WAR - another newsletter - more RvR, less sport PvP

[slog]

See, I don't get how your use of "semi permanent" is any different from taking, controlling, upgrading, and losing Keeps in DAoC. The only variance is the length of time of "semi". If the game can take a Keep from you through some arbitrary means (like a WoW BG reset timer), then it's not meaningful. But if the only way to lose one you've gained is through your own inaction (didn't pay upkeep, chose not to guard) or through the action of other players, then that's meaningful.

It's not so long a distance from DAoC Keeps through SB cities to Eve POSes. I really think it's overthinking it to try and draw distinctions.

You can't destroy the keeps.  If you don't do anything, they are still there.  You can't change them, redesign them, or burn them to the ground.  Most importantly, If you ignore what happens to them, it doesn't matter.  In SB, you lose your "keep" and you have no home.

That's hardcore.

[Kirth]

to detract from the on-going argument about finding meaning in things, I came across this recent dev-chat with al ot of questions that have been asked in this thread answered:

http://war.stratics.com/php-bin/show_content.php?content=27140

found this one of interest.

Brannoc - *talamin* how long will a city siege take and last if the attackers win?
[WAR]Wheeler - The initial capturing of a City has no preset timeframe on it, however we expect the capturing or defending of a City when it's pushed into the contested stage to take roughly an hour or so (if feverently fought over) once the War has gotten to that point. We want the capturing of a City to be server wide event where plenty of players have time to participate if they choose...
[WAR]Wheeler - If the attackers win..there are several gates that determine the length of time they have it "Safely"
[WAR]Wheeler - "Safely" meaning that the Realm which originally owned it can't get back in. After that time however, the city will be available for recapture...and at that point it's purely up to the players to get their City back or defend it to the bone from the original owners.

[Venkman]

You can't destroy the keeps.  If you don't do anything, they are still there.  You can't change them, redesign them, or burn them to the ground.  Most importantly, If you ignore what happens to them, it doesn't matter.  In SB, you lose your "keep" and you have no home.

That's hardcore.

That's why I said SB is more hardcore than DAoC on my scale; however, that doesn't make the latter some meaningless* eSport like a WoW BG. It's more a question of degree in the context of meaningful. Besides, at least when I played, guilds usually had members with more than one home so when they inevitably lost their max-rank City, they had a low rank town to move over to and regrow.

* and "meaningless" is also relative. People care a lot for their gear from Arenas in WoW too. And they'll never ever experience pre-Trammel UO nor probably SB or DAoC, so their frame of reference is different.

[Simond]

to detract from the on-going argument about finding meaning in things, I came across this recent dev-chat with al ot of questions that have been asked in this thread answered:

http://war.stratics.com/php-bin/show_content.php?content=27140

found this one of interest.

Brannoc - *talamin* how long will a city siege take and last if the attackers win?
[WAR]Wheeler - The initial capturing of a City has no preset timeframe on it, however we expect the capturing or defending of a City when it's pushed into the contested stage to take roughly an hour or so (if feverently fought over) once the War has gotten to that point. We want the capturing of a City to be server wide event where plenty of players have time to participate if they choose...
[WAR]Wheeler - If the attackers win..there are several gates that determine the length of time they have it "Safely"
[WAR]Wheeler - "Safely" meaning that the Realm which originally owned it can't get back in. After that time however, the city will be available for recapture...and at that point it's purely up to the players to get their City back or defend it to the bone from the original owners.

So...the outnumbered side won't get their city back?
This will never go live like this. Ever.

[tmp]

So...the outnumbered side won't get their city back?
This will never go live like this. Ever.

Think the way they had it designed was, the city capture would be done through series of battleground-like fights. So the overall population numbers don't necessarily give advantage here as long as both sides have enough people to fill a battleground.

That was reported long time ago though, maybe it was changed since then.

[Talonus]

So...the outnumbered side won't get their city back?
This will never go live like this. Ever.

They'll get it back after X amount of time automatically. It's basically a penalty for letting attacks capture the city, as defenders will have several hours to kick out the attacks before it gets taken. Think of it like an expanded Darkness Falls with greater consequences.

See this (really) long recent presentation for info about it (among other things).

[Typhon]

What I got out of that was:

Death penalty - "Death has to be a defining moment for players that force a decision to make pause" - ugh
Tanks - ok, so clearly we aren't diverging at all from the tank/dps/healer model - yawn  (was hoping they were being more creative with collision detection)
Guild halls - "we're aren't implementing housing, but... it's good that we aren't" - uh, yeah
Capital cities - the new darkness falls

Renown (a.k.a realm points) - "The reason why we restricted Stats to RVR is specifically b/c we wanted a noticeable power boost between a character with low to moderate Renown and one with very high"
Gear - "end of the game the difference between the average set and very best uber OMG armor you can get ranges between 40 - 60% overall power atvantage"

To me, these last two mean that you need to decide up front whether you want to play this game or not from launch, cause if you don't have decent renown and gear you are going to be fodder.  The way the article read they seem to think that a 40-60% gear power advantage is not that much, which is just wacky.  It also makes me wonder what kind of advantage is "noticeable" (renown's advantage).

I think maybe I'm being overly critical, and maybe they did a poor job of communicating the total experience, but that dev chat didn't leave me feeling good about the game.

[HRose]

I didn't read the dev chat but I don't understand why it's Darkness Falls.

DF worked on DAoC because it game precious currency: experience points when xp was precious in the game.

When DF went live EVERYONE was in there. And the frontier became only a matter of taking back DF. Why? because it gave precious resources.

It was just somewhat detached for PvP and desirable because it gave you currency.

How capital cities fit into that?

[eldaec]

DF worked on DAoC because it game precious currency: experience points when xp was precious in the game.

DF was for cash mining.

All realms had better sources of xp.

[murdoc]

DF worked on DAoC because it game precious currency: experience points when xp was precious in the game.

DF was for cash mining.

All realms had better sources of xp.

DF was very much used for XP, but it was used to get a LOT of people XP all at once. You could tell when you faced a bunch of DF n00bs in RVR because they were all level 50, with nice gear, and absolutely no idea how to play their class because they'd just zerged their way through Darkness Falls.

[HRose]

DF was for cash mining.

All realms had better sources of xp.

Depends on when you played.

At the beginning people went there for xp and good loot. Then crafting and expansion areas replaced DF and DF became just a farming place.

Also: it was a convergence. The problem of Warhammer is that it will have six cities. This along the large number of scenarios/BGs, the open world, the keep warfare.

Either they have servers that can hold five times the players in DAoC, or 90% of that content with be rather pointless and unused.

[Triforcer]

The "40-60%" difference thing has been misinterpreted in some quarters.  They have repeatedly said that gear disparity will mean much, much less than it means in WoW.  I believe once a WAR dev characterized WoW gear disparity at something like 200%.  So whatever their 40-60% numbers actually mean, in theory it means the pvp is more skill-based than WoW.

[Johny Cee]

Tanks - ok, so clearly we aren't diverging at all from the tank/dps/healer model - yawn  (was hoping they were being more creative with collision detection)

Tanks don't work in pvp as damage sponges,  so I think tanks are going to be crowd control and suppression.  That fits with the direction Mythic was taking with DAoC.

I have never understood the fascination with tanks and collision detection.  That only works if:

1. You have large numbers of tanks basically standing shoulder to shoulder.  Otherwise people will just run around a small number of tanks.  Massively unfun for those playing tanks,  since basically you just stand there next to a couple guys and wait.

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

[Ratman_tf]

Death penalty - "Death has to be a defining moment for players that force a decision to make pause" - ugh

They better divorce themselves from the failure=death mindset then.

[Aez]

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

That's simple but genius. I hope some red names will read this.  It would need a really good AI to make it work in PvE though.

[SnakeCharmer]

The "40-60%" difference thing has been misinterpreted in some quarters.  They have repeatedly said that gear disparity will mean much, much less than it means in WoW.  I believe once a WAR dev characterized WoW gear disparity at something like 200%.  So whatever their 40-60% numbers actually mean, in theory it means the pvp is more skill-based than WoW.

What about character levels?  Standard 'level 20 has no chance against a level 30 (or 25, for that matter)'?

[Triforcer]

The "40-60%" difference thing has been misinterpreted in some quarters.  They have repeatedly said that gear disparity will mean much, much less than it means in WoW.  I believe once a WAR dev characterized WoW gear disparity at something like 200%.  So whatever their 40-60% numbers actually mean, in theory it means the pvp is more skill-based than WoW.

What about character levels?  Standard 'level 20 has no chance against a level 30 (or 25, for that matter)'?

No idea about that.  But even on the open RvR servers as I understand the system, you can only fight those around the same level as you.  If you venture into a low level zone you are turned into a chicken (lower level people could still be slaughtered if they voluntarily went to the high level zones, I guess.

[eldaec]

I have never understood the fascination with tanks and collision detection.  That only works if:

1. You have large numbers of tanks basically standing shoulder to shoulder.  Otherwise people will just run around a small number of tanks.  Massively unfun for those playing tanks,  since basically you just stand there next to a couple guys and wait.

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

I'd disagree, the tanks don't need to completely block access to your support, they just need to slow down the opposition by making them go the long way around.

Plus it gives melee characters another unique role in keep warfare, which is all about narrow staircases, chokepoints, and blocking reinforcements.

Melee types keep complaining that there is nothing for them to do in keep sieges except bash on doors, repair doors, use siege machinery, capture nearby towers, scale walls, use a secondary ranged weapon or use bodyguard-type abilities to protect ranged classes. So I'd imagine collision detection will help the melee classes feel loved in that situation.

[eldaec]

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

That's simple but genius. I hope some red names will read this.  It would need a really good AI to make it work in PvE though.

In daoc they just made hits from behind snare the target. Did the job fairly well.

[Typhon]

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

That's simple but genius. I hope some red names will read this.  It would need a really good AI to make it work in PvE though.

In daoc they just made hits from behind snare the target. Did the job fairly well.

Collision detection + hits from behind snaring + hits from behind doing more damage should be enough of an incentive to mage-killer type classes to pay attention to whether a tank is hitting them from behind or not.

As far as me hoping that they'd do something other then tank/dps/healer, I was hoping they do an "every class is a hybrid" + "let's do something interesting with collision detection" approach.  The character getting banged on should know to switch to a defensive stance, and other character should switch to healer/support or damage/debuff stance (or aura, etc).

[Typhon]

I didn't read the dev chat but I don't understand why it's Darkness Falls.
[...]
How capital cities fit into that?

DAOC - DF (immediately upon launch of DF) had the best items in the game.  You had to RvR to gain access to DF, so, you had to PvP to PvE (to get items that made you better in PvP).
WAR - Capital cities have PvE instances that give access to the best gear in the game (or give quicker access - whatever that's supposed to mean), but you first have to capture the other side's capital city via RvR.

I shouldn't have lumped the capital city mechanic with the other ones because I think it could be interesting.  I liked DF and the concept of having to RvR to gain access to special sauce.  Although I disliked having to run around the frontiers knocking down keeps that no one gave a damn about, which reminds me why I lumped it in with the negatives.  DAOC required a lot of prep time (relic raids), and WAR sounds like it will be no different.

An hour to take a lightly defended capital city (which sounds like an oxymoron) just to get to the point where you can now do a higher (highest) level instance to get uber loot seems like a long night.  I know the prevailing opinion on f13 lately is that sport pvp is souless and RvR is teh uber, but I honestly don't see myself returning to the days of spending 5+ hours trying to get something done in a game.

If the game requires that to get the top-end stuff, that game will not be for me - I refuse to put that much of my life into a game, and I refuse to play (another) game where I have no reasonable chance of getting the high end loots.

[Johny Cee]

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

That's simple but genius. I hope some red names will read this.  It would need a really good AI to make it work in PvE though.

The problem with massive damage from behind is you have to have some way to stop people from the jump/strafe around a target to get off a back shot.  Shit,  I had "run through, stick, spam Annihilate" down to a science in DAoC.

Otherwise,  combat turns into "who's the biggest spaz?" rather than any kind of tactical/skill battle.

[Aez]

It's not that hard to come up with good ways to prevent players to chase their tale.

- Knockback skills on Tank.
- Only a side without a shield should be vulnerable.
- More chance to score a melee critical hit on running targets.
- Narrow the angle that actually count has the back.
- etc.

[Aez]

Melee types keep complaining that there is nothing for them to do in keep sieges except bash on doors, repair doors, use siege machinery, capture nearby towers, scale walls, use a secondary ranged weapon or use bodyguard-type abilities to protect ranged classes. So I'd imagine collision detection will help the melee classes feel loved in that situation.

I don't think you were sarcastic but that's green worthy.  Lets keep complaining you can't do anything beside a long list of meaningful and fun possibilities!  The real issue was that none of those tasks gave you RvR points (at least at release).

[Typhon]

2. Your system means you inflict massive damage on attacks from behind,  so it's suicidal to rush past a guy that will just one shot you as soon as your back is to them.  Otherwise,  it's still the best strategy to rush past and attack the squishies.

That's simple but genius. I hope some red names will read this.  It would need a really good AI to make it work in PvE though.

The problem with massive damage from behind is you have to have some way to stop people from the jump/strafe around a target to get off a back shot.  Shit,  I had "run through, stick, spam Annihilate" down to a science in DAoC.

Otherwise,  combat turns into "who's the biggest spaz?" rather than any kind of tactical/skill battle.

'run through' no longer works because of collision detection.  Getting behind someone who doesn't want you behind them (and isn't a complete spaz) should no longer be a trivial task.  I do see the point you are trying to make (and agree that it was broken in DAOC), I'm just hoping that collsion detection makes all the maneuvering that goes on during battles a more palatable part of combat (rather then what feels like cheating or annoying bunny-hopping).

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's probably been said here but here goes:

The only thing permanent pvp goals mean(any of them) is that control of the widget will change hands when the opposing side holds a raid at 5am EST when most people are sleeping. This side will hold the widget until the other side does the same.

What this means is that you, I and any other rational person will not have any 'meaningful' impact on the pvp no matter what system they design beyond sport pvp.  Victory in online games goes to the man who has no life, why penalize everyone else?

[Schazzwozzer]

Here's a not-very-exciting but informative video on the keeps, if anyone's interested.  It shows the lowest level elven keep and then the highest level Empire keep, which appears comparable to a small town. 

Fun facts about the keep system: there are two keeps for tier 2 and 3 respectively, one in each zone.  In tier 4, there are SIX keeps, two in each of the three zones.  This adds up to ten per "campaign" (race pairing), with a total of thirty keeps per server.  This is from the WAR wikia.

Here's something about the Keep system that doesn't add up for me though.

- Only guilds can 'take' a keep. 
- Once you level past a tier, you really can't go back — if you do, you're automatically transformed into a chicken.

Unless this game lets you cap your character level so that it can't go past 29 or something — and therefore stick around to defend — it seems to me that control of the tier 2 and 3 keeps is going to be incredibly transitory. 

Granted, this isn't really a problem.  It runs against my impression that keeps are for the uber guilds, but maybe that's just for tier 4.  In fact, maybe it's a good thing to have the lower-tier keeps constantly changing hands.  It'd perhaps give the casual guilds an opportunity to hold a keep for a week or something.

[Venkman]

It's probably been said here but here goes:

The only thing permanent pvp goals mean(any of them) is that control of the widget will change hands when the opposing side holds a raid at 5am EST when most people are sleeping. This side will hold the widget until the other side does the same.

What this means is that you, I and any other rational person will not have any 'meaningful' impact on the pvp no matter what system they design beyond sport pvp.  Victory in online games goes to the man who has no life, why penalize everyone else?

It's for this reason I always liked Shadowbane's scheduled Bane/Defense rounds (drop a Bane, pick a time, people agree, go). The only way to effectively get around the valid problem you raise is to schedule it. Besides, it's more realistic too. Most Kings didn't wake up to 50,000 bad guys standard half a click from their walls (and you've really gotta cut Boromir's Dad some slack... )

[Mrbloodworth]

It's probably been said here but here goes:

The only thing permanent pvp goals mean(any of them) is that control of the widget will change hands when the opposing side holds a raid at 5am EST when most people are sleeping. This side will hold the widget until the other side does the same.

What this means is that you, I and any other rational person will not have any 'meaningful' impact on the pvp no matter what system they design beyond sport pvp.  Victory in online games goes to the man who has no life, why penalize everyone else?

It's for this reason I always liked Shadowbane's scheduled Bane/Defense rounds (drop a Bane, pick a time, people agree, go). The only way to effectively get around the valid problem you raise is to schedule it. Besides, it's more realistic too. Most Kings didn't wake up to 50,000 bad guys standard half a click from their walls (and you've really gotta cut Boromir's Dad some slack... )

In days of old, sieges ETC.. were scheduled. It was a point of honor. Not that that matter to gameing, but any that fall into "Medieval" of any flavor this would be appropriate.

[Johny Cee]

Here's something about the Keep system that doesn't add up for me though.

- Only guilds can 'take' a keep. 
- Once you level past a tier, you really can't go back — if you do, you're automatically transformed into a chicken.

Unless this game lets you cap your character level so that it can't go past 29 or something — and therefore stick around to defend — it seems to me that control of the tier 2 and 3 keeps is going to be incredibly transitory. 

Granted, this isn't really a problem.  It runs against my impression that keeps are for the uber guilds, but maybe that's just for tier 4.  In fact, maybe it's a good thing to have the lower-tier keeps constantly changing hands.  It'd perhaps give the casual guilds an opportunity to hold a keep for a week or something.

Without reading any of the WAR info:

- In DAoC,  a realm/side can take a keep.  To "claim" a keep,  you needed to have a guild officer come in and talk to the NPC keep lord.  Essentially,  unclaimed keeps had the lowest level everything and could be easily taken by one group.  A claimed keep had different levels that affected (eventually,  there was alot of change in the system):

    - Keep size and structure.
    - Number of defensive emplacements,  like boiling oil and siege machinery.
    - Level and numbers of NPC defenders

Basically,  a claimed level 10 keep had a high upkeep cost,  but was difficult to take.  An unclaimed keep could be bulldozed pretty easily.

- DAoC had mechanisms to shut off both XP and RP gain,  so that you could keep a lowbie character in a Battleground you wanted to stay in.  It was pretty common to have a couple lowbie BG characters that you could fire up to play the much more casual BGs.


I only bring it up since this sounds like another lift straight from DAoC.

[HRose]

I know the prevailing opinion on f13 lately is that sport pvp is souless and RvR is teh uber, but I honestly don't see myself returning to the days of spending 5+ hours trying to get something done in a game.

I don't see this flaw.

It's just about game design. You don't need to be there five hours and then slip in the PvE instance right the minute you open it.

If the "window" to this instance remains open to a while (like a day or more), then all players can contribute no matter if they stay there 10 minutes or 10 hours, and then also get rewarded as long the window remains open for enough time.

I see instead a debate about the other argument: does this mean that the best gear comes from PvE raids?

Imho it seems Mythic learned nothing at all. They have an assload of classes that will be once again hell to balance (smite/priest nerf incoming, then light tank nerfs), added on top of BGs that will be also more complex to balance, then high risks that one faction and its subfactions will lead to huger balance problems than DAoC, risks that one faction completely dominates the other, risks that best rewards come from PvE, risks of too much gear disparity, risks of too much RvR dispersion and consequent boredom, too many RvR zones, too much fragmentation.

And on top of all that there's the redundancy of the instances.

I personally don't find a single element that isn't an improvement, aside the marginal ones (like the Tome of knowledge and overall better execution).

[HRose]

Fun facts about the keep system: there are two keeps for tier 2 and 3 respectively, one in each zone.  In tier 4, there are SIX keeps, two in each of the three zones.  This adds up to ten per "campaign" (race pairing), with a total of thirty keeps per server.  This is from the WAR wikia.

Here's something about the Keep system that doesn't add up for me though.

- Only guilds can 'take' a keep. 
- Once you level past a tier, you really can't go back — if you do, you're automatically transformed into a chicken.

Unless this game lets you cap your character level so that it can't go past 29 or something — and therefore stick around to defend — it seems to me that control of the tier 2 and 3 keeps is going to be incredibly transitory. 

It's just as DAoC was.

The big problem here is that they aren't once again considering the long term.

One problem of DAoC RvR is that you wait for a long time doing nothing. The frontier zones are too large, too much territory for not enough gameplay. A lot of players agreed that it was better to redesign the RvR to be more focused and concentrated.

With Warhammer they are increasing exponentially these spaces. You say the tier 4 has six keeps, but you don't count that Warhammer has THREE different campaigns. This means that the total number of keeps will be 18. Eighteen keeps, nine big zones. Then add the scenarios. Then add the six capital cities.

Then add the lower tiers.

Assload of content for RvR seems like the best thing ever. Problem is that after the game's out the majority of it will become completely redundant and it will disperse the PvP.

I really don't know how they expect to make it work.

[HRose]

- DAoC had mechanisms to shut off both XP and RP gain,  so that you could keep a lowbie character in a Battleground you wanted to stay in.  It was pretty common to have a couple lowbie BG characters that you could fire up to play the much more casual BGs.

But it would be in the interest of the game to let players "delevel" and tune for lower tiers/levels. It would improve the activity of the lower zones when the game is a few months older and everyone is at the top tiers.

Either that, or the tiers below 4 are going to become ghost towns where there are many occasion for PvP (as Mythic brags) but no other player to actually fight.

Mark Jacobs commented this with something that I considered unacceptable, even on a conceptual level:

That's one I've always had mixed feelings about as a designer. The pros for doing that are obvious but the cons are what concern me. If players can easily move down in levels to help other players, I worry that new players will have a harder time getting in groups. After all, if you could choose an experienced player playing at a lower level or a new player playing at the same level, you'll go with the experienced player. His/her knowledge of the game will always be an advantage to you and to h/h. So when the new player is LFGing or wants to get into the fun in a situation where the number of participants is limited, h/h might have a more difficult time of it in this system. Like I said, I have mixed feelings on it.

[Ratman_tf]

No idea about that.  But even on the open RvR servers as I understand the system, you can only fight those around the same level as you.  If you venture into a low level zone you are turned into a chicken

I have no words to describe how stupid that chicken idea is.

[Nevermore]

No idea about that.  But even on the open RvR servers as I understand the system, you can only fight those around the same level as you.  If you venture into a low level zone you are turned into a chicken

I have no words to describe how stupid that chicken idea is.

This is literally the dumbest idea I have ever seen in an MMO, ever.  All they would have to do is reduce a character's effective level to the maximum allowable in that particular RvR zone, a la CoH's exemplar system.  But no, it's so much cooler to turn them into chickens!