Hi guys,
First, I really want to thank the staff for setting up this box. It’s an awesome revival of a great game. Moreover, the nostalgia kick for the former live player in 2001-2004 “classic” era gets right into the feels.
I know how hard it is to set up this kind of server. I’ve tried and failed. Hence, the respect I have for the crew working on this. It’s at the same time technically tricky and hard on the mind with all the human resource to manage. When I say HR, it’s both the inside and the outside. Mostly the outside, actually. A player base is probably worse than any herd to manage, especially 30yo+ entitled spoilt brats playing on a free shard and wanting fun through ego boosting after not being able to reach 6L 15 years ago.
As a background I started in 2001, played live mostly, on every realm. I played casual, I played hardcore. I played solo, and in a fixed team. I went through the original game (no RA, no immunes hihi), through SI, TOA and quit after a few months of boredom in NF. I have around 1000 days of actual played on Daoc. Not something to be actually prouf of...
I’ve played on Phoenix a few months. The PVE is in my opinion very well balanced and designed. Good time to level, a few dungeons for feathers, quite easy to SC and find the ROGs you need. It’s a bit zergy and not of the utmost interest to do this but hey, it’s that or a 4 months leveling classing process or a /lvl 50 command. I find this, with my play time but obviously this is personal, actually very well done.
This box has a very active team, communicating well, easy to reach. It's the first time I've experienced this to this level. There are some minor fixes that would be great but to be honest, if we just had the game as it is right now WITHOUT some of the fixes, it would be close to perfect.
However, I read the forums and I’m a bit surprised by what the outcomes are. People complain a lot. They want fixes, changes, so called “improvements”. They ask for nerfs, ups. Basically they want the game to change around them so it fits better. It’s a very strange way of considering a game. The game is what it is, and you should adapt to it. The game should only marginally adapt to you. Blaming the game for losing and requesting a change you think would have helped you win is not a good lesson from a death... Just get better.
That's why I want to come back on some QoL items that were implemented. I'm not asking for nerfs or ups. More asking to just let the things how they were.
1/Let me address the combined 10 mins regen potion issue first.
Sta and mana are the 2 resources to manage during your fight. Whether you are a caster or an hybrid you have the 2 to manage. Only the one in case of a pure melee but you still want to manage your casters and the opponents’ sta and mana reserves.
Originally, Mid didn’t have sta regen. Nor Alb. It was a bit unbalanced, although when you were considering the insane damages a Zerk would do, you were happy he could only throw in a few double frosts before having to actually sit during the fight (yes). After everyone got their sta regen class, we had a bit of a more balanced situation.
The shaman kill used to cut Mid sta (after they quickly fixed the original 10 mins duration sta buff not depending on conc). Cutting mid sta was a major hindrance for their assist obviously and there was little they could do to regain some sta. They had regen 3 pots that lasted 1 mins and used 1 full space for 1 charge in the inventory. It was a scarce use but still, you could go with it. Today’s meta with perma endu 3 on everyone makes it way too easy on the mid tanks. They can run out of range of the shaman, shaman can die, they can still perma sprint easily without care. They don’t actually even need a shaman in a small man set up with the combined force + combined regen.
The change is even more drastic on the alb group since it changes the whole set up. Albion has a lot of overpowered classes individually. The minstrel, the sorc, the cabalist, the theurgist are all very powerful. But. But you had to choose because the minimal viable set was Clericx2, Sorc, Minstrel, Pal. Then you had 3 slots left and you couldn’t have it all. It explains a lot the alb zerg we witnessed for years on all the servers in the world. It’s not a surprise, to have a good Alb set up you actually need 2 groups ! But that’s what it was and some teams really leveraged the Alb power whether in a melee or caster group. Today, some alb set ups that defy the balance. Not needing a Pal in your group extends some room for an additional caster with pet(s). Or a friar. Or more melee. The set up itself can be way more powerful than intended, especially a full caster group. They can sprint all day long and back, leverage so many pets, while not sacrificing anything. You can simply have it all. Easily. On the side, I’ve read people find the minstrel too powerful. It’s not. Just remember the same minstrel with less stamina. Without tireless, as it was. A minstrel couldn’t hold speed 6 + a pet without a Paladin. The paladin had a short song range and you needed to stay quite close. You needed the sta. Replace any class by a paladin and your Alb group is less powerful and more balanced.
As for hib, it’s quite the same. Killing the bard won’t cut the sta anymore. The best you’ll do is cut some base buffs. Bards don’t even twist songs for most of them. Why would they ? Also, casters can sprint forever and pure melees just can’t cope even if they are in sta range. The consequences is the over extend and back meta. It sucks and basically brings the game to who will call in or fall onto another team of their realm. This is over with no or little sta. I’m not saying the full back game is not skilled and that people doing it are not doing it well. It just has less to do with luck than skill in the long run.
TL;DR : sta needs to be managed again for balance, please remove 10mins combined regens. Or disable them in fight at least.
2/Now, the buff pots.
Why would you want this ?
I’m reading this :
1- It’s the purpose of being grouped with a buffer.
2- Why would you need buffs ? If you want buffs, groupe a buffer.
3- Why would you want charges already, if you want buffs, get a buffer.
1bis- If you give to everyone basically free what your buffer gives you, you nerf your buffer indirectly, at least the buff line hence up other lines hence unbalance the game.
2bis- If you want buff you’ll need to group. This is a MMO, it’s how it’s supposed to be. If you want everyone to have the same things with the same changes and all very well mirrored, this is not DAOC, change game.
3bis- If you want charges, create some that are NOT already an ability of a class you would indirectly nerf. For instance, since we’re at it, why don’t we have a speed5 shot in the combined potions ? Isn’t it unfair some classes can speed and some not ? Well some can buff and some can’t.
Having potions in this game should be like Realm Abilities. Something you need to use at the proper moment in a limited time. Also, potions should have to be managed, 1 shot = 1 slot. If you want more, make more, but you need to struggle with them, not have 10 barrels of 100 shots each in your pockets. That’s not how the game is designed and balanced.
I see the trend is to UP the potions to “balance” some stuff. All I see is a never ending race for balance when somehow, more or less but probably more, this game is originally one of the most balanced non-mirror trifaction game. This is why we love it. Trying to turn this into something more balanced is actually unbalancing.
TL; DR : take out buff potions. Buffs are for buffers and their groups. Or self.
3/NF RAs are poorly designed.
They are unbalancing the core of the game. A realm abilities is a scarce tool to be used at the very good moment to make a difference. They are also a way to balance the game between high ranks and low ranks.
1- Timers. The 15 mins, 10mins, even 5 mins timer on purge is stupid and renders moot the gameplay against the sheer Realm Rank. Take a perfect strike mezz by your average 3L healer on a cool inc, you get up to 6 instant purges by a 8L group. This doesn’t hurt, it’s what is supposed to be. The 8L group will win. NP. With 10 mins timers, next time the healer manages his mezz, the 8L group purges again. It’s a tribute to being a poor player and just need play time. Basically a better group can’t win against a worse but higher rank group. A 8L group with purge/bof/sos/pr/twf/group purge down is not a 8L group anymore and can be taken by a willing 4L group.
Make it 30 mins again.
Also, a good group used to be able to take down huge trains. Because you could strike mezz, pbae, root, manage dozens of poor players. A 8L+ group, well played could stand in front of several groups and win. It’s barely possible now with all the RA timers. And determination…
2- Determination is a game breaker on a class with heavy interrupt abilities. Those classes are supposed to get managed. You need to root/ns/mezz them. Not being able to mezz a skald or a warden makes no sense and unbalances the game for instance.
3- Mirrored RA. This game is balanced with non mirror classes. It was balanced with the OF RAs. We played for years, discussed millions of threads to decide who was the most powerful. Because actually, it’s quite impossible to tell and everything is quite situational. Please keep SOS and BOF where they belong, in Alb. Ichor, PR, in Mid. Group purge, TWF, in Hib. Just as an imbalance you’ll see that removing group purge from Hib makes it so there is a mandatory Mentalist to get a second demezz in the group where you have a minstrel and a sorc or 2 healers. SOS and BoF made it for the lack of impact of Alb group (the one with the Pal obviously…) and the lack of the 3rd healer (vs bard/warden or sham) when you didn’t have the friar (but then again if you had it then cleric-cleric-sorc-minstrel-pal-friar would leave you with one 2 main dps and obviously a need for SOS and BoF… Ichor was for Mid as the only tool to fall back and PR was obvious for the need of impact since longer fights would not suit mid a lot (still no sta after the shaman is dead or he needs to rebuff…). This was balanced.
4- This leads to the actual stealth war of this server. I don’t have the exact numbers but I feel the stealther population is over represented. Probably many reasons to this. One being it’s possible to log, play a bit, delog. You don’t need to look for a group and this is perfect for casual play. The second is probably the excitement, the tension, looking for the right target, pick the fight, hope for a good outcome and all. But those two reasons are only to play a stealther. It’s fun. What I’m addressing here is the over population. And the main reason for the over population is it’s too easy. Waaaay to easy. And what used to be a nice risk/reward game with high risk and high reward is just a low risk high reward game nowadays. Two reasons again : no predator. Only stealthers can hunt stealthers and not even all of them. We used to have the magical third eye on the rangers/hunters/scouts. They would regulate the intake of pure melee stealthers. Hunters would also be able to prevent them to restealth. Not only don’t they have the predators, they can hide whenever. A pet attack would find you and kill you. You would have to make sure it didn’t happen. Second reason is vanish. This makes the risk waaaaay lower than what it should. Vanish breaks the stealther game. They are able to attack pretty much anything with a panic button on. Add to this the purge every 10 mins and you are basically very hard to kill every 7-10 mins which is probably most of the fights. Again, the fact they can sprint + heal + buff all day is making this even easier but this is probably not the core of the issue. The issue is not for them to be able to afk kill mostly anything but a few classes, the issue is they can escape too easily. Bring back Vanish to the infil only on a 30 mins timer.
TL;DR : bring back OF RAs. They were balanced. NF RAs are not.
Stealth war addendum : being good at this game means taking the right choice, the right moment, the right opportunity, to do the right thing. Being able to pop-kill-vanish every 15 mins on anything is not what makes you good as much as it can boost your e-ego. I read stealthers complain about not being able to kill a monk and request a nerf. I read stealthers complain about not being able to kill a necro. Or a cave shaman. Or, or, or. God. It’s funny I’ve never read “don’t you find it’s way too easy to kill a casters and they pretty much have 0 chance if we have either purge or vanish up which is probably 90% of the time or happening in 5 mins ? “. Please stop complaining and just play your OP class. If it sucked so much you wouldn’t play it. Or if you were that good, you would win and wouldn’t be asking for nerfs.
Realm task addendum : please cap intake of tasks at RR5. You don’t need to have 11L with 1M+ rps of tasks. This is the equivalent of a 6L rank with TASKS ONLY. I get the task implementation is for low ranks to be able to get some RPs without having to kill 11L groups with radar (no name,no shame). Then keep it to low ranks. After 5L, you should be able to not get the welfare RPs the tasks are. Keep the Keep take RPs though, this has proven to be a good feature. People actually farm keeps and fights happen. Also, bringing back OF RAs will not enable 11L group to purge every 5/10 mins meaning every fight. They will eventually lose to lower ranks. Hence enabling lower ranks to get RPs and up…
TL;DR : You created a wonderful box with lots of good ideas. Please keep the game as original and classic in PVP as it was. You’re doing this because you loved the game. If you change the game you loved it’s not what you loved any more…
I wanted to split this in different threads but felt this was like a one deal : balancing.
Now if you actually did read all this - although i doubt it - flame on
First, I really want to thank the staff for setting up this box. It’s an awesome revival of a great game. Moreover, the nostalgia kick for the former live player in 2001-2004 “classic” era gets right into the feels.
I know how hard it is to set up this kind of server. I’ve tried and failed. Hence, the respect I have for the crew working on this. It’s at the same time technically tricky and hard on the mind with all the human resource to manage. When I say HR, it’s both the inside and the outside. Mostly the outside, actually. A player base is probably worse than any herd to manage, especially 30yo+ entitled spoilt brats playing on a free shard and wanting fun through ego boosting after not being able to reach 6L 15 years ago.
As a background I started in 2001, played live mostly, on every realm. I played casual, I played hardcore. I played solo, and in a fixed team. I went through the original game (no RA, no immunes hihi), through SI, TOA and quit after a few months of boredom in NF. I have around 1000 days of actual played on Daoc. Not something to be actually prouf of...
I’ve played on Phoenix a few months. The PVE is in my opinion very well balanced and designed. Good time to level, a few dungeons for feathers, quite easy to SC and find the ROGs you need. It’s a bit zergy and not of the utmost interest to do this but hey, it’s that or a 4 months leveling classing process or a /lvl 50 command. I find this, with my play time but obviously this is personal, actually very well done.
This box has a very active team, communicating well, easy to reach. It's the first time I've experienced this to this level. There are some minor fixes that would be great but to be honest, if we just had the game as it is right now WITHOUT some of the fixes, it would be close to perfect.
However, I read the forums and I’m a bit surprised by what the outcomes are. People complain a lot. They want fixes, changes, so called “improvements”. They ask for nerfs, ups. Basically they want the game to change around them so it fits better. It’s a very strange way of considering a game. The game is what it is, and you should adapt to it. The game should only marginally adapt to you. Blaming the game for losing and requesting a change you think would have helped you win is not a good lesson from a death... Just get better.
That's why I want to come back on some QoL items that were implemented. I'm not asking for nerfs or ups. More asking to just let the things how they were.
1/Let me address the combined 10 mins regen potion issue first.
Sta and mana are the 2 resources to manage during your fight. Whether you are a caster or an hybrid you have the 2 to manage. Only the one in case of a pure melee but you still want to manage your casters and the opponents’ sta and mana reserves.
Originally, Mid didn’t have sta regen. Nor Alb. It was a bit unbalanced, although when you were considering the insane damages a Zerk would do, you were happy he could only throw in a few double frosts before having to actually sit during the fight (yes). After everyone got their sta regen class, we had a bit of a more balanced situation.
The shaman kill used to cut Mid sta (after they quickly fixed the original 10 mins duration sta buff not depending on conc). Cutting mid sta was a major hindrance for their assist obviously and there was little they could do to regain some sta. They had regen 3 pots that lasted 1 mins and used 1 full space for 1 charge in the inventory. It was a scarce use but still, you could go with it. Today’s meta with perma endu 3 on everyone makes it way too easy on the mid tanks. They can run out of range of the shaman, shaman can die, they can still perma sprint easily without care. They don’t actually even need a shaman in a small man set up with the combined force + combined regen.
The change is even more drastic on the alb group since it changes the whole set up. Albion has a lot of overpowered classes individually. The minstrel, the sorc, the cabalist, the theurgist are all very powerful. But. But you had to choose because the minimal viable set was Clericx2, Sorc, Minstrel, Pal. Then you had 3 slots left and you couldn’t have it all. It explains a lot the alb zerg we witnessed for years on all the servers in the world. It’s not a surprise, to have a good Alb set up you actually need 2 groups ! But that’s what it was and some teams really leveraged the Alb power whether in a melee or caster group. Today, some alb set ups that defy the balance. Not needing a Pal in your group extends some room for an additional caster with pet(s). Or a friar. Or more melee. The set up itself can be way more powerful than intended, especially a full caster group. They can sprint all day long and back, leverage so many pets, while not sacrificing anything. You can simply have it all. Easily. On the side, I’ve read people find the minstrel too powerful. It’s not. Just remember the same minstrel with less stamina. Without tireless, as it was. A minstrel couldn’t hold speed 6 + a pet without a Paladin. The paladin had a short song range and you needed to stay quite close. You needed the sta. Replace any class by a paladin and your Alb group is less powerful and more balanced.
As for hib, it’s quite the same. Killing the bard won’t cut the sta anymore. The best you’ll do is cut some base buffs. Bards don’t even twist songs for most of them. Why would they ? Also, casters can sprint forever and pure melees just can’t cope even if they are in sta range. The consequences is the over extend and back meta. It sucks and basically brings the game to who will call in or fall onto another team of their realm. This is over with no or little sta. I’m not saying the full back game is not skilled and that people doing it are not doing it well. It just has less to do with luck than skill in the long run.
TL;DR : sta needs to be managed again for balance, please remove 10mins combined regens. Or disable them in fight at least.
2/Now, the buff pots.
Why would you want this ?
I’m reading this :
1) If you are grouped with a buffer you are buffed by the buffer and don't need to use any charges / potions except for maybe useless things like str on caster
2) If you are solo / small man without a buffer, you use the combined buff potion and are done
3) Don't devalue existing sc/dq charge items
1- It’s the purpose of being grouped with a buffer.
2- Why would you need buffs ? If you want buffs, groupe a buffer.
3- Why would you want charges already, if you want buffs, get a buffer.
1bis- If you give to everyone basically free what your buffer gives you, you nerf your buffer indirectly, at least the buff line hence up other lines hence unbalance the game.
2bis- If you want buff you’ll need to group. This is a MMO, it’s how it’s supposed to be. If you want everyone to have the same things with the same changes and all very well mirrored, this is not DAOC, change game.
3bis- If you want charges, create some that are NOT already an ability of a class you would indirectly nerf. For instance, since we’re at it, why don’t we have a speed5 shot in the combined potions ? Isn’t it unfair some classes can speed and some not ? Well some can buff and some can’t.
Having potions in this game should be like Realm Abilities. Something you need to use at the proper moment in a limited time. Also, potions should have to be managed, 1 shot = 1 slot. If you want more, make more, but you need to struggle with them, not have 10 barrels of 100 shots each in your pockets. That’s not how the game is designed and balanced.
I see the trend is to UP the potions to “balance” some stuff. All I see is a never ending race for balance when somehow, more or less but probably more, this game is originally one of the most balanced non-mirror trifaction game. This is why we love it. Trying to turn this into something more balanced is actually unbalancing.
TL; DR : take out buff potions. Buffs are for buffers and their groups. Or self.
3/NF RAs are poorly designed.
They are unbalancing the core of the game. A realm abilities is a scarce tool to be used at the very good moment to make a difference. They are also a way to balance the game between high ranks and low ranks.
1- Timers. The 15 mins, 10mins, even 5 mins timer on purge is stupid and renders moot the gameplay against the sheer Realm Rank. Take a perfect strike mezz by your average 3L healer on a cool inc, you get up to 6 instant purges by a 8L group. This doesn’t hurt, it’s what is supposed to be. The 8L group will win. NP. With 10 mins timers, next time the healer manages his mezz, the 8L group purges again. It’s a tribute to being a poor player and just need play time. Basically a better group can’t win against a worse but higher rank group. A 8L group with purge/bof/sos/pr/twf/group purge down is not a 8L group anymore and can be taken by a willing 4L group.
Make it 30 mins again.
Also, a good group used to be able to take down huge trains. Because you could strike mezz, pbae, root, manage dozens of poor players. A 8L+ group, well played could stand in front of several groups and win. It’s barely possible now with all the RA timers. And determination…
2- Determination is a game breaker on a class with heavy interrupt abilities. Those classes are supposed to get managed. You need to root/ns/mezz them. Not being able to mezz a skald or a warden makes no sense and unbalances the game for instance.
3- Mirrored RA. This game is balanced with non mirror classes. It was balanced with the OF RAs. We played for years, discussed millions of threads to decide who was the most powerful. Because actually, it’s quite impossible to tell and everything is quite situational. Please keep SOS and BOF where they belong, in Alb. Ichor, PR, in Mid. Group purge, TWF, in Hib. Just as an imbalance you’ll see that removing group purge from Hib makes it so there is a mandatory Mentalist to get a second demezz in the group where you have a minstrel and a sorc or 2 healers. SOS and BoF made it for the lack of impact of Alb group (the one with the Pal obviously…) and the lack of the 3rd healer (vs bard/warden or sham) when you didn’t have the friar (but then again if you had it then cleric-cleric-sorc-minstrel-pal-friar would leave you with one 2 main dps and obviously a need for SOS and BoF… Ichor was for Mid as the only tool to fall back and PR was obvious for the need of impact since longer fights would not suit mid a lot (still no sta after the shaman is dead or he needs to rebuff…). This was balanced.
4- This leads to the actual stealth war of this server. I don’t have the exact numbers but I feel the stealther population is over represented. Probably many reasons to this. One being it’s possible to log, play a bit, delog. You don’t need to look for a group and this is perfect for casual play. The second is probably the excitement, the tension, looking for the right target, pick the fight, hope for a good outcome and all. But those two reasons are only to play a stealther. It’s fun. What I’m addressing here is the over population. And the main reason for the over population is it’s too easy. Waaaay to easy. And what used to be a nice risk/reward game with high risk and high reward is just a low risk high reward game nowadays. Two reasons again : no predator. Only stealthers can hunt stealthers and not even all of them. We used to have the magical third eye on the rangers/hunters/scouts. They would regulate the intake of pure melee stealthers. Hunters would also be able to prevent them to restealth. Not only don’t they have the predators, they can hide whenever. A pet attack would find you and kill you. You would have to make sure it didn’t happen. Second reason is vanish. This makes the risk waaaaay lower than what it should. Vanish breaks the stealther game. They are able to attack pretty much anything with a panic button on. Add to this the purge every 10 mins and you are basically very hard to kill every 7-10 mins which is probably most of the fights. Again, the fact they can sprint + heal + buff all day is making this even easier but this is probably not the core of the issue. The issue is not for them to be able to afk kill mostly anything but a few classes, the issue is they can escape too easily. Bring back Vanish to the infil only on a 30 mins timer.
TL;DR : bring back OF RAs. They were balanced. NF RAs are not.
Stealth war addendum : being good at this game means taking the right choice, the right moment, the right opportunity, to do the right thing. Being able to pop-kill-vanish every 15 mins on anything is not what makes you good as much as it can boost your e-ego. I read stealthers complain about not being able to kill a monk and request a nerf. I read stealthers complain about not being able to kill a necro. Or a cave shaman. Or, or, or. God. It’s funny I’ve never read “don’t you find it’s way too easy to kill a casters and they pretty much have 0 chance if we have either purge or vanish up which is probably 90% of the time or happening in 5 mins ? “. Please stop complaining and just play your OP class. If it sucked so much you wouldn’t play it. Or if you were that good, you would win and wouldn’t be asking for nerfs.
Realm task addendum : please cap intake of tasks at RR5. You don’t need to have 11L with 1M+ rps of tasks. This is the equivalent of a 6L rank with TASKS ONLY. I get the task implementation is for low ranks to be able to get some RPs without having to kill 11L groups with radar (no name,no shame). Then keep it to low ranks. After 5L, you should be able to not get the welfare RPs the tasks are. Keep the Keep take RPs though, this has proven to be a good feature. People actually farm keeps and fights happen. Also, bringing back OF RAs will not enable 11L group to purge every 5/10 mins meaning every fight. They will eventually lose to lower ranks. Hence enabling lower ranks to get RPs and up…
TL;DR : You created a wonderful box with lots of good ideas. Please keep the game as original and classic in PVP as it was. You’re doing this because you loved the game. If you change the game you loved it’s not what you loved any more…
I wanted to split this in different threads but felt this was like a one deal : balancing.
Now if you actually did read all this - although i doubt it - flame on
)...