DOAC PvP - do I have to finish the game first?!?!?

[old.Aspartame]

I wouldn't know how to prove it, but I do consider myself a proper gamer, just my last 'addiction' (HL DOD) has gone down the toilet recently so I was looking for something new and wanted to try the MMORPG scene.

I was not intentionally pimping PQ, but if you tried it you would realise that nobody can pimp it, but only use it for comparisons. Of course, it isn't online, so may not be an amazing example.

I agree with you about the chatroom thing, but that really doesn't touch FPS since most FPS's generally become chatrooms anyway

Regarding time, it doesn't matter how long it took for some1 to reach level 40, they are considered the same once they do, when in fact they are both probably very different. This type of game does not factor that at all.

I hope none of this comes across as 'bashing' MMORPG, coz I can see the good aspects too (hey, I played it solid for bout a week). Just the RvR in DOAC has been a big dissapointment (hence the reason for the post).


Aspartame

 

[old.Kladen]

I kinda agree with Aspartame about the "its all about time" because generally (not all) the people who play more have higher level/tradeskills (including the RvR time because everyone spends time rvr) but its get to the point of lvl 40-45 when people seem to tired and devout alot of time to rvr.

anywayz as Aspartame said someone cant be better at this game unless your opponent is drunk or you are drunk (or high).

this game is about time AND most importantly patient. MMORPG is a achievers game.

neocron/planetside maybe what you are looking for but both in beta stages. neocron is a MMORPG with a difference http://www.neocron.com/

im gonna be on there as soon as its out.

alot to read about and inspire you. this is the kinda game you would like. (skill+time played MMORPG)

 

[tilde]

Battleground is sooooo fun!

 

[Eleasias]

DAoC doesnt have the same kind of "skill" FPS's have, to be good at RvR you need quick THINKING, stupid people die fast even if they are level 50. Some people say RTS's dont require skill, because you dont have to aim yourself, it's kind a same thing here ...

 

[klavrynd]

Originally posted by Eleasias
to be good at RvR you need quick THINKING, stupid people die fast even if they are level 50.

dumdidum (walks around in emain). "Hey look there are some invaders".
"eeeeeeeek my perf meter items are yellow yellow red". 2 skipped frames later you're dead lvl 50 or not lvl 50

 

[- Pathfinder -]

Heh the fact is that skills do play a role in RvR; it's not exactly hard to learn whom to fear and whom to laugh at RMs who can't beat clerics 1on1, SBs who keep failing their PAs, hunters standing in the open and firing etc. Some classes ar einehrently better at RvR, but that does not guarantee that a given player will perform well. I've seen enough clerics stand next to a mage getting PAd without using their PBAEs to realise that a long time ago

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

DAOC, like most MMORPGs is NOT really a PvP game, it's actually a PwP (Player with Player) game. Most people that play do so because they enjoy meeting up with other players to tackle some challenge. Whether that enemy is AI or Player is of less importance.

As a PvP game, DAOC is weak. It doesn't have the immediacy of a FPS, there are issues with class balance (that are accentuated by the fact that it takes so much effort to level a character). Conceptually, the RvR side is nice - a continuing war between three realms fought out between large groups of players; but most would agree its implementation leaves a bit to be desired.

As a PwP game, though, DAOC works on a number of levels:

1. The group level.

Most people that play do so for the grouping. To team up with a bunch of people to take on a common enemy for a common goal. In a group you get the opportunity to become 'greater than the sum of it's parts'; you also can get some great camaraderie and humour.

2. The guild level

A group of 'friends' gets together to form a guild. They take on others with similar values and interests and form a structured, in-game community. Such a community can enhance the game beyond the simple mechanics. They can provide services, events, new challenges, advice and way into organised PvP

3. The realm level

A level 50, on his own, cannot take a keep. It takes large numbers of well organised players to participate in large scale RvR. And large scale RvR is where it's at. Single player PvP is mostly a question of luck - you have to be lucky to be in the right level range and you have to be lucky to face a class which you can defeat.

4. The community level

Many MMORPGers spend a lot of their time on the community - whether it's tawling boards such as these, maintaining guild resources (websites and such), developing tools or updating shared resources, a lot goes into the community of a MMORPG.

So, if you wanted a quick PvP fix, you're out of luck. If you wanted to be part of something bigger then DAOC could be the right game for you.

 

[Louster]

Originally posted by Prof

This is a friggin multiplayer game THE ENTIRE POINT IS TO MAKE FRIENDS AND PLAY WITH EM FFS.

Join a guild - fill yer friend list - go adventure with em - go RvR with em - chat with em - etc. It's the social interaction that's crucial in MMORPGs and keep you playing in the long term.

Complaining that you need to make friends to truly enjoy the game is like complaining about an FPS game you need to shoot others to have fun.

There are so many ways I could reply to this. It's tough making a decision. I could write an essay on why this type of game has it all wrong, and no doubt someday I will at least start one.
Briefly, though: if the game has to rely on player interaction to make it bearable (and I mean bearable; the implication you made that it's "enjoyable, but not truly enjoyable" without other people is totally wrong - playing on your own in DAoC is one of the least enjoyable aspects of any game I've ever played) then, well, it's bad. The game doesn't survive on its own merits. It's a chatroom stapled onto a vaguely decent 3D engine replete with pedantic, inelegant, specific rules to hinder every possible method of deviance.

Lack of freedom, lack of real character development, lack of flexibility. Lack of depth, lack of atmosphere, lack of interaction with the environment. Lack of meaning.

One of these days I'll learn enough to make a game the way I think it should be made. Yep. THAT'LL SHOW YOU ALL.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by Aspartame
With regard to FPS games, I would say the following:

The rate at which you get 'better' at a game (relate to say, being a 'higher level') is dependent upon your hand eye coordination and your general skill at FPS games (e.g. movement strategy etc.). Someone who has both in abundance will be the best in a very short period of time, gaining maximum satisfaction.

Here we have the root of the problem.

Aspartame want's to 'Be the Best' - i.e. be able to trounce anyone else out thre.
In DAoC you can't do that unless you spend ages on the game.

(like Progress Quest... for those of you not in the know - PQ is not Everquest... it's a joke application that you can run and it plays itself, giving messages about nasty monsters you kill, quests you've completed, cool loot you've found etc. etc. as it goes along.)

If you set your sights lower (different maybe rather than lower)...
I want to 'Be a Mercenary and chop things up with a couple of weapons' or I want to 'Be a Friar and heal people whilst kicking some monster arse with a staff'.

or 'I want to rule the lvl 20 battlegrounds' (when they get here)

DAoC is not a FPS, it's not random-fighting Quake, it's not even team-fighting Tribes 2 (although public servers often resemble quake more than tribes in that case...)

If you want to build a character, interact a bit etc. then DAoC is a good thing.

If you just want to splat people then get Cannon Fodder or Quake 3.

 

[Brannor McThife]

Originally posted by tRoG
its always fun to blast someones head of with a rocket launcher

Heh. When the servers go down or I need a short break, I log onto a RTCW server running Beach, and sit sniping people from the beach.

Had one dude with a Panzerfaust try get me off my hill. Shot him in the chest, he fires his missile, I dodged. he ran closer, I threw grenade, we shoot with pistols. I win, no health lost.

Tries it again, I do the same.

Third time, I'm down to 2 rounds (WHY OH WHY does nobody drop off some ammo for us snipers), I tell him so. He comes running out using the concrete collumns for cover. Plug him in the chest and dive for cover. Missile comes flying over. Pop up, Take aim, he tries to peek out. HS.

Anyway...more to the topic. Wait for Battlegrounds, or go hunt in Dungeons, they're far more tense and exciting that some of the other places, well, at low levels anyway. If you play half decent, and don't die all the time, you should get to L20 inside 2 weeks (at most). From there, start hitting those dungeons. Time will fly once you get to know the ins and outs of your character.

I recall doing L28-32 in one weekend. More importantly, find friends. People you can adventure with. I tend to find that impatient people get their parties killed and get "labelled". HAVE FUN.

-G

 

[omen_darkstep]

To reach level 50 in DaoC is nothing. With the right groups, the right hunting places 50 can be made with 20 days play easily. A few guild mates of mine did 1-20 yesterday - 17 hours play.

Feel sorry for those in UO where it can take 6 months to get a fully-fleshed-out good PvP character.

 

[old.Hawksmoor]

I was enjoying DAOC up until about level 25, but since then its become more apparent that I'm simply grinding out XP in an effort to reach an RvR suitable level where I won't be brutally slaughtered by a group of purples in less than 5 seconds. (Pre BG patch obviously). And it simply is not fun. I resent any game that requires me to have a book, magazine or television set next to me in order to make it enjoyable.

There is no excitement in PvE DAOC. While I would agree that any MMORPG relies on player interaction, I have yet to meet a single Roleplayer on Excalibur (Albion). 75% of group conversations I have encountered revolve around chatspeak to form a group and then spamming the word 'pull'. And thats about it. I can bear the game when I'm in a decent group and it's just comfortable and friendly and everyone is having a laugh. With such a group I don't even look at the XP meter and I'm happy to play for hours in the same spot. But frankly that's been incredibly rare in nearly 10 days of game play. And even then I might as well be having an IRC conversation interspersed by pressing the relevant numbers for my combat styles. The game itself provides practically no excitement. Everything you do is incredibly workmanlike and simply repeated ad nauseum with little or no skill involved.

As things stand there simply is not enough content in the game. The quests are all rubbish, with the only difference between lower and higher level quests seeming to be an increase in the number of horse rides. After level 20 these are your only other way of earning experience and they become sparse after a while. The XP rewards also tend to be pretty poor for the amount of time you invest in them.

It's difficult to build up any atmosphere in the game because there is jack-shit in the way of background information. Who are Dai and Murgai and why do they live with Familiars and Goblins and why was I chopping their heads off? Why is there only one farm in Dartmoor? Why are there the ghosts of townsmen and farmers in Lyonesse? What the hell is a Moor Boogey or a Bwca? It all becomes reducable to 'such and such lvl mob is here' with no logic or background to their presence. Its a case of camp here for a level or two, then move on. There's not a lot provided for people to roleplay off even if they wanted to.

And yes, while the obvious answer is to stay with a group of friends and hunt/adventure with them, that's not always a practical solution. What's the difference in spare time between a student and someone with a job with long hours? Some people simply can't keep up unless they sacrifice all their spare time and play until the small hours of the morning. If a game has to rely purely on IRC style friendships formed within the game in order to keep you playing, where exactly is the game? You can only learn how to use you avatar up to a certain point and then you've seem all the personal and group tactics there are. If it wasn't for the fact that you will eventually come to pit yourself against other players, DAOC would be a poor excuse for a game. Levelling is a necessary evil. Its also crap.

 

[old.[BC]Revz]

The "do mmporpg's require skill" question is as old as the games themselves. A lot of people immediately dismiss it with "give me enough time and I'll be as good as you are" and frankly that is missing the point. Yes they do require a lot of time invested but the skills you need (beyond actually playing your class well) are all too often overlooked by people who don't think beyond being able to rail you across the map in Q3.

For starters I *still* see people who can't play their class at level 50. We have rejected lots of people from joining our guild based on the fact that after umpteen levels they are still poor players. You can be a bad player in many ways and there are people out there coming up with new ones all the time. Given a bit of thought you can be good at your class but that is only a small part of it. Sure it doesn't rely on how fast your reactions are to the same extent as TFC perhaps; but you still need a good head on your shoulders when 30 person raid is going to hell and you need to think clearly as to what your next action should be.

Managing your time is a skill that most people value in the real world (can you hit this deadline, can you use the time you have most effectively and so on). That is all very applicabe in DAoC and shows in those people who get to level 50 in 16-17 days /played and those that do it in 30-40.

Interpersonal skills are also something that are of great value beyond DAoC. It takes a lot to run a guild and deal with different people on a daily basis. You have to motivate them, organise them and keep them together. Even simple organisational skills are important, especially when you have a web page, forum, need to deal with recruit applications, guild items and all the other stuff.

Then after all that you have the people who come up with the plans for killing the big mobs more efficiently. Sure this isn't really the case in DAoC yet (basically mobs are easy or Dragon-like and take a stupid number) but there are still different large scale tactics to try out. I haven't even touched RvR yet but try leading the retake of a defended keep some day.

To address the other point there are HUGE problems with rvr (risk versus reward) in DAoC, a big lack of content and other nice things which cause lots of aggro for us all. That is all for another post though

 

[old.Aspartame]

You are talking about the extremes here (level 50) with regard to skill vs. skill in an MMORPG. The thing is, an absolutely crap player at level 40 will own an 'amazing' player at level 30 (im sure the levels don't even need to be this spread out). One of the biggest issues I've seen so far is the level difference. Even one level can make all the difference in combat (e.g. against mobs). There is a subtle, yet simple, solution to this. Keep the PvM situation the same, so those that 'enjoy' it can do it to their hearts content. But, for RvR, set a 'watermark' level (e.g. 15 or 20) at which PvP is then 'viable'. Anyone above that level should have their character scaled appropriately (e.g. a level 50 char would only be say twice or three times as good as a level 20, maybe more depending upon what the devs like). This does the following:

- those who are high level still can beat low level chars on the battlefield (one on one, possibly one against two).

- BUT - large numbers of organised low level players can overwhelm higher level players (I assume at the moment even a small level difference makes one player invulnerable to another?)

Level 15 or 20 is a reasonable level to get to, so PvPers can get stuck in straight away, then later on continue to level. Thus, you don't have to finish the PvM game before you can defend your realm.

How the 'scaling' would be done would need to be very careful (e.g. warning higher level players that their stats are scaled when entering the frontier). High lev players would still get better items, skills, spells etc. to give them the 'hero' status in the battle. Upon a low level player seeing this, the 'grind' of levelling up might then be a price worth paying so a player can stand side by side with them.

This would all result in more players at the front (which can only be good), with a more gradual skill balance and (I assume) more balanced battles, with players below level 50 taking part.

Why wouldn't I suggest this to Mythic? Because even if they do implement it, it would take ages for it to hit US servers, then have to be 'translated' and hit our servers (aka 2 years later).

This game has SOOOO much potential, but due to a few simple flaws it is gonna end up being just an EQ clone. If the above were implemented, you would start getting FPS players arriving (and staying longer than a few hours), and RvR would REALLY kick off. The levelling to 20 would still be required, to force em to at least get into the game first and develop a char, but not high enough to frustrate.


Aspartame