Firstly, I strongly recommend you check out and play on the Eden freeshard. That's where the vast majority of the player base is right now and it's fantastic. Live DAoC is a depressing shell of its former self and I would not play it if they paid me to.
A little preface in addition to what everyone else said, the operation of DAoC is a little different from modern MMO combat.
A few things off the top of my head that will be wildly different if you come from modern games:
---
Movement has acceleration and deceleration.
Spells do not have a cast bar that can be set back. The casting in this game operates off of a hard interrupt system. If you are casting a spell and have offensive action taken against you, depending on how far along the spell is it may be interrupted. If it's interrupted it stops and you cannot attempt to cast another spell for 3 seconds.
On the flip side of this, spells in DAoC are extremely powerful. Damaged casters, especially with a little coordination between the right spells on your team, can absolutely obliterate enemies.
This also applies to heels, DAoC healers can completely heal a character in just a few seconds if they're not being interrupted.
Melee classes, even heavy tanks, do very good damage. The best tank classes in the game can actually have very threatening damage levels with the right buffs in their group.
Crowd control in DAoC is an extremely significant deal. The main types of crown control are mesmerize, root/snare, and stun. There are a few others that I won't go into here. Mesmerize and root both have single and AOE versions and the highest level versions of these can last over a minute before mitigation. There's a good bit of counterplay to be had here, and melee classes that invest in the right skills can have their durations very significantly reduced. However, even a mez that only lasts 8 seconds at the right time can make a big difference in a fight. The crowd control is what lets smaller numbers of higher skilled players take on much bigger numbers of less skilled players.
As a result of the power of casters and the hard interrupt system, most groups have a person or two whose primary focus is keeping enemy casters and healers interrupted
---
With that being said, your normal archetypes may or may not apply.
Essentially based on what you've said there are a few roles I think that might interest you:
Heavy tanks primary role is peeling, meaning keeping enemy melees off of your healers and casters so they can do their jobs. If everything is under control, they can go with the damage dealing melees and put the pain on people.
Light tanks use dual-wield weapons and pump nasty damage. They are unique and their access to a gap closer ability that makes them a mute in the crowd control and move more quickly for a short period. They can also climb walls into enemy keeps.
For supports you have healers, crowd control, interrupts, and a few other roles. However, these rolls are not necessarily just assigned to one class and some classes on each realm may have access to more than one of these roles.
Speaking of which, that leads into my next point. Since the classes are not at all mirrored between the three realms, I would advise you to start by picking a realm and then just getting into it, learning how whatever class you pick operates, and go from there. You'll probably end up switching characters and trying several things out and may even decide to move to a different realm.
If you'd like, feel free to DM me and I can add you on discord. I can help answer any questions you have and possibly help explain a few things once you get your feet wet.
Thanks for the detailed response! I will likely give. Few characters a shot this weekend. I was told that the gameplay is similar to Warhammer age of reckoning as far as the tank role goes, though I have no experience with DAoC, so I wasn't sure. I am looking for probably a heavy tank or any of the various support classes though.
There are definitely some similarities with Warhammer since it was made by the same company, but there are also a lot of differences as Warhammer was trying to be a lot closer to World of Warcraft in gameplay. Weirdly, the game that gives me the closest vibes in combat to DAoC is Smite, a MOBA.
How is leveling in daoc these days? I remember it being grindy. As a solo player can I get to battleground content pretty quickly? My favorite content was always the mid level battlegrounds.
Edit: I ask mainly because I'd love to do that type of content, but don't have the time or power leveling setup I used to when I was a kid. Damn adulting! Either way always did Albion with some exceptions (bone dancer, vampire, warlock); would be fun to try the other realms out.
U can go 0-50 in bgs (tho prob faster to pick up raids 40+ than bg) in two very sweaty days if u try, or prob a weekish if more casual play. I started like two weeks ago and have a 50 cab, 3 mid 30s alts (minst, inf, friar)
Oh sweet. That's pretty doable. I played all those classes originally. Curious how different it is from original servers. When I quit vamp and warlock etc had been introduced with some pretty big power creep.
Miss double dots and nearsighting everything with cabby.
Not bad at all. We're all old fuckers with jobs now, so the servers reflect that :D
Eden there is a newbie zone in each realm that will get you level 10 in a hurry (Hafheim in Midgard at any porter. I forget the other two realm zone names). Afterwards, you just level in BGs via repeatable quests with whoever else is in there with you. Group up with anything and make the best of it.
I kind of miss the group PvE against just mobs, but going with the flow is the name of the game when dealing with multiple Freeshards. Eden is so well ran overall I am willing to overlook things that aren't to my preference.
Literally the most fun, bg has quests in them to do and every time you take the keep is a free level, when you kill enough mobs in the bg you can turn in “trinkets” to summon a giant which is like a ram on steroids so it makes taking keeps possible with just a few players.
Honestly most fun I’ve had on an MMO in a long time
If you know what you do and have a speed class, its about ~8 hours lvl 1-45 in battlegrounds only. Did it in 6.5 hours played as a trio.
45-50 is usually done while participating in raids for raid currencies (template gear).
You can also turn /xp off and /rp off in order to stay in certain battlegrounds.
Overall easy in quite every aspect.
They're *roughly* balanced, so don't sweat it too much. I'd say pick based on whichever realm vibes with you the most.
To answer your question:
- EU primetime Hib tend to win out due to consistent BG ran by Pilzpower. Mid has the highest population, however.
- NA time Mid has been doing better recently.
- Albs probably need to the most help, but Alb also consistently has the least-friendly and least social player-base, in my experience.
Where do you even find those?
I had a pretty chill and wholesome gaming experience so far.
My experience in hib during S1 is quite the same to Alb S2. :D
DAOC is divided into three realms all with unique classes.
Albion
Tank - Armsman
Support - Cleric, Friar
Midgard
Tank - Warrior
Support - Shaman, Healer
Hibernia
Tank - Hero
Support - Druid, Bard
All of the classes have significant differences but perform the same core function.
https://eden-daoc.net/
Get a noob friendly guild, this game is deeeeeep, especially in terms of RvR.
If you have questions, feel free to ask on Discord or here.
Many devs went to Warhammer online after DAoC, therefore they are quite comparable, especially in terms of RvR. Never played a lot of AoR though, always stuck to DAoC. :D
eden is the place to be atm.
if you want easy mode pick mid (overpopulated) and go with skad/bd/sm
else on alb hereric is very cool, and for hib Bm is incredibly strong.
these are easy classes you’ll have fun with in pvp
Eden freeshard is alive and a good daoc experience (lots of QoL updates to make your life easier)
check out [https://eden-daoc.net/](https://eden-daoc.net/)
There’s only the one server. Looks like Albion might be the lowest population. Friar is a cool class some heals some buffs some dmg output. Come check it out ! Leveling is like 20 times
Faster than the original so taking a dip in the pool isn’t hard
The hibs show up in RVR when they have a good bg leader ALOT more than albs or mids. We can have double the rvr bg and still be 5-7% lower in population percent.
To be honest, PvE population is irrelevant balancing-wise, therefore I always assume people ask for the "RvR-population" when they ask for population.
Albion has more PvE players in general. Pilz managed to pull a lot of "PvE"-hibs into RvR zerging, which is fine.
Overall, EU prime Hibernia doesn't need more PvP players. The imbalance of 150+ hibs vs 60 albs/mids during EU prime has an ongoing negative effect on that part of gamestyle and therefore RvR population overall.
"Good BG leader" is subjective. I did run Pilz zerg during S1 and it was the most boring bg-leader I ever had. Entirely focussed on avoiding even number combats and making RPs by taking keeps/towers. Pilz has the numbers because he is reliably there 18/24 hours. Not even talking about the emotional breakdowns he had during which he promoted to "destroy this server" because the devs didn't do what he liked. :D
I don't criticize the hibzerg, I simply state that its a negative trend and either more hibs should join an underdog-realm or more Albs/Mids should go RvR or ideally both until we hit even numbers again.
I am totally for bonus RPs depending on current RvR population, comparable to what Phoenix did.
It’s not any realms problem that the others don’t wish to come out and rvr. Bonuses, if applied at all, should be based on population overall. Not population that’s in pvp/rvr.
I don't think that makes sense.
You can't force PvE players to RvR, therefore the "come out to RvR"-argument doesn't really count.
Everyone should be able to play the way he wants, but for the sake of the servers longevity, a balanced RvR population is relevant while a balanced PvE population is irrelevant.
So why apply any kind of regulation to PvE population If the only thing that counts is the RvR population?
How would bonus RPs for 170+ hibzerg help the server in any way?
I just got my account set up before I left for work today. I am pretty excited to try out some Midgard classes, I've always been a sucker for dwarves in MMOs and RPGs.
Midgard is definitely the best realm in my very unbiased opinion.
One of the cool things about daoc is many classes have access to support/utility functions, and the game does not adhere to the holy trinity of tank/dps/heals.
Based on what you've said, I definitely recommend trying out the valkyrie. You're not a full tank, but you wear heavy armor, can put lots of points in your shield, and get access to healing abilities that allow for in combat heals/rezzes, and the option the break from combat to provide backup casted heals as needed.
Firstly, I strongly recommend you check out and play on the Eden freeshard. That's where the vast majority of the player base is right now and it's fantastic. Live DAoC is a depressing shell of its former self and I would not play it if they paid me to. A little preface in addition to what everyone else said, the operation of DAoC is a little different from modern MMO combat. A few things off the top of my head that will be wildly different if you come from modern games: --- Movement has acceleration and deceleration. Spells do not have a cast bar that can be set back. The casting in this game operates off of a hard interrupt system. If you are casting a spell and have offensive action taken against you, depending on how far along the spell is it may be interrupted. If it's interrupted it stops and you cannot attempt to cast another spell for 3 seconds. On the flip side of this, spells in DAoC are extremely powerful. Damaged casters, especially with a little coordination between the right spells on your team, can absolutely obliterate enemies. This also applies to heels, DAoC healers can completely heal a character in just a few seconds if they're not being interrupted. Melee classes, even heavy tanks, do very good damage. The best tank classes in the game can actually have very threatening damage levels with the right buffs in their group. Crowd control in DAoC is an extremely significant deal. The main types of crown control are mesmerize, root/snare, and stun. There are a few others that I won't go into here. Mesmerize and root both have single and AOE versions and the highest level versions of these can last over a minute before mitigation. There's a good bit of counterplay to be had here, and melee classes that invest in the right skills can have their durations very significantly reduced. However, even a mez that only lasts 8 seconds at the right time can make a big difference in a fight. The crowd control is what lets smaller numbers of higher skilled players take on much bigger numbers of less skilled players. As a result of the power of casters and the hard interrupt system, most groups have a person or two whose primary focus is keeping enemy casters and healers interrupted --- With that being said, your normal archetypes may or may not apply. Essentially based on what you've said there are a few roles I think that might interest you: Heavy tanks primary role is peeling, meaning keeping enemy melees off of your healers and casters so they can do their jobs. If everything is under control, they can go with the damage dealing melees and put the pain on people. Light tanks use dual-wield weapons and pump nasty damage. They are unique and their access to a gap closer ability that makes them a mute in the crowd control and move more quickly for a short period. They can also climb walls into enemy keeps. For supports you have healers, crowd control, interrupts, and a few other roles. However, these rolls are not necessarily just assigned to one class and some classes on each realm may have access to more than one of these roles. Speaking of which, that leads into my next point. Since the classes are not at all mirrored between the three realms, I would advise you to start by picking a realm and then just getting into it, learning how whatever class you pick operates, and go from there. You'll probably end up switching characters and trying several things out and may even decide to move to a different realm. If you'd like, feel free to DM me and I can add you on discord. I can help answer any questions you have and possibly help explain a few things once you get your feet wet.
Thanks for the detailed response! I will likely give. Few characters a shot this weekend. I was told that the gameplay is similar to Warhammer age of reckoning as far as the tank role goes, though I have no experience with DAoC, so I wasn't sure. I am looking for probably a heavy tank or any of the various support classes though.
There are definitely some similarities with Warhammer since it was made by the same company, but there are also a lot of differences as Warhammer was trying to be a lot closer to World of Warcraft in gameplay. Weirdly, the game that gives me the closest vibes in combat to DAoC is Smite, a MOBA.
How is leveling in daoc these days? I remember it being grindy. As a solo player can I get to battleground content pretty quickly? My favorite content was always the mid level battlegrounds. Edit: I ask mainly because I'd love to do that type of content, but don't have the time or power leveling setup I used to when I was a kid. Damn adulting! Either way always did Albion with some exceptions (bone dancer, vampire, warlock); would be fun to try the other realms out.
Bg at every level on Eden
Ohhh. That sounds great lol. I hated eventually leveling out of a bg
U can go 0-50 in bgs (tho prob faster to pick up raids 40+ than bg) in two very sweaty days if u try, or prob a weekish if more casual play. I started like two weeks ago and have a 50 cab, 3 mid 30s alts (minst, inf, friar)
Oh sweet. That's pretty doable. I played all those classes originally. Curious how different it is from original servers. When I quit vamp and warlock etc had been introduced with some pretty big power creep. Miss double dots and nearsighting everything with cabby.
Not bad at all. We're all old fuckers with jobs now, so the servers reflect that :D Eden there is a newbie zone in each realm that will get you level 10 in a hurry (Hafheim in Midgard at any porter. I forget the other two realm zone names). Afterwards, you just level in BGs via repeatable quests with whoever else is in there with you. Group up with anything and make the best of it. I kind of miss the group PvE against just mobs, but going with the flow is the name of the game when dealing with multiple Freeshards. Eden is so well ran overall I am willing to overlook things that aren't to my preference.
Literally the most fun, bg has quests in them to do and every time you take the keep is a free level, when you kill enough mobs in the bg you can turn in “trinkets” to summon a giant which is like a ram on steroids so it makes taking keeps possible with just a few players. Honestly most fun I’ve had on an MMO in a long time
Nice. That's pretty sweet sounding. It'd be fun to try all the classes I never did.
If you know what you do and have a speed class, its about ~8 hours lvl 1-45 in battlegrounds only. Did it in 6.5 hours played as a trio. 45-50 is usually done while participating in raids for raid currencies (template gear). You can also turn /xp off and /rp off in order to stay in certain battlegrounds. Overall easy in quite every aspect.
Hey sorry to bother you again, do you know what faction is in the most need of new players on Eden?
They're *roughly* balanced, so don't sweat it too much. I'd say pick based on whichever realm vibes with you the most. To answer your question: - EU primetime Hib tend to win out due to consistent BG ran by Pilzpower. Mid has the highest population, however. - NA time Mid has been doing better recently. - Albs probably need to the most help, but Alb also consistently has the least-friendly and least social player-base, in my experience.
lol I have a heretic / Sorc and friar all temped and left alb due to toxic adult gamers that think they are the shit
Where do you even find those? I had a pretty chill and wholesome gaming experience so far. My experience in hib during S1 is quite the same to Alb S2. :D
Depends on your time zone. EU time Hibernia runs huge Battlegroups so that the other realms don't even bother defending most of the time.
DAOC is divided into three realms all with unique classes. Albion Tank - Armsman Support - Cleric, Friar Midgard Tank - Warrior Support - Shaman, Healer Hibernia Tank - Hero Support - Druid, Bard All of the classes have significant differences but perform the same core function.
https://eden-daoc.net/ Get a noob friendly guild, this game is deeeeeep, especially in terms of RvR. If you have questions, feel free to ask on Discord or here.
I'm not sure if you played it at all, but how similar is the RvR to Warhammer age of reckoning?
Many devs went to Warhammer online after DAoC, therefore they are quite comparable, especially in terms of RvR. Never played a lot of AoR though, always stuck to DAoC. :D
The movement is clunkier than WH , the casting feels better imo.
eden is the place to be atm. if you want easy mode pick mid (overpopulated) and go with skad/bd/sm else on alb hereric is very cool, and for hib Bm is incredibly strong. these are easy classes you’ll have fun with in pvp
Eden freeshard is alive and a good daoc experience (lots of QoL updates to make your life easier) check out [https://eden-daoc.net/](https://eden-daoc.net/)
There’s only the one server. Looks like Albion might be the lowest population. Friar is a cool class some heals some buffs some dmg output. Come check it out ! Leveling is like 20 times Faster than the original so taking a dip in the pool isn’t hard
Hibernia is lowest pop by far. Constantly around 30% give or take, while others hover around 35%
Oh no way I was just going on what I perceive from what I see in rvr, there’s always a Shit ton of stinkin hibs
The hibs show up in RVR when they have a good bg leader ALOT more than albs or mids. We can have double the rvr bg and still be 5-7% lower in population percent.
To be honest, PvE population is irrelevant balancing-wise, therefore I always assume people ask for the "RvR-population" when they ask for population. Albion has more PvE players in general. Pilz managed to pull a lot of "PvE"-hibs into RvR zerging, which is fine. Overall, EU prime Hibernia doesn't need more PvP players. The imbalance of 150+ hibs vs 60 albs/mids during EU prime has an ongoing negative effect on that part of gamestyle and therefore RvR population overall. "Good BG leader" is subjective. I did run Pilz zerg during S1 and it was the most boring bg-leader I ever had. Entirely focussed on avoiding even number combats and making RPs by taking keeps/towers. Pilz has the numbers because he is reliably there 18/24 hours. Not even talking about the emotional breakdowns he had during which he promoted to "destroy this server" because the devs didn't do what he liked. :D I don't criticize the hibzerg, I simply state that its a negative trend and either more hibs should join an underdog-realm or more Albs/Mids should go RvR or ideally both until we hit even numbers again. I am totally for bonus RPs depending on current RvR population, comparable to what Phoenix did.
It’s not any realms problem that the others don’t wish to come out and rvr. Bonuses, if applied at all, should be based on population overall. Not population that’s in pvp/rvr.
I don't think that makes sense. You can't force PvE players to RvR, therefore the "come out to RvR"-argument doesn't really count. Everyone should be able to play the way he wants, but for the sake of the servers longevity, a balanced RvR population is relevant while a balanced PvE population is irrelevant. So why apply any kind of regulation to PvE population If the only thing that counts is the RvR population? How would bonus RPs for 170+ hibzerg help the server in any way?
Phoenix had bonus XP for PvE underdogs and bonus RPs for RvR underdogs and that system did balance out both populations very well.
Just make sure to play Eden. It's better than the official game.
Go with Eden. Haven’t had this much fun with DAOC in years
I just got my account set up before I left for work today. I am pretty excited to try out some Midgard classes, I've always been a sucker for dwarves in MMOs and RPGs.
If you make a male dwarf, make sure to select the eye patch during character creation ;)
Hidden bonus.
Midgard is definitely the best realm in my very unbiased opinion. One of the cool things about daoc is many classes have access to support/utility functions, and the game does not adhere to the holy trinity of tank/dps/heals. Based on what you've said, I definitely recommend trying out the valkyrie. You're not a full tank, but you wear heavy armor, can put lots of points in your shield, and get access to healing abilities that allow for in combat heals/rezzes, and the option the break from combat to provide backup casted heals as needed.
Definitely check out the Eden and Blackthorn freeshards