Not to mention zergs allow for a much wider range of classes. How often do you see reavers/tics/thanes/maulers etc in effective 8 mans. There are plenty of other classes people enjoy playing that just aren’t as effective in 8 vs 8 as they are in bg warfare. Thanks are awesome for we interupts in the bg’s but in an 8 man there are plenty of other classes that can outperform and contribute more to the group.
We even use ranger in our groups. We have players who have a goal to get all chars to rr11 so we use everything.
I agree that zerging is a lot more rewarding now than ever, however I'll politley disagree you here Chamie, My groups are rarely at keeps and rarely complete that mission and still do just fine, as I mentioned earlier compared to zerging RP's. Which for the record, I am under the assumtion as to what the measuring stick for a "good day" is. I personally measure is k/d, not IRS, but actual k/d. RP's and IRS is associated, but flawed and inflated with the quests, I'm satisfied with any day that I can end at 10:1. Thats on average spliting fights with groups. Kill a group, kill 2 from the next and die, I think a pretty fair estimate.Above that mark I consider a good day, when I hit 30:1 I'm having a great time, less than that and its not so much.
But if there is some other measurement by which the masses judge a good day in RvR, like, taking 6 keeps without dieing once is considered a good day, please feel free to enlighten me.
I didnt say u had to go to keeps but I said that even as an 8 man you will optimize your RPs by defending a keep with a caster setup every time a keep is under siege. As I write this we just got a 38.5k defense bonus for defending. That doesnt count the RPs we got from the quest and all the kills.
The main problem of roaming RPs is that it is the best group that can make a lot of RPs in this situation but the other groups will make almost 0. It´s a very hostile enviroment for random PuGs that want to roam.
Sounds like a successful day so far, allnwithout technically 8’manning.
Well I can honestly say that I have 0 interest in the keep fights or any type of zerg fights but we do some of it every day because its overpowered for RPs at the moment. This allows us to make 400-600k RPs in total per night on average (never on one char since we switch to finish more quests.)
Don´t get me wrong though I dont think its bad that there is a carrot for people to go for keeps, however there has to be a carrot for people to roam as 8 aswell to make up for it.
I think everyone has their own way of measuring a successful day. It’s very hard to pinpoint one and measure all against it. Sometimes I’ll get a ton of deathblows and consider it a good day. Some days I’ll finish with 100k irs and think it was successful. Days I do not feel successful are when fights are crappy and few and far between. Then I log and watch tv or do something else.
this, is such a blasay answer that just scream "i don't care at all." how to do have that attitude and then put yourself in a coversation about passion for the same activity?
I literally said everyone has a different way of measuring success. I’m sorry that you are apparently ridiculously passionate about this game. Perhaps BS needs to hire you since it literally seems you might care about the game more than they do at this point.
I’m beginning to think you are a little too obsessive and this game is taking on a bigger role in your life than any game should. Maybe it’s because you traded one addiction for another and feel like you’re losing a support system you used in your teen years. Kinda like losing an old friend slowly to disease.
Let’s face it, at some point this game will die, but I don’t think it’s because of zergs. There are plenty of other things wrong with this game and someone just started a thread stating exactly the main reason gaining returning players and retaining them is nearly impossible. The direction BS is taking, with hopes of actually gaining new players is off point. They should have been thinking of current population demographics and making stuff easier and less of time sinks, as stated before most of us do not have the time to sink into playing for 6 hours a day 365 days a year. Between work, kids, wife aggro; our demographic of the player base has changed from the teenager/20somethings to adults. The game is too old to attract younger people who have the kind of time to sink into the game. The mechanics are great but the content and what appeals to newer gamers is just not there.
Im normaly not a forum person and im defo not a social media person, so i dont normaly engange in stuff like this, only sit in the shadows lurking and reading.
( i must confess i have not read all the posts )
To me it seems like since 2001 that mmo players have gotten less willing to make an efford to get what they want for them self. ( no offence to anyone i can be lazy too at times :P )
Before agramon and all that, some would have chat channels, forums and stuff like that set up for smallman / 8 man / solo etc. to pick zones they would roam in.
Why dosnt anyone setup an discord channel or something for 8 mans ( something with passwords so zergs/ adds wont get inte l) , pick 1 or 2 connecting zones and they function as 8 vs 8 zone until zerged or 6 / 12 / 24 hours have passed and you then rotate them to other zones.
Benefit of this would not only be 8 mans knowing where to go and find fights with equal minded players, but you get a change of scenery and landscape to change up fights and tactics abit instead of running in cirles on EV or in a arena.
Make leirvik or Cathal Valley groups, as an example run them once a week, low template cealing, low RR cealing to introduce new / returning players to 8 man and show them how fun it can be, before they have to throw lots of plats and time at a template and RR. A way of recruiting.
If more or less all players i knew had not quit, i would without a doubt have been up for something like this and i would have loved to goof around in a BG testing new chars with new people to find a new home in one of the 3 realms, without having to throw tons of plats and time at a template, just to find out i belong in another realm or another char, having goofed around on gatheris for 3 years due to the wife and i getting kids, i find it incredible hard to break in to anything and become apart of things other then zergs ( can be fun at times for relics and stuff but else ZzZzZzZ ). Sadly with the amount of people i know ingame now and with the efford to template a RvR ready char and im not even sure what i would like to main with all the class changes, breaking in to 8 manning or small manning dosnt seem like an option.
Personaly i find arena fighting really boring really fast and i doubt it would bring much new blood to the 8 man scene.
Sorry for any typos, been kept up half the night by a 2,5 year and a 2 month old and its past midnight now.
All my ideas might be outdated and useless, but atleast its something different ( hopefully ? :P ) thrown in to mix
I think forum or discord also pretty capable to choose different 8v8 Zones already for every day. Lets say "8v8 Night Tuesday: Emain" I mean sure some Zergs might interfere, but I think the community would bash any current zerg leader (as I noticed they mostly the same ppl) that intentionally trying to ruin every 8v8 night fun. Also probably few FGs would work together just to ruin theirs after.
@Vrisslar If almost every guild group do a 180 turn on INC and try to get away now from 8vs8, what do you think would happend if we went to bgs and fought vs complete random bg players? I have thought of the bg idea but ye that would never work. Another problem with bg chars is that they need a temp too and those temps are quite expensive aswell as far as I know.
About the other ideas you mentioned, most have been tried but we are constantly trying to think of more ideas. We are opening an open to everyone draft team channel meaning 2 captains that pick the teams from a pool of 16 players or whatever.
I think forum or discord also pretty capable to choose different 8v8 Zones already for every day. Lets say "8v8 Night Tuesday: Emain" I mean sure some Zergs might interfere, but I think the community would bash any current zerg leader (as I noticed they mostly the same ppl) that intentionally trying to ruin every 8v8 night fun. Also probably few FGs would work together just to ruin theirs after.
There was a time on EU servers when things started to die out on EN servers where people went to Avalon. On Avalon there was an 8vs8 mIRC (most servers had one) but what was so special about Avalons 8vs8 mIRC was that German zerg leaders had a thing for chasing down 8 mans. Therefore you had to play as /anon and change the zone several times a night because these German zerg leaders would try to find out where they were.
On EU primetime on Ywain pretty much every zerg leader is German and we are seeing Them chasing 8 mans on EV for 2-3 hours straight without touching a keep sometimes.
If 8 mans turn and run from 8 mans....lol
Then they probably wouldnt zone in to a arena where its 8 vs 8 and they cant run ?
For 8 vs 8 to work with this population there need to be some sort of cooporation between 8 mans across the realms i would guess, personaly id rather fight and be dead having had fun then flee from something im not sure to win.
Anyone know any reason for why they run ?
BG could work if 8 mans on each realm could agree on that BG night being recuitment night and set a limit for the items, like PvE quest village items only or BG BP items only.
If 8 mans want 8 man to survive they would have to make an afford too, both at having fun and getting new blood in to the groups.
no amount of arena's or special zones would fix 8 mans not wanting to 8 man as they wouldnt zone in and the problem would be the same as with a forum / channel and rotating designated 8 man zones ?
If 8 mans turn and run from 8 mans....lol
Then they probably wouldnt zone in to a arena where its 8 vs 8 and they cant run ?
For 8 vs 8 to work with this population there need to be some sort of cooporation between 8 mans across the realms i would guess, personaly id rather fight and be dead having had fun then flee from something im not sure to win.
Anyone know any reason for why they run ?
BG could work if 8 mans on each realm could agree on that BG night being recuitment night and set a limit for the items, like PvE quest village items only or BG BP items only.
If 8 mans want 8 man to survive they would have to make an afford too, both at having fun and getting new blood in to the groups.
no amount of arena's or special zones would fix 8 mans not wanting to 8 man as they wouldnt zone in and the problem would be the same as with a forum / channel and rotating designated 8 man zones ?
There is a very simple reason why the roaming zone would work. You add a daily quest with a good RP reward. One that can only be completed in that zone of course.
Personally im not a fan of this reward on rewards on rewards.
Sure a daily quest might get some to do it, but if the quest require too much for the reward most might not bother and if the quest requirement are too small it will die fast each evening ?
I remember avalon in EU as excal is where i started my EU DAoC days at release with GOA.
But until a arena or something is made, it might be worth exploring other options as all that can be done atm is for the 8 mans to try to do something them self, an arena might never arrive, but for all the people in this thread saying that they would come back for a arena, if they came back to fight and not run from other 8 mans in rotating designated zones there might still be action and fun to be had ?
Personally im not a fan of this reward on rewards on rewards.
Uhm well its not so bad really its just that whatever becomes rewarded will be the playstyle that will be played. Daily quests is a great thing in gaming though to keep people logging in. Imagine hearthstone without daily quests.
Dont really know what hearthstone is and i doubt it have much in common with 8 man RvR fun
Personaly im a fan of the "sandbox" (For lack of a better way to say it ) ways where fun and interest drives things and not quests and rewards telling me where to have fun for optimal rewards.
Not a fan of all the RvR quests added to the game over the years as you might have guessed by now, but thats me lol
If zerging 8 man's brings less RP's then 8 vs 8 fighting, then the decreased RP was made for a reason and a quest rewarding RP for zerging 25 players kind of nullifies the decreased RP's for zerging that 8 man in the first place and i guess it would promote more reasons to zerg that 8 man. ( One of the reasons i dont like reward quests like that )
Then again i might be totaly out of the loop and dont understand current days problems.
If the 8 mans isnt willing to try to make a solution them self until other things can be made and just quit, there will be less and less reason for broadsword to help a playstyle that wont help it self and are becomming a increasing minority cause they are gone ?
Anyways tried to help by bringing old ideas to table, they aparently arent worth trying for different reasons, so i wish you the best of luck in getting what you hope for
Edit:
Just a thought that came in to my head. ( where else would it come in to eh ? )
What ever happend to 8 manning for the fun, challenge and getting better, winning fights you couldnt win before. I dont get why today its fun = reward ....bigger reward = more fun.
But until a arena or something is made, it might be worth exploring other options as all that can be done atm is for the 8 mans to try to do something them self, an arena might never arrive, but for all the people in this thread saying that they would come back for a arena, if they came back to fight and not run from other 8 mans in rotating designated zones there might still be action and fun to be had ?
About discovering other options, the community has a done A LOT man. Some of the things they have done are things that I would not be allowed to discuss on official forums Some of these ideas have been great and really is something that broadsword should take after. Maybe even try to hire some of these people.
Like I said however none of your ideas are new things that we havent thought of or done already.
The one thing that hasnt been done is to try to get inexperienced players to play with experienced players an create fun even fights like this. This is where the draft channel comes in.
Alright as i said been gone from ywain for a while.
I know the ideas are old, in fact i said so in the very first post i made, sometimes old ideas are just worth trying again i thought, aparently they arent or have been tried again.
If all the efford the community have made, have ended up in 8 mans running away from each other and not wanting to fight each other i personaly doubt anything will be able to save 8 manning, i hope im wrong and that 8 mans will find / get a solution, best of luck
Atleast i guess i now know why the 8 man community have a hard time finding new blood and why i should just give up on getting in to it again.
Alright as i said been gone from ywain for a while.
I know the ideas are old, in fact i said so in the very first post i made, sometimes old ideas are just worth trying again i thought, aparently they arent or have been tried again.
If all the efford the community have made, have ended up in 8 mans running away from each other and not wanting to fight each other i personaly doubt anything will be able to save 8 manning, i hope im wrong and that 8 mans will find / get a solution, best of luck
Atleast i guess i now know why the 8 man community have a hard time finding new blood and why i should just give up on getting in to it again.
Thanks for the discussion.
Its not that simple. We had an 8vs8 discord chat where people respected eachothers fights and didnt add and so on and its still there. However, some months ago almost all groups that were there quit the game because they just couldnt take getting zerged over and over again.
Now you may say "Ok so just go to another zone." Like I mentioned before, this has been tried in the past and if there is enough action in that zone the zergs will just go there. That is just one of several issues with it though.
- First of all EV is very easy to go to zone compared to lets say Brefine which was a popular choice to avoid the zerg on Avalon. (The realms that did not have port had to take a boat every time they died)
- Buggane kills are sort of important for the buggane quest. Lets say just you want to be where the buggane is if you care about RPs at all.
- Most days an 8 man community will only be able to gather 3-5 groups for an evening so if you want variation in your action, those random groups might be quite important after all. Maybe the dominant group won´t mind but what if you are the worst group out of 3 groups and you never fight anything other than these 2 other groups every day? 8 man roaming requires a lot of groups roaming around in order to open up for more skill levels than just one. My dream is that an FFA zone with a daily quest reward could make this reality.
Now we are also coming back to why I made this thread in the first place. The 8 man or small man community has become so small that we might aswell make some kind of arena because set fights and arena is pretty much the exact same thing.
To answer your question about why 8 mans run away from other 8 mans on INC, I have no idea it´s some weird 2018 behaviour where you won´t fight a group if you think their players are too good. An 8 man making a 180 instantly upon spotting another 8 man definitely is not something that I have any memory of happening in DAoC back in the days, at least not on my servers.
In a way I can understand that some PuGs would run away from the group that Im currently playing with. Less understandable that there are guild groups and groups who play with eachother almost every day who do this aswell. What is even more shocking is that when I came back to this game and only did /region groups, people would run away on INC or call for help if there were even numbers aswell. There is a word for people like this...
If all the effort the community have made, have ended up in 8 mans running away from each other and not wanting to fight each other i personaly doubt anything will be able to save 8 manning, i hope im wrong and that 8 mans will find / get a solution, best of luck
this is unfortunately very true, in the 8 man scene on every server over the years the bottom %5 seem to fall off every other week until you get to the point we are at and have been at for a while. (No different from any PvP game out there)
You can obviously no longer change servers to avoid the better groups.
The top %1 of all those groups combined over the years are now all in one group - giving other lesser groups no chance - hence the 180 on inc. (mostly because you know thy enemy at 4k units? or via spam - you can make this decision to avoid the fight, add some anonymity into target/spam and players wont be able to make this prejudgement)
The reason win at all costs OR oh we have to run strong groups so that we have a chance against all the 16slots+ (wrong thought process imo - they run 16 slots because they have zero chance vs some of these groups)
The only save and grace is getting some sort of casual draft going, setting a zone and having good old fashion skrimishes where groups can be compartively even skill wise due to the draft process - be accepting this isn't about being the best, its about having some old fashioned fun. - However even if this is setup you will still have that %age wanting to destory it before it starts.
I feel that adding a zone that works like the pvp server has some chance of working but other than that it´s sort of safe to say that the glorious roaming that a lot of us remember DAoC from is dead. I kinda of agree with what tald said only that what he said about 16 mans forming cus people make too strong groups is not really true because I saw hibs and mids doing this several times even after losing vs region chat groups.
About drafting... I know some people see this idea and think "Wow these guys are trying way too hard." Truth is that it is probably the lowest effort required solution there ever has been to keep 8vs8 alive in DAoC.
You make a discord channel and get a bot that has a few simple commands so people can sign up for drafts and then you are done. The only work is getting people interested.
The way captains drafting works is that each player is expected to get 40-60% once they have played enough games for the random factor to be eliminated. This is the easiest way of preventing that people give up because they can´t win often enough.
What tald says is kind of true for games that have been around for way too long and had their player bases heavily reduced. Groups will dissapear and the most active and most serious players of each of the dissapearing groups will try to band together. However, newcomers will have a chance if they can get to train in draft fights side by side with the top players.
@John_Broadsword Direct question Do you want the 8v8 community here or do you want us to leave?
Still waiting John... 7/27 the question was asked..
I don't have the link handy or the direct quote, but to be fair in 2016? or so John specifically stated that "they" balance the game around "group" combat from a class standpoint & not solo/smallman/zerg warfare.
To me that indicates Broadsword does support group play or "8v8" above all else. One example would be giving 204% speed to Sorc & Healers allowing groups to be formed easier.
While I can appreciate the arena combat idea nowadays with Discord & other voice programs it's very easy to be in contact with opposing groups & just set up fights at a predetermined location or even decide on an out of the way zone to roam & find each other if you want more spontaneous hits.
Josh, to be fair, those class changes for speed and such, also directly helps zerg groups to be more effective without the use of CTR for your example above, so John can change that sentence just a little bit and easily say its to bring more competition for the Zerg warfare. No mechanics actually change, just the words. Also its easy to come say you want the 8v8 community here, its another thing to show us that. I think an area that can not be zerged is what it will take to keep the 8v8 community active, and a daily quest for RP's to be completed in that zone will make more casual 8 mans attracted to it. Then the known current NF can be more zerggy and Realm vs. Realm orientated, with spots for solo action to increase. Also with a zone that can't be trampled by the zerg would allow for community projects like a draft could flourish because it would not have to be secretive. I feel like my group has earned a lot of respect in 8v8 community over the last month and I still don't have an invite for for any of these discords mentioned. I understand that you have to gatekeep that because then people will just relay the info over to the zergs and then the zone would get rolled out of greed, but if a non-rollable zone were to be in place, then I feel like that gatekeeping could be toned down quite a bit, allowing for more 8 mans to get more involved in the scene.
I feel like my group has earned a lot of respect in 8v8 community over the last month and I still don't have an invite for for any of these discords mentioned.
There is a huge difference between what ppl want, being a roaming 8man is not the same as doing setup 8v8 fights. Props to you for preaching all this, but the reality is that should you engage in this competitive scene and also a zone made for this. I fear you and others wouldn't spend much time there.
Which is unfortunately why the scene is also semi destructive for itself - casual 8v8 would flourish i agree, but competitive win at all costs which many 8v8rs want would result in this zone being a ghost town.
Prove me wrong thou, many groups will form to do set fights with you - if it was avaliable.
Once the XvX draft channel is ready, you and others will get an invite - but its totally aimed at created a fair fun playing field and inclusive of everyone that wants to partipate - no point in putting <CT> vs <OC> out there for example because it would really be fun for either group - but a mixture of the both would result in a fun skrimish.
Tald, I was referencing the already existing discords that people are using to find groups to fight with. I'm much more inclined to roam a zone and don't care something as specific as Star lake for example, but knowing there is legitamatly another group roaming lff and not getting trolled to spend an hour roaming, or go straight there to get zerged for the lols.
I tried using the 8v8 chan on official out of hope, but was told to go join the BG.
And from everything I have seen and read on here and see in game, Really Josh and Chamie are the only ones that care at all. I'm tired of have to explain this over and over and over again, so I'll stop.
The zerg community doesn't care about rolling 8 mans until they quit,
The fake 8's act like they don't know who I am,
And John Broadsword has shown with the lack of communication that he has no desire to work with 8v8 community.
I'll just go back to playing, enjoy it as much as I can, I guess. @mods don't worry about banning me, I will not be back on the boards anymore, my opinions don't matter here, and I'm not supporting Nate turning these boards into his personal youtube channel.
@Staticc haha yeah that Nate Bruner thing is a bit insane. It´s cool that people make DAoC vids and sure they can advertise it on the forum but this many threads... I mean what can I say, from what I can see he is a below average player who happens to be a zergling and probably a real keyboard turner by the looks of it. As in an actual 2001 style keyboard turner not as in the expression "keyboard turner". Seen some of his footage and Im quite sure 1-2 vids from him was enough for me .
I think that one question that often comes up on the forum when talking about 8vs8 is "why 8vs8, why not 6v6, 1on1, 3v3 or 5on5 then?"
To me that question is very weird when the max group size in this game is 8 and the game has clearly been heavily balanced around 8vs8. 1on1, zergs or small men balance in DAoC has never really been that good. Remember animists in zerg fights in OF? I think that is the best example of how little focus was put on zerg fight balance in this game.
1on1 balance has never really existed, game clearly hasnt been built for 1on1 balance unlike lets say WoW where 1on1 has been a huge thing to balance for.
3v3 has never really been a thing, mostly rock paper scissors but it definitely allows for some skill and can be very enjoyable at times.
5v5 and 6v6 is where things start to get really interesting.
8vs8 - all the spots in your group are filled your group will now have great defense, offense and interupt/CC if correctly built. The one downside of 8vs8 is maybe that it takes a few too many people to build it.
Again it´s just very weird to me how people can suddenly start to question 8vs8. There were other formats than 8vs8 in GW1 aswell but everyone just agreed that those were "for fun" and not what the game was balanced for.
Even WoW was originally full group focused (5on5) but in that game people realized that maybe 3on3 was more suitable for that game which I can agree on.
And if Mythic made 10 the max group size it would be 10v10, that does not mean that DAoC is balanced around group vs group.
You guys are interpreting too much, based on your own picture how it should be.
MJ, Matt Frior etc are not dead, they`re just some clicks away. Ask them (if it isn`t already written somewhere) why they made 8 a group and how they were trying to balance daoc.
I´m pretty sure that if you ask *was 8v8 intended to be the prefered playstyle and balancing was around 8v8* you get a *Nope, Sir!*.
I´m pretty sure that if you ask *was 8v8 intended to be the prefered playstyle and balancing was around 8v8* you get a *Nope, Sir!*.
I´m pretty sure you would get this answer in a lot of games. Game developers will not openly tend to say something like that because then they make people who play other formats dissapointed. So in a game where huge battles are advertised I would say that there is close to a 0% that they would say something like that.
Maybe we could get blizzard to make a statement that Starcraft is balanced for 1on1 or at least get them to say that Overwatch is balanced for 6v6. However those are competitive games with a very clear format focus. It may be harder to get blizz to say that they are balancing WoW around 3v3, I think they even made the official statement "No we care about all formats."
Still the fact remains. Pretty much every active RA was group focused, "GROUP purge" and so on. I feel like the first time we saw realm helping abilities other than single target skills that were called "target realm" instead of single target was when MLs came with FoP and so on. But most likely I´m just forgetting something. ToA also brought things like egg rezz which definitely is a zerg focused ability.
I´m pretty sure that if you ask *was 8v8 intended to be the prefered playstyle and balancing was around 8v8* you get a *Nope, Sir!*.
Still the fact remains. Pretty much every active RA was group focused, "GROUP purge" and so on. I feel like the first time we saw realm helping abilities other than single target skills that were called "target realm" instead of single target was when MLs came with FoP and so on. But most likely I´m just forgetting something. ToA also brought things like egg rezz which definitely is a zerg focused ability.
And just because the *group* in group purge (or similar) make you think the game is balanced around 8v8? Strange logic
Egg rezz is just a Aoe rezz, not more, not less, no zerg needed to use it.
Again, you interpret too much, in a way that fit your needs.
We have the same mechanics in DAoC as in CU. Max group is 8.
And they already stated that the balancing isn`t based on groups. Groups are a part <<<important, just a part of the big picture, which is named... RvR.
I´m pretty sure that if you ask *was 8v8 intended to be the prefered playstyle and balancing was around 8v8* you get a *Nope, Sir!*.
Still the fact remains. Pretty much every active RA was group focused, "GROUP purge" and so on. I feel like the first time we saw realm helping abilities other than single target skills that were called "target realm" instead of single target was when MLs came with FoP and so on. But most likely I´m just forgetting something. ToA also brought things like egg rezz which definitely is a zerg focused ability.
And just because the *group* in group purge (or similar) make you think the game is balanced around 8v8? Strange logic
Egg rezz is just a Aoe rezz, not more, not less, no zerg needed to use it.
Again, you interpret too much, in a way that fit your needs.
We have the same mechanics in DAoC as in CU. Max group is 8.
And they already stated that the balancing isn`t based on groups. Groups are a part <<<important, just a part of the big picture, which is named... RvR.
Nothing of what you just said is any way a counter argument. All I said is that the balance has kept full group vs full group hugely in mind and this has been the most balanced format of DAoC. Now if you dont agree with that fine.
Again, you interpret too much, in a way that fit your needs.
We have the same mechanics in DAoC as in CU. Max group is 8.
And they already stated that the balancing isn`t based on groups. Groups are a part <<<important, just a part of the big picture, which is named... RvR.
the fact is that whilst developers have a dream, is it is the players that make that dream come true.
the framework, our arena called NF is there to support all sorts of mini-games/playstyles in which the players dream up to keep them playing the game.
clustering well before broadswords time, technically destroyed the big picture (RvR) for many and its apparent today with teh big swings in population and the disregard for relics/ports etc.
there are numerous things that have pushed the 8 man out of the way when dealing with zergs which include the heavy tank patch, limiting aoe spells to 16 enemies.
can you imagine if aoe spells could hit 100 ppl, how many /stick zergs would there be there - the zerg leader would demand ppl unstick and run nearby but independently of them - if something like this would be re-implemented i am certain that would be the start of introducing more leaders to NF since they now have to think/inspire themselves.
i think john broadsword stated a few times that they balance around grp rvr and many changes on towers they did was to spread out action, increase roaming and to kill camping zergfights (population wise not a good idea)
@Chamie it was your current grp that killed eu time 8vs8 to the point where the left overs of old grps are joining toms grp now, ppl were tired of getting jammed by zerg or die to the same grp on and on
thats why a 8vs8 zone wouldnt work like @tald stated atleast not aslong as the best grps griefes the other fgs or pugs every run
draft could counter that, i got my doubts tho that some individuals will join this drafts on the long run tho where they cant switch to counter setups or keep winning
8vs8 killed theirselfs by farming left overs on and on, a too big skill gap between grps and by not recruiting other players
this is no critique or anything @Chamie but you could have formed another cru with randoms but you decided to join the bigger fish, thats the problem but natural human behaviour
I´m pretty sure that if you ask *was 8v8 intended to be the prefered playstyle and balancing was around 8v8* you get a *Nope, Sir!*.
Still the fact remains. Pretty much every active RA was group focused, "GROUP purge" and so on. I feel like the first time we saw realm helping abilities other than single target skills that were called "target realm" instead of single target was when MLs came with FoP and so on. But most likely I´m just forgetting something. ToA also brought things like egg rezz which definitely is a zerg focused ability.
And just because the *group* in group purge (or similar) make you think the game is balanced around 8v8? Strange logic
Egg rezz is just a Aoe rezz, not more, not less, no zerg needed to use it.
Again, you interpret too much, in a way that fit your needs.
We have the same mechanics in DAoC as in CU. Max group is 8.
And they already stated that the balancing isn`t based on groups. Groups are a part <<<important, just a part of the big picture, which is named... RvR.
Nothing of what you just said is any way a counter argument. All I said is that the balance has kept full group vs full group hugely in mind and this has been the most balanced format of DAoC. Now if you dont agree with that fine.
Wasn`t meant as a counter argument, that is why i wrote *Groups* are a part of the big picture.
Maybe i wasn`t clear enough, i`ve meant groups that are focused on 8v8.
Competitive 8v8 is and should be a niche, a small part in a rvr centered mmo like daoc.
Have been playing ..somewhere...in 2017, where this elitist 8v8 was the meta for some time.
Wasn`t something i`d like to see on Ywain.
DAoC excels at large scale PvP warfare, it's what made the game great and there's yet to be a game that can come close to taking DAoC's RvR crown. These suggestions are attempting to mold DAoC into an entirely different game and rejecting everything DAoC does right.
Now, that's not saying Broadsword couldn't add minor elements to the game to make 8v8 more viable. They should, but in a way that doesn't compromise the overall concept of the game. (i.e. separate dueling / arena areas = bad)
Any systems that gate players behind a zone in RvR should be avoided as much as possible (outside of PvEvP zones ofc)
DAoC excels at large scale PvP warfare, it's what made the game great and there's yet to be a game that can come close to taking DAoC's RvR crown. These suggestions are attempting to mold DAoC into an entirely different game and rejecting everything DAoC does right.
I feel this is a pretty generic statement, there are alot of mini games avaliable within DAoC with each instances attracts its niche player base.
Large scale PvP warfare whilst has its moments of being great, and glimmers of hope - have for alongtime been one-sided and for the most part avoided by either or both sides.
These suggestions aren't attempting to mold DAoC into anything, merely just another option avaliable to the player base should the demand be there.
I have my reservations on instance PvP knowing a large part of the community and there is alot mis-informed representation and assumptions of whats happening out there.
A classic example of this is Labyrynth - whilst avaliable - people choose not to go there for their /bowzone /solozone for what ever reason - probably due to RP Bonuses / Buggane and then Dailies. (Which would be the same case as instances)
We have built a framework (with work in progress) for Draft-Style PvP - Anyone is welcome to participate (probably want at least 2 characters ready per realm for best experience) https://discord.gg/YZSZCBG . I look forward to seeing this be a success to show there is a demand for ideas discussed in this thread.
Comments
We even use ranger in our groups. We have players who have a goal to get all chars to rr11 so we use everything.
I didnt say u had to go to keeps but I said that even as an 8 man you will optimize your RPs by defending a keep with a caster setup every time a keep is under siege. As I write this we just got a 38.5k defense bonus for defending. That doesnt count the RPs we got from the quest and all the kills.
The main problem of roaming RPs is that it is the best group that can make a lot of RPs in this situation but the other groups will make almost 0. It´s a very hostile enviroment for random PuGs that want to roam.
Well I can honestly say that I have 0 interest in the keep fights or any type of zerg fights but we do some of it every day because its overpowered for RPs at the moment. This allows us to make 400-600k RPs in total per night on average (never on one char since we switch to finish more quests.)
Don´t get me wrong though I dont think its bad that there is a carrot for people to go for keeps, however there has to be a carrot for people to roam as 8 aswell to make up for it.
this, is such a blasay answer that just scream "i don't care at all." how to do have that attitude and then put yourself in a coversation about passion for the same activity?
I literally said everyone has a different way of measuring success. I’m sorry that you are apparently ridiculously passionate about this game. Perhaps BS needs to hire you since it literally seems you might care about the game more than they do at this point.
I’m beginning to think you are a little too obsessive and this game is taking on a bigger role in your life than any game should. Maybe it’s because you traded one addiction for another and feel like you’re losing a support system you used in your teen years. Kinda like losing an old friend slowly to disease.
Let’s face it, at some point this game will die, but I don’t think it’s because of zergs. There are plenty of other things wrong with this game and someone just started a thread stating exactly the main reason gaining returning players and retaining them is nearly impossible. The direction BS is taking, with hopes of actually gaining new players is off point. They should have been thinking of current population demographics and making stuff easier and less of time sinks, as stated before most of us do not have the time to sink into playing for 6 hours a day 365 days a year. Between work, kids, wife aggro; our demographic of the player base has changed from the teenager/20somethings to adults. The game is too old to attract younger people who have the kind of time to sink into the game. The mechanics are great but the content and what appeals to newer gamers is just not there.
Just my 2 cents
( i must confess i have not read all the posts
To me it seems like since 2001 that mmo players have gotten less willing to make an efford to get what they want for them self. ( no offence to anyone i can be lazy too at times :P )
Before agramon and all that, some would have chat channels, forums and stuff like that set up for smallman / 8 man / solo etc. to pick zones they would roam in.
Why dosnt anyone setup an discord channel or something for 8 mans ( something with passwords so zergs/ adds wont get inte l) , pick 1 or 2 connecting zones and they function as 8 vs 8 zone until zerged or 6 / 12 / 24 hours have passed and you then rotate them to other zones.
Benefit of this would not only be 8 mans knowing where to go and find fights with equal minded players, but you get a change of scenery and landscape to change up fights and tactics abit instead of running in cirles on EV or in a arena.
Make leirvik or Cathal Valley groups, as an example run them once a week, low template cealing, low RR cealing to introduce new / returning players to 8 man and show them how fun it can be, before they have to throw lots of plats and time at a template and RR. A way of recruiting.
If more or less all players i knew had not quit, i would without a doubt have been up for something like this and i would have loved to goof around in a BG testing new chars with new people to find a new home in one of the 3 realms, without having to throw tons of plats and time at a template, just to find out i belong in another realm or another char, having goofed around on gatheris for 3 years due to the wife and i getting kids, i find it incredible hard to break in to anything and become apart of things other then zergs ( can be fun at times for relics and stuff but else ZzZzZzZ ). Sadly with the amount of people i know ingame now and with the efford to template a RvR ready char and im not even sure what i would like to main with all the class changes, breaking in to 8 manning or small manning dosnt seem like an option.
Personaly i find arena fighting really boring really fast and i doubt it would bring much new blood to the 8 man scene.
Sorry for any typos, been kept up half the night by a 2,5 year and a 2 month old and its past midnight now.
All my ideas might be outdated and useless, but atleast its something different ( hopefully ? :P ) thrown in to mix
About the other ideas you mentioned, most have been tried but we are constantly trying to think of more ideas. We are opening an open to everyone draft team channel meaning 2 captains that pick the teams from a pool of 16 players or whatever.
There was a time on EU servers when things started to die out on EN servers where people went to Avalon. On Avalon there was an 8vs8 mIRC (most servers had one) but what was so special about Avalons 8vs8 mIRC was that German zerg leaders had a thing for chasing down 8 mans. Therefore you had to play as /anon and change the zone several times a night because these German zerg leaders would try to find out where they were.
On EU primetime on Ywain pretty much every zerg leader is German and we are seeing Them chasing 8 mans on EV for 2-3 hours straight without touching a keep sometimes.
Then they probably wouldnt zone in to a arena where its 8 vs 8 and they cant run ?
For 8 vs 8 to work with this population there need to be some sort of cooporation between 8 mans across the realms i would guess, personaly id rather fight and be dead having had fun then flee from something im not sure to win.
Anyone know any reason for why they run ?
BG could work if 8 mans on each realm could agree on that BG night being recuitment night and set a limit for the items, like PvE quest village items only or BG BP items only.
If 8 mans want 8 man to survive they would have to make an afford too, both at having fun and getting new blood in to the groups.
no amount of arena's or special zones would fix 8 mans not wanting to 8 man as they wouldnt zone in and the problem would be the same as with a forum / channel and rotating designated 8 man zones ?
There is a very simple reason why the roaming zone would work. You add a daily quest with a good RP reward.
Sure a daily quest might get some to do it, but if the quest require too much for the reward most might not bother and if the quest requirement are too small it will die fast each evening ?
I remember avalon in EU as excal is where i started my EU DAoC days at release with GOA.
But until a arena or something is made, it might be worth exploring other options as all that can be done atm is for the 8 mans to try to do something them self, an arena might never arrive, but for all the people in this thread saying that they would come back for a arena, if they came back to fight and not run from other 8 mans in rotating designated zones there might still be action and fun to be had ?
Uhm well its not so bad really its just that whatever becomes rewarded will be the playstyle that will be played. Daily quests is a great thing in gaming though to keep people logging in. Imagine hearthstone without daily quests.
Personaly im a fan of the "sandbox" (For lack of a better way to say it ) ways where fun and interest drives things and not quests and rewards telling me where to have fun for optimal rewards.
Not a fan of all the RvR quests added to the game over the years as you might have guessed by now, but thats me lol
If zerging 8 man's brings less RP's then 8 vs 8 fighting, then the decreased RP was made for a reason and a quest rewarding RP for zerging 25 players kind of nullifies the decreased RP's for zerging that 8 man in the first place and i guess it would promote more reasons to zerg that 8 man. ( One of the reasons i dont like reward quests like that )
Then again i might be totaly out of the loop and dont understand current days problems.
If the 8 mans isnt willing to try to make a solution them self until other things can be made and just quit, there will be less and less reason for broadsword to help a playstyle that wont help it self and are becomming a increasing minority cause they are gone ?
Anyways tried to help by bringing old ideas to table, they aparently arent worth trying for different reasons, so i wish you the best of luck in getting what you hope for
Edit:
Just a thought that came in to my head. ( where else would it come in to eh ? )
What ever happend to 8 manning for the fun, challenge and getting better, winning fights you couldnt win before. I dont get why today its fun = reward ....bigger reward = more fun.
About discovering other options, the community has a done A LOT man. Some of the things they have done are things that I would not be allowed to discuss on official forums Some of these ideas have been great and really is something that broadsword should take after. Maybe even try to hire some of these people.
Like I said however none of your ideas are new things that we havent thought of or done already.
The one thing that hasnt been done is to try to get inexperienced players to play with experienced players an create fun even fights like this. This is where the draft channel comes in.
I know the ideas are old, in fact i said so in the very first post i made, sometimes old ideas are just worth trying again i thought, aparently they arent or have been tried again.
If all the efford the community have made, have ended up in 8 mans running away from each other and not wanting to fight each other i personaly doubt anything will be able to save 8 manning, i hope im wrong and that 8 mans will find / get a solution, best of luck
Atleast i guess i now know why the 8 man community have a hard time finding new blood and why i should just give up on getting in to it again.
Thanks for the discussion.
Its not that simple. We had an 8vs8 discord chat where people respected eachothers fights and didnt add and so on and its still there. However, some months ago almost all groups that were there quit the game because they just couldnt take getting zerged over and over again.
Now you may say "Ok so just go to another zone." Like I mentioned before, this has been tried in the past and if there is enough action in that zone the zergs will just go there. That is just one of several issues with it though.
- First of all EV is very easy to go to zone compared to lets say Brefine which was a popular choice to avoid the zerg on Avalon. (The realms that did not have port had to take a boat every time they died)
- Buggane kills are sort of important for the buggane quest. Lets say just you want to be where the buggane is if you care about RPs at all.
- Most days an 8 man community will only be able to gather 3-5 groups for an evening so if you want variation in your action, those random groups might be quite important after all. Maybe the dominant group won´t mind but what if you are the worst group out of 3 groups and you never fight anything other than these 2 other groups every day? 8 man roaming requires a lot of groups roaming around in order to open up for more skill levels than just one. My dream is that an FFA zone with a daily quest reward could make this reality.
Now we are also coming back to why I made this thread in the first place. The 8 man or small man community has become so small that we might aswell make some kind of arena because set fights and arena is pretty much the exact same thing.
To answer your question about why 8 mans run away from other 8 mans on INC, I have no idea it´s some weird 2018 behaviour where you won´t fight a group if you think their players are too good. An 8 man making a 180 instantly upon spotting another 8 man definitely is not something that I have any memory of happening in DAoC back in the days, at least not on my servers.
In a way I can understand that some PuGs would run away from the group that Im currently playing with. Less understandable that there are guild groups and groups who play with eachother almost every day who do this aswell. What is even more shocking is that when I came back to this game and only did /region groups, people would run away on INC or call for help if there were even numbers aswell. There is a word for people like this...
this is unfortunately very true, in the 8 man scene on every server over the years the bottom %5 seem to fall off every other week until you get to the point we are at and have been at for a while. (No different from any PvP game out there)
You can obviously no longer change servers to avoid the better groups.
The top %1 of all those groups combined over the years are now all in one group - giving other lesser groups no chance - hence the 180 on inc. (mostly because you know thy enemy at 4k units? or via spam - you can make this decision to avoid the fight, add some anonymity into target/spam and players wont be able to make this prejudgement)
The reason win at all costs OR oh we have to run strong groups so that we have a chance against all the 16slots+ (wrong thought process imo - they run 16 slots because they have zero chance vs some of these groups)
The only save and grace is getting some sort of casual draft going, setting a zone and having good old fashion skrimishes where groups can be compartively even skill wise due to the draft process - be accepting this isn't about being the best, its about having some old fashioned fun. - However even if this is setup you will still have that %age wanting to destory it before it starts.
About drafting... I know some people see this idea and think "Wow these guys are trying way too hard." Truth is that it is probably the lowest effort required solution there ever has been to keep 8vs8 alive in DAoC.
You make a discord channel and get a bot that has a few simple commands so people can sign up for drafts and then you are done. The only work is getting people interested.
The way captains drafting works is that each player is expected to get 40-60% once they have played enough games for the random factor to be eliminated. This is the easiest way of preventing that people give up because they can´t win often enough.
What tald says is kind of true for games that have been around for way too long and had their player bases heavily reduced. Groups will dissapear and the most active and most serious players of each of the dissapearing groups will try to band together. However, newcomers will have a chance if they can get to train in draft fights side by side with the top players.
I don't have the link handy or the direct quote, but to be fair in 2016? or so John specifically stated that "they" balance the game around "group" combat from a class standpoint & not solo/smallman/zerg warfare.
To me that indicates Broadsword does support group play or "8v8" above all else. One example would be giving 204% speed to Sorc & Healers allowing groups to be formed easier.
While I can appreciate the arena combat idea nowadays with Discord & other voice programs it's very easy to be in contact with opposing groups & just set up fights at a predetermined location or even decide on an out of the way zone to roam & find each other if you want more spontaneous hits.
There is a huge difference between what ppl want, being a roaming 8man is not the same as doing setup 8v8 fights. Props to you for preaching all this, but the reality is that should you engage in this competitive scene and also a zone made for this. I fear you and others wouldn't spend much time there.
Which is unfortunately why the scene is also semi destructive for itself - casual 8v8 would flourish i agree, but competitive win at all costs which many 8v8rs want would result in this zone being a ghost town.
Prove me wrong thou, many groups will form to do set fights with you - if it was avaliable.
Once the XvX draft channel is ready, you and others will get an invite - but its totally aimed at created a fair fun playing field and inclusive of everyone that wants to partipate - no point in putting <CT> vs <OC> out there for example because it would really be fun for either group - but a mixture of the both would result in a fun skrimish.
I tried using the 8v8 chan on official out of hope, but was told to go join the BG.
And from everything I have seen and read on here and see in game, Really Josh and Chamie are the only ones that care at all. I'm tired of have to explain this over and over and over again, so I'll stop.
The zerg community doesn't care about rolling 8 mans until they quit,
The fake 8's act like they don't know who I am,
And John Broadsword has shown with the lack of communication that he has no desire to work with 8v8 community.
I'll just go back to playing, enjoy it as much as I can, I guess. @mods don't worry about banning me, I will not be back on the boards anymore, my opinions don't matter here, and I'm not supporting Nate turning these boards into his personal youtube channel.
See you guys in game I guess, good luck have fun
I think that one question that often comes up on the forum when talking about 8vs8 is "why 8vs8, why not 6v6, 1on1, 3v3 or 5on5 then?"
To me that question is very weird when the max group size in this game is 8 and the game has clearly been heavily balanced around 8vs8. 1on1, zergs or small men balance in DAoC has never really been that good. Remember animists in zerg fights in OF? I think that is the best example of how little focus was put on zerg fight balance in this game.
1on1 balance has never really existed, game clearly hasnt been built for 1on1 balance unlike lets say WoW where 1on1 has been a huge thing to balance for.
3v3 has never really been a thing, mostly rock paper scissors but it definitely allows for some skill and can be very enjoyable at times.
5v5 and 6v6 is where things start to get really interesting.
8vs8 - all the spots in your group are filled your group will now have great defense, offense and interupt/CC if correctly built. The one downside of 8vs8 is maybe that it takes a few too many people to build it.
Again it´s just very weird to me how people can suddenly start to question 8vs8. There were other formats than 8vs8 in GW1 aswell but everyone just agreed that those were "for fun" and not what the game was balanced for.
Even WoW was originally full group focused (5on5) but in that game people realized that maybe 3on3 was more suitable for that game which I can agree on.
You guys are interpreting too much, based on your own picture how it should be.
MJ, Matt Frior etc are not dead, they`re just some clicks away. Ask them (if it isn`t already written somewhere) why they made 8 a group and how they were trying to balance daoc.
I´m pretty sure that if you ask *was 8v8 intended to be the prefered playstyle and balancing was around 8v8* you get a *Nope, Sir!*.
I´m pretty sure you would get this answer in a lot of games. Game developers will not openly tend to say something like that because then they make people who play other formats dissapointed. So in a game where huge battles are advertised I would say that there is close to a 0% that they would say something like that.
Maybe we could get blizzard to make a statement that Starcraft is balanced for 1on1 or at least get them to say that Overwatch is balanced for 6v6. However those are competitive games with a very clear format focus. It may be harder to get blizz to say that they are balancing WoW around 3v3, I think they even made the official statement "No we care about all formats."
Still the fact remains. Pretty much every active RA was group focused, "GROUP purge" and so on. I feel like the first time we saw realm helping abilities other than single target skills that were called "target realm" instead of single target was when MLs came with FoP and so on. But most likely I´m just forgetting something. ToA also brought things like egg rezz which definitely is a zerg focused ability.
And just because the *group* in group purge (or similar) make you think the game is balanced around 8v8? Strange logic
Egg rezz is just a Aoe rezz, not more, not less, no zerg needed to use it.
Again, you interpret too much, in a way that fit your needs.
We have the same mechanics in DAoC as in CU. Max group is 8.
And they already stated that the balancing isn`t based on groups. Groups are a part <<<important, just a part of the big picture, which is named... RvR.
some fixes here and there
dont add more items and quests
Nothing of what you just said is any way a counter argument. All I said is that the balance has kept full group vs full group hugely in mind and this has been the most balanced format of DAoC. Now if you dont agree with that fine.
the fact is that whilst developers have a dream, is it is the players that make that dream come true.
the framework, our arena called NF is there to support all sorts of mini-games/playstyles in which the players dream up to keep them playing the game.
clustering well before broadswords time, technically destroyed the big picture (RvR) for many and its apparent today with teh big swings in population and the disregard for relics/ports etc.
there are numerous things that have pushed the 8 man out of the way when dealing with zergs which include the heavy tank patch, limiting aoe spells to 16 enemies.
can you imagine if aoe spells could hit 100 ppl, how many /stick zergs would there be there - the zerg leader would demand ppl unstick and run nearby but independently of them - if something like this would be re-implemented i am certain that would be the start of introducing more leaders to NF since they now have to think/inspire themselves.
@Chamie it was your current grp that killed eu time 8vs8 to the point where the left overs of old grps are joining toms grp now, ppl were tired of getting jammed by zerg or die to the same grp on and on
thats why a 8vs8 zone wouldnt work like @tald stated atleast not aslong as the best grps griefes the other fgs or pugs every run
draft could counter that, i got my doubts tho that some individuals will join this drafts on the long run tho where they cant switch to counter setups or keep winning
8vs8 killed theirselfs by farming left overs on and on, a too big skill gap between grps and by not recruiting other players
this is no critique or anything @Chamie but you could have formed another cru with randoms but you decided to join the bigger fish, thats the problem but natural human behaviour
Wasn`t meant as a counter argument, that is why i wrote *Groups* are a part of the big picture.
Maybe i wasn`t clear enough, i`ve meant groups that are focused on 8v8.
Competitive 8v8 is and should be a niche, a small part in a rvr centered mmo like daoc.
Have been playing ..somewhere...in 2017, where this elitist 8v8 was the meta for some time.
Wasn`t something i`d like to see on Ywain.
Now, that's not saying Broadsword couldn't add minor elements to the game to make 8v8 more viable. They should, but in a way that doesn't compromise the overall concept of the game. (i.e. separate dueling / arena areas = bad)
Any systems that gate players behind a zone in RvR should be avoided as much as possible (outside of PvEvP zones ofc)
I feel this is a pretty generic statement, there are alot of mini games avaliable within DAoC with each instances attracts its niche player base.
Large scale PvP warfare whilst has its moments of being great, and glimmers of hope - have for alongtime been one-sided and for the most part avoided by either or both sides.
These suggestions aren't attempting to mold DAoC into anything, merely just another option avaliable to the player base should the demand be there.
I have my reservations on instance PvP knowing a large part of the community and there is alot mis-informed representation and assumptions of whats happening out there.
A classic example of this is Labyrynth - whilst avaliable - people choose not to go there for their /bowzone /solozone for what ever reason - probably due to RP Bonuses / Buggane and then Dailies. (Which would be the same case as instances)
We have built a framework (with work in progress) for Draft-Style PvP - Anyone is welcome to participate (probably want at least 2 characters ready per realm for best experience) https://discord.gg/YZSZCBG . I look forward to seeing this be a success to show there is a demand for ideas discussed in this thread.