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What did TOA do?
Bobsavage
Member Posts: 61
I wanted to go back to DAoC but everybody says that TOA messed it up. What did TOA do to DAoC that made everybody complain?
Comments
TOA brought in artifacts and master levels. Both require large time-sinks to achieve and level. The artifacts and master levels supposedly give people a big edge in RvR. I cannot comment from experience because I have not made it to lvl 50 to see if it is true.
Mythic also took the nerf bat to the artifacts after players invested a lot of time leveling them, which really angered a lot of people.
There are a lot of arguments of carebears and hard core gamers, time sinks to compete, etc.
Anyway, I think that is the simple answer to your question.
ToA effected "End Game" PvP, normaly levels 45 to 50. It basicly gave the people who have the time to spend leveling artifacts and doing Master Level quests more power than people who don't.
If your a "Power Player" then ToA is very nice, but casual players hate it.
BlueOne
Trials of Atlantis was too much of a timesink for me. The only time I invested into it was when some alliance members needed an extra tank to do something over there. I guess that thing that I liked about it was the graphics update, but that isn't much. As many folks on these boards mention, gameplay is greater than graphics. Although I love better graphics, it is not enough for me ... there has to be very solid gameplay.
Regards.
My big complaint about ToA takes a little explaining. Before ToA, the way to get a top of the line item for your character was to pay a crafter to make it. Making a MP item takes gold out of the server... quite a bit of it. Most of that 2.5p pricetag on a MP weapon is recovering the money paid to the NPCs for it to be produced. That gold is gone.
Now with ToA, the top of the line items are made through hours and hours of PvE. All the while, you are getting drops. The drops can be salvaged for base material and sold, or made into "free" MPs. In any advent... gold is created by the process of making your artifact. A lot of gold is made.
By the end of summer, you will see such rampant inflation that people will be giving away plat after plat just because they have far more than they could ever hope to spend. Gold will become worthless, and a SOJ economy will arise.. probably using scrolls as tender. Which will lead to camping the few mobs that drop the rare scrolls even more.
ToA has ruined the character of the game, and the effects have yet to really sink in to the playerbase.
Don't try to teach a pig to sing,
It rarely works and only serves to annoy the pig.
-Sig-
Don't try to teach a pig to sing,
It rarely works and only serves to annoy the pig.
I think if we look at ToA it had the impact that Mythic wanted. It drove up the subscrpition numbers. amd ahs increased activity in RvR. Pre TOA most Relics were stagnant, being dominated by large population realms with who had 2-3 gank squads out controling the frontier.
DAOC was always bassed on group play. ToA re-enforced that by requireing people to group to aquire items. Crafters did fear the ToA impact but simple reality beyound a few intrestig features Artifacts are easly replaced by good crafted items. Almost all high end RvR groups still use crafted vs Artifacts, except for some helwery peaces. And with decay being such an issue, you see people not wanting to risk there artifacts.
For RvR, low Realm Rank people with decent Ml's and artifacts are finding it easier to get groups since there items tend to affect group play, and thus have seen more and more people out in RvR.
My only concern is that in 6 months or so ToA will be a ghost town, with most people haveing completed there ML's and artifacts. Hunting except in certain areas is not worth the hassle. I hope its an issue Mythic will adress over time, as to how to keep this expansion virbrante and exciting.
The apsects of ToA that are really frustrating to me are the added timesinks of artifacts and MLs. Plus the fact that when ToA was first released, it was in nothing much more than a preliminary beta stage. Fortunately, Mythic has addressed some of the bugs and problems, and has gotten the nerf bat swinging on the artifacts and mls. This expansion has some nice things about it, like the improved trees, the underwater graphics are cool, and some of the underwater areas are fun to hunt around in. Basically, though, imo.....ToA added massive timesinks, made the game much more pwr-gamer oriented, and has basically gotten away from being noob or casual gamer friendly, as it once was.
If you have the time to sink into ToA, you'll like it, or at least be able to tolerate it and ignore the areas you don't like. It is already becoming very apparent on alot of servers, because of the fact that alot of peeps are starting to get up there in MLs and getting more artifacts, that alot of peeps just now entering the ToA aspect of the game are having an incredibly hard time doing anything beyond ML1 or 2, because of the grouping requirements, and because alot of peeps don't want to come back and help(because they were ridiculous time sinks in the first place). Mythic has definately widened the gap between the gamers who can spend ridiculous amounts of time on the game, and the gamers who just enjoy playing a good MMORPG at their own pace and on their own schedule.
DaoC used to have that option. DaoC used to allow just about any style of MMORPG player to come in and be successful, to some extent, with the advancement and playability of their character. That's not the case with ToA. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy this game.....but unless you got alot of time to commit to this game,or you belong to some uber guild/alliance.......you will find yourself extremely frustrated.
Toa was the straw that broke my back in daoc. It was introduced to keep the people interested in aquiring every piece of kit/loot happy. If mythic think that will keep the player base high they are wrong. Do a /who keltoi, cats, barrows and you will find all the noobie/low level areas completely devoid of players. I cannot understand mythics approach of continually trying to make this game only accessible to high leveled uberlooted powerlevelling /levelled characters.
Daoc was the best mmorpg period.....unsurpassed grouping/socialising interesting areas to hunt, fun, and a near perfect pvp experience.
So why did they have to mess it up????
Pan
I like all the new content, Arts and ML's !
I have several lvl 50 toons, and enjoy all the new mobs and cool new zones in TOA.
I have a 50 reaver who is a banelord and has a snakecharmer whip, atens shield, winged helm and SOM cloak. I dont understand what there is not to like about all this great stuff.
And I cant wait for the new RA's im going to be able to get with the frontiers expansion.
I'm going to be a huge PB bomb with my banelord abilities and the new thornweed field RA.
MMORPG's played-
AO, AC, AC2, DAOC, SB, SWG
MMORPG's played-
AC, AC2, AO, CoH, DAOC, GW, LOTRO, SB, SWG, WOW
TOA did a lot to destroy the game especially for any new players wanting to start up. Unless u join one of the realy big servers (merlin/lance) I dont think any newcomber to the game will last till level 35 as there is nowhere for them to go unless they can solo. TOA was directly directed at the already well established player.
As to ML that were introduced unless u were involved with getting them when most players did ( 1st few weeks of release) there is not much hope of realy getting very far with th ML side ( some steps demand large battle groups to just stand a chance of completeing a single step.) and without ML10 u will very soon be left out of the game.
Since the release of TOA i have been on the lookout for another game to play as TOA realy did more damage to a good game than it did to enhance the game.
Hope that MIDDLE EARTH gets released soon in 2005 not sure i can play DAOC till then
toa brought a big unbalance again
AE stun + MEZ from mid made plenty of albs angry
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