Improving task system and crowd management

Hello =)

So this server has a problem that we didn't really foresee : it's too good, so there are too much people !
As you can see here, not only does the population hasn't decreased after a month, it's even growing !

The result is that we have a very vivid server, which is good.

But the problem is that, as a side effect of the task system, the RvR population is always exploiting one map, and we end up being 500+ player in the same zone.
Resulting in lags and massive busses.

Don't get me wrong, bussing is a huge part of DAoC's fun for a lot of people, and I'm sure tons of you are very happy to see so many players rolling on each others every night.

But DAoC is also interesting because it allowed any fight scales to occurs. Massive zerg was a part, 8v8 also, smallman roaming and 1v1. Everyone could play how they wanted because there was always a map you could exploit to find a fight.
Right now, we tried to roam a bit outside the task zone but it's dead.

So I think we need to tune the task system so that people find it interesting to play on other zones.

But, we can't do that randomly.
We can't get rid of task all together, or people that didn't get the chance to exploit the RvR tasks system will not find it normal (and they would be right)
We can't add tasks on all realm all together or people will most likely play as if there was no task, so masses on Emain, which would be detrimental to Hibernia. Would be a shame to lose the balance we gained from the rotation provided by the task system.

My suggestion, although maybe not the best but we can discuss it, would be to make a two tasks rotation to split the zerg, while not allowing people to gain the rps of multiple tasks. When one task end, the other end aswell and they both rotate.

Maybe it would be interesting to test what would happen if we got rid of the task once a week, but provide a substantial flat boost to RP gained (for example : No tasks on Sunday but +10% rps)

Thoughts?

Wed 13 Feb 2019 7:34 PM by Dimir

I agree, we need to do something to make the non-task zones not completely empty without screwing new players over who haven't tasked yet.

At first I also considered putting tasks in two zones and only allowing players to get credit for one of them. The problem with this system is that it will make the realm population in each zone even more skewed. For example, if the two task zones are Hadrian's and Emain every single Alb will go to Emain because no one wants to run to Hadrians. Right now there are already way less Albs bothering with the Hadrians run (or hibs in Emain, etc). By giving them a second option they will all choose the other option.

Splitting the population: Random task by player/group
Give each player/group online a random task from a set of tasks. So for example everyone in your group might get "Fight in Emain" and I might get "Fight in Odins". By keeping it random on the player or group you would split up the population while still allowing the tasks to change. This is similar to the old RvR tasks where you could get kill mids vs kill hibs. If your group gets task X, and then you need to fill a spot with another player then no big deal, they just have to wait for the task cycle to end to get synced to your group. This sort of change would have to come with changes to what the tasks are and they'd still have to start/end all together.

Thu 14 Feb 2019 6:36 AM by jg777

I’d suggest adding Realm tasks for taking X many keeps and Relics, giving players worthwhile options to RvR around more. While many may go fight in a specific zone, others may decide to use that opportunity to try and capture a keep or two, potentially triggering a defensive response and therefore spreading the RvR out more.

Fri 15 Feb 2019 3:10 PM by Tritri

As stated in my first post, we can't just incentive mass RvR. Daoc is fun because you can fight at any scale.

Dimir wrote: ↑
Wed 13 Feb 2019 7:34 PM
Splitting the population: Random task by player/group
Give each player/group online a random task from a set of tasks. So for example everyone in your group might get "Fight in Emain" and I might get "Fight in Odins". By keeping it random on the player or group you would split up the population while still allowing the tasks to change. This is similar to the old RvR tasks where you could get kill mids vs kill hibs. If your group gets task X, and then you need to fill a spot with another player then no big deal, they just have to wait for the task cycle to end to get synced to your group. This sort of change would have to come with changes to what the tasks are and they'd still have to start/end all together.

I like this idea, but it seems a bit hard to implement correctly.
Right now the tasks are deisgned to last a certain time and to reward anyone who takes part in the fight.

I don't see how to make it work as a random task.

Maybe we could give Random Guild Tasks ? And if you have a group composed of a variety of guilds, maybe we can allow players to participate in an other guild's task for a portion of the task ? Allowing even non-guilded player to gain something from it ?

There aren't that many tasks or rvr zones concerned, so even if you have 8 people from 8 different guild, there will be at least 3 of them that needs to go fight on the same realm and they can figure out where to go

What do you think ? I'm writting it while thinking but it sounds like a pretty good idea to me

Edit : still need to figure out a way to not PL rp people that are not in RvR if the credit for the task is given to all the guildmates
And if it's not given to all the guildmates, need to find a way to decide what happen if player A from guild X is on the task and player B from guild X didn't manage to get here in time or was RvR somewhere else ?

Fri 15 Feb 2019 3:19 PM by Dimir

Tritri wrote: ↑
Fri 15 Feb 2019 3:10 PM
As stated in my first post, we can't just incentive mass RvR. Daoc is fun because you can fight at any scale.

Dimir wrote: ↑
Wed 13 Feb 2019 7:34 PM
Splitting the population: Random task by player/group
Give each player/group online a random task from a set of tasks. So for example everyone in your group might get "Fight in Emain" and I might get "Fight in Odins". By keeping it random on the player or group you would split up the population while still allowing the tasks to change. This is similar to the old RvR tasks where you could get kill mids vs kill hibs. If your group gets task X, and then you need to fill a spot with another player then no big deal, they just have to wait for the task cycle to end to get synced to your group. This sort of change would have to come with changes to what the tasks are and they'd still have to start/end all together.

I like this idea, but it seems a bit hard to implement correctly.
Right now the tasks are deisgned to last a certain time and to reward anyone who takes part in the fight.

I don't see how to make it work as a random task.

Maybe we could give Random Guild Tasks ? And if you have a group composed of a variety of guilds, maybe we can allow players to participate in an other guild's task for a portion of the task ? Allowing even non-guilded player to gain something from it ?

There aren't that many tasks or rvr zones concerned, so even if you have 8 people from 8 different guild, there will be at least 3 of them that needs to go fight on the same realm and they can figure out where to go

What do you think ? I'm writting it while thinking but it sounds like a pretty good idea to me

Without knowing the inner workings I can't confirm how difficult the change would be, but at first glance it doesn't seem to hard to shift the RvR tasks to be personal instead of realm based.

They could make the tasks start/end at the same time - or wait for each other - which I think would be fine with "Fight in X Zone" (match the #s) and with "Dominate X Zone" (make the tasks wait for all 3 to complete). The keep take task obviously cannot be matched up how it currently works, but to be honest this is the worst task right now. One solution would be to set a fixed time (you have 30 minutes to capture keep) and to remove the chaining of keep task into keep task (please!).

Edit: I don't think giving these quick tasks via guild makes sense. They could implement longer term ones and randomize those as well, but due to drastic guild size differences it might be a mess.

Fri 15 Feb 2019 3:23 PM by Tritri

How do we manage what happen if you have a set of different tasks in your group if they all rotate together ? I would suggest desynchronize them. But I like the idea

Fri 15 Feb 2019 7:13 PM by Dimir

Tritri wrote: ↑
Fri 15 Feb 2019 3:23 PM
How do we manage what happen if you have a set of different tasks in your group if they all rotate together ? I would suggest desynchronize them. But I like the idea

If you form a group, you might all have different tasks, lets say up to 3 different tasks as they would be the same type but different locations. When the tasks reset you would all receive the same task because you're grouped when it happens.

Fri 15 Feb 2019 7:34 PM by Dis

ur suggestions are good, but tbh. u are missing the point in gettin rp´s in any finished task...what does that mean, if you split the taskshit in 3 locations, u will be able to finish tasks in 3 differents zones what makes the rp gain even more insane.

people allready hitting rr8 after 1 month on this server. i mean splitting the whole zerg into pieces for different zones is a good idea, but they should really work on the rp gain.

they should drasticly remove the rp gain at rr5. decrease the rp´s by 80%, so actually people still get rps, but have to task and zerg alot to make it worth. i´m really sick of the zerg vs zerg tasking all day long, but nothing is more worth to get rps...

Fri 15 Feb 2019 8:01 PM by Dimir

Dis wrote: ↑
Fri 15 Feb 2019 7:34 PM
ur suggestions are good, but tbh. u are missing the point in gettin rp´s in any finished task...what does that mean, if you split the taskshit in 3 locations, u will be able to finish tasks in 3 differents zones what makes the rp gain even more insane.

people allready hitting rr8 after 1 month on this server. i mean splitting the whole zerg into pieces for different zones is a good idea, but they should really work on the rp gain.

they should drasticly remove the rp gain at rr5. decrease the rp´s by 80%, so actually people still get rps, but have to task and zerg alot to make it worth. i´m really sick of the zerg vs zerg tasking all day long, but nothing is more worth to get rps...

In my suggestion you can still only get a single task per cycle. I think in the OP's suggestion you could only get credit for a single task per cycle. So there wouldn't be any more RPs gained than there currently is. I 100% agree with you though, but how (this is an open question to the staff) can they decrease the RPs from tasks without screwing any new characters over? Possible idea: Have each character cap at X Rps from tasks forever. So once you've earned X RPs from tasks you can't earn any more. Seems good to me!

Sun 17 Feb 2019 12:04 AM by Dis

its to late allready, like i said allready. the whole thing about rvr on this server is about tasks and good grps (setgrps) can abuse that gain even more...
the time to do some drastic changes should be far earlier...its kinda sad, that daoc has to work like this. i leveled my merc a bit and joined the taskzone from time to time with lvl 25. i get the full rps for participating in the task...

thats just stupid sorry...they have to change something, RIGHT NOW.
cap the task rps so people actually have to do other stuff to get rps then tasking and zerging 24/7, but i guess, thats what most of the community wants these days...

Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:47 PM by Quik

Dis wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 12:04 AM
its to late allready, like i said allready. the whole thing about rvr on this server is about tasks and good grps (setgrps) can abuse that gain even more...
the time to do some drastic changes should be far earlier...its kinda sad, that daoc has to work like this. i leveled my merc a bit and joined the taskzone from time to time with lvl 25. i get the full rps for participating in the task...

thats just stupid sorry...they have to change something, RIGHT NOW.
cap the task rps so people actually have to do other stuff to get rps then tasking and zerging 24/7, but i guess, thats what most of the community wants these days...

The server only survives if the GM's focus on what the majority wants, not a few people here on the boards.

I see a shit load of msgs in /region and /advice and /as every night talking about how fun DAoC is again, compared to the same 10 people or so here on the boards who say it will kill the server.

I will play either way, but to alienate your new player base by taking this away now and leaving the vet's with all the RR's they got would just be telling the new players we don't care about them.

The server is still growing and the RvR tasks have more people on every night I play, but people still want this taken away?

Plus, as I said on another post, I see fewer stealthers now which is a HUGE bonus in my books, OMG just a few weeks ago I couldn't go anywhere solo without being ganked by an assassin/archer...now in the last week I haven't seen more than 1-2 of them.

Sun 17 Feb 2019 6:16 PM by necrolove1

Would be nice to See an NPC that allows you to select a BG/Group/Solo task. This task woulld be put towards a random zone. Honestly do away with Keep Tasks, these are just people suiciding on keeps and nobody is actually trying to take them.

What ever Devs do, they need to do somehting about these zerg on zerg on zerg mindless tasking.

Sun 24 Feb 2019 6:15 PM by Frug

necrolove1 wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 6:16 PM
Would be nice to See an NPC that allows you to select a BG/Group/Solo task. This task woulld be put towards a random zone. Honestly do away with Keep Tasks, these are just people suiciding on keeps and nobody is actually trying to take them.

What ever Devs do, they need to do somehting about these zerg on zerg on zerg mindless tasking.

Why? I like the chaos and frenzy of it all. Why does the game have to change just for you?