Convene a BG council of players to improve BG play - or look to ways to improve this part of the game

Let me start with thanking the devs for the wonderful job they have done with Phoenix. It is a server that makes Daoc more accessible than it has ever been, and I think that is the main reason for its success. Daoc has never been easier to get into, and it is a legacy game where the bar was always higher than newer games. This is a major accomplishment in the history of this game.

The server has gone through many changes since it was released. As of late, the focus seems to have been on 8v8. Devs have reasoned that 8 is the full group size, and that it makes sense to balance with this in mind. That is a viable line of argument. However, the majority of the players are perhaps not partaking in 8v8. They are looking to other aspects of the game.

I fall in the category of players that have somewhat limited time to dedicate to the game. That means that I either solo as a stealther, or I join a BG with more groupfriendly classes. It is difficult to balance for 1v1, which I think the community readily understands. The BG part of the game is, in my view, the bread and butter for the casual gamer.

Long term, if Phoenix is to continue to be successful, this part of the game should receive increased attention. I would encourage the devs to reach out to the community and look for ways to enrich the RvR/BG playstyle. How can we add variety and interest, while keeping this playstyle open and accessible to all players?

I hope perhaps this thread can be a starting point to suggestions to add to this part of the game.

Fri 23 Apr 2021 4:30 PM by Nephamael

The DEVs primary focus before balancing 8v8 was actually zerg balance.

Only after feeling they accomplished that to a very good balance state they started looking more into 8v8.

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However i agree, zerg RvR is the first thing a new player can conveniently do in this game and the easiest way to have fun in RvR on this server, especially for a casual player.

So for the server health and the joy of the existing playerbase i hope there will be a lot of great ideas for improving zerg fun.

Here are a few wild ideas i had, when i frequently played in all 3 realms zergs:

1) Climb walls for all melees

- This would make siege fights much more mobile and active and not only a ranged control fight with all melees sitting around afk, after 2 rams are full and maybe shooting a catapult every now and then (veeeeery boring)

- This would buff midgard in general, which would imo not be a big problem, as there are always ways casters can play around gates and the center keep to find openings when defending.

- This would make it harder to defend with very low numbers, which would imo be a great thing - while it doesn't mean you can't do great RPs defending with small numbers, just not repel the entire siege as easy as now.

2) Exclusive BG leader titles

-As it is extraordinarily important to have someone who actually leads a BG to generate zerg action i think some extra rewards wouldn't hurt.

- Titles could be for siegekills/kills while leading a BG, taken towers/keeps as a BG leader, Leading a BG for xyz days/hours played, etc. - The minimum BG groupsize to get access to those titles could be set to 16 or 24.

3) More oils or comparable melee range defensive structures on the Walls of keeps

- (this would be especially interesting if option 1) was to be implemented, to open more reward for defending the outer walls vs melees)

-locations could be at the places, where melees can climb walls

Fri 23 Apr 2021 4:35 PM by Irkeno

gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Thu 22 Apr 2021 2:14 AM
Balancing on this level for anything but a fixed and fair / the same group size is absolutely futile. Daoc happens to have a group size of 8 and hence the target for class balancing decisions is 8v8 for the most part. You can't reasonable add anything that would help in 12 vs 40 encounter and even if you could, you shouldn't.
Pretty much all changes done with 8v8 in mind don't really have an effect by themselves in larger fights, certainly not on those with uneven amounts of players on either side. The only potential effects on those fights might come from the changes shifting how much a given class is played. E. g. you might now have seen more enchanter in the recent days to check out those spells but neither the single target disease nor the single target root should by itself have any meaningful effect when outnumbered or outnumbering the enemy realm.

The zerg / keep fight relevant class changes were pretty much limited to reducing the effects of field ras, e. g. you can only be affected by one twf and one st at the same time, or reducing the effects of some ae spells, like the wizard ae dot or the general gtae / assist mechanic.

Fri 23 Apr 2021 6:05 PM by borodino1812

Irkeno wrote: ↑
Fri 23 Apr 2021 4:35 PM
gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Thu 22 Apr 2021 2:14 AM
Balancing on this level for anything but a fixed and fair / the same group size is absolutely futile. Daoc happens to have a group size of 8 and hence the target for class balancing decisions is 8v8 for the most part. You can't reasonable add anything that would help in 12 vs 40 encounter and even if you could, you shouldn't.
Pretty much all changes done with 8v8 in mind don't really have an effect by themselves in larger fights, certainly not on those with uneven amounts of players on either side. The only potential effects on those fights might come from the changes shifting how much a given class is played. E. g. you might now have seen more enchanter in the recent days to check out those spells but neither the single target disease nor the single target root should by itself have any meaningful effect when outnumbered or outnumbering the enemy realm.

The zerg / keep fight relevant class changes were pretty much limited to reducing the effects of field ras, e. g. you can only be affected by one twf and one st at the same time, or reducing the effects of some ae spells, like the wizard ae dot or the general gtae / assist mechanic.

What is your own views?

Fri 23 Apr 2021 7:46 PM by easytoremember

Something that comes to mind that can be done for x vs 3x numbers is adding miniscule miss/resist curves against the side with superior numbers. I forgot what it was exactly but when you got a group of people making shots at the same target the individuals involved become very inaccurate in comparison to if they were shooting the same target alone. I think it was Counterstrike Source this always happened in. And when I say miniscule, I mean amounts that on paper look like nothing, unhelpful, and worthless. All it takes to allow someone to escape a mob is an unexpected resist here or there where the removal of hp doesn't happen contrary to expectation.

Sat 24 Apr 2021 2:54 AM by Takii

easytoremember wrote: ↑
Fri 23 Apr 2021 7:46 PM
Something that comes to mind that can be done for x vs 3x numbers is adding miniscule miss/resist curves against the side with superior numbers. I forgot what it was exactly but when you got a group of people making shots at the same target the individuals involved become very inaccurate in comparison to if they were shooting the same target alone. I think it was Counterstrike Source this always happened in. And when I say miniscule, I mean amounts that on paper look like nothing, unhelpful, and worthless. All it takes to allow someone to escape a mob is an unexpected resist here or there where the removal of hp doesn't happen contrary to expectation.

What you're suggesting is virtually the same as doing absolutely nothing, because the effect will, by your own admission, be unnoticeable or indiscernable from random chance.

Sat 24 Apr 2021 6:56 AM by

gruenesschaf

While we don't really do explicit balancing things around that part currently, the major points here were addressed, specifically (pb)ae los, gtae, field ras, pets etc. but also accessibility like full tank siege resistance and light tank climbing.

Also don't forget that the realm tasks are precisely for the bg playstyle and here we experimented until somewhat recently and potential new experiments are frequently discussed internally.