WOW PVP Gear Progression vs. DAoC Skill Based PVP

People use WoW's success as justification to claim its model as the only way to succeed, but the only MMO that has come close to that level of success in the west is WoW itself. This includes the WoW clones that have come out since.

I think it's less about the magic gear formula and more about the companies themselves. I bet Blizzard would have made an incredibly popular sandbox MMO as well.

Problem is vertical gear grinds are profitable. Most ppl want an incentive to keep playing, heck even I find a bit joy when I get a new piece of gear but I also recognize PvP should never boil down to gear at all. No company has figured this out since Mythic (not DAoC haven't played so I wont comment on things I know nothing about but early WAR days with regards to GEAR not Class Balance bc I got stories about class balance there)

In the first days of WAR all the Sets PvE and PvP sets had almost the exact same stats what was different was the set bonuses or for hybrid classes one set was geared for one role the other was geared for the other role. Not only that each set at the time only had about 12-15 more stat points TOTAL then the previous tier. So a fully Sovereign or Tyrant (Sov was the highest tier at the time but Tyrant was obtainable and better itemized) did not have a huge omgwtfpwn advantage over anyone. No expertise, resilience no nothing. PvE content was designed specifically around PvP damage output so those extra PvP stats where never needed. So there was a gear grind for vertical progression in the old days but not by massive leaps and bounds and both ways produced the same gear results (at least until Sov which was PvP only and wasn't even obtainable for like a year or so).

Sadly they then released a micro-expansion that did away with this and eventually had to nerf the two new tiers back into line with the previous progression. Of course by then the game had died a tragic death to slow balance changes in regards to some of the most OP classes in MMO history, some bad mechanics at the design level, bugs, and the aforementioned massive leap in gear quality between new sets and old sets. Sad thing is if WAR had been released in it's current state rather than the state it was introduced in it would probably be considered the new DAoC of PvP but instead it's dying a slow death as a warning to devs on how putting out one patch every quarter is not a successful model when your game be broken.

As a minstrel in daoc, I am going to have to disagree with that mez comment just because I had the best "group" purge in the game. Our group gets mezzed? Release frost stallion and watch it aoe break the mez on us lol.

Before RR's the PvP was still hot. RR's and TOA and such are not what made DAOC's PvP.

The content and world balance and design in DAOC PvP is what made it but it was getting old.

Honestly the class system and combat in DAOC was pretty bad in comparison to even TOR.

But DAOC had PvP content that was interesting.

The grind to 50 was rough but at the same time it meant that 50's in PvP were scarce for a long time so lower level PvP participation was completely doable.
Lower level could always participate in holding siege equipment and scouting as well.

I PvP'd at 42+ for a long while.

I rather enjoyed the skill based PvP progression in DAoC. The introduction of ToA and the gear grind was the death nail for the game. They tied PvE too much into PvP with the rewards ToA gave.

I don't think either skill based rewards or gear based rewards is better than the other. The issue for me is manner in which one comes by them. Keep it tied to killing other players without much leading by the game.

so pritty much coming up with a formula and who ever times everything right wins based on that formula as opposed to a game that has some form of combat that isnt about killing 8 people, like objectives

not saying tor has a great system but like arenas in wow it all boiled down to who could counter what and timing cooldowns which takes skill but is boring because it is not spontanious. once you get down to it you can figure out who is going to win every time.

tor to me feels less formulaic compaired to wow which i just couldnt do well in. Idk if its because i know what to expect from this kind of pvp or what but i just function better in this game.

im not great at pvp or anything, but i feel like i can handle this game better (maybe thats an argument for how little skill it takes idk.)

Agreed.

I stopped playing sometime last year and getting a artifact item to level 10 in a day or so leveling out in the frontiers. My scout is rr11, close to 12, and I had just recently leveled up a belt of the sun to 10 since they finally fixed elemental bows. I did it in one sitting. There is no real grind in daoc unless you start with nothing. Even then, at least you see real progression compared to this game where it is completely random if you get anything from the bags.

If not for the paying double thing, Id probably be still playing. But I just can't get past that.

Success=profit in any business, sure you can win awards or have a devoted playerbase but if you are not making money you are not successful. DAoC made a profit because of the low cost to produce/maintain. But a AAA MMORPG is expensive to make these days, which means you need to get as large of a playerbase as possible and holding onto that playerbase.

There is a large population of players that continue playing/subbing for the gear grind, to keep making their character stronger. That carrot is a great motivator for a large number of mmo players. If that wasn't the case we wouldn't see the gear grinds in PVP and PVE. It is to keep you busy on the treadmill. It might not be the "best" design, but it is currently the most profitable design. You are even seeing these types of grinds introduced into other games, particularly FPS games who did not have these types of grinds previously.

If you don't want to deal with the grind, you should not play a game that has it. Go back to DAoC, or find another game that doesn't have the gear grind so you can support developers who agree with you.

If you really want to argue DAOC PVP system was about skill instead of gear, you're welcome to try to fight a RR10 toon in top of the line gear with a RR0 toon in junk crafted with no regard to stats and see how that works for you. At any period of time in the game, even before there were RAs.

Bloodylittle......now theres a name from the past. I have to admit, my operative is a ton of fun, but not quite the beast I remember my shadowblade, Luust, to be.

Gear normalization in DAOC meant you could spend a day getting your suit crafted and enchanted and boom, compete with 99% of the playerbase. To be in that top 1%, you needed some time to gain the realm ranks and access the pvp abilities. How I miss those days. All of us geared the same, but if you saw Shynrix or you, you knew it was time to get serious. Now I fight people with "War Hero" or "Battlemaster" over their heads and have no clue if they know how to play or not.