WAR - another newsletter - more RvR, less sport PvP

[Hutch]

Dev Chat Log from Warcry

Sorry if this is a repost.

[Mrbloodworth]

Hmm. Let's look at their PvP endgame:

Engage in four levels of RvR combat:
Skirmishes: Incidental PvP combat
Battlefields: Objective-based battles in the game world
Scenarios: Instanced, point-based battles balanced with NPC Dogs of War
Campaigns: The invasion of enemy lands culminating in the assault on their capital city

So...Tarren Mill/STV ganking, Halaa/Silithis/etc world-pvp stuff, Alterac Valley et al, and invading Org/Stormwind/wherever. Yep, I can certainly see why that's worth a higher monthly fee than WoW. 

From what i understand, PvP isn't the endgame. It is the game.

[tazelbain]

Not going to defend a price increase.

PvP that is integrated into the low-level game would be new indeed.  My hypothesis is that PvP games psychologically set themselves for failure.  For example  SB and Eve, you wouldn't even know the central focus of the games is PvP judging by the low-level game.  People get use to playing the game a certain way than you pull the rug out from under them.  Fury showed that you can't just through them in the deep end either.  If you are going make a mass-market PvP your going to have to teach/acclimate a lot of people to PvP.  I think the tiered approach is good but I am concerned that many WoW players are going to hide in the PvE( as they have taught to do in other games) and not experience PvP until they run out of PvE stuff to do in the 4th tier.  By that time, they'll be ill prepared for 4th tier because they never got any PvP training in the lower tiers.  If I was Mythic I'd be be running focus groups with hardcore carebears from WoW to figure out ways to entrice them to pvp early.

[Merusk]

  If I was Mythic I'd be be running focus groups with hardcore carebears from WoW to figure out ways to entrice them to pvp early.

You won't do it.  If a person is a hardcore carebear, they simply don't want and don't like PvP.  My wife is one, and my PvE Guildleader is one.  They refuse to go into BGs or do Arenas, even when pointed out how much less time it takes to get some gear that better than what they can obtain from PvE.

   My wife simply hates the pace involved in PvP (she's slow to decide on things).  There's no way to get her involved as she'll ALWAYS lose.  She has rough times taking on 2-3 mobs at once in PvE and that's 'simpler.'  She's more of a social/ co-op gamer than a killer and that's not going to change.  That's before you even get into the other stuff that turns off my GL.  The dick-waving,  the gimp of certain specs, the unpredictable nature of the opponent, the fact that as a healer he'd spend 60-70% of his time waiting on the ressurection timer.

[Ratman_tf]

Maybe Taz was wondering how to intimate that a game's focus is PvP early, as opposed to too soon or too late.

Hardcore Carebears, by definition, don't even want to get near PvP, much less try it out.

[Soukyan]

Well, Mythic took one step towards integrating PvP into the entire game with the low level battlegrounds that they had added to DAoC. Although it did not make PvP the entire game, it made it much more readily available at a very early point for the player. It stlil allowed PvE players to completely bypass and ignore it, however. If they can manage to make PvP integral to the game in WAR, then Mythic will score a big win on the game design front. I somehow think that it will still take a seat next to PvE as there are a lot of folks who still want the easy availability of RPG quests and other trappings at their convenience and in a somewhat predictable mechanism. After all, if any major game mechanic requires PvP to advance, and there is a lack of opponents during your playtime, you lose out.

[Simond]

Dev Chat Log from Warcry

Sorry if this is a repost.

<DelmarWynn> {Arenammo}leobassist: How important the PvE content will be to the PvP/RvR content, Will the best itens, money be in the PvE, or it will only be a EXTRA to the game experience?

<[WAR]Wheeler> The best gear is gained via RvR actions, but there is a variety of ways to gather items.
<[WAR]Gersh> High end PvE content will net you some sweet loot
<[WAR]Gersh> but we're also matching those rewards in RvR as well
<[WAR]Gersh> ultimately like Brian said the very best gear will come from Capitol City events which is primarily RvR but does have some PvE components as well
<[WAR]Josh> The question's a TAD misleading, as there will be really great, high-level stuff available from both PvE AND RvR combat. You won't be able to get all of the absolutely best stuff in the game without playing through both parts of the world. With that said, the ultimate, super-awesome items will come from City Siege and capture. Just remember that invading an enemy city opens up new PvE content as well, so it really is a synergy of the two

Anyone still think this is a pure PvP game?

[Merusk]

I never did.. but that right there is going to make those 4-hour long WOW raids look like child's play in terms of logistics and catassing.  So the uber-organized with large chunks of time will be getting uber lewtz and crushing all.. leading them to more uber lewtz with which to pwn your face.

Tee Hee.

Now it remains to be seen just HOW uber those lewtz are in comparison to what your average joe, "I don't have time for an all-saturday assult on the Elf city" will have.

[Draegan]

So first you have to raid a city, then raid a dungeon?

I hope it's not instanced so we can compete against other people for those raid mobs.

[Mrbloodworth]

Dev Chat Log from Warcry

Sorry if this is a repost.

<DelmarWynn> {Arenammo}leobassist: How important the PvE content will be to the PvP/RvR content, Will the best itens, money be in the PvE, or it will only be a EXTRA to the game experience?

<[WAR]Wheeler> The best gear is gained via RvR actions, but there is a variety of ways to gather items.
<[WAR]Gersh> High end PvE content will net you some sweet loot
<[WAR]Gersh> but we're also matching those rewards in RvR as well
<[WAR]Gersh> ultimately like Brian said the very best gear will come from Capitol City events which is primarily RvR but does have some PvE components as well
<[WAR]Josh> The question's a TAD misleading, as there will be really great, high-level stuff available from both PvE AND RvR combat. You won't be able to get all of the absolutely best stuff in the game without playing through both parts of the world. With that said, the ultimate, super-awesome items will come from City Siege and capture. Just remember that invading an enemy city opens up new PvE content as well, so it really is a synergy of the two

Anyone still think this is a pure PvP game?

I don't think anyone said it was, i think the point people are trying to make, is that PvP isn't a tack on after the fact. It runs all the way through the game.

Nothing he is saying is bad, they are just describing the many avenues to get "Good gear". Things are not always black and white. They are intermixing PvP, PvE and "RvR". Even the PvE helps uout the RvR....ETC...

As far as the raids, i'm sure i read they have stopping points of about 30-1 hour (depending on you) where you can pick it back up.anyway,  If you like raiding, i don't understand why Raiders complain about time required anyway, as they will be the first to tell you that they "Earned it" (as in devoted the time) when they are boasting about it, and the only reason they are boasting about it, is because they know normal people don't have that much time to devote. Right about the time the item can be bought off a vender, they will be right back to complaining that now its worthless and to easy. moral of the story, Raiders LOVE long head bashing, mind numbingly long raid areas.

[tmp]

So first you have to raid a city, then raid a dungeon?

I hope it's not instanced so we can compete against other people for those raid mobs.

LotRO is about to do that actually with their next update, albeit on lesser scale. They put public PvEvP dungeon into their PvP zone, either of both competing sides can enter it by controlling 3 out of 5 hotspots on zone surface (hotspots are guarded by group-scale PvE mobs and players from opposing side)  The raid mobs inside dungeon are something people will likely wind up fighting over, on top of the enemy players coming in the middle of encounter to crash the party.

They aren't using green ink in the announcements, either.

[Mrbloodworth]

^ Your talking about Monster play. PvM.

And that set up makes since, and sounds fun.

But they way you describe it is like its a shared horde and alliance raid, and its not.

[tmp]

^ Your talking about Monster play. PvM.

And that set up makes since, and sounds fun.

But they way you describe it is like its a shared horde and alliance raid, and its not.

I was referring to the part that's competing over the spawns in public dungeon. There's going to be two kinds of competition over these spawns. One is the regular "players and monsters competing to kill the mob for lewt" thing, and the other is "who the fuck tagged that spawn, it's greyed out to our group" straight from the 'good old times'.

[Mrbloodworth]

Sounds awesome to me man.

[Triforcer]

Maybe its just me, but there seems to be a lot of free-floating hostility concerning WAR.  Yes, people criticize AoC, but there it seems like people don't THINK it will succeed because of various factors:  General Funcom suckitude, bad design decisions, etc.  With WAR, it seems like the haters don't WANT it to succeed.  If the younger ganker-bunker-mentality me were to comment, I'd almost say that the vast carebear conspiracy really wants WAR to fail so they can continue to say nobody likes PvP.

[Lantyssa]

My wife simply hates the pace involved in PvP (she's slow to decide on things).  There's no way to get her involved as she'll ALWAYS lose.  She has rough times taking on 2-3 mobs at once in PvE and that's 'simpler.'  She's more of a social/ co-op gamer than a killer and that's not going to change.  That's before you even get into the other stuff that turns off my GL.  The dick-waving,  the gimp of certain specs, the unpredictable nature of the opponent, the fact that as a healer he'd spend 60-70% of his time waiting on the ressurection timer.

Bingo!  I'm the same.

I have trouble concentrating on things like my health or mana if I have to focus on hitting the button for the newly refreshed power which means I'm not paying much attention to changing battlefield conditions.  Basically the UI fades from my view.  I usually cannot process it all at once.

(Somehow that did not always apply when I played a Druid in WoW.  There were a few times all hell broke lose and we recovered through my rapid shifting yet I'd get confused on what was happening while fighting small, easy groups.  I still don't understand it.)

[Simond]

Maybe its just me, but there seems to be a lot of free-floating hostility concerning WAR.  Yes, people criticize AoC, but there it seems like people don't THINK it will succeed because of various factors:  General Funcom suckitude, bad design decisions, etc.  With WAR, it seems like the haters don't WANT it to succeed.  If the younger ganker-bunker-mentality me were to comment, I'd almost say that the vast carebear conspiracy really wants WAR to fail so they can continue to say nobody likes PvP.

Apart from the minor detail that over five million subscribers are playing on PvP servers in WoW, and the other five million are still playing on servers with BGs & arenas. (And cue "WoW pvp isn't real pvp" )

[Triforcer]

I fought that fight a page ago.  Some people have it locked in their heads that "PvP" is whatever the UO ruleset was in December 1997.  If they hold to that standard, they can continue to say "EVERYONE HATES PVP" without any cognitive dissonance. 

[cevik]

Bingo!  I'm the same.

I have trouble concentrating on things like my health or mana if I have to focus on hitting the button for the newly refreshed power which means I'm not paying much attention to changing battlefield conditions.  Basically the UI fades from my view.  I usually cannot process it all at once.

(Somehow that did not always apply when I played a Druid in WoW.  There were a few times all hell broke lose and we recovered through my rapid shifting yet I'd get confused on what was happening while fighting small, easy groups.  I still don't understand it.)

That's why everyone makes mods that puts that info right in front of your character instead of on the peripheral parts of the screen, so that you have the information sorta right in your face.

But if you really want to get good at PvP, just get really really really really stoned every night before you pvp.  Like for a month just get so blitzed that you can even remember what you did the night before.  I'm talking sit down and smoke at least 3 big bowls before you even log in.  After a month, stop getting high before you play.  You'll be amazed at how much faster you are.

Not that I've tried that or anything.

[eldaec]

Maybe its just me, but there seems to be a lot of free-floating hostility concerning WAR.  Yes, people criticize AoC, but there it seems like people don't THINK it will succeed because of various factors:  General Funcom suckitude, bad design decisions, etc.  With WAR, it seems like the haters don't WANT it to succeed.  If the younger ganker-bunker-mentality me were to comment, I'd almost say that the vast carebear conspiracy really wants WAR to fail so they can continue to say nobody likes PvP.

I suspect with some people its associating it with SB and UO style free form or guild v guild pvp. Which RvR is nothing like.

I'm not saying it's everyone, just a lot of posts seem to imply people want to pidgeon hole this either with alterac valley on one extreme, or with SB on the other.

five million subscribers are playing on PvP servers in WoW

Yeah, well, PvP servers on WoW still don't seem to focus on PvP objectives or PvP as acheiver endgame, so I can agree that they don't seem that relevant to WAR.

I'd be interested to hear from high level WoW pvp server people, just how much main-zone pvp do you ever really see?

I can understand why people feel WoW pvp servers don't positively demonstrate a demand for pvp focussed mmogs, I just don't see why some posts seem to suggest the only alternative models in trying to build such a demand are guild wars or shadowbane.


I know some people just think daoc sucked and rvr is crap. I'm not trying to suggest those people have this point of view.

[Simond]

Yeah, well, PvP servers on WoW still don't seem to focus on PvP objectives or PvP as acheiver endgame, so I can agree that they don't seem that relevant to WAR.

A lot of the 'normal' zones in TBC have PvP objectives & quests for them. Essentially they don't work on most servers, though, because of population imbalances.

I'd be interested to hear from high level WoW pvp server people, just how much main-zone pvp do you ever really see?

L70s riding around and ganking newbies is pretty much it.

[eldaec]

My wife simply hates the pace involved in PvP (she's slow to decide on things).  There's no way to get her involved as she'll ALWAYS lose.  She has rough times taking on 2-3 mobs at once in PvE and that's 'simpler.'  She's more of a social/ co-op gamer than a killer and that's not going to change.  That's before you even get into the other stuff that turns off my GL.  The dick-waving,  the gimp of certain specs, the unpredictable nature of the opponent, the fact that as a healer he'd spend 60-70% of his time waiting on the ressurection timer.

Bingo!  I'm the same.

I have trouble concentrating on things like my health or mana if I have to focus on hitting the button for the newly refreshed power which means I'm not paying much attention to changing battlefield conditions.  Basically the UI fades from my view.  I usually cannot process it all at once.

(Somehow that did not always apply when I played a Druid in WoW.  There were a few times all hell broke lose and we recovered through my rapid shifting yet I'd get confused on what was happening while fighting small, easy groups.  I still don't understand it.)

Personally I think this is mostly because pve focussed games with pvp added on have combat abilities designed for pve.

As the opposition in pve will never do anything clever, the game designs have compensated by making your comabt process more complicated and require quicker clicking.

In a pvp focussed game there is no reason you couldn't slow combat decision making down so it doesn't feel as though it is so much about who clicks first.


This would also allow you to get cleverer about combat ability design and make the game more about picking the right strategy for what you suspectthe other guy is about to do. (a good example of this is EVE, which has all sorts of other accessibility 'challenges', but combat is not about fastest finger first)


I don't think WAR is going to do anything like this - I make the point purely on an academic level.

[UnSub]

I fought that fight a page ago.  Some people have it locked in their heads that "PvP" is whatever the UO ruleset was in December 1997.  If they hold to that standard, they can continue to say "EVERYONE HATES PVP" without any cognitive dissonance. 

As a citizen of Carebearia, I can can also make an overly general accusation that the citizens of Peeveepeeville travel the "OMG LERN2PLAY LOL TRAMMEL CRYBABY" path just as often.

I want WAR to succeed. I want AoC to succeed. However, I don't have the time to put in to get good at PvP. I'm a casual player who already crawls along at non-optimal speed playing non-optimal builds. A game that trumpets about how great its PvP is doesn't really interest me since I might try it a few times only to confirm my suspicions - that I'm not good at PvP and work only as grist for the mill. If PvP / RvR is the 'core' game, then it probably isn't for me.

We'll know after WAR and AoC launches exactly how these things play out. The RvR / PvP may not be what you want from a game while I might find the PvE exquisitely designed. The devil is in the details.

[Venkman]

I like that WAR and AoC are both big investment games trying to tackle PvP from different angles. AoC seems to be trying to offer this as the goal to hit aftering PvEing while WAR seems to be trying to offer this as an alongside activity while leveling. You're absolutely right in the details thing. The part I didn't like about leveling-up PvP in WoW was that you only gained "points" in a completely separate "XP" (Honor) track, while leaving your main XP track stalled, and therefore gaining no new abilities.

There has to be a better way. I'd prefer XP from PvP, and no, I don't give a shit that people would sploit it to hit max level. You can stall that but not stop it anyway, and it happens already. To me people are there to have the fun they were sold on as being available. If you use levels to distribute new abilities, they shouldn't be blocked from that by asinine rinse-repeat universally-dumb-AI soloable mobs.

[stray]

All the little implementation details aside, I'm interested in AoC's pvp more than WAR because there's room there for a social metagame. It may not be Shadowbane, but at least there's something there for that. WAR, on the other hand, just like DAoC and WoW, is just very cut and dry "competition", with artificial sides, no communication, no politics, zilch. Your primary goal is more loot. Yay.

[Fordel]

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.

[Zetor]

I'd be interested to hear from high level WoW pvp server people, just how much main-zone pvp do you ever really see?

I posted this on the previous page, but pretty much zero. Sometimes you get groups of gankers rampaging through lowbie areas/towns until they're eventually stopped by the lv70 mains of the newbies they ganked.

Even-level pvp doesn't really exist while leveling up either, most horde/alliance are content to quest peacefully next to each other, since ganking / getting ganked just turns into a huge waste of leveling/questing time, especially if the incident escalates to calling in multiple 70s, etc. You get the occasional driveby gank from a 70, but by the time you're back to your corpse, they're gone.

This is on a pvp server that has slightly more horde characters, and slightly more horde activity (1:1.2 according to warcraftrealms).

Edited to add: The world pvp objectives don't see much action either. There is never any 'war' for the Auchindoun towers that become player-capturable once every 6 hours; whoever is there at the time / quicker to capture them gets them (maybe there's a skirmish, but it's always lopsided one way or the other). Halaa (the pvp-capturable city) has no persistent player defense, typically 2-3 people capture it to get the pve rewards and then leave it undefended for the other side to capture.


-- Z.

[Velorath]

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.

TOA was the only major fuckup DAOC had post-launch that really pissed people off.  There were balance issues throughout the game also, but when you have that many classes in a PVP focused game, that's always going to be the case.  Having left that game shortly after TOA released and having just resubbed with some old guildies (who also left around the same time) in this last month, I think DAOC has actually seen a lot of improvement in the last couple years.  The UI too shitty to ever be able to attract new players, but it's no surprise that they aren't going to overhaul the game to that extent with WAR on the horizon.

As far as the conversation about getting carebears into PVP goes, I think RVR in a lot of ways is actually pretty good at that, or at least it was for me.  When you get into large scale combat like that, even if you aren't a particularly skilled PVP player, you still feel like you're contributing something to your side just by being there.  It's not like an arena team or a battleground where you're taking up a slot that could be filled by someone better.  Any small amount or healing or damage you do, or even just adding an extra target that the enemy has to take down, contributes something to your side, and in DAOC's case as long as you were able to stay alive for a little while in some of the battles, you'd get some realm points out of it.  I think that's really the heart of making PVP for people who don't like PVP.  You always feel like you're adding something to your side even if you suck, and you get rewarded for participating.

[AngryGumball]

Yeah, well, PvP servers on WoW still don't seem to focus on PvP objectives or PvP as acheiver endgame, so I can agree that they don't seem that relevant to WAR.

A lot of the 'normal' zones in TBC have PvP objectives & quests for them. Essentially they don't work on most servers, though, because of population imbalances.

I'd be interested to hear from high level WoW pvp server people, just how much main-zone pvp do you ever really see?

L70s riding around and ganking newbies is pretty much it.

That comment about Level 70s riding around....

Is the same mentality as those holding to oldschool UO pvp.

[Velorath]

Yeah, well, PvP servers on WoW still don't seem to focus on PvP objectives or PvP as acheiver endgame, so I can agree that they don't seem that relevant to WAR.

A lot of the 'normal' zones in TBC have PvP objectives & quests for them. Essentially they don't work on most servers, though, because of population imbalances.

Population imbalance barely enters into it.  They don't work, because there's little incentive to actually do most of them or they just weren't well thought out.  The one in Hellfire Peninsula in fact almost actively discourages one side to try to hold any of the areas after they've captured them, because other people have to be able to actually take them back from the enemy in order to get credit for the daily quest.

[Simond]

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.

Trouble is that then punishes the underpopulated side even further - not only are they losing the world PvP anyway, but they're also not getting the rewards either. Therefore the objective rewards have to be perks at best...which then means there's no drive to take part in world pvp other than trading captures to finish dailies.

[K9]

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.

Trouble is that then punishes the underpopulated side even further - not only are they losing the world PvP anyway, but they're also not getting the rewards either. Therefore the objective rewards have to be perks at best...which then means there's no drive to take part in world pvp other than trading captures to finish dailies.

Such is the nature and problem of PvP in a game with predetermined sides. WoW is particularly at this for reasons beyond population imbalances.

[Venkman]

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

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. It's certainly a valid statement, but does not represent a significant percentage of the players they hope to retain (which you can kinda tell based on the newsletters and other gamer-facing marketing/PR).

[Numtini]

TOA was the only major fuckup DAOC had post-launch that really pissed people off.  There were balance issues throughout the game also, but when you have that many classes in a PVP focused game, that's always going to be the case. 

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.

And on the balance, I think the class balance issues were secondary to the glacial first in first out method of tweaking them. If your "fix" didn't fix you, you knew it was going to be 18 months before you got another look. That practice has got to go.

As far as the conversation about getting carebears into PVP goes, I think RVR in a lot of ways is actually pretty good at that, or at least it was for me

I completely agree, I was very very skeptical and hadn't even planned to buy DAOC, but I was completely converted. The key is grief, not PVP. People like PVP, they like the competition, they like the comraderie of fighting alongside their friends, but don't like grief. Single best decision was no communication between realms.

[Merusk]

Personally I think this is mostly because pve focussed games with pvp added on have combat abilities designed for pve.

As the opposition in pve will never do anything clever, the game designs have compensated by making your comabt process more complicated and require quicker clicking.

In a pvp focussed game there is no reason you couldn't slow combat decision making down so it doesn't feel as though it is so much about who clicks first.


This would also allow you to get cleverer about combat ability design and make the game more about picking the right strategy for what you suspectthe other guy is about to do. (a good example of this is EVE, which has all sorts of other accessibility 'challenges', but combat is not about fastest finger first)


I don't think WAR is going to do anything like this - I make the point purely on an academic level.

Combat in EVE is very much fastest finger first and quickest reactions, at least on the small-scale.  Noticing the ships that just warped-in on you, assessing who's targeting you, can you handle it, should you warp, etc.  If you're too slow at information processing you're going to lose.    I can guarantee my wife would be too damn slow at it 10 out of 10 times.  Hell, I'M too slow at it pretty damn often, which is why I stay out of lowsec and rely on my tank to keep me alive long enough to get lost when I do go there. (easy to make decisions when your decision is always "warp out then dock/ jump to a system with a dock if you see unfriendlies")

This is why she PvE's.  She can nab mobs at her own pace, there's a 'safe' spot to stand in and just go through the motions while focused on other things. 

Also, it's a balancing act.  If you slow down things too much to compensate for the noobs/ slow players you're going to drive off the better players or folks with quicker reactions because they'll get bored.  Fights that take longer than 20-30 seconds get boring very quickly for the ADD types.