f13.net

Link (http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=439)


EIDT: Fixed the post back.

So can you still pull through walls with them?

Well, no, you could never pull through walls, just doors.  I am pretty sure only AE spells work through walls.  But, yea, you can still pull people through doors if they have not learned to stand next to the wall instead of the door.

This doesn't look like a bug patch. Isn't it fixed on test?

The top two changes should have been in at release.

You still can't career train in a warcamp.  You need to go elsewhere.  Explain that one to me.

In other games that require a trainer, its worse. I mean, there is a career trainer in every single hub for the most part BUT war camps. Would you rather the only place to do it be the major city's?

Yeah, this doesn't bother me.  It does bother me that I can't get on a horse and ride from one camp to another. If I want to do any PQs or quests that are any bit of distance from the warcamp  you better be ready to drive that toon with your mouse.  Is it that big of a deal to put in horse taxis or whatever?

Yes. Takes too fucking long.
Teleport is the answer.
If zerging RvR is a concern, throw some kinda debuff that cuts pvp damage by 50% and doubles the pvp damage you take, or some shit. Just make it instant.

Its the everyone but the warcamps thing that gets me.  Plus the fact that warcamps are already the go to place for travel.  Its a uniformity.  Having them there, but no where else strikes me as a bit of Calvin ball.  Its another one of those stupid polish things, one of those things that it can be tough to notice if follow certain pairings.  For all three of the Order T1 pairings, the warcamp is attached to that chapters hub, giving the illusion of one large camp.  Same thing happens in HE T2 where I spent my time on my first character.  I have not done much T2 Dwarf, so I don't know how that goes, but T2 Human does begin the split chapter/warcamp model which continues through the rest of the game.  While in hindsight I can see that they did not switch modes, my experience and the initial pairing choice gives the impression that they were haphazard with their rule, even when they weren't.

No, I'd like the design team who figured out that crafting stations were bullshit and let me make stuff wherever I wanted to have a fucking clue and make shit more accessible.

The Order players on my server consider standing next to the wall to avoid AoE's to be an exploit.

Wow, are people that lazy?

Christ, lets just make it so you can train without a trainer, teleport anywhere in the world, and instantly teleport to the action in an RvR pool.

If you want a game like that, go buy an FPS. Quit suggesting that companies totally noob-up their MMOs so down-syndrome kids can play.

I'd quite like that, actually.

Acessing the AH from anywhere would also be nice.

Can't play FPS's. Latency's an issue there, not skill. Not so much with a 1.5s gcd.

Acessibility =/= noobing up, but hey, feel free to keep believing that WALKING = MAD SKILLZ YO!

Lazy?  Game?  What's that watermelon doing there?

Yes.

Let me remind you of something: Games are made for enjoyment.  They aren't about self esteem.  They aren't about enduring anything.  They're about having fun.  If something is in the way of "teh fun" then yes, getting rid of it is a good idea.  Making something more difficult than it needs to be doesn't add any value to it. 

FOAD. Also yes, I'd like that very much. Tedium != fun.

Tedium also doesn't equal "hard" or "challenging". More than anything else this is what drives me wild about one small but constantly yapping segment of the MMOG playerbase, is the faction of catassers who think that if they had to sit in a chair and kill virtual cockroaches until they got bedsores on their asses in order just to equip their characters with a leather thong, they're somehow "skilled" at MMOGs compared to all the retards who foolishly just wanted to have fun for a couple of hours.

This is the best example of Skinnerian psychology in action that I've ever seen, actually; rats getting so used to pulling levers to get a thin sliver of cheese that they've ceased to notice that there's a huge fucking block of delicious cheddar sitting right behind them.

What would make any digital game challenging is when the interaction between rules, setting, underlying technology and the actions of other players makes for interesting choices, and where there are a variety of plausible, workable choices that different players can make. What makes this challenging when you move it into a virtual world or MMOG is when those interesting choices have persistent consequences (whether for a single PvP battle or in larger and longer scales) that build and accumulate in different but coherent ways, and structure the next series of choices that players have to make. Challenging = interesting. Tedious does not equal interesting.

I believe some of you are confusing the argument of tedium vs. instant gratification here.

Games certainly do have to have some sort of time investment and every game from old school nintendo with no saves or a new game like fallout3 with having to travel and discover new areas demonstrates this.  The only real question is do these time sinks feel boring and tedious or not? If they do then yes you need to change them but the whole idea of time sinks in general is not a bad idea.

Having to revisit your trainer every single level in warhammer does indeed feel tedious because at least in early levels, it happens so god damned often. Also I think pve feeling like a chore doesn't help it in this regard.

Perma-death, exp loss, item loss...none of these things would be bad IF(and only if) regaining them was fun in and of itself. Many developers confuse "they're playing our game" with "they're having fun playing our game" and that's where you get flat out stupid designs.

This could actually be significant help to oRvR if we can actually get the scenarios to pop once we conquer the lake.

EDIT: Sorry about fucking up the OP.

No, we aren't. That's why no one asked for free lewt.
Discovering NEW areas is fine, having to walk through the same fucking shit every single time I wanna get somewhere isn't.

Unless by "some" you meant Waffel, in which case I not only agree, but also doubt that his mental faculties are sound.

disagree.  You gotta feel good that you're spending time doing something you can't otherwise label as "productive".  Games have to trick you by learning, having fun, fiero/lulz, whatever into that.  Otherwise it's a "grind" and that leads to low esteem and frustration. 

Edit: sorry for derail, plz ignore

Instant travel everywhere because people need constant stimulation kills any form of organized RvR tactics. MMOs are MASSIVE, meaning a MASSIVE WORLD. Whats the point of having a massive world if you can get to every corner of it instantly?


What areas do you have to constantly travel through every time you want to go somewhere? Seriously? Or are you just bitching for the sake of bitching because you can't find anything you enjoy about warhammer anymore? Maybe MMORPGs aren't for you if you don't want to travel anywhere and the thought of having to *gasp* go to a town to train is stressful.

Having fun.

Also, read the bit about being cool with a pvp debuff.
---

4 against 1. You're wrong.

All I'm suggesting is that if you don't like traveling anywhere in MMORPGS because it is super-duper-omfg-unfun, and that you somehow think that companies are going to remove all travel time (rofl) from their games to make you happy, that you really should be looking elsewhere in the gaming market. It's not going to change.

And while it's fun and all to be on the "Warhammer fucking sucks, Mythic fucking sucks, everything they do is fucking stupid" bandwagon, you really should pick better thing in the game to bitch about other than travel times. There are plenty of bad game designs to cry about. Bitching about riding to a town to train, or going to a city to use the auction house just makes you look silly.

And here i was, recalling i have to go to one place, and see a specific trainer with in that place to train in Wow. Gosh.

Lets not forget, in War, one trainer does every one, there is loot that drops that always shows something for your class, and every quest in the game gives you something for you, and your class.

Most of this stuff you guys are saying, falls under "Some people will just never be satisfied".

There is a huge difference in travel time between games, but with the addition of flight masters to EVERY war camp, this is a non issue in warhammer, they fixed a very real time sink and cockblack to fun. Most of you are arguing that it wasn't enough, when it was more than enough, you just want your cake and eat it too. For fucks sake, most warcamps have a hub right next to them about one minutes walk OH NOZ! Also guess where that flight master goes?

And yes Nebu, i know.


Also, What happened to my OP?  :why_so_serious:

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Mrbloodworth's post "going rogue."

Your argument about a world completely falls on its ass when you consider that scenarios are instant PVP gratification boxes. It's not like people are asking for teleports right to the area where the action is taking place, just you know, somewhere in the goddamn vicinity.

Travel times are fine the first 10 times. The next 100? Not so much.

We want to improve the game, imbecile. Think shit will improve if we say their farts smell of roses?

(http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/Eve001.jpg)

/AFK

Yes, but the other side might have a dictor sitting on it.

Man, I love all these new people. They're trying to debate shit we (well, some of us anyway) argued to death on Lum's board a week after EQ was released.

Hey new guys, I'll spoil the ending for you. How does WoW do it? That's the right way, except for raiding - which always was and always will be for little masochist bitches trying to feel good about being sub-human failures.

Massive modifies Multi-player, as in many people online.  It is not a descriptor for the size of the playable area.  Not that it precludes massive worlds should the designers choose to make them such.

/pedantic derail

I really think it hard to believe you estimate that Wow makes it right while at the same time calling yourself some kind of vet?

Funny thread on vn (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109399083/p1)



I've been to Bastion Stair twice now, it's fairly shit to be honest. 

First time I was level 34 or so and had a couple of drops, a blue sword and blue pistol that were pretty good so I didn't mind that much. 

Now I'm a level 38 Witch Hunter two PVE quest reward weapons equiped that I'm unlikely to want to swap out, possibly ever, due to procs, Ironwind (http://www.wardb.com/item.aspx?id=519550) and Judgement (http://www.wardb.com/item.aspx?id=506316)

Spent a couple of hours in Bastion Stair last night and, well, it wasn't much fun.  I'm not that interested in armour loot, so no clue what drops what, but I didn't see anyone get anything of any use to them, so if the intent is to make me constantly grind Bastion Stair (when I'm already bored of it after two visits), then  :grin:

There's that classic DaoC PvE experience!


Now they just need to up the miss rate to 95%  :awesome_for_real:

I was just going to bring that up, actually.

The adjustment to Mythic's stupid and completely arbitrary Wards system has fucked up their end-game instances further, placed a massive block on any progression towards their mythical end game content and royally pissed off those few loyalists who were prepared to grind instances in order to eventually capture cities.

It was short, it was sweet, but I probably should have left as soon as the Herald mentioned Wards in the first place...

Coincidentally, that was also the time this forum was moved to the graveyard.

In addition to what I said earlier, both times I went to Bastion Stair it was because I actually had my arm twisted to go.  Gold plated invites each time due to the lack of our guys logging in.

Oh, also, White Lions?

Their pets can't wear set items.

I'd like to point something out in line with this statement, I have played MMOs for the better part of 13 years. I have never played an MMO where I didn't give a hoot about gear drops for spending time in a dungeon until WAR. I went to Bastion last nite for the sole purpose of helping other level 31-34s get some good blue drops for their level. I got a purple helm that was level 35 and was WORSE then a world drop that I already had on of comparable level, no resists, just stats and the stats werent even that good... seriously? Then again look at the set pieces, their stats SUCK. Even in WoW folks would say "hey want to do XXX" I would look through the atlas or something and say "oh yeah, a good shoulder piece drops there, i'm down". On WAR I dont even check, I just say hey any lowbies want to go so we can get you guys some blues that might actually be good for you? Because at 38 all this crap is shit. Even the Elite influence reward, another purple, is 35-36? We wiped hard core on the boss at the end of Stage 3 PQ, wasnt even a fight... we cleared the whole thing and then blamo everyone dead.

The whole ward set gear crap is mind boggling to me to have in a game like WAR. I could see something like that in a game like WoW, but in WAR?? What the hell were they thinking?

This ward thing is straight out of EQ.  I never did it, but I recall reading about the, I think, Bane weapons you needed for the bosses - or maybe it was just one boss? - in the third expansion.  Apparently the ward deal is 20% of normal damage for each ward, so you need all 5 wards to do your normal damage, not some special tricked out WTF stuff, just what you can do out blowing up rats and snakes in the world.  Not even the screwed up overtuned Burning Crusade launch bosses needed grinding like this.  All that needed was mindnumbing potion making and if you wanted to, you could throw money at that to get that done.  It did not need the time investment.

I had thought that the idea behind a PvP game was that the people on the other end made for the challenge.

I think it's old age, I just can't get all outraged by this stuff anymore, instead I just end up amused.

Old Mark Jacobs quote (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13996post13996)


Linky (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2627854#post2627854)


Just posting this for a summary.  I believe the overall PVE design calls for making players grind for a lucky random drop while hoping for a lucky loot roll on sometimes bugged boss mobs.  All so they can use their new badly itemised gear to move onto the next higher level dungeon to upgrade to the next tier of badly itemised equipment, again, via lucky drops while hoping for lucky dice rolls.  I like the simplicity and effectiveness of the decision to add lockouts on top of that, can't have people advancing too quickly through your pointless series of cockblocks now can we?

I'm also impressed by the 3 extra gold bags for a keep siege.  Sure it's going to mean nobody attacks a defended keep but, hey, the whole idea is to encourage Open RVR and get people out of scenarios right?  It's just a pity that the one piece of not too badly itemised PVP ward gear (http://www.wardb.com/item.aspx?id=434220) I have, has a realm rank requirement of level 45, think I'm currently 38/30 or so.  I've been thinking how best I can take advantage of this new focus on ORVR over scenarios, the obvious conclusion is to raise my realm rank as fast as possible, which obviously means I should grind scenarios.  By grind scenarios, I obviously mean Serpents Passage as making different scenarios pop is clearly really, really difficult (http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109410467/p1/?37).

You know the more I think about it I believe it's not just about the cockblock of the wards. all games have those time sinks, wow is certainly not any better but the wards make the players feel powerless. Instead of saying "you need X key to get into the king room" they are saying "You aren't good enough to kill him, you need Y" Wards lower your overall power, it's the game forcing you into a weaker state for the purpose of story or whatever and takes control away from the player.

It's not about cockblocks. It's about how well disguised as fun the cockblocks are. By that metric, WAR fails and fails big time. It's got more hardcore PvE and gear grinding than WoW. Grats, assholes.

This is the great question surrounding WAR. Every new problem as players hit T4 reveal how flawed the beta testing of systems was, every new patch seems to contain a note that indicates whatever issues WAR might be having, Mythic will go in completely the wrong direction to fix it. It comes down (imo) to Mythic saying, "If we design this system this way, then players will use it in exactly the way we think they will" and then being surprised when players go in a different direction (see: RvR vs scenarios).

Yes, every plan shows its flaws when it meets the enemy, but WAR has been pretty amateur hour in some design decisions and then fail to recognise where the problem is. Remember RvR being the focus of WAR? How that was going to be the core game? WAR is an absolute failure in that area. The current mechanics do nothing to encourage RvR and actually encourages avoidance of battles. The 'end game' of RvR is PvE-oriented with a lot of PvE loot you can only get from a grind cascade.

Man, I'd love to see the design documents for WAR just to know what the hell was being thought during those design meetings. Still waiting for WAR's player numbers too.

I was actually mildly pleased with the scenario change last night.  My T2 alt was actually getting more than Mourkain.  Granted it does require that people que all.  Not queing all defeats the system.  I will admit that I worked to break the new plan after the second 15 minute Phoenix Gate ending 200-100 and only qued for Stonetroll and Mourkain.  And even Stonetroll only ever really ended at a 500 point game once or twice.  But the fighting there can be more entertaining so I dealt with it.

I'm trying to picture the internal roundtable meeting(s) that led to the current ward system. I just can't imagine that without hearing 'Entrance of the gladiators' being played reeeally loudly.

Seriously though, it is easy to criticise on the receiving end, but someone must have thought that this would be a good idea, and I'm struggling on their thought process.

Edit: I mean, I've not heard *anyone* try and defend it. Nobody. At all. Anywhere. Am I just going blind?

Considering keeps weren't even in as of the Oct shutdown of beta last year nor even confirmed , and huge class changes immediately before launch along with upping the leveling curve at the same time ,

I'd say it's not too much of a stretch to say they didn't even have design documents , more like someone came up with a memo or idea that morning and they just decide to throw it in there ,

After all , if you remarked on something in beta that they just put in and found stupid (if they werent asking for remarks on it), you had your thread locked for "feedback" by Missy ,

I think that alone sums up how WAR has gotten to it's current state , that the official reps  on the beta forums most frequent thing to post was

"Locked for Feedback"

Honestly? I couldn't find anything interesting to do, RVR is turning into a mindless gold bag farming. For 6 hours the zerg warband just traded keeps for gold bags. There are no incentive to defend at all now.  So faced with grinding up RR or looking at some PVE content. Yeah....I still don't want to go through either one, but the prepaid sub card goes through december. Fuck me.

It doesn't matter how "fun" a PVE cockblock is, when the game is advertised as all about WAR, then you shouldn't force people to PVE.  The PVE could be ten times better than WoW but it's still not pvp, Capturing an undefended fort, which they all just became, is a purely PVE experience.

So, if Keeps are a late addition, what were they planning to do in those big lakes?  Up through T3, other than the camp guards I have only seen like 6 token mobs.  Its not like DAoC where you could actually play the game out in the rvr areas and get better XP and unique drops.  The more I think about it, the less I understand this Lake concept thing.  They are really small compared to the rest of the game.  They are completely empty.  Were they just planning to have some sort of random MMO deathmatch thing?

I completely agree. But I'm saying that even by the metric of a standard, PvE focused MMO it fails hugely. HUGELY. For all of the stuff which was PvP evolved but with some questionable design decisions, their focus on PvE isn't even 2004 PvE. It's fucking EQ 2000 PvE.

Complete and total fucking lunacy.

Up until then the objective points were the focus points , no keeps , none - several on the beta boards I remember would constantly point out that keeps/sieges were desperately needed , they (Mythic)even resisted theat idea at first and seemed confident in the fact that the objective points were good enough

On a side note I notice on the VN boards to others MJ has completely ducked all ?'s and threads about the armor grind they have introduced - he will answer a question about healer achievement unlocks in the Tomb , but that 12 page thread about 99% of the people thinking the armor grind is a terrible idea - nadda

And I think "Locked for feedback" should be the new TM for Mythic ,

It doesn't matter how often mythic wants to say WAR is a pvp game, it's not. I'm sorry to those who got fooled but I can't say I didn't see it coming. If your endgame is pve city raiding? yeah, you aren't a pvp game.

Which is why I ducked out three weeks in. It was a good three weeks but fuck it. I'm more irritated by this than most MMOs because it really was on the cusp... only to ONCE AGAIN be a game which decides to take Blizzard head on (PvE) without the tools, knowledge and money to actually do it right. So, fuck. WoW it is. Once someone stops trying to outpve them when they can't even hire people who can script a simple escort quest, call me.

Someone will get it someday.

Spot on, and for people to bash the living fuck out of WoW in the process is just baffling. I understand folks dont like WoW, but check out gnomeworks post here: http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109404469/p6/?135

It's kinda lengthy, but the dude is so on the money.

Edit: It's about 6 posts down on that 6th page

Yeah there wasn't a single comment about the armour sets before, then we get this patch that reinforces the absolute must have nature of the wards, still not a single comment.  The only serious explanation I can come up with is that they must think they need this PVE grind to retain subscriptions, but that's old EQ thinking.  They really should have just played WoW for a few months and then did a PVP version of WoW with random loot and skill based characters based on WHFRP instead of levels.

I'm expecting full scale panic to start by January at the latest, more server merges, maybe EA drastically cutting staff to cut further losses.  Wonder if MJ has ever considered space travel.

Maybe, but i PvP every time i log in, and no not scenarios. You know what makes this the best PvP (RPG) game out there right now? The class balance, yes, i said it. This game is leaps and bounds better in regards to PvP balance than say, Wow, where the levels and gear divide are so large, PvP is all but pointless in the open world. I have enjoyed the living crap out of the PvP game play in this title, to the point that i really do not care if there is PvE mixed in with my PvP endgame.

To say this isn't a PvP game is a joke. Also, to add, if your not on an Open RvR severs, your missing out (IMO).

This post in no way shape or form means i think the game is perfect, but dam if it doesn't have some good PvP action. If you dig the PvP in wow, and its huge imbalances in gear...More power to ya, and i leave you with "To each his own".l

If your playerbase can immediately point out 5 serious flaws in your game design within the first few hours of gameplay, you have a problem. 

We bitch about WAR because we see the potential.  Sadly, every subsequent "fix" to the current issues lead me to believe that the players are seeing things very differently than the designers.  This disconnect leads us to the exact same issues we saw with ToA.  It's unsettling.

I have seen comments regarding ToA in numerous places, but unfortunately was never into DaoC. Would someone kindly either post a response detailing what the hell happened and what ToA was supposed to be that made it so bad, or at the least point me to an article/blog about it? I would love to learn about this.

ToA (Trials of Atlantis) was a DAoC expansion that added a HUGE PvE grind to a successful (for the time) PvP game.  It included master levels (pve), artifacts that required aquisition, farming drops to activate, and leveling (more pve), all resulting in a new arms race. The addition of this lengthy PvE grind lead to a mass exodus of the playerbase.

That help? 

 

This isn't whats happening however.

It still boggles my mind that there Zone Control has at least  3 different mechanics that encourage people to leave the RvR.  And they don't seem to understand that is a bad thing.

It like they think a server has infinite people.

They seem to be designing in some kind of isolated la la land utopia where everything goes off perfectly and there are never problematic cases to handle.

Just read the grab bag and about zone control.  They just keep saying "Push on all fronts".  Well what if we dont' do that smart guy?  Waht if for some reason people push on 2 out of 4 fronts?  Then your design falls on its face and turns into a bowl of mushy crap.

It is eerily close to insanity.

Yeah, they're pointing out 10.

Whatever, Most of its been "OMGWTF endgame". Other than that mythic has been making some very nice changes and additions addressing many things. In fact it was OMGWTF Endgame that got it dened. The rest has been new users spouting off shit with no examples, or room for discussion, just mater of fact-ly posting VN board style.

/end rant
/back to regular posting happiness and MMO stalking.  :popcorn:

"They just keep saying 'Push on all fronts' " And if you just don't have the player base to do it, which is the case with most of the servers right now (and will be after tonite), then WAR zone control/city sieges will truly grind to a halt. Also, this was an issue with the ToA that folks mention. If you just didnt have the players to do all the Master Levels you're sunk. You will run up against all those fantastic ML abilities being used against you while you sit there and go, well fuck... wish we had the players to do the MLs too.

Having 2-3 warbands as your full upper tier 4 population trying to lock down zones across 3 racial zones is going to be impossible. Clusters will come soon...

There will be 4-5 servers that will probably still have a good population and if anyone that wants to keep playing WAR is smart, they will reroll now to those servers and never look back. Although, those servers will be subject to some population loss after tonite as well.

I would disagree, and to give you a solid example and reason why - most people canceled and/or began complaining long before they ever hit Tier 4. The problems are not with the end game necessarily but with the fundamentals of the game. Faction balance and how it is (or rather, isn't) handled, the process of the "grind" and the debate whether that is entertaining or not, travel times, server population problems creating a lack of enemies/allies, destruction appeal vs order appeal (or lackthereof), RvR lake objectives, rewards and motivations (which exist in all tiers), armor itemization, and on and on. The only "end game" complaint has been how zone control is being currently managed. It's a piece of the pie, absolutely, but its not the whole durn thing.

People don't always want to do RvR full-time. Some people like to take a break from that and do other stuff but still contribute to the "war effort", so to speak. For example in PlanetSide I liked to drive around refill the bases' energy supplies when I got tired of zerging or being zerged in the game. The problem with Mythic's design is that the "side stuff" is as or even more important than the zone RvR.

I'm convinced that no single person at Mythic is 100% sure of what contributes to everything in RvR progression  and the weight on each parts importance

And that maybe that's intentional , they dont want it easily understood or known , by anyone including themselves , because at least there is still a way to avoid the issue somewhat

If the actual full formula was laid out in the open the "wtf" factor would be x1000

"Intentional ignorance" is no way to run a business.  EVER. 

You're right.  The endgame doesn't matter.  I'm level 24, but have done three-fifths of my realm's content and surrounded by level 29 mobs to progress, I'm pretty much dead in the water.  I won't make the endgame, so there's no point in me bitching about it.

I could go to another realm, but I was hoping to do those with other characters.  I'm not invested in those story lines having not played them through T1 and T2, so it'll be just grind.  If I want to grind, there are better options out there.  So yeah.  I've tried, but I think I'm hitting the cancel button today.  There's not much point when I've put in an hour over the course of the last two weeks.

I have 2 pieces of Bloodlord, and 3 pieces of annihilator gear that I mix and match up. But it took weeks of running Bastion Stair to do it.  Because Order healers are so sucky to play, our limitation is mostly due to only having enough healers to support 1 warband worth of folks at a time. So yeah the ward stuff sucks, but it seems like hardly anyone likes playing a healer in this game so that holds up progress as well.

That's fine, but see your talking about real issues.

QFT. I've gotten my third character to tier 3 last week and slammed right into the WALL OF GRIND. I hate TA with a passion (lavalol) so grinding scens isnt an option. I tried running Gunbad a few times but its very difficult to do in a way that earns xp (either with players below a certain level or less than a full warband).  I've done all the quests (including PQs to elite) and am still only level 24. There's simply no "fun" left to have that also gives me xp. As lame as this endgame crap sounds, it pales in comparison to my inability to get there.

Yes I play like this and that is fine.  But the key problem is dependence.  You cannot make side stuff a dependency then it is no longer side stuff.  It is integral stuff.


Someone on Warhammer Alliance suggested that instead of contributing VP scenarios should just give a RvR zone buff like 5% damage and healing.  That would be fine.  Or at the very least if all 6 BFO would capture the zone its ok.  But as it stands right now you MUST leave the zone.


It is ok if PvE affect the RvR lakes in some way.  But as it stands right now, if I only want to RvR I have to leave the RvR area.  Or even if I like PvE but am currently working on RvR I may have to leave the RvR area once the BFO are taken.  


This should really be very obvious to anyone who designs anything.  This design should ring EXTREMELY loud alarm bells to anyone who works on it.  That it does not is rather scary.  I can tell you from designing computer software that this sort of analysis is intrinsic to all system design.


I mean its like they simply never said to themselves "Ok what happens next?"  Because the answer is "Oh we lose people out of the zone".

So either they are startlingly incompetent or they think its fine to lose people form the zone.


I personally think it is the latter.  Unfortunately this still makes them incompetent because now they do not understand network flow or even realize that is extremely important.  They have a bunch of nodes that traffic is flowing in-between and then they wonder why no one meets up for a fight.  Yeah well you are not directing your network traffic right of course no one is there.


They are directing large groups of people all over the place will nilly and expecting everyone to meet up in the RvR lakes.  That is their intention; they want everyone doing everything all at once.   I think this comes directly from Mark Jacobs (pure speculation of course).  And they honestly believe as long as everything is fairly fun there is no problem with that.

But that is completely wrong and is a fundamental misundesrtanding of how network flow works.


They send everyone off in a million different directions.  And they think "Oh but what happens when too many people go PvE and they lose some BFOs".  Then they pat themselves on the back and say "Ah but that is where the strategy comes in.  Then you go back take them back."

No.  Wrong.  What you get is a bunch of perpetual tail chasing and a lack of RvR because A is always chasing B and no one has any clue what is going on.

They should be having every single thing directing people into RvR lakes.  That should be the population concentration.  Same thing with PQs.  It should be like water flowing downhil and tributaries going into rivers.    Why are the Scenario quest NPC in warcamps?  Put them in keeps.

But its not, they just spreads people all over the place and there is no way to even have a clue who is going where when or why.  Its just throwing darts at a board with a blindfold.


The problem is not really so much that they don't understand that things should not be dependent so much as they simply do not seem to understand that they are directing people all over the place at random.  


Well I would say that I think Mythic (well Mark Jacobs) wants everything dependent on everything else, but does not understand the implications of how this affects population pooling and perception of what is going on.


Even making it so that PvE and BFO and Scenario VP contribution had to be done simultaneously would change how things worked.  As it stands right now an entire zone can empty in no time as that group starts to focus on the PvE or scenariop contribution.  At least if there was some simultaneous requirement then the RvR conflict could remain at a slow burn while the other stuff was going on.  But the current implementation encourages a complete abandonment of the zone.  Which in turn completely kills the idea that there is even a conflict going on.


There is absolutely no mechanic for a sustained conflict.  And multiple mechanics to actually periodically defuse or minmize the conflict in a zone.  The more you exclusively fight in that zone the LESS likely you are to take that zone.  This is exactly backwards of what it should be.  Mythic's goal in regards to RvR should be to keep as many people as possible in the RvR area as long as possible.

Perhaps they can keep PvE dependent perhaps not, I dunno but my guess is not.  It seems pretty clear that they want to spread people out evenly between the 3 major portions of the game.  But the problem is they are thinking of it like there are static pools.

There are not static pools there is a constant dynamic shifting.  An RvR zone can have 80- people in it one minute and 10 minutes later have 10 people in it.  And the major problem is that their mechanics for "spreading the  wealth" are basically completely defusing conflict.


They are not spreading things around.  They are just causing a number of warbands to empty out of one pool and shift to another.  Mythic has completely failed to grasp this central idea:  NEVER LET ANY POOL GET EMPTY.

  

That's me in a nutshell. I got stuck at 24, so I decided to finally go to the other realms to PVE for leveling. And I hit 25 and realized that I get NO NEW SKILL at level 26. WTF? Then I keep hearing about these armor wards, which is clownshoes development of the highest order. It's HUGE PVE cockblocks in a PVP game. Then I log in, and there is NO oRVR ACTION ANYWHERE. I traveled to all 4 available RVR lakes for my tier and there was nothing going on. NADA. Hit scenarios and while I did get a High Pass to pop, the very next scenario was Tor Anroc, which I've played to death.

I think I'm done. I just can't take anymore. The game was fun from 1-20. Somewhere after that, it went way the fuck off the rails.

I think I got what you were saying with the network flow idea but it was a bit confusing, but this is a really good point highlighting the problem.  Particularly about defusing conflict.  This was the real problem with the Witching Night event.  The long reset time effectively defused the conflict fairly quickly as the ostensible reason to be there vanished fairly quickly.  I am still unclear about how the lakes are supposed to work outside of the VP idea.  Other than securing VPs to foward the PvE effort to access the city loot, why should anyone want to do the RvR?

I was reading a WHA thread that suggested pride should be a reason, but frankly, the game does not offer many options to "show" that pride. You can claim a keep, but unless or until your guild is a high enough level, you can't display your guild emblem.  And even that pride option comes with a fairly steep monetary cost to the claiming guild.  Though, I suppose that keep claiming is what they think might be their gold sink as nothing else really is at the moment.  The BOs themselves are fairly meaningless outside of the VP mechanic.  Though I did just find out that if you talk to the sergeant there you can get a buff - apparently the Artisan one is fairly nice for the crafter - but the others are really weak.  Maybe if you could claim a BO, that might be more interesting, but even then, why do it?

I believe they may have wanted to make something like Eve and the ability to secure areas for your group, but most of what can be secured can't really be "secure" - what with late night/early morning claiming - and what you get out of claiming that area benefits you mostly outside of the area and not in a gated sort of way.

Had to take 6 keeps tonight before I got a gold bag (http://www.wardb.com/item.aspx?id=434124), everybody is out trading keeps.  And by everyone, I mean 80 people or so.

Why is that witch hunter hat sporting an Ironbreaker icon?  :uhrr:

The slowest part of capturing a keep is knocking down the doors.  Destruction on our server had a warband with about 50 players, we had two warbands of about a dozen each (only worked together for one keep to avoid splitting the loot bags).  Twice tonight, destruction flipped one keep back in a zone before we had managed to kill the keep lord on the 2nd keep, also twice tonight they grouped on the lower level of the inner keep, inside the 2nd door, waiting till we had capped the keep and then charged the new keep lord to recap, using the advantage of numbers to avoid having to knock down both doors.  This whole setup is incredibly flawed.

ToA made people level their pants, in the rain, at night time, in a specific zone.

If you didn't, you were pretty much going to auto-lose against anyone who did.

I would argue that artifacts, outside of a couple specific ones, weren't the main problem with TOA, they were just the poster child. The really big problem in PVP balance, well beyond everything else and the thing that really forced RVRers to do PVE they hated, was master levels, not gear. The main balance effect of TOA gear was to widen the pure class/hybrid class gap, and that was more due to all the new types of stat bonuses they added than anything specifically artifact-related.

FUCK did I hate master levels.

I forgot that part.  Coupled to the ridiculous drop rates and slow respawns of the bosses, it was the worst of EQ added to a pvp game.  Boat missed and all that.

Oh yeah... they added boats too.  You really could miss the boat both literally and metaphorically!  :why_so_serious:

The whole expansion was just a 'RvR Tax'. Pay the tax or forever be useless at the part of the game you actually enjoy.


Ing is correct that on a whole, the Master Level abilities were more powerful and influential then most individual artifacts. You were a heavy tank without Bodyguard? (ML8) well grats, you are useless now.

But they still don't match the absurdity of leveling your God Damn PANTS. In the rain, on a deserted island, at night.


If there was ever a moment of "What the FUCK am I doing?" clarity, it was that.

Linky (http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=447)


 :roflcopter:

So now ,I imagine there will be heaps of praise for their wisdom and response in removing something that was so blatantly stupid they shouldn't even have considered putting it in ?

That about the way it works lately it seems

I'm getting tired of

1. blame toward Mythic when they correct a mistake (no matter how stupid)
2. People claiming nothing can be done to fix the game and yet still complaining.

Yes, I'm just as frustrated with Mythic and I think Jacobs will go down in history as a mediocre designer not able to comprehend what players like in a game, but I'm still rooting for WAR.  The final straw for me will be the 1.1 patch notes.  Jacobs said that he saw problems that needed some big fixes, and I expect to see those fixes in 1.1.  A new influence system geared toward RvR combat would be a big fix and I'm counting on seeing it.

They "fixed" a "problem" that was an incredibly stupid idea they came up with and were about to implement in the game ,

I don't see how they deserve kudos for that

It gives me pause it took a couple weeks of outright screaming on the boards where even the diehard defenders were going "wtf" to make them back off on it

Its something that shouldnt ever have entered their design ideas to begin with

Why shouldnt they deserve grief for it ? Maybe it will keep them from coming up with further stupid ideas,

I dont think they deserve any praise for not implementing it

Because it's a change for the better.  Bad move = complain, good move = praise.  If you bitch when they screw up and then bitch more if they fix it, all anyone sees is this mass of incessant whining, and who wants to read that?  That they realize they made a mistake is good.  That they're fixing it is good.  That they're listening to their players is good.  The argument could be made that they aren't doing this enough, but with regards to this particular issue, this is (I think) a good outcome.

So in your mind
__________________
Mythic announces upcoming patch 1.05x

Healing reduced 50% across the board
Armor reduced 50% across the board
Damage increased 100% for all ranged dps

After a week of "thats the stupidest thing we've ever heard of" on every fan board

Mythic announces
Due to feedback , we have decided to hold off on the said changes to healing and damage and will keep an eye on possibly implementing something like this in the future

___________________

This should be viewed as a "good thing" and praise heaped on them for not doing this and "listening"

You go that way all you want , I say they deserve grief for coming up with such a moronic idea to begin with

To you avoiding a monstrous blunder that shouldn't ever have come up with earns them "praise"

Now I see why the crap that gets released today still gets released

What Khaine is saying is:

Everyone here bashes the game because we all (or most of us) want to see the game work, and work well.

Since the developer(s) have a very severe case of put shoe on head, and insert retarded idea after retarded idea, while taking very fucking minor steps in the right direction (read: they should quadruple xp gains for everything), we get pissed.
People get pissed, shit gets broken.

We hurt you because we love you.

Actually you are dead on , for me , there's this really small ,small hope I have for a game I wanted to like and enjoy , and its dwindling more each day

Once I decided 100% a game isnt for me I just move on and don't even worry about it any more , I haven't visited a LotRO board nor read about it since last May , I just dont care about it , I know its not for me

WAR could have been , its really in the ball park all around but keeps coming up with such glaringly obvious stupid decision it's beyond frustrating

To me praise comes for fixing something quickly , implementing much needed changes in Open RvR and xps , coming up with good ideas and putting them in ,

Praise is not deserved for ducking a ridiculous idea that shouldnt even have been considered by a competent design team , and if anything the ONLY reason it isnt going in is the hue and cry , which is disconcerting

(ok I did still visit and keep up with the Vanguard meltdown for a month or two ,but who can blame me , the drama on the boards for that game for the few months after launch was something I just couldnt stay away from  :mob: )

Before I even played I questioned the design of PQs (too team dependent, what happens when no-one else is around?), the lack of a realm imbalance correction mechanism and why xp was nerfed for Tier 3 just before launch.

From playing, my thoughts have questioned the big empty world, the game design based on Tiers that further separates players, the long distances required to travel to get into an RvR zone and why all the reward systems are set up so that RvR provides the lowest rewards of all.

The cherry on the top of this has been Mythic's questionable choice of how to fix a number of these items.

It doesn't work like that.  The ward damage change is something they designed, tested, implemented and then rolled back.  You can ignore all the time they wasted doing that if you like, but I wouldn't praise them for it.  The whole point of the ward damage nerf was to slow progression down by a massive factor. 

The key thing is, they haven't come out and said they no longer want to slow progression down.  So although the details of what they replace it with aren't known, there's zero reason to believe their core intent will be any different.  Players might be more accepting of a different way of having their end game progression slowed, but ultimately, it doesn't matter, because you don't attract new players by slowing progression down.  Times up, WAR had it's moment in the sun and EA isn't going to keep signing off on massive amounts of development time forever.

They are losing a very large chunk of the money that funds games years down the road, casual gamers, by trying to slow them down even further. Powergamers will still plow through the content and go nuts, while the casual gamer guys are stuck behind the curve. WAR will continue to have it's niche based group of players (like that Shaman on Darklands that is already RR62+ what he is gonna do in a month I have no idea) that will plow through the content, get maxed out in their gear and keep playing for a long time (or roll alts). Same with DAOC. They still have players taking keeps, doing Relic Raids, you name it. Sure alot of DAOC turned into groups of 8 running around farming one another (which will happen 6v6 in WAR) but they keep the heartbeat still on the monitor. My guild just last nite finally got some Bloodlord pieces for members, so they will be farming it for a few months to get most of the players into some decent gear (350+ member guild) but what do they do past that? What do they do when their server is losing so many people that they can never push into the Inevitable City? By making the "end game" so player-number dependent any server without the players is dead on arrival. I am glad that I had a chance to experience WAR, being a table top player for 13 years I cringed when I see things like "Ogre Butcher" that was wielding a Cathayan Longsword like a Bruiser... sigh... but whatever those are small things that I had issues with that to me meant a lot but to other folks didnt even phase them. If you paid that much for the IP, did you have anyone from GW beta this game and look through the lore? I live right near the US HQ for Games Workshop and frequent their 'Battle Bunker' and I dont remember anyone talking about this game before release, at all. No posters, no fliers, no advertising, I didnt see anything.

WAR was a much larger endeavor for Mythic and because of that the impact of the casual gamer mecca to other games to never return again will be devastating on their overhead/capital/development budget/expansions. I wish them the best, really I do, because competition is great for the market. However I have to play where I have fun and where most of my friends are (let's face it, the game can be shit but if it has a good community it will live forever).

I want to touch on this GW being actively involved in promotion thing. They're miserable at it. I've been easing myself back into GW after years away; prior to my years away I was an employee and extremely hardcore player. So I picked up a White Dwarf last month and the entirety of Warhammer Online's exposure was a screenshot or two. That was it.

GW has an almost actively antagonistic relationship with any of their IP branches which aren't specifically miniatures game. It was the same way with the pen and paper RPG: we didn't carry it in stores when I worked there in 99 because of some insane belief that it would bleed money from the miniatures games. Never mind that it could do the opposite, where you get some cross pollination between different niches interested in your product. There's a disturbing one true wayism involved in their marketing: you do it on the ground, in the stores, and you gladhand your way to miniatures sales only by selling miniatures.

So no mention of it in Glen Burnie, while disturbing, is par for the course.

Jesus, and here i thought thats what the test server, in game data, trends, and player feedback was for, and that MMO's are constantly changing beasts.

Shows what i know, every change, or tweak must be meet with QQ it seems. Even if its a good one.

If the changes suck who cares that they have a test server? If they're not alleviating the soul crushing grind in the 20s who cares? I don't. They don't get my money.

Heh.  Who's crying?  It's funny.  QQ seems to be the new trendy thing to say, along with linking xfire stats (http://www.xfire.com/games/who/Warhammer_Online_Age_of_Reckoning/), at least some people put more effort (http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pHXj22oP1nTGj1xu4YQGVMg) into it than others.

You know what im talking about.  :-P

Age of Conan in that second week is hilarious. Talk about Buzz and then dropoff.

Warhammer is just going to be a line straight down. Neat.

Oh jeez yeah, Warhammer's line is going to look about the same as AOC...

Players like to see progress being made in the right direction. You aren't going to please everyone, sure, but I can't say that WAR's changes since launch have made many people happy.

The one thing I'll give them - in-game spam was slashed from when the game launched to when I cancelled. Most other things are questionable.

The real problem I see is that the changes that they're reversing on now were put into place to solve a serious design problem, namely, that the endgame turns out to be massively flawed. What I think Mythic was thinking with wards, etc., was to cockblock the players off from the endgame until they could come up with a more sustainable, serious solution. Now that they're reversing course, they're back to having the underdesigned endgame be exposed. Add to this the clear underlying flaws in the way victory points work or don't work. I think that's another case where Mythic is trying to keep the sensitive, vulnerable innards of the endgame from being exposed, by having an overly convoluted VP model that obscures exactly what it is that players are supposed to be doing.

If they can't figure out a sustainable and fun mechanic for the endgame that doesn't take a lengthy detour through PvE grind, they're sunk. And I feel real sympathy for them on this score, because this is not a quick fix kind of design problem. Arguably it's something that no PvP-centric MMOG has ever succeeded in figuring out: what makes the endgame feel big and important and full of renewable excitement and fun? What makes it something you're willing to do again and again for months on end? Shadowbane had a few ideas about this, but they were lost in the miasma of their initial decisions about the economy required to support guild towns and the problems with the map design and distribution of key resources.

You still need ward gear so you don't get obliterated by NPC's you'll encounter as you progress to the King. The DPS move was dumb, but the gear is still required if you don't want to be 1 shotted by the NPC's.

Why is the end game flawed?

Cities, in my opinion, are the equivalent to relics in DAoC.  I never considered the relic mechanic flawed.  Relics would change hands quite often, no big deal, so what's the big deal with cities being easier to take?

The flaw is not the overall design to take a city, it's how hard the city is supposed to be to take.  They can turn that crap on and off on a whim.

No, I don't see a fundamental design flaw, just some questionable slow downs.

The fundamental flaw in city taking is that from all accounts, it doesn't work right reliably. Also, it's yet another huge series of PVE in a supposedly PVP-focused game that requires the cockblock of PVE raids to even attempt.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15259.0 (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15259.0) covers the issue nicely. 

Why restrict your focus to just the end game?  At this point in time it should be fairly obvious that the start, middle and end games are all seriously flawed.  As a small example, the PQ's (one of the unique selling points of the game) are empty at all tiers.

I can't think of a game that would have benefited more from having a Psychologist on staff during the design process.  Maybe considering the sums involved in making the games nowadays, there should be a subset of Psychology just for on-line games.  Griefologists/Grindologists should be able to point out the major flaws early on.

I don't think that really covers what tolakram was trying to say. 

When the game initially launched gear sets didn't have wards and T4 zones were able to flip relatively fast (by design or bug I was never really sure, less than 30 min was possible).  Due to this and other bugs(enemies using backdoors to bypass main gates and front doors to Forts) there were reports of people already pushing to Altdorf 1.5 - 2 weeks in and mass QQ'ing hit the forums for a variety of reasons.  Mythic basically went oh crap and a few hotfixes and a patch later you have wards on T4 gear sets and T4 zones are now much much harder to flip (changes/"fixes" to VP system).  Now most people that are still playing the game are in T4 or close to it, if they haven't resigned themselves to playing alts till 1.1 hits, and are experiencing the tedious grind the endgame has become thanks to those early "oh crap" cockblocks that were thrown in the game weeks ago to put all the QQ'ing on the forums to bed.

Tolakram is saying remove that stupid crap, let zones be capped in 30 min to an hour, and let people push to a major city in a single night if they want.  At least that way there's some type of strong push going on every night with the possibility of a city battle instead of beating your head against a wall spending a whole night trying to cap 1 zone and usually failing with the most recent system.  I'm in total agreement with him on this.  Not only would there be something to do and you actually feel like your progressing and making a difference, but it would encourage less keep/BO trading and more clashes.  I think a main reason people are happy to keep trade and avoid the enemy atm is because nothing will happen if you let the enemy completely take over the RvR lake.  People see a RvR lake completely controlled by the enemy and go "Well it looks like we can go get some easy renown and gold bags if anyone feels like getting a group together".  Nobody is worried that "Oh crap! They have all the keeps and BO's, the zone could flip any minute now, lets go fight/take stuff back".

I'm not going to design a new game, or argue about it.

WAR is what it is with added crap.  While that may be foolishly simply it seems to me the fix mainly involves turning stupid stuff off and switching rewards to be based on pvp participation.  Quite simply I think this is influence gained via pvp that rewards gear, just like pq influence rewards gear.

But regardless of the details of that idea the fundamental design, take keeps, take city, rape and pillage, seems sound enough.  All the pieces of the puzzle are there, the rewards structure is just wrong.

On the issue of empty pq's, again I think this is because influence is needlessly blocked.  Not a design flaw but an adjustments that someone needs to make that will make them reward more influence.  Who the hell likes to grind. 

That's the real frustration I have.  It's dumb shit that can be fixed easily that's wrong, nothing giant, yet Mythic seems to be afraid to throw some switches.  The only large design issue that I think requires coding is the RP reward system for RvR participation.

I wondered the exact same thing. 

Are they sound enough?  Some of the transfer servers are now at a 2 to 1 ratio for factions.  Can a WAR server really work well in the campaign with this going on considering the that balance mechanic is never hit (ie. a capped server) any longer?

Doesn't seem very solid to me really when placed into its proper context.  Seems like it is falling apart on those servers actually.

Me too.  I initially assumed they did not want NPC trains to be part of the PvP.

Just to clear this up, the wards were always there.  They weren't patched in.  I remember reading about them before the grab bag brought it up, because people found out about it through the strategy guide.  The only thing they did to patch them was make it worse a week ago, which they've since decided was a bad idea.

They weren't working on release. Mythic used the first 2 patches or so to fix them.

I would bet a testicle that WOW had (or most certainly now has) a staff pscyhologist evaluating their game. 

Look at Monolith, Destruction poured in from multiple servers and all transferred there, tada! Huge imbalances. So what happens? Order leaves or grinds PvE until they fix it, end result = no WAR.

Of those that played DAOC from release, remember when Mythic was talking about the city captures/invasion servers? This is what I think of when I think of WAR. Basically the opposite factions were supposed to be able to invade the homelands of the other factions through some of the far off zones then fight their way through the zones until they reached the main city. Hell you could log into DAOC right now and still see the remnants of that idea, multiple guard towers/small citadels sparsely dropped throughout the country side that defenders would have holed up in to fight off invaders. They had the idea/concept 7 years ago and yet they still couldn't figure it out... that's what amazes me.

Now, DAOC is going to come out with an Origins server (which will be another kick in the balls for WAR and I am sure EA is trying to push that release back) that takes DAOC back to the Shrouded Isles expansion time frame pre-ToA where folks had fun. You know that's saying something when your player base is totally jazzed about taking your game back in time to play when everyone supposedly "had more fun".

There is your focal point, or at least it would be mine if I was president/CEO of a gaming company. Your player base wants you to go back in time to where they all had massive amounts of fun and your subscription rate was peak. Now they are just flailing wildly, patch this, oh crap patch that back. Almost like there is no end goal state in their minds to focus on, just fix the immediate and deal with the consequences.