If I had one Dev/Producer say it to me, I had 100.

DAoC was never designed for 1:1 balance. it was designed for 6:6 at minimum, and primarily 3+ groups vs 3+ groups. It actively discouraged 1:1 combat.

Anyone playing DAoC for 1:1 combat mechanics... excepting stealther vs stealther or /dueling... was in a play style INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED to disappoint them.

 

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I always laughed at how stupid Mythic was at balance.

They claimed they balance realm vs realm too and thus it was OK for one class to have a completely broken ability (bolt range mez lol) but the morons never realized that everyone will just play the OP class.

 

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This must be a sad attempt to troll because DAOC combat mechanics are anything but simplistic. In fact, they are the most diverse and difficult to master. Everything from strafing around your target for positional chains to knowing when to blow your instas, DAOC combat is the most challenging of them all.

Pretty much all of DAOC's balance issues in any scenario stem from their caster dynamic.

The impact on balance is a major reason it is a stupid mechanic.

 

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nerf smite clerics already

i found the interupts in doac quite fun. it does add another dynamic to group play

 

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i find that the only people who have a problem with daoc mechanics....are the people are were horrible at the game

 

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I wasn't a big fan of DAOC's spell casting system. In ranged fights/standoffs, casters were pretty decent, but if melee was able to rush, they should be taken down quickly.

Then there was keep defense. Remember when TOA first came out, and 2-3 pbae casters could hold off almost an entire raid by spamming it through the walls until their reinforcements came through? Not sure if they ever fixed that, but it wasn't very fun sieging when defenders resorted to that tactic.

I thought WoW did a fairly decent job with their interrupt system. Casters can still get interrupted, but they often had some sort of escape spell or at least something to lock the attacker down for a few moments. Such as a mage's frost nova/blink, or a priest using psychic horror.

But melee classes also have counters to those things, as well as special abilities in an attempt to lockdown casters. For instance, a rogue's kick doesn't do much damage, but if you use it while someone's casting, you interrupt them, so it's very situational, but deadly if used right. Feral druids are immune to sheeping, and if you root one, a smart one will simply shift forms to break out of it, but the tradeoff is that their damage output isn't as good as a rogue/warrior, and they have less utility abilities overall. But they can also use feral charge to close the distance as well.

Aside from the glaring issue of gear, I think Blizzard did a fairly decent job with class balancing so that you're typically not constantly locked down and unable to fight back at all (not counting fights where you're ridiculously outnumbered).

Lol. Spoken like someone that has never played UO. I've won 2v20 fights, without moving more than a couple steps the whole fight. Yeah, the 20 were all melee players. But so were the 2 of us fighting them.

Collisions combined with some actual restrictive terrain is super fun. UO had rules for pushing thru someone so you weren't completely trapped, but those rules could be used to your advantage vs scrubs.

 

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This. I don't really understand how people can argue that playing casters in DAoC was difficult, unfair, or unbalanced. Playing a caster is a novel concept, really - learn to avoid being interrupted, and you'll kill a lot. I rarely had any problems casting, even when Banelords were at their height.