So I recently tried DAOC again, after having left the game back in January due to a combination of a new job and boredom with levelling. My return turned out to be a vast disapointment: it feels like the game is a ghost town, and the same complaints that existed in January are (mostly) still in force. But what really struck me is that new problems have cropped up, very serious ones, stemming from the game's focus on PvP. Unless the Shrouded Isles Expansion gives DAOC a huge boost, I could see DAOC getting hit VERY hard by competition from SWG.
After the succes of a PvP switch in EQ and the decided popular preference for the non-PvP world in UO (Trammel?), it seemed like the market had spoken and PvP in MMORPGs would be a secondary choice, with PvE the main focus. But the whole next wave of MMORPGs (DAOC, Shadowbane, AO, SWG [at least initially] ) had PvP as a focus during design. This has been discussed and it seems like designers focus on PvP for two reasons:
First, most of the designers seem to have a committment to PvP based on ideas about role playing, ideas about the necessity of conflict, the fact that they are mostly hardcore gaming types, and MUD experience. The designers are not a micro-cosm of the market, IMO the designers are out of touch with the market on this issue.
Second, if PvP can be made to work it can provide a great source of "repeatable" content for gamers without sucking thousands of designer-hours to produce new content. Especially if the hardest core players can be drawn off to fight each other (and keep each other amused), the content of a game can be made to last MUCH longer. Since there is really no way that designers can keep up with gamers' infinitely voracious appetite for content, it seems like PvP can be a godsend to provide some "free" self-generating content.
So for those reasons, DAOC had PvP as a major component of its design. And having seen it in action for about a year now (since beta 3) there are a number of downsides, costs and negative consequences to PvP designer. Here are a few:
1)PvP requires truly exquisite class balancing. One of the sharpest blows my group of friends took in DAOC was when they reached RvR levels and found that some of the classes they LOVED to play in PvE sucked rocks and were essentially useless in PvP. We started in Albion and a lot of folks played Armsmen, Paladins and Friars only to feel like complete idiots when they hit RvR b/c during the initial RvR battles they felt completely worthless. We lost about 2/3 of our guild that way and never really recovered. Pretty much every group of friends I talked to in DAOC had similar problems: the skills needed in RvR were different than PvE and even a slight class imbalance could cripple a player, given the fierce RvR competition.
2)PvP requires intense realm/faction/etc balancing. I don't think I've ever checked the DAOC main dev board without seeing a serious, well written and extremely frustrated rant about Realm balance. Of course web boards are a poor source but our remnant guild gave up on Albion in December due to Midgard being overpowered. There are similar stories. When Mythic then tried to fix things by nerfing Midgard, a chain reaction occurred that results in Midgard being the weakest (and least played) realm. During the spring, Albion was considered overpowered and now Hibernia is considered dominating.
Both points one and two rest on the idea that for players to voluntarily indulge in PvP they absolutely REQUIRE the feeling that they have at least a chance to win based on their skill as a player. When players begin to feel that their class/realm/guild has no worthwhile chance to win, they won't bother. This is a basic weakness of all PvP. Most players vs AI have win ratios of 90% or better. Vs humans, the win ratio will be 50% on average so people are always going to feel they are not winning "enough", except for the elite few who happen to have the skill (or class/realm/guild advantage) to win a lot. When people don't win enough to feel like they are having fun, they look for excuses. Whether valid or not (and certainly much of the class/realm whining in DAOC WAS valid, although some was not), this leads to deep frustration with the game and causes people to quit RvR. This may be an unavoidalble, basic game-theory type problem for all PvP designs in MMORPGs. (FPS and RTS games avoid this problem b/c of the much lower time investment - people are much less sensitive to loss ratios in those genres for a variety of reasons.)
This leads to problem 3:
3)PvP requires stable server populations and relatively equal levels of player power and player participation in the opposing factions. This the problem hitting DAOC hard now. Many servers are dominated by one realm, or some servers have "ghost" realms that can never win a battle. The rich got richer over time: the realms with the organized high level players to win battles over time gained power in the form of relics, realm ranks, and realm abilities so that now the victors are near invincible. Additionally the losers frequently get disgusted and quit: nobody pays $13 a month to be somebody's chump, no matter what John Romero thinks :). This is the most serious long term problem, and IMO the most insoluable. How do you MAKE people play for the losing side?
4)PvP requires compromises in other areas of game design that can be painful or annoying. In DAOC, they refused to enable zone-wide chat b/c they did not want to allow mass-coordination of RvR without guilds and alliances. This means that for average players without access to large guilds or alliances, the communication options are very limited, and the newbie and lower level zones can often seem silent, barren and boring, with no chatter. Also, to avoid people using kamikaze tactics in RvR, the initial bind points kept away from RvR areas, necessitating long and boring runs after dying in RvR or in the frontier. Also, I believe one reason DAOC does not have better travel options is to prevent people from responding overly quickly to RvR.
5)PvP requires adjustment to abilities that may work great and be fun in PvE but suck rocks in RvR. DAOC stumbled badly with the way it handled crowd control and stealth in RvR. Crowd control worked GREAT in PvE, leading to exciting multi-pull battles with lots of tactical options, but crowd control is probably the biggest number one hated aspect of RvR. NOBODY likes to stand around mezzed/stunned or rooted while the other blows us away. Being unable to resist in one of the most un-fun experiences I have ever had. Also, Stealth was somewhat weak in PvE but WAY overpowered in RvR (initially). In order to make a more balanced RvR game, DAOC should have severely limited both stealth and crowd control early on. Problem is, that would have crippled several popular classes, and would have required a complete re-design of large chunks of PvE.
I guess my bottom line is that if DAOC had put the effort that they put into RvR into PvE they could have had a much better game. On the other hand, if they wanted a PvE game, then they needed to approach the design differently from the word go. And even if they went pure PvP, I think there are very serious issues about server populations, participationg levels, and winner/loser mentality that will plague all PvP games.
I am looking with interest at the Shadowbane launch. You won't catch me playing it on a bet, but I anticipate vast amusement at the debacles that are sure to occurr. I predict right now that class balance, faction balance, server balance, server domination & collapse, along with griefing, and plain old anti-social behavior will be HUGE issues. Even if SB cures the traditional ills of PvP (griefing, newbie predation and anti-social behavior), I believe that balance issues, most especially keeping the losers on the playing field, will be crippling.
Dan
"PvP requires truly exquisite class balancing. One of the sharpest blows my group of friends took in DAOC was when they reached RvR levels and found that some of the classes they LOVED to play in PvE sucked rocks and were essentially useless in PvP."
DAOC is a team PvP game. Not every class is meant to be equal to every other class 1v1. Camalots PvP is fantasy based Team Fortress style not deathmatch. Just like in PvE some classes are designed for support not direct combat.
PvP is very balanced in CounterStrike; I don't see why this can't be done in a MMMROROPGG.
Yeah but his analysis is spot on. I played an Armsman up to level 47 and a Minstrel to level 50 and it is just not even close how much better Minstrels are than Armsmen in RvR in groups or not. About the only thing better about the Armsman was the crossbow for keep defense. Being able to plunk bolts into the invading hoards was pretty cool.Originally Posted by Jason Becker
The Paladin and Friar and warrior types from other realms with no ranged attack and no speed are screwed in RvR. The big things to have in RvR are mesmerize, range, speed, and stealth (at least it used to be important). Those classes have none of these. Paladins are complete gimps no range and weak melee don't make a good combo. Friars will kick the crap out of you if they can get within melee range. Armsmen can do some damage at close range, more than a paladin and have crossbows but the range and speed on those is poor so it is really not much use other than in keep defense.
The typical RvR fight for a tank type goes like this. You see the enemy, you start towards them because you aren't going to do anything to them where you are standing. You are AE mezzed and are stuck in place while the minstrel has sped to the outside or gone stealth and the casters are standing in the back hurling ice and fire at the enemy assuming they haven't been mezzed too. Chances are you are going to die to a caster before you even get a swing in or stand around doing nothing the entire fight if your side wins.
A minstrel can use stealth, mez out of stealth, use speed to track down runners, use instant damage shouts from a distance, and use an instant stun to stop people from running in the first place. And compared with sword and shield Paladins Minstrels can do almost as much damage meleewise.
The game is unbalanced and not just at the class level, from what I hear from my wife the Hibs run roughshod over everyone now. They have more mezzers and more PBAOE casters (takes a good 4 or 5 to 1 ratio of Albs to Hibs to take a defended Hib keep whereas they can take one of ours with a 2 to 1 ratio) and generally better classes overall. Mid on our server overall was bad off because they lacked the overall numbers when their biggest guild left. Still despite nerfs if an evenly matched group of Albs and Mids met the Mids would win most of the time due to better crowd control. According to my wife the Mids have finally gotten more people leveled and are a force to be reckoned with on our server. I would probably rank Hib first overall with Mid and Alb next maybe close maybe not. Alb suffers from having more classes than the other two realms so the abilities are dilluted across them. The few decent classes Alb did have (Minstrel, Cleric, and Scout) have been nerfed so badly it was hard to put up a decent fight when I quit playing.
If you are still reading sorry for the long post, I had to vent and agree with Sharpe.
-- Xaroc
Yeah, kinda pisses me off how DAoC has left everything EVERYTHING to PvP and its still unbalanced most towards stunning and range attacks and ultra fast melee kills...
All they had to do was do some content additions... but they haven't released anything but that dark dungeon which really is a mid to high level dungeon.
One thing I loved about EQ (and AC) was that there was always places to explore. In DAoC you can literally see most of the game (of your realm) within a couple weeks.
That next expansion MUST be as big as Kunark was to EQ. If not, the game is forever dead to me. A shame because DAoC is a good game overall.
etc
The lack of collision detection combined with the sleep spells makes melee classes unimportant in RvR. They get mezzed and the attackers run right through them to gank the casters.
Speed, stealth, and long-range damage classes rule in RvR.
You mean their skill as a character. To have player skill you need to have a way to use your reflexes. This is a point that wumpus made.
Come to their house and hold a gun to their heads. If you are going to make a game for people to live a alternate life you have to make it like real life, where sometimes people say they will kill you if you do not do what they say.
I still do not understand why things have to be exactly the same when fighting monsters as when fighting players. Why balance the whole thing together? Have one archer table for PvE and another for PvE. Balance the things separately. Maybe have a new skill you get when you fight a real man.
Oh I won't let that go. You don't need to have a a system that uses a players reflexes for there skill to impact the outcome of a battle. A decent tactical combat system would do. Allowing melee fighters a wide range of of skills to use in/before combat would help. As well as having more spells then root, mez, heal, buff, debuff, nuke.
Overall I"d say most people don't like or want pk so the wise choice for designers would be not to focus so much on it. Of course I love it so I"m not complaining.
Melee are neccesary on raids on keeps... which is pretty much most of the 'important' parts of rvr. when a mez or stun doesnt break through, a pure melee CAN go nuts on non melee classes... but you are right in the general rvr sense, the best are archers/stealth (b4 it was nerfed) and especially combined with stuns/mezzes and a fast moving party.
etc
Sure, tanks are good at keep taking but keep taking is freaking boring and everyone knows it. And I am confident you could still take a keep with no tanks involved.Melee are neccesary on raids on keeps... which is pretty much most of the 'important' parts of rvr. when a mez or stun doesnt break through, a pure melee CAN go nuts on non melee classes... but you are right in the general rvr sense, the best are archers/stealth (b4 it was nerfed) and especially combined with stuns/mezzes and a fast moving party.
etc
-- Xaroc
Most of my experience with DAoC rvr was pre March... so maybe they nerfed melees? I've probably died most by some buff Thane then any other class in my DaoC days... not to say melee is THE class... but I think they had there needs moreso than the hybrid classes (which I played stupidly!). But I agree. DaoC is defintely stacked with the stun/range combo.
With DAoC, I wish they focused on more actual physical content. Theres still only 5 dungeons per realm and they are so small comapred to the dungeons in EQ and AC. And they are so generic. They need to hire some content people. EQ has this in spades. DAoC needs it badly. imo.
etc
You can take a keep now without tanks because theurgs have siege spells that do sucky damage to doors.
Tanks can be effective, but there's a good chance they'll be mezzed and chopped up.
DAoC and others do require a certain amount of skill if you consider understanding your class capabilities and using them effectively to be a skill. A group of players who know their shit can take down higher cons who don't.
I'd like to see a twitch MMOG because I enjoy variety, but I suspect the current phased-based combat in MMOGs works much, much better than twitch combat would simply because it deals with latency much more effectively. There are no low ping bastards in DAoC and EQ.
A twitch MMOG would probably drive me from the game too because I'd end up losing most of the time and who wants to continue to do that?
I think Shadowbane and SWG will provide a test of the whole PvP thing -- if it doesn't work well for either of them, I suspect it will become hard to get financing for PvP games.
I agree that the fundamental problem is that no one plays to be someone else's chump, especially for the long term. PvP and persistent world/character development games may be a tough mix.
I don't think PvP is for me. I've spent the last couple of weeks giving DAoC one last try on the new PvP server, Mordred. It certainly brings an excitement to the game knowing that you can be attacked at almost any time. I'm tired of being a victim, though. I've been killed too many times now where I had no chance at all to do anything -- so many battles come down to superior numbers or superior levels and, most importantly, who attacks first, that player skill has nothing to do with it.
For example, today I zoned into a dungeon and got attacked immediately by four players. I had no chance.
In PvE I "win" most of the time. In wide open PvP I'm reluctant to victimize other players so I lose most of the time because the battle is forced upon me, which means I'm usually attacked in such a way that the odds are stacked heavily against me.
The wide open PvP just crushes all but the most feverish players. The winners are the highly organized, highly competitive guilds, probably analagous to the top Quake clans. One guild, Conquest, leveled all their members from 1 to 50 in the first two weeks that Mordred was open. They were patrolling the entrance to Darkness Falls last night, killing other players at whim until they got bored and left.
Dear lord.
What do these terms mean ?
Gank?
Tank?
RvR?
I know PvP is player versus player.
"Gank" is a term for killing another player.
"Tank" refers to a warrior type who engages the enemy. He's basically a damage sponge.
"RvR" stands for realm vs. realm combat. In DAoC there are three realms, Hibernia (elves!), Midgard (vikings!) and Albion (arthurian knights!).
About Conquest, yes, it's hard to imagine how they could level so quickly, but they did. I think they had multiple groups working together and pulling massive numbers of mobs and getting all kinds of bonuses.
The uber guilds tend to be rather dickish, too. Some high level guild type told me last night I should worship him like a god. Like, I suppose, the god of dorks?
Thanks for the summation of my point, Quenan: you said it cleaner and quicker than I did. My basic point is that I have formed the opinion, based on DAOC experience that there is a fundamental disconnect between a persistent world MMORPG (which could more properly be called persistent world character advancement games, b/c thats what the players DO) and PvP. There are a number of solid game theory reasons for this. Here's one example:
About a year, Mythic's CEO Mark Jacobs talked about why DAOC would not have a death penalty for RvR or looting in RvR. He made the point that penalizing RvR would lead to the people with poor loss ratios quitting. So only the high-kill ratio types would be left, leading to an ever-tightening spiral. As the competition level rises, the kill ratios drop so that at each cycle there is a set of "losers" who become discouraged and quit. Nobody wants to be somebody's chump, persistently; therefore you cannot build in penalties for losing. That reasoning is rock solid.
The problem is, DAOC went ahead and violated Mark Jacob's logic by introducing rewards for RvR. Rewards work just like death penalties but in reverse: instead of the weak becoming weaker, the strong become stronger. Look at Mark Asher's example of Conquest in Mordred: after they dominated the server like that, how many incoming people do you think will PAY to play as Conquest's bitches? I doubt very much that the 'Dreds get more players: I suspect that both have already hit their peaks and will slowly dwindle over time in the loss-ratio death spiral described by Mark Jacobs a year ago.
Bottom line is, in a persistent world game with serious time investment, NOBODY is going to pay for a long time to be a loser. Nobody. You cannot build a game design on that expecation and frankly I can't think of any good way to prevent the strong becoming stronger and weak quitting. RTS and FPS PvP games work fine b/c of the short time investment and the sense of "well you rocked me but JUST WAIT TIL NEXT GAME!". Since the next game of FPS/RTS will start with both players on an even field, there's a chance that a better strategy, better reflexes, better tactics, better timing, etc will give you a win in the second game. In an MMORPG, once you've been schooled, expect to be schooled yet again. Or better yet, do what a lot of people have been doing, quit :).
One other issue is character skill vs player skill. I agree with wumpus et al that player skill should be more important than character skill. However I disagree that player skill equals reflexes exclusively. Sure reflex-based gameplay is ONE form of player skill. But so is gameplay with strategic and tactical options, gameplay based on teamwork and coordination, etc. My ideal would be a game where player level is much less important than the strategic and tactical choices of the players, and where teamwork and coordination can overcome superior levels / superior numbers. That does not *require* reflex based gameplay: I believe a solid tactical system can reward skill without being twitch based.
As a slightly off-topic example, I prefer the skill exercised in playing Kohan to the skill exercised in playing WarCraft III. Both games require lots of skill to play well and a good player can overcome a poor player very rapidly in both. But the skill in WC is partly twitch based and partly hyperactivity based (ie the ability to switch attention instantly and constantly). In Kohan the skill is tactical and strategic: usiing the resources you have to field the most potent companies you can, using combined arms, flanking and retreats to win battles etc. Of course both WC3 and Kohan have flaws, but that *type* of skill based play is what I'd like to see more of in MMORPGs.
Dan
One correction. Conquest is on Andred, not Mordred. My bad.
Here's how dominant Conquest is:
- they hold all six of the relics.
- they have over 4.5 million realm points. The next highest guild has 1.3 million RPs
- they have 16 of the top 25 individual realm point leaders, including eight of the top ten slots
- they hold all the top 25 RP leaders spots in a couple of other categories that deal with kills vs. being killed.
"You cannot build a game design on that expecation and frankly I can't think of any good way to prevent the strong becoming stronger and weak quitting. RTS and FPS PvP games work fine b/c of the short time investment and the sense of "well you rocked me but JUST WAIT TIL NEXT GAME!"."
Actually, I think that even in RTS and FPS games players who lose more often than they win will abandon those games. Sure, you can get better, but your opponents are probably getting better too.
Eh, this is all just a function of them getting to level 50 before anyone else. Because there are no super-powerful relic guards on the PvP servers, all it takes to snatch the relics is a raid by 8 guys at some low-population time on the server, and it helps when you have the majority of the level 50s at the time. Once more people start getting to 50, this will all change, but you may be right that players won't stick around that long if one guild owns the whole show.
It's true that your opponents are becoming more skilled but at least you still start every game on an even footing. Even though I invest minimal amounts of time playing FPS I can still play competively on most servers. I won't RoXoR, but I can get frags.Actually, I think that even in RTS and FPS games players who lose more often than they win will abandon those games. Sure, you can get better, but your opponents are probably getting better too.
And my stats, er... skills from one FPS largely transfer over to others.
But my experience in MMORPG is the opposite. Without massive time investment to level up my character- something I have neither the time nor interest in doing, I am totally outclassed in those games. I just can't compete. There are no interesting monsters or quests to do and I certainly can't go head to head against most other players.
And it has little to do with skill--it's all about spending the time to make the little green bars on my character longer than the green bars on yours.
Bleah.
I agree. I've never said it should be heavily reflex based, just partially. For example, Warcraft 3, which I've been playing a lot recently, strikes a fine balance. Building fast and micromanaging is important, but it's even more important to make good strategic decisions on where and how to deploy your forces.One other issue is character skill vs player skill. I agree with wumpus et al that player skill should be more important than character skill. However I disagree that player skill equals reflexes exclusively. Sure reflex-based gameplay is ONE form of player skill. But so is gameplay with strategic and tactical options, gameplay based on teamwork and coordination, etc. My ideal would be a game where player level is much less important than the strategic and tactical choices of the players, and where teamwork and coordination can overcome superior levels / superior numbers. That does not *require* reflex based gameplay: I believe a solid tactical system can reward skill without being twitch based.
The analogy (I think Rob?) used of "trimming a rapidly growing bush" used is a decent one. Or juggling. Sometimes, it's fun to throw a bunch of stuff in the air and see how well you can deal with them as they come at you.
Not if the player matching system is doing its job. This is probably the single best new feature of Warcraft III. While it doesn't quite work out in practice the way I had hoped, it is head and shoulders above what anyone else is doing in either genre-- basically, nothing.
But the sky's the limit with this technique. For example, a counter-strike server could attempt to dynamically balance the teams based on the XP of the players that join up over time.
Or, let's imagine a world where counter-strike games are fired up on the fly like on b-net, rather than being static servers cycling through maps. As people fire up the game and click "find me a game", a nationwide "player pool" could be sifted through. At that point a game would spawn on a server somewhere (you'd have to take ping into account as well) where each side consists of all level 2 players.
Just some thoughts.
Then you would have the real problem where XP would have to relate in a real way to ability. What if XP awarded did not accuartly reflect player ability? Maybe a player who had played a million games but only recieved 1 point per game would have an XP of one million? I can see how the whole thing would blow up in your face.
That's true about XP. In MMOGs, it's a factor of time played.
The secret to the PvE MMOGs is that everyone wins and no one loses. If you play, you advance. You can't say that about PvP games, including RTS and FPS genres.
LOL! I wonder what sort of people play in Conquest ? Kids with delusions of grandeur ?
I would assume it is difficult to join a uber-guild ? Is there a selection process ?
hehe, its not far from reality with some of the inflated ego's I've seen on Veeshan when I used to play EQ. Seriously warped ego's. It was amusing actually!
King of Dorks :D
etc
Hey, folks. Let me just toss this into the mix, but first, I have to state that I've played UO and EQ, but not DAoC. I'm not a PvP type; personally, I agree with the comments on this board, but I have to mention one thing -- just to be the Devil's advocate in this conversation. (Only because I enjoy a good debate).
MMORPGs, believe it or not, are contingent on some kind of role-playing aspect. During the design phase of something like DAoC or Shadowbane, you can bet the designers pull out their hair trying to balance the classes, but with XP, abilities that mimic most of the comic book superheroes, and huge variety of weapons, true balance is essentially impossible. Especially considering the ever-growing need for more classes, more abilities, more items, etc. The equation becomes too complex to resolve. MMORPG'ers are victims of their own desire for individuality.
What's the devs solution to this hair pulling? Team play. They throw it out there and state "Form your own guilds. Make your own laws. After all, folks, it's an MMORPG. Get out there and role-play!" The logic is mimicked after real life: No one in this world truly accomplishes anything grand on his/her own. Skills are too diverse for any one person to master them all.
So I speak for a demographic of devs out there who say, "You can't win all the battles alone. If you're too weak in ranged combat, then team up with someone who is."
As a person who can't stand PvP peanut butter in his MMORPG chocolate, I'm also speaking for myself when I say that maybe we are just asking too much. We all want to feel like individuals in real life -- to the point of where a goofy haircut or body piercing is supposed to mean something. A MMORPG is just a reflection of this. Unlike real life, in a MMORPG, we're asking for everyone to be individual, but equal. I'll submit that true balance is impossible, given the diversification we demand from MMORPGs.
I was on Veeshan when Fires of Heaven basically controlled the high end game. They even went so far as to try and kill steal Nagafen (the biggest dragon at the time). A guy I knew in DAoC was a guide at the time and to stop FoH from getting the kill he killed the dragon himself so that they got nothing from it. He said he got in a bit of trouble for it but he thought it was worth it.
-- Xaroc
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