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Anyone here get to experience the PvP goodness that was DAoC?
rschrager
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 59 Arc User
While it may not have ended on a high note, Dark Age of Camelot had a PvP (RvR!) system that was superior in many ways - the biggest being that there was really no such thing as a timered 'I win' button, and the gear never got to the point that it had a significant impact on the results of a fight. A few highlights:
- Chained techniques: instead of a bunch of one-offs, techniques were chained. If you got the chain off, good thing would happen. If you blew something along the way, subsequent techniques didn't do much.
- Positionals: Neverwinter techniques that are generic - aside from the mythical 'combat advantage', techniques here can be spammed from arbitrary positions relative to your opponent. In DAoC, there were frontal attacks, side attacks and rear attacks. Use them from the wrong place, not much happened.
- Reactives: here, there's no reason to watch anything but my timers and my opponent's health bar; in DAoC, there were techniques that were intended for times that you block, parry or evade, or your opponent blocks, parries or evades. People were intently involved in what was happening on the screen, because your success (or failure) was directly tied to reacting to what you and your opponent were doing.
All these things meant that the skill of the player meant more than their gear - something that no sane person would argue as the current status in Neverwinter.
If you've got DAoC memories to share, I'd love to hear 'em. I guess last night's GG run, where 90% of the opposing team ran cowardice rings, has me reminiscing for better days. Sigh...
- Chained techniques: instead of a bunch of one-offs, techniques were chained. If you got the chain off, good thing would happen. If you blew something along the way, subsequent techniques didn't do much.
- Positionals: Neverwinter techniques that are generic - aside from the mythical 'combat advantage', techniques here can be spammed from arbitrary positions relative to your opponent. In DAoC, there were frontal attacks, side attacks and rear attacks. Use them from the wrong place, not much happened.
- Reactives: here, there's no reason to watch anything but my timers and my opponent's health bar; in DAoC, there were techniques that were intended for times that you block, parry or evade, or your opponent blocks, parries or evades. People were intently involved in what was happening on the screen, because your success (or failure) was directly tied to reacting to what you and your opponent were doing.
All these things meant that the skill of the player meant more than their gear - something that no sane person would argue as the current status in Neverwinter.
If you've got DAoC memories to share, I'd love to hear 'em. I guess last night's GG run, where 90% of the opposing team ran cowardice rings, has me reminiscing for better days. Sigh...
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I remember thinking having the two groups of enemies staying at range and poking until a group of people got the balls to charge the other, but often it was very boring for non-stealth melee characters. GW2 i think was alot better.
Good at its time, but it would be laughed at in today's standards.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Part 1: OMG meaningful positional combat mechanics are TEH SEX!
Part 2: OMG rings of cowardice and their introduction of more meaningful positional combat mechanics are TEH WERST!
Okay, sure, the rings are pretty stupidly broken, but did you not notice this?
- The developers and their mindset were different then.
- The players and their mindest were also different then.
- Way too much "rosy pink memories" about it, which, unfortunately is not necessarily correct
Yeah, it was a fun game, but in regards to balance and stuff, it had its share of problems. But if there's a difference from nowadays, those days were the early days of online gaming. Both the developers and players were a lot more innocent than how they are now. It was the opening days of MMORPGs and there were a lot of experiments and ideas. Some good, some bad.
People were eager to accept the subscription-based payment model. Using money to buy "powerups" or "boosts" within the game would have been treated with scorn. How powerful you became would be decided by how earnestly you play the game. More difficult and profound mechanics were welcomed. People would gladly go deep into character creation and stuff. Carebear mechanics and crutches were also considered stupid. The harder the game generally was, the more satisfaction you had in becoming proficient in it.
...nowadays, none of the above apply.
Games are serious business.
Devs don't hesitate to just nuke the game balance in hopes of cashing in money via sales of boosters and powerups and special items -- spoiling the new generation of gamers who want to become twice as stronger than anyone else with twice as less time and effort spent. Real life monetary investment actually alters the in-game balance.
The richer you are the stronger you are. The richer get richer, the poorer get poorer. Real-life financial status is recreated within the game. The games are no more about skill, but more about how much you spend and how easily you are duped to open wallets to feed developers who become fat and lazy.
Unique systems, ideas are no more welcome. Anything that might discourage people with any sort of difficulty and/or skill requirement, is blown away. Games are as simple and casual as riding a merry-go-round. It gets easier every day, almost feeling like a QTE rather than real combat.
Hey, since everything's dumbed down and exactly the same, the only way you can show off how awesome you are, is by buying all that stuff, unknowingly becoming the fool who plays patsy to merchandise all the cash-bought items. You want to be overpowering and awesome as that guy? Buy the same thing! (Or, don't ever expect to be as powerful -- like, ever.)
Just make the game visually pretty, slap in a dumbed down, uninspiring system that's easy to adapt to, and then introduce h3llish paygates where you are required to pay amount of money that would easily surpass tenfold the overall amount of money we used to pay under monthly subscription fees.
The worst part of all this?
Every gamer in this "Iron Age" of gaming, is actually a coconspirator to all of this.
F2P model works. Casual gaming works. People like it dumbed down. People like being able to pay money to easily surpass their rivals. People complain like h3ll, but they still play the game.
So do I miss DAoC? Not really. I don't hold DAoC particularly high over other games of the same era. I just miss how things generally were a lot more brighter and hopeful in those days. The days when PvP would be about people discussing the mechanics, combos, tactics, what techniques to practice in the forums... instead of these P2W days where people essentially discuss how much money they have to spend to buy which stuff to win.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
I don't know you and since i don't play pc anymore I probably won't cross paths with you, but you just described exactly why games are on the decline. There is no more purity in the grind. It can't be found anywhere anymore and its a damn shame because i think anyone who has read over this thread did play daoc at one point and are most likely playing NW because of their love for the genre but now were all in "the best of a bad situation."
Heres to thinking that someday there will be an mmo without any pay infusion, a great economy, friendly community and a balanced pvp system.
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The Kanye West of Neverwinter
Everything is a byproduct of politics. Including your "rosy tint".
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'