The 1.81b TOA poll! :)

Have Mythic done the right thing making TOA easy?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 384 82.6%
  • No!

    Votes: 71 15.3%
  • I have no opinion on the matter.

    Votes: 10 2.2%

  • Total voters
    465
Status
Not open for further replies.

Sendraks

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eggy said:
I do however feel it's a bit of an insult to those who have enjoyed playing to get chars TOAed, and become involved deeply in the PVE scene.

I really think thats utter rubbish eggy and I mean no disrespect.

Ultimately the people who done ToA to death and achieved all the MLs and Artis that they have probably feel that either they've achieved something or be thankful that its out of the way. Ultimately you'd think those people did it for fun and that they have enjoyed the experience of playing ToA as it has been.

But lots of people don't like ToA as it currently stands for them. Its not a fun experience. It would be more insulting to them to suggest that because a minority (maybe, FH polls are not the most reliable way of determining the views of the demographic, though internationally the view does seem to be that ToA sucks ass) prefers ToA as it is, the majority should therfore have a large portion of the game remain as not being fun to them.

Reality is, the theoretical minority have had their fun with ToA and really nothing can take that away the sense of achievement for doing MLs and Artis under the alledged "hard mode." The only thing that can possibly detract from that achievement is operating under the delusion that it is somehow unfair that others should have fun in ToA and get something worthwhile out of it.
 

Thorwyn

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I do however feel it's a bit of an insult to those who have enjoyed playing to get chars TOAed, and become involved deeply in the PVE scene. It's a little like giving everyone RR8; it would make anyone who got those 2.797million rps feel pretty pissed off

But that´s the course of the game isn´t it?
remember how hard it was pre SI to level a char to 50? Endless sessions at trees in Lyonesse, queues for groups etc. It took 20+ days /played to finally ding 50. Then, SI arrived and all of a sudden, chars dinged 50 in 4-5 days /played due to AC, high level quests, Necros. It´s the same thing.
Making something easier always means a devaluation of the efforts of those, who´ve done it old skool.
 

eggy

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Thorwyn[B&Q] said:
But that´s the course of the game isn´t it?
remember how hard it was pre SI to level a char to 50? Endless sessions at trees in Lyonesse, queues for groups etc. It took 20+ days /played to finally ding 50. Then, SI arrived and all of a sudden, chars dinged 50 in 4-5 days /played due to AC, high level quests, Necros. It´s the same thing.
Making something easier always means a devaluation of the efforts of those, who´ve done it old skool.

/agree

However, the difference is, SI provided new levelling zones, mobs, quests etc.

TOA is still TOA and still needed, unlike Lyonesse trees!
 

Raven

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Thorwyn[B&Q] said:
But that´s the course of the game isn´t it?
remember how hard it was pre SI to level a char to 50? Endless sessions at trees in Lyonesse, queues for groups etc. It took 20+ days /played to finally ding 50. Then, SI arrived and all of a sudden, chars dinged 50 in 4-5 days /played due to AC, high level quests, Necros. It´s the same thing.
Making something easier always means a devaluation of the efforts of those, who´ve done it old skool.

thats a very good point but back in pre SI days everything was new so it was a lot of fun to "grind" up to 50. i have 7 level 50s now and most took a long time to level, the only toon i have that was power leveled was my animist, the rest were solo or in normal "pug" exp groups.

The main problem i have with toa is that some steps you need a large zerg, you have to fit your private life around the next ml raid/arti group, back in the day i could play whenever i like and get stuff done in my own time.
 

Merrilow

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Consdiering the major reason for farming artifacts was for the drops, not the arti, I don't see that it matters a great whether it's easier to get the arti or not. It's still going to be just as hard and time consuming to get Woven hair/Ring of heavens etc
 

Thorwyn

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However, the difference is, SI provided new levelling zones, mobs, quests etc.

TOA is still TOA and still needed, unlike Lyonesse trees!

Yes! That´s exactly the point. :)
OK, maybe this is going to be a bit long and boring, but I´ll try to explain my POV.

DAoC requires the player to work for this char for a certain ammount of time to get him from the character developement screen to the end-game (which is RvR in most cases). He has to perform a certain number of steps to achieve this goal, lets call it "stack" for simplicities sake. In classic times, the stack just contained one step: ding 50 (grab some semi-decent equipment while you´re at it) - done. Then, after SI, the situation changed. Dinging 50 wasn´t the only step in the stack, players now also wanted Caer Sidi items (shiny and good!). But simply adding to the stack infinitely doesn´t work, otherwiswe the player would have to work for an insane ammount of time after expansion 48. The gamedesign needs to keep the ammount of work more or less even. Therefor, they made the initial step (dinging 50) easier, creating room for the additional Caer-Sidi-Item-farm step. Now... there are two kinds of steps: permanent ones and temporary ones. Caer Sidi items is a temporary one. It just cycles out and will be replaced as soon as new and better items are available in later expansions. However, Dinging 50 and getting your masterlevels are still needed (as you correctly say), regardless of the content of future expansions. That´s the reason why they didn´t bother adjusting Caer Sidi. It´s simply redundant. Masterlevels aren´t, so they need to adjust the difficulty, in order to create room in the stack for upcoming Darkness Rising content.

Mabye my POV is a tad too static and profane, but I think this interpretation of Mythics design is at least basically correct. That said, in a wave of nostalgy... I miss twees.

...sometimes.

:)
 

Kanim

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eggy said:
Personally, I don't like the patch. I enjoy the challenge PVE brings.

care to explain the challenge in toa pve?. I guess doing harder encs/mls with small numbers might be considered a challenge, but as long as pet spam/ml9 fds exists there is always an easy way to do most encounters with only a few people.
 

eggy

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Thorwyn[B&Q] said:
Yes! That´s exactly the point. :)
OK, maybe this is going to be a bit long and boring, but I´ll try to explain my POV.

DAoC requires the player to work for this char for a certain ammount of time to get him from the character developement screen to the end-game (which is RvR in most cases). He has to perform a certain number of steps to achieve this goal, lets call it "stack" for simplicities sake. In classic times, the stack just contained one step: ding 50 (grab some semi-decent equipment while you´re at it) - done. Then, after SI, the situation changed. Dinging 50 wasn´t the only step in the stack, players now also wanted Caer Sidi items (shiny and good!). But simply adding to the stack infinitely doesn´t work, otherwiswe the player would have to work for an insane ammount of time after expansion 48. The gamedesign needs to keep the ammount of work more or less even. Therefor, they made the initial step (dinging 50) easier, creating room for the additional Caer-Sidi-Item-farm step. Now... there are two kinds of steps: permanent ones and temporary ones. Caer Sidi items is a temporary one. It just cycles out and will be replaced as soon as new and better items are available in later expansions. However, Dinging 50 and getting your masterlevels are still needed (as you correctly say), regardless of the content of future expansions. That´s the reason why they didn´t bother adjusting Caer Sidi. It´s simply redundant. Masterlevels aren´t, so they need to adjust the difficulty, in order to create room in the stack for upcoming Darkness Rising content.

Mabye my POV is a tad too static and profane, but I think this interpretation of Mythics design is at least basically correct. That said, in a wave of nostalgy... I miss twees.

...sometimes.

:)

You must spread reputation around before giving it to Thorwyn[B&Q] again.
 

Thadius

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Utter shite in my opinion

They are making this game like counter strike, get ready for rvr, get a few "frags" die, respawn etcetc

ToA required time and some effort to get through it and the sense of achievment I got when I got my main char to ml10 and fully artifacted up was nice

Still, I suppose those who powerlevel a new alt every week will be happy, shame about the rest of us who spent a lot of time and money on one char.
 

Argyle_Avendale

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Personally I hate that patch aswell, they are making ToA way too easy now, no challenge what so ever. I think this will ruin the game for many ppl who like to do encounters.

A few questions..

Will artifacts still drop from encounters? If you have artifacts in vault, will those be removed?

Im asking, because im currently trying to get all artifacts ( un-activated ) in the game. And if I dont get them before the patch goes live ( which it hopefully never will >.< ), will it then be impossible for me to get them?
 

- English -

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people can finally TOA their 10 other level 50s, who are sat in SI gear (SC, epic items, si neckie, si bracers and pygme jewell). This is a really good thing tbh. DR is out soon which will be the new PVE zone
 

Tristessa

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Plenty of the people that don't think the ToA changes are a good thing, wil most likely sing a different tune, when they decide to set up a new character after the patch release.

If nothing else I'm glad that there won't be any more *omg wtf r u doin u & yer group? I been campin here with afk bb fer 2 weeks lolol. u sux!!!*

P.S = Well aware 2 weeks is exaggerating but you get the picture :m00:
 

Golena

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My impression of the patch is that while I agree with some of the concepts, I do think they went slightly too far.

For starters I actually liked the idea that artifacts exped in different locations. It gave you a reason to go somewhere you wouldn't necessarily go. It also gave people a reason to go out and exp in the frontiers. While I know we all whine endlessly about exp killer yada yada yada, I feel that having more people in the frontiers that wern't set 8 man rvr guild groups was a good thing. It wasn't the expers it was fun to kill, it was those hanging around the exp spots looking for expers to kill that lead to some good fun fights. With those spots gone part of it is lost.
I think someone came up with a very good idea, that arti's should level everywhere, but much much faster off certain mobs. That means if you just wanted to go AC and PL your arti's you could. If you wanted to put some effort in and make groups at the right spots you could do it faster.

As for making it so everyone can get arti's easily. I hear lots of rejoycing that people can finally TOA up there toon, yay!! I can only assume that many of these people are those that haven't TOA'ed many characters. One of the reasons this concerns me is that the number of farmable items in the game just dropped. Good templates normally contain as many non artifacts as they do artifacts. Now instead of camping GOV, your going to be camping the 1.1 island waiting for the farmers there to finish. The difference is going to be that you can't go farm scrolls or other good loot mobs to get cash up to buy the items the farmers are generating, because all good cash earning spots are going to be taken. It's difficult to tell at this early stage how it's going to work out, but I think shouting huraah equiping a toon is easy now is going to be slightly off the mark. It may be that the best loot drops now get shared amonst the elite farmers, with new or casual players not having any way to enter the loop.

As for the ML changes, sorry nothing has really changed. Almost every ML as it stands can be completed in around 2 hours. This is still going to be the case after the patch. Making a few ML mobs easier isn't really going to speed up this process. The time spent on ML's is in moving between the encounters with a zerg and getting people to listen at the right times. This is still going to exist. Smaller raids might happen sure, but I doubt it's going to be those who don't get ML's atm that get invited on them. Removing the entrance requirements to the dungeons also doesn't really help. Sure you can now go to the ML5 dungeon without having got ML1, but really think about it. If you can't get credit for ML1, how the hell are you going to get into a ML5 pre-step group! If you can't get to ML3, are you really going to get into a ML7 pre-step group. And what good is getting the ML at this early stage going to do for you? All you've done is allowed a few more farmers in to camp the few mobs that drop good stuff.

The changes, while sounding awesome on paper, don't really seem to change a whole lot of stuff. You might get TOA done ever so slightly faster, but if you want to compete with the top people, it's still going to take roughly the same amount of time. You need the static drops as well as the arti's to get to their level, and those are going to become more expensive to compensate. All they have done is started to remove some of the thought behind it. I enjoy playing DAoC because I can log on play for a bit and log off feeling that i've accomplished something. I've got artifact X, or i've got ML ability Y, and next time I log on i'll still have them available for me to use. This is what seperates the game from stuff like counterstrike where you log on play for 5 hours and when you log off you really have nothing to show for it. I want to have fun while i'm doing it ofc! What alot of these changes seem to do is to say, well your still going to have to do the stuff, but while your doing it we'll remove the challenge so it's more of a tedious timesink than it was before.

I can't help but feel that this patch doesn't remove the timesink, it mearly dumbs it down so a monkey could perform it. Id much rather have a version of TOA that took less time and the same (or preferably more) skill to complete it. Instead they appear to be going for same amount of time, no skill at all. While those who don't enjoy using their brain may think it to be fantastic, for those who actually want to be challenged I think it's a step backwards.

Maybe instead of TOA they need to create difficult PvE stuff to compensate for the changes. Create quests where your reward is to hand in your armour and get a fancy new grapic on it, or let you put your guild emblem on your breastplate. Stuff that doesn't need to be done for the RvR'ers but gives reward for those who enjoy the PvE challenge. Being able to say I killed the dragon with 3 people is great. Getting a unique graphic helm if you do it would be even better! Now make is to the AFK sheep can't do it, if you want to look different you have to work for it! The AFK sheep can still compete, they just can't look as cool while doing it.

As a last point, if people really believe that the reason they go out and get rolled time and time again in rvr is because they don't have a level 10 GOV, your sadly deluding yourselves, and if you think that this patch is going to create a level rvr playing field where you can go out with your new RR2 armsman and own cos you have all the arti's you could ever dream off, your only going to be dissapointed. :(
 

bottler

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ToA is retarded live with it..

we gonna start a fresh on the classic server :fluffle:

I got a fully toa infil and yes i have np leaving that retarded lame expansion
 

Yshynsin

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I think personally that the artifact changes where a good idea, not everyone has serv necro fop bot and mincer to kill gov and cs etc, will be alot easier now.

For the ML items to be bought i think this is stupid and will ruin the ML's
 

chretien

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Golena said:
My impression of the patch is ... loads of stuff ... snipped.
100% agree with everything.
I've been thinking about how I'd have redone ToA to make it better and I came up with this:

Basic principles.
Camping is not fun
AFKing on stick in a zerg or watching your mates' farm toon kill a mob for you is not fun
Reward should be proportional to effort

With those principles in mind I thought that I'd reorganise the MLs. 9 trials (leaving Celestius alone), 10 steps per trial. 9 of those steps are either group or solo steps and they are made challenging. No afkers, no swarming it with a zerg. Leave the basic concept of each step alone but tweak it for difficulty. Ideally, each should be doable by a reasonably balanced full group of 40-50s (scaling up with higher MLs) without needing uber templates to do. However they are called master levels and not noob levels for a reason. Everyone needs to be awake and everyone needs to contribute. The x.10 step is left alone as a BG step because mostly they are cool and it's good to leave in some big epic encoutners that bring a realm together. I'd also make 4.2 the only BG step for ML4 so it effectively becomes 4.10. All of the other ML steps which are combat steps are set in instances or 'sealed dungeons' like 4.8 or the ML7 trials.
I'd also change ML abilities so that those which give you an ability that is only usable in RvR, also give you a second ability which is only usable in PvE.

Artifact encounters. By all means get rid of unactivated artifacts but make the encounters harder. Have artifacts awarded as a quest. Get the quest by handing in the scrolls (if you really want to keep that mechanic in the game). Upon completing the quest - which should be difficult but not overly time consuming - you get the activated artifact from the scholar. Again use instances and anti-focus code so that the encounters are actually challenging.

This way anyone can get ToAd in their own timeframe, hardcore players will rush through it all in a weekend still, casuals can do it as and when they get the time to. No-one has to sign up for 3 hour+ raids, no-one has to wait for an encounter to be up and PvE gets to be more fun and less frustrating - PvEers are happy as PvE challenges improve and RvRers don't need to wait around, they can do the encounters they want, when they want and get straight back into RvR.
 

Flimgoblin

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Thorwyn - the stack idea would make sense if darkness rising added a whole load of new timesinks... but it doesn't - you can have all the goodies from darkness rising in about 24 hours in moderna ;) (if that)

The quest takes a bit of time but it's entirely optional (and as far as I know they didn't make it completely braindead even at the request of people whining they couldn't do it with 2fg).

I think the reason they're "streamlining" ToA is to get people back who quit "because of ToA" and to allow people to play their alts more.

Some things in this patch might make things a bit too easy - though I'm not sure the whole "making encounters easier" necessarily means there's no challenge left if it's done right.

It might smooth out the tricky bits (If you get a force that can _just_ do 4.2 and no more it'll flatten most of the rest of ML4) and allow a challenge without a FH raid or whatever. Of course it might just make it so you need a fg of afk people to get ml9. I'm an optimist sometimes so I'll assume the former till I get evidence to the contrary (probably about a week or two after it goes live). I also like change :) keeps things interesting.

Kraken and leviathan are a case in point - they've been made easier - how much easier? This patch we've been slaughtered with 3fg vs the kraken (can't hold aggro on him half the time as he zephyrs it away and chases them across the zone... wasn't with "perfect" classes by any means of course, but we had a few clerics :)). The patch before we did it with 11 assorted gimps (pre pet-change) so it's already been "made harder"...

The "made easier" _could_ be like the dragon was made easier (glare messages etc. i.e. something that lets you outwit the encounter instead of outzerg it) or it could just be a nerf in damage/hp.

There are some very very good changes in this patch in my opinion - whether the other changes are so significant they "ruin" ToA or kill the challenge I think we have to wait and see.
 

Flimgoblin

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Golena said:
Hrm some good points there regarding the campers - they won't be camping the arti monsters but they will be camping _something_ - perhaps the arti encounter still for battler sleeves or ML encounters for immolated rings.

Not sure I like the dungeon requirement changes - means everyone who can't be bothered to ML up their necromancer can just go ML9 and farm.

Then again with the changes they might well just ML up their farmbots anyway...
Guess it's an equaliser - everyone gets to take a farmbot to ml9 ;)(and find 400 other people camping it)

Golena said:
if you think that this patch is going to create a level rvr playing field where you can go out with your new RR2 armsman and own cos you have all the arti's you could ever dream off, your only going to be dissapointed. :(

But I already pwn!
 

Killswitch

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Thought about it for a while and I've had to vote 'no'. Before you flame me to a cinder, let me explain a little bit.

Actually, it's kinda hard to explain...there are two things that I think are important here. One is the loss of the sense of achievement. The whole camping. scroll-farming and arti-levelling thing is a pain and I think everyone agrees with that. However, when that Malice or Winged Helm finally dings level 10 and you know that your dream template is finally done and you're ready to roll...that is a good feeling and one that will be missed.

The second issue I can see is individuality of characters. I know that I've spent hours trying to design caster templates without GoV or rogue templates without SoM, because I can't (or can't be arsed to) get them. So I use some rare drop from somewhere else or a different arti which brings something a little different. When every RR2 newly-50 caster can get the latest Min-Maxed template with 10% range/damage/speed and everyone looks like a clone (small saracen with GoV/Tarts/Scalars/CS) then the game will lose something. How many Croc-Form casters are we gonna see when everyone can have Erinys on every toon?

I also believe in the 'Archimedes Principle' when it comes to game-economy issues. You can't just force down the price of one of the triumverate and expect the rest to remain. The Holy Trinity of Artifacts, Scrolls and Drops just won't allow it. Access to the best artis for everyone will lead to increased demand for the 'best' scrolls. Immolated Rings, Demon Blood Rings and other 'rare' drops are going to be farmed to hell and prices will increase. The basic trend of in-game economies is always going to be for prices to drop. There are a finite number of characters needing Immo Rings, so there is limited demand (sort of).

There are other possible issues too. If a guild decides they want a Friar (for example) to try out or add to a regular group. It's going to take literally 3 days to PL a toon to 50, get him every arti he needs and level them to 50. No incentive to recruit new players, so the people who've worked hard to get an RvR-ready toon are gonna be kinda shafted.

Now, I'm bored of PvE...I really don't want to do any more of it and this will probably be a good patch for me in that regard. It might give me the chance to TOA my {insert gimped toon here} and have some fun in RvR. I just think the game will lose a lot too...
 

Hawkwind

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Raven said:
i enjoyed toa the first time around, its a pain in the arse now though, if you want to play a new alt its a lot of work equiping it. i used to like playing various toons in the SI days, i found i would get bored with one and play something else for a few weeks/months whatever, now i only (used to) play my hero.

maybe rather than doing it this way they should have slashed the respawn timers on arti mobs to 10-20 minutes and remove the exp part totally.

Agreed. I get bored of playing the same toon all the time. Also, ML's can be a pain for me as the time difference plus weekend days being Thur/Fri means that for most ML's I need to stay up from midnight to 4 am. So its been a long slow slog for me. I have 3 toons TOA'd and with decent templates and 7 more 50's to get done. So for me personally this patch will be an enourmous help. Also getting arti's like jac's sash and Erin' Charm would have been almost impossible without these changes.

Regarding Arti's, I wish they had made it either quest orientated or just put an npc near the location to spawn it. The amount of money some these arti's go for is quite ridiculous. Before TOA arrived I remember buying Sidi thruster and armour for my inf and how long it took to raise the money (5p each) to get them. Lots of boring farming with necro to get salvage. Now 5p is nothing I can farm a couple of not so hard to get scrolls like EOY or Tyrus and easily sell them to get 10-20p. I know some people will read that and say I'm part of the problem for selling them at those prices. But to get the items I need I have to sell them at the market rates, Catch 22. I would like to be able to sell cheap to make it easier for poeple with less money. But the simple truth is that someone with loads of plat would just buy them and resell and make large profits. So I only sell cheap to guildies.

The fact that a few people are now over their limits on the amount of plats allowable on one char is evidence enough that it was never meant to get like this. Mythic are just trying to reign in the monster they let out of cage 2 years ago. Long overdue imho.

As for the people making comments like, 'not fair, it was a pain for me to do, why should they get it easier?' I would ask one simple question. Do you want the game to survive and flourish or continue to die? If you want to extend the life of the best PvP game out right now, then you should applaud these changes. It will make the grind of preparing a RvR char worth playing a lot easier. I only hope they advertise the game better to get more people ineterested.

I purchased TOA whilst on business in Paris and was amazed at all the avertising in the Computer/Game Shops and posters in the shopping Malls. Then a few weeks later I went to the UK, nothing could not even find it in GAME or PC World.

In Dubai I can buy SWG, Guild Wars and Warcraft in just about all the main software outlets. Never once seen DAOC on sale here.
 

Chronictank

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Sorry eggy but i dont agree at all

Only thing i dont like about this patch is that they make artis and encounters easier, i dont see why since they are gona get zerged anyway by more people than necessary as you only need credit (bit like now), just means 1 person with a bb and a summ sm wont be beating you to it

As for arti lvling, i dont see what your argument is, people do excatly the same power leveling in POC. They will just move to different areas, i for one welcome it as i think it would be fun to drag people to Lair and start the 2fg farms again :)

As for toa being hard, since when?
you can focus 90% the artis and a fg can do the rest
i have never found it a challenge unless i was doing something out the ordinary like solo eyrines charm, levi or kraken
TOA was never hard, it was just a time-sync due to bad pop rates and arti camping. Which this patch removes.

As i said in a previous post the only thing this does is everyone will have access to the same artis so you cant distinguish between someone whos put that little bit more effort in and someone who hasn't
 

Manisch Depressiv

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Going through two ML1-10 and and doing 2 expensive ToA templates took me just time, I can't say it was challenging in any way, just time consuming.

Reducing the time think will make me prolly doing more MLs and some ToA stuff on other chars I usually wouldn't bother with, so I think the change is good.

Albion lacks so many key classes in RvR, especially Friars and Paladins in my opinion, I hope this will help some dudes to learn to love those classes easier when they are ToA'ed up and ML'ed so we have some more of them avail for RvR and not an army of PvE-Paladins.
 

Red HATred

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from what i 've read things will indeed be a lot easier to get.
From what i know from DAOC's past evolutions it is a normal fenomena.
All things that used to be hard... became easy, mainly because of player inventivety and patch additions.

Is is t bad. No

I've always been apposed to the way the economy was run in our realm. Before these type of patches things were only availble to the verry hard-core, verry dedicated ppl. As can be read in the zillion whine posts i made concerning market usage and price abuse this is a dream come true for me.

This type off patches opens up the game to the casual hunter also. The main urge for ppl to complain about these type of things will be the fact that ppl no longer can poke out their realm mates eyes, bragg with the stuff they have and stuff alike. Since all will be able to get all and do all in a minimum of time.

The only real fools are those that treated stuff as "special" since the only real probem they had was having the patience to wait and obtain stuff when it was more accesible.
This always happens and always will happen.

So maybee my whines will be a bit more justified if you look at it this way:
"what is hard now, will become easier. Why exploit something for as long as one can to feed upon the inpatient species".

One thing is for sure, if i read correct, the scrolls will still be needed. This could be a good oppertunity for ppl to level characters in TOA while gathering scrolls since... no matter how you put it, you still will have to spend hours and hours in obtaining the scrolls to be able to get the artifacts after you got credit.

TOA will become a scroll farming place where the value of scrolls will slightly increase. The uncommon scrolls will become more valuable since only a few ppl will spend the time in farming them for profit.

So the profit margings will be narrowed to scrolls.

as i started this reply i'll finish it with saying, personally i don't find the changes bad, no.


Has Mythic made a bad choise, No. With the release of yet another expansion a lot more tasks come at hand. Which mean that yet again, a lot off ppl will have to spend time in pve. If there ever would be a huge fleet of new players incomming this would make their chances to catch up and compete at the same level as others a lot shorter and a lot more addictive.

all i will add now is.... i don't feel sorry for those that have spend hours and hours in obtaining things the hard way, since it was their inpatience that made them do it. If you want to be special.... DAOC ain't the place
 

eggy

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Red HATred said:
With the release of yet another expansion a lot more tasks come at hand. Which mean that yet again, a lot off ppl will have to spend time in pve.

Champion levels are nothing remotely like MLs. The expansion adds very little in terms of "things to do". New epics are quick and easy, CLs are simply a matter of xping more; it's nothing like TOA and it won't require much more time spent in PVE.
 

Red HATred

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eggy said:
Champion levels are nothing remotely like MLs. The expansion adds very little in terms of "things to do". New epics are quick and easy, CLs are simply a matter of xping more; it's nothing like TOA and it won't require much more time spent in PVE.


Eggy, imagine beeing a new player.

Main lands.
Shrouded isles to explore
Catacombs to explore with all the dungeons
Atlantis to explore, with all the Ml's all the artifacts.
next up, Darkness rising, again xp'ing in a way.

calculate the number off hours a new player should invest before he can become an adventurer. And also take a look at how many ppl would still feel fit to organize a "50+ attending ppl needed" raid...since most have got all.. and lose from the willing helping hands...won't be a lot


if we don't want people to become the "0-50-artifact-ML" people without the faintest knowledge what there is to be seen in DAOC as a whole.... it would be, firstly: a big loss of cash since you payed a lot of expansions, secondly: you wouldn't be looked at as an utter moron if someone asks you the road to Sidi or Avalon city and you couldn't answer it. (in a matter of speaking , i know /map ftw)



i'll add this eggy. I still take my hat off towards those people that organized the zillion of huge raids that made it possible for people to obtain stuff pre-patch. A lot off respect in a way, but evolution is just something we can't stop.

Darkness rising may not be that big as an upgrade in stuff to do... it still will take a lot off time.


ps: do a small test, ask ppl without looking at a map what there is to experience in Lyonesse. Last edit: Nothing is special and needs to be special. the only real thing that could be special,( for the non-roleplaying ppl!!!!!) would be the friendship, if it were lasting one,that could be build up via this virtual mean :)
 

Golena

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Red HATred said:
Eggy, imagine beeing a new player.

Main lands.
Shrouded isles to explore
Catacombs to explore with all the dungeons
Atlantis to explore, with all the Ml's all the artifacts.
next up, Darkness rising, again xp'ing in a way.

calculate the number off hours a new player should invest before he can become an adventurer.

I think very few people are against making stuff take less time in the face of new content. I agree that if the timescales were left the same and new content kept being added it would quickly become too daunting for new players.
I think that simply removing the difficulty however is the wrong way to go about it. You mention that friends are important in the game, and your 100% right! One of the best ways of building friends in the game is by having to overcome challenges with other people. Before when only 1 artifact dropped off a mob it was worthwhile getting to know people to help you out, working out good ways of killing mobs with a small group of mates. If you can just join a zerg as faceless person 83, and TOA'ing your char doesn't involve having to really talk to anyone, I think we've lost part of the advantage TOA brought to the game.

I'm not arguing that all the changes are bad, or that some change wasn't necessary. I'm just saying that I think many of the changes should of gone in the opposite direction to the one they should of done.

Lets take an example: Why not make arti's only level off one kind of mob like in the old days, but level much much faster. That way people get to explore the game and the different areas, but arn't stuck killing one mob for days on end. It takes less or the same amount of time but it's varied. Instead of 10 hours in AC leveling your arti's, you spend 1 hour in lyonesse, 1 hour in caldey, 1 hour in krondon and one hour in stygia and your done. It's 4 hours instead of 10 so the timesink is less for new people, but you've had to explore and face differing challenges to get there.

It's like speeding up old epic quests by instead of adding porters to avoid the 10 minute horse journey, keeping the 10 mins afk on the horse but changing the yellow con mob to green con once you've got there, and that's just wrong!
 

Red HATred

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Golena said:
Lets take an example: Why not make arti's only level off one kind of mob like in the old days, but level much much faster. That way people get to explore the game and the different areas, but arn't stuck killing one mob for days on end. It takes less or the same amount of time but it's varied. Instead of 10 hours in AC leveling your arti's, you spend 1 hour in lyonesse, 1 hour in caldey, 1 hour in krondon and one hour in stygia and your done. It's 4 hours instead of 10 so the timesink is less for new people, but you've had to explore and face differing challenges to get there.

wrong!

imo,
with making sure that artifacts level all over the place they inspire, or tend to inspire ppl to roam all over the main lands.
If they would speed up the levelling nothing would change and ppl would just rampage through this fase, while broadening the options but keeping the rates the same (btw, some arties will be levelled faster) they can only inspire ppl to go to places where they normally would have no reason for beeing.

Playig the game from lvl40-45 up with a Full group of ppl (new ppl) that tend to roam together in new fronteers will actually be the utmost awesome thing to experience.

So, thinking of the fact that most things are easiers in that patch, compared to the things we had to go through, i think this opens up the game a lot more for new people.

tbh, i don't think there will be a new surge off people starting out on DAOC, it'll mainly be old timers grbbing their accounts and comming back, just to take a peek at the new stuff, but at least there is the intention and possibility created by the providers of this universe.

to conclude, making things easier, makes it faster, more enjoyable, better results in a gaming session.

next thing i'll say , and i don't want to offend anyone by saying so, but unhappy reactions are mainly reaction of envy/jealousy i think. Just the thought that some ppl will be able to do something easier and faster then we were able to do them. Losing the benefit of beeing the sole owner of something.

it can be compared to something like.... every high has it's low.... one day you're a king, next day you're a pauper :)
 

Golena

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Red HATred said:
imo,
with making sure that artifacts level all over the place they inspire, or tend to inspire ppl to roam all over the main lands.

I assure you that as soon as this patch goes live, 99% of all arti leveling will be done either in AC the 40-50 task instance or with a necro in caldey. Only today I had someone asking where was good to level arti's in the oldlands. You think after this patch they would even think of trying somewhere other than AC?

If people can get everything they need at the 2 spots they know about, theres very little insentive to go try new spots. The reason for many people to go try new spots is if there is mobs there that will level stuff faster. Back when Malice leveled on animals only I saw quite a few people out on the new SI island killing cliff yales for exp. If I went there now, how many people do you think I would find? How many new players even know of the islands existance or what's there? GOA could probably remove half the zones from the server and 99% of the population would never know.

I'd also argue that making things easier doesn't always make gaming more enjoyable. It can be so hard it's frustrating yes, and i'd argue that the way arti's exped at the start of TOA fell into this category. I think it's starting to swing in the other direction now however, and it's getting too easy. If it's too easy it's no fun either.
 

Red HATred

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i totally understand what you mean Gol, but then i look from the nw players POV. For them every step is and would be hard.

for us, old timers... after testing AI to the limits and bending our toons around every possible corner of power.... thing may look as too easy.

something else is humming in the back of my head...

that a possible reason why they simplefy and alter a lot of stuff is to prevent the US secondairy market of gaining to much RL cash at their expenses. It could be we, as europeans just suffer from the consequenses of those geeks over there. (that is just a thought though). Us platina market, artifact market etc....making a lot easy... lowers usage of all... eventually rendering selling of those things useless
 
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