I'm done with RvR lakes until Mythic does something substantial

[schild]

Christ, what is with Mythic and wanting to keep people from hitting 40.

Really? You've been around as long as most of us. They think the leveling part is more important to retention than the action at 40. Many parts seemed to be designed under the pre-WoW definition of success in the genre. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it does seem pretty obvious.

Just because I've been around doesn't mean I have to assume that companies won't Figure Shit Out.

[Fordel]

History would disagree, no? 

[schild]

Hey, eventually someone has to get it right and it's best for me if it ends up being a game I enjoy.

[Wasted]

The reasons scenarios are far more attractive is that you as a player dictate how you want to play (as long as queue times aren't too long).  RVR is situational, you are either attacking which is mostly pve with the risk of some pvp or you are defending, which means you have to wait/hunt for attackers, its dictated too much by things you can't control.  Increasing experience doesn't help that as scenarios are still so much easier to access.  In the least they need to add in travel options between keeps to help people get to the action.

Personally, I think they need to make the rvr more 'scenario-like'  what if, you could queue for BO's and warp to them like a scenario but keep the whole worldly stickiness, and even further increase their importance in keep attacks and defence.  It needs some tweaking obviously but I think making keep attacks include a series of scenario like encounters which actively promote defence then as well would greatly improve participation.

[rk47]

lol, 3k exp for capturing the inevitable city

that's awesome

It has to be shopped, right?  The end-goal of the game nets you 3000 XP?   

It's not shopped. Oh, you also get 30 silvers. 

[Trippy]

This reminds me of EQ where the end game content in each expansion was never itemized properly because the developers always thought they would have enough time to patch in the proper stuff after release and inevitably they would be proven wrong (at least when I played).

[Venkman]

Hey, eventually someone has to get it right and it's best for me if it ends up being a game I enjoy.

WAR is fine in a way because it does try some interesting things. It's just that in a few key areas, it feels like their point of reference was DAoC and that was it. That, too, is fine if that is the market you want. But then, you didn't need this IP to do that.

Even putting aside some of the wholesale changes some people would like, I do wonder how and why they prioritize certain things. Was RvR intended to be the game, or just some sideline alongside sporty/grindy Scenarios (which are fun but pointless except for a vague zone ownership thing)?

[UnSub]

Even putting aside some of the wholesale changes some people would like, I do wonder how and why they prioritize certain things. Was RvR intended to be the game, or just some sideline alongside sporty/grindy Scenarios (which are fun but pointless except for a vague zone ownership thing)?

Given how WAR is meant to be everywhere, I have to think RvR was going to be the focus and scenarios were more the training sideline in quick'n'fun PvP. However, because the WAR world is so freaking huge, everyone is spread out everywhere. Scenarios work because the pop everyone who is interested into a small area to fight. In RvR, you are left wandering the area, hoping to bump into someone else.

If RvR had an option to teleport people into the area when there was some action, it would be a lot more used by players.

[Morfiend]

What if, god forbid, they made the Scenarios like DAOC, where it is just mini-rvr.

[Kail]

I'd say just give players XP for being in an RvR area on top of the killing/capturing XP.  Take the average amount of XP you get for winning a scenario, divide it by ten, and give that much to a player every minute they're in an RvR lake.  Make hanging out in RvR areas the easiest way to gain XP, and people will do it.  And, while they're there, there's enemies hanging around, too, so they may as well fight, right?  Population density (or lack therof) is the biggest problem with finding fun open RvR, so you have to encourage players to hang out in RvR areas even if they're empty.

Naturally, some people will instead find some corner somewhere and AFK, so maybe trim down the unkillable NPC patrols that hang around the spawns so that opposing faction players can kill AFK players (sending them back out of the lake to respawn).  Just make sure there's nowhere that you can get XP while being protected by invincible NPC patrols, and you can let enemy players hunt down AFKers for easy points. 

[Paelos]

lol, 3k exp for capturing the inevitable city

that's awesome

It has to be shopped, right?  The end-goal of the game nets you 3000 XP?   

It's not shopped. Oh, you also get 30 silvers. 

Pure gold. The longer I'm out of this game, the more time I have to look back on what I was putting up with for the sake of PvP. It doesn't make any sense. People are forgiving crappy stability, bad PvE, and lackluster rewards for the CHANCE at meaningful PvP. It says a lot about the need for a good PvP game. This isn't it until they can fix the laundry list of issues, which they probably won't in any time frame that will draw players back in.

[UnSub]

lol, 3k exp for capturing the inevitable city

that's awesome

It has to be shopped, right?  The end-goal of the game nets you 3000 XP?   

It's not shopped. Oh, you also get 30 silvers. 

Hey, you can get a lot done for 30 pieces of silver.

[Arthur_Parker]

Linky

Folks,

Well, I guess we should have expected this sort of response from some people. I've said again and again that we are going to take steps to provide even more incentive to do open RvR and when we take some initial steps and say that they are initial steps, up come the "I'm going to quit posts if..."

I've always said that people should do what they think best. If we are not moving fast enough at making the changes you want, then you have every right as a consumer to let us know by canceling. We also have every right as the developer to do what we think is best for everyone and to make these changes at an appropriate pace. We learned a long time ago that it is better to be cautious on the first pass and then add more if we are wrong. That's 100x better than adding more in the beginning because of cancellation threats and complaints and then having to reduce them because our initial analysis was correct. So, if after seeing everything that we plan on doing you don't think it's enough, let us know however you deem appropriate whether it is through cancellation or simply through feedback. After all, it's not like even this week's patch had anything that was asked for here on the Vault as well as other places right?  And some of the things I am going to talk about later this week, well, you'll just have to wait and see on that.

Look, it's really very simple and I've said this more than once. This is not 2001 and we are not going to blithely make changes to our game just because some people think that we are wrong before they even get a chance to see the changes in action or worse, just because we are getting yelled at by a very vocal minority. We'll gather the data, look at all the feedback and then make a decision. If we're wrong, we'll correct the decision but at least this time we have all the data we need to make the right call and we are not getting swayed either by just the loud voices or a few wrong-headed individuals. So, if you feel the need to talk about canceling in these threads, of course you have that right. Just don't think that we are going to react to it the same way we might have at times back in 2001, we need to be smarter and react more carefully than that. Unlike then, we know we are in this for the long-haul and if we actually do lose some people now because we are moving cautiously, that is a price we are willing to pay to be sure we make the right choices for the long-term success of this game. Launching WAR was only the first step, we still have a long way to go.

Mark

There are three main ways to advance in WAR, Open RVR, Questing & Scenarios.  Although I agree that open RVR needs a serious boost to make it more attractive to players, you have to remember that doing that is going to affect people questing or doing scenarios.

Also T4 is different to T2 & T3, at T4, exp just isn't as important anymore, the quest rewards pick up and you get boosted to rank 36 (or something) in PVP so, I personally, don't feel the mad rush to level up as much.  If they give too much exp and realm points for open RVR at T2/T3, they throw whatever formula they have for T4 out, while in my opinion T4 probably doesn't suffer from same lack of open RVR.  So I guess they could boost exp/realm points more, just for T2/T3 open RVR and leave T4 as is, but that's going to seem like a major nerf to T4 when new people level up that far using the new T2/T3 bonus.

I think their current thoughtful approach is good, but that doesn't negate the fact that all of this should all have been fixed in beta and it all comes back to population levels.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I'm very interested in what the sub numbers will be on nov 1st as that little comment from jacobs sounds, unusually negative or perhaps adversarial?

[rk47]

it came off as 'we know the problem but we can't rush changes' to me.

[Venkman]

Although I agree that open RVR needs a serious boost to make it more attractive to players, you have to remember that doing that is going to affect people questing or doing scenarios.

Getting people to bother with RvR is simply a matter of giving them better tools to get there (ie, teleporting) and ensuring they get rewarded for being there (ie, rebalance XP distribution, balance pass on BOs, Champs, etc). They don't need to really affect Quests nor Scenarios to do that, unless you were talking about how there'd be less people doing PQs and Scenarios because they'd be in RvR?

Right now, RvR is where you maybe can find some action whereas Scenarios are where the action is going to be at. Given the size of the world, it's often too much of a hassle to take a chance on RvR unless you're in a coordinated alliance dedicated to it. This early on in a new game, that can be changed easily enough. In three to four months or so though, the culture of the game will have evolved to whatever systems are in place today that don't get radical changes.

[waylander]

I'll copy my reply on another post to here since we're discussing solutions. This is my 2 cents.

1. PVE quest and mob exp gets 50% boost
2. PQ influence gains per kill/completion see 100% boost
3. Renown gear is actually itemized and good
4. RVR keep capturing gives you 15% of a level of exp per cap
5. RVR keep loot rewards actually reward MORE people
6. EXP gain 5% level for capturing battlefield objectives
7. PQ loot rolls for capturing battlefield objectives
8. 25% speed increase for mounts
9. Fix talisman making to make it more accessible
10.Make guild recall an ability, not a scroll

That would be my ideal list of things to see in a good patch.

Other than performance their top complaints seem to be:

1.
T3-T4 slow exp rates and being forced into PVE/PQ grinding.

2.
PQ grinds, specifically poor influence gain per kill. The elite rewards require more and more points while influence gain per kill stays the same. Mythics way of addressing that was to go from killing 25 of something in T1/Stage I to 175 of something in T4/Stage I. Boring, and people hate it.

3.
RVR for all its fun isn't an efficient way of leveling. If taking battlefield objectives yielded GOOD exp and loot rewards, people would do them. If taking a Keep yielded GOOD exp per cap and more people got rewarded, then more people would do RVR.

4.
Itemization, particularly the PVP gear, is bad and forces people into PQ grinds. See #2 for more detail.

People need to see some concrete answers from Mythic on these 4 core issues. I'm glad they have been improving performance, but they need to address the core components of the regular game that people from fansite to fansite have consistently been bringing up.

[tazelbain]

MJ,
1)  Shouldn't you have a better answer than vote with your wallet?  You are a for-profit organization.  What about the beta surveys; why not start those up again?
2)  It's not a few vocal people.  We all can see it.  The need for a grind in PvP game coupled with a sever population issues is driving people away.
3)  You first impression window is closing very rapidly.  Once people decide to write you off, it's incredibly hard to get them to look again.

[Arthur_Parker]

unless you were talking about how there'd be less people doing PQs and Scenarios because they'd be in RvR?

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.  Making RVR a lot more attractive will directly affect people questing (reduces the number of players nearby for PQ's, help finish a quest etc) and will also directly affect queueing times for scenarios.  This thread is about how empty open field RVR is in T2/T3, everybody is coming up with solutions that make it more attractive, that's great, lets say they fix it, what do you then say when someone starts a thread about lack of people doing PQ's or scenarios?

They missed the boat with open RVR in T2/T3, it was very active on my server (I remember a 12+ hour battle just for one T2 keep), then everyone figured out scenarios are massively better, the exp and realm points sucked.  Now scenarios are still going to be better, even if they up the open RVR bonus to 5x realm/exp current values.

What's the correct way to play?  Because that's what they are deciding with the bonuses.  Is it RVR > Scenarios > Questing?  Anything they do now to try and change the way people play will piss some people off. 

It also doesn't help that there isn't really a FFA type server, all the pvp guilds I know chose the core ruleset because the other ruleset is retarded.  Thanks to that they have hardcore pvp guilds mixed in with the general population, the hardcore isn't going to be pissing about in T2/T3 keep sieges, as with all pvp games they are hell bent on reaching max level by the fastest route possible.

Instead of fucking about with half measures, they should just give 5 times exp and 5 times renown to everyone of rank level 12-30 taking part in open RVR for a week.  The following week remove that bonus and add it to all the scenarios instead, the following week change it to apply purely for questing.  Instead of saying, "hey this part of the game is best", say "hey, this week, this part of the game is best".

[Numtini]

This is not 2001 and we are not going to blithely make changes to our game just because some people think that we are wrong before they even get a chance to see the changes in action or worse, just because we are getting yelled at by a very vocal minority. We'll gather the data, look at all the feedback and then make a decision.

That actually sounds a lot like the same old Mythic that hasn't figured out it's not 2001 anymore. They don't have the luxury of farting around and analyzing data points or going with the whole fix a class, put it on the bottom of the deck for the next 18 months and evaluate stuff. They're going to get slaughtered a month from now if it didn't happen yesterday.

[Venkman]

It reads more to me like they think these problems are new instead of having been known for awhile. I can understand that spin for the VGN crowd, but I also wonder how many people today weren't around in beta when a number of these things came up. There were a LOT of people in beta, and it's not like the number of people who activated a launch account was triple or quadruple that amount.

They're dealing with a pretty large group of people who know what's what here. That cannot be easy.

[Draegan]

They were fiddling with exp/renown gains from just about every source all the way through the end of the closed and open beta.  I would say this is why people have to go pair-jumping and one pairing can not support one person through Tier 3

Tier 1 is perfect.  Tier 2 only slows down the last 2 levels.  Tier 3 is a mess.  Didn't get to Tier 4 yet.

[slog]

I see mythic's problem being that they didn't have time (or desire) to fully test and tweak what they put in, not that they don't have ideas.

[HRose]

Mark Jacobs contradicts himself there. One day he says that we should only play if we think the game is fun and don't believe in promises, now he says that we have to play and not cancel because we need to believe in his promises about open RvR.

We have all the reasons to complain. The issues that are popping up now aren't consequence to some new system that needed extensive testing. These issues were predictable and known by everyone who had experience with DAoC.

Game design can't be figured out in a day, and while it can be figured out post-release I still wonder what the hell they did all this time.

This isn't a matter of producing content, art, or stability issues. These are plain game design issues that are resolved by just sitting down at a table, thinking and discussing. Something that, obviously, Mythic isn't accustomed doing.

So those who want open RvR or can't do PQs because there are no players are a "vocal minority". Those who think the game becomes a grind are a "vocal minority".

This is not 2001, but I remember clearly when after ToA was released they thought we were a "vocal minority". Only too late they noticed that the vocal minority spoke in regards of the majority. As it is too late now to make the RvR lakes one per tier, for example.

For now I register that Mark Jacobs thinks that these complaints about open RvR are due to "loud voices or a few wrong-headed individuals".

Just don't think that we are going to react to it the same way we might have at times back in 2001, we need to be smarter and react more carefully than that.

On what did you overreact in 2001? On class issues, maybe. Doing nothing in regards to huge unbalances for a long time, keeping specs completely broken. And then suddenly turning things on their heads. This happened. And right now it looks the same since class issues are unaddressed and no one knows if when they'll arrive they'll be searing.

Class issues aside, what I remember from Mythic is not overreacting, but doing very little, too late and never at the root of the problem. How is this different today? As with ToA, you risk to fix things when it's too late.

Pragmatically, what were the risk if the rewards for conquering the keeps were much higher? What are the concrete reasons that made Mythic's designers going conservative? What they do not want to break?

I really do not see any valid reason about why they are so scared about open RvR. Or maybe not. There's only one reason that is plausible, and if this is true, I wish they were honest.

They are scared because more players in open RvR may as well make the server very unstable, as in beta. They are used to pack all these players in private rooms, but they never tested extensively open RvR. So they are scared of stability.

Mark, either be honest about the real reasons, or explain why you are SO SCARED of encouraging open RvR. It's not like you are nerfing Scenarios or PvE. You only offer another possibility. So, WHY?

There must be a logic motivation.

[HaemishM]

Today, we launch Phase 2 of this ongoing effort. Players who capture an RvR keep previously received only renown. As of today, players of the appropriate rank (actual, not bolstered) will also earn an experience bonus for successfully defeating a keep lord.

As with Public Quests and defeating monsters, the experience awarded for the successful capture of a keep will vary depending on a player’s rank relative to the difficulty of the keep. In Tier 2, players will begin to earn this bonus when they reach rank 15. In Tier 3, the minimum rank required is 25, and in Tier 4 it is 35. Players will notice a diminishing return from keep captures if their level approaches the top of that tier.

Keep sieges are a centerpiece of our RvR gameplay, and we’re happy to make the successful capture of an enemy keep even more rewarding. We’ll continue to look for ways to improve the rate of experience gain in WAR, including rewards for defending Keeps and capturing Battlefield Objectives. Stay tuned!

Super-fucking-retarded. Why? I applaud giving the bonus. But WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU RESTRICTING IT TO ONLY PEOPLE OF A CERTAIN LEVEL? What the fuck? Are you just telling the level 12-14's that "Sorry, you aren't big enough for the fun?" Really? I'm utterly gobsmacked at the logic that says players shouldn't get any bonus even though they contributed. Are you trying to funnel them into scenarios exclusively? If so, just restrict scenarios to only those levels and leave RVR for the higher levesl of each tier.

I just don't have any idea why you'd want to further segment the player population this way. What purpose does that serve?

[Nebu]

Here's my thought:  If Mythic is so worried about rate of advancement, then they must also have concerns about retention in the endgame.  Getting to the endgame is one carrot.  Advancing/playing at the endgame is another.  If the endgame is well made, then the trip to the endgame becomes significantly less important with regard to retention.  I'd further argue that fun in the endgame with an easy trip to it enhances retention.  Players enjoy a varied endgame experience.  This can be provided through alts.  Being able to enjoy a solid endgame easily through a variety fo characters will ensure endgame success. 

I don't know why they insist on having a barrier to entry that is so steep.  Are they really afraid of losing folks once they hit 40?

[HaemishM]

If RvR had an option to teleport people into the area when there was some action, it would be a lot more used by players.

Yes. You need to be able to see a blinking icon on the map that says "Hey, shit's kicking off over here" and be allowed the option to teleport to the nearest warcamp and automatically put into a warband.

[Mrbloodworth]

If RvR had an option to teleport people into the area when there was some action, it would be a lot more used by players.

Yes. You need to be able to see a blinking icon on the map that says "Hey, shit's kicking off over here" and be allowed the option to teleport to the nearest warcamp and automatically put into a warband.

That would be brilliant, but i'm not sure of the side affects.

[Paelos]

If RvR had an option to teleport people into the area when there was some action, it would be a lot more used by players.

Yes. You need to be able to see a blinking icon on the map that says "Hey, shit's kicking off over here" and be allowed the option to teleport to the nearest warcamp and automatically put into a warband.

I'm not sure that's the ideal solution, but travel issues were in the top 5 of things that bothered me about the RvR game. Some of the warcamps are in horribly stupid places, and they are the only ones with flightmasters. Is there any reason why we can't fly between major towns and warcamps instead of slog the whole way over land to get there? Why can't I see what's going on in the other areas and their RvR battlemaps?

The game needs more ways to travel from each town. Even a simple teleport to the nearest warcamp function would be good, although I think overpowered. You don't need to be teleported right to the action, but having the ability to instantly get a flightmaster is very key if you want to participate in open RvR.

[HRose]

This is a line from Mark Jacobs that makes more sense:

I honestly thought that people would rather have improvements as quickly as we could get them out while the bigger stuff needs coding

1- You still had to figure out these things long ago, instead of coding them now. Most of these issues were easily predictable.
2- If it's true that you are "working on it" in a substantial way, then TALK WITH THE PLAYERS. Don't just push these ridiculous fixes that fix nothing at all and just (legitimately) sour the players. Giving 2000 xp for taking a keep isn't an "improvement", it's a joke. If you are REALLY doing something more radical that needs coding then YOU HAVE to talk to the players, explain what you are doing and opening a discussion so that players can actually see where you are going and even anticipate the shortcomings (since it seems you alone can't figure them out).

Bring those goddamned designers out. Make them explain what they are doing and why. Make them explain what they AREN'T doing, and why.

[Mrbloodworth]

If RvR had an option to teleport people into the area when there was some action, it would be a lot more used by players.

Yes. You need to be able to see a blinking icon on the map that says "Hey, shit's kicking off over here" and be allowed the option to teleport to the nearest warcamp and automatically put into a warband.

I'm not sure that's the ideal solution, but travel issues were in the top 5 of things that bothered me about the RvR game. Some of the warcamps are in horribly stupid places, and they are the only ones with flightmasters. Is there any reason why we can't fly between major towns and warcamps instead of slog the whole way over land to get there? Why can't I see what's going on in the other areas and their RvR battlemaps?

The game needs more ways to travel from each town. Even a simple teleport to the nearest warcamp function would be good, although I think overpowered. You don't need to be teleported right to the action, but having the ability to instantly get a flightmaster is very key if you want to participate in open RvR.

Something my girl noticed, is war camps do not seem to have trainers, and others camps have no flight masters. Seems to be an intended travel time sink. Its odd, because of mounts at 20, and a mail box in every camp. Its like they killed some of the "Chore related" (Mail, AH, Bank) times sinks, but added others.

I still really liked that in AOC, your bank, mail, and auctions were all one window in one location, in contrast to say WoW, or LOTRO ETC..

[HRose]

Something my girl noticed, is war camps do not seem to have trainers, and others camps have no flight masters. Seems to be an intended travel time sink.

Very true.

I really wonder why they don't put everything needed in every camp. That's an easy "patch" that would make ALL players much rejoice.

Even here I can't fathom the reasons to NOT do this.

[rk47]

meh, they want me to vote with my wallet, so be it. I'm not playing WoW either. Fuck it. I was stupid to expect something new or revolutionary World RvR.
They still drown themselves in grind shit that made people frustrated. If PVE cockblock isn't enough, they still made PVE MATTERS on the larger scale such as zone controls. Wtf? I understand sieging keep part, but doing npc quests and shit to take zone control? How the fuck does that even work in Core server where people just unflag and zerg the quests where they have population advantage? Eat a dick, Mythic. AND STOP FUCKING ADVERTISING ULTHUAN U COCKFAGS I ALREADY HAVE A TOON THERE

[Mrbloodworth]

How the fuck does that even work in Core server where people just unflag and zerg the quests where they have population advantage? Eat a dick, Mythic. AND STOP FUCKING ADVERTISING ULTHUAN U COCKFAGS I ALREADY HAVE A TOON THERE

Now you see why i chose open. I still say, if you are on a core server, you are missing out. Quite a few PQ's and the like are completely diffrent animals when you can attack the other side trying to compete.

[rk47]

How the fuck does that even work in Core server where people just unflag and zerg the quests where they have population advantage? Eat a dick, Mythic. AND STOP FUCKING ADVERTISING ULTHUAN U COCKFAGS I ALREADY HAVE A TOON THERE

Now you see why i chose open. I still say, if you are on a core server, you are missing out.

i'm listening  which faction n wut server