Guild Wars 2

Anybody who has played DAOC knows what Darkness Falls is and how amazing it worked as a PvP incentive as well as balancer.

For those that do not know, in GW2 terminology would be a Zone (similar to any normal leveling zone in size and complexity), completely separate from WvW, yet linked to it in that only one server would have access to it at a time based on who has majority control over Keeps/Points. Within the zone is PvE content ranging from lowest level to max to “raid level” content. The team currently inside is not removed if control is lost, instead the enemy must kill them to remove them from the zone.

What this zone does, is give an incentive to continue to WvW. It also gives a huge advantage to those losing teams because the winning team will be spread much thinner as they’re inside “Darkness Falls” instead of WvW. It creates a delicate balancing act to WvW, deciding whether guilds or individuals what to keep farming within DF or to continue holding keeps in WvW for your World to remain inside.

This type of zone also used a token system for obtaining gear, at the time it was “seals” of different tiers depending on the level of content being cleared. However, GW2 already has an unused currency related to WvW they could use…. BADGES! which could be looted from mobs similar to how they are looted from keep lords or supply camp guards currently. Loot rewards that at the time of its release were considered the best in the game (basically crafted exotic level stuff in the case of GW2, and could offer unique stat combinations that currently aren’t offered).

Darkness Falls also offered a very very unique style of “WvW” to keep pvp interested. It was basically a last man standing dynamic. Your team would band together to survive as long as possible before inevitably being kicked out, and those deaths just fueled players even more to go back out to WvW and regain majority control in order to get back inside and seek revenge. Even more so, as there are no keeps or clear objectives inside this zone besides “loot camps” it made small man PvP much more appealing, roaming around to avoid or catch players or other groups off guard was extremely satisfying.

Right now, WvW is already becoming stale, players dont want to lose and stop playing or transfer, players who are winning have nothing left to take and stop playing, and everybody is gaining absolutely nothing in terms of personal progression by doing WvW.

So in a tldr version here is what Darkness Falls solves.

-Overpopulated WvW (invisible zergs/lag) are thinned out.
-Underpopulated Worlds have a fighting chance at earning points.
-Players get a way to continue progressing their characters in WvW.
-Players will WANT to WvW regardless of losing. (fixing moral)
-Server Rankings might actually mean something.
-Gives a clear objective for players to want to contribute to.
(arbitrary points don’t mean anything to most people)

If stonemist wasnt so easy to capture it would be the ideal position for a portal to another underworld dungeon such as this.

See also: every WvW jumping puzzle.

I dunno about your servers, but last week when Blackgate coated EB in paint, we led a full raid on the jump puzzle. There were so many Blackgate folk in there at once that I had the invisible character problem. We also did the same in green borderlands after a full cap.

I’m not sure a Darkness Falls solution would have the consequences you intend. Those people interested in the PvE aspects of WvW are much more often the same type of people that hardcore PvPers rage at for filling up queue slots. Once all the PvE’ers jump ship to the WvE zone, they’d open up Queue slots for the hardcore PvP guilds to man the borderlands and actually get keeps upgraded to defensible standards.

Also, regarding your point:

“Server Rankings might actually mean something.”

Yes, they mean that the only people who will gain advantage are the ones at #1. Everyone else will have the problem of [Win This Week]→[Seeded Higher]→[Lose Next Week] and will never be able to hold the WvE zone for more than a week. Worse yet, ranks #2 and #3, assuming they are close enough to #1 not to be dropped down to second tier, will never get to enter the WvE zone as they’ll be stuck fighting a neverending war against the strongest server, whereas lower ranked servers which swap seed positions every week will at least get to see the zone once a month.

I played DAoC and Darkness Falls was awesome. We’d go out on the frontier (PvP zone) to open our entrance and close all the others. Then we’d attack Darkness Falls to kill all the enemy players there. Sometimes fights inside Darkness Falls would rage until another side opened their entrance and closed ours (putting us on defense). And since I played a stealth class it was a ganker’s playground.

Yes we had dry spells where we couldn’t even get in there, but that made it even more desirable. There was good loot in there, not to mention player kill points. That website with player kill points was more motivation than all the gold in the land.

Elthurien.8356:

If stonemist wasnt so easy to capture it would be the ideal position for a portal to another underworld dungeon such as this.

The entrance to Darkness Falls was in a PvE zone and was locked until your side gained access to it. That was a big part of its genius.

Yeah that would be a fantastic thing to have in the game. Would make WvW a lot more exciting. /signed

Gibbonici.9437:

Elthurien.8356:

If stonemist wasnt so easy to capture it would be the ideal position for a portal to another underworld dungeon such as this.

The entrance to Darkness Falls was in a PvE zone and was locked until your side gained access to it. That was a big part of its genius.

Zenimax Online Studios are highly likely to be planning something like this with The Elder Scrolls Online (Led by Matt Firor from DAOC). They’ve already announced it will be tri-factional warfare in Cyrodiil with homelands off-limits. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a DF style dungeon too.

Also, regarding your point:
“Server Rankings might actually mean something.”
Yes, they mean that the only people who will gain advantage are the ones at #1. Everyone else will have the problem of [Win This Week]?[Seeded Higher]?[Lose Next Week] and will never be able to hold the WvE zone for more than a week. Worse yet, ranks #2 and #3, assuming they are close enough to #1 not to be dropped down to second tier, will never get to enter the WvE zone as they’ll be stuck fighting a neverending war against the strongest server, whereas lower ranked servers which swap seed positions every week will at least get to see the zone once a month.

The whole idea behind how Darkness Falls alleviates this problem is in making the rewards inside appealing enough to draw the players away from WvW in order to it make it easier for the other teams to take objectives in WvW. It would still incorporate the current point bracket system which will eventually pit teams of similar strength against each other so that any loss of active WvW players on one side would be easily abused by the other sides. It doesn’t take 100% map ownership to open the zone, as low as 34% would be enough depending on the circumstances which is more than possible by a losing team given the dominate team is spread thinner by zone ownership. It would give more meaning to the current rankings because they would represent actual WvW player activity and coordination because players will WANT to WvW after the initial weekend regardless of losing. As opposed to now where it’s just a tool to see which server people are transferring to.

Love this idea… I missed the DAOC experience due to other interests, but man I wish I had jumped in to check it out.
WvWvW needs something. Something to motivate the de-motivated

Love this idea… I missed the DAOC experience due to other interests, but man I wish I had jumped in to check it out.
WvWvW needs something. Something to motivate the de-motivated

We all have great memories of DAoC, and it was a very amazing game as far as design and execution. That said, we all had a very love-hate relationship with it.

DAoC had some of the most severe balance issues in the whole genre. 45 Unique classes with each one only available to one side caused a lot of headache.

+1 for a Darkness Falls WvW Dungeon would be epic.. OPEN DUNGEON btw not instanced please..

i would love to see this personally as it would help to rebalance already imbalanced populations

I would rather see a Realm Rank system put in place first.. but I think this is a great idea as well.

It would have to consist of ‘open world’ style bosses.. that everyone in the zone can participate in killing… but there would have to be better special gear or something to spend the tokens or badges or whatever on.. because most good players are already in full exotics.. and with the lack of endgame progression.. being compeletely done with a character about a month after release is a little disappointing

+1 Darkness Falls 2.0 please

forthegz.5814:

I would rather see a Realm Rank system put in place first.

I agree there should be a Realm Rank or in EQ terms “Alternate Advancement” to a character after reaching cap. I remember in DAOC the biggest discrepancy in player power was between RR0 and RR5, after that, while the benefits were significant enough for players to want to achieve, they were not so that a RR5 was at an insurmountable disadvantage against an RR9 for example.

However the gap in power would be much less significant based on GW2’s item progression showing that people will already invest time in earning minuscule stat advantages like the difference between a lvl 78 exotic and 80 exotic being only 2 to 5 stat points. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine players wanting to increase base statistics by similar increments per “realm rank” or unlocking interesting utilities and elites skills. Depending on the level scale the difference between a Rank 0 and rank “max” could be something like 50pnt’s per stat which is far less of an advantage than the current bolster system with players under lvl 80 missing hundreds of stats compared to lvl 80 exotic chars.

I have to agree with this.. Anything to help balance.

So servers with 8 hour que times will have 4 hour que times.. uh.. way to make a difference? not to mention they would have to make a new zone from scratch.

Eihder.8961:

So servers with 8 hour que times will have 4 hour que times.. uh.. way to make a difference? not to mention they would have to make a new zone from scratch.

I don’t understand the logic here? If done correctly the WvW zones would effectively become a 2 world fight while the third one being the majority owners would be inside the new zone at least the vast majority would be. Furthermore the winner of that 2 world fight would go inside the dungeon in order to kick out the original owners, giving the last server a chance to take keeps from even less forces to gain majority ownership to enter the new zone as well while the other 2 are occupied inside the new zone. And yes, they would have to make a new zone, i don’t see an issue with this, they’re making money content is expected.

Its a domino effect of balance really.

Sounds fun, but with night-capping servers guarenteed to be top ranked, that would pretty much ensure only those servers got the “zone”. Now, you have even MORE people server hopping to that one to take advantage of it. Yes, We’ve all heard the “recruit off-peak players to your server” flame; but we all know to move a guild requires a complete wipe of all upgrades. Realistically, who would do this?

This idea actually sounds.. AMAZING.