Cydoc posted:

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There has to be a way to flag an account as realm specific. Avoiding the lockout timer is beyond easy and has never even been remotely addressed.

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Cydoc posted:

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There has to be a way to flag an account as realm specific. Avoiding the lockout timer is beyond easy and has never even been remotely addressed.

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kyrv posted:

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To me if a player is not in any RvR areas, there should be zero lockout time. If they are in a PvP area, there should be a short one. If they are in the area and actually engaged, maybe a longer timer.


But part of what is cool about DAoC is there are three different realms to play in, there is only one server, so cross realming happens. What bugs me most is the people that go out of their way to let people know they are doing it. If you are doing to do it, just log off and run off to the other realm, who cares.

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Tipztoe posted:

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they can't enforce a timer because they chose clustering accounts instead of character moves in the first place. People will get pissy that they can't play their character from one realm when it wasn't their fault they had to cluster.


Basically Mythic took the easy way out and clustered in the beginning.

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kyrv posted:

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Well they had to cluster didn't they?

Cydoc, Mythic doesn't want to deny people playing the game they pay for. So it puts them in a tricky spot.

I like the idea of no lockout to go to the under populated, and give maybe more bonuses.

I also love the idea of title or something, actually even RP benefits, to playing only one realm. That would rock.

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Anonymous posted:

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Realm imbalance? Of course there is realm imbalance.
The game wasn't balanced at launch by realm or by class - they pushed DAoC out unfinished as we know.
And everything that Mythic did implied that Mythic never understood the issue.

The number one issue was population imbalance.
But instead of tackling realm issues they usually nerfed whichever realm was seen as the strongest. And for good measure nerfed whichever class was seen as the strongest as well.
Get that nerf bat out folks ....

The issue of population imbalance they tried to tackle by a realm timer.
It was a failure when it was introduced; it remains a failure today.

A different solution - and we know that there will be no fix of course
Accept the situation OR apply a penalty at an individual account level to a players characters.
Something maybe like this:
Ideal situation: a player runs Alb, Hib and Mid characters equally in any given month.
e.g.
Plays an Alb level 50 in the frontiers for 5 hours a night for 10 days.
Plays a Mid for the same length of time; plays a Hib for the same length of time.
So each realm benefits to the tune of 50 x 10 x 5 or 2500 units of aid.
And lets call 5 hours the baseline (could be any number.

Key fact: characters have to be in the Frontiers and the clock will stop after 15 minutes of inactivity.

A typical account: person only plays one realm; the realm gets 50 x 30 x 5 units or 7500 units of aid. That's 5,000 more units of aid than the desired ideal. Assume the person plays Alb.

5,000 units generates a penalty of 50% say which is applied to all stats of all Alb character that the person has. The penalty can be calculated hourly/daily/weekly/monthly whatever.

You could also apply a bonus to the other realms - they would each be 2,500 units down leading to a 25% bonus - but I wouldn't.

Don't focus on the numbers. They are illustrative and can be tweaked. The maximum penalty could be 10% for example - whatever. The basic idea however is to persuade individual players to play all three realms equally. And whilst the push is at an individual level the impact will operate at a server level. It would also reflect patterns of play. So if Mids are dominant in a morning (EU evening) they would get the hit whereas Albs might be dominant and get the hit in the evening

Note 1: you could still get realm population imbalances - but the push would be towards stopping one realm being totally dominant.

Note 2: As this would be applied at an account level having a second account for another realm wouldn't help. Ouch!

Note 3: Yes people could log in a character from a different realm when they are not playing their favoured realm. This is the reason for the clock only counting Frontier time; the three realm interaction and the inactive cut-off. To a lesser degree the reason for counting levels as well (level 1 mules won't work). Not foolproof but not a walk in the park to get round and leaving a character in the frontiers unattended always carries a risk - even hidden in a bush!.

Note 4: this type of 'coercion' may not be popular!


Way to much sophistication for DAoC of course. These days what will be will be.

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