The Problem with Realm Tasks and OF

The bottlenecks.

The realm task is in Emain. The only objective is fight in Emain. So what happens?

Midgard rushes towards AMG. Albion rushes towards AMG. Then here comes Hibernia rushing from DL, running along the same path across Gorge, into Breifine, then into Emain. There are sometimes over 200 players doing this exact same thing. What does that create? An insane zergfest.

The proposed realm task changes are as follow: Phase 1 - Fight in Emain. How does that change the zerg problem? Then if Hibernia wins the task it switches to Hadrian's Wall, which is another total zergfest. All three realms are fighting over one objective, and running the same paths to reach it.
That is why it is so zergy. If you have objectives spread out across each frontier at the same time, then maybe Hibernia won't run straight to Emain fron DL, because instead they can do objectives in Mount Collory.

Removing the keep task means one less portal zone task. This does lessen the zerging, because now rather than another portal zone task, there will be a task in the center zones. However, the center zone task is just a kill task with 5 flags out in the open of the zone. That is all there is. You circle the 5 flags taking the same route, and to no surprise it becomes a zergfest.

I am not against zerging. It is important, but having such limited and static objectives is what is leading to such stale RvR. All three realms are running the same routes across the frontiers. All three realms are fighting over the same few objectives that exist in the same zone.

We have the population to support RvR across an entire frontier. Instead of the same routes to objectives and a task zone, why not have objectives scattered all over a frontier, so players no longer run the same route to the same objective over and over. They can leave their portal keep and go off in whichever direction they want in order to seek out an objective. The realm tasks need to be more creative, dynamic, varied, and objective driven.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 10:14 PM by Sepplord

As i understood it, the changes goal is not to fight the zerging, it is to removes the pointless keeptasks that (sadly) are not working as intended.

If you want a break from the zerg go somewhere else. I spent 30minutes in Emain today while the task was in hadrians.

I saw multiple solo's from all three realms, visibles and stealther, multiple smallmen from all three realms and two full-grps (1hib/1mid)

I also had 3 1v1 and before i had to log a three-realm-fight that started out with a 1vs1 being added and the adder being added by another

Ofcourse i might have just gotten lucky, it was my first test, but from what i saw and experienced it looked very promising. RP/hr wasnt as high ofcourse but funfactor was

Tue 19 Feb 2019 11:24 PM by defiasbandit

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Feb 2019 10:14 PM
As i understood it, the changes goal is not to fight the zerging, it is to removes the pointless keeptasks that (sadly) are not working as intended.

If you want a break from the zerg go somewhere else. I spent 30minutes in Emain today while the task was in hadrians.

I saw multiple solo's from all three realms, visibles and stealther, multiple smallmen from all three realms and two full-grps (1hib/1mid)

I also had 3 1v1 and before i had to log a three-realm-fight that started out with a 1vs1 being added and the adder being added by another

Ofcourse i might have just gotten lucky, it was my first test, but from what i saw and experienced it looked very promising. RP/hr wasnt as high ofcourse but funfactor was

The realm tasks are the focal point of RvR. This is about improving them. Realm tasks have tons of potential and could be so much more than zerg fights at milegates.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 11:47 PM by Afuldan

It isn’t the chokepoint at the milegates that I die at unless I get perfed coming through solo.

It’s the god damn funnels created by the zone walls around the keeps inside the portal areas. That funnel of death right before the zone walls spread around the keep. Makes it hard to attack and easy to defend.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 11:58 PM by defiasbandit

Afuldan wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Feb 2019 11:47 PM
It isn’t the chokepoint at the milegates that I die at unless I get perfed coming through solo.

It’s the god damn funnels created by the zone walls around the keeps inside the portal areas. That funnel of death right before the zone walls spread around the keep. Makes it hard to attack and easy to defend.

It is a lot of funnels and choke points. The zonelines, the milegates, the valleys of the portal keeps. These are all bottlenecks. The issue is that we have 4 frontier zones to work with, where there can be tons of objectives spread across them, yet instead the objectives are fight in one single zone. Open world PvP games without objectives guiding the players just end up as a zergfest, where the side with the most population wins.

The key is to have a variety of objectives and options for players in the realm task. This will allow players to choose which zone and what part of a zone they want to seek out. It's not just leave Drum Ligen and run through Gorge, Breifine, and into Emain using the same route, but instead perhaps run to west Gorge to capture a flag or run northeast of DL to farm a special mob camp or maybe search for a chest in south Breifine or taking Dun Scathig. All of these objectives would give players options and ways to contribute to their realms task score. It's a competition now after all.

Make objectives that are spread out all over the 4 zones. Have Zerg objectives likeEvern and a capture point that caps faster the more players from a realm are near it. Have small man objectives like killing mobs or finding chests or capturing flags. Place objectives inside Marfach Caverns as well. Put them in the remote areas and randomize some if possible. Allow players to complete these objectives in order to help win the realm task. This will be make realm tasks more dynamic and unpredictable.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 2:50 AM by Armsmancer

As a US player I prefer the way it is because it puts a pin on the map on where I can go at almost any time and find a fight without rolling over the hills of something like pennine or something hoping to find some rando out there.

The realm task system alleviates a lot I hope people acknowledge. It moves most of the stealther groups from camping a certain milegate. It makes most of the action predictable so xp groups can relax a bit more. It incentivizes realm cohesion to focus on a spot and that helps in ways that don't always correlate to quantifiable numbers, like making constant action in one zone an overall boon because a few minutes of no activity eats at people to log out.

It isn't perfect but so far the best system yet devised to keep people active and interested in pvp action. Previously you had to wait to hear something OTHER than emain action was going on, and it was a real test to get everyone interested in going there, now it is automated with a built-in incentive, which governs about everything since there is a reward and a good bet on finding a fight.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 3:36 AM by jg777

Players can take an active roll in spreading the RvR action out more themselves. For example, larger guilds/alliances could opt to initiate a Relic raid at any given time to generate alternate activity. The point of the Realm tasks is to create a waypoint for players to participate in RvR at any time and generate a constant flow of activity. This is targeted towards casuals. However, you don’t have to constantly participate in that either- the game is designed to create ways for players to generate RvR activity such as Relic raids and keep takes to open Darkness Falls. Players need to be open to trying to generate alternative activity themselves and not solely relying on Phoenix staff to fix/create the RvR experience they want.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 7:19 AM by Sepplord

emain is pretty active, even when the task is in Midgard/Alb, and i have found action in Hadrians when hibernia was being taskzerged too... (i asssume odins is similar, but haven't gone there outside of tasks)

players need to adapt instead of chasing the RP-treadmill and then complain that the game feels like a grind

Thu 21 Feb 2019 7:35 AM by defiasbandit

jg777 wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 3:36 AM
Players can take an active roll in spreading the RvR action out more themselves. For example, larger guilds/alliances could opt to initiate a Relic raid at any given time to generate alternate activity. The point of the Realm tasks is to create a waypoint for players to participate in RvR at any time and generate a constant flow of activity. This is targeted towards casuals. However, you don’t have to constantly participate in that either- the game is designed to create ways for players to generate RvR activity such as Relic raids and keep takes to open Darkness Falls. Players need to be open to trying to generate alternative activity themselves and not solely relying on Phoenix staff to fix/create the RvR experience they want.

Yeah and owning Darkness Falls and Relics doesn't really matter here so players rarely bother with it. They do the tasks mainly for the free RP, not because of the quality of RvR.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 11:26 AM by jg777

defiasbandit wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 7:35 AM
jg777 wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 3:36 AM
Players can take an active roll in spreading the RvR action out more themselves. For example, larger guilds/alliances could opt to initiate a Relic raid at any given time to generate alternate activity. The point of the Realm tasks is to create a waypoint for players to participate in RvR at any time and generate a constant flow of activity. This is targeted towards casuals. However, you don’t have to constantly participate in that either- the game is designed to create ways for players to generate RvR activity such as Relic raids and keep takes to open Darkness Falls. Players need to be open to trying to generate alternative activity themselves and not solely relying on Phoenix staff to fix/create the RvR experience they want.

Yeah and owning Darkness Falls and Relics doesn't really matter here so players rarely bother with it. They do the tasks mainly for the free RP, not because of the quality of RvR.

People complain in Albion all the time about not being able to access Darkness Falls. I’ve posted last night elsewhere concerning Relics and why they need to be returned to their normal bonuses for owning them which will make keeping and capturing them more worthwhile. However this isn’t something players can’t decide to change themselves, especially those unhappy participating in the ongoing zerg warfare. I’d like to see more player initiative here too, not just requests for Phoenix staff to make changes to modify the RvR scene we see now.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 1:40 PM by moe_Jiller

I never had any troubles with tasking and milegates, no idea what you re on to again.

You know you dont have to Solo and go to rvr task Zone do you?

Thu 21 Feb 2019 2:17 PM by dante`afk

Couldn't agree with OP more. The current system of realm tasks is bad, and I don't see how the overhaul is going to change anything. It forces a mobile carrot-on-the-stick zerg. All other zones get empty apart from the task zone. Solo or small man RvR is non existent due to this. I explicitly avoid task zones because of the zerg and I'm left maybe with finding 1-2 fights in 1 hour or even longer. Super frustrating.

The current system is flawed, majorly, and needs a change.

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 7:19 AM
emain is pretty active, even when the task is in Midgard/Alb,

Not true.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 2:32 PM by Sepplord

dante`afk wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 2:17 PM
Couldn't agree with OP more. The current system of realm tasks is bad, and I don't see how the overhaul is going to change anything. It forces a mobile carrot-on-the-stick zerg. All other zones get empty apart from the task zone. Solo or small man RvR is non existent due to this. I explicitly avoid task zones because of the zerg and I'm left maybe with finding 1-2 fights in 1 hour or even longer. Super frustrating.

The current system is flawed, majorly, and needs a change.

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Thu 21 Feb 2019 7:19 AM
emain is pretty active, even when the task is in Midgard/Alb,

Not true.

Instead of accusing you of lieing, like you did to me, i will find a different explanation and conclude that its only a problem in your timezone then...
during 20-23o'clock CET (yesterday and monday) emain was active when tasks were in alb/mid.

I don't think game changes are needed to cater to specific timezonepopulations not being able to adapt into other regions because they have to follow the carrot on the stick they all claim to hate that much.

Thu 21 Feb 2019 8:46 PM by dante`afk

Not accusing you of lieing, just my experience. Hence you might be right, when I get online during NA time it is as I described.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 10:50 AM by jhaerik

Look the only way they are going to salvage anything out of this mess of a system is just change it to where there might be several zones with active tasks going, and there may be 8-10 going at one time.

Seriously why run 8 separate groups to run one fricking task... when you can just zerg 8 groups in a giant clustercuck of AMG fighting.

Now if you have 8-10 objectives there would actually be a reason to split up. To make this work you'd need to lower the task reward for all rushing one objective in a zerg. Having more than 4-24 people receive a reward reduces the individual reward more and more and more.

Example 3 Task types.

Solo/Small man scale objectives.
Max individual reward 500 RP, Max RP reward 2000 divided by number of people completing. Think flag cap objectives.

FG objectives
Max individual reward 1000. Max RP reward 8000 divided by number of people completing. Think kill guards/caravans.

Multigroup objectives.
Max individual reward 1500. Max RP reward 36000 divided by number of people completing. Think keep takes.
However only the first realm to take the targeted keep gets the reward. The only defender bonus would be the advantage of holding the keep for the purposes of fighting.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:13 AM by Sepplord

Reducing the gains of one person because another showed up is just bad design and kills the realm community.

No need to incenticize elitism

Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:54 AM by jhaerik

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:13 AM
Reducing the gains of one person because another showed up is just bad design and kills the realm community.

No need to incenticize elitism

You don't need 70 people to cap a damn flag.

Let the solos/small man handle solo/small man things, and let the zergs do zerg things.

70+ people getting 1500 RP each for walking past a flag is beyond stupid.

We get less RP per person by having 24 people kill one guy.
We get less xp per mob by having 8 people kill a yellow.

Why wouldn't we get less RP per task if too many people are zerging it? Everything else in DAoC works that way other than the custom content Phoenix added that's causing issues. Task RP and SI raid feathers in a BG being two major ones.

Seriously how valuable to the Realm is that flag? Really. Are the Skalds/Bards/Minstrels all singing the accolades of the 70 valiant heroes who walked past the mighty flag or something? I thought RP was a reward for doing heroic deeds.... Not flag passing.

Killing an enemy group with a zerg is less rewarding than making a sandwich at a flag by a mile. It feels very wrong.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 12:00 PM by Sepplord

jhaerik wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:54 AM
Sepplord wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:13 AM
Reducing the gains of one person because another showed up is just bad design and kills the realm community.

No need to incenticize elitism

You don't need 70 people to cap a damn flag.

Let the solos/small man handle solo/small man things, and let the zergs do zerg things.

70+ people getting 1500 RP each for walking past a flag is beyond stupid.

if there are 70enemies on the flag you do need 70people to cap it (assuming equal skills/equips)

my point though, wasn't that the reward/effort ratio is fine, the point is that you do not want to create situations where game mechanics make people want their own realmmates to leave.
There is already elitism in game, why do you thing adding game mechanics to foster such behaviour are a good thing?

It's the reason why underpop-bonuses are good, while overpop-punishments are bad, although they result in the same thing relatively

Fri 22 Feb 2019 12:02 PM by jhaerik

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 12:00 PM
jhaerik wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:54 AM
Sepplord wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 11:13 AM
Reducing the gains of one person because another showed up is just bad design and kills the realm community.

No need to incenticize elitism

You don't need 70 people to cap a damn flag.

Let the solos/small man handle solo/small man things, and let the zergs do zerg things.

70+ people getting 1500 RP each for walking past a flag is beyond stupid.

if there are 70enemies on the flag you do need 70people to cap it (assuming equal skills/equips)

my point though, wasn't that the reward/effort ratio is fine, the point is that you do not want to create situations where game mechanics make people want their own realmmates to leave.
There is already elitism in game, why do you thing adding game mechanics to foster such behaviour are a good thing?

It's the reason why underpop-bonuses are good, while overpop-punishments are bad, although they result in the same thing relatively

Those same mechanics ALREADY exist. Having 69 other players help you kill 1 nightshade pretty much kills the RP reward does it not?
Forming a BG to farm blues kills the xp too right? Why should bringing a zerg to a flag ALSO not kill the rp?
Thematically would it not make a hell of a lot more sense for that warband of heroes to be doing something "heroic" like assaulting an enemy keep?

It reeks of Little League participation trophies,
"Ok children, just show up and you ALL get a prize."

Fri 22 Feb 2019 1:14 PM by Sepplord

jhaerik wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 12:02 PM
Those same mechanics ALREADY exist. Having 69 other players help you kill 1 nightshade pretty much kills the RP reward does it not?
Forming a BG to farm blues kills the xp too right? Why should bringing a zerg to a flag ALSO not kill the rp?

You have a point with the RP distrubution, the difference here is that if you do more damage you get more RP. So depending on the amount of participation the reward changes. The thing is, enforcing no add rules serverwide are impossible to enforce, and would also kill RvR as a whole.
And being added in RvR is already the prime reason of inter-realm conflicts.

The other two comparisons are heavily flawed though, because the big difference is that there are rules for/against those things. You CAN form a BG and kill blues if you wish to, but a BG cruising by in the same zone doesn't influence your XP at all, and if they grief you by hitting your mobs to kill your XP it is griefplay and will be punished.
Should a group of 8 need to make a huuuuge circle around a flag, if there are already people there, so they don't ruin the RP? When would it be exeptable to join the objective? When not? The complaints would increase, the interrealm-harmony would decrease. The game would give players Task where to go, but when they arrive someone is already there not wanting to share the reward. Would it scale over time? The solo that killed 3defender and then defended the flag for 10minutes suddenly gets his reward reduced because a group happened to run by on their way to a completely different place?

The current system is really simple and easy to understand, and you might disagree with the amount of rewards given out for free but if those are the intended rewards for casual solo participation, how do you balance it against an 8man doing it alone during low-population time. Then you would have to implement scaling with population and open a whole new can of worms

Fri 22 Feb 2019 7:22 PM by jhaerik

Well the DAoC I used to play never had any rules about that. People used to fight over XP camps all the time.

Yet again more bad phoenix changes that just cause drama.

Seriously someone needs to just launch a Mordred ruleset server already and stop with the over policing crap.

Fri 22 Feb 2019 7:28 PM by defiasbandit

jhaerik wrote: ↑
Fri 22 Feb 2019 10:50 AM
Look the only way they are going to salvage anything out of this mess of a system is just change it to where there might be several zones with active tasks going, and there may be 8-10 going at one time.

Seriously why run 8 separate groups to run one fricking task... when you can just zerg 8 groups in a giant clustercuck of AMG fighting.

Now if you have 8-10 objectives there would actually be a reason to split up. To make this work you'd need to lower the task reward for all rushing one objective in a zerg. Having more than 4-24 people receive a reward reduces the individual reward more and more and more.

Example 3 Task types.

Solo/Small man scale objectives.
Max individual reward 500 RP, Max RP reward 2000 divided by number of people completing. Think flag cap objectives.

FG objectives
Max individual reward 1000. Max RP reward 8000 divided by number of people completing. Think kill guards/caravans.

Multigroup objectives.
Max individual reward 1500. Max RP reward 36000 divided by number of people completing. Think keep takes.
However only the first realm to take the targeted keep gets the reward. The only defender bonus would be the advantage of holding the keep for the purposes of fighting.

That is what I was getting at. Have objectives you can only complete based on group size. Have these objectives in obscure parts of the zones so t zergs cant see them.