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does anyone have input on DAoC seen from ESO (RvR vs GvG vs instanced PvP)

arcundoarcundo Member UncommonPosts: 88

I never played DAoC, but after many years of reading forum posts I have picked up that fact that many consider it the best PvP MMO.  I have played WoW and AoC and thereby experienced world PvP (which I now will leave out of this post), instanced PvP (BGs etc in WoW) and GvG (AoC). Now I have played ESO and thereby experienced RvR for the first time.

So far I must say I like instanced PvP and GvG better than RvR.

Drawbacks with RvR based on ESO:

  • PvP zone is to big (it takes to long to get to where you "should" be).
  • Your effort as a player doesn't give you a feeling of contributing to the outcome of the battle. (WoW; Arena, BGs and AoC: mini games, sieging: certainly gives you that)
  • Anonymous: way to many players on each side to get a feeling of recognizing and getting synergies between players you recognize from other battles, and to pick up what abilities players on you side is doing and acting on it. 
  • Objectives: hardly matter and roaming around as a big group gives just as much alliance points.
  • Guilds: do no really have incentives to conquer and defend what they have taken. And there is hardly any rivalry between opposing  guilds
  • (my last point is not strictly due to RvR, but the lack of collision detection and other game mechanics does narrow the roles in PvP down to AoE, heal and last long (Dragonknight) and non-staff-wielding nightblade doesn't really have a certain role to fill)
OK. So a few times I have tried to ask the DAoC community why RvR is so fun in that game, and what ESO which was developed by ex DAoC developer(s) has done so differently without really getting an answer pinpointing it.
 
Thanks in advance if anyone feel like trying. :-)

 

Comments

  • battlesambattlesam Member UncommonPosts: 15

    I played Daoc for years, WoW, Warhammer, GW2, ESO

     

    PvP zone is to big (it takes to long to get to where you "should" be).

    Not at all. Using the Transit system, forward camps, and feeding your horse an apple a day, makes this completely not true.

     

    Your effort as a player doesn't give you a feeling of contributing to the outcome of the battle. (WoW; Arena, BGs and AoC: mini games, sieging: certainly gives you that)

    That will change with experience. No doubt the first few times you go to RvR it can feel like a blur. But once you begin to gain experience you will be more and more useful to the point where you often can affect battle outcomes.

     

    Anonymous: way to many players on each side to get a feeling of recognizing and getting synergies between players you recognize from other battles, and to pick up what abilities players on you side is doing and acting on it. 

    Surprisingly quite the opposite. When you have small scale like the cross server BGs in WoW, you often play with completely different and random people. Even in a pre-made situation, the group members will change each night unless you have a set guild group. In ESO with large groups of 24, often you recognize the same people nightly for weeks on end.

     

    Objectives: hardly matter and roaming around as a big group gives just as much alliance points.

    Totally untrue and this is where ESO comes close to DAoC and differs most from GW2, (which was a piss poor RvR implementation, IMO). The scrolls matter because of the buffs and the emperor buffs are significant. Certain keeps unlock the scroll gates and the inner ring of keeps unlocks emperor status. Also Darkness Falls in DAoC, (the best dungeon ever created in an MMORPG, IMHO), was a pvp dungeon to which you gained access by holding keeps. In ESO the equivalent will be the Imperial City which you should be coming soon in a future major update.

     

    Guilds: do no really have incentives to conquer and defend what they have taken. And there is hardly any rivalry between opposing  guilds

    Dunno, I’ve not been in guilds much, they just don’t make sense for MMORPGs, but that’s just me. In ESO, getting in a large group has been ‘insta’ every time I go in pvp so it’s all good.

     

    (my last point is not strictly due to RvR, but the lack of collision detection and other game mechanics does narrow the roles in PvP down to AoE, heal and last long (Dragonknight) and non-staff-wielding nightblade doesn't really have a certain role to fill)

    Yes, sorry I don’t agree with this either really. I’ve played all four extensively in pvp. Each has it’s strengths and weaknesses. The NB as a dual dagger stealther is a ton of fun. Single target stealthers f-up the stragglers and those trying to get to the herd, and the NBs do that job well. You can use a bow for AOE and range and that can be very effective as well.

     

    Here’s what I do now. I level a toon to 10, then level up in pvp only. (I do try to get all the skyhards in the pve zones to keep pace.) It doesn’t take long before I can be very effective in pvp. One key is to always use siege equipment: trebs for walls, cats for players, and ballista for enemy siege. I also craft armour sets and use the guild stores to fill in some pieces. (You make a ton of gold in pvp now.)

     

    Last thing, I’ve only played EP. No idea why as i never played a single Elder scrolls game before.

  • ValatheusValatheus Member UncommonPosts: 30

    Well stated question, and probably a contentious one, too. Everyone has their own preferences on what type of pvp they enjoy, so as you might expect some folks prefer other forms of pvp to RvR as well. Sometimes people forget the things they didn't like from older games, as well (I would NOT want to have to deal with original DAoC's minute long unbreakable mezzes with no diminishing returns ever again). With that being said, I played DAoC back in the day, played on a pvp server in AoC, played in both the battleground/arena matches and RvR frontiers of Warhammer Online, and am currently in a small group RvR-focused guild in ESO made up entirely of ex-DAoC players, so I can weigh in with my own opinions.

     

    overall tl;dr version: Varied gameplay allowing to choose your type of pvp, the rush of winning against superior odds, a deeper meaning to the combat, and more inclusive to the particpants.

     

    Open v arena v RvR:

    My reasons to favor RvR over other forms of pvp. I personally don't like open pvp. Most often, open pvp just means ganking, and seeing every single person as a potential enemy; I prefer having a friendlier, lower-stress gaming environment and allies to work with, in order to see more group tactics and to engage in fun large-scale battles and keep warfare.

    Even guild vs guild doesn't scratch that itch for me, because I'd rather not be forced to join a guild just to engage in combat, and even then it's not guaranteed that you'll have sufficient allies online. Or sufficient enemies - you see someone? What's his guild? Better check the list, see if you're supposed to fight him or not.  Also, guild-oriented combat is usually limited in some way- AoC, for example, had lockout timers on their sieges, so you might see a good siege once a week Thursday at 2am when a keep is vulnerable. Open world guild pvp other times usually amounted to one guild ganking the other's members as they were out questing (see my preference on open pvp). In factional RvR, I know that at any time of day, I can head out to Cyrodiil and find waiting teammates and known enemies.

     

    Arena combat is fun and you know who your allies are, but it's limited in number of participants, duration, and meaning. In RvR, I could engage in a solo fight on my way to my group and then engage in a 8v8 fight, before stumbing into a 9v15, and then we get swept up in a massive 50+ v 50+ keep defense. Hours fly by with varied gameplay without ever having to re-queue for another match, and you can see your and your faction's results (and failures) by how the map has changed while you played.

     

    The number of scrolls your faction controls, keeps, and if your team has the emperorship provides bonuses to everyone in your alliance (on that home server), even in PvE. Controlling these resources carries meaningful weight, and (in theory, barring the blight that are "buff servers"), gives a reason for those who are pve focused to still come out and help their faction in pvp. DAoC had something similar in the form of Relics that gave your entire faction large buffs for controlling them. I believe that this is one of the reasons why RvR was so successful in DAoC, it pulled everyone out in the frontier to help the effort, introducing many to pvp for the first time in the confines of groups of friends you met while leveling and doing PvE content and eased first-timers into a pvp environment. Many players who were not the most capable or fast at combat, and would have been a detriment in an even arena match or fodder in a 1v1 situation, still got to participate in larger battles and feel the rush of combat and see success.  The "us vs them" mentality of factional combat also engendered a feeling of camaraderie, and how you wanted to help those on your faction level and get stronger, because then they would be stronger allies out in the frontier. Our faction in DAoC regularly organized leveling groups just to get those who didn't have much playtime up to combative levels so they could join the fight with the rest of us.

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     

    Now, for the stuff mentioned in the OP:

    Size of pvp zone: Logistically, there are fps and latency reasons for creating this size to help split up the populations so they can have hundreds of players per faction in the zone at the same time. Also, with a nice speedy horse you can get from a keep to the next in approximately 30 seconds, which isn't too bad. I'll focus on the reasons I personally like the size, however.

    Mainly (and this was true in DAoC as well), it allows for multiple types of gameplay all within the same area. If you are interested in massive keep battles, you can follow your friendly local zerg to a castle and get sieging, or stick at one of your own to defend.  If you prefer solo pvp ganking, you can sneak off to the cities that offer quests and jump people there, find people in the dungeons, choose a nice spot between said keeps and catch people in between, or even sneak behind a siege crew and ambush the siege operators. 

    Small groups can perform similarly, lurking in the reinforcement lines for the main armies/zergs and catching solos and groups heading to the fight, in order to elicit further enemy reinforcements and more battles, melting back into stealth when needed. The spread-out nature of the zone gives these groups and solos more breathing room, battle lines to fight at, and chances at open field combat, instead of nothing but keep combat.

     

    Feeling of personal worth: Sometimes you're a speedbump, yes.  There are moments though where you feel like you personally changed the course of a battle, and those feel absolutely amazing. It is such a euphoric rush when your tiny but organized group of 8 is fighting off a stream of enemies that seem to just keep coming, and when it's all over you all remain standing, gazing at the bodies of at least 20 enemies around you, or you run into a keep of yours about to be lost, and while the enemy is on the flag, at the last moment manage to silence their healer and draw some of their attention into waiting guards, causing their entire raid to wipe and giving time for friendly reinforcements to arrive and assist you in holding the breach. No bards will sing tales of that exploit, but I feel like the King of that keep when it happens.

     

    Anonymous/no planning of synergies: Try running with a guild that does small-scale pvp. Our small group is talking about our builds and calling our ultimates whenever we pvp. Those who remember DAoC fondly were usually those who organized 8-man groups and wandered about. Since they often encountered numbers far in excess of what they had, their group had to be well put together and each player had to know what the others were capable of and work as a unit. And then when one of these fine-tuned groups encountered a similar group from another factions, you got some great fights.

  • MsPtibiscuitMsPtibiscuit Member Posts: 164

    ESO is not a good example of a good RvR game.

    ESO has been mainly designed by Matt Firor, which is the "bad" co-director of DaoC. Imo, he failed to get what an RvR MMORPG should really have: assymetrical gameplay, faction pride, interactions between PvE and RvR and such. Mark Jacobs get that and try to put those in his games (Warhammer and CU).

    A good RvR game will allow smaller groups (~5-10 people) to have an impact in a fight if they play well, either via special objectives for them (Ressource transport, Mini-camp capture, Neutral forces to rally, ...) or either via special spells/fight skills that allows them to take down zergs.

    A good RvR game will try to value the different objectives. For example, keeps will provide some bonus to the faction that controls them: dungeon access, special crafting materials/workstations, special merchants and such. "Secured" keeps shouldn't be deserted, because they should provide some special things that players want.

    About guilds, DaoC tried to include guilds in the RvR world. They could claim a keep and get some bonuses. Plus when the keep was attack, the guards would alert in the /guild channel the number of ennemies trying to cap the fort.

    As said, ESO has none of that. Factions are symmetrical, the map is symmetrical, the gameplay is unbalanced and highly favors zergs that packs in a square meter, captured keeps gives next to no bonus, and there is no interactions between the PvE and the RvR world. You could actually remove the entire RvR map, it wouldn't damage the game (and it would be an average PvE MMO).

  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 22,824

    ESO is not a proper RvR game, it is RvR in one zone. DAOC introduced that RVR concept gently, you did quests in later zones where you could meet the opposition but rarely did. This built up to zones of full out war. That is dissimilar to say Aion where earlier RvR zones could be a gank fest.

    WH was closer to DAOC and in some ways so was Planetside, but just making a game RvR does not ensure success, it can be a big factor though if done right.

    ESO RvR is still good, but far more limited than what that term originally stood for.

  • ValatheusValatheus Member UncommonPosts: 30
    Originally posted by Scot

    DAOC introduced that RVR concept gently, you did quests in later zones where you could meet the opposition but rarely did. This built up to zones of full out war.

    This is not true at all, you never encountered enemy players in your home zones in the standard ruleset servers - only out in the frontier, similar to ESO's Cyrodiil. 

    DAoC did have "battlegrounds", which were basically mini-frontiers with one keep you could fight over for lower levels to play in, since there was no level balancing in the full frontier.  Otherwise, the only combat outside of the frontiers was in Darkness Falls, a large dungeon that required your faction to control of the majority of the frontier's keeps in order to unlock access for your faction, and boot out the previous faction that was in there. It is similar, in theory, to the upcoming features of the planned Imperial City.

  • arcundoarcundo Member UncommonPosts: 88
    Originally posted by battlesam

    Not at all. Using the Transit system, forward camps, and feeding your horse an apple a day, makes this completely not true.

    Ok I agree that forward camps helps a lot.

    That will change with experience. No doubt the first few times you go to RvR it can feel like a blur. But once you begin to gain experience you will be more and more useful to the point where you often can affect battle outcomes.

     OK good to know that it might happen at some point. ;)

    Surprisingly quite the opposite. When you have small scale like the cross server BGs in WoW, you often play with completely different and random people. Even in a pre-made situation, the group members will change each night unless you have a set guild group. In ESO with large groups of 24, often you recognize the same people nightly for weeks on end.

    Well in WoW even if you play pugs you immediately know what a class can do, you see what he is doing and you can act accordingly. Maybe the diversity in each class in TESO is the reason why it its hard to fill a role and act upon what teammates/enemies are doing. 

     

    Totally untrue and this is where ESO comes close to DAoC and differs most from GW2, (which was a piss poor RvR implementation, IMO). The scrolls matter because of the buffs and the emperor buffs are significant. Certain keeps unlock the scroll gates and the inner ring of keeps unlocks emperor status. Also Darkness Falls in DAoC, (the best dungeon ever created in an MMORPG, IMHO), was a pvp dungeon to which you gained access by holding keeps. In ESO the equivalent will be the Imperial City which you should be coming soon in a future major update.

    Well if someone grab a scroll it is easily a long run without running into the enemy. The enemy don't feel like they own the scroll and probably notice it to late to be able to set up a defense to stop it.

    Yes hopefully Imperial City will be cool.

     

    Dunno, I’ve not been in guilds much, they just don’t make sense for MMORPGs, but that’s just me. In ESO, getting in a large group has been ‘insta’ every time I go in pvp so it’s all good.

    Well guilds are not just about having a group to join but working towards a common goal. conquering land that you own and defend, crafting gear in order to make the guild stronger etc.

     

    (my last point is not strictly due to RvR, but the lack of collision detection and other game mechanics does narrow the roles in PvP down to AoE, heal and last long (Dragonknight) and non-staff-wielding nightblade doesn't really have a certain role to fill)

    Yes, sorry I don’t agree with this either really. I’ve played all four extensively in pvp. Each has it’s strengths and weaknesses. The NB as a dual dagger stealther is a ton of fun. Single target stealthers f-up the stragglers and those trying to get to the herd, and the NBs do that job well. You can use a bow for AOE and range and that can be very effective as well.

    OK. Good to know that is is actually possible.

     

  • arcundoarcundo Member UncommonPosts: 88
    Originally posted by Valatheus

    Also, guild-oriented combat is usually limited in some way- AoC, for example, had lockout timers on their sieges, so you might see a good siege once a week Thursday at 2am when a keep is vulnerable. Open world guild pvp other times usually amounted to one guild ganking the other's members as they were out questing (see my preference on open pvp). In factional RvR, I know that at any time of day, I can head out to Cyrodiil and find waiting teammates and known enemies.

    Well sometimes, vulnerability windows could be way outside prime time from time to time in AoC, but not as a general rule. I also think this was more common on US servers than in Europe (probably due to big differences between time zone, Australian guilds etc. being many hours ahead of EST).

    And yes it wasn't all the time that you could siege, but then again that made it something to look forward to, and in the meantime you could do mini games (battlegrounds).

    The way I see it AoC (GvG) has the following strong side compared to TESO siegeing:

    • As a guild it mattered that someone actually would attack your keep, because it was yours and you as a guild lost bonuses. Therefore you wanted to take a keep and defend. 
    • You got somewhat attached to the Battle Keep, because you as a guild had taken it, and build/repaired it. In TESO guilds do often not even claim a keep, just attack, plant flag and move on to what might be next.
    • 48 people on each side, that made many small fight inside the big fights, and you as a player mattered.

     

     

    Arena combat is fun and you know who your allies are, but it's limited in number of participants, duration, and meaning. In RvR, I could engage in a solo fight on my way to my group and then engage in a 8v8 fight, before stumbing into a 9v15, and then we get swept up in a massive 50+ v 50+ keep defense. Hours fly by with varied gameplay without ever having to re-queue for another match, and you can see your and your faction's results (and failures) by how the map has changed while you played.

     This is a valid point towards RvR. I agree.

     

    [snip] The "us vs them" mentality of factional combat also engendered a feeling of camaraderie, and how you wanted to help those on your faction level and get stronger, because then they would be stronger allies out in the frontier. Our faction in DAoC regularly organized leveling groups just to get those who didn't have much playtime up to combative levels so they could join the fight with the rest of us.

    Indeed. This sounds like something DAOC had that TESO lacks. Except from the friends in real life you play with in TESO there isn't much of what you describe in TESO.

     

    Now, for the stuff mentioned in the OP:

    Size of pvp zone: Logistically, there are fps and latency reasons for creating this size to help split up the populations so they can have hundreds of players per faction in the zone at the same time. Also, with a nice speedy horse you can get from a keep to the next in approximately 30 seconds, which isn't too bad. I'll focus on the reasons I personally like the size, however.

    Ok. I agree size o the map isn't the biggest argument vs RvR, but you are a lot by yourself in TESO. Either the many hours leveling or on tour horse getting to the action only to get hit by a small group, and having to start over.

    As I remember it it was a little more frowned upon in AoC to to attack people on hors than it is in TESO.

     

    Feeling of personal worth: Sometimes you're a speedbump, yes.  There are moments though where you feel like you personally changed the course of a battle, and those feel absolutely amazing. It is such a euphoric rush when your tiny but organized group of 8 is fighting off a stream of enemies that seem to just keep coming, and when it's all over you all remain standing, gazing at the bodies of at least 20 enemies around you, or you run into a keep of yours about to be lost, and while the enemy is on the flag, at the last moment manage to silence their healer and draw some of their attention into waiting guards, causing their entire raid to wipe and giving time for friendly reinforcements to arrive and assist you in holding the breach. No bards will sing tales of that exploit, but I feel like the King of that keep when it happens.

     

    Yea I can imagine. That sounds like a  lot of fun.

     

    Anonymous/no planning of synergies: Try running with a guild that does small-scale pvp. Our small group is talking about our builds and calling our ultimates whenever we pvp. Those who remember DAoC fondly were usually those who organized 8-man groups and wandered about. Since they often encountered numbers far in excess of what they had, their group had to be well put together and each player had to know what the others were capable of and work as a unit. And then when one of these fine-tuned groups encountered a similar group from another factions, you got some great fights.

    Definately sounds like a lot of fun.

  • arcundoarcundo Member UncommonPosts: 88
    Originally posted by MsPtibiscuit

    ESO is not a good example of a good RvR game.

    [snip]

    A good RvR game will allow smaller groups (~5-10 people) to have an impact in a fight if they play well, either via special objectives for them (Ressource transport, Mini-camp capture, Neutral forces to rally, ...) or either via special spells/fight skills that allows them to take down zergs.

    A good RvR game will try to value the different objectives. For example, keeps will provide some bonus to the faction that controls them: dungeon access, special crafting materials/workstations, special merchants and such. "Secured" keeps shouldn't be deserted, because they should provide some special things that players want.

    About guilds, DaoC tried to include guilds in the RvR world. They could claim a keep and get some bonuses. Plus when the keep was attack, the guards would alert in the /guild channel the number of ennemies trying to cap the fort.

    As said, ESO has none of that. Factions are symmetrical, the map is symmetrical, the gameplay is unbalanced and highly favors zergs that packs in a square meter, captured keeps gives next to no bonus, and there is no interactions between the PvE and the RvR world. You could actually remove the entire RvR map, it wouldn't damage the game (and it would be an average PvE MMO).

    Thanks! This helped me see why DAoC is considered a better RvR game.

    It was said by ESO devs prelaunch that samller guilds would take resources. But if toy take a lumber mill or so. It is very likely that you will do that and wait a long time and not seeing any enemy. 

    Maybe this game lacked something in between resources and keeps (like towers)? But then again it would be hard to ensure only similar small guilds fighting eachother..

  • fivorothfivoroth Member UncommonPosts: 3,916

    All the drawbacks you mentioned are inherent to every RvR system. DAoC had all these issues as well if you consider them to be issues.

    I am not sure that a small group could have so much more impact in DaoC than in ESO. It's pretty similar. The Imperial city is one of the things that ESO misses at the moment (e.g. access to a special dungeon).

    But I get it. I also prefer small scale pvp - e.g. battlegrounds, arenas. I loved WoW's arenas. WoW's arenas and Guild Wars 1's arenas/GVG were the most fun MMO PvP systems for me. I don't like big zergfests like DAOC, ESO and GW2. DAOC and ESO are not that bad though. GW2's WvWvW is horrible though. 

    Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.

  • pookie9981pookie9981 Member Posts: 6
    Small groups in DAOC had a huge impact 2 minstrel 2 inflitrator and 2 wizards could hold a milestonegate all day against any number enemy as long as the minstrel knew their CCs
  • arcundoarcundo Member UncommonPosts: 88
    Originally posted by fivoroth

    All the drawbacks you mentioned are inherent to every RvR system. DAoC had all these issues as well if you consider them to be issues.

    I am not sure that a small group could have so much more impact in DaoC than in ESO. It's pretty similar. The Imperial city is one of the things that ESO misses at the moment (e.g. access to a special dungeon).

    But I get it. I also prefer small scale pvp - e.g. battlegrounds, arenas. I loved WoW's arenas. WoW's arenas and Guild Wars 1's arenas/GVG were the most fun MMO PvP systems for me. I don't like big zergfests like DAOC, ESO and GW2. DAOC and ESO are not that bad though. GW2's WvWvW is horrible though. 

    To the first paragraph.  Then I guess it comes down to personal preferance. I guess some do not mind PvP being anonymous (one of many), guilds do not owning anything or caring about objectives, guilds do not working for a common goal, no guild rivalry. To some point I can understand that just a little bit. But not having a feeling that you can have an impact on how fights turn out, I can not understand that people like better.

     

     

  • ScotScot Member LegendaryPosts: 22,824
    Originally posted by Valatheus
    Originally posted by Scot

    DAOC introduced that RVR concept gently, you did quests in later zones where you could meet the opposition but rarely did. This built up to zones of full out war.

    This is not true at all, you never encountered enemy players in your home zones in the standard ruleset servers - only out in the frontier, similar to ESO's Cyrodiil. 

    DAoC did have "battlegrounds", which were basically mini-frontiers with one keep you could fight over for lower levels to play in, since there was no level balancing in the full frontier.  Otherwise, the only combat outside of the frontiers was in Darkness Falls, a large dungeon that required your faction to control of the majority of the frontier's keeps in order to unlock access for your faction, and boot out the previous faction that was in there. It is similar, in theory, to the upcoming features of the planned Imperial City.

    It was a long time ago, but I think we are talking about the same thing. Those zones were called frontiers and you could find the enemy there. Some started quite low level about level 20 and there were quests to be done there but not as many as a normal zone. Mostly they were used for farming I think.

    Do correct me if I have it wrong, it has been a few years since I played. :) 

     

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