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Author Topic: Aldtorf Sacked & MJ Comments  (Read 10501 times)
waylander
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on: October 13, 2008, 06:03:27 AM

Warning - Vault Network Post!!

Lots of good discussion here. On my server Praag and Chaos Wastes are in play daily but so far neither major city has become contested. The general point of discussion is that people had expectations that these things would take days, but basically this was all done in a BFE in the morning coordinated zerg raid.

Mark Jacobs starts commenting on Page 2, and then there are various follow up discussions on later pages talking about how the game mechanics played out.

Anyway this is a better system than DAOC had, but it sounds like they still have some of the same problems.  Keeps changed hands easily and often in DAOC. On one hand its great because it provides a lot of action, but on the other hand it makes you wonder why you spent 4 hours worth of work for very little exp or loot rewards.

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Drubear
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Reply #1 on: October 13, 2008, 06:20:04 AM

A lot of the discussion seems to be about VP not moving much for order when they take objectives and keeps and hold them. Some of them just want to understand what they're doing wrong (need to hold lower levels too? need to do more PQ's/SC's? need to kill more opposition?) while others are saying "Order is bugged!"

Also it doesn't sound like Altdorf (sic) actually got much out of Contested, which is making some destros crazy too.
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Reply #2 on: October 13, 2008, 06:39:40 AM

Warhammer Alliance forums have been full of Order complaining about the points problem for days now. There is still no confirmed reports on wether Order is bugged, or Destro just knows what they are doing. The problem appears to be cross-server though.

One must bow to offer aid to a fallen man - The Tao of Shinsei.
tazelbain
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Reply #3 on: October 13, 2008, 06:42:29 AM

Again PvP systems that encourage people to avoid each other rather than fight each are borked.

"Me am play gods"
kildorn
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Reply #4 on: October 13, 2008, 06:43:14 AM

2am zerg to complete rvr objectives in a mythic game? NEVER.
waylander
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Reply #5 on: October 13, 2008, 06:50:56 AM

On Volkmar Adltorf was put in a contested state but not won, and Mark made a post about that situation.  On Volkmar, Order is supposedly the stronger faction.

On Averheim I'm under the impression the city was actually taken. On Averheim, the factions are supposedly mostly equal, but Dest. launched an early AM raid.

Either way its some interesting reading for those of us who haven't gotten that far.


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slog
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Reply #6 on: October 13, 2008, 07:08:40 AM

Since my days in Shadowbane, I have advocated predefined windows that sieges should occur in based on time zone.  I believe that if you design with siege windows in mind from day 1, they would work very well.

However, I don't think it's something you can retrofit.

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Venkman
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Reply #7 on: October 13, 2008, 07:08:57 AM

Quote from: MJ wrote on VN boards
9) Late night/early morning raids suck - Yeap, but that's part of this type of game. We either say no city capture during certain hours or leave it up to the players. Since players get organized at different times of the day, we're going to leave it as it is especially since your side can do the same things to them. OTOH, we have tweaked the mechanics for zone capture so that it will be even harder to pull off the early a.m. attacks. This will be part of the next patch.

Why wouldn't SB's Bane scheduled encounters work in WAR?

Edit: Slog wins smiley
Megrim
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Reply #8 on: October 13, 2008, 07:32:50 AM

Wouldn't it be easy enough to simply make the "attack actual City" window open at the next peak hour for the server? Figure out when the most users are on from both sides, and just make it pop then for the five hours or whatever.

 * Edit: so yea, what slog said, but more dynamic.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2008, 07:34:22 AM by Megrim »

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Khaldun
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Reply #9 on: October 13, 2008, 07:49:08 AM

There are ways to affect this that don't involve dictating times of the 24-hour cycle where captures can happen. For example, forcing a lengthy time gap between each stage of a city-capturing process, rather like raid lock-outs, but also sticking an expiration time on the possibility of capture. That gives the other side a time window in which the next stage of the city battle will take place.

The thing that drives me nuts about a thread like that are all the assholes saying, "Hey, fuck you if you can't find enough people at 3am, or if you have to go to work. We're dedicated and you're not, we morally deserve to win, you must lose." I'm fascinated at how assgoblins like this can't see the consequences just one step down the line--that there will be no one on the other side, and nothing to do. Then they'll be, "WTF, where are all the other players? What happened?" 

The bind that Mythic is in (and every other developer who wants to have some kind of world-component to a MMOG) is that people desperately want consequences that are visible in the gameworld to flow from RvR, and they want those consequences to have cumulative effect, for there to be a history to conflict that you can see signs of all around you. But you can't have that and have completely equal, balanced conflict each and every time. So the design choice is usually to have everything revert to a default condition pretty quickly, which gets boring and repetitive.

What I really think would be the next step in an RvR game would be to have new factions appear out of every major or final victory, or to have a map that actually resets from start, where the world "ends". I like the former idea especially. Suppose in WAR if Altdorf falls, players in the defeated faction have two choices: retain their former characters, but now their realm goals, scenarios and so on are guerilla-warfare--if they can tip things past a certain point, Altdorf reopens and the scenarios revert to normal RvR. Or they can take a set number of "build points" for each Order character they had and reroll as an equivalent level and powered Destruction character--and each of the Destruction factions can now fight each other (the coalition falls apart) with appropriate scenarios. So you'd have a world that oscillated between two dramatically different gameplay states: formal RvR and "guerillas vs. disintegrating coalition". It would still amount to a resetting world, sure, but the periodicity of the reset and the character of the two different kinds of worlds would give it a much fresher feeling, especially if you were redefining your character extensively in each stage.
Nebu
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Reply #10 on: October 13, 2008, 08:03:32 AM

They have enough servers that they could stagger city sacking time windows.  Then everyone wins.  People that play late hours have their server and people that play primetime have theirs.  If you make it relatively painless for people to move servers, then they can hop to a new place if their schedules shoudl change.  Hell, I'd pay $10 to move to another server to better fit my lifestyle.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

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kildorn
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Reply #11 on: October 13, 2008, 08:03:52 AM

Obviously, capitol cities need stront timers.
tazelbain
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Reply #12 on: October 13, 2008, 08:09:21 AM

Not the capitals but the keeps.

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Righ
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Reply #13 on: October 13, 2008, 09:25:20 AM

Since my days in Shadowbane, I have advocated predefined windows that sieges should occur in based on time zone.  I believe that if you design with siege windows in mind from day 1, they would work very well.

However, I don't think it's something you can retrofit.

Siege windows were retrofitted in Shadowbane. Shadowbane was a glorious game in beta where there were no siege windows and people could raze your city in a dawn raid. You just took a couple of wizard characters to the bog and burned mobs for an hour until you had the gold to rebuild, then you ranked everything up, which meant somebody checking the buildings once an hour for six hours or so. The only reason that siege windows were 'needed' was that they made the monumentally stupid decision to make the PvE grind for creating and leveling a city to be extreme. Seriously, fuck that - maintaining a city was a chore, and one loss was months play that you needed to replicate on an uneven playing field. Shadowbane went from a great PvP game in beta to a PvE grind where you got to grief people into investing months in re-grinding everything. It became probably the worst PvP game ever, and it was largely the fault of the desire to make cities hard to build, easy to destroy but 'guarded' by siege windows.

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slog
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Reply #14 on: October 13, 2008, 09:44:09 AM

Since my days in Shadowbane, I have advocated predefined windows that sieges should occur in based on time zone.  I believe that if you design with siege windows in mind from day 1, they would work very well.

However, I don't think it's something you can retrofit.

Siege windows were retrofitted in Shadowbane. Shadowbane was a glorious game in beta where there were no siege windows and people could raze your city in a dawn raid. You just took a couple of wizard characters to the bog and burned mobs for an hour until you had the gold to rebuild, then you ranked everything up, which meant somebody checking the buildings once an hour for six hours or so. The only reason that siege windows were 'needed' was that they made the monumentally stupid decision to make the PvE grind for creating and leveling a city to be extreme. Seriously, fuck that - maintaining a city was a chore, and one loss was months play that you needed to replicate on an uneven playing field. Shadowbane went from a great PvP game in beta to a PvE grind where you got to grief people into investing months in re-grinding everything. It became probably the worst PvP game ever, and it was largely the fault of the desire to make cities hard to build, easy to destroy but 'guarded' by siege windows.

I was in the SB beta for a long time.  There was no need to  grind for more money, as you could just dupe it.  (trivia: my guild was on the Box: what guild is it?)

Retrofitting worked in SB because they reset all thes servers.  I don't think it's viable for Warhammer to tell people "Your server now has a time zone on it!!! Too bad you rolled on the wrong one"

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HRose
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Reply #15 on: October 13, 2008, 10:10:10 AM

Wouldn't it be easy enough to simply make the "attack actual City" window open at the next peak hour for the server?
You guys never look at the other perspective.

What if someone has a forced life schedule and can never play during prime-time? Does it mean he'll never ever see a city siege? Do you want to feel compelled to log in at a precise hour to not miss the fun?

The solution is to actually dilute the campaign. So that territorial control is something evolving over the course of few days. And eventually the city siege that could last 24 hours or so (and everyone will fall in it).

Then, since stalemates risk to be perpetual, use something like the Murakin (sp) mechanic. So that the pushing faction is put under a strain and has to eventually fall back, so that the defenders can have their attempt at a thrust into enemy territory.

-HRose / Abalieno
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Nebu
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Reply #16 on: October 13, 2008, 10:12:33 AM

You guys never look at the other perspective.

What if someone has a forced life schedule and can never play during prime-time? Does it mean he'll never ever see a city siege? Do you want to feel compelled to log in at a precise hour to not miss the fun?

I still prefer my solution: servers with staggered time blocks for large scale raids.  Maximizes participation and allows people to play in timeframes that best suit them. 

I'd say that's another perspective.

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

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Righ
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Reply #17 on: October 13, 2008, 10:12:53 AM

(trivia: my guild was on the Box: what guild is it?)

Assuming you are Daslog - you were in Burning Legion in beta IIRC.

The camera adds a thousand barrels. - Steven Colbert
Venkman
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Reply #18 on: October 13, 2008, 10:22:53 AM

I still prefer my solution: servers with staggered time blocks for large scale raids.  Maximizes participation and allows people to play in timeframes that best suit them. 

Forgot you mentioned this above, because I personally agree with it. You'd want to stagger the rollout of such a system with free character moves nowadays, but it has merit.

I do also like the Banes from SB, but it does reduce the ability for casual players to come and go. Maybe that's fine. I still don't think we've determined if RvR can only ever be for the truly dedicated or not.

And if Hrose could ever stop insulting his audience at the start of every one of his posts, his ideas would have merit too ;-)
Mrbloodworth
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Reply #19 on: October 13, 2008, 10:29:21 AM

Quote
• Keep in mind that a city capture is a long, multi-stage process that requires all of the following be satisfied:
- You must capture two fortresses in tier 4 within 12 hours of each other.
- To capture those fortresses, you must seize and hold the neutral tier 4 and your opponent’s zone in two of the three racial pairings (after which you only have 60 minutes to capture said racial fortress).
- After all of this you fight in a contested, not captured, Altdorf/Inevitable City for control of the city, much in the same manner as a regular zone would be. In the case of Altdorf, after you have secured the city and the defending force is ejected from the city you have one hour to complete the Bright Wizard College and Sigmar’s Temple public quests. In the case of The Inevitable City,The Monolith and The Sacellum. Should you fail to beat these two Encounters within the hour, the city will be reopened to the defenders and they will be allowed to wipe out any attackers left in their City.
- If you complete the two Encounters as an attacker however, you lock the city down for 20 -24 hours and get access to the King Instance..
- Contribution points towards the capture of a city are scaled based on the population of both sides, not just one lump sum. This ensures that a defending force with smaller numbers has a fighting chance to hold off the invaders. However, you can overcome the scaling with a sufficiently large force.

• In their current state, scenarios are providing more contribution points towards the capture of a city than open RVR or “fighting in the streets.” We are very closely monitoring this, though, and will reevaluate if we determine that changes are necessary.

• We are aware that there is a concern about the time it takes to capture a Fortress. Fortresses are currently easier than intended and we'll be making adjustments in the coming weeks.

Link

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Nebu
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Reply #20 on: October 13, 2008, 10:32:48 AM

I think this is another example of why beta testing in tiers is a terrible idea.  Fixing this post launch means that little was learned during actual testing.  I have soem ideas why, but fear that they would violate the NDA. 

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
waylander
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Reply #21 on: October 13, 2008, 10:40:57 AM

Honestly this is why you have a real good Guild Beta period. Mythic's guild beta wasn't a real one in my opinion, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

Anyway a real guild beta would have exposed many of the things we're seeing right now. Things such as...

1. Scenarios being the most efficient method of level gain
2. Open RvR being unpopular due to poor reward/exp gain
3. Itemization imbalance (from organized spec group perspectives)
4. Realm/Zone control as it evolves in real time

Inviting a bunch of people into a test where some of them happen to be in the same guild just isn't the same, and what we're seeing now is guilds giving Mythic a paid guild beta with lots of feedback.

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HRose
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Reply #22 on: October 13, 2008, 10:42:55 AM

I still prefer my solution: servers with staggered time blocks for large scale raids.  Maximizes participation and allows people to play in timeframes that best suit them. 

I'd say that's another perspective.
It's still not optimal.

Even if i can play at a set hour, I really dislike feeling that "I have to". Or that the game is dead the remaining of the time.

And what if you switch job? Are you going to reroll?

And what is it going to happen with consolidated guilds? All breaking apart?

I really dislike schedules in a game. I expect to play and have fun when I want. Solutions should go in that direction and not force players to log in at certain hours. Or even make a game that is only fun at certain hours.

-HRose / Abalieno
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Mrbloodworth
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Reply #23 on: October 13, 2008, 10:45:19 AM

Honestly this is why you have a real good Guild Beta period. Mythic's guild beta wasn't a real one in my opinion, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

Anyway a real guild beta would have exposed many of the things we're seeing right now. Things such as...

1. Scenarios being the most efficient method of level gain
2. Open RvR being unpopular due to poor reward/exp gain
3. Itemization imbalance (from organized spec group perspectives)
4. Realm/Zone control as it evolves in real time

Inviting a bunch of people into a test where some of them happen to be in the same guild just isn't the same, and what we're seeing now is guilds giving Mythic a paid guild beta with lots of feedback.

Also the crappy guild window, that is horribly bugged, and ABOUT, MOTD, Events descriptions and Public descriptions fields that are woefully small on the max character departments. Love the features however.

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Nebu
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Reply #24 on: October 13, 2008, 10:47:23 AM

Players, particularly in pvp games, will always find the path of least resistance.  Piecemeal may work in the short term, but smaller objectives are invariably easier to defend, especially when your side has a population advantage.  The best way to maximize participation in a worldly scale is to have a window of participation where EVERYONE knows in advance when things are going to organize.  Inexpensive server transfers solve the scheduling problems while simultaneously providing revenue streams.  




"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."

-  Mark Twain
Pendan
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Reply #25 on: October 13, 2008, 11:19:54 AM

On Volkmar Adltorf was put in a contested state but not won, and Mark made a post about that situation.  On Volkmar, Order is supposedly the stronger faction.

On Averheim I'm under the impression the city was actually taken. On Averheim, the factions are supposedly mostly equal, but Dest. launched an early AM raid.

Either way its some interesting reading for those of us who haven't gotten that far.
I play Order on Averheim. Destruction had control of Altdorf but never even made it to the king let alone defeat him. When the city returned to Order control is was still rank 4 where it was before the capture. Not sure if that means they accomplished none of the needed things after gaining control or deranking is bugged.

Is interesting to me that one of the few servers where Destruction has only about an estimated 20% population advantage and Order reached rank 4 on main city 36 hours ahead of Destruction was also first US server to have Destruction have control of Altdorf (even though not able to finish the sacking). Most non rp servers have a bigger population inbalance.
Vinadil
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Reply #26 on: October 14, 2008, 07:32:46 AM

It seems like an easy-enough fix would be to put in time requirements (seems like they are already there to some extent) from moving to Praag to Capital City.  As long as that march takes 24-ish hours then you are gaurunteed to have everyone's primetime available for the siege effort.  We all knew this was going to be an issue, and it will likely be a very different story on each server.  I suppose in the mind of the developer they would love to have both sides make it to the other's capital so that both sets of players feel like they can accomplish the end-goal.  That seems unlikely on any but the most balanced servers.

The reason guild beta did little to affect all of this was also largely the result of the T4 sections being bugged.  I don't know how many times we took the Dwarf objectives only to have them insta-pop back to Destro... even while we were standing there defending the walls.
BoatApe
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Reply #27 on: October 15, 2008, 11:42:45 AM

I play Destro on Averheim and was part of this attempt on Altdorf.

Just a few tidbits from that point of view...

The raid was planned a week in advance. The day of the raid we started organizing at 6 am CST, with everyone rolling out by about 7. Big props to the folks putting this together. Herding cats on an epic scale!
Main warband in T4 was about 50% 40s and the rest were 35+, secondary wb in T4 was levels 32 to 35. We also had 2 T3 wb's and 2 in T2. These lower levels were vital to our zone control in the upper tiers. At one point Order retook a T3 zone and the T4 zone control in that pairing plummeted. Without the lower level coordination we might have been stalled there.

Obviously an early morning raid minimizes opposition, but I don't think anyone expected it to be as nearly nonexistent as it was.
I honestly think that 3 BW, a RP and an Engi could have held us off at the Dwarf Fortress for a week...ok, maybe a slight exaggeration.

We eventually locked everything down and got to Altdorf by about 12 noon CST. The main wb got in immediately and I believe this was the one that had Order defenders in the city. The secondary wb (where I was) had zoning issues and was not able to enter Altdorf for at least another half an hour. Upon entering, no defenders in sight so we turned the pq's 3-4 times before the city went from Contested to Pillaging. Order did mount a bit of a defense at the city gates to try and prevent reinforcements from entering the city.

In the allotted hour, our wb was able to finish the Temple of Sigmar in about 30 minutes. Then we headed for the Bright Wizard College and and got melted. ACK!
The BW pq was very buggy, with the cubes, the spawns and the pq timer randomly resetting, but this was not the main reason we couldn't  complete it. The level 42 heroes (NOT the main Boss...) were hitting our tanks for upwards of 8500 dmg a shot - and there is no rezzing allowed at this point. Even with a full wb of level 40s this looks to be an extremely tough encounter. We continued to work it just for the sake of knowledge for the next time.

Never even had a shot at the King encounter.

The timer then expired. But we weren't kicked from the city right away. Guessing we had about 45 minutes of goof-off time in Altdorf, running some city quests and just exploring before we were finally ported out.

I had a lot of fun doing it, but actually would have enjoyed it more with some spirited opposition.

And a big howdy to Pendan! Hope I've killed ya and pretty sure you've killed me. awesome, for real
Snarfblat - r34/rr31 shaman

pxib
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Reply #28 on: October 15, 2008, 12:28:34 PM

I had a lot of fun doing it, but actually would have enjoyed it more with some spirited opposition.
I think this is a major problem with objective-oriented world PvP. In an instanced scenario you are matched with opposition of roughly similar level and number. In world PvP there is no guarantee that you'll meet any opposition at all, so NPCs are added to slow the offense and provide an opportunity for defense to gather.

Except...

If the NPC defense is too weak, they won't delay the enemy at all... and if they're too strong they allow even a few player defenders to completely dominate a larger force, and "spirited opposition" makes objective capture all but impossibe. PvE (like single player games) is fun because you struggle and struggle and ultimately succeed. PvP offers no such promise. Fighting a losing battle is precisely that: a loss. People are relatively quick to give up and try something else if it looks like they're going to fail. If either side gives up, rather than feeling they were honestly defeated by a stronger enemy force, everyone loses.

So ideal objective-based world PvP has to balance both continua:
- NPC opposition should be of similar difficulty to PC opposition, each replacing rather than reinforcing the other.
- Victory should always seem to be just around the corner, for both sides, until the latest possible moment.

I do not see either of these particularly well handled in current RvR lakes or in endgame city-capture.

if at last you do succeed, never try again
BoatApe
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Reply #29 on: October 15, 2008, 12:51:51 PM

If the NPC defense is too weak, they won't delay the enemy at all... and if they're too strong they allow even a few player defenders to completely dominate a larger force, and "spirited opposition" makes objective capture all but impossibe. PvE (like single player games) is fun because you struggle and struggle and ultimately succeed. PvP offers no such promise. Fighting a losing battle is precisely that: a loss. People are relatively quick to give up and try something else if it looks like they're going to fail. If either side gives up, rather than feeling they were honestly defeated by a stronger enemy force, everyone loses.

So ideal objective-based world PvP has to balance both continua:
- NPC opposition should be of similar difficulty to PC opposition, each replacing rather than reinforcing the other.
- Victory should always seem to be just around the corner, for both sides, until the latest possible moment.

I do not see either of these particularly well handled in current RvR lakes or in endgame city-capture.

Good points pbix.

In the beta phases where we tested the city siege everyone had a level 40 templated character and the contested city battles usually came down to the last minute. The game is new and I expect by the time both realms are fielding full wbs of 40s the balance will fall into place a bit more.

The RvR lakes are trickier. If they can find a way to get more folks into them on a regular basis I think it will even out. But currently, scenarios are far to attractive to the majority of players.
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