Registered User
Posts: 1659
(4/2/04 9:11 pm) Reply
The reason I'm glad TOA came out.
I just read some of the new stuff about frontiers--keep changes, new RA system, etc. and realized that Mythic just might actually be TRYING to improve the game. However, TOA just completely ruined the game for me. Right when I thought, "okay, I've spent two years playing this game and finally have my character where I want it," they throw in TOA and made the character obsolete unless I wanted to PvE for another six months.
Reading up on Frontiers made me think, "Hmm...maybe I'll play a bit again." The next thought though, was, "Oh screw that...they still have TOA crap in there."
Llava Registered User
Posts: 453
(4/2/04 9:19 pm) Reply
Re: The reason I'm glad TOA came out.
I agree 100%. Every now and then I think "Well, I could reactivate and create a character in a different realm, I've wanted to try this class out and... oh wait. I'd have to do all that ToA crap. Nevermind. I'll just keep waiting for World of Warcraft."
Re: The reason I'm glad TOA came out.
*yawns after 6 hours of ML3 raid and 3 hours of Art hunting*
please.. no more. I finally managed to get my SoM cloak, and i think i'm gonna get that to 5 and then never go back. I just needed SL, got tired of it being used against me.
Registered User
Posts: 1660
(4/3/04 9:22 pm) Reply
Re: The reason I'm glad TOA came out.
Ayra, that post made me shudder. And NOT in a good way.
Friggin DAOC. Damn game ate up WAY too much of my time. If you all had seen even half the pages I wrote on DAOC crap, you'd think I was writing a thesis.
zarlaan Registered User
Posts: 165
(4/4/04 12:43 am) Reply
.
I've been trying to lvl a few artifacts ever since i hit rr10. I've hated doing it so much it's so tedious that i've found myself playing less and less every single day and now questioning if I even should bother lvling them as i'm probably gonna end up just quitting game.
Re: .
It's the main reason I quit DAOC..TOA. Sometimes I get the urge to play and think about reactivating and then I remember all the TOA stuff I'd have to do to catch up. It isn't worth it to me.
ripre79 Registered User
Posts: 30
(4/5/04 6:46 am) Reply
Re: .
This thread has a majority of its opinions swung one way, so you probably won't see too many replies with content such as mine, but here goes
I actually liked DAoC more after ToA came out. Call me a carebear if you like, but I thought it was great to throw a wrench into the fray. What it did was give all of the people who weren't RR10 a chance to find other ways to beat the RR10s, without actually having to get RR10 themselves.
Before ToA you basically had a few things to do with your character to be competitive:
1) Get Level 50
2) Get PC'd
3) SC with maxed resists
And off you go...
The only thing between you and your opponent was Realm Rank and Realm Abilities. The only way to best your opponent was to PvP like a fiend and hope that you can catch up to them. It was a little mind-numbing Almost as much as people complained about just exp'ing to 50.
It was for this very reason that I started to make alts - I got bored in RvR. I was RR5.
With ToA you can go grab an artifact, get a few MLs and head out to Emain with a chance to beat your opponents. What ToA also caused was a flux in SC templates. If you want a maxxed resist/stat/skill template then you certainly don't have any if many artifacts, thus not many abilities. If you want a bucket load of abilities, then you have to sacrifice your resist/stat/skills. It causes people to make holes in their templates, making people have actual weaknesses that can be exploited - taking the RR10 god who has full resists and turning him into the RR10 god who has a weakness.
And it was for this reason that I RvR more than before. I'm now halfway through RR5
Of course, there will be those people who are RR10, ML10 and full of artifacts and uber drops - but not alot. I suppose this is a way to keep the game challenging for everybody by putting out expansions with new ways to grow your character, while giving a chance to the rest of us who aren't uber extreme powergamers
Ripre Dhampir - 50 Infiltrator
Atylla Registered User
Posts: 5
(4/5/04 10:47 am) Reply
Re: .
Quote:What it did was give all of the people who weren't RR10 a chance to find other ways to beat the RR10s, without actually having to get RR10 themselves.
Actually this couldn't be further from the truth. On most servers, the ones leading the way to Celestius are the very same high RR players. Only now they are RR8+ and ML10 to boot. Across all realms.
That theory only works if you presume that RR10s won't PvE grind for MLs. Unfortunately, the MLs are so advantageous, that it's nothing for someone with high RR (and generally high volume of played time goes along with that) to grind the MLs necessary to remain competitive.
MLs have early on only widened further the gulf between the high RR crowd and the low/medium or "I've got 3+ toons I run at any given time" crowd.
What ToA has done, by looking at how it has played out, and more importantly WHO has done the achieving, has been to really delude those that think they can compete at the higher levels by going after MLs or worse... artifacts. Not thinking for a minute that while you are on ML5 or 6, those players you hope to compete with are at the farming stages of the ML10 dungeon already.
Because those drops (which they are getting multiples of) are pretty much superior to artifacts in most ways. While you are off farming for a scroll, they're getting a handful of drops for their group that are superior to the item you hope to activate -- and then spend 20+ hours levelling.
Before... all that differentiated you from high RR players was a handful of RAs. Now you are behind in RAs, MLs and ML9-ML10 drops.
I couldn't disagree more thoroughly with this assessment of how ToA has played out in practice.
If however you are not concerned about competing at higher levels (which is certainly an option and nothing wrong with that), ToA is a fun alternative. I don't aspire to compete since I don't have the time to commit to that anymore. I found ToA a fun occasional diversion. But it most certainly hasn't evened the playing field in any fashion whatsoever.
Alishari 50th Virtuosa of the Fellowship of the String and Legendary Alchemist
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Attyla the Unguilded
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ripre79 Registered User
Posts: 32
(4/5/04 11:32 am) Reply
reply
I hear what you are saying Atyla, but do you think that some of the abilities granted by artifacts/MLs are ones that can still provide a way for you to beat these higher RR players, even if they are ML10 and have everything?
I guess I don't look at it as "if he's RR10 and ML10 then he is that much more powerful than a RR5 with ML5". The RR10 sure has more abilities and higher skills, but I feel that the game has become too situational for someone to be bluntly more powerful in all areas such that no other person can compete. A RR10 ML10 Infiltrator can do nothing against a caster who spots the Inf with Stealth Lore and then stun/nukes him to death when he's got Purge down. Whereas before, the caster wouldn't even be able to find the Inf. Right?
I suppose if you are only comparing the RR and ML of one particular class against another RR and ML of the same class, then you have a case here. But there are so many abilities and so many classes that for every given situation, there is a weakness that can be exploited - even more now with the ToA abilities I think.
Just my opinion. That's just how I look at it, and I'm happy with ToA.
Llava Registered User
Posts: 463
(4/5/04 6:43 pm) Reply
Re: reply
Exploiting a weakness sounds nice in theory, but it assumes a few things:
1) That you know, or have the resources to discover, the enemy's weakness.
2) That you are capable of exploiting that weakness.
My Mentalist deals energy and heat damage. Period. He does not have access to any other damage types, unless he can be reasonably expected to use a plethora of charged items every few minutes. Which he can't. Not reasonably.
Similarly, it would be unreasonable to expect your average player to get a hold of the appropriate legendary weapon for each individual fight. Most players will have one or two legendary weapons at most. Many will have none. But in keeping with the Mentalist example...
So there goes #2. The chances of most enemies keeping low energy resists (belt of the sun weapons, hibernian PBAE, runemaster suppressrion and RC nukes, more) is highly unlikely. Heat resists are just behind that- the infamous caster stun in Hibernia is heat based. Heat legendary weapons are common and feared.
So then, ignoring that I only deal two kinds of damage, how long do I have against a typical fight with RR10 players to experimenting with and determining the effects of various damage types on them? 10 seconds? 20? Not a lot of time for research.
Now, there's a number of other things that affected my Mentalist. For example, he's built to fight in fortified positions- he's mana. He uses (or used, anyways) DoTs to do damage. Thanks to Healing Ward, his DoTs are now defunct. The healing ward outheals the damage his DoTs do. As everyone knows, Wards and Storms work best in fortified positions. So there goes DoTs, the main way my Mentalist dealt damage. His only alternative is an unspecced baseline heat DD.
But surely he offers something to a group?
Well, PoT used to be somewhat handy before Font of Power came in. Now it's redundant and fairly useless.
So the only spell my Mentalist has left that can't be outperformed by an artifact or master level ability?
HoT.
Try negotiating your way into a group with that.
Well, maybe he could get some nifty abilities with the Convoker line. What's that? Mentalists can only be Stormlords (widely accepted as the worst ML path) and Warlords (not the worst, but certainly less popular than just about all the others).
So ToA has completely destroyed one of my characters. Sure, I could respec him, but why should I have to? I've played Light Spec before. It wasn't for me. Really, he'd be more viable as a Mentalism spec Mentalist than he is now- which is saying a lot.
My Blademaster? Well he was pretty good until Bodyguard. Now he can't hit the targets he's supposed to hit. Why doesn't he Bodyguard himself? Cause I went Banelord, not realizing that the prescribed path to winning was Battlemaster. Oops, my fault. Course if I'd had some actual notification as to what each master level ability did I might have been able to make a more informed decision, but I guess I lose again.
My Nightshade?
Ha.
Stealth lore. Heat legendary weapons. Shade form. Those aren't things I can use against others. Those are things I /have/ to get to have a shot at keeping up with the others because believe me- they have them.
It's not a situation where players farther from the power ceiling got a boost towards those closer with a bit of work on their part. The ceiling was raised, period, and if you were anywhere near competing before you need to catch up to stay that way.
Registered User
Posts: 1670
(4/5/04 8:27 pm) Reply
Re: reply
I enjoyed reading that, L. I'd like to add that those people who managed to spend enough time playing DAOC to get to RR10, are the same ones who spend the time working on their MLs.
Until characters stop improving with time spent playing the game, those spend more time playing will move further and further ahead than those who don't or can't spend an equal amount of time playing.
The poor might not get poorer, but the rich certainly get richer.
Unfortunately, the promise of constant improvment probably keeps the powergamers playing at all. If Mythic took that away, maybe some of them would quit altogether. Then again, by the time you get RR10 and ML10, you are probably addicted to the point where you may as well be taking DAOC intraveinously.
Registered User
Posts: 1677
(4/6/04 10:12 am) Reply
Re: Eeexxxcelent...
No, no, no! I've just been bored lately!
Actually, I did consider playing again for a split second. I could still activate the Aurra account (Shadowblade) and she's already at 48.
However, two things stop me cold. The first, and most powerful reason, is that I simply don't have any desire to spend so much time in what is a huge time sink. The second reason is that so much of TOA disgusted me. I hate all the MLs and Artifacts and LWs.
No, you don't need to concern yourself with me coming back to play. You just need to figure out a way to run me outta the Safehouse.
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