[Arena] Sometimes I hate it

I dunno. I was pretty heavy into DAoC back when it was good and even after it was gay'ed up by ToA/NF and while its PvP was great, I think arena takes more skill and coordination. In DAoC, you could have one or two average players in your group and still do well because of the way the game mechanics worked. For example, melee assists could literally be controlled by a bot and still do well - lolz spam assist MA macro and style repeatedly. With arena, having one average player in the group rather than someone more skilled is very noticeable. Also, the way the interrupt system worked in camelot was pretty laughable. No timing was required, just the ability to spam ae's on the enemy support. It's a lot different than having to setup interrupt rotations like in WoW.

I dunno, DAoC was good, and it's more open pvp was nice at times, but to me, arena gets rid of all the boring running you had to do to find a 8v8 and just gets straight to the point. /shrug

the ability to fly is what took out a lot of world pvp. before tbc, if you were gonna go raid, you had to go on foot to a certain point. if someone wanted pvp, they could roam that area and find ppl on their way to their desired pve. now you can just fly to whatever entrance you want and bypass everything.

they put in some world objectives, but the bonuses for them are dumb. in daoc, if you had enough keeps, you would get bonus dmg, extra money from farming, bonus xp, extra rp gained from killing fools. in wow, you get shit like spirit shards, a closer gy for when you wipe doing instances, and a small bit of extra dmg

i read that in wotlk, you won't be able to fly till you hit the lvl cap. so hopefully that'll bring in a short period of world pvp again as ppl are lvling and all trying to hit the same quest spots

The argument that people who don't like arena aren't skilled doesn't hold water for me, because I dominated it the first season and it still bored me. To be fair, yes I play a warlock, but I played that same warlock back when soul link was a timed buff that cost mana, and soulstones cost 2 shards each. The fact remains when you artificially cap how many people are involved in a given fight, you also cap what could potentially happen and remove a lot of the fun.

The other side is never going to get reinforcements, you're never going to be outnumbered, everybody knows exactly where everybody else is coming from and it's all very predetermined. It removes the scouting and intelligence portion of PvP, and also any sense of purpose outside of getting the next tier of armor for yourself personally.

I'm not saying DAoC was without it's faults, but I haven't seen another game to date where you can have reports from allied scouts that 100 enemies are invading your realm, so you head out with your group of eight and by communicating with the scouts that are watching them able to sneak up behind them and mow them down while being such a massive underdog. That time would then let you get more reinforcements out to defend in a more traditional way at a wall or keep and buy you time to defend your land properly.

Forcing everybody into what Blizzard perceives to be 'fair and balanced' PVP actually removes a lot of the ability for people to communicate and outplay each other in a setting that doesn't seem artificial. The battlegrounds have the same problem but in a different way.

PVP was a lot more fun when it was in Felwood and around Gadgetzan and UnGoro.

Yeah I enjoyed that kind of stuff in camelot occasionally. But overall, I like the artificial, more competitive, setting that arena gives. Hopefully Warhammer offers a lot of both to appeal to everyone.

they should make a hillsbrad battleground

That's really because the only game you've played for PvP is WoW, where people can get 3 shotted, and you call "surviving 4 dps" coordination.



That's probably right, but I played daoc aswell. I experienced mass pvp in early daoc, it didn't do it for me tho.

But care to elaborate on the coordination thingy? I mean what is different to daoc or shadowbane?

Btw I don't play 5v5. I probably should. But its to zergy for me....

I would love to do 2s and 3s with my ele shaman but unfortunately we are shit in those brackets. Been running druid/warrior/ele sham, gotten to about 1630 and keep tryin to climb higher

Having played EQ for 2+ years, then DAoC for about the same amount, and WoW since release; I can say that DAoC pre-ToA was definitely the most fun game for pvp. I think for me what ruined WoW pvp was the insane gear dependency and gaps between players. Getting absolutely destroyed by someone with full s3 or t6 is not fun. The BG's are also boring as shit, stagnant, small, and plagued with AFKers.

In DAoC, everyone could make high quality/masterpiece gear very easily putting everyone on the same gear level and putting the emphasis on real PVP. The fights in DAoC were also so massive and fun that I would actually get really nervous before a big encounter with another group. Caledonia at lvl 35 was so much fun (plus being able to insta-lvl a character to 30 after having your first lvl 50 was a great idea).

I also miss a bard or monk class very much. I loved playing my skald, and even my bard in FF11 (despite how gay that game was).

I think the biggest thing missing from PvP in current games is the lack of fear from death. There is basically no penalty for dying in PvP in WoW. In EQ, you never wore any gear that was not Bound to you, or carried any more money than you absolutely had to, because if you did you risked the chance of it getting ganked. UO also had some intense penalties for pvp death.

I really miss that feeling of "Oh shit" and your heart racing when you knew another player was around - then frantically bagging all your non-soulbound shit before they could gank you. Or just knowing that if you died, you would have to retrieve your body on a long ass run which sucked. I never got that feeling playing WoW; dying is just a 1 minute inconvenience with no fear of punishment with no excitement - the honor grind is also atrocious. Thus I canceled 2 weeks ago.

I really miss the old mmo's and I hope that a new one comes out soon (with a bard class!) and some old school pvp.

I really liked the shadowbane death penalties. Anything you weren't wearing was up for grabs. Of course I was a thief anyway. I once caught a guy from a major rival guild starting a new city to give them a home spawn close to our main town, and i stole his tree of life deed and about a million gold, and snagged a summon back to our town where I promptly bought basically everybody in the guild new armor and weapons and paid the maintenance for our town for like a month.

I think I also got a commander rune and a godly dexterity from that twit. Seriously, who starts a town and doesn't bring a fucking scout?

I also want to add that I miss the real alliances that were involved in EQ, especially on Rallos Zek. As in alliances made between the top guilds and players. I remember that certain guilds actually controlled certain areas in the game. If you were part of a rival guild, you would not have access to certain areas of the game because you would be killed on sight. Pretty much in game 'turf wars.' I loved walking in to Sebilis at lvl 55 unguilded and seeing 2 real life players actually guarding the zone door preventing any rival guild members from trying to level there. That's how concentrated and open pvp was in that game - you could kill anyone (within 10 lvls of you - btw making AoE pretty interesting when grouped and fighting npcs).

It made you think before joining a particular guild about the consequences involved down the road. Also, if you were guildless, generally you were left alone and were free to roam, but if you attacked someone of a certain guild - you could be sure that you were KoS to that guild and alliance for as long as you played that character.

IMO instancing killed real pvp. BGs, bosses, all of it. Without instances you were forced to make pacts with other players and guilds in the game. With alliances you would have one guild protect the entrance of an area while the other guild killed a boss. Then rotate the next week. You were always aware of your surroundings and it was a challenge maintaining communication while fighting a boss and also watching out for enemy guilds. I miss those days.

I really liked the shadowbane death penalties. Anything you weren't wearing was up for grabs. Of course I was a thief anyway. I once caught a guy from a major rival guild starting a new city to give them a home spawn close to our main town, and i stole his tree of life deed and about a million gold, and snagged a summon back to our town where I promptly bought basically everybody in the guild new armor and weapons and paid the maintenance for our town for like a month.

I think I also got a commander rune and a godly dexterity from that twit. Seriously, who starts a town and doesn't bring a fucking scout?

While yea it was 'exciting' to get those sorts of accomplishments it wasn't any fun being the victim, I'm sure. I never played long enough to have any serious setbacks but I've played other mmos which claim the same basic fame.

WoW is easy. Everyone likes easy. It's why WoW is still popular despite it's faults. I like being able to get home from work, play a couple hours, die a few times and not feel like everything has to be perfect or else I've set myself back a few hours.

You want the kind of game that plays like DAoC, feels like DAoC and looks like DAoC? You chose the wrong one, you should have stayed with DAoC. At least you're right, WoW doesn't do it for you. :shrug:

Alright, back on the subject of Priest/Hunter -

I'd highly suggest respeccing 0/42/19 or 0/43/18 (Look up Hamchook or Turionz for their specs, both excellent hunters). Attempting to burst a War/druid down witha BM spec will simply not work; well, I guess it could if the druid was completely terrible.

Aside from that, it is incredibly important for the priest to land offensive fears on the druid to make him use his trinket, give you more drain time, etc. However, a good warrior will always intercept to the priest to hamstring, the druid will travel form etc. If the druid travel forms, your priest needs to start mana burning immediately while he's trying to gain distance.

Outside from that, the druid will most likely be bear form a lot of the match so try to use scare beast whenever possible as well. Essentially, your DPSing whatever is in LoS with the druid being the main choice if they're both out. Scatter + freezing trap on a warrior is INCREDIBLY frustrating as warrior/druid and gives you more freedom to drink, dps the druid, and generally get away.

No respeccing is not an option, the improved pet speed and imp revive pet make up for anything I loose in the sv tree. The dps loss is not sustaintial.

I used to be 43/18 but found that 11/41/9 proves to be just as good dps wise, but better in keeping stuff in combat.

Ya I think my priest played too defensive on this setup. So my next plan when encountering this team will be, forsing the druid out, sting mana burn him as effective, but don't follow him around. Try to buy my priest some time, and when the right moment is there spiking someone, most likely the warrior.

I would love to do 2s and 3s with my ele shaman but unfortunately we are shit in those brackets. Been running druid/warrior/ele sham, gotten to about 1630 and keep tryin to climb higher

may have to swap in someone for metz cuz hes a dirty bum and cant afford his monthly hit of wowcrack.

I really liked the shadowbane death penalties. Anything you weren't wearing was up for grabs. Of course I was a thief anyway. I once caught a guy from a major rival guild starting a new city to give them a home spawn close to our main town, and i stole his tree of life deed and about a million gold, and snagged a summon back to our town where I promptly bought basically everybody in the guild new armor and weapons and paid the maintenance for our town for like a month.

I think I also got a commander rune and a godly dexterity from that twit. Seriously, who starts a town and doesn't bring a fucking scout?

thats what i loved about UO (never tried SB) as a theif... i could jack anything from anyone, even in town in front of the bank with guards around (success depended on skill). and even if the guards noticed you could run away if you did it right... fun times :D

That's really because the only game you've played for PvP is WoW, where people can get 3 shotted, and you call "surviving 4 dps" coordination.

In games like Shadowbane, 10 skilled players used to easily take on 30 gimp players. That takes more teamwork than this game. Sure, you can join the zerg and zerg and both sides don't need any skill to play. Or you can be part of an elite crew that went around slaughtering the zerg. I sure do miss SB.

here here!

i miss my time playing SB with the likes of Shining Path, Legion and Nurfed.

SB looked interesting, but never played it except for a few hours after it became free or whatever. I remember many DAoC'ers saying it was going to be the death of the game, but I guess it ended up flopping or something.

SB looked interesting, but never played it except for a few hours after it became free or whatever. I remember many DAoC'ers saying it was going to be the death of the game, but I guess it ended up flopping or something.

shadowbane in theory was a great game. but theory does not make a good game. you could lose months and months of work in a single night if your city got taken over/destroyed. this caused a fast attrition in the game unless you went rogue/mercenary and just griefed people who had cities. especially now that the majority of the servers are now chinese run zergfests with the exception of mourning.

still my fav mmo though ;)

I agree with frown 100%. Ahh, the good 'ol days.

Sorry to continue derailing the thread but...

If there were any game that I felt towns would have completely rocked in, it was WoW. They had spoken at some point about having player cities. I can imagine the logistics being a nightmare. Lots of small insignificant towns, but that could have been limited with rules. How big of a property you can buy, for example, can be based on the number of unique accounts in a guild, as an example. Even that can be exploited by having friends come from other servers just to make a character. They can further enhance this using more rules, but whatever.

Change the land mount speed to 150%, double the terrain. Hell, I wouldn't mind paying 20 bucks a month if it allowed them to upgrade the servers and terrain size to handle this. I really just miss building my own kingdom, I guess. It's the type of player I am and what I'm interested in.

That being said, think of the possibilities? WoW is a game that is so dominated by a young crowd, who fear losing whatever assets they've acquired. But even then, having a city/town pvp system where only limited destruction per day can occur wouldn't be taxing. Either way, it would have added a whole new feel of epicness in such a stabilized game. While most people in WoW fall in love with their characters, I often fall in love with the concepts of running a guild/town in an MMO. It has such an epic feel to it, living in YOUR town, with YOUR vendors, with YOUR army/guild. That kind of accomplishment, I've felt, has always dwarfed having YOUR pair of plate pants.

I'm certain a lot of people disagree, which is why I always want to give niche pvp games a chance. The problem is they always end up sucking since SB (and even SB crashes fucking blew dick).