Zarkor said:

"OF is good in primetime but in off hours it sucks."

If you log in at primtetime for americans in Emain you find these things:

-Nothing
-Stealthers sometimes
-Maybe a visible but once they die they probably won't come back

It gets very very dead, worse than agramon, but with less running around.

So yes primetime is probably great, but it happens when I'm at school.

Okay.. there's basicly two ways of looking at DAoC RvR.

- RPG way (you see it as an alternative reality, with almost real war): you somewhat roleplay your RvR activity, in the meaning that you kill everything that is threatening your realm (every inc, small or large). You can not do anything bad if you help your realmmates kill other players, you do not care about enemy players and the fact that you are outnumbering them.
In fact Realm points aren't that important either, you just want to kill them all, and all ways of doing so are allowed.

- Realist way (you see it as a competitive game): you see yourself as a DAoC player from a real life perspective. You see other players ingame as people behind their PCs trying to enjoy themselves while playing DAoC. The fact that those players are playing in your realm or in the opposite is not so important as in the RPG way. You still see them as players and respect them somewhat equally.
You try to get the most out of your PvP and RvR experience by trying to excell in it as a team and as a player. You try to have some decency and keep in mind that killing everything isn't as good in reality than as it would be if you look at it through the RPG perspective since it can make ppl quit. Realm points, realm pride are not as important as a good and exciting fight.

I think in most cases it's somewhat a mix of both, however DAoC is 7 years old now and Uthgard is a freeshard with about 1 fourth of the original server population. This makes it a little harder to really go into the RPG way of playing it compared to when you first bought the game.



Krinton3 has summarized what I said about OF and off hours.

I agree that, at non-peak times, it may be hard to find decent amounts of players in OF right now. However, once the majority of the player base has settled in, Emain will probably establish itself as the main sort of "meeting point" for those of you looking for a fight.

The main problem is as follows: While live DAoC had its own regional servers with individual peak and off-peak times, the majority of the player base here is still European. This obviously results in some fluctuation in the amount of activity at given times. The only way to counter this would be to further promote Uthgard as an international freeshard - this would hopefully lead to a secondary main peak in activity (when our fellow players in the Americas are online).

What about giving bonuses in low population situations (e.g. RP bonus) or some goals in OF. We could also alter the hasteners in that time. There must be some balancing for such low population times.

I think in most cases it's somewhat a mix of both, however DAoC is 7 years old now and Uthgard is a freeshard with about 1 fourth of the original server population. This makes it a little harder to really go into the RPG way of playing it compared to when you first bought the game.

I really agree with this

however I accept some players try to live into this "rpg mode", sometimes I just wish they would respect that Uthgard isn't a role playing server and that there is people here who is "competitors" and not roleplaying guys

it doesn't take much, even a simple rez to your realm m8 after he died in his 1v1 instead of mowing down the enemie or healing your realm m8 could be a good sign of respect towards those who are more into the competitive part of daoc than the rpg part

and likewise:

the competitors could have a more friendly attitude towards the rpg guys

but I can understand it can be hard to show respect when you get a harsh attitude from the other side (that goes for both sides really)

(i have often been flamed when I have kindly asked if I could be respected by my fellow stealth players in my kind of play style (solo) - often with words like: "Well this is rvr, I add you whenever I want - if you don't like it then go play another game")

I respect that people wanna "rpg" daoc, is it too much to ask if those people respect my kind of daoc?

ps. Blue I have been thinking of stuff like that too

like hastenerspeed = speed xxx*yyy (xxx = speed value, yyy = player count modifier)

same could go for port timers

Blue wrote:What about giving bonuses in low population situations (e.g. RP bonus) or some goals in OF. There must be some balancing for such low population times.

Hmm, some thoughts...

• Giving RP-Bonus to realms with low RvR activity
  + People with chars in all three realms might change to that underpopulated realm for that time, which is good. [Yes, crossrealming can have a good side.]
  o People with lowRR will gain RP's faster, IF they manage to kill something, which is not bad, but doesn't have a big effect. Normal Players do rvr because of fun. Fun doesnt come from rps, it comes from winning battles.
  - If there is only a strong enemy FG roaming, and a group from the realm with low rvr activity gets killed over and over, that bonus won't help anything. That group will also quit or log twink to PvM/BG.
  
• Offering new goals in OF
  + The three bossmobs are already a very good one.
  + What about making guard- and spytasks more attractive?
  + What about implementing keep-raid-tasks?
  + What about escorting-wagon-tasks?
  + What about implementing mob-killtasks that bring good amounts of gold?
  Then the gold farmers from Spindelhalla might come out to OF to collect special task-loot from mobs that brings 10g/each.

Summary
The 1st thing might bring the multirealmers to logging their char in the weak realm.
The 2nd thing will really bring new people to OF and will establish new possibilities of playing.

Blue, those suggestions sound interesting. Yet I'm not sure if this would bring new non-european players to the server. It's worth a try tho.

You could also provide a mild (2-5%) temporary bonus to RP gained in Hadrian's and Odin's. If it works out to stimulate PvP in those zones, you can perhaps turn it off in a month or two. Although I seriously doubt it would harm the action in Emain.

Blue wrote:What about giving bonuses in low population situations (e.g. RP bonus) or some goals in OF. We could also alter the hasteners in that time. There must be some balancing for such low population times.

Wow!

All I can say is: "Thanks sooo much!" I really didn't expect such a rational response so soon for some reason, it really brings a lot of hope for the smallman community. I'm so happy to hear you are willing to improve this situation.

>[!]< However, I think things like RP bonuses on offpeak hours will not help much. It's not so much about getting more RPs, it's about getting more action and fights. Finding more incs. If you grant RP bonuses at a given time, this will not necessarily increase the action, just the reward per kill, if you can find enemies to kill.
RP bonusses in certain zones will only make the RvR population split up once more I'm afraid, even though it might sound good in theory, you will end up with 3 semi empty zones if you give a bonus to 2 zones. If you give a bonus to 1 zone, the others will be pretty dead, which I don't think is a good thing either.
RP bonusses to realms could work, but I think Uthgard already shifts its realm activity a bit too fast to really hand out those bonusses for a decent amount of time. Usually underpopulated realms always come back to being the middle or upper due to people wanting to play the underdog.


Maybe it might be a good idea to implement a few changes that kick in after for instance 12pm GMT+1 (german time) and last till about 5 pm GMT+1, when primetime is fading. Here are some ideas:

[1.] horse routes to the keep that's closest to the primary zone -but not in it- from the main border keep. The horses drop you upon combat (like speed) and you can not stealth while riding them.
[2.] port timers are shortened to 5 minutes instead of the usual 8. Also mainland players will be able to get to the zones faster because of the horses.
[3.] Grant a 5% RP bonus to killing near a milegate. (of course ONLY in lowpeak hours )

Also, a few changes to help the off-hour and smallman players in general:

[1.] Reduce the personal horse costs. 15 plat for a RR5 horse only makes people PvE instead of RvR. Most of the RvR players just can't be bothered spending loads of time in PvE to reduce downtime just a little in RvR. I think OF calls for personal horses even more than NF.
[2.] Increase the charges duration or reduce their cost. Most charges and pots are used in smallman due to a lack of a decent support class and the possibility to encounter enemies with such a class. Basic charges like dex/quick and haste are vital to some classes and keeping them up long enough has become close to impossible in OF since you just don't find enough inc to gain BPs from.
[3.] create bigger and more useful spawns in the primary zones so that it becomes even more attractive for xpers, which will generate a better, but more dangerous xp area since it is also a better pvp area when there are more enemies.

Rector wrote:+ What about implementing keep-raid-tasks?
+ What about escorting-wagon-tasks?

implement keep take tasks, but make them worth the time invested. random keep is selected as a target and all participating players are rewarded 4000-5000 RP after a successful capture.
this would cultivate good old organized RvR, give people a sense of goal; an achievement and a reward to strive for, and would give all realms a reason to both attack and defend keeps instead of just zerging Emain AMG.

After a successful capture, all participants would have to return to the task giver to receive another task, or you can put the task on a 15 minute timer for example.

Escorting tasks also sound good, although require some more work from the staff. You set up camps of each realm in enemy territories and when accepting a task, a caravan starts from portal keep to one of the camps behind enemy lines and must be escorted for a good reward. Task would also be on a timer.


Really, there's a lot that can be done to stimulate RvR in all zones of all realms without killing the "Classic" feel of the server.

Rector wrote:

Blue wrote:What about giving bonuses in low population situations (e.g. RP bonus) or some goals in OF. There must be some balancing for such low population times.

Hmm, some thoughts...

[*]Offering new goals in OF
+ The three bossmobs are already a very good one.
+ What about making guard- and spytasks more attractive?
+ What about implementing keep-raid-tasks?
+ What about escorting-wagon-tasks?
+ What about implementing mob-killtasks that bring good amounts of gold?
Then the gold farmers from Spindelhalla might come out to OF to collect special task-loot from mobs that brings 10g/each.
[/list]
Summary

The 1st thing might bring the multirealmers to logging their char in the weak realm.
The 2nd thing will really bring new people to OF and will establish new possibilities of playing.

I think we need to focus on getting smallmans and soloers to meet eachother instead of having to go and look for eachother since that will create too much possibility for them to miss eachother aswell and then end up running around a lot more than intended.
New encounters might spread them out more than we want. Even though they are good ideas in general and can be considered anyway, I don't think they will cause a better offhour RvR experience.

I do really like those mob-killtasks tho. I even remember them from back on live in OF. You could go to a certain NPC who didn't seem to do anything special at first, but when you talked to him, he would tell you to find mob x, slay it and bring back ingredient y for this or that soup or tea. In any case, it really was worth some gold and experience if you had gathered a bunch of those items. Focussing these mobs and tasks into the primary zones will also bring more players there, meaning more action again.

Amadeth wrote:

Rector wrote:+ What about implementing keep-raid-tasks?
+ What about escorting-wagon-tasks?

implement keep take tasks, but make them worth the time invested. random keep is selected as a target and all participating players are rewarded 4000-5000 RP after a successful capture.
this would cultivate good old organized RvR, give people a sense of goal; an achievement and a reward to strive for, and would give all realms a reason to both attack and defend keeps instead of just zerging Emain AMG.

After a successful capture, all participants would have to return to the task giver to receive another task, or you can put the task on a 15 minute timer for example.

Escorting tasks also sound good, although require some more work from the staff. You set up camps of each realm in enemy territories and when accepting a task, a caravan starts from portal keep to one of the camps behind enemy lines and must be escorted for a good reward. Task would also be on a timer.

I'm kind of against these missions because they do not require you to actually fight your enemies. They can even stimulate players to NOT find enemies because they would be able to get their RPs and reward quicker that way.

I remember this from capturing battlefield objectives in WAR. People just started to avoid enemies as much as possible and started PvEing the BO's constantly to grind their renown rank as fast as possible. This completely destroyed smallman RvR and even zergs tried to just get BOs. I felt disgusted by the way Mythic had allowed this to be even possible, especially since I quitted DAoC to try WAR.

Keep takes and defends can however use a boost, but you have to be careful not to make it more worthwhile to capture a keep with as few resistance as possible.

A little tweaking to this whole concept could do the trick, for instance a succesful keeptake will get rewarded by a standard 500rps, some gold and experience. However, every enemy killed during that keeptake will grant you another 50 rps extra as a reward. This will make challenging keeptakes more rewarding. Of course the keeptake should be on a timer (about 1 hour for instance) so that you can not camp the keep to lure enemies just to get more rps per kill.
You should need to hurry to get the doors and lord down, but with the possibility to fight off one or 2 enemy groups, not more.
Maybe it would also be a good idea to set the task activation upon the time you enter the keep environment so that you do not lose precious time by running to a very far keep.

On the defending side however, I believe defending keeps in DAoC always has been a little too unrewarding. After all you really are defending outposts of the realm and I think it should be considered like that when you get rewarded. Killing enemy players near keeps you own will give you something like 50 extra rps per kill when you are grped. 150 rps per kill when you are solo. Also, keep repairs should be slightly rewarded.
Also, maybe the guild merit system can work here aswell, the bonus per kill while defending is x2 if the keep you are defending is from your own guild.


Something like this should be worked out further of course, I just made some things up that I thought would be fun to have. Things like the guild bonus sound very nice imo, because at the moment it really doesn't matter much whether you are holding a keep or not or whether you are attacking a keep from a known guild or not.

Amadeth wrote:Really, there's a lot that can be done to stimulate RvR in all zones of all realms without killing the "Classic" feel of the server.

Exactly, and I think we can get really far and make it all a lot more fun with the right efforts. I think we should dare to try some things out, they can always be removed if they don't work.

However, I think we should focus on helping smallman and solo RvR out to begin with. Currently this really is the biggest concern OF has at the moment.
More inspiration to taking keeps and escort missions for instance is fluff compared to this and I think we can only make this step if the normal RvR is somewhat feeling right.

I want a solution for the following situation. Imagine its 3:00 at night in europe. Player counts in OF drop rapidly. Now lets see what we have. In the worst case we have about 20-30 player in OF. Often 8 players at least on every side. So what to do with them.

We definitely have to guide the players in some way so they will meet and get into combat. It would be counterproductive to give bonuses in several places. So some type of bonus at one location (I have the AMG in mind) like RP bonus, Gold bonus will guide the players to that meeting point (if they know about it => messages needed). Also depending on player count the Porter could reduce the port intervals and hastener in OF could give more speed. I'm absolutely sure that if done properly fun can be granted even for 30 players in OF who are willing to do RvR.

Back in time we had NF Emain and the idea of "RvR-Seeds". We introduced leveler spots with big XP bonuses to ignite RvR. The same concept of RvR seed is needed here so players don't give up and log out if population drops. There need to be a constant flow of action as long as there are any players inside.

Blue wrote:Also depending of player count the Porter could reduce the port intervals and hastener in OF could give more speed. I'm absolutely sure that if done properly fun can be granted even for 30 players in OF who are willing to do RvR.

This is an EXCELLENT idea!

Blue wrote:I want a solution for the following situation. Imagine its 3:00 at night in europe. Player counts in OF drop rapidly. Now lets see what we have. In the worst case we have about 20-30 player in OF. Often 8 players at least on every side. So what to do with them.

We definitely have to guide the players in some way so they will meet and get into combat. It would be counterproductive to give bonuses in several places. So some type of bonus at one location (I have the AMG in mind) like RP bonus, Gold bonus will guide the players to that meeting point (if they know about it => messages needed). Also depending of player count the Porter could reduce the port intervals and hastener in OF could give more speed. I'm absolutely sure that if done properly fun can be granted even for 30 players in OF who are willing to do RvR.

Back in time we had NF Emain and the idea of "RvR-Seeds". We introduced leveler spots with big XP bonuses to ignite RvR. The same concept of RvR seed is needed here so players don't give up and log out if population drops. There need to be a constant flow of action as long as there are any players inside.

/signed

Zarkor wrote:However, I think we should focus on helping smallman and solo RvR out to begin with. Currently this really is the biggest concern OF has at the moment.

naturally, I agree with you. I've almost never done 8v8. I joined the server with 3 friends of mine and we usually either ran 2-4 mans (Nymeros [Vasu] being the sole constant of our groups, beside me) or I solo. We've been rolled and rolled and rolled all over again to no end in an attempt to find opposing small-mans that would provide challenge. We are not disheartened even when we find ourselves in 2v4 or 3v5 situations and we'll keep coming back, fine tuning our strategies. But getting constantly rolled by 8 mans kills the will to continue quickly and we often call it a night before we get a single RP.

however, I'm not sure how to fix this problem, really. Emain will always be a zergfest. You cant change that, just as you cannot change player mentality. The only solution I can see would be to somehow "designate" HW or OG as solo/smallman areas. Perhaps giving a RP bonus in those areas depending on your group size. The smaller the group, the greater the bonus. But this has a lot of potential for abuse (ie. 4 mans ganking soloers/duos for extra RP) and I don't think limiting zones in such manner would ever happen on Uthgard. It would just be too... limiting.