WAR - another newsletter - more RvR, less sport PvP

[Kirth]

Ah, but that does indirectly go back to population imbalance. If you were Blizzard and wanted people to fight over the objectives all the time, what's the easiest fix?

A bigger carrot, right? Double or triple the strength of the buff, add extra rewards, etc, etc. Generally make it much more desirable for your side to hold on to the objectives, and fight to get them back when you lose them.

There was a time in WoW when there was no carrot, people would fight endlessly over places like TM/SS. Raids on capitol cities would be epic, and when you saw that a place was being attacked in the defense channels you made your way there to help(as attacker or defender). Honor system, battlegrounds, and arenas destroyed this. Adding structure and a grind to pvp (re: carrot) really took the fun out of it for me, and perhaps a number of others. the attempts of the new zone objectives are really just a pale imitation that people will only pay attention to when they need something from it, ie halaa. Interestingly the only pvp reminiscent of the old ways that I experienced in TBC is on the elemental plateau.

[Merusk]

Your memory's fuzzy. TM/ SS didn't start-up until they added ranks. Or at least that's how it was on my server.  Even then TM/ SS just became 'the place to be' to grind out honor kills for rank because the zone was easily accessible to both sides. (One short flight from the major city on EK, where everyone was because that's where the 55-60 dungeons were.)

[Ratman_tf]

Oh TOA wasn't the only thing, it was just the most egregious and didn't just cost a few people, but coming at a very bad time gutted populations. I'm not sure any game past release has ever shot themselves in the foot quite that badly.

[tmp]

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/gameFeatures/Scenarios101.php

examples of WAR PvP scenarios. Well not exactly anything new by the sound of it, but then maybe they found wheel to be round enough alreaedy.

[Nevermore]

TOA was the only major fuckup DAOC had post-launch that really pissed people off.

I and most of the people I played DAoC with ended up leaving in disgust after finally getting sick and tired of all the BuffBots.

[Johny Cee]

WAR has to convince all the old bitter DaoC people, that mythic has learned from its mistakes.


A lot of the released info has folks going "I've heard that before!  "


Which I suppose can be said for any MMO really, but DaoC had its own little niche of people feeling betrayed and disappointed.

Mythic showed they could learn from their mistakes by doing things like the "Classic server" ruleset (no buffbots, no ToA), introducing secondary bufflines available to all characters (champ levels), and never releasing another ToA.

Of course, the damage was done by the time they started to fix things....

[WayAbvPar]

TOA was the only major fuckup DAOC had post-launch that really pissed people off.

I and most of the people I played DAoC with ended up leaving in disgust after finally getting sick and tired of all the BuffBots.

They pissed me WAY before any of that happened. Probably why I am taking a wait and see attitude this time around. Although they could always use the same bait and nerf they did with DAOC, in which case I shall be very cross.

[tazelbain]

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/gameFeatures/Scenarios101.php

examples of WAR PvP scenarios. Well not exactly anything new by the sound of it, but then maybe they found wheel to be round enough alreaedy.

Their generic setup is the best of breed.  It can much support any pvp scenerio.  And since it handles each the same basic way, confusion will be minimal.  It remains to seen if they have the  creativity to build a substantial variety of scenerios.

Seems wrong that the 3rd teir Scenerio allows 18-40.

[Velorath]

TOA was the only major fuckup DAOC had post-launch that really pissed people off.

I and most of the people I played DAoC with ended up leaving in disgust after finally getting sick and tired of all the BuffBots.

Did you guys mostly PVP solo or something?  In 8v8 or zerg on zerg, buffbots weren't as big a factor.  I could see being pissed off as a stealther though since you needed a buffbot to be able to compete with other stealthers.

[Kirth]

Your memory's fuzzy. TM/ SS didn't start-up until they added ranks. Or at least that's how it was on my server.  Even then TM/ SS just became 'the place to be' to grind out honor kills for rank because the zone was easily accessible to both sides. (One short flight from the major city on EK, where everyone was because that's where the 55-60 dungeons were.)

TM v SS was actually one of the hot spot fighting areas in beta. guild leader of DIE, grayrage, used to write about the battles there. I also maybe should have qualified my statements as the situation on PVP servers.

[AngryGumball]

When you say Buffbot do you mean 1 real person playing two/three/four different chars at same time, multi-boxing. Or actually having a second char follow you about being your healer/buffer.

[Velorath]

When you say Buffbot do you mean 1 real person playing two/three/four different chars at same time, multi-boxing. Or actually having a second char follow you about being your healer/buffer.

In RVR it usually meant have a second account with a cleric or whatever on it, having it buff your main character, and then leaving it at your realms border keep away from harm.

[Soukyan]

When you say Buffbot do you mean 1 real person playing two/three/four different chars at same time, multi-boxing. Or actually having a second char follow you about being your healer/buffer.

In RVR it usually meant have a second account with a cleric or whatever on it, having it buff your main character, and then leaving it at your realms border keep away from harm.

This mechanic worked against the stealthers because there was a fair bit of stealth warfare that happened on the frontiers in one-vs-one or small stealth group action. Buffbots ruined it for the stealthers who could not run two accounts. They affected other classes less, but the inclination to use them was still there. Mythic addressed buffbots by putting in distance requirements for most buff spells. So players just tagged their bots on autofollow to continue to use them. I think it became less prevalent once the distance limit was put in, but it did not end the use of them entirely. Overall, you were still better off running in a full group or two with guildmates who knew how to play their classes well.

Just got the new WAR newsletter today and took a look at the Scenarios 101 section on their site. I am pleased to see that you can participate in Tier 1 RvR from level 1. That is just plain fantastic.

[tazelbain]

GW had the Ascalon Arena that was levels 1-10, but 6-7 really didn't have a chance and 1-5 were just paste with the way hp scaled.  So we'll see how it works out, I am hopeful. But if level 1s could go out to the teir 1 Scenerios and have fun in it, it would be a blow to Diku regime.

[Soukyan]

GW had the Ascalon Arena that was levels 1-10, but 6-7 really didn't have a chance and 1-5 were just paste with the way hp scaled.  So we'll see how it works out, I am hopeful. But if level 1s could go out to the teir 1 Scenerios and have fun in it, it would be a blow to Diku regime.

Well the Tier 1 range as stated is 1-12, but the description mentions that the levels are attempted to be balanced, so I don't know if they'll be able to manage making one instance with all levels 1-5 or 6, and then other instances with higher levels bunched together. My guess would be that they could take all of the highest levels until an instance is maxed out and then just move down the line via level until all instances have been filled/started, and then do it all over again for the next queue. I'm sure they could create a much more complex/elaborate/efficient queuing system, but those are just my thoughts on it. I hope levels 1s can actually enjoy some PvP, because quite honestly, I'd like to level my character doing PvP as much as possible.

[Numtini]

From the cleric/shaman perspective, DAOC was obviously designed to limit the power of buffs by making them utterly boring to use--the idea being that nobody would ever go "all the way" into a buffline because it made the character unplayable. That meant that buffbot characters had buffs that were beyond anything really expected by the design. It also mean that any "played" character of the same class was substandard. If you actually played, your buffs would be lower and you had the risk of dying to other players. I was frequently be turned down for groups in favor of bots.

It was a truly corrosive situation and Mythics reaction for years was to cover their ears and hum.

It's funny, i have a lot of good memories about DAOC but when I remember the FIFO patch cycles and buffbots, I lose a lot of enthusiasm for War. There really is a "company reputation" issue here.

[sam, an eggplant]

Little birdie says that a new round of invites is going out now, check your spam boxes kids.

[Soukyan]

*sniff* Still no love for me. 

[Righ]

After a month, stop getting high before you play.

Not that I've tried that or anything.

 

[Fordel]

I think this would be similar to saying Blizzard has to convince all the ex-EQ1 players that a new PvE MMORPG is worth their time.

More like SoE trying to convince the ex-EQ1 players EQ2 isn't as bad etc.



WAR is virtually DaoC 2, whether they (Mythic) like it or not. Hence the "I've heard that before!", since a lot of us HAVE heard all this very same shit before.


Example: One thing that really got to me in DaoC, was the 'Style Review'. DaoC has a large number of melee special attacks, and for a significant number of characters, these melee attacks were all they had ability wise outside of passive defenses and autoattack. The issue was (like everything else in DaoC) that these attacks were as unbalanced and random as you could imagine. One weapon line would have a anytime rear positional long duration stun (50 LW ftw!) and another comparable line would have a a short duration stun, at the end of a 3 style side positional change. Endurance costs, damage done, secondary effects. None of the lines were, well, in-line with each other.

So every patch us melee classes would cry all over the VN boards for fixes. Submit to our TeamLeads (another brilliant idea  ), work out the math (yet another thing wrong with DaoC, the actual mechanics that were complex for the sake of complexity) and generally try to get things working better, since the classes were essentially just their styled attacks.

Every patch in reply, we would get "We aren't adjusting individual styles/lines, but instead will redo them all in one go in a single style review". So we waited. And waited. Weeks to Months to Little over a year of nothing but "Wait for the Review!". Then when it *FINALLY* came time for the review, the response was "We aren't going to do a sweeping style review, but instead change individual styles a few at a time every patch cycle".


 

[Koyasha]

Something I don't like from that scenario page is the numbers-mean-control system they're using for the location captures.  It sounds like it's going to be like the system used for controlling towers in Eye of the Storm in WoW, which I don't like because it allows a numerically superior capture force to outdo a tactically superior defending force.  If you've got 3 people defending a spot and 6 people attacking it, and the 3 people are managing to hold off their attackers effectively, they can still lose if the attackers just keep coming long enough, because numbers = win in that kind of capture situation.

[Numtini]

Little birdie says that a new round of invites is going out now, check your spam boxes kids.

I got a notice that current beta testers should update their dxdiag, but I'm not actually in. Kind of mean.

[Kirth]

Little birdie says that a new round of invites is going out now, check your spam boxes kids.

I got a notice that current beta testers should update their dxdiag, but I'm not actually in. Kind of mean.

I updated mine in OCT, never got a notice about it though. I'm hopeful.

[Threash]

Little birdie says that a new round of invites is going out now, check your spam boxes kids.

I got a notice that current beta testers should update their dxdiag, but I'm not actually in. Kind of mean.

Yeah i got all excited thinking maybe my beta invite got lost in the spam folder.

[Aez]

 

I played the first months of DAOC, it was not unbalance.  There was simply no concept of balance.  The weapon styles were a mess.  The weapon types even worse, they had bonus vs different type of armor but you had to choose only one type.  It was like playing rock, paper, scissor with out the option of switching your pick.  For 50 lvl, every time your rock run into a scissor you'll win!  Too bad if you run into a paper.

It was even more obvious once they started counting RvR points on their website.  The top players from gimped class had around 20k points while those for overpowered class had more that 120k points...   Even with that evidence in their face they didn't act (before I quited anyway).

[Fordel]

Probably the worst part about the whole slash/blunt/pierce armor resistant thing, was Midgard Blunt weapons did not have anything worse then 'normal'. They either had a Bonus or broke even against all armor types.


Eventually, they switched up armor resists to make more sense, but they were still limited because Midgard only had two melee damage types, while Hib and Alb had all 3.


The ever popular decision shadowblades used to have to make, Slash or Slash 

[Venkman]

WAR is virtually DaoC 2, whether they (Mythic) like it or not. Hence the "I've heard that before!", since a lot of us HAVE heard all this very same shit before.

Maybe. I quit DAoC before ToA, so can't really compare it. And of course, I can't say anything about the parts I can compare.

But I still wonder how much appealing or alienating the old RvR DAoC players really matters to the market they want to hit. I used the Blizzard analogy because they were trying to hit a new bigger audience and oh-by-the-way had a chance to grab the ex-EQ1 crowd. Meanwhile, SOE was specifically going after the ex-EQ1 crowd and hoped to get a new bigger audience along the way. I feel Mythic here is trying to go the Blizzard route while it's the ex-DAoC players that are trying to make it personal to them.

Could be wrong of course.

[Talonus]

It was a truly corrosive situation and Mythics reaction for years was to cover their ears and hum.

The funny part about that is the idea of buffbots was brought up even in the early beta phases. There was a realization that some people would use characters solely for buffs, but most people thought buffbots wouldn't be used that extensively because the buffs weren't that overpowering. The buffs were helpful, yes, but not worth spending the money on an additional account. Woops?

I played the first months of DAOC, it was not unbalance.  There was simply no concept of balance.

They were too busy finishing the game; balance seemed to be the least of their problems compared to the content issues. Hibernia was largely unfinished, Midgard needed polish for the higher end stuff, and Albion needed revamp for content that hadn't been touched since earlier beta phases. Hopefully Mythic won't make this particular mistake this time.

[Xanthippe]

While playing DAOC (until shortly after TOA), my biggest problem with Mythic was their glacial pace at fixing anything. 

Awesome WAR may be, but perfect it will not be.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for problems to be addressed.

My second biggest problem was Mythic's communication with players.  Sure, they had Sanya and she did an absolutely terrific job, especially for someone who was being told Mythic was going to do one thing for months and then being told it was doing something altogether different instead. 

Blizzard does not have those issues.  Their new content is slow in coming, in comparision, but their changes generally trend in a positive direction, as they seem more in touch with what players really want.  When they get it wrong, they fix it.

These things are not merely a function of budget, but management.

[Fordel]

The funny part about that is the idea of buffbots was brought up even in the early beta phases. There was a realization that some people would use characters solely for buffs, but most people thought buffbots wouldn't be used that extensively because the buffs weren't that overpowering. The buffs were helpful, yes, but not worth spending the money on an additional account. Woops?

Well part of this was that the stat caps were increased shortly after release (Or very late in Beta, I can't recall which now).


Before you either got benefit from the baseline buffs, or the Spec buffs. Not both.

The constantly increasing stat cap was an ongoing issue with DaoC, probably still is to this day.

IE: Cast speed is balanced under the assumption all dex is hard capped at X. Now lets add in itemization that completely circumvents our own stat cap. What's that? Casters are launching nukes faster then the server can register them? 

[Dash]

So who has a little advice for me on class types in a  PvP / RvR game like WAR? 

Any archetypes that just flat out suck to play?  I'm leaning towards either a tank (preferably offensive) or a melee DPS.  Although I've played a healer before too and could try that again.  Initially I was going to pick a melee DPS but I'd like to play Destruction and none really jump out at me.  Not playing a female toon so Witch Hunter is out.  Marauder I'm not feeling and Choppa I still need to be sold on.  Black Orc looks perfect for a tank class but I'm worried how he'll do in PvP.

I've played a Ranger to max level in EQ.  No PvP there for me.  Basically ended up a ranged DPS class even though I enjoyed the melee more. 

Played a Champion to end game in DAoC.  Hybrid tank with debuffs.  He was fun and good at 1on1 duels or PvP but overall nothing fantastic. 

Play a Berserker to max level in EQ2.  Tank class, no PvP.  Good to very good DPS, good at melee AE.  Solid tank but geared a bit more towards offense than defense.

Played a Disciple to end game in Vanguard (shut up).  So much potential.  Monk healer type.  Fun class but shitty buffs, meh heals, meh DPS.

WoW I've tried a hunter and paladin and warrior.  None to higher than about 40.

[Speedbrusher]

Maybe a chaos Chosen would be the right class for you?

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/gameInfo/armiesofWAR/Chaos/Careers/Chosen.php

From the descriptions in this month's newsletter and on the armies of war page, he seems to me like a mix between a paladin and champion - perhaps even like the daoc Reaver class, (without all the life tapping).

[Nebu]

Did you guys mostly PVP solo or something?  In 8v8 or zerg on zerg, buffbots weren't as big a factor.  I could see being pissed off as a stealther though since you needed a buffbot to be able to compete with other stealthers.

I ran with some very successful 8v8 groups.  We used 2 buffbots.  Having buffs that don't drop when your buffer dies = win. 

[Nevermore]

When you say Buffbot do you mean 1 real person playing two/three/four different chars at same time, multi-boxing. Or actually having a second char follow you about being your healer/buffer.

In RVR it usually meant have a second account with a cleric or whatever on it, having it buff your main character, and then leaving it at your realms border keep away from harm.

This mechanic worked against the stealthers because there was a fair bit of stealth warfare that happened on the frontiers in one-vs-one or small stealth group action. Buffbots ruined it for the stealthers who could not run two accounts. They affected other classes less, but the inclination to use them was still there. Mythic addressed buffbots by putting in distance requirements for most buff spells. So players just tagged their bots on autofollow to continue to use them. I think it became less prevalent once the distance limit was put in, but it did not end the use of them entirely. Overall, you were still better off running in a full group or two with guildmates who knew how to play their classes well.

I played a Minstrel as my main so in RvR I split my time between running with a group or, if no one else was interested in RvRing at the time, soloing.  As is pointed out in the quote, it was mostly an exercise in futility trying to solo once buffbots became prevalent.  And as was pointed out in some other posts, even in group RvR the players with the outside buffs from the better specced, invulnerable bots parked at the realm gate had a big advantage over the actual played clerics/druids/shaman.  Even in PvE people started taking bots over actual played clerics/druids/shaman, which was just ridiculous.

As far as I know the only servers to impose the buff distance limit were the newer 'classic' servers, which would have required rerolling.  Fuck that.

[FatuousTwat]

Sorry to de-rail a bit here, but I signed up for the f13 guild beta invite thing when the thread was around a few months ago, but never heard anything about it since. Did it fall through when they put the beta on hold?

Thanks.