PSA: I want to fistfight whoever designed the T4 and T3 scenarios.

[tazelbain]

How can you train them?  It's not like EvE were you can stick them in a Griffin, throw on a webber and a warp disrupter, and have them tag along.

[wuzzman]

Fury's game play was total shit, in addition to being an empty wankfest. At least WAR's mechanics are decent though flawed.

While I can agree that fury was an extra crappy game, I think your reasoning is way off.

no pvp game, designed seriously should have incremented power advances at the "EPIC BOSS RAIDING HERO WITH FLAMING SWORD OF EVEN MORE EPIC OWNAGE" levels, which is what WAR has and coincidentally failing partly because...

oh and Goreschach if you segregated your playerbase by win/loss ratio (something that Fury of course didn't) than I'm 100% sure you won't need 40 levels.

[squirrel]

Posting from a crap cell but I have to say theres no way I am doing 7 more levels of Tor Anoc. Ill just level alts.

[Maegril]

How can you train them?  It's not like EvE were you can stick them in a Griffin, throw on a webber and a warp disrupter, and have them tag along.

You don't, the devs do.  By parcelling out abilities at a rate that the players get very comfortable with the abilities before they get new ones.  By throwing them into simple scenarios first ("Stand here and fight!" in T1, "Divide into an offensive and defensive force, protect and fight" in at least some of T2, "Figure out how to be mobile while fighting on multiple fronts" in T3, etc.).  All of this takes time for an honest-to-god new player to assimilate, and that is why you can't grind easily to L40 in a day of play time.  I suspect there are ancillary reasons for stuff like the PvE, not the least of which is to try to grab previous PvE only players with decent to good PvE and hope they'll convert to RvR through the low barriers to entry.  But it all serves an additional purpose other than simply frustrating people who want to be 40 already just to get to the real "meat" of the game.  There simply aren't enough of the latter type of players, really, to make WAR much bigger than DAoC, because the market hasn't been grown substantially for RvR style combat by any other game out there.

[Warskull]

This game would basically be perfect if they hadn't wasted 2 years creating a 40 level pve grind nobody wants, a big empty world nobody uses, a million fucking items everyone hates, and just had everything scenario based, with a chat lobby.

Fury did well.

Guild Wars did phenomenal and is still the only game of that style to offer a solid competitive PvP experience I have ever played.  Fury failed because its designers were incompetent and jumped into a genre they had no experience in and ignored all advice from people who knew what they were talking about.  All Fury had to do was release a mediocre game to steal a player base, they release a spectacular failure instead.

Anyways, on scenario design... could you punch him a few times for me to?

Great Scenarios:
Nordwatch
Gates of Ekrund

Good Scenarios:
Mourkain Temple
Lost Temple

The rest have tons of glaring issue that need to be addressed.   Some are near impossible to complete the objective with pugs, others it is flat out impossible to complete the objective if the other team isn't afk (Talabec Dam), mechanics are glitchy (capping the Shrines at Highpass will cancel if anyone in your group does or takes damage, Tor does this too a lot with the bauble), and others are downright imbalanced (destro gets to the bauble faster in Tor, Lost temple sees order to the center first every time.)

People are herded into the most rewarding scenarios because some are incredibly low scoring and are usually blow outs for one side.  Good scenarios end 500 to 300 in your average game.  Every scenarios scoring needs to be altered to mirror this.  People like higher scoring games because they are more rewarding.

The core game of WAR is fun and interesting, but it really feels like someone punched it in the balls on release day and it never recovered.

Scenarios need a huge overhaul for the long term success of this game.  However, they are one of the few things that sort of works right so they are back burner.  If scenarios are missing an arm, Open RvR and PvE took a bullet to the head.

1.  Doomfist Crater (awesome).
2.  Temple of Isha
3a. Talabec Dam
3b. Black Fire Basin
4. Tor Arnoc
5.  High Pass Pass Cemetery (Never Popped for me)

I know this will sound crazy, but Tor really is the best map in T3.  The map itself has so many issues, the lava fills everyone with boiling rage, and I hate whoever designed Tor with a burning passion.  However, the murderball mechanic is still the best one.

In Doomfist and Temple it tends to be a one sided blow out.  You go and fight for the center, if you wipe you go and try one more time.  At this point unless your team is demonstrating good longevity and proving to have incredibly close fights scoring many kills you are best off leaving.  If your team gets wiped frequently you score no points, the kills you do get give meager rewards, and you are best off leaving and getting another match.  Murderball usually ends up rewarding the losing team just enough to keep them going and is the best scenario when you are joining solo or with small groups and realize the idiots are out in force on your side.

Now if Doomfist or Temple was changed so you scored more points for killing when you didn't have the center, but the points for killing while you had the center was also increased it would be great.  The matches would end a bit faster and with a 500-200 or 500-300 score instead of the 500-20 blowouts that discourage teams from queuing again.

[BitWarrior]

Guild Wars did phenomenal and is still the only game of that style to offer a solid competitive PvP experience I have ever played. 

This might sound odd, but WAR has almost left me wanting to reinstall Guild Wars again.

[schild]

HAH. I FORGOT GUILD WARS HAD PVP.

That's hilarious.

[Nebu]

You're enjoying this entirely too much. 

[Warskull]

Guild Wars did phenomenal and is still the only game of that style to offer a solid competitive PvP experience I have ever played. 

This might sound odd, but WAR has almost left me wanting to reinstall Guild Wars again.

Yeah, but then you'll play a GvG and realize the competition all left, the metagame is shifted to builds that are extremely boring, and the game is a shell of its former self.  Even with its flaws, I still see A.net as the only real hope for a decent PvP oriented game with Guild Wars 2.  They seem to only people who get the "people prefer to be killing each other, not grinding in preparation for killing each other" concept.

[tazelbain]

HAH. I FORGOT GUILD WARS HAD PVP.

That's hilarious.

You never got to pvp because you never stopped bitching that their wasn't diablo-style loot.

[schild]

HAH. I FORGOT GUILD WARS HAD PVP.

That's hilarious.

You never got to pvp because you never stopped bitching that their wasn't diablo-style loot.

I have 2 max characters in Guild Wars. And I did PVP. I just didn't remember.

[HaemishM]

I know this will sound crazy, but Tor really is the best map in T3.  The map itself has so many issues, the lava fills everyone with boiling rage, and I hate whoever designed Tor with a burning passion.  However, the murderball mechanic is still the best one.

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Tor Anroc is the lcd scenario design for retarded monkeys who like to push their own orgasm button. It is SHIT. The lava combined with knockback just makes it worse. You might as well just make one big island in a sea of lava and spawn everyone into that one little island for all the strategy that is involved in Tor. FUCK A BUNCH OF TOR ANROC.

The Dam scenario, which I've managed to get to pop all of once, is still my favorite from T3.

[Nebu]

Haem, the guy also likes Mourkain.  There's no accounting for taste. 

[Righ]

There's no accounting for taste. 

In this crazy world there probably exists such a thing as taste accountants. But they probably aren't on the Internet.

[mol]

I honestly think that most of the scenarios are over-designed. As an example Talabec Dam: It's damned-near impossible to cap, but I've won the game with 500 a couple times. This requires tactical thinking and a level of organization you don't very often get in pugs. You need to tie up and/or CC the enemy force away from the cap point, without killing them for long enough to cap. Of course, no one does this and it turns into a 12v12 arena battle in the center. Couple that with being required to pug and...

It reinforces the fact that most people are just two-legged cows who can't get their heads out of their own asses for long enough to think objectively.

The scenarios that do the best for pugs are the ones that require zero thought: Tor (KILL THE GUY WITH THE THING), Isha and Doomfist (TURTLE! TURTLE! TURTLE). All the rest of them, while they have the potential to be well-played and awesome scenarios, are just victim to being to subtle/requiring too much actual thought to complete.

edit: I'm a horrible typist.

[Warskull]

I know this will sound crazy, but Tor really is the best map in T3.  The map itself has so many issues, the lava fills everyone with boiling rage, and I hate whoever designed Tor with a burning passion.  However, the murderball mechanic is still the best one.

No. No. No. No. No. No.

Tor Anroc is the lcd scenario design for retarded monkeys who like to push their own orgasm button. It is SHIT. The lava combined with knockback just makes it worse. You might as well just make one big island in a sea of lava and spawn everyone into that one little island for all the strategy that is involved in Tor. FUCK A BUNCH OF TOR ANROC.

The Dam scenario, which I've managed to get to pop all of once, is still my favorite from T3.

Murderball is a simple format, generally very action packed, and always a high scoring game.  When you are tossed into a scenario with a bunch of unorganized players who don't have a clue what is going on it works very well.  Talabec requires you to run a ball in on a short timer to a goal and then go through a six second cap process that requires no enemy to be within 100 feet for it to be successful.  Any competent team can prevent caps with 2-3 players.  Murderball also usually ends with the losing team scoring at least 200 points unless it is a complete blow out.  Furthermore, it one of the only scenario types where the objective is also the most rewarding way to play.  So half your team doesn't ignore the objective.

These scenarios are played with disorganized players.  How well a scenario plays with a bad players in it significantly impacts how well it does.  Tor plays better with bad players than the others.  The map itself needs a lot of work, but it is one of the better T3 maps.

[Paelos]

Simplistic with the most rewards doesn't make a scenario good. It makes it horribly repetative and boring. Murderball has no style or skill involved in it at all. It's a bunch of monkeys trying to fuck a football. Once in a while it's fine, but it dominates the game because the players are dps-heavy slobbering idiots chasing the quickest shineh! A scenario without an objective is not a scenario. Hell, a game without an objective isn't a game.

Murderball has NO OBJECTIVE. Killing is not an objective, it's the byproduct of attacking/defending/holding the objective. Otherwise, Murderball is just as stupid as WoW Arenas in terms of pvp.

[tazelbain]

Simplistic with the most rewards doesn't make a scenario good. It makes it horribly repetative and boring. Murderball has no style or skill involved in it at all. It's a bunch of monkeys trying to fuck a football. Once in a while it's fine, but it dominates the game because the players are dps-heavy slobbering idiots chasing the quickest shineh! A scenario without an objective is not a scenario. Hell, a game without an objective isn't a game.

Murderball has NO OBJECTIVE. Killing is not an objective, it's the byproduct of attacking/defending/holding the objective. Otherwise, Murderball is just as stupid as WoW Arenas in terms of pvp.

You have gone off the deep end.  Having won games without our side holding the murder ball I can tell for sure: killing is one of the objectives.

[Paelos]

I don't think you get what I'm talking about. Mass slaughter may be the goal of the scenario, but it is not a pvp objective. Killing is pvp. PvP is always about killing. That doesn't change in any scenario. What is supposed to change is the objectives. Take this hill, defend this castle, own these territories, capture these flags, find this item, etc.

[mol]

I'm inclined to agree. Unfortunately, murderball is the most successful because it takes the least thought to play. This is further exacerbated by the fact that scenarios with goals very often score very lowly, because no one actually attempts to succeed at them. The clear winner of losing in WAR thus far is capture the flag. I can win Black Fire Basin and get 1/10 the reward I can get from losing a Tor. of course players are going to funnel the scenarios that reward them most.

From what I understand, scenarios provide a bonus for winning by achieving 500 points as opposed to just having a higher score when the timer ends. Perhaps an increase to this bonus is warranted? Except for murderball...

[Wasted]

Why does every scenario have to have deep strategy?  Sometimes I just want to log in and kill the other team in the most direct, simplest and expedient way possible.  Tor Anroc gives me that opportunity.  I wish some of the other scenarios would pop more often but that doesn't in itself make TA bad.

[Ashmodai]

Forced PUG scenarios + having complex (more than brainless) tactical advantages just doesn't work together.  In most of these 'objective' scenarios, especially Talabec Dam, you have a couple people going in any direction, and most of the Bright Wizards hanging out in random strategic locations solo cherrypicking any wandering strays on the enemy team for the phat XP.

You can't expect, and will rarely get, cohesive teamwork from a PUG, and you can't win the map by yourself (again, in Dam, with a 6 second cap, teamwork is almost required), so I find it much less frustrating to just pound the shit out of the enemy in a Tor Anroc or Mourkhain Temple than queue up for Talabec Dam or Phoenix Gate with a pickup group - even with a 6-man premade, you still have 6 people who will more than likely be retards on your team.  For extra fun, I like to let the enemy keep the murderball with my premade, but keep killing the person on the enemy team who picks it up, for the sweet 75 point bonus or whatever it is, and let them think they are awesome for picking it up again and again so fast.  Game tends to go quick that way, too.

[ghost]

Why does every scenario have to have deep strategy?  Sometimes I just want to log in and kill the other team in the most direct, simplest and expedient way possible.  Tor Anroc gives me that opportunity.  I wish some of the other scenarios would pop more often but that doesn't in itself make TA bad.

Hence why Nordenwatch is so popular with the masses.  Seems most others like it that way too.

[rk47]

How can you train them?  It's not like EvE were you can stick them in a Griffin, throw on a webber and a warp disrupter, and have them tag along.

You don't, the devs do.  By parcelling out abilities at a rate that the players get very comfortable with the abilities before they get new ones.  By throwing them into simple scenarios first ("Stand here and fight!" in T1, "Divide into an offensive and defensive force, protect and fight" in at least some of T2, "Figure out how to be mobile while fighting on multiple fronts" in T3, etc.).  All of this takes time for an honest-to-god new player to assimilate, and that is why you can't grind easily to L40 in a day of play time.  I suspect there are ancillary reasons for stuff like the PvE, not the least of which is to try to grab previous PvE only players with decent to good PvE and hope they'll convert to RvR through the low barriers to entry.  But it all serves an additional purpose other than simply frustrating people who want to be 40 already just to get to the real "meat" of the game.  There simply aren't enough of the latter type of players, really, to make WAR much bigger than DAoC, because the market hasn't been grown substantially for RvR style combat by any other game out there.

A simple briefing screen during load times would be great. I had people asking me in guild chat 'Why are we losing although we're holding to the murder ball?' 

[Lantyssa]

Nordenwatch is a lot of killing, but there is some work involved in turning a loss into a win.  It's a map I'd like to see played at higher Tiers.  (Dunno if it would work, but I think it could be interesting.)  Murderball, if you can get your team to focus on the glowing guy, you're done.

[Kail]

Haem, the guy also likes Mourkain.  There's no accounting for taste. 

Maybe he plays a melee class?  Phoenix Gate and Stonetroll Crossing both blow for melee.  Trying to hit a guy running past with a flag is hard to do with the wonky position reporting in this game, it's impossible for you to catch up (you can sprint, but then you won't have the AP to do anything even if you can somehow get the server and client to agree on where he is), and none of your moves work if the guy is more than five feet away.  You're basically stuck trailing behind the runner spamming "Toss Axe" and hoping one of his escorts doesn't snare you.  At least in Mourkain the carrier has to stop running away when he gets back to his spawn.

[Paelos]

Why does every scenario have to have deep strategy?  Sometimes I just want to log in and kill the other team in the most direct, simplest and expedient way possible.  Tor Anroc gives me that opportunity.  I wish some of the other scenarios would pop more often but that doesn't in itself make TA bad.

Because if that's an option, it closes ALL other options. People will flock to the easiest goddamn things on earth. That doesn't make it fun, it makes for total burnout. That's bad for business.

What you need is a way to encourage action across all territories without emphasizing one. They have failed in epic fashion in this regard. Take a cue from WoW with the token system, ie - have a quest that requires victories in all scenarios to get good xp rather than just one. Can you imagine if you got a 15k xp reward from winning all the scenarios at a tier? That would motivate quite a few people.

[Wasted]

Why does every scenario have to have deep strategy?  Sometimes I just want to log in and kill the other team in the most direct, simplest and expedient way possible.  Tor Anroc gives me that opportunity.  I wish some of the other scenarios would pop more often but that doesn't in itself make TA bad.

Because if that's an option, it closes ALL other options. People will flock to the easiest goddamn things on earth. That doesn't make it fun, it makes for total burnout. That's bad for business.

What you need is a way to encourage action across all territories without emphasizing one. They have failed in epic fashion in this regard. Take a cue from WoW with the token system, ie - have a quest that requires victories in all scenarios to get good xp rather than just one. Can you imagine if you got a 15k xp reward from winning all the scenarios at a tier? That would motivate quite a few people.

Yes they need to spread usage of all the scenarios, That still doesn't mean that the murderball concept and Tor Anroc specifically are bad scenarios, all the people with a bug up there arse about TA simply cos they wish the other scenarios would open up more should remember that.

I keep thinking of some sort of inbuilt map change deal like a counterstrike server rather than porting back to the world between each scenario and re queuing would be interesting but would probably take a lot to implement and people would probably complain it takes people out of the game world too much.  A quest for completion of all the tier scenarios with rewards at least 7x what you get for the 2 Tor Anroc turn-ins should be a relatively easy thing to stick in.

[Maegril]

A simple briefing screen during load times would be great. I had people asking me in guild chat 'Why are we losing although we're holding to the murder ball?' 

That's a bit different than what I'm referring to (which is teaching new players how to play the game), but I definitely agree.  There is actually a briefing screen of sorts for the scenarios but it's variably timed and doesn't explain the mechanics very well.  (I do believe that since launch they've also changed the murderball mechanics.  It used to be in Mourkain that if destro got the ball and held it, no matter how many people we killed, they won.  Now we can win if they turtle too much and send 2/3 of their ranks to die at our feet.  Especially if a couple of forced drops of the ball occur, regardless of whether they get it back again or not.)

[Nebu]

A simple briefing screen during load times would be great.

Brilliant idea for any scenario's loading screen.   

[Warskull]

A simple briefing screen during load times would be great. I had people asking me in guild chat 'Why are we losing although we're holding to the murder ball?' 

That's a bit different than what I'm referring to (which is teaching new players how to play the game), but I definitely agree.  There is actually a briefing screen of sorts for the scenarios but it's variably timed and doesn't explain the mechanics very well.  (I do believe that since launch they've also changed the murderball mechanics.  It used to be in Mourkain that if destro got the ball and held it, no matter how many people we killed, they won.  Now we can win if they turtle too much and send 2/3 of their ranks to die at our feet.  Especially if a couple of forced drops of the ball occur, regardless of whether they get it back again or not.)

There should be a tome unlock for each scenario with an in depth explanation.  They tell you the objective and exactly how many points each action is worth.

[HaemishM]

Murderball has NO OBJECTIVE.

Murderball matches are the MMOG equivalent of Retard Orgies, a lot of drooling morons running around humping anything that doesn't cause them immediate physical pain.

[Paelos]

Yes they need to spread usage of all the scenarios, That still doesn't mean that the murderball concept and Tor Anroc specifically are bad scenarios, all the people with a bug up there arse about TA simply cos they wish the other scenarios would open up more should remember that.

I disagree with you, but what makes a "good" scenario and a "bad" scenario is a matter of personal taste. Some people enjoy mindless slaugher. Some people enjoy taking numerous objectives. Some enjoy high strategy, and some don't want to think about it. Some like grouping, others just PUG it out. I tend to favor grouping, strategic, objective scenarios. Why? Because in those situations, I know that you can actually play well and win. Your pvp "skill" such that it is, can have a positive effect on the outcome. Different attacks and feignts mean that the games are changing and different. You can adapt as the other player adapts.

Others like carnage. They don't care, they want to stick something. These contests do not amuse me as much because it's horribly repetative and unchanging. This is what Tor caters. I think it's a bad scenario. I understand others don't. However, I think you can still get the "I want to kill things" jolly in other places without Tor existing.

[Warskull]

Murderball has NO OBJECTIVE.

Murderball matches are the MMOG equivalent of Retard Orgies, a lot of drooling morons running around humping anything that doesn't cause them immediate physical pain.

A game type doesn't have to be complex to be good.  CTF in this game is terrible as is Bombing Run.  The objects take far too much coordination to complete.  Murderball may be brain dead easy, but it functions.  These other scenarios don't even function.

In Talabec, it is impossible to cap vs a decent team.  The best strategies to win are either camp the center, ignore the ball, and win on kills or camp your objective if they have the ball, prevent them from capping (easy since 2-3 interrupts will run the carrier out of time), and again win on kills.  The best way to win that map is to ignore the objective.

In CTF you need a highly organized team to control both flags.  Just getting the enemy flag isn't enough.  You have make sure your flag is in the base.  Couple this with the fact that you are lucky to have 3 people who know what is going on and you are screwed.  These matches are either one team being all premades and the other all pugs and the matching ending in a blow out, or a 80-30 stalemate with one flag cap all match.

Couple this with the fact that you are not rewarded for participating in the objectives, only by killing, and you have usually 1 person in a match even bothering with the objective because they get more by camping the enemy in the spawn.  I have had numerous times where I am the only one who bothers to go get the flag, they proceed to camp the enemy in their base, and they can't be bothered to go and kill the lone flagged hiding on a hill so no one scored or we lose when a lone witch elf ganks me and the rest of the team ignores the flag.

This obsession over those maps reminds of TF2 where PuG players would always want to play 2Fort because it was CTF.  In reality 2Fort was an inferior map that usually stalemated and most players ignore the objective and just played it as death match anyway.  That is exactly what I see almost every time in CTF and Bombing run, players ignoring the objective, the 2-3 guys trying to complete it being unable to because it is too difficult without a coordinated team, and it eventually devolving into death match with the few people who know whats going on having their spirits broken by the hordes of wild noobs.

CTF and Bombing run in this game could be good, but right now they just fail.  They need to be high scoring maps with encouragement to complete the objective.

The way to do this for Bombing run:
1) Completing the Objective needs to give the carrier an exp/renown bonus and all players near the objective when it is capped a bonus (although lesser.)
2) The objective needs to be converted into a goal, a circle of light on the ground.  If you walk into the goal with the bomb, you score.  There is no interrupting it, if he is there, they score.
3) The bomb would in turn slow the player down more so it becomes a game of chasing, stopping, and preventing.
4) The bomb needs a better "explode" method.  Have it start doing ticks of damage like the Tor bauble after a set period of time.  It can ramp up much faster, but a hidden timer that just randomly kills you isn't good.
5) After a cap start a timer, the bomb respawns when the timer hits 0.  This timer should be prominently displayed so people know exactly how long they have to get back.
6) Points per cap should probably increase.
7) Bonus exp/renown for killing the guy with the explosives
8) Up the value for killing enough so the loser walks away with a little something (but they still lose.)

I am thinking something like 3 points a kill, 10 a carrier kill, and 100-200 a cap.

The way to do this for CTF:
1) Capping the flag needs to give the carrier exp/renown and all players assisting exp/renown (although lesser).
2) The carrier should be worth minimum 100% extra exp/renown.  People should want to kill that guy.
3) Remove the requirement for your flag to be in base to cap
4) Add a small snare effect to the flag
5) Up the value of capping the flag a bit.

This should swing the games more towards cat and mouse chases.  The games takes place while running the objective.  It would also make these higher scoring maps.  Higher scoring maps are more rewarding and encourage people to queue for them.  People don't avoid Talabec and Black Fire Basin because they are too stupid to go to other maps.  They avoid them for the same reason the avoid ORvR they are maps that involve no scoring and thus get you no exp.  The only way you score in these maps is if you enter with a premade and blow out the other team.

[Skullface]

The addition of some sort of "Assault"/Keep Siege Scenario while droping shit like Tor (one skill should not dominate a whole game), Black Fire (too big), etc, would probably really fix the whole thing. People loved Assault in UT. Scenarios as training exercises is a great idea, and would make a fuck ton more sense than "kill the dude with the thing".

Put the scenarios on a rotation (like most FPS servers,) keeping people from farming the same shitfest over and over and keep rewards from scenarios on a lower level than ORVR, and we should have a solid PVP system.