fly to a new fight situation imo needs much more skill than what many 8mans try to enforce.

i love this game like lot of you guys but im not able to play on this server

because i dont want to play the canon fooder for 8mans
i just play solo/smallman and this is extreme unfriendly for me here
made spellcrafter/alchy/pala50/necro50/minst50/cleric50 for nothing

Nijuro wrote:i love this game like lot of you guys but im not able to play on this server

because i dont want to play the canon fooder for 8mans
i just play solo/smallman and this is extreme unfriendly for me here
made spellcrafter/alchy/pala50/necro50/minst50/cleric50 for nothing

Bring those guys out solo or smallman! I'll be there.

I'm not sure why you don't think you can solo even on a minstrel, though. That is by far the easiest class in the game to solo on. You get to pick basically all of your fights and can get across any zone in no time at all, not to mention you have tools that give you a fighting chance against any class. I hope you reconsider.

its not the 8v8 community, its the freeshard community. live had nice respectable 8 man community, freeshard has what seems to be sad bitter failed live 8 mans who take their rage out on a freeshard and respect no rules.

community here makes it not worth playing, i stopped months ago. waiting for live alternative.

Ohai wrote:its not the 8v8 community, its the freeshard community. live had nice respectable 8 man community, freeshard has what seems to be sad bitter failed live 8 mans who take their rage out on a freeshard and respect no rules.

community here makes it not worth playing, i stopped months ago. waiting for live alternative.

You are talking about live 10 years ago. Live servers now are just the same as Uthgard community wise.

moha wrote:

Ohai wrote:its not the 8v8 community, its the freeshard community. live had nice respectable 8 man community, freeshard has what seems to be sad bitter failed live 8 mans who take their rage out on a freeshard and respect no rules.

community here makes it not worth playing, i stopped months ago. waiting for live alternative.

You are talking about live 10 years ago. Live servers now are just the same as Uthgard community wise.

wrong. the big carebear guilds run the live servers, put out all the events and the big rvr. the 8 man is just a clique inside of that. on uthgard, the 8v8 think they own the server. thats the difference and why its so toxic.