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 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.

Reduce port timer in line with the decrease of RvR activity, YES!
Increase hastener speed in line with the decrease of the RvR activity, YES!
Increase rewards at a given spot or maybe even 2 spots (both MGs) during off-hours, YES!
Make XP spots behind the milegates even more attractive by generating either a bigger bonus or more/better camps, YES!

These are all great ideas and indeed, if done properly, will definately improve fun, action and reward during offpeak hours. Excellent ideas indeed.


@Amadeth, I also can't think of an idea yet to turn Odins and Hadrians into the smallman hotspots, however I think the best way to do it would just be to keep roaming there, preferably at the zones behind the milegates since that's also where xp is best.

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.

I also think this is an excellent idea. Will really help bring more players out to fighting areas during off hours.

I think the best is to introduce such thing as "Happy Hour". Best time for it would be 01:00 night till 01:00 noon german time. In this timeframe certain settings can be changed to fit the lower population.

Blue wrote:I think the best is to introduce such thing as "Happy Hour". Best time for it would be 01:00 night till 01:00 noon german time. In this timeframe certain settings can be changed to fit the lower population.

Would be absolutely welcome.

Zarkor wrote:

holsten-knight wrote:And as mentioned earlier, what is so really nice about leaving 2 grps fight then come back and kill the winning grp? Ok maybe they had a nice fight, but the fight after is also no nice fight at all, no respect for that from me.

To be consequent you should leave them alone for 15 minutes, i bet 100 bugs you will not do this

No, just 2 minutes to rebuff and reg, nothing more.

If you dump all you have in one fight, you don't deserve to live the next anyway.

so true

I have to add into the bit a few pages back about "adding" onto fight's. I have to take the stance that the don't add mentality is pointless, first off when I play solo whether its a stealther, or a light tank, or whatever those groups that think rvr means 8v8 will ALWAYS add onto any 1 on 1 fight I have going, like it's ok to take my even fight away but its not ok for me to do the same. Wrong mentality people, and no in all my time here I have NEVER once seen a group that didn't add onto my fight so the mentality of "don't add" is a joke imo.
8v8? sure that can be fun but in all reality this game is designed as all out warfare between 3 realms, the frontier's are not an arena for an even fight. You are supposed to be out there utilizing every skill and tool you can to win, furthermore you will not always have the ideal group to beat everyone with your 8 man group, AND someone will always zerg and add, if they couldn't then we might as well get rid of the frontiers period and get arena's and that's not DAoC.
Zergs. Sure they can suck, I hate being run over by a zerg and I hate when a zerg makes the enemy's give up and run away, HOWEVER some of the most fun I have is when its a war between 2 zergs or army's, because then REAL stategy and gameplay can come in beyond the small 8 man group, you now all have to work together. This is OF there are a ton of places to fight and alot of keeps to war over so most likely when a zerg gets steamrolled by another zerg they simply changed locations unlike NF that had just Agramon to meet in and a few towers.
Lastly, a random thought, stop hating on stealthers. Sure some are grey ganking pansy's with no honor, and some killed you when you were alone and trying to do something but that's just the way it goes. If you drop the 8v8 mentality of elitist groups you will realize that even tho they may not be the highest dps in a full on fight they can be utilized in warfare to take out the support the enemy's are using thus crippling them (even in 8v8 if played right I think that's viable) and in a keep siege they are your eyes on the walls letting you know whats there and helping to clear the walls to make the siege easier.

First, Rodentia may I ask how long you play in end-RvR?

Second, the problem is people take every enemy or friend as the same. People go: omfg mids added me, now I'll add mids too, while in fact you then are adding mids that never added you before for instance, so next time they WILL add you, making it a circle mentality.

Last but not least, most people don't care whether it's 8v8 or 8v14, even 3v5, it doesn't matter as long as the fight can be won with skill and teamplay. That's what those "elitist" players are after, if you ruin the need to actually give the fight the best you got, then it becomes a boring grind. That's why they don't want ppl to add, but also will try to help out friendly players who are being zerged or heavily outnumbered since they could balance the fight a bit again.

Don't get me wrong however, feel free to add if that's what you're after, but then again you might get targetted more by the groups that don't want people to add.

How long I've played is irrelevant really but I'll humor you .. here a few months and on live from launch till TOA.

The thing i was getting at isn't that I'm promoting that people add onto other fights just that so many people complaining about the very thing they themselves seem to do is redundant. 3/4 of the people I see complaining about adding are people that they themselves add. I can't begin to tell you the number of times I have entered a solo fight just for my own realm to add onto it .. then start cussing me out when I add onto a fight that same group is in where they seem to need the assist or whatever reason. RVR is a game of survival not fair play, don't get me wrong we all want some fairness in things .. even me but we all have to accept it's not going to happen.

Well, of course I can't vouch for other player's word, but I will say I myself am against adding and I wouldn't want to add myself. I play a bard and always tell my grp members to keep stuck or be left behind when they do add on fights.

I also let players fight fair battles, unless they are FG+ and from both enemy realms, then we might come and crash the party occasionally. But if we see for instance 2v2 or 1v1, even 2v3 that's a close fight, we'll just ran by.

"Happy hour"

Sounds like a good plan, the Europeans will play a bit longer (or earlier 8am [gmt+1]) and Americans have there own small peak.

However all those bonuses (rp/xp/bp/merit/shorter action search time) could lead to 'uber' american players and some european hardcore players.

"RvR-tasks"

This idea I like even more, it can keep a less strong solo char like my assist or close range caster occupied when he's not needed @ Emain.
(overpopulation of paci healers for the mom).

"Keep raid & defend system"

This idea made me drool :p especially if its done like Zarkor said;

Zarkor wrote: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.

This way my so called useless sup sm can be a feared enemy and a loved realm mate.

Furthermore OF is evolving quite good. Zerg and add fans go Emain, 8vs8 lovers are exploring the 2 other zones, which gives everyone a certain playground.

Also i would recommend to decrease the porting time to 4 a 5min instead of 8min, even in prime time, the time between 2 waves of enemies can be big and thus boring. And the implementation of some horseroutes within OF could be helpfull just as making it possible for more players to have their own horse (5p = 5hours killing crabs makes a dull player, 8hours is brain boiling boring) If you do want to make it still somewhat exclusive, then implement the bardings and saddles as well, and make those expensive.

Thus my opinion about OF and Uth as it is now.

Sincere greetings
Arnius

Ps.

In reply to Zarkor, does the time playing on this server mather in how much opinion you may express on this server and forum?
I really don't think so, a friend has only played this game 4times with 1 of my chars and he was already thinking about ways to improve certain things. Some ideas were bad (unballancing classes), but others were good, for instance making a bg for 'baby'-chars (lvl17-25) and a lvl50 bg (cap 4l8) thus making it possible for so called gimp players to add in easier in groups in OF. (was NF in the time he said it, but that doesn't matter much)

Whatever you change, please wait a bit and see how things develop.
Dont change anything from one day to another and back, like with the medallions.
There are a lot of things to think about:

Maybe shorten porter times to 2 min when few players are on, but what with Hibs then? They still have to walk 8 Minutes? Give Hibs Porters somewhere? Have to give other realms porters in their FZs too then and so forth ...

I dont say that nothing should be changed.
I just say: Please let OF gevelop a bit before you change everything back and forth. I am still re-exploring the OF zones and i have seen player behaviour change already. Some people move to different zones and some specialise to hunt around their TKs, other raid keeps to attract enemies. Its all not that bad. I still like OF the way it is now.

i think of does quite well, and it just begun...

but one problem i see, where i see no solution for, is the player over time zone over realm distribution.
Over the whole week it was from 7 p.m. till 11 pm german time 4-6 fg mids farming brave but totally outnumbered max. 2 fg albs and 2 fg hibs. At about 11:30 pm - 2 am german time this changes to 3-4 fg hibs farming 1-2 fg mids and 1 fg albs from 2 am - 4 am and about 4 am some albs fg are left without enemys. The later i i only heard 'cause i was asleep xD

from my perspective, port timers shouldn't be messed with much. lower them? yes. but don't go below 6 minutes.

@Arnius: Well, I must say over the years I played here my views on certain issues and topics has shifted of course, but I don't really think that all in all it has changed that much.

I came here to be able to play DAoC as close to what it was back in the old days, however knowing that the old days also had their flaws and that the players, myself and the game have evolved way beyond from what it was. All in all I think I've learned a lot from playing here on Uthgard, not only the differences between what live used to be and what DAoC on Uthgard is, but also what it means for the staff to deliver such a huge amount of work that is put into Uthgard.

I believe my view on this server has become that of a rational and as objective as possible active RvR player. My personal perfect server would be a combination of both balance, optimisation to setting and population aswell as a thorough and as exact as possible classic style, within the limits of maintaining balance and attractive gameplay. I have little experience when it comes to stealther RvR, but I try to find solutions that do not exclude anyone and consider as much playstyles as possible.

In the end, all I really want is for this server to succeed in bringing forth one of the (if not THE) best classic server(s) DAoC has ever known. Creating a setting that is both attractive to new (BGs, PvE) as to old (end RvR, end PvE) players is a crucial part in this, since I believe you can not have a great server without a great and healthy population (quantity).
After all, the community is also what made DAoC become so awesome.


About those port timers, I think a decrease to 6 minutes would indeed be a good thing, but going much lower will cause influx problems afaik.

I am not totaly against lower downtimes. 5 or 6 minutes instead of 8 would also be ok i guess, but:
Lowering Port Timers is unfair for Hibs who still have to walk 8 Minutes to emain, cant go afk in that time and risc getting ambushed on the way.
Hibs also always have to walk 8 Minutes and Albs/Mids have to wait a maximum of 8 minutes if they are realy unluckily miss a port. On average its only 4 minutes and sometimes its almost insta port (Hint: if you plan an evening in emain, buy many Medallions).
Shorten porter times to 6 Minutes and Albs/Mids have an average of 3 Minutes afk/downtime and Hibs have to walk 8 Minutes and cant afk.

If you would give Hibs a porter in one of their keeps, what happens if that keep isnt hib? You would have to set up a safe place somewhere that isnt a Keep.

Horseroute?
People will get farmed off of the horses with DoT Spells and arrows.

And if the action shifts to Hadrians Wall one day, even if its just for a one day relic raid, hibs and mids have fast port times to HW, but Albs have to run all the way, so you would have to give Albs and Mids a porter/horseroute in their FZ too.

And in Agramon, when the proter chain was broken, you also would have to walk a long time/way, so OF isnt that much more downtime.