Was crafting the ruination of Daoc?

Fuggz

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I played Daoc before crafting. Was great fun to group up and more or less essential whilst levelling. When I had drops my heart used to race. I didn't mind restarting characters and having to re-kill certain mobs to get a drop. When crafting kicked in I more or less stopped exploring and grouping. Why bother when your could make armour and your weapons could have effects making them better than any drop you could get. It opened the gates to the powergamers and I think spelt the ruination of Daoc in the long run. Big mistake I think to introduce it in the first place.

This has probably been gone over and over but I have been thinking a lot lately about the state of the game, the imbalances and lack of grouping etc. All boils down to crafting really.
 

Ctuchik

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crafting certainly didnt help thats for sure. or rather, when alchemy and all that crap happened anyway. then the "elitist" minds really started to kick in. as you more or less had to do this or that template to be viable in rvr.

before all that, when epics and malmo drops were the best you could get, that imo were the absolute best times in DAoC.
 

CorNokZ

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I think it's a shame that you have to do shitloads of pve to actually go out and rvr! But when you think about it.. The elitish rvr people made it so
 

BloodOmen

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It did ruin daoc imo, SI days it spoilt it for the majority of casters due to silly high magic resists and in TOA it came back with avengeance to ruin it all over again but this time for a majority of the meleers since it turned the average noob caster into a 1 button mashing freak that can kill people (horner being a prime example as were most wizards and any other class with high spec dd's or lifetaps)

Saying that they couldn't really leave daoc vanilla no matter what we'd like.. they could however have thought TOA through abit more rather than rushing it out and completely ruining the game period.

A simple adjustment to OF/PRE TOA would have worked fine, example - add slight spell pierce to fix the high resist issues and possibly a few other fixes to keep everyone happy, but no mythic listened to whiney little american children on VNboards and it went down hill fast.
 

Genedril

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Hasn't crafting been in since 2001?

If you're talking before Spell Crafting then I suppose it's an opinion; but even during the original SI spell crafting phase it was impossible to cap all stats / bonuses + resists.

Before SC'ing people went out of their way to farm specific items & then had to make the choice between Epic and it's stats or crafted which offered better abs (iirc the original Epic was lvl50 not lvl51).

Even when ToA came out it was bloody hard to cap everything - that's a very new phenomenon.

Until recently most suits had a hole in them somewhere that a savvy player could exploit.

TOA pretty much blew the crafting market apart tbh & that's one of the things I hate most about it. No item you can farm should be better than something a player can craft imo.
 

Fuggz

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Think you are missing the point. The game turned bad because elite players kept themselves to themselves and even new players quickly learned that you needed to craft to compete. Levelling was ruined fun wise as it was just as easy to stay solo. No more need to group which really is where the fun lies. Instead of players exploring new areas they could be found stuck infront of a forge pressing silly buttons for hours on end.

If the game was left to me then crafting would go out the window or would be toned right down so that the stuff produced would help users (as be better than 89%) but wouldn't be anywhere as good as the stuff found in the game - drops. Drops is where the fun is and where the need to explore is. Take that away and the game is just made into a mad levelling rush with specific zones being targetted with very little player interaction.

Lets face it the game is now tailor made for elite players and these players are really the cause of it's lack of popularity too. Newcomers, even on the US Classic, have a hell offa job taking on the long term players without getting a right hammering. Does US Classic have spellcrafting?
 

CorNokZ

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Yes US classic has sc.. No toa and that's it iirc, but besides that everything else
 

ford prefect

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Has to be said that crafting does go a lot quicker these days with the added bonuses, so although it is not exactly fun, you can become a legendary crafter within eight hours or so now.
 

Genedril

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Think you are missing the point. The game turned bad because elite players kept themselves to themselves and even new players quickly learned that you needed to craft to compete. Levelling was ruined fun wise as it was just as easy to stay solo. No more need to group which really is where the fun lies. Instead of players exploring new areas they could be found stuck infront of a forge pressing silly buttons for hours on end.

Not missing the point - I just don't happen to agree. Elite players (?) keeping to themselves has exactly what to do with crafting? People have been sat at forges since time immemorial - I believe it was Tigerseye (?) on Hib Pryd who never went leveling & instead made stuff. He sat in TNN & everyone knew him & chatted to him. Since DAoC is a MMO(rpg) then chatting is good. Also, being a MMO(rpg), people are going to want to do different stuff. BTW, People don't need to craft to compete at all - they need to farm x y & z to compete.

If the game was left to me then crafting would go out the window or would be toned right down so that the stuff produced would help users (as be better than 89%) but wouldn't be anywhere as good as the stuff found in the game - drops. Drops is where the fun is and where the need to explore is. Take that away and the game is just made into a mad levelling rush with specific zones being targetted with very little player interaction.

Again I disagree. I can't see any reason why anything that drops should be better than what a crafter can produce. Fletching & weapon crafting are pretty dead as trades due to what drops give people (bar Leg Weaps). Drops can be fun, but some people actively enjoy sitting around crafting & knowing that people are 'out there' in their stuff.

What I object to is the new fad where you can cap everything. This means that no one has to make educated choices about what was better to skimp on. There's no risk anymore - just farm a lot of items & plats & bang - you've got yourself a template that caps pretty much everything. Crafters are left crafting 2 or 3 'fill in' pieces & the rest are drops.

Lets face it the game is now tailor made for elite players and these players are really the cause of it's lack of popularity too. Newcomers, even on the US Classic, have a hell offa job taking on the long term players without getting a right hammering. Does US Classic have spellcrafting?

The game is old. Most players have been in the same place forever & as such they've an immediate advantage over any new player to the server. Their alts are twinked to the max & ready to roll. It's nothing to do with an elite(???) player & everything to do with the fact that people are old hats at this now. They know where to xp at which level & how to do it effectively. There's no need to explore as there's no new PvE content which may yield better results than the places they already know. For the bits of xping where it's a grind (40+) there are quests that get you through in the time it used to take to even get on the fins list (let alone get into the fins group).
 

Ctuchik

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I think it's a shame that you have to do shitloads of pve to actually go out and rvr! But when you think about it.. The elitish rvr people made it so

i dont mind soing some pve'ing to do rvr. it was after all not a medieval counter strike, but a MMO.

the problem i had with DAoC at the end were that no matter how good you were at playing your toon, some ebayer with a copied template would more often then not hand you your arse after a few days of playtime.

and the crafters (unless guildied or bum mates) usually never really helped out their realm (exeptions present ofc), insted they charged as much as humanly possible with the argument that they had to make up for the cash spent leveling up. well they kinda did that after a few months. after that it was all about greed. when the game were still fairly alive and kicking on the euro servers, paying 200+ plat for a template were pretty damn common.

Mythic tried to help that a tad by increasing cash rewards from quests and BoC's but all that did were make the crafters increasing their prices, changing their argument from "need to make up the cash" to "but its so easy to get cash now".

it may have been easy for a nolifer that played 8 - 10 hours a day, but things never really changed for those that didnt wanna sit behind the monitor all day long every day. it just got even more impossible to get a decent template.



no, bring back pre crafter templates DAoC <3
 

Ctuchik

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bleh, i need to stop trolling around in the daoc sections. everytime i do i feel the urge to roll on the US servers.... (anyone wanna PL?) :p
 

charmangle

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Well...

It did ruin daoc imo, SI days it spoilt it for the majority of casters due to silly high magic resists and in TOA it came back with avengeance to ruin it all over again but this time for a majority of the meleers since it turned the average noob caster into a 1 button mashing freak that can kill people (horner being a prime example as were most wizards and any other class with high spec dd's or lifetaps)

Saying that they couldn't really leave daoc vanilla no matter what we'd like.. they could however have thought TOA through abit more rather than rushing it out and completely ruining the game period.

A simple adjustment to OF/PRE TOA would have worked fine, example - add slight spell pierce to fix the high resist issues and possibly a few other fixes to keep everyone happy, but no mythic listened to whiney little american children on VNboards and it went down hill fast.

Well In my opinion it wasnt crafting that actually made the game so elite oriented but instead RA:s.

In the example above with crap casters running amok with huge amount of killspams etc, this was only made possible because of the effects of DI III, extreme bonuses to stats/spelldamage/crit chance etc. (same with resists on tanks that were hugly gained by RAs)

I think that crafting was a good thing, but mythic should have made RA:s alot less powerful together with making buffs timed (like aebuffs works today).

The bonuses you get from crafting/opted template are available to all, even newbie rvr:ers.
(granted it takes time but achivable without facing other players first).
Which is good so that the newbie rvr:ers doesnt have to be both outskilled and outpowered.

RA:s on the other hand works in a strange way, since it gives more powers to you the better you get at the game (assuming that you actually get better at rvr with experience!:) Making the poor newbies both outskilled and outpowered by experienced rvr:ers which isnt good. For it to be really fair you should get negative effects when you gain realmpoints. (kind of how Golf handicap works). But since that is not really viable in reality because people need a carrot else than "the challenge" to keep playing, atleast the powers should be lowered quite alot.

In my opinion only lvl 1 and 2 of the lowcost RA:s should be available and only lvl 1 of the high cost (5 RPS cost) ones. This would not only equalize the powerlevels of players but also force players to not only buy the great RAs but diversify abit.

Anyway thats my two pennies worth!:)

/Charmangle
 

Genedril

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iirc you could near cap everything but 1 resist using 100% quality gear.

When TOA first came out there was no way you could cap all resists + all stat caps & then stats + all of the relevant dmg adds (melee speed+dmg+style dmg or magic range + dmg + cast speed). Might have managed to do it for the heal stuff but that I doubt when all the aforementioned are done.

If there was at ToA release then I wasted a lot of time trying to eek every last thing out of a template & then think 'is matter really important'?
 

Genedril

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RA stuff...
/Charmangle

(Not cut because I think you're wrong - just space saving & a short reply)

I'd go with increasing the timers & all the actives. Put purge back on a 20 minute timer!!!! (Though it might have been 30 originally).

That way you may have more toys than your opponent but they may not be up & you're really not going to want to blow everything unless you have to. Then you run the risk of meeting some more people 3 minutes later & thinking 'arse, should have saved MoC'.
 

Fuggz

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Yes US classic has sc.. No toa and that's it iirc, but besides that everything else

Definitely puts me off trying classic. I had a go the other day thinking that crafting wasn't init. I wondered why stuff seemed so hard to kill in Thid. SC and buffs from potions means it isn't far off as bad as the Prydwen server was. I just can't be arsed with all that. Probably just me but it must make you wonder how new players cope.
 

Ctuchik

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When TOA first came out there was no way you could cap all resists + all stat caps & then stats + all of the relevant dmg adds (melee speed+dmg+style dmg or magic range + dmg + cast speed). Might have managed to do it for the heal stuff but that I doubt when all the aforementioned are done.

If there was at ToA release then I wasted a lot of time trying to eek every last thing out of a template & then think 'is matter really important'?

sorry, was thinking soft caps and resists only, as pre toa you couldn't get anywhere near the hardcap with the then current itemisation.

/edit: well you could but then u'd be more gimped then if u used epic armor :)
 

Syri

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In my view, there were several things that killed off the fun of the levelling aspect in daoc:

Ease of Power Levelling (PL): The introduction of the necro really caused a huge boom in PL, here was a class with little to no downtime, depending on spec and skill, that could just chain pull high spawn areas with ease. Didn't kill levelling by itself, but it sure took a few people out of the LFG scenario.

/level: Not so much at high end, but virtually killed grouping for the 1-20 zones, which was NOT a big help in attracting new players! Who would want to join a game where you have to wait 20 levels before someone will group with you?

Spellcrafting/Alchemy: Not that much of an impact really while levelling, as the cost of crafting and spellcrafting a set of armour and weapons every 5 levels just didn't make sense, but it did put some people off, meaning groups were more likely to be just for exp, rather than items aswell.

Final nail in the levelling group coffin though... Catacombs.
Personal, customised instances... repeat it as much as you want, tuned just right for your party, even if you go in solo... This was the absolute killer blow in my view, to an already struggling part of the game.

I know that a lot of people weren't so keen on the levelling aspect, and it was the vocal protests of these groups for the most part that resulted in these changes. It's a shame in my view, as a primarily pve player, as it killed the part of the game I enjoyed the most. Changes were needed, yes, but Mythic took all the wrong ones in my opinion. That's just my view though, and I'm sure a lot, especially the dedicated RVR fans, will disagree with my views.
 

charmangle

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You are so right!:)

(Not cut because I think you're wrong - just space saving & a short reply)

I'd go with increasing the timers & all the actives. Put purge back on a 20 minute timer!!!! (Though it might have been 30 originally).

That way you may have more toys than your opponent but they may not be up & you're really not going to want to blow everything unless you have to. Then you run the risk of meeting some more people 3 minutes later & thinking 'arse, should have saved MoC'.

You are right. That would help alot.

But there are still alot of RA powers that isnt tied to a timer that are way to overpowered. Healing chars having caster dex, Casters having way to high dex capping cast speed with ease, AoM increasing resists to rediculous levels etc etc.
Also, the question is, do we need the lvl 2-3 on those highend RA-powers. Isnt it good enough with purge 1, moc 1, charge 1 etc? It helps, but doesnt make the chars to powerful compared to their lesser skilled oponents.

When it comes to lower levels of chars, there really should be some kind of lvl requirement on using/wearing eq. As it is now it is way to easy to just craft lvl 50 eq, capping all resists and everything else for your lowlvl toons making them virtually unkillable by a normal player in thid etc. Its alot harder to actually make a lvl 24 armour for a lvl 24 player with caped bonuses.

/Charmangle
 

Shike

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TOA and then NF ontop of that killed DAoC for the most of the people I used to play with, tons of people quit a short time after TOA went live, then when NF went live it all went apecrap and DAoC wasnt fun at all.

SI-era was the best in DAoC imo, hands down.
 

naic

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TOA and then NF ontop of that killed DAoC for the most of the people I used to play with, tons of people quit a short time after TOA went live, then when NF went live it all went apecrap and DAoC wasnt fun at all.

SI-era was the best in DAoC imo, hands down.
Yo mister, come play Devon!
 

LordjOX

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Aya. Spellcrafting, /level, catacombs expansion and powerleveling everywhere made it less fun. In addition, there were quite a few cool zones to be explored, but after the first year+ most hibs atleast stuck to stand in queue at fins. (or realm equivalent)

TOA was actually a good expansion in my eyes. Sure, alot of hassles for the perfectionist guys to gear up. But for the average daoc player there was alot of new content to explore and alot of new challenges. And for the most part it encouraged people to group up to tackle artifacts, masterlevels and whatnot.
 

Shike

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TOA was actually a good expansion in my eyes. Sure, alot of hassles for the perfectionist guys to gear up. But for the average daoc player there was alot of new content to explore and alot of new challenges. And for the most part it encouraged people to group up to tackle artifacts, masterlevels and whatnot.

TOA was complete and utter crap during the first months after it came, so many things were broken that alot of players I knew back then simply just quit the game out of pure frustration. It also raised the bar PVEwise for RvR by alot, you simply couldnt compete on equal terms in RvR at all without grinding TOA for ages for gear and MLs and whatnot.. That also caused alot of RvRplayers to quit the game because they werent PVElovers, they just wanted to RvR. To create a character ready for RVR and compete on somewhat equal terms was fine during SI, you could make a simple template and just go and have fun, TOA ment that creating a new char that the guild maybe needed for RvR was pure pain and agony since TOA didnt work properly on so many levels. It took Mythic way too long to realise and sort the problem and after 2 years or so, things was allright but by then the damage was already done by TOA and since NF came aswell and killed what was left of DAoCs RVRscene. It went straight downhill after TOA and NF just further killed the already halfdead horse so to say. Most oldschoolers that played during SI will agree with me here. Sure, those who happen to love endless grinding in PvE will disagree but for me, DAoC was never a PVEgame, it was all about RvR and the challenges to be found there.

If most people agreed with your view, DAoC would still be a healthy good game with alot of people playing :)

I had high hopes with warhammer but it turned out that warhammer sucked even more :(
 

hjermudi

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They shouldn't tone crafting down, they should tone drops up! :D But I gotta tell tho, veteran players (or those who have played too much) can be some bitchasses. Take the doppelganger quests for an example; when it first started I thought "This is my chance to gain som realm ranks so I might have a chance in RvR!". What I got back from many players (of them, high RR veterans) was a lot of shouting and yelling about me being hooked up with these doppels and that I needed to defend the realm. I didn't really answer them too much, but they didn't forget me. "Oh, no no no! He were the one hunting doppels! Let's not take him in our group!". So to all veterans that think this could have been reffered to you: please stop bitching around when you see some changes (like a sword now has 18+ to strength istead of 20+, the whole ToA thingy, the teleporter has moved 2 feet away from where he always been etc. you get the point). And be open for all kind of people, like newbies. Don't complain about how people play, everyone get to the finish line their own way - all you can do is advising. If not, the number of players will continue decreasing.
 

charmangle

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...TOA was actually a good expansion in my eyes. Sure, alot of hassles for the perfectionist guys to gear up. But for the average daoc player there was alot of new content to explore and alot of new challenges. And for the most part it encouraged people to group up to tackle artifacts, masterlevels and whatnot.

TOA was complete and utter crap during the first months after it came, so many things were broken that alot of players I knew back then simply just quit the game out of pure frustration. ...

Howdi Shike!:) Long time no see mate, hope everything is great with ya!:)

Anyway LordjOX, I agree with you and in this instance disagree with Shike. Daoc never was a pure RvR game. Even though, it to the RvR prone public didnt seem that way there always were ALOT more players who enjoyed the PvE and only occationally whent to defend the realm in zerg/keep sieges ie. RvR, than there were players mainly focused on RvR.

A big problem was that the RvR public was alot more defencive of what effected them, while the PvE crowed mostly kept out of the discussions, just content with "smelling the flowers".

In my opinion Mythic could have pleased both these crowds and as Shike says (here I agree with him again!;) ToA was just way to broken when it came out. Today it is mostly fixed up for anyone to enjoy it or to just RvR and buy the necessary parts without PvE:ing.

Now days there are other stuff instead, like Labyrinth, Dragon quests etc (not sure how much of these are actually needed in a template today but Id doubt that the lack of them would make as much impact as ToA bonuses did back then).

In my opinion if Daoc was released as a new game today (or rereleased with all the marketing it takes to sell it to the public) it would be a huge success. It is case by case the best rpg based game in the world - both for PvE and RvR.)

/Charmangle
 

Shike

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Howdi Shike!:) Long time no see mate, hope everything is great with ya!:)

-snip-

In my opinion if Daoc was released as a new game today (or rereleased with all the marketing it takes to sell it to the public) it would be a huge success. It is case by case the best rpg based game in the world - both for PvE and RvR.)

/Charmangle

Haha, hi mate :D Yea everything is well, all the 3 kids and wifey is fine too!

And yea, its very possible that DAoC would work with the current format, if NF was removed or revamped alot ;) TOA isnt such a pain as it was in the beginning at least. WoW's PVE is better though, by a mile. Blizzard is very good at that part while Mythic lacks abit in that department. Anyhoooo, its not gonna happen I think :/ I too miss DAoC but I miss the old DAoC, not the farming in PvE etc.
 

charmangle

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Haha, hi mate :D Yea everything is well, all the 3 kids and wifey is fine too!
:) Great!:) Myself is finally moving together with my gf to a new appartment!:)


And yea, its very possible that DAoC would work with the current format, if NF was removed or revamped alot ;) TOA isnt such a pain as it was in the beginning at least. WoW's PVE is better though, by a mile. Blizzard is very good at that part while Mythic lacks abit in that department. Anyhoooo, its not gonna happen I think :/ I too miss DAoC but I miss the old DAoC, not the farming in PvE etc.
I agree, I dont think that will happen. As you know I dont agree that OF was a fun place to be!;) (I think OF made alot of newbies stay out of RvR because the it enabled the experienced players to farm them at chokeholds.)
But then again I agree that NF might not be the best thing either. Something inbetween maybe...for NF to work there has to be a HUGE population (3000+) on the server) and that is hard to achive. Especially with Laybyrinth introduced.

But Ive actually started playing out abit on Devon cluster, which have about 2k prime time. So might be fun for a while who knows!:)

/Hugs Chammie
 

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