Blue wrote:

Zarkor wrote:So, there you have it. What has been predicted is becoming reality. Uthgard's numbers are declining, RvR is getting worse and worse (ouch!) and people realise it.

Interestingly you said this often over last 3 years and numbers have not changed and inbetween even improved to nearly 1000 players at one time and we had way more bugs back then. In the last days I watched OF population peaks and we still are at 170 in OF even with D3 on the market. You don't get tired of predicting the doom. Where was you as we had 900 players in January?

We know most of the problems on Uthgard and still there has to be time to crawl through all of them one by one.

PS: While looking through posts I also stumbled over your original OF proposal. http://uthgard.net/de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=10985
There are btw other structural problems which make it difficult. Some highskilled FG's facing random pugs. Same problems we always had.

Herm666 wrote:So guys ... I think I have been playing enough DAoC and gathered enough experienced to give my 2 cents.

I started among normal and casual players. Since I started playing with Morrigans Breath EVERYTHING was a lot easier. Got easy my realmrank. I joined RvR with 3L0 with my warden, while enemies were 6L/7L+ and I didn't have much clue playing a warden on Uthgard!
But since some years there are more and more competive players. Even being 4L2 is like sh-t for starting in Emain.
I invested more and more time in DAoC, just for being a good player and gathered more experience. But how much fun is it in the end? Its like none!
Waiting every f*ucking evening for a guildgroup, bound at primetime, waiting about 1 hour, in the end: 8th or 7th player is missing -> Looking for an experienced, decent player costs one more hour or even more.
Yes you are even FORCED to look for decent players! You can't be a casual friendly player if you want to have success in Emain. This is sh*t. And you can't say that we didn't try!
You are FORCED to get players of a decent playerbase just to compete with setgroups (people who play this day by day, night after night) or highrr-groups who throw their 20 realmabilites and win.
And if you didn't find any 8th man you've been wasting 2 hours for waiting and searching - 10 o'clock evening; end of the day for working/studying people. Hooray.

I've been watching Requiem from the begining on this server. Sure, they started with 4L2 - But please tell us ... How much time did you invest? How much nerves? How much time did you wait in front of Druim Ligen, sitting around and wasting time?
You had experience with the RvR-system from the begining due to live experience.
And let me guess: You either did not want to invite "just a random casual player" to compete with those guys running in Emain.
It is f*cking easy to start as a guild - together. Like I did. You can't expect this from an avarage player.

@Topic: Since I've played GuildWars 2 I'm not sure about DAoC at all. Probably live servers will survive, but not sure about Uthgard - Who am I that I can predict something like this?
You don't have to invest your whole evening with building up a decent group in modern games - You simply can join PvP as you wish. I WOULD like to play a bit more ... But where is the motivation? What about the depressing endcontent?

ZaiQQ wrote:You still cannot compete vs the top tier if you dont put in time and effort though or got a skilled team, I personally hate all these new matchmaking systems, I always prefered getting my head stomped in if i was new to a game, for me this is the quickest way of learning, and getting into the theorycrafting part of how to beat them.

ZaiQQ wrote:

bawww wrote:

ZaiQQ wrote:Tell me more about how you watch progaming streams of other games and think you're one yourself. Wizard, 219, so its not alone, the 10% debuff isnt gamebreaking, and in most cases not worth to apply, would hardly make any difference in the outcome of the fight with or without that 10% debuff attached to it.

Ah here we go, typical Jouten, going to your good old friend straw man when you have no real arguments. Next step is calling celerity useless because of it's range.

Can't proceed to the next step, because you haven't given the famous zerk op 100% uptime celerity bm is useless lolol argument.

Herm666 wrote:This leads my to my origin question ... And you seem to have an answer to almost everything.
Why should they play DAoC on Uthgard if they get invovlved better in other games? I want an answer to this question - Please don't even react to my stuff I writ before, because those are just facts.

Lasastard wrote:

Herm666 wrote:This leads my to my origin question ... And you seem to have an answer to almost everything.
Why should they play DAoC on Uthgard if they get invovlved better in other games? I want an answer to this question - Please don't even react to my stuff I writ before, because those are just facts.

Reward - a different kind that comes from working for something and eventually achieving it. Modern games don't have that. Don't get me wrong, I like D3 and will aboslutely play GW2; and for the exact reasons you have mentioned. There is more to life and gaming than the timesinks. Especially if you have progressed in life to a point where your sense of accomplishements can be derived from other things and gaming becomes a past-time, something to relax and just enjoy instead of a deep commitment.

Anyway, I think the issue here is that Blue's interpretation of what defines DAoC is very black and white and narrow-minded. Timesinks have little to do with it in my opinion - at least not to the degree they currently exist on Uthgard (partly because of the low population). This is something that *could* be adjusted and mitigated without compromising the core of what makes DAoC great.

Blue wrote:DAoC != Warhammer online, DAoC != WoW, DAoC != GW2, and thats good as it is. DAoC is just DAoC and I wouldn't bend it into other models. Instant shards repeatedly tried that and it did no wonders. Live servers tried similar change attempts with no real result. They all didn't get a huge player base because of their changes for "modern" gaming. It's more that the new game seems more attracting because it offers new experiences. But if its too shallow, players won't play it that long.

It seems to me that GW2 requires less tactics and less skills if skilled and fitting group play isn't that important. It's more designed for casual gamers then. But then you could also argue to play Battlefield 3 or similar games with instant action.

Zarkor wrote:RvR Population.
I’ll start off with RvR population, more specificly with player influx.

• Player influx:My idea goes as follows:

- Porting from the pad happens every 5 minutes on normal times. Every 3 minutes when population levels drop below a certain point.

- Home realms can also port to their own zones. By holding and claiming (by guild) a specific portalkeep in your own zone (these are predetermined and are one of the normal keeps, not relic keeps), this allows you to be ported to that keep with the regular ports as mentioned above by buying a ticket for the specific zone. These portalkeeps have no specific benefits such as better guards or doors. They also do not have a global warning message when they are under attack. This is the responsibility of the guild that has claimed the keep, as they will get a message when the keep is being attacked. They are still as strong as normal keeps, apart from the fact that enemy players can spawn there. Porting there gets disabled as soon as the first door is under 90%, OR when the portal keep is the only keep owned by the home realm in that zone. There are no portal keeps in the primary zones and the zones closest to the border keep (Emain Macha and Cruachan Gorge for example).

- In addition to the concept of these new portalkeeps, keepfighting should be more rewarding, with the focus on fighting. There should be no extra bonuses for taking the keep itself (apart from the fact that it might disable porting to the zone, impact DF control and hopefully influence the Relic Guards (as was on live)), but bonus RPs for killing enemy players near or inside the keep. This goes for both offence as defence. Upon killing an enemy during a siege on the offensive side, an extra bonus is given per kill. Upon killing an enemy during a siege on the defensive side, the same bonus is given. However, while defending a keep of your own guild, an extra bonus is given on top of that. Fighting for your realm should be rewarded, but same goes for fighting for your guild. Last but not least, a successful defense (there is no enemy activity around the keep for the full 5 minutes after a siege) will grant a RP bonus, with again the added extra bonus if the keep is claimed by your guild. This bonus is rewarded by the keep lord, and can be collected at any time after the 5 minutes have passed.

- Keeptaking missions can be a plus here.

My goal with this is not only to fix the player influx and thus RvR action levels themselves, but also to spice up keeps, their tactical significance and the encouragement for keepdefending and –taking.



ELABORATION ON SIGNIFICANCE, ENCOURAGEMENT FOR KEEPFIGHTING:

Blue wrote: “2. Don't think keep taking should give such a reward. Keep takes should be made out of tactical reasons.”

I fully agree with this, and hope that a setting like the one I outlined here would live up to that. For instance when organizing a relic raid, one will now have to tactically take keeps before venturing to the relic itself if they do not want to get ambushed. They have 2 options here. Try and sabotage the ports beforehand by taking the less defended non-portal keeps discretely to not raise suspicion, or to take the portal keeps themselves with the horde that is going for the relic keep, fast and hard.
On the other hand, this system could work self-controlling. The home realm has good reasons to keep their portalkeeps active, while the invading realms can easily start assaulting the portalkeeps more and more if the nearby zones become too crowded, thus effectively pushing the port back.. This prevents players from spawning in the middle of the action. Or at least, that would be the wise thing to do for the invading realms if they intend to have a general idea where to expect their enemies to be coming from.

Fights for portalkeeps in cases such as the one above will be intense significant due to what is at stake, on top of that they will increase realm pride for both sides, the lack of which has been a valid point of concern for modern DAoC. Also, prominent guilds will stand out by capturing (and holding) the most important portalkeeps.


So far for player influx. Implementing a system like the one I just described would go a long way in reviving the players’ lust for RvR and I believe this measure to be one of the most important ones there. It’s a direct competitive advantage over servers like Eden, which is a crucial foe in the fight for players and popularity. This measure alone will significantly increase RvR action, however, keep in mind that this is only part of the tackling of the entire problem.

Zarkor wrote:• The target group. Let me explain how the setting I have in mind would work out to allow casual players to feel the urge to join End RvR out of themselves.

Step 1: Shift the BGs further down the scope. Make them start at level 15-19 and have the final one end at 40ish. For instance the last BG from 36-42. Make sure the RP rate is slow enough for players to be able to sit through the BGs without having to really PvE as long as there is decent action. (In the current situation you can get 2 or 3 levels before capping RPs and thus being forced out to grind, which is a shame, RvR is DAoC’s trump card and should be capitalized, as I’ve said before.) Also, implement the old BG tasks, such as take the keep etc, to give extra gold so that the serious BG player isn’t forced to grind his time spent in BGs in PvE after to make up for the missed gold influx. A good DAoC server reduces the need for PvE to be competitive in RvR to a minimum. PvE can always be done by those who like it, but those who hate it should be given the alternative, especially in DAoC’s case.

This all should do three things:
- The players who enjoy RvR can do so more intensely, without putting themselves behind on any aspect but drops, which they will still need to PvE for. However other than that they will see a worthwhile character improvement without sacrificing fun.

- New players will be able to get a taste of RvR WAY sooner than they can now. This way, the chance that they will keep playing is DRASTICLY increased. DAoC RvR is the trump card, like I said, and once new players get a taste of it, few of them still turn it down. It’s just too good. It’s absurd to have to grind through 30 levels, which is days of time, just to get to enjoy yourself. Especially to new players this is just stupid and they will leave the game thinking it’s a boring waste of time. Don’t let this happen! They are also looking for that one game, don’t fool them into thinking DAoC is boring!

- Last but not least, this opens up a whole new range of players that are going to end RvR without being fully optimized. In other words, a whole new potential casual playerbase. Now this is the tricky bit, as this isn’t 2002 anymore. Measures have to be taken to make them attracted to joining end RvR.


This is where Step 2 comes in.

In order to support the new casual playerbase, Uthgard does not have the ease of reality Mythic had when releasing the game. The key to enticing these players is not pure enthousiasm, but character progression. Any MMORPG player today will try to maximize fun, which is deeply connected with character progression. If your character isn’t progressing, chances are high you’re not really enjoying yourself much. Now, RvR is in general more fun than PvE, however if the character progression is only a fraction of that of the alternatives, people will avoid trying to RvR until the very last moment, like most are now, to maximize their chances of success.

To counter this, adjust the rewards for RvR and the rewards for PvE in RvR zones.

Improve the spawns (and possibly the xp bonuses and money gain) in the more crowded RvR zones so that even those who feel inclined to PvE will consider doing that in the RvR zone before anything. The more casual players reside in the zones, the more casual friendly it becomes to those casual players trying to make some RPs. It gives them a basic chance of finding equal opponents.

The most important improvement here though would be the increase in XP and gold for RvR kills for those under level 50. Instead of the x10 XP ratio in the BGs, grant an x25 or x30 XP ratio in end RvR. These players are not only facing higher levels, they are facing way higher RealmRanks on top of that. They have to face the extreme, so the rewards need to be according to that.
The gold earned can also be given double or triple the amount is is given now if necessary, also only for those under level 50 as we do not want to change the current gold situation for those already RvRing. I believe the gold earned by 50s in RvR now is just right.


All in all, these changes should provide the casual players the attractive opportunity of end RvR by granting them enough allies, enemies AND character progression to make it more rewarding and fun than any other form of character progression. I believe this is the only real way of coming close to a situation that resembles the real Classic RvR environment.



IMPORTANT ARGUMENTCOUNTER! On a sidenote: it has been mentioned that the shifting of BGs will increase the re-rolling of characters by those who prefer BG RvR to end RvR. This might be the case if the ONLY measure taken would be to shift the BGs. Sure, if the RvR situation does not change, then it will lead to an easier ticket to BG grinding. However, the very reason the overwhelming majority of these players are doing this is exactly because of the poor situation end RvR is in now! If the problems regarding RvR as I’ve described above are significantly addressed, the majority of these players will follow to end RvR as will most of the server population.
The argument is therefore invalid. It relies on the situation to be as poor as it is to make sense, which is not a valid point of view when trying to improve things in my book. On top of that, this change would bring huge improvements to convincing newer players (even those who have never played DAoC or any other MMO before!) to stay, thus increasing the player base significantly. This increase is not worth giving up for that handful of BG grinders that A) (80-90%) would join end RvR if it was fixed or B) (20-10%) would grind BGs regardless of the fact that end RvR ever existed.