Solo play and the inherent flaws of DAoC adopting "all playstyles" and what we need to look at to address them

Started 20 Jun 2019
by Numatic
in Suggestions
First off, this is slightly less of a suggestion and more of an observation and an opinion on what needs to be looked at to fix a day 1 issue with the game. I cannot speak for live post-toa as I never played past that point. But since this server is based around 1.65, my opinion is based on that.

Since the beginning of DAoC, it has been said many times, through mythic, players, freeshards and the like, that all playstyles are welcome. This includes solo, duo, trio, smallman etc. However, through the years, while some improvements have been made towards that playstyle, it has always been minor in comparison to the changes made towards 8man groups and zerg RvR mentality without much regard on how it affects the smaller groups and solo play. And most of the solo changes were geared towards stealthers VS visible and vice versa. One of DAoC's main attractiveness is the variety of classes and the uniqueness of each class. They all bring something different. Balancing those classes is a never ending task because one change will always affect even more. It's akin to treating a symptom with a pill, and taking another pill to treat the side effects of the first pill and so on and so forth. DAoC will never be balanced. It thrives on creating unfair situations and players being opportunistic enough to take advantage of those situations. Balance comes in the form of degree, such as an ability in a certain situation being completely unfair (like 1-2 players killing a zerg in a keep fight with TWF for example). And one of these things that is completely unbalanced has never been addressed. Grouping.

The problem with DAoC is that, especially for a solo visible, their is no benefit to it. Or to the realm. Grouping will always be superior. This IS to be expected. However, the degree in which grouping is superior is where balance has failed. Because nothing has been done to balance that. This problem was never addressed by Mythic because the agenda and end game goal was always pushed towards grouping. It is an MMORPG after all right? But not everyone who plays an MMORPG wants to group. Some prefer to be the loner type, but still want to contribute. As well the aging playerbase has had a larger shift in mentality, where as a much larger percentage of the population prefers to solo than when the game was in its hayday. I personally prefer to solo, but i love the idea of fighting many different players and classes. But the only semi viable solo class is either a stealther or a speed class. And even then, most solo fights simply get adds. Which is perfectly fine. Its what RvR is about. But the idea that DAoC accepts all playstyles while completely punishing anything below an 8man is a bit conflicting.

Grouping should always be superior to soloing. But the flaw in DAoC's design is that grouping was made too powerful against smaller numbers. Grouping should have the advantage of having support, utility, and synergy against your enemies. In DAoC, it has been maximized against smaller numbers in flat damage output. This is where DAoC failed. It took the concept of creating "unfair and opportunistic" situations and molded it into the meta. Phoenix has exacerbated that issue with the 8man roam train rolling over soloers for virtually free rps. Every engagement should have some element of risk to it. But 8v1? None. And what needs to be done will probably not be in the "spirit" of the game to address it.

Now before i start I'm not saying this is what needs to be done. Or that it's even a good idea. But it's an example of how things need to change to keep the game viable for more playstyles than just an 8man group.


Having a radius based damage reduction based on the number of enemies, vs the number of friendly realm mates, divided by group size and the number of groups for each realm in the area. With a higher concentration of both having a much lower effect on the disparity. Having it as a passive ability given to everyone and giving it a name (Honor of the Gods for example) would work too. This could even be more inclusive to seperate certain classes that have range vs pure melee. Such as if the radius is 2000 units, it will be far less effective if you have a friendly armsman at 2000 units away to reduce your bonus rather than a caster/scout because of their range disparity.

Example 1

Radius 2000 units- no friendlies in the area
8v1
(maximum effect due to disparity)
Damage taken reduced by 90%
Damage dealt increased by 240%

Example 2

Radius 2000 units- Realm 1: two 8 mans and 4 soloers vs Realm 2: 1 8man and a duo group
20 v 10
Realm 1
Damage 20*10 / 16 * 1.4 = 18% increase in damage for soloers
Reduction 20-10 * 1.4- 14% damage reduction
Realm 2
20*10 / 8 *2.0 = 50% damage increase for duo group
20-10 * 2 = 20% damage reduction

Honestly the math is just some random equations built around those specific scenarios. It's merely an example of what im trying to convey. This is what I mean by out of the box. Something that doesnt necessarily line up with how DAoC works, but it's needed to fix a glaring issue with the game design. I'm sure someone out there might be far more capable of coming up with a different solution to the problem i'm attempting to point out. And thats what my post is intended, is to try and conceptualize a solution of the ongoing issue with how RvR works in the game while trying to keep class uniqueness, playstyles, and balance in alignment. Obviously a flat good-for-everyone damage increase/ reduction would take serious time to implement correctly. Cant have a solo PBAOE necro run into an 8man and decimate them by hitting PBAOE for 1000 damage a pop. Obviously. But even looking at it and acknowledging that their is some truth to it is a great first step in a willingness to address it.

Doing this would have large impacts. For one, an 8man isnt neccessairly going to roll a soloer. With a large incoming damage reduction and damage output, they could survive much longer, and hit much harder. Proving a real threat, possibly even killing 1-2 members of the group if they were not careful. It also increases the TTK which makes them more vulnerable to another 8man coming along and attacking them. This would help alleviate the "train roll free rp" mentality of 8man groups versus soloers. If you increase solo activity, you also increase pocket fights within the realm and create an ongoing fight. Adding would not be frowned upon, as the person added on would have an increased survivability. 1v1 would be unaffected and adding a 1v1 would lose its stigma.

I hope someday maybe solo vs everyone will be something on the hotplate in the future for a real look at what a lot of people want out of the game and maybe, just maybe, one day we may actually say to a newbie "go solo if you want, its great fun and perfectly viable".

Thanks
Thu 20 Jun 2019 12:41 AM by Ashenspire
If you can't stealth or speed, you're gonna have a bad time soloing.
Thu 20 Jun 2019 2:54 AM by Urzawolf
I think you are correct in identifying the problem, however, I think your solution is both too complex and going to cause more problems. The best solution I've seen to this problem are solo/small group zones. If you had a neutral zone that everyone could get too that also banned groups (or limited their size) you would fix this problem. The downside to this approach really becomes the fact that you start siphoning off people from the main rvr areas, however, perhaps you would have lost those people anyways.
Thu 20 Jun 2019 5:24 AM by Kemoauc
solo zones will never work. We have seen this with the tournament event.

It would take half a week and the zone would be dominated by strong 1vs1 casters and nobody else would go there anymore. 1vs1 in a controlled setting where the opponent expects you and where there might be a lot of open space is impossible for half the classes that exist just because they have no catch.

As a pala I'm fairly strong 1vs1 but I might as well get instakilled if I have to face a class with speed, a class with disease, most pet classes and everyone else can just turn around and run away with perma sprint...
Thu 20 Jun 2019 7:58 AM by Cadebrennus
I had no problem soloing on a Visi in classic/SI until radar became rampant. I don't see why it should be a problem here.
Thu 20 Jun 2019 10:08 AM by Gotmagi
I think there is nothing the devs can do that will make the solo experience any better, except some kind of changes to the solo tasks and title system.
The main change would have to come from the community itself which is a hard thing to do, i.e. fgs not steamrolling every soloer they see.

Most people seem to play only to see a number get larger on their screen instead of actually trying to make things fun for everyone involved. When I kill some poor rr2 for example I try to always give them a /hug, /cheer or /salute to encourage them to keep going.
Thu 20 Jun 2019 9:46 PM by teiloh
This is an issue of game design as you've said. It's not just solos, but an entire food chain exists due to the structure of the game pushing it to be more like agar.io than a realm war, with big blobs chasing small blobs. Numbers confer a huge, almost unmitigated advantage. The problem is that generally, unrealistically, the small blobs aren't much nimbler while the big ones are rarely much slower (esp in Hib). All of this comes down to cost vs. benefit. There's little cost to chasing a little blob as a bigger blob as long as you can catch them so it's worth it 90%+ of the time to chase little blobs and run from bigger ones. It would stand to reason that smaller groups would have more maneuverability and access, and they do to some extent, but the advantage is not great or very intuitive.

The main issues:

1. Map logic. The more depth a map has, the better it is for asymmetric battle. Soloers benefit from places to hide, and clear-cut traffic so they can avoid the fast lane. They also benefit from mob placement, where larger numbers have harder times avoiding aggro because of the spatial factors involved. Reworking mob placements, obstacles, and adding features to the map could help. A faction-controlled zone would also be nice.

2. Lack of asymmetric costs, like Zone Control, Speed Breaking, etc. Through the many iterations of DAOC, there have been many abilities that could punish larger groups for hunting down smaller ones. Speedwarp was one - chasing a solo or group can get your entire zerg mired down for minutes, costing you time and movement. OF Volcanic Pillar could potentially get several people killed. OF Ichor, with its insta cast, could stop a zerg dead in its tracks for long enough to get them caught or hit at a bad angle, so on and so forth. Reflex Attack and Phase Shift also count. The design goal should be to give soloers more choices when being hit by higher numbers. imo on Phoenix these are the most watered down (NNF RAs w/ no ToA and no RR5s), for better or worse. Even if you're losing it's nice to feel like you "go down swinging" and generally enemy players like the challenge.

Some brainstormed examples:
Berserker Vendo. If killed in Vendo form, you endure for 2 more seconds in a "living dead" state or until 200% of your max HP damage has been done to you. After this effect wears off, you actually die and can be rezzed.
This would let a solo zerker potentially finish a kill or kill someone in a small group attacking them.

Assassins - 35 Stealth, Smoke Bomb: you throw a smoke bomb at your feet, clearing everyone's target (including yours). Anyone in the cloud has a 25% less chance to be hit by melee, archery or spells, including your enemies. The effect covers player models.
Trade-off escape tool. This would give solo Assassins a way to escape, but it's a big harder to use while adding/in groups/as offense

Caltrops - you scatter 4 caltrops in a small radius around your feet. The first enemy to step on one takes a very small amount of damage and is snared by 35% for 2 seconds. Can be seen unaided if looking closely, fade from floor in a few minutes.
Deterrent: slows larger groups and helps cover escape routes.

Disguise - 40 Stealth, Group buff that reduces aggro radius against the target.
Map access tool

Main Tank - Warcry
You shout, breaking the speed of everyone within 300u

Formation, Wall of Steel: reduces your speed by 30%, but allows you to pre-load styles. You AOE this style with a 50u radius at the first enemy moving within or from out of 225 units of you.
Break speed and potentially CC people as they run you over

Against All Odds - Main Tank
For each 10% health you're missing multipled by the number of enemies surrounding you, you gain X% to your resist, parry and block rates.
Mechanic: multiplied based on nearby attackers

Corporeal Disintegration - Sorc/Mentalist/Shaman
You fire a strong DoT, ticking ten times over 30 seconds, that leaps to two more enemies within 350 units each tick (3, 9, 27, 81 etc. potential targets - duration on copies does NOT refresh). Grants a 1 minute immunity and doesn't tick damage on mezzed and rooted targets.
Mechanic: amplified vs larger clumped numbers

etc.

3. Difficult to confirm kills. There should be ways for soloers to spec that lets them modulate their target and self TTKs. Again, many abilities in DaoC history have done this - Banelord 8, etc.

Example: light tank "stances", one that increases damage but reduces defense/resists, etc.

4. Objectives. There is generally a lack of side-objectives for smaller groups. NF attempted this with towers, but towers are just more of the same PvKeep that is not fun for most people. Having side objectives for 1s, 2-7s and 8s off the main roads would be a great help.

5. More mechanics. So far things like CC breaking, AOE anchoring, and some missile/bolt mechanics etc work against zergs. We could tip the scales a little more by just tweaking how rewards are handed out. Say, killing someone in larger group than you could reward "BAF" gold, xp, rp and bp bonuses - but not too much.


I have a thread here with some more ideas that would help add logic to RvR maps and give soloers some objectives and spaces to run around in.
https://forum.playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9722
Fri 21 Jun 2019 7:14 AM by Sepplord
teiloh wrote:
Thu 20 Jun 2019 9:46 PM
This is an issue of game design as you've said. It's not just solos, but an entire food chain exists due to the structure of the game pushing it to be more like agar.io than a realm war, with big blobs chasing small blobs. Numbers confer a huge, almost unmitigated advantage. The problem is that generally, unrealistically, the small blobs aren't much nimbler while the big ones are rarely much slower (esp in Hib). All of this comes down to cost vs. benefit. There's little cost to chasing a little blob as a bigger blob as long as you can catch them so it's worth it 90%+ of the time to chase little blobs and run from bigger ones. It would stand to reason that smaller groups would have more maneuverability and access, and they do to some extent, but the advantage is not great or very intuitive.

not that it would solve the problem, but this is heavily exacerbated by hib-amnesia
smaller blobs from other realms simply can't run away as well as they would need to
Fri 21 Jun 2019 7:49 AM by Anelyn77
If we had NF and player mounts in RvR you would see a bloom of soloers / duos visis for obv reasons. But in OF you're pretty much playing the lottery to get to your MG, then roll the dice again to not instantly die if a small men or FG passes by (or 3+ stealthers go ham on you).

It's simply impossible for most classes to go solo and not get randomly deleted without even reaching a good place or finding another visi soloer, which also plays into them adding on other 1v1 or small vs small or fg vs fg because hey, if am going to die anyway and not get at least a 1v1 or fun fight, at least I press some buttons before /release.

/Bnotashamed + Aicha = LOVE
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