What Darkstar intentionally left out of the bit on paladins and ACT screenshots is that both paladins had grandmaster group heals and single target heal while Darkstar was using app1s and had no gear so he ran out of power halfway through the fight. Adoninilol died midway in the fight, and both healers were locked down w/ cc and taunt locked so they weren't able to effectively heal. All players need to be lvl 50 with comparable gear before Daybreak looks at adjusting anything. I hope Daybreak is smart enough to not be swayed by skewed circumstantial parses like this. Last night myself and 2 assassins with comparable gear spent 3 minutes trying to kill a templar and ultimately ran out of power before we could. Gear up, get to 50, experience at least a few dozen comparable fights at 50, then make a post about balance.
Not everyone like max level PvP, I honestly think KoS era twinking T2-5 was the most fun I had on Nagafen
Do any level 50 mages want to report about the spell damage at that level? In death toll, my conjuror's spell damage was none existent spells read 500 damage and would do like 100 whether the person had gear on or not. Basically, any magic damage was like this on Death toll even Troubador shrills would do 100 damage when they read to much higher.
Did a lot of arranged 6 vs 6 on Deathtoll and our Conjurer was always top damage in our group with all of us being raid geared. Not enough max lvl to tell on Naggy but things seem very similar to DT ATM and Conj was in a very good spot on DT.
Disclaimer: I really don't have a horse in the race. I'd like to see the server actually go live but if it fails... ehh... I logged in and made a monk. Got stomped repeatedly in the newbie zone. Finally was able to get to the boat. Tried some questing. Stomped by roving gangs of my own faction until I decided to just go play something more worthwhile. After it was patched gave it another shot and re-rolled Necro. Easily killed all single would be gankers and most duos etc. More fun than getting stomped but still a pretty empty experience in the long run. It just doesn't feel like you're part of anything. There doesn't feel like there is a point to anything. Leader board? It feels like you have this big beautiful world reduced down to a cheap PvP deathmatch limited to a handful of zones. Is that the intention? FFA PvP is a joke. Newer and more PvP focused games have a hard enough time sustaining a population with that model. The choice to go this route with an aging game is a little mind boggling. As said previously, all it devolves into is a chaotic gankfest, that appeals to the lowest common denominator of the player base (for the most part). If DB sticks to this model then I think this will prove to be a colossal waste of time and energy for everyone involved as the player population dwindles to nothing. It always does with this model. Just make it like the original Nagafen server. Give people a reason to play it. If not, you have put a lot of work into something that you could accomplish with a battleground. The way these "hardcore pvpers" (ha!) are playing now is how they are going to play if this mess goes live.
Problem with using conj or any summoner for that matter is that their pets are extremely over tuned. I bet his pet does more than 80% of his damage currently if not more.
it would also be cool if in like halas, where it's pvp in the city, if you had high enough faction with the guards they would protect you if someone attacked. as a reward for building up factions with cities.
So.....It's my understanding that DBG is trying to put sort if a BRish spin on a TLE pvp server. I believe one of the reasons BR games enjoyed success is because everyone starts the round on the same footing and winning was mostly a function of skill and cleverness as opposed to power imbalances. It seems the team is trying to constrain imbalances caused by gear, but those caused by levels still remain. I suppose a group of 3 could kill an orange, but more often then not, it's groups of oranges mowing down lowbies. How is that fun, how is that challenging for either side? So, here is a somewhat left field idea of what I think would make this server more fun: 1. Eliminate traditional leveling. Everyone comes in at the max/same level for that season, both adv and crafting (select your crafting profession at character creation). Then, you place gear on quests and contested dungeon bosses that enable a slight and/or interesting tweak to pvp combat. Dungeons are tuned to max level (i.e SH =ROV, etc). 2. Make fame the primary value to be "leveled", and award something useful that can be gained AND lost as fame is gained and lost. 3. Return to factions. Faction fighting is just darn fun. But beyond that, you could borrow an idea from other games where you have daily/weekly/repeatable quest/special events from Q/F quest givers; such as, for example: *Kill 20 enemy druids *Kill 3 enemy dreadknaughts *Kill mob x in contested dungeon y These quests could award coins for a account-wide fluff, or any number of other funzies. The idea here is to put the emphasis on skill and cleverness as opposed to domination by character power, and offer incentives to be out in the world harvesting, questing, running contested dungeons, and fighting each other for fame, glory, and defense of the homeland! I want to see this work, but I'm not confident the current design is going to have staying power. I feel like folks will get bored quickly, or, get frustrated quickly. Just an idea. Edit: spelling, clarity
In x4 vs x4 on the original Deathtoll I was always the top healer as a paladin. Mechanically the class is just broken like it was back in the day. I think at least cast times need to go up for the group heal and rez. Sks should just be thrown in a dumpster fire.
As long as there is level progression, EQ2 pvp'ers will be ganking lowbies. It is what has eventually killed every attempt at a stable pvp server since launch. And is the main reason no pvp server has been able to maintain its population. Make every player the same level. Give them all equal level gear according to their class. You need to have AA's intiated so your melee healers can actually ...you know...melee? Or, at the very least, give them fast cast abilities. Then let people manipulate their builds to get an edge here or there.
You're asking the tiny number of devs on this project to recreate the entire game within the remaining few weeks of the beta to result in a version without any longevity. PvP for the sake of PvP is a non-starter- this game wasn't created with and truly isn't balanced with pvp in mind. The premise is a three month event server, unlocking a new expansion at the end of the first and second month. Let's stop trying to reinvent the wheel. The game was designed for FP vs Q teams- use that model! The majority of the content in this game was designed for pve/ts- don't make them obsolete! PvE, TS, and PvP all work together to create an enjoyable gaming experience. When any of those three advancement options become unviable, you lose a signifcant number of potential subscribers.
Arguments like this are confusing. Vox, Vennekor, Nagafen ALL died of attrition, and the only reason Nagafen lasted as long as it did was because the other two were merged into it. The often cited reasons/gripes for players leaving was because of issues and problems created by trying to balance pve and pvp environments, witj neither side of the spectrum being happy with the compromises required to accommodate both. Now, if the argument is, "screw this BR ffa experiment, and just give us the old Naggy on tle so we can relive the old days...", I get that. But that has never been what this offer has been about. This is a hard core pvp experiment. And in terms of dev resources, the problems that killed the original three servers still remain.
a) Healers get grandmaster group heals at 44, which I had. Also a grandmaster heal from 34. b) I have better gear and was a higher level than you. c) I did not run out of power and you did not 'taunt lock' me lol....my paper guardian died first as he had no gear. d) we all have apprentice spells so we're on level playing field, when I get spell upgrades so will you. e) Fanatical also has twice your HP due to having raid gear, and yes, procs are a bit broken.
I'm arguing that this "hardcore pvp experiment" has already failed, based on there being only 2 people in antonica on a saturday during prime time. This is an MMO, not a battle arena. Making PvE/TS unattractive means that nearly all of the content (the reason people are still playing this 15 year old game) isn't utilized. I'm arguing that this game wasn't meant to be played for pvp battles with the exclusion of everything else, that there isn't a significant audience for that to make the server profitable, and that the resources are not present to achieve the complete overhaul that would be needed to attempt a pvp-only server. Yes, previous servers had issues. Instead of throwing that mold out the window in favor of some extreme niche pipe dream, an effort should be made to correct their flaws and get it right this time.
Further, It's unfair to compare my suggestions to previous pvp servers as equals. The one expansion per month and three month wipe cycle are huge changes that would do much to combat attrition.
Absolutely no truth or validity to anything you've said and the fact that you are asking for balance changes based on pre-50s fights where everyone is different levels with incomparable hear/upgrades, etc says enough about how seriously you should be taken. You're jaded that you keep losing group fights to my group because I lock you down and prevent you from healing so you want paladins nerfed. It's that simple.
What I am noticing here is we voice concerns, ideas, etc and I see no one from daybreak answering any questions here or even attempting to give us a little feedback here. Why have a beta server if they aren't listening or acknowledging us once in awhile? Ex. Are there plans to fix the coercer or not? Bet $10 no one from daybreak will answer that question...watch and see.
Agreed. As I stated in my previous post, I think the fix for PvPers ganking lowbies would be to make it so they receive no benefit from ganking lowbies. Human behavior is basically motivated by two factors: moving towards pleasure or away from pain. Take away the (imo dubious) pleasure of ganking lowbies by removing all rewards for doing so would end the lowbie ganking problem, and encourage the server survival by attracting more noobs who could play happily without being repeatedly ganked by those who created toons two hours earlier. Other people more versed and knowledgeable than me have made suggestions regarding the game mechanics and power balancing of classes. I focus more on the social angle: what would inspire people to create a new toon on a PvP server? IMO, it is NOT getting repeatedly ganked by toons created by peeps who could log in and create a toon a few hours sooner, and then lie in wait to gank every noob who steps off the boat. Everyone plays this game for fun, and getting repeatedly ganked by toons higher than you is NOT FUN, which is where the moving away from pain motivation kicks in -- noobs are simply not going to play if they are repeatedly ganked by higher level toons. This means no new blood for the server, which means server death, which means the death of PvP. I think if the hardcore PvPer's truly want a PvP server then they need to accept some rules that would eliminate lowbie ganking (since they can't seem to police themselves to prevent it), to attract enough players to keep the server alive. If, on the other hand, what the hardcore PvPer's TRULY want is to gank lowbies, then I guess they had better hope there are enough hardcore-I-wanna-gank-lowbies types to populate an entire server, and they can all lowbie gank each other.
