Why AOC and WAR failed

Scot

Spot on Ascension, why did we want to play in DAOC? To level up so we could support our realm! I can remember the enormous feeling of pride I had when my lowbie Armsman went to a fort defence in DAOC. What could I do to help against Middies twenty levels higher then me? Well as we were not sure where they would attack they asked be to scout out one of the ways into Albion. The game being only a few months after launch I found myself able to wait inside a tree for the bad guys and report when they past by!

What did I ‘get’ out of it? Nothing, no loot, no medals, no titles, but a sense of defending the realm. What MMO can say it gives that today?

Arndur

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by Capn23

Originally posted by Guillermo197


 I have always said that in a Level / Class based MMO... PvP has no place.
In a level / class based MMO the classes need to be unbalanced. That's the whole beauty of it.
Every class has it's specific role within the PVE content and promotes cooperative and social teamplay.
The only way PVP can work in a MMO is in a sandbox type of MMO that is fully skillbased. No levels, No classes.
You would still get the typical cookie cutter templates that works best in PVP, like it was back in good old SWG. But it didn't really matter. PVP was still much more fun back then.
The beauty of a fully skillbased MMO, is that it's far more easy to actually balance out the combat skill trees.
That is the whole problem of level based / class based MMO's.
You are either a tank, melee DPS, ranged DPS, CC or a Healer. Every class having a specific role for the PVE content.
 
So in that perspective I agree with the OP that when a developer announces a level / class based MMO and is saying it's going to be a PvP focussed game.... that it's pretty much doomed to fail.
Either the PVP will suck bad.... or the PVE will suck bad... but in reality it usually ends up in both sucking bad.
Cheers

 

I disagree.

 

You won't get a very balanced 1v1 system. But in larger battles you could definitely balance it. That's why WoW will never have balanced PvP. They try to focus on small fights and 1v1 rather than balancing on a larger scale.

 

WAR's idea of balancing around group RvR and then fitting the PvE mechanics into that was a good idea. The execution imo wasn't very good, but the idea is definitely better than balancing around PvE.

 

You cannot balance classes without compromising either PVP or PVE. That is the whole problem.

You either have to make the system so difficult to split clas balance from PVE and PVP entirely with seperate PVE and PVP skill trees, so you can savely balanced the PVP without affecting PVE and vise versa... but as this is very costly... no one has bothered trying it yet.

OR.... you end up with simplified boring classes that basically pretty much end up the same for the sake of easy balancing, making the gameplay extremely monotone and dull.

Take your pick.

 

That's why Sandbox type of games wich are fully Skill based, instead of Level/Class based... will have the future.

 

It just takes a Sandbox MMO to launch and hit the jackpot with decent number of subs... so the other gaming studios wake up and finally see the light!

 

Cheers

 

Other then the fact that you can get FotM builds. Also whats to keep a build fro being OP in PvP but when they get nerfed to equal level their PvE now uscks?

Capn23

Originally posted by Scot


Spot on Ascension, why did we want to play in DAOC? To level up so we could support our realm! I can remember the enormous feeling of pride I had when my lowbie Armsman went to a fort defence in DAOC. What could I do to help against Middies twenty levels higher then me? Well as we were not sure where they would attack they asked be to scout out one of the ways into Albion. The game being only a few months after launch I found myself able to wait inside a tree for the bad guys and report when they past by!
What did I ‘get’ out of it? Nothing, no loot, no medals, no titles, but a sense of defending the realm. What MMO can say it gives that today?

 

Your gonna make me cry just thinking about how awesome that sounds. I'm really disappointed I didn't get to play DAoC.

 

I wish WAR was that way.

theJPK

Originally posted by Guillermo197


 I have always said that in a Level / Class based MMO... PvP has no place.
In a level / class based MMO the classes need to be unbalanced. That's the whole beauty of it.
Every class has it's specific role within the PVE content and promotes cooperative and social teamplay.
The only way PVP can work in a MMO is in a sandbox type of MMO that is fully skillbased. No levels, No classes.

That is actually a really good idea. Why cant anyone make a game where levels and classes are non-existent. A game where you don't choose your specialty, it chooses you. Where you just pick up a sword or a bow and use skills in whatever format you choose to make every persons specialty unique.

Maybe because a game like that would appeal to a very small amount of MMORPG gamers, the ones that know what the fuck they're doing.