ToA bad for DaoC

[Osprey]

Lo all in my opinion ToA as spoiled DaoC for me ....Im not enjoying game as much as I use to . Take today we tried for the sun belt was 5 of us 3 needed the sun belt 2 needed the moon belt .......1 grp all ready had the key drop but could not get it kemor had to sort that out which he did . We then sat about w8ing on a island pop we get the key etc etc but we have a LD the moon belt drops none of us could use and the person who needed it LD so no use to them untill they do it again .....so we waited and waited and waited and 12 oclock comes and pop on another island which a grp had just got to took belt and went off ......erm can c why Im peeved off ......in my opinion toa was released to early and more time and comunication between players and what they xpect from it should have taken place ...

give me a server any day with no TOA and I bet the majority would be on that 1

 

[Escape]

The sun/moon belt is one of the easier encounters... only need a couple of people for it, so go late at night, or early in the morning when it's less likely to be camped

 

[Thegreatest]

lol I can understand your frustration mate but I really cant see how toa has ruined daoc cause you was unlucky (ld) and couldnt get a belt

Like you cant play without that belt?

 

[Osprey]

lol no not I LD but ano pep , unlucky yes as was camped on 1 island and it poped on ano which a grp just walked onto yes that is unlucky and unfair but thats life ....and this event is just the icing on the cake for bad events for me in toa I have not judged ToA by this one instance as that would be unwise to do , its a progresive build up of events perhaps its just me being unlucky and to pre judgemental and there is good asspects in toa but yet I have not yet to come accross them

 

[Misleath]

Feels good that our guild camped it one of the first days of daoc and everyone got it

 

[Diddyman]

I sort of know what you mean....since TOA has arrived...I seem to enjoy it less.

It gets you thinking....

Do I want to spend the whole of a weekend on a ML Hunt to gain an extra melee style, that I can only use in RvR (and uses half my Endurance anyway).

Do I want to spend ages in Artifact groups and /random 100 for each drop (even though some won't be for my class anyway).

Eventually when I do get an Artifact, do I want to spend many hours/days farming for all the scrolls.

When I get the scrolls do I then want to spend many hours in leveling the artifact, that only becomes better than what u have already when it get to lvl 10, and is the BETTER bit worth all the hours of your life you have waisted.

Do I want to keep repeating all of the above.

Do I want to re-do a competely new SC template.

To be honest, I don't....Its becomming too much of a time sink, and for the first time in quite a while, i actually logged off DOAC yesterday to play Spades on MS Gaming Zone ! Which turned out to be alot more fun.

The trouble is u get that feeling that if you dont level your MLs or get artifacts you are going to gimp yourself and as everyone is running about TOA doing all of the above that I dont want to do, you feel you have to join in.....

I am finding I am having more fun hinging or crafting than playing TOA, or leveling an alt in SI or Classic DOAC or not playing at all.

TOA has some great ideas, but its too much of a time sink imho, and the rewards are not great enough to warrrant the effort. Perhaps for those people without work or families, who can easily justify a whole weekend in TOA, then great, good luck to you...but its seeming less and less for me.

No doubt i'll be on in TOA tonight though cos I'm an idiot.....

Diddy

 

[Oldleaf]

Spawn rate is to slow for artifacts, if 100 ppl wants x artifact and respawn time is 10 hour it can take alot (to much) time when you finaly have it. Besides that for most you need a group and its hard enough to get one together without knowing if the mob isnt killed allready. TOA will be much more fun if you can do much more alone without the insane respawn time. Same for ML's and scrolls, i did ML1 in a group and there wasnt any fun, waiting for other groups, respawn, no idea what the meaning of the ML,x was, just running after the others and kill abit, iam not looking forward to the other 90 ML levels, if they werent needed for RvR i stopped with it right now.

 

[Amuse]

In my opinion, ToA zones is good, gives something new, and more fun than the old style wack a mob and get 0.000001 bub, and repeat this a million times. in ToA you hafto think, act as a group, and play together. What i dont like is the unbalanced MLs, and the insane amounts of quests needed, and the insane amount of ppl needed to do some of these insane quests.. i mean, 100 quests, many needing 150+++++++ ppl, is just to much. The artifacts are ok, and i enjoy lvling them, but the spawn rate, amount of ppl needed, and Scroll farming buggs me. some of the artifacts needs 3fg to do, and amongs that there is usualy atleast 10-15 ppl that wants the artifact, and is not there just to help, and if you dont get the artifact, you can come back in 1h-5 days and trye again (ok, maiby not 5 days, but 2 days atleast), and trye again, with the same chanses of geting the artifact... or you can gather up 3fg of friends to help you.... yeah right, that will happen! not unless you are yussef or force the memeber of the guild you are GM for to help you.

I dinged 50 2 days after ToA release on my new account, that i started on after my 8 month breake from toa... i thought, YAY! finaly, a 50 scout.. 3 days later i get toa and feel like lvl 5 again.... i tryed to get decent groups, but lets face it, im a scout, i dont get good or even decent groups that often.

i did 3 solo artifacts while i was looking for groups, activaded one, and got to lvl 1, and 67% towards 2.. now all i need to do is farm scrolls for 5 days (the Bence's Letter ones), and then kill scarabs for 10 days to get my vest to lvl 10ish.. it was fun in the start, but after 13 houers farming with a fellow scout+BB, and ending up with 1 scroll from a random aggro when we where leaving, i kinda lost my spirit.. and when i found oute that the scrolls i was looking for are some of the rarest ones there is, i kinda gave up....

If it werent for the PvP server i would have deleted my scout and cerlic and started in Hibernia on prydwen, with a friend of mine...

Many of you might think im lame, a noob, or wathever, and complain aboute my whining, but hey, lifes bitch as a scout, im entitled to alittle whining..

ps: no, i dont have a BB, nor the ecconomy to suport one (im a student)

 

[Osprey]

some very good replies here put into words very well thank you so its just not me that feels this way hope some 1 from mythic reads coz I bet the majority of players on most servers feel the same and action can be taken on silly times and numbers to do a lot of toa ......

 

[Doink-666]

Lo all in my opinion ToA as spoiled DaoC for me ....Im not enjoying game as much as I use to . Take today we tried for the sun belt was 5 of us 3 needed the sun belt 2 needed the moon belt .......1 grp all ready had the key drop but could not get it kemor had to sort that out which he did . We then sat about w8ing on a island pop we get the key etc etc but we have a LD the moon belt drops none of us could use and the person who needed it LD so no use to them untill they do it again .....so we waited and waited and waited and 12 oclock comes and pop on another island which a grp had just got to took belt and went off ......erm can c why Im peeved off ......in my opinion toa was released to early and more time and comunication between players and what they xpect from it should have taken place ...

give me a server any day with no TOA and I bet the majority would be on that 1

tbh m8 that could happen in SI/classic daoc. That is just bad luck imo

 

[Rambo[DS]]

Lo all in my opinion ToA as spoiled DaoC for me ....Im not enjoying game as much as I use to . Take today we tried for the sun belt was 5 of us 3 needed the sun belt 2 needed the moon belt .......1 grp all ready had the key drop but could not get it kemor had to sort that out which he did . We then sat about w8ing on a island pop we get the key etc etc but we have a LD the moon belt drops none of us could use and the person who needed it LD so no use to them untill they do it again .....so we waited and waited and waited and 12 oclock comes and pop on another island which a grp had just got to took belt and went off ......erm can c why Im peeved off ......in my opinion toa was released to early and more time and comunication between players and what they xpect from it should have taken place ...

give me a server any day with no TOA and I bet the majority would be on that 1

ye, my 1st thought when saw ToA was omg i hate it, then after tried some ML1.x i liked it, then at ML2.x even more, then tried ML3.x and some artifact hunts and yes i think this is beyond even for hard core gamers, its not only that for some parts you need extremely many people, but the people getting ld just when they are about to get credit, or someone of the zerg does something wrong and spoil the hunt for all others and many many weird situations and bugs, a lot of waiting for a pop, a lot of arguing... makes ToA the worst thing ever... All ml's should be max FG doable.. all artifacts should be half fg doable... they should make em more complex but to need less people.

btw i alrdy seen people quiting DAOC totally, and many stop doin ML's. its really sad.

 

[Etaew]

we only camped those belts for 8 hours os <coughs> what else would we be doing?

 

[Jenkz]

A lot of MLs are 1fg doable, infact probably the vast majority of ML steps are doable 1fg:

(by 1fg doable I mean: an optimised PvE group with paladin, 42-50shield guardbot, 2x clerics, + damage dealers who know what they are doing, yes infils can be damage dealers)

all of ML1
all of ML2
most of ML3 (probably not the raging one or 3.10 for most 1fgs though)
most of ML4 excl 4.2, and probably better with 2fg for 4.10
all of ML5 (maybe need more than 1fg for 5.10 if the nasty caster basts are popped)
not so sure about ML6, has been done on alb-pryd 1fg apart from .10 afaik, i did it with 2fg with guild and treb pulled the zerg one, but didnt do it with much more than ~2fg
most of ML7 is forced 1fg (faction farming & trials zzzz) need more for .10 though and two of the other encounters probably need more than 1fg unless you are extremely optimal

ML1 and ML2 are ok, ML2.10 frustrating if you have someone incharge who doesnt know whats going on. ML3 is seriously frustrating. ML4 is quite nice however, as is ML5.

I would say to anyone who thinks you need >>>1fg to do most ML steps - do all the 1fg doable steps first, then organise a public raid on here for the steps that need >1-2fg. Example of this is ML4:

- ML4.1,3,4 = Easy np with half a group
- ML4.5,6,9 = Easy np with a good 1fg, maybe get a little more if you struggle - and dont have an optimal group setup
- Organise a raid to do ML4.2 & ML4.8, you will get ML4.7 on the way to ML4.8
- ML4.10 = Easy with 2fg

Only 'annoying' steps is 4.2, which is nerfed to 4fg next patch (I did a raid with around 100 people last week, and delket did one with more the week before)

I would say the most frustrating thing about ToA is the scroll/artifact farming, no the MLing. Absolute nightmare trying to get scrolls to drop, or artifacts to be spawned, or artifact mobs not to be camped, or people to help you kill artifact mobs. Then what do you get, an artifact that needs lvling! Thats annoying me not the MLs.

dont take visionofsages as written in stone, VoS for 8.10 says '50 people took 2.5hrs' we've just done it with 29 in ~45min

(btw i LDed on an ML4.2 raid ~5sec before credit was given to the battlegroup, I know how frustrating LDs can be but it aint the end of the world)

 

[Amuse]

A lot of MLs are 1fg doable, infact probably the vast majority of ML steps are doable 1fg:

(by 1fg doable I mean: an optimised PvE group with paladin, 42-50shield guardbot, 2x clerics, + damage dealers who know what they are doing, yes infils can be damage dealers)
QUOTE]

But this leaves oute:
Sorc
Scout (ok, got 42 shield, but ppl prefer 50 shield pally/arms with large shield)
Friar
Reaver
Theurgist
Cabbalist

And not that many players around that knows what they are doing (compaired to the number that doe not)

 

[Saggy]

But this leaves oute:
Sorc
Scout (ok, got 42 shield, but ppl prefer 50 shield pally/arms with large shield)
Friar
Reaver
Theurgist
Cabbalist

No idea is Focus-pull still doable after the nerf so I agree with Cabby, rest of the chars you listed have usefull abilities. Anyway, I believe you dont need opted group for [Group encounters] so make a decent group, do those first and join opted group for [Battlegroup encounters].

 

[Krissy]

All of the classes uve said that will be left out of a standard ML group setup are classes that fitin.

Sorc : Always nice to have a sorc along, can nuke/have pets along for extra tanking, mana crack, str/con debuff etc etc etc
Scout : Can be a blockbot at a push but scouts come in to there own at killing things that are extreem range without having to stop for regan etc, as well as are always handy to guard a cleric allowing main tank/blockbot to not switch there guard.
Friar : 2ndary healer as well as buffer, can also do some nice damage, the resist buffs are also helpful in some encounters.
Reaver : Can be the 2nd tank, a perfect blockbot as gains dex as it lvls as well as often has 42-50 shield, the debuffs/damage output also puts it ahead of an armsman blockbot by along shot.
Theurgist : PBT/ Pets/ Nukes/ 2ndary CC is required.
Cabbalist : Infinate power caster basicly, for sub ML5 raids this caster is wonderful, can DoT everything as long as main tanks have a clue and use taunt and not there normal 29 spec slash styles/ Also disease and nukes, pet is also very nice at interupting casters etc.

Most classes if not all have a very good purpose if used correctly, only today we did ML5 (again for MLXP ) with 2x standard clerics, 1x bb, 1x smitebot, 1 pally, 1 armsman, 1 merc, 1 ice wiz. Was a very easy raid (till 5.10 which requires more than 1fg normaly anyway if adds are popped). normaly the above group setup is a gimp one but worked wonders, 0 downtime and alot of fun.

As long as theres SC and a basic frame setout, most of not all classes can fit in to setups with ease.

 

[Jenkz]

(by 1fg doable I mean: an optimised PvE group with paladin, 42-50shield guardbot, 2x clerics, + damage dealers who know what they are doing, yes infils can be damage dealers)
QUOTE]

But this leaves oute:
Sorc
Scout (ok, got 42 shield, but ppl prefer 50 shield pally/arms with large shield)
Friar
Reaver
Theurgist
Cabbalist

Hrrm this reply has baffled me somewhat. I quoted a group with 4 slots filled leaving 4 slots empty for pretty much anything.

Sorc = Strong CC, AE str/con debuff, PoT.
Friar = Damage dealer with good buffing
Reaver can fill the blockbot spot, considering quite a lot of reavers are going for 50shield now and gain DEX while lvling up they are probably one of the better blockbot classes ingame
Theurgist = PBT, pet spam.

The above 4 are highly groupable and would fit in an optimised PvE group no problem at all.

Scout and Cabalist are a different matter really (they dont actually offer anything to the group, really) but can take one of 4 left over spots without harming group.

 

[Amuse]

Hrrm this reply has baffled me somewhat. I quoted a group with 4 slots filled leaving 4 slots empty for pretty much anything.

Sorc = Strong CC, AE str/con debuff, PoT.
Friar = Damage dealer with good buffing
Reaver can fill the blockbot spot, considering quite a lot of reavers are going for 50shield now and gain DEX while lvling up they are probably one of the better blockbot classes ingame
Theurgist = PBT, pet spam.

The above 4 are highly groupable and would fit in an optimised PvE group no problem at all.

Scout and Cabalist are a different matter really (they dont actually offer anything to the group, really) but can take one of 4 left over spots without harming group.

You said dmg dealer, and 90% of the ppl wants a merc as dmg dealer.

 

[Naetha]

I wish people wouldn't getso caught up in the whole "Oh I can never get a group because I'm a gimp class". There isnt' a single class in the whole game that doesn't have some kind of utility in PvE, PARTICULARLY in ToA where many of the encounters are more complex and require something more than just hack and slash tank zerking or pbaoe zerging.

If you're having problems getting a group together to do the artefact you want or the ML you want, then you're asking the wrong people. Every single ML and artefact hunt I've been on have had these so called "gimp" classes on them, and been much better because of it. Just stop being so blinkered and enjoy the game for what it is.

 

[Path]

A lot of MLs are 1fg doable, infact probably the vast majority of ML steps are doable 1fg:

(by 1fg doable I mean: an optimised PvE group with paladin, 42-50shield guardbot, 2x clerics, + damage dealers who know what they are doing, yes infils can be damage dealers)
QUOTE]

But this leaves oute:
Sorc
Scout (ok, got 42 shield, but ppl prefer 50 shield pally/arms with large shield)
Friar
Reaver
Theurgist
Cabbalist

And not that many players around that knows what they are doing (compaired to the number that doe not)

Noone would seriously leave a theurgist out of a proper pvE group, PBT isn't an issue as much as the army of pets they provide xD

 

[Jace]

Lots of interesting posts. Ignoring the class issues I can’t help but feel that TOA is largely an exercise in extremely poor game design.

Yes you might be having fun at times but is there anyone out there that actually looks forward to lottoing with X amount of people over and over again in the hope of getting a particular artifact, then farming scrolls for hours upon hours so you can then spend endless weeks getting said artifact to level 10?

And what use are MLs when as a caster I can gain such amazing abilities such as summon wood. The first time I used it I couldn’t move :/

Here’s a few ideas that might have made TOA more bearable :-

* Change all artifact encounters where there is only a small chance to actually get the item to drop and make them drop EVERY time.

* If an encounter needs 2-3fgs to do then increases the number of artifacts that drop to give a more reasonable chance of getting it.

* Make ALL scroll dropping mobs soloable. What does having to get together a full group to get certain scrolls actually achieve?

* Actually give ALL classes some decent ML abilities and not just a chosen few. Maybe then the less desirable group classes could find themselves wanted in groups instead of further improving classes that don’t need the boost in the first place.

* Make certain artifact mobs respawn faster.

At the end of the day allot of what I’m doing in TOA lately I’m doing because I feel I have to. Whether you would consider that my problem or not it’s simply not fun and unfortunately I think there are allot of people feeling the same way atm.

 

[civy]

For guarding shield size makes no difference. So a 42 shield scout with mob2 and 400 dex blocks as well if not better than pally/arms.

 

[Jenkz]

For guarding shield size makes no difference. So a 42 shield scout with mob2 and 400 dex blocks as well if not better than pally/arms.

Aye if shield size makes no difference in guard then that is indeed very true.

I (however) understood the # of mobs u can guard against was effected by shield size just the same as blocking, but if I'm wrong then scout is definatly a very strong guarder.

 

[Amuse]

For guarding shield size makes no difference. So a 42 shield scout with mob2 and 400 dex blocks as well if not better than pally/arms.

to get 400 dex you need a SC template and a BB.. and who wants to drag a BB around in ML groups...

And shield size does make a diference, just like in blocking, but its not the same system. and for scouts withoute the RR to get MoB 2, thats a problem aswell (i dont own a BB, so not easy to RvR for me exept in keep defence/attack, and not exactly many of those these days.

 

[Sobek]

Okay, TOA wasnt the best thing for daoc, but i must say i enjoy it, quests are more fun, allthough takes longer time, but now you gotta "/dig etc." to find the items, some of the encounters are fun, and they actually require strategy, not just 40+ people to zerg it, and you lottoing for artifacts/drops from ML raids, does Sidi ring a bell?
All in all, i enjoy toa, just as much as i used to enjoy daoc.