The best and worst things about daoc are actually the same thing. The fact that RVR is not in anyway limited or forced in terms of its number or scope. At it's best this produces natural, balanced conflict that colours the thinking of many of us about the halcyon days of our gaming lives. At it's worst it created completely imbalanced fights that pitch elite *neckbeard* gamers against casual pug's or 8man's v solo or zergs v 8man.
The most difficult thing for any game designer is to produce a system that has open sandbox RVR but where players CHOOSE to participate in fights that are more or less balanced. There is a reason that WoW and the like went for ranked arena PVP, it balances PVP in an artifical way so that developers don't have this heady problem. Add to this the fact that human nature is always to take the easiest route to a goal , and you have the hardest conundrum possible.
So how could this be achieved, to somehow make players CHOOSE to participate in more balanced fights?
1) have a huge difference in the amount of RP's for players of different realm ranks. Kill a RR1 or 2 on a RR6+ = say 10% normal RP amount. You want to reward players engaging others of similar realm rank so they will CHOOSE to fight in areas that have similarly experienced players, this might lead to player made 'zones' i.e 'dont go to odins, thats the RR6+ battlezone, newbs tend to fight in HW which is rr2+. More experienced teams could still go there sure, and some still would, but the reward would be so low that they would have to kill 5x the number of players to get the same RP as 1 player of equivalent RR.
2) Scale the amount of RP's gained for a kill based on the % of your realm in an area relative the other realms, i.e. for every 1% your realm outpopulates the next highest realm in the area you lose 5% RP on kills. This will force people to look at the pop in an area and move elsewhere if pop of their realm is too high. The current system of compensating the underpopulated realm is fine, but you also need to penalise the overpopulated realm(in an area) to force them to relocate
3) Have a large variety of tasks/objectives that all give RP. This will mean that there area always options to gain RP that casual players can gain without running into one of the experienced teams, they cant be everywhere at once. Make sure they are geographically diverse. This RP gain needs to be meaningful, you should be able to gain at least 5k an hour from these activities to make them worthwhile. Have the optimal RP gain being for 8 people, and above this the amount of RP's scales down to avoid zergs simply RP tasking from one point the next. The idea is that a casual PUG can take an objective, and that there are say at least 10 objectives available at any given time (above and beyond keeptakes)
4) Reduce size of groups to 5. This will mean that there is some chance of smaller groups overcoming the standard group of 5. Would also mean that those who are totally optimised for working as an 8 will have to rethink their strategies and maybe have less of an advantage over PUG groups.
Please give some thought to these ideas or add to them to avoid the inevitable cycle of elite 8man teams destroying yet another server for the majority of the population
The most difficult thing for any game designer is to produce a system that has open sandbox RVR but where players CHOOSE to participate in fights that are more or less balanced. There is a reason that WoW and the like went for ranked arena PVP, it balances PVP in an artifical way so that developers don't have this heady problem. Add to this the fact that human nature is always to take the easiest route to a goal , and you have the hardest conundrum possible.
So how could this be achieved, to somehow make players CHOOSE to participate in more balanced fights?
1) have a huge difference in the amount of RP's for players of different realm ranks. Kill a RR1 or 2 on a RR6+ = say 10% normal RP amount. You want to reward players engaging others of similar realm rank so they will CHOOSE to fight in areas that have similarly experienced players, this might lead to player made 'zones' i.e 'dont go to odins, thats the RR6+ battlezone, newbs tend to fight in HW which is rr2+. More experienced teams could still go there sure, and some still would, but the reward would be so low that they would have to kill 5x the number of players to get the same RP as 1 player of equivalent RR.
2) Scale the amount of RP's gained for a kill based on the % of your realm in an area relative the other realms, i.e. for every 1% your realm outpopulates the next highest realm in the area you lose 5% RP on kills. This will force people to look at the pop in an area and move elsewhere if pop of their realm is too high. The current system of compensating the underpopulated realm is fine, but you also need to penalise the overpopulated realm(in an area) to force them to relocate
3) Have a large variety of tasks/objectives that all give RP. This will mean that there area always options to gain RP that casual players can gain without running into one of the experienced teams, they cant be everywhere at once. Make sure they are geographically diverse. This RP gain needs to be meaningful, you should be able to gain at least 5k an hour from these activities to make them worthwhile. Have the optimal RP gain being for 8 people, and above this the amount of RP's scales down to avoid zergs simply RP tasking from one point the next. The idea is that a casual PUG can take an objective, and that there are say at least 10 objectives available at any given time (above and beyond keeptakes)
4) Reduce size of groups to 5. This will mean that there is some chance of smaller groups overcoming the standard group of 5. Would also mean that those who are totally optimised for working as an 8 will have to rethink their strategies and maybe have less of an advantage over PUG groups.
Please give some thought to these ideas or add to them to avoid the inevitable cycle of elite 8man teams destroying yet another server for the majority of the population