RvR Gameplay - Zerg, Full Group or Both?

Lore84 · February 2013

I made a post related to this in the suggestions thread but thought I would make a topic to gauge the opinions of others on the forums. One thing that is dear to my heart about RvR gameplay, coming from DAOC, is that me and the other top guilds from Excalibur used to love roaming as a full group in the frontiers, fighting other groups, going to rest, and then cracking back on untill the zerg finally got us (or not!)

But, we always knew we could take some of the zerg down with us before we died....and that we had a fighting chance against 2 maybe even 3 other groups at a push.

I think what really enabled DAOC to thrive for the high realm ranked players was this sort of playstyle, and I want to know before I plunge into funding on Kickstater if CU will keep this sort of gameplay alive. I don't want to play it if its just going to be a massive zergfest. Sure, its fun playing like that sometimes, in relic raids/keep sieges/whatever but the rest of the time, skilled full groups all the way.

I think what enabled this was the right group size of 8 (so you could have speed, damage, CC, healing) and the length of crowd control spells unless purged. There needs to be a means to break it, and reduce its length yes, but it needs to be there.

Whats everyones thoughts, surely theres others out there that loved this about DAOC's model of RVR, should it be alive in CU? If Mark reads this - did you enjoy this about DAOC, and do you see the ability for full groups to play this way in CU?

I'd like to know before I put my money down!

skyexile · February 2013

I haven't played DAOC in its prime personally, but yea that type of gamestyle would be good. Iv played practically every half major MMO since Planetside 1 and running only 1 group simply isnt going to get you far in most of those games, to be the dominant force out on the battleground +18 has generally been required and I cant say im a fan of running that many people. You can get by as a skirmish group in most games but trying to take on zergs without lots of powerful AOE or CC as a small group, its not happening.

Nibs · February 2013

It's up to players how they play, surely.

The devs will provide us with an area to play in. They will put in trees and hills and keeps and other stuff.

Whether you personally zerg it up or go the 8-man route, or both, is entirely up to you.

skyexile · February 2013

Originally posted by Nibs
It's up to players how they play, surely.The devs will provide us with an area to play in. They will put in trees and hills and keeps and other stuff.Whether you personally zerg it up or go the 8-man route, or both, is entirely up to you.

Its really abit more than that, there needs to be the skills available to make small group VS zerg viable, without good CC's or high powered AOE it simply wont be possible to compete out there against zergs that can simply faceroll you.

Nibs · February 2013

Originally posted by skyexile

Originally posted by Nibs
It's up to players how they play, surely.

The devs will provide us with an area to play in. They will put in trees and hills and keeps and other stuff.

Whether you personally zerg it up or go the 8-man route, or both, is entirely up to you.

Its really abit more than that, there needs to be the skills available to make small group VS zerg viable, without good CC's or high powered AOE it simply wont be possible to compete out there against zergs that can simply faceroll you.

True. But if those things are lacking the 8-mans will simply avoid the zergs. It happened in DAoC quite often.

On nights when we were 8-manning it we'd simply listen to the reports of where the various zergs were, where they were heading and what their plans were, and we'd go somewhere different. So, reports of the Hib zerg in Midgard and the Alb zerg was heading to defend Renaris, we'd head to Midgard for some 8-man action.

Or we'd get reports that people trying to join up with the zerg were being slaughtered by a Hib 8-man on the road to Excal so we'd tell the zerg leaders we'd deal with it and go patrol the road, getting our 8-man fix for the night in the process.

It wasn't often that the zergs would deliberately go 8-man hunting, though it did happen occassionally.

Both zerg and 8-man action was organic with neither being forced onto people by game design and both simply being enabled. At this point in time I see no reason to even suspect that CU will be any different.

Let's face it, MJ (must stop calling him that - always makes me think of Spider-man...) has seen what worked in DAoC. And he's seen what didn't work with WAR. Hopefully he's learnt from both experiences...

boxsnd · February 2013

Originally posted by Nibs
It's up to players how they play, surely.

The devs will provide us with an area to play in. They will put in trees and hills and keeps and other stuff.

Whether you personally zerg it up or go the 8-man route, or both, is entirely up to you.

It is not that simple for sure. Players will do whatever is more effective.

In daoc the veterans/high RR players preferred 8v8 because that is that gave them the most rps. The newbies/low RR players preferred zerging because they couldn't win many 8v8s and zerging was giving them more rps.

In WAR at launch players didn't even RvR because scenarios gave them more renown points. A bit after launch they just traded keeps because that became more effective.

In GW2 they zerg because only keep takes matter. Killing enemy players is almost worthless.

If they want many different playstyles in CU they will need 1) to balance zerging rps with 8v8 rps, 2) aoe long duration CC so veteran 8mans can take on newbie zergs, 3) player kills being much more effective progression than keep takes/crafting etc, 4) perma-stealth stealthers that aren't wanted in group RvR and have to solo/stealthzerg to progress(this is important if they want soloing and small group rvr too).

skyexile · February 2013

Originally posted by boxsnd In WAR at launch players didn't even RvR because scenarios gave them more renown points. A bit after launch they just traded keeps because that became more effective. In GW2 they zerg because only keep takes matter. Killing enemy players is almost worthless. If they want many different playstyles in CU they will need 1) to balance zerging rps with 8v8 rps, 2) aoe long duration CC so veteran 8mans can take on newbie zergs, 3) player kills being much more effective progression than keep takes/crafting etc, 4) perma-stealth stealthers that aren't wanted in group RvR and have to solo/stealthzerg to progress(this is important if they want soloing and small group rvr too).

Its like you;re reading my mind, yea WAR's RP system was shit, I was the highest RR on my server for sometime, until the healers and BO farmers overtook me, it was utter shit design, there was so much diminishing returns on killing lower RR players than you, it was a joke, there shouldn't have been diminishing returns, keep their value the same, just reward players more for killing high RR players.

this was a pretty common sight for me:

http://imageshack.us/f/338/xilef165nd8.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/f/520/xilef144by8.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/f/522/xilef094yb7.jpg/

you will also notice that i generally have the highest XP in each of them too ...thats just a small sample of the bullshit games i was in...

Zinzan · February 2013

Originally posted by boxsnd
Originally posted by Nibs
It's up to players how they play, surely.

The devs will provide us with an area to play in. They will put in trees and hills and keeps and other stuff.

Whether you personally zerg it up or go the 8-man route, or both, is entirely up to you.

It is not that simple for sure. Players will do whatever is more effective.

In daoc the veterans/high RR players preferred 8v8 because that is that gave them the most rps. The newbies/low RR players preferred zerging because they couldn't win many 8v8s and zerging was giving them more rps.

In WAR at launch players didn't even RvR because scenarios gave them more renown points. A bit after launch they just traded keeps because that became more effective.

In GW2 they zerg because only keep takes matter. Killing enemy players is almost worthless.

If they want many different playstyles in CU they will need 1) to balance zerging rps with 8v8 rps, 2) aoe long duration CC so veteran 8mans can take on newbie zergs, 3) player kills being much more effective progression than keep takes/crafting etc, 4) perma-stealth stealthers that aren't wanted in group RvR and have to solo/stealthzerg to progress(this is important if they want soloing and small group rvr too).

Im sorry, but i strongly disagree with most of your points.

1- Ok, fine.

2- No this KILLED DAoC for many, many players and modern gamers will NOT put up with being removed from a fight for any extended duration because one "must-have" player has immobilised them all. Long duration, large area AOE CC turned DAoC into a CC fight for any size of group, it was boring as hell. I was in one of the top RVR groups on my server pre-TOA and after a while it got simply too easy to kill enemy groups, zergs, whatever because we had a great bard who could simply CC them first and win every single time. Watch the Dem Hibbies video from Excalibur, watch them kill 200+ Albs in open play in seconds simply because they had a high RR bard with a good connection playing in an opted PBAOE group. The BEST thing they ever did was reduce the CC timers in DAoC. Long duration sucked for those being CC'd and those winning every fight because of it. In short, CC good, long duration i-win CC bad.

3- Again, no. IF we are forced to repair keeps (a-la DAoC) and killing players is more rewarding (a-la DAoC) then players simply won't bother repairing keeps and it will be left to the same few players to do this chore while their realm mates are off farming RP's (a-la DAoC). Also if keep takes are not rewarding enough, players won't bother helping, they will simply run around farming other players instead.

4- Once again, i disagree and feel your missing the key point, one of the BIGGEST problems with DAoC was stealthers (and some other classes) being next to useless in groups. There is simply no eventuality where it can be acceptable for a player to choose the class they want to play and then be told "Sorry, thats a solo class, you'll never get a group, reroll a bard" or the like. Thats simply unacceptable UNLESS they CLEARLY STATE ON CHARACTER CREATION that this is a solo class and even than im not happy about it. They need to make every class viable in group rvr or stealthers will simply zerg (the "Honourable soloer" syndrome where almost all of them zerg surf to high RR than yell at other players for "adding" on their fights). I would like to see a build option for all classes that gives them a group and solo build which they can switch to suit their playstyle.

boxsnd · February 2013

@zinzan

2) give me an example of a better CC system that led to more fun open world PvP in another game. The vast majority of ex-DAoCers consider it the best PvP they have played. I don't know of any other MMO like that. Also this most certainly didn't kill daoc. We all know what killed daoc.

3) It sounds like you want keep trading. There should be other motivations to own a keep, like DF, relics, farming rps by defending the keep, or just making your guild famous and displaying your huge banner to whoever comes close etc. But making the keeps part of the progression is a classic mistake that I doubt they will make again after the WAR disaster.

4) DAoC RvR was like a perfectly working food chain. The zergs ate the groups who ate the small groups who ate the soloers. If you make every class a group char you break the chain. Why would someone solo? So the soloers will go extinct. If there are no soloers, why would the small groups go out since they won't have soloers as easy rps. In the end only the zergs will remain.

Lore84 · February 2013

Zinzan I completely disagree, its situations like being able to CC a much larger force and have a chance which madevthevgame fun!

What is fun in running in a zerg of 200 people everytime you play? Thats just boring, and you dont feel like you arw making a difference.

I do hope that Mark won't forget what made his most successful rvr game special, and wontbjust cater to the zergs. Id just like to knoe his stance on this before i spend my cash, im sure othets do too...

Zinzan · February 2013

Originally posted by boxsnd
@zinzan

2) give me an example of a better CC system that led to more fun open world PvP in another game. The vast majority of ex-DAoCers consider it the best PvP they have played. I don't know of any other MMO like that. Also this most certainly didn't kill daoc. We all know what killed daoc.

3) It sounds like you want keep trading. There should be other motivations to own a keep, like DF, relics, farming rps by defending the keep, or just making your guild famous and displaying your huge banner to whoever comes close etc. But making the keeps part of the progression is a classic mistake that I doubt they will make again after the WAR disaster.

4) DAoC RvR was like a perfectly working food chain. The zergs ate the groups who ate the small groups who ate the soloers. If you make every class a group char you break the chain. Why would someone solo? So the soloers will go extinct. If there are no soloers, why would the small groups go out since they won't have soloers as easy rps. In the end only the zergs will remain.

2- Long duration CC is the problem, i loved DAoC's CC system ONCE it had been fixed. Do you really think modern mmo gamers will put up with being excluded from a fight for 60 seconds? You were supporting LONG DURATION CC, this was my argument.

3- Look at it like a see-saw, they need balance between keep take rewards and player killing rewards or the see-saw tips in favour of one or the other and players either ignore keeps or keep-trade.

4- Your food-chain analogy is one that can only really be applied to players who never competed on an equal footing. Zerg v Zerg was great fun and fair, 1v1 was the bread-and-butter of solo players, some would spend hours hunting around for one good 1v1 fight and ALL competitive groups hunted for the enemy 8-man guild groups...we did and almost always ignored solo players and avoided zergs to get good 8v8 fights. This is how the top guilds/soloers gained notoriety and respect and it bred a very healthy and competitive environment. Man, i remember killing an Alb mincer called Alpha on my old server who was known as the best solo player around at the time, the rush from beating him 1v1 was simply unparalelled for me in my 13 years of mmo gaming. Being rolled by superior numbers was all part of the risk and the fun. Additionally my main point was that there is no way any player should be forced to either solo or group depending on his chosen class. All classes should be able to do both.

Nibs · February 2013

The behaviour that I have described was evident, at least on Percival, pretty much from week 1. Certainly before realm points, realm ranks and realm abilities, battlegrounds and battlegroups even existed. When the only reasons for RvR were fun and the eventual goal of relic captures. Waaay back when enemies all appeared as 'A Viking Invader'.

At 15th level we all headed out into Emain and the realm wars started. Even then there were zergs and there were 8-mans around the periphery.

Sure, WAR showed us that people will take the path of least resistance. As long as there is no path of least resistance then people can be free to play in which ever way they find most fun. Whether that be 8-manning, zerging, crafting, harvesting, building, whatever.

meddyck · February 2013

We have plenty of proof that RvR based solely on zerging and keep taking fails (WAR, GW 2). I hope CU would support all types of playstyles from soloing, running a duo, running a full group, and zerging just like DAOC did.

Put keeps, towers, relics, etc. out there with reasons to take them (opening ports, gaining relic bonuses). Make player kills worth points that accumulate and grant the right to purchase powerful abilities. Then let players decide how they want to spend their play time.

Zinzan · February 2013

Originally posted by Nibs
The behaviour that I have described was evident, at least on Percival, pretty much from week 1. Certainly before realm points, realm ranks and realm abilities, battlegrounds and battlegroups even existed. When the only reasons for RvR were fun and the eventual goal of relic captures. Waaay back when enemies all appeared as 'A Viking Invader'.

At 15th level we all headed out into Emain and the realm wars started. Even then there were zergs and there were 8-mans around the periphery.

Sure, WAR showed us that people will take the path of least resistance. As long as there is no path of least resistance then people can be free to play in which ever way they find most fun. Whether that be 8-manning, zerging, crafting, harvesting, building, whatever.

LOL, thank you so much, im having a nostalgia flashback to my first steps into the frontier at level 18 with my guild, finding our way to the first keep and taking numerous screenshots for our guild webpage, heh, fun memories

Zinzan · February 2013

Originally posted by meddyck
We have plenty of proof that RvR based solely on zerging and keep taking fails (WAR, GW 2). I hope CU would support all types of playstyles from soloing, running a duo, running a full group, and zerging just like DAOC did.

Put keeps, towers, relics, etc. out there with reasons to take them (opening ports, gaining relic bonuses). Make player kills worth points that accumulate and grant the right to purchase powerful abilities. Then let players decide how they want to spend their play time.

This ^^.

Agree completely.

Satarious · February 2013

Calling zergs a "bunch of newbies with no skill" is painting with too broad a brush. Such words speak more to the bitterness of the speaker rather than anything resembling the truth. Guild run zergs tend to be more organized and more about skill & tactics. The problem is that it's much harder to herd a huge amount of cats and takes a very effective leader. Which results in more of the "safety in numbers, but no direction" type zergs. I honestly believe that not nearly enough brainpower and innovativeness has been applied to this problem in the mmo industry. The hope is always that guilds will take care of this. However, it seems more often than not people in the same guild aren't playing at the same time. Which leads to a hodge podge of folks affiliated with different guilds grouping together in "pick-up" zergs with no coordination. I'd love to see a system that solves this problem. I think it would make organized zergs more common place. And there's nothing more thrilling in an mmo, imho, than an epic organized zerg-on-zerg battle.

Bottom line: 8-man roller type play has it's place, but it's not exactly a type of playstyle that can allow an mmo to reach its full potential. There's no epic-feel to the game if there is nothing but 8-mans. You need those zergs for the danger/suspense feeling. I definitely like both styles of playing, I just don't like the "artificial booster" crap that developers devise for small man groups in order to even the odds. More often than not, they only piss off 80% of the population to appease the 5% of crybabies. War is not fair.

Lore84 · February 2013

Dont get me wrong, zerging has its place in epic keep takes, absolutely, i just want full groups to be viable in this games rvr too like they were in DAOC. I know this isnt daoc2 but its rvr...so i hope it will be viable and fun

moguy2 · February 2013

This game is YEARS away and you are sitting around thinking about zerg tactics? I mean, seriously? Get a dabble of something and BAM people are writing toon names, drawing pictures, and posting crap out of sheer boredom ( Like I am right now ).

You will have literally a 1000 days or more to think about this. /shrug

aylwynn · February 2013

There will always be some fullgroup-"isolatists" who want to avoid zerging. To be honest ... I did that in DAoC because it was more challanging. My fullgroup even encountered zergs with less RR. Though it was challanging and fun if we just fought about 2 fullgroups with one (more or less) highrr fullgroup.

Even on my Warhammer Online server and on my GuildWars 2 world are guilds who want to avoid zergs. They won't get much rewards at all but zerging in modern games seems much easier ... And casual-friendly because you can join up without stress and leave when you want.

I can remember that when our healer or bard had to leave ... Well ... We were pretty lucky to find a replacement. But we were okay with it. Nowadays I and my guild would still isolate ourselves from public zergs if they don't need that much help.

Lore84 · February 2013

Moguy2, yes the game is years away, but people who are thinking of investing in the kickstarter want an idea of the direction they plan on going before they put their money into it. Thats why i made this post, not out of boredom. /shrug

Unknown · February 2013

As far as keeps are concerned I think there should be very slight or no immediate benefits in capturing a keep. It should be actually HOLDING the keep that makes it worth having.

Darrgen · February 2013

Zinzan it sounds like you didnt play the samengame as me. Cause i remember there being many counters to this 60 second cc youncomplain about. Just because the players chose RAs that didnt break cc because they wanted to hit harder in pve doesnt mean the game should have been molded for them. Also you had plent of ways to cure cc as well not to mention it broke on damage. This is after all an rvr only game. Players wont be as dumb with their RAs and overall the MMO community is smarter than it was back then. People now days know where to find cure buttons.

Jetrpg · February 2013

My thoughts are i think mark will fail at just about everything with this game i don't think he has a clue what makes games good and is blaming EA for his design decisions. Infact i know this to be true, its a matter of record. I was hoping he would reflect on his decisions, from his blog post he hasn't, but hey a ton of kickstarter money would be nice.

I could be wrong, i expect far shorter cc (aka wow style) with even less stuns, far less tactical combat, etc. That is what i expect from his posts.

Jetrpg · February 2013

Originally posted by Darrgen
Zinzan it sounds like you didnt play the samengame as me. Cause i remember there being many counters to this 60 second cc youncomplain about. Just because the players chose RAs that didnt break cc because they wanted to hit harder in pve doesnt mean the game should have been molded for them. Also you had plent of ways to cure cc as well not to mention it broke on damage. This is after all an rvr only game. Players wont be as dumb with their RAs and overall the MMO community is smarter than it was back then. People now days know where to find cure buttons.

Yeah zinn was prob a soloer or hardly played anyoen that played the game just a bit more than never in pvp understood that the cc from the game were a blessing.
Long duration cc made the game tactical why? Becuase if i hit you with the plethora of aoe skills i had you come out and then be immue to them for a bit (too long imo, after the change[very early] ) This means you cannot spam your buttons as fast as possible and win, whattt. Furthermore there were many ways and classes that could get you out of these long ccs (another dimension to the game, the game was more than just a dps or healing battle, whatttt), it protected the range from the melee, which was a balancing system.

So ty Darrgen for pointing this out. The long cc made daoc great, as it allowed superior play to outclass superior numbers.

Storm_Fireblade · February 2013

Originally posted by Jetrpg
My thoughts are i think mark will fail at just about everything with this game i don't think he has a clue what makes games good and is blaming EA for his design decisions. Infact i know this to be true, its a matter of record

Actually Mark tried to avoid any blaming regarding EA and did mention several times, that he in fact did make mistakes himself. It comes across pretty hostile to allege him of blaming everything on EA, which he didn´t and furthermore disqualifying him from making good games, although he was more than just a sidenote during the design and production of DAoC.

Its absolutely ok to critisize Mark and his mistakes, enough room for that, but it might not be fair to accuse him of things that are plain wrong.

MarkJacobs · February 2013

Originally posted by meddyck

We have plenty of proof that RvR based solely on zerging and keep taking fails (WAR, GW 2). I hope CU would support all types of playstyles from soloing, running a duo, running a full group, and zerging just like DAOC did.

Put keeps, towers, relics, etc. out there with reasons to take them (opening ports, gaining relic bonuses). Make player kills worth points that accumulate and grant the right to purchase powerful abilities. Then let players decide how they want to spend their play time.

Exactly. We don't want to stop zerging behavior entirely (couldn't really be done IMO) but we want to give players the ability to fight the zerg and not just be rolled over by it time and time again. As another poster has pointed out, many players will take thte path of least resistance and its our job as designers to make sure that we present enough varieties of play that the players don't simply do the same thing every day because that's the quickest and easiest level to level.

Originally posted by Lore84
Dont get me wrong, zerging has its place in epic keep takes, absolutely, i just want full groups to be viable in this games rvr too like they were in DAOC. I know this isnt daoc2 but its rvr...so i hope it will be viable and fun

Me to. I also want to give players the tools so that they can decide to make a stand against larger groups and come away with enough of a sense of victory (even if they don't win), that their sacrifice was worth it. I want to see players look at a zerg and say "If we can slow them down, knock out enough of their members, they won't be able to steamroll XXXX" then IMO, we have accomplished on of our goals as designers.

Originally posted by Lore84
Moguy2, yes the game is years away, but people who are thinking of investing in the kickstarter want an idea of the direction they plan on going before they put their money into it. Thats why i made this post, not out of boredom. /shrug

And I support this 100%. That's why I'm here now, was posting here last night to the wee hours, etc. I could habe easily left the forums this week said "Mission accomplished" and have reached a large percentage of the folks I'm going to reach from this site. I'm not going to do that, I want to talk to you guys even if it means I have to read posts that call me a sham, idiot, etc. Believe me, that's not fun and people who know me know that it does get under my skin *but* I want to hear what people say and more importantly, I need to hear what people say and that's why I'm here, why I haven't raised a bony finger and said "Ban him" or done anything like that. I've made some mistakes in the past, did some really smart things and if I need to get dumped on a bit to get the advice/suggestions/feedback I need, I'll do that as long as things don't turn really ugly.

Thanks again guys.

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RvR Gameplay - Zerg, Full Group or Both?

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RvR Gameplay - Zerg, Full Group or Both?

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