Global Thematic PvP changes discussion thread

[veredus]

There's plenty of us leveling slow in Bat Country.

[Nebu]

There's plenty of us leveling slow in Bat Country.

Tell me what you need and I'll be there.  I think I have a rp, but seems redundant to have two of them in a group.

[tazelbain]

It's really not.  Just the buff rune doesn't stack, but all the HoT stack.

[Zira]

Its really not.  Just the buff rune doesn't stack, but all the HoT stack.

This is one thing WAR got right, and AOC fucked up soooooo badly.  AOC healers didnt stack at all at launch.

[UnSub]

The basic point of PQs as a game mechanic is to incentivize casual social play--to get the best of both worlds. The same for scenarios--it's to structure social play in such a way that you can log on, click a button, and blam! get into it. If instead you have to find a guild that has a critical mass of people who want to do certain kinds of content at the same time that you want to do it and are available to do it, and more complicatedly yet, you have to do that at a time when there's a guild of strangers from the other faction who are happily synchronized with you in order to have real fun, then the PQ mechanic and maybe even the scenarios are kind of useless adornments.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

WAR's biggest issue appears to be server population - I read elsewhere that the actual per server population limits are in the range of 5000 (so 2500 per side) so that means each server can fill up quite quickly (someone can tell me I'm wrong if this is incorrect). However, a lot of the content only works if you have large population sizes that allows for a decent player distribution over the content range. When I'm playing off-peak (which is my usual play time) only one scenario will pop regularly (although infrequently) and you rarely see enough players getting together to do a PQ successfully. At least Order side. Destro appears to have less of an issue, but then they have to queue and I understand they run into the same problems at T3.

So WAR's much vaulted strengths are getting undercut by not letting enough people getting together to play. If WAR had half the number of servers but twice the maximum server population allowed, I'm sure we'd be seeing a very different game.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The basic point of PQs as a game mechanic is to incentivize casual social play--to get the best of both worlds. The same for scenarios--it's to structure social play in such a way that you can log on, click a button, and blam! get into it. If instead you have to find a guild that has a critical mass of people who want to do certain kinds of content at the same time that you want to do it and are available to do it, and more complicatedly yet, you have to do that at a time when there's a guild of strangers from the other faction who are happily synchronized with you in order to have real fun, then the PQ mechanic and maybe even the scenarios are kind of useless adornments.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

WAR's biggest issue appears to be server population - I read elsewhere that the actual per server population limits are in the range of 5000 (so 2500 per side) so that means each server can fill up quite quickly (someone can tell me I'm wrong if this is incorrect). However, a lot of the content only works if you have large population sizes that allows for a decent player distribution over the content range. When I'm playing off-peak (which is my usual play time) only one scenario will pop regularly (although infrequently) and you rarely see enough players getting together to do a PQ successfully. At least Order side. Destro appears to have less of an issue, but then they have to queue and I understand they run into the same problems at T3.

So WAR's much vaulted strengths are getting undercut by not letting enough people getting together to play. If WAR had half the number of servers but twice the maximum server population allowed, I'm sure we'd be seeing a very different game.

I think this is a direct result of how testing in beta was done in blocks. it basically forced players to all be in the same teir at the same time, thus achieving maximum player saturation. It all falls apart however when people get further and further spread out.

[Oz]

Tell me what you need and I'll be there. 

Yeah, Lucerok (white lion) and myself (Ozeigi, ironbreaker) are taking our sweet time.  Still in T2 even...

[Nebu]

I'm a level 9 RP named Codger.  I'll try to catch up.  Been playing my level 20 RP on another server, but getting tired of playing with small groups and pugs.  Nothing like healing for 120k hp and having BW's tell you that you suck at healing. 

[Phunked]

The basic point of PQs as a game mechanic is to incentivize casual social play--to get the best of both worlds. The same for scenarios--it's to structure social play in such a way that you can log on, click a button, and blam! get into it. If instead you have to find a guild that has a critical mass of people who want to do certain kinds of content at the same time that you want to do it and are available to do it, and more complicatedly yet, you have to do that at a time when there's a guild of strangers from the other faction who are happily synchronized with you in order to have real fun, then the PQ mechanic and maybe even the scenarios are kind of useless adornments.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

WAR's biggest issue appears to be server population - I read elsewhere that the actual per server population limits are in the range of 5000 (so 2500 per side) so that means each server can fill up quite quickly (someone can tell me I'm wrong if this is incorrect). However, a lot of the content only works if you have large population sizes that allows for a decent player distribution over the content range. When I'm playing off-peak (which is my usual play time) only one scenario will pop regularly (although infrequently) and you rarely see enough players getting together to do a PQ successfully. At least Order side. Destro appears to have less of an issue, but then they have to queue and I understand they run into the same problems at T3.

So WAR's much vaulted strengths are getting undercut by not letting enough people getting together to play. If WAR had half the number of servers but twice the maximum server population allowed, I'm sure we'd be seeing a very different game.

I think this is a direct result of how testing in beta was done in blocks. it basically forced players to all be in the same teir at the same time, thus achieving maximum player saturation. It all falls apart however when people get further and further spread out.

So what you're saying is that when they were testing the game, they weren't actually testing the game that real people are playing, but some other, magical game that doesn't exist anywhere except for in Mythic's imagination?

You know what, now that I think about this, that doesn't seem to be too far from the truth.

[tazelbain]

They weren't testing the game at normal player distributions.

[Phunked]

They weren't testing the game at normal player distributions.

Which would lead me argue that they really should have been.

I like the WoW betas: let people just play the damn game the way they want to play it and they'll give you the feedback you need. Targeted testing works best with commercial testers, not people who are doing it for free and for fun. You just get too much QQ this way.

[schild]

I like the WoW betas: let people just play the damn game the way they want to play it and they'll give you the feedback you need.

WoW betas? You surely mean every beta that isn't WAR.

[Oz]

Code:

I'm a level 9 RP named Codger.

I'll keep an eye out.

[Phunked]

I like the WoW betas: let people just play the damn game the way they want to play it and they'll give you the feedback you need.

WoW betas? You surely mean every beta that isn't WAR.

Pretty much, yeah.

[Venkman]

They weren't testing the game at normal player distributions.

Yes. Even though I got filetted for implying the same thing in the 500k WAR thread

I think they assumed their player control mechanisms were going to work and never bothered testing what ifs.

[Rasix]

They weren't testing the game at normal player distributions.

Which would lead me argue that they really should have been.

Of course they should have.  We've pretty much seen through playing that trying to divide your game into tiers and test the segments is an abject failure. You do that sort of stuff with your testers and QA people.

The only thing beta testers not under your employ should be testing is the entire game and providing feedback at that.  The end-to-end experience.  When you really only test in segments, you end up with something that ends up feeling uneven (and some stuff that just doesn't work when pieced together with the rest).  With all of the wipes, focus tests, etc they never likely got enough of a prolonged end-to-end test.  They probably had some people getting to higher levels but poopsockers and exploiters aren't going to give you the best feedback on how your game needs to work for the masses.

[UnSub]

The reality of it is that you probably need to do both - test the blocks of content to see how they work in isolation, then test it end-to-end. But it's not a valid comparison to lvl up everyone for a concentrated 4 hour play test, then extrapolate those findings to how things will work at launch. Especially if you do some last minute character advancement changes.