…while hoping it’s not Lum anymore. God, they must be tired. From the Grab Bag:

Q: My question regards the Realm Ability, Avoidance of Magic. It states that(copy/pasted): “Reduces all magic damage taken by the listed percentage. (This only works on damage. Does not work on disease, dots, or debuffs and does not affect the duration of crowd control spells). Lvl1 – 2% / Lvl2 – 5% / Lvl3 – 10%…….”

I know that resist rates cap at 26% from item/spell crafted bonuses, does AoM’s bonuses stack ontop of that, making my imaginary 26% Energy Resist now count as 28% Energy due to AoM1. Or does AoM not stack with a capped 26%, but is instead designed to help my imaginary ‘gimped’ 15% Matter Resist, making it a 17% Resist due to AoM1?? Thanks in advance.

A: Oh, yeah, this one went straight to the Code Warrior: “Realm ability resist buffs (such as Avoidance of Magic) and spell resists are added seperately from item/spellcrafted bonuses. This is why in the bonus window they display seperately; in his example, if he had level 3 Avoidance of Magic and capped Energy resist bonus from items, he would see “26% / 10%” in his bonus window for a total of 36% Energy resist.

It’s not true that the total resist is 36%.

This was changed long ago (after endless discussions) as a band-aid to the insane high resists in the game and some “I-win” buttons like the old version of “Bunker of Faith”.

Firstly you apply the first value (26%) to the damage. Then you take the result and apply to it the second value (10%) to obtain the actual damage you receive.

To explain. Let’s say you are hit for 200 damage unmodified. And let’s assume you have 50% resist from items and 50% from Realm Abilities.

Following the explanation on the Herald you would have a total of 100% resist (50+50). Resulting in zero damage.

But this is false. In fact the game first applies the first 50% resist. So a 200 damage becomes 100. Then this 100 is again applied to the second 50% resist. For a total of 50 damage.

Which is obviously different from zero damage and that is coherent with the need to reduce the effectiveness of the resists.

But what is actually more important to understand is how clunky and overly complicated are DAoC’s mechanics. Just another example of those bleeding band-aids.

(“Balance Boy” got it right exactly two years ago)

I write this more to try to understand it myself than explain how it works to others. Besides, I have no clue since I’m not in beta and all my informations come from reading the forums.

Basically there will be two alternate advancement paths available in the expansion and accessible starting from level 30:
– You can go through a number “champion quests” (PvE) starting solo and ending in more difficult dungeons requiring at least a full group.
– You can progress through five “champion levels” by gaining specific experience points through both PvE and PvP. Each level requires the exact same amount of xp points.

Both these alternative paths grant you a “champion weapon” at the end so that you can choose the path you like more. This means that the PvE content available in the expansion is absolutely optional.

The champion quests (first advancement path) are divided into three chapters:
– Chapter 1: run errands around the realm
– Chapter 2: clean an instanced dungeon and kill the final boss mob
– Chapter 3: clean another dungeon and five different bosses – plus find and kill the demon of the realm

The champion weapons, between the other statistics, have two usable effects that must be unlocked. Completing the second chapter grants you the champion weapon, but with the two effects locked. To unlock them you need to complete the two parts of the third chapter and become “Champion of the realm”.

While each champion level (second advancement path) grants:
– level 1: one subclassing point – a title – advanced horse
– level 2: one subclassing point – a title – first saddlebag
– level 3: one subclassing point – a title – second saddlebag
– level 4: one subclassing point – a title – third saddlebag
– level 5: one subclassing point – a title – fourth saddlebag – Champion weapon

In this case the champion weapon is given to you completely unlocked if you achieve champion level 5.

It should be evident that the full access to the other features like horses, subclassing and saddlebags happens only with the second advancement path, which involves RvR and is the main purpose of the game, so the natural drift of every players. Completing the quests will still give you champion experience to progress through the levels and you can continue getting more PvE exp to gain the five levels.

The positive is that the PvE “grind” is optional if you like RvR. And the RvR is optional if you like the PvE grind. Best is playing both if you are eclectic like I am.

This digression leaves out the subclassing system, other possible PvE drops and content, different types of horses, craftable armor for horses and possible vendor items available in the armory and throne room. Maybe more.

EDIT: There’s a guide on the herald explaining all the various horse types. I add here the informations needed and missing from that page.

Horse types and requirements:
– Basic: level 35 + 350 gold + specific horse quest
– Advanced: level 45 + 1 platinum
– Champion Level 1: CL1 + 2 platinum
– Champion Level 2: CL2 + 3 platinum
– Champion Level 3: CL3 + 6 platinum
– Champion Level 4: CL4 + 8 platinum
– Epic: CL5 + 15 platinum + epic horse quest

All the horses from advanced to epic have the same speed and can be used in RvR zones (but never in combat), no other differences beside the more or less “badass” look. The basic horses are slower, cannot be used in RvR zones and are available to all players even without the expansion.

Particularly funny (or scaring) are the Ku Klux Klan horses.
I wonder if they go: OOoOooooOOOOoOOoOooOOo

I already posted some links to the screenshots showing the reskinned Midgard and Hibernia capital cities that will come with the Darkness Rising expansion, which is going to be released as a digital download priced at $19.99 ($29.99 bundles with “Catacombs”) in little more than a week (October 11), it seems.

The artwork is *impressive* and I congatulate myself again with this (or these) unnamed talent that Mythic hired (I really don’t believe this is the result of the same artists there worked on the game at release). Both the textures and the architecture (and lighting) of the environments top whatever has been seen in this genre, despite some design shortcomings.

Following here (press the “read more” link on the right) I’ll post some screenshots (from a Vault thread and slightly too dark) showing some of the new content. The Midgard king in particular is a masterpiece (while the boss mobs are a little too silly and “Doom” looking, despite I love the wings on the spider-fat guy).

I’m looking forward to take and show my own screenshots once the expansion is launched. I’m not in beta but the NDA will be lifted at the beginning of this new week, so there could be more infos to comment.

Some more comments about the latest poll. If I wasn’t awfully deluded for my own reasons I would be all hyped up, because I definitely appreciated Mythic’s interest toward this direction. This game and Mythic are still able to tickle and awake my interest more than anything else out there, sometimes they surprise me and this is one case. What I appreciate is the hint of a probable on-going debate within Mythic about the game itself. I find this positive because it’s different from a lack of interest and from the perceived sensation I had in the last months. I thought they just wanted to drop the game as quickly as possible because it wasn’t anymore positively successful (read as: growing). Jump off the ship before it’s too late and bet on brand new projects while DAoC is put in a conservative mode to transition both the players and the dev team while Warhammer is in the work.

The poll isn’t directly breaking these impressions, but it suggests that this transition could be at least interesting and challenging on its own. And not just a boring transition process to suffer (and forget). Not as a declining game that is becoming more like a burden and a negative weight for Mythic instead of a resource and a reason of pride. This is why I register the poll itself as something definitely good and positive. This is the first step.

Then the critics. If you read some of the active forums and threads, my opinions aren’t really different from what everyone is thinking right now. The idea of more new rulesets just doesn’t sound as something viable. I strongly criticized the release of the classic servers. Despite I play there and despite they are better than anything Mythic has done till today. My reasons were that Mythic was refusing to solve the problems. Instead of addressing them properly and dare with the development, they were just seconding the rants of the players without really understanding them and deciding that a rollback (such are the classic servers) was a positive path to try.

When those classic servers were released we were worried that Mythic wouldn’t have supported them properly, in particular when the ruleset become divergent and head toward completely different directions. The prioritization of new features and problems doesn’t work anyomore. As time passes DAoC has more and more problems and misses more and more basic functionalities. Splitting the dev team simply doesn’t work under these conditions, it just cannot bring to positive results in this situation. It would just stretch an inappropriate model till it breaks.

The real point isn’t really the development and launch of a new server type. The real point is the support from release onward. Mythic needs to decide if they want DAoC to sit in a place and remain there till it lasts (and without moving, it will die, sooner or later. Immobility = illness = death) or if they want to keep daring with it, adding new ideas, exploring new possibilities. I hope the “Evolution” server follows this second path. Without just drawing a line that doesn’t move again. Without the need of an Evolution 2 server to release one year after the first to address the new issues that the first brought up.

The “Evolution” server I’d love to see is what DAoC (and every other mmorpg) was supposed to be since release. An ongoing project that reacts and grows as the result of the interactions between the community and the developers. The possible mistakes would be the very substance on which to found the premises of the actual “evolution”. Instead of representing failure. A failure is a problem without a development. Mmorpgs have the innate characteristic of being malleable and never fixed in a form. They have the innate possibility of transforming a failure in a strength. So lets speriment, lets discuss passionately, lets rant, lets feel deluded and then excited again, because this is what founds a growth as opposed to a stasis.

DAoC has been a stillwater pond. If done right the Evolution server could be a way to break the model, in the hope that it will set a trend and will continue to move instead of sitting again and starting to show the negative stasis of the current DAoC.

Of course these are my dreams, not my expectations. I write this exactly because I expect something else and I would hope Mythic to consider these points and share my ideas. There wouldn’t be any reasons to discuss if we all agree. But these points are important because they are exclusive. Mythic cannot continue to branch the game, furtherly shattering its integrity and its resources. I hope the Evolution server is the beginning of a journey and this cannot work if they need to focus on contrasting plans, multiple ruleset with opposite needs and split their teams continuously, losing more and more resources (and dev personal interest toward the game) as Warhammer approaches.

The point is about planning in the long term and put the developers in the condition to be creative, see the results and react consequently. Curiosity. A vibrant development and a vibrant community as a result. The Evolution server instead risks to be just a “light” version of the same game. A sop for the players to second their supposed needs, instead of actually understanding them.

In fact lets see the actual fundamental points. This poll can be seen as just another attempt from Mythic to make everyone happy. Another superficial attitude disguised as the intention to listen the community and give it what it demands. The reality is another. Mythic is refusing to take decisions. They are just failing at deciding where to lead the game and so they just react sparsely, without a defined direction. They do everything and nothing at the same time. They dodge the problems without dealing with them directly. They fear change and so they branch the game, hurting it in the long term.

The point is that this is just not possible. You cannot please everyone and this attitide will just bring them to fool themselves. DAoC needs its strong personality as it happened when it was released. It needs to “impose” its quality as it happened because no remarkable game, book, movie or whatever else was shaped up through polls. DAoC needs a strong direction and authorship. It’s not important where it goes as much it is important that it goes *somewhere*. This is why in the other comment I wrote that I’d like Mythic to focus on something. Anything. They must make choices and face the consequences, positive or negative. They just cannot avoid this, they cannot please everyone and they cannot keep shattering the game in a FOTM (applied to a ruleset) that just doesn’t lead anywhere in the longer term. They are deluding themselves because “avoid to take decisions” isn’t something possible.

But what about the present beside these words? It just wouldn’t be possible to fix the standard servers. DAoC has been still and unresponsive to problems for too long and fixing its issues all at once is just not a possible or viable path. It cannot be done at this point. The problems are now too deep-rooted and fused with the fabric of the game to be addressed efficiently at this point (despite I had suggestions). The “Evolution” server can be an occasion and the reason why I wrote all this is because I hope this occasion won’t be thrown away and get wasted. So what this new server needs to do is to set a new standard to tackle the problems and address them with courage and determination as they come up. Without letting them rot. Building on the actual, progressive “evolution” (the real evolution) the strength of the game.

And if there’s the will to dare and transition *this* game (and not Warhammer) toward its *real* evolution, why not open two different servers? One as a brand new, clean server. And another with the possibility to convert and port old characters to it. Maybe in the simpler form of an old idea I suggest more than a year ago: a single-use key code to spend to instantly bring one (and only one) character at level 45. This would allow everyone to quickly get involved in the RvR without suffering the treadmill and without, at the same time, killing the community at the early levels in the longer term, since all the alts beside the first will be required to start from level 1.

This doesn’t solve all the problems. The players don’t want to leave their servers not only because of the wealth they gathered but also because of the social ties they have. But through the design it is possible to ease up at least one part of the problem and this is something that should be done.

The final question to Mythic is: Are you willingly to focus on this new server and set the premises for the future of this game? Decisions must be taken. A defined stance must be set. An ambiguous behaviour that tries to please everyone at the same time is just not possible nor good for Mythic or the game.

I was logging in to give a look at the new poll but as I launched the patcher I got the message that it couldn’t connect. Without even trying to.

Then I remembered about an old quirk. Early today I launched Outlook Express while not connected. It put it in offline mode.

The bug is: if Outlook Express is in offline mode, DAoC doesn’t connect. I have no clue why this happens but it happens (it’s also easily verifiable). The first time I got this bug I spent HOURS trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with the game.

Of course I voted for the “Evolution Server”. But the point is that I’d like Mythic to focus on something. Anything. And not start to shatter the already small playerbase and their already limited resources on multiple projects that just won’t go anywhere.

Btw, wasn’t the “Evolution Server” also known as “Warhammer”?

Just a quick idea I just had:

If Mythic doesn’t know how to make a viable engine upgrade in the future that is possible without requiring a major reprogramming and too much work for the artists, I suggest to put dynamic light effects on the spells. Right now DAoC’s light system is wonderful but it’s also static. It would be great to see a fireball lighten a room and the characters nearby and have all the different spells their own lights and colors affecting the environment.

In the dungeons and in the RvR at night it would look nothing short of spectacular.

This is a follow up to Baint’s story. The first part was about the problems of the design of the zones. The second part is about the rest of the message I’ve taken from the Vault and that underlines what is bad in the design of the quests and the actual gameplay offered in Catacombs.

We all know that this expansion has the main purpose to accelerate by a substantial margin the levelling pace. DAoC has always had relevant problems in its PvE aspect and most of the players have passed this type of judgement:

I see the PvE in DAoC as nothing more than the price of admission to RvR.

This perception is a fact and still today the treadmill in the game has been considered mostly as a burden to suffer before finally reaching the actual (unique, also) value that the game can offer. The RvR.

Catacombs confirms again the superficial attitude Mythic is keeping toward the game. A radical problem is trivialized and dismissed with a solution that can just glide on the surface without really solving anything and without offering any type of value.

In fact this expansion solves the aspect of “quantity” of the treadmill, but not its quality, where the real problem is:

Haemish:
As has been said before, the PROCESS of DAoC’s PVE treadmill is what makes it so grindy.

HRose:
That’s the point in fact. As I define it: a problem of quality and not of quantity.

DAoC’s treadmill isn’t longer compared to other games, but it is awful for the most part (especially now with a weak community).

In this thread someone brought the example of task dungeons as a relevent improvement to the treadmill. My point is that they are exactly the opposite. They BREAK the game. They are essentially corridors with a row of immoble mobs in the middle. You whack your way through them, one by one, with about a two minutes downtime between each kill till the end where sits the exact same mob you whacked till that point, just named. You kill the named and you get rewarded with money and experience.

Now the reward is good, this is true, and it makes the treadmill shorter since you can efficently level up in solo. But this is, in fact, the “quantity” aspect of the problem. The truth is that you are really playing an unashamed version of ProgressQuest that puts you in a corridor with a row of mobs you need to grind to increase the size of your e-peen. There is really NOTHING ELSE. Just repeat your easy kill 20x for each mob, complete the task, get another and repeat.

This CANNOT be tolerated. It cannot be tolerated for weeks or months as it cannot be tolerated for ten minutes. It’s one of those things that give you epiphanies: what the fuck am I doing? The game cannot be THAT dumb.

And you really cannot believe that the devs could be so unashamed to add something like that to the game.

The task dungeons are popular. They are the faster way you have to level and they represent a huge difference from the other hunting places. But again this is a refusal to solve the problem of the PvE. It’s another way to dismiss and negate it. To completely jump a part of the game as quick as possible. It’s the legitimation of the “burden” that is there just as a weight inherited from the past (and that noone cared to address properly):

The PvE needs work to be attractive, not to be just as quick as possible in order to forget it. It needs value.

“/level 20” was a superficial workaround that I believe damaged the game way more than the benefits it brought.

It’s not a case that I accuse Mythic of not acknowledging their errors. What they did with the “/level 20” command (the possibility to start new characters at level 20 once the player had at least gone till 50 once) follows the exact same patterns of Catacombs. It’s a *removal* of the treadmill, as much as possible. /level 20 allowed the players to jump a part of the game, the task dungeons are a new way to speedrun through the treadmill in order to get rid of it as quick as possible.

But again, where is the “quality” of the game? What does it have to offer? With both these solutions Mythic refused to offer real alternatives. They just seconded a problem:

Nebu:
HRose: I see the PvE in DAoC as nothing more than the price of admission to RvR. It’s not fun nor is it interesting.

HRose:
Firstly, I believe that DAoC shouldn’t ditch its PvE. I strongly believe that it IS possible to make it fun and not a burden. That’s why I HATE “/level 20” and those unacceptable task dungeons.

Those are, exactly like the new ruleset, ways to DODGE the problems. Nothing will improve if you do not SOLVE or at least TRY to address the problems.

“The PvE sucks, so no PvE” I do not accept that. That’s seconding a problem not solving it. When “Wish” was turned toward the GM content the excuse brought by the devs was: “we tried to go in the PvP direction but it wasn’t fun”.

OF COURSE it’s not fun. Because to make good things you need to work on them and expand their potential. The quality or the “fun” in general don’t fall from the sky, you need to hunt for them. So I don’t accept that DAoC has to become just PvP because PvE isn’t fun. It should instead START to work in order to offer something interesting. Because they definitely have the resources.

Here is described that superficiality I pointed out at the beginning. Instead of observing the game and understanding its true needs, what happens is a superficial glance. What I defined as: “The PvE sucks, so no PvE”. This is why I believe the game needs (and always needed) a creative approach to these problems. To offer something different instead of just walking around the issues. Legitimating its presence and tolerating it.

Now that I played Catacombs more at depth I can see the overall shape and all it has to offer. Not only we have these task dungeons with rows of mobs to be farmed over and over so you can finally exit and see the light of the day (the RvR), but even the other new zones in the expansion and the two new private instances for each of the old dungeons follow the exact same trend.

There seem to be more than 400 new quests added to the new zones (I don’t know if this number is cumulative between the three realms or not), but the large majority of these are designed as “mini-quest”. Essentially they are simple, soloable tasks that you get from random NPCs, sending you to kill a couple of mobs and then go back for a decent reward in experience and some coins.

So, isn’t that another form of pure grind? The players do not hate these games because they are more or less “long”. The grind is NEVER a problem of quantity. But of quality. This is why noone I know complains that the treadmill in WoW is too long. In fact I hear the opposite and the desire to prolong it (also because the endgame sucks so much that you hope to arrive there as late as possible).

Catacombs introduces an INSANE amount of task dungeons, new zones and private instances. From this point of view you could expect to have so much content to level at least five different characters before seeing the same place twice. But this is, instead, completely false. Becuase there’s nothing to see. All these dungeons, while pretty, are just recycled assets over and over with rows of mobs standing still and just waiting you to kill them.

The gameplay is not just “weak”, the gameplay is *ABSENT*. There is nothing to see, nothing to play with, nothing to discover, nothing to… learn. Which should be what these games are about. There’s just a gap between one level and another (now speed up) and some space for the socialization. Between farming “aurulite” (the new currency) in the private instances or farming directly experience in a task dungeon, there’s no difference. You can have the corridors of a different color, or the mobs of a different shape. But that’s all you get. Nothing else.

You have so many different possibilities just with Catacombs. You can level by taking these solo mini-quests in the new zones, you can farm aurulite in the new instances or the instances of the classic dungeons, or you can do task dungeons to farm directly the experience at an insane rate. But, no matter what you choose, the experience (of the player) is completely MISSING. You can trade between voids. Between empty experiences that are there just as excuses (and excusing what exactly?).

So why even add these multiple possibilities if they are just empty containers? Because they are balanced on the “purposes”. The task dungeons give insane exp and some money in no time (in particular when grouped), but you cannot find drops and item to use, the mini quests are best to solo but they give little money and no type of equipment at all, finally the instanced dungeons offer you aurulite that gives you the possibility to get decent equipment but that aren’t nowhere as efficient as the other two at delivering the exp. To this you can add the fact that the prices of the aurulite items are set so out of scale (as always) to require insane amount of farming to the point that even by doing exclusively this activity you will never be able to buy up-to-date equipment for your character without being twinked to death (so forget to mix these possibilities and hope to obtain acceptable results).

This is another demonstration that the only element of design at play here is the purpose of these different patterns. We have three different paths to choose, each with a particular advantage over the other. But this type of functional design has then NOTHING at all to offer when it comes to deliver an experience for the player. There is no gameplay to offer. The game can offer aurulite, or experience, or money. But it cannot offer THE FUN. It cannot offer gameplay with some variety.

So we are back to the original concept. The grind isn’t about how functional is an activity, but in the quality of the experience. A quality that, in DAoC, just isn’t there. There’s a hole, a gap in the gameplay. A missing block. New and old players trying the game may appreciate the fact that the grind isn’t slow as before. But it’s still the exact same grind. It’s the perfect definition of a grind: the fact that you have to rinse and repeat the same gameplay over and over and over, just because you need to reach the next step and, finally, the RvR endgame where the fun is supposed to be.

The game offers a suspension. A missing part. A lack of quality and interest. On this aspect the game isn’t changed in the slightest. We are still at the exact same archaic grindy treadmills. Maybe shorter, but still a grind. Another missed occasion to let the game express its qualities instead of trivializing it till a point where it has nothing anymore to say.