Phoenix needs seasons - Phoenix Freeshard

With a new lock down in Europe, we see a stable population on Phoenix but before the pop drops again, I think it would be smart to think about seasons on Daoc like most of recent games. It has been proved that regular reset has a positive effect on pop (example with PoE: https://steamcharts.com/app/238960 we can clearly see how pop increase every seasons):

- It allows dev to test new things with a safety net,
- It is easier for new/returning player to catch up,
- It encourages/motivates current player to test new things and play more.
etc.

There are ofc some risks:

- Seasons duration shouldn't be too short or too long,
- No one wants their 11L char deleted. A bonus related to total rps/highest rr/whatever should be transfered to the next season.

But imho it is worth it...

Mon 9 Nov 2020 8:23 PM by Cadebrennus

The only thing that should be reset are the Realm Ranks of the players and toons that RP farmed each other in the "solo" zone

Mon 9 Nov 2020 8:35 PM by Bradekes

Season resets are fun! But I think seasons should always be something that belongs on it's own separate server. I think if enough donate towards something like this we might get it. I'm not sure how much of a time sink/cost amount this would be for the devs to run two servers instead of one. This could also be used for balance changes/tests of new ideas without any permanent damage. People could always enjoy playing on the original server when a season implements something they find off-putting.

Mon 9 Nov 2020 11:03 PM by Hector

I support a realm rank reset. The fact that there are this many rank 10-11+ on the server already just shows you how much welfare rps imbalance the game.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 12:01 AM by Fugax

to be honest. i wouldn't mind a hard reset. Its just a game that we all play for free. I would be okay what. Mind you I have loads of toons rr5+.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 12:41 AM by JUSTNSANE

Yea, No. Lose too much player base.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 7:04 AM by Sepplord

a reset would heavily put me off of the game, and imo season benefit the hardcore players much more than the casuals
i don't have tons of time to play and i have basically put in all my time into a single char

but Sepplord, with a reset everyone would be on the same playing field, you could play anything you want and still be competitive

well...no, i couldn't. Within a single week there would be RR6-7 people running around, and i have logged MAYBE ten hours if i manage extra time for daoc.
Fighting RR10-12 with RR6-9chars is much more fun and bearable compared to fighting a RR5-7 with your RR2-3.
Seasons and reset only give the most dedicated and organized people an ever resetting edge to farm lower enemies.
It only helps a no-lifer join the server top-ranks without having to catch up first, but it leaves everyone else behind

PS: found my comment from last season suggestion thread, it shows how a reset would only close the gap in the first weeks, then heavily increase it until muuuuch later:

I agree with your sentiment, but it is a fallacy that wipes reduce the gap between the hardcore and the casuals.
The playing field is only quite even for the very start after a wipe, but very soon the hardcores pull away very fast but then they reach a point where the progress slows and the advantage declines.
Let's say a hardcore player plays 10hours a day and the casual only plays 1hour per day, both averaging 10k/hr (example numbers, pulled from my behind)

Day1 2L1 VS 3L3
Day7 3L0 VS 5L4
Day30 4L3 VS 8L2
Day60 5L2 VS 10L0
Day90 5L8 VS 11L0
Day120 6L3 VS 11L3
Day300 8L2 VS 12L2

So unless you want to wipe every month, the longer it goes, the closer the gap becomes. An "unfair" gap is created extremely fast in the beginning and it does take long to smooth out, but I'd much rather fight a RR12 on my RR8 than a RR8 on my RR4.

And keep in mind, this assume both have an even start. When you take into account that the casual might only play on the weekends, and the reset is on Monday...then the hardcore will already be RR4 or RR5 when the casual logs in for the first time on his RR1.

This also doesn't account for the hardcore getting bored after grinding out 8realmranks in a month and switching to another char, with seasons they are much more likely to pushpushpush on a single char and play a different char after reset.

And if you put levelling/goldfarming/templating into the equation things get even worse for the casual.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 9:01 AM by

gruenesschaf

Before any reply from us on this topic is taken the wrong way, there are no plans to have a reset / restart / seasons while the population is healthy. However, just to be complete, there are also no plans to keep going until there are 60 people playing in the end.

With that out of the way, a simple reset/restart is in general out of the picture as that wouldn't fix the underlying issue that caused the need for a reset in the first place, which leaves the choice between closing for good and seasons once an unhealthy population is reached.

As I wrote in another thread, restarts in general but seasons especially are dangerous, however, if it works out you end up with a launch phase each season start which is something many more people would enjoy than those that enjoy the general day to day action a couple months down the line. The next obvious advantage is that you can combine stability and changes: you pretty much lock changes while a season is going on followed by some "post season" time where changes are made and tested which will become the basis / setting of the next one.

Then in response to the quite common complaint that daoc is not really designed for seasons, also something I wrote in the other thread already: For most older games most freeshard players usually are already effectively playing seasons by jumping to new servers as they are released.
But there is no question that quite a few systems would have to be adjusted to properly facilitate seasons and hence a limited time. More qol / simplifications like account wide crafting or gold balance come to mind.

Sepplord wrote: ↑
Tue 10 Nov 2020 7:04 AM
a reset would heavily put me off of the game, and imo season benefit the hardcore players much more than the casuals
i don't have tons of time to play and i have basically put in all my time into a single char

but Sepplord, with a reset everyone would be on the same playing field, you could play anything you want and still be competitive

well...no, i couldn't. Within a single week there would be RR6-7 people running around, and i have logged MAYBE ten hours if i manage extra time for daoc.
Fighting RR10-12 with RR6-9chars is much more fun and bearable compared to fighting a RR5-7 with your RR2-3.
Seasons and reset only give the most dedicated and organized people an ever resetting edge to farm lower enemies.
It only helps a no-lifer join the server top-ranks without having to catch up first, but it leaves everyone else behind

If snowballing is undesired, which it most likely is, a solution would be caps. This could be time gated, ie every x weeks an RR is unlocked or population based e. g. cap RR at 3 until 1000 reached it, then unlock 4 when 1000 reached rr 4 unlock rr 5 etc.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 9:30 AM by Mrdoctore

Of course this server needs a hard reset. There are 500+ RR 10+.

you will see some ppl saying "i ll stop playing then" but most of them will keep playing anyway and u will have tons of players coming back for sure.

A New server / reset always bring a huge hype with 3k players 24/7 in the first months. Thats the best part of mmo games Imo.

And with the actual rp and xp gain/rate on Phœnix u can lvl up 50 in 1 or 2 days and u can get 50k rp per night in the zerg without any skills so the "time / casual argument " isnt really viable there.

What was the duration of the others freeshard before they brought a reset ? (And i repeat we gain way more xp/rp there so this duration should be shorter here than the others servers)

Lets hard reset !

Tue 10 Nov 2020 9:54 AM by byron

Hector wrote: ↑
Mon 9 Nov 2020 11:03 PM
I support a realm rank reset. The fact that there are this many rank 10-11+ on the server already just shows you how much welfare rps imbalance the game.

Or your option or mitigate the difference of the realm ranks with class balance. Let's see the last change : PD and AoM now have 30% value at lvl 9. But who can spend all the points to have it at 9 ? Only rank 9-10-11 players, so the difference is also bigger now. I think trying to balance the game changing high cost realm abilities doesn't help.

Let's take a light tank: his only scope is damage but as it is now the game mechanism (snare+debuff+cast) , he needs to think first on his survival :

Determination 9
Purge 3
AoM 9

It means that he needs to be 8L1 to have all of them and before thinking to increase his damage with Master of Pain or other RAs. While , for example, the sorc 11L0 has already PD at 9 and can sleep when the poor RR4-RR5 light tank try to kill him

For new players is very hard to enter the game and have fun.
So instead of waiting to be 8L1 (or quitting before that), nerf AoM and PD (so high rank player will not have too much advantage taking them) and give a base 25% magic resist with stoicism for light and heavy tanks. No real point spent but more survivability also for low rank players.

This is just and example.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 11:32 AM by DJ2000

Pro:
- Launch/Season Start "hype" influx of Players
- Patches/Changes/Balancing easier
- Every Season Restart keeps the Game "Fresh"
- New META/Skills/Classes/Builds/Setup Changes (Planned for spec. Season)
- Content Changes PvE/RvR (Planned for spec. Season)
- "ProPlayers"-friendly
- Game-/play /Knowledge /Mechanics /Abilities /Environment challenges Players each Season for Rankings
-

Con:
- Less Players after the Launch for "Day to Day" Gameplay
- Heavy Time investment per Season is required to Play/Achieve anything (PvE/RvR/Crafting/Gear) before the next Reset
- the Heavy Focus on META/Patch can be unfavorable (for some) for an entire Season
- No Long Time achievements (Currently)
- Player "Toons" (and Names) have no value anymore
- Casual unfriendly
- No feeling of "eternal 3-sided War", more of a "race to bragging rights" and the War(Faction) doesn't matter
- Unorganized Gameplay (easy to hop in) = Dead
- Less incentives to "Help" anyone outside their own "Bubble of Friends/Guild/Grp"
-

Feel free to extend the list.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 4:13 PM by Sagz

I would be OK with a reset, but how about have a little fun with it. Have a timer cap on a specific player, you can play that char until it reaches XXX time played, then that Players RR gets reset to 5L0 and play time is reset to 0, the character would still be level 50. The current realm point that player earned gets transfer by a calculation into either BPS or Feathers.

Example from a current character I have
RR 6L6
Play time is 9 days 22 hours
Put a cap on Play time for a specific character to 60 Days. For a reference that would be playing roughly 4 hours a day for 365 days straight.

@60 days say you hit RR10 which is 5,974,125 realm points. The Character would be reset to 5L0 which is 513,500 realm points
5,974,125 - 513,500 = 5,460,625 / 100 = 54,626 BPS or Feathers. Then that character play time would be reset to 0

If a player has not reached RR5 in 60 days played, @ 60 days played his character played time gets reset to 0 and he loses no RPs.

Keep in mind, this is 60 days played, not 60 calendar days.

I am not sure if 60 is too high or low, was just a number i threw out there, I am sure the Devs would know average play times etc with their logs and can come up with something more exact. Find out average play time to RR5 and average to RR10 etc. Or the time played to RR12. I am sure there is a calculation that is pretty fair, except for the people that are still seeking street cred in a 20 year old game, they will of course complain. You can also, give a specific title for the RR you got to before reset, or how many RPS earned before resets, how many total resets...etc.

Don't bash it too much, give it a thought, i have been on a conference call all morning so it was a quick thought while listening to people who do not know how to end a sentence. HAHA

Tue 10 Nov 2020 5:32 PM by FUINY7

Put ToA and reset RP with a cap for ranks that increase every months or so.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 6:13 PM by Bradekes

DJ2000 wrote: ↑
Tue 10 Nov 2020 11:32 AM
- No Long Time achievements (Currently)
- Player "Toons" (and Names) have no value anymore
- Casual unfriendly

Long time achievements could be handed out in the form of mounts/reskins/aesthetic pets and so on.

The second point could be easily fixed, they could make you char level 1 reset RR for your first page of characters so you can save your name for 8 characters slots which I think is plenty.

Tue 10 Nov 2020 9:48 PM by Stoertebecker

Honestly, i`d rather stop playing here or i would play on live than playing daoc seasons on a free shard.

There would be absolutley no longtime motivation if you know the server resets in 6 or 12 month.

Maybe on a seperate server....

Tue 10 Nov 2020 10:09 PM by Valaraukar

While the enormous amount of rr10+ players is, without a doubt, an issue, the reset would only have a huge impact to those who have few time to play and put so many effort to get to the point where they are.

Sepplord wrote: .....
It only helps a no-lifer join the server top-ranks without having to catch up first, but it leaves everyone else behind

......
And if you put levelling/goldfarming/templating into the equation things get even worse for the casual.

[/quote]

This matches exactly what I think about a reset. And with realm hopping and the almost infinite amount of toons that can be rolled on Phoenix there is no point to reset to let people try something different. Anyone who wants to try to play differently can already do it without any problem.

Wed 11 Nov 2020 2:47 AM by gotwqqd

It’s been a bit over a year for me
And I just got to the point where I have the classes I want and my crafters able to take care of them

Still need to farm feathers for them all
And I haven’t seen any meaningful rvr(solo for me) at a level where I feel like I’m accomplished. This solely falls on the fact my classes are all lower than 5L0, making it rather rough in most circumstances

Thu 12 Nov 2020 9:08 AM by Mrdoctore

On one side u will have ppl with new chars rdy to start playing Who doesnt want a reset ... but on the other side u have 500+++ 10L+ ...

Thu 12 Nov 2020 3:02 PM by Fugax

gotwqqd wrote: ↑
Wed 11 Nov 2020 2:47 AM
It’s been a bit over a year for me
And I just got to the point where I have the classes I want and my crafters able to take care of them

Still need to farm feathers for them all
And I haven’t seen any meaningful rvr(solo for me) at a level where I feel like I’m accomplished. This solely falls on the fact my classes are all lower than 5L0, making it rather rough in most circumstances

you bring up another good point. The server makes it that you need almost two toons to play here... For example, you mentioned you need to "Farm feathers". In order to do that you spend countless hours doing raids, DS or rvr "zerg" cuz thats where the feathers are....... For example, lets say you want to play a BM,Cabby,Hunter for yr main toon. In order to do DarkSpire you need to re roll another toon that is accepted into the meta for DS to farm feathers or rogs "sense the rog farm is horrible rate now". So now that you got yr meta toon all lvled you you have to farm for that toon to temp so you can in turn farm for the toon you started with to temp.

I bring this up because i see many saying they are "casual gamers" and such as yrself, and if the server itself would have a better idea of how to get feathers I think many could get to the end goal of "rvr". Then again you have players that only do DS for the bragging rights of a time completed, but they also control the market. Perhaps look at helping the casual gamers getting temped... Gold is hard to come by unless you make a specific toon to do so, and the drop rates and salvage are all too hell

Thu 12 Nov 2020 4:11 PM by Sepplord

"seasons" could easily only reset RRs and leave characters temped/levelled...
but imo it would still be a huge turn-away

if the alterantive is a completely dead server though, as gruenes stated, as a last ditch effort it is ofcourse worth a try

Thu 12 Nov 2020 6:44 PM by CowwoC

After a reset you might get a peak for a temporary period of time but after that the server would fall down to bottom like a stone. DAoC is just not made for such concept like seasons.

Before the server dies i would rather see Phoenix changed to a rvr server only. Cut out all the pve farming crap for gold, gear and skins, but leave some raids in for fancy cosmetics only but still achieveable for everyone - like ML raids for instance. Doing so would probably give the devs more space and time to focus on rvr related things to improve and balance rather to have all the pve hassle. Make rvr events instead of adjusting pve over and over again and people stay tuned.

Thu 12 Nov 2020 7:41 PM by Nephamael

you bring up another good point. The server makes it that you need almost two toons to play here... For example, you mentioned you need to "Farm feathers". In order to do that you spend countless hours doing raids, DS or rvr "zerg" cuz thats where the feathers are....... For example, lets say you want to play a BM,Cabby,Hunter for yr main toon. In order to do DarkSpire you need to re roll another toon that is accepted into the meta for DS to farm feathers or rogs "sense the rog farm is horrible rate now". So now that you got yr meta toon all lvled you you have to farm for that toon to temp so you can in turn farm for the toon you started with to temp.

I bring this up because i see many saying they are "casual gamers" and such as yrself, and if the server itself would have a better idea of how to get feathers I think many could get to the end goal of "rvr". Then again you have players that only do DS for the bragging rights of a time completed, but they also control the market. Perhaps look at helping the casual gamers getting temped... Gold is hard to come by unless you make a specific toon to do so, and the drop rates and salvage are all too hell

My first 2 lvl50 toons on Phoenix were a nightshade and a bm - i templated both with what i had from lvling them and did just fine in PvP (1v1, 1vx) - noone needs a weaponless template, not even mainhandless, and if you play solo you don't need some resists even.
You don't need galla chest or any feather item except heart of legion rly. Ablative procs on a 99% crafted outperform galla chest in many fights. A dot proc weapon outperforms a lifetap one in many fights too.

Don't think you rly need all that fancy stuff someone thinks is the best. All you need to do is craft a cheap temp and go fight. Phoenix made catching up to rr6 quite fast - now that theres so many high RRs you will lose many fights rr4 vs rr10 - but if you keep going you will also win some of them.

Thu 12 Nov 2020 8:01 PM by Nephamael

Before any reply from us on this topic is taken the wrong way, there are no plans to have a reset / restart / seasons while the population is healthy. However, just to be complete, there are also no plans to keep going until there are 60 people playing in the end.

While RR gaps are a reason for player frustration there is other unattended or not yet successfully attended frustration reasons that i urge the Phoenix staff to take on first.

Mainly: QOL of ALL playstyles needs to be constantly high for a satisfying playing experience.

I am primarily a solo player, but i also play all other content in DaoC.
While i am very happy with where 8v8 is at, zerging and PvE i feel solo needs to be attended by you guys.
The recent poll showed 27% of our still existing playerbase say solo is their primary playstyle, while even 47% say soloing is their playstyle 1-3.

So about half of our server pop enjoys soloing as one of their 3 primary playstyles! That is a huge ammount of players!

We had a couple of suggestion threats for improving solo QOL, i recommend you check them out once more.
-
My suggestion for an easy solo QOL frontier fix would be working on improving /fair toggle /fair list.
-Give it an automatic 125 RP reward displayed after a kill/death, for both players, after a clean 1v1 (the system checks for solokills anyway).
-Improve the location display for solos on the list. (solos are no speed6 groups able to freely roam around an entire zone, they need exact locations to find each other)
You could do it as in the flag tasks, just without the need of a task: Example: Jukaron is close to the river flag // Jukaron is close to Emain west bridge and so on.
-
While currently the main frustration causes for solos are a few smallmen and 8man dedicated to solo hunting and camping transition points it is not necessary to shut down their playstyle, as long as we give openings to the solos to find other solos for the majority of their playtime without a 10 minute walk to their spot (cruachan gorge/sauvage/uppland).
-
I also suggest that other than for /gvg for /fair toggle it is not needed to follow a fairplay code, so adding solos can get on the list too, seeing enemies and spicing the action up. - I know a lot of solos prefer /bow 1v1s, but i think the majority prefers open field incs with sometimes adds either way. (That one doesn't get boring fast.)

@gruenesschaf i will open a suggestion threat for this topic
edit: https://forum.playphoenix.online/get-involved/suggestions/27447-qol-for-all-playstyles-here-solo#p149372

Fri 13 Nov 2020 11:43 AM by inoeth

gitgut l2p and stop suggesting seasons for a game that is entirely not made for it....

Sat 14 Nov 2020 4:15 PM by Crazyphader

reset only for Old Frontiers. But its no reset planned so.....

Sun 15 Nov 2020 1:10 PM by Kyllikki

As Gruenesschaf stated, seasons are already here; pop on freeshard drops, server die, a new freeshard pop etc...
Even on live server seasons exist: it was called extensions and you could not be competitive without the new items or spells.

I'm not sure whether discussing why the pop drop is usefull, neither the fact that some players would be disappointed.

My point is that it would keep the community motivated if there were "officials" and fixed dates for a fresh start (a reset, a new server, or a new "extension", call it how you want, it can takes differents form).

Tue 17 Nov 2020 5:47 PM by joshisanonymous

Yeah definitely don't see a need for regular resets. Who cares if there are 500+ RR10s? At that point, they've either stop playing their RR10 character and started a new one or they're still playing the RR10 but have effectively reached the power cap, meaning anyone else can eventually catch up to as long as there are no resets.

Part of what I love about DAoC is the persistence of it. I like feeling like I'm in a living world, not some arena that flashes out of existence every 30 days or 6 months or whatever.