MarkJacobsEA - RE: scenarios

[Mrbloodworth]

Folks,

Okay, so as usual we are always looking at player feedback and one of the themes that has been brought up here a lot is the issues of scenarios in WAR. Here's your chance to tell us if you would like to see a new server type that addresses some of the points raised here. So, if you would like to play on a server that has no scenarios, limited scenarios or only Tier 1 scenarios, vote now and tell all your friends/guildmates to come here and vote as well. This won't be the only place we are going to poll but it's a good start. We expect to hear a lot from our DAoC fans as well. happy

Mark

Link, and poll.



Not sure why this is the first option. Scenarios are fun. No one can argue this. But removal? Decreasing? Com on......

EDIT: Fixed link.

[eldaec]

I could understand voting for no scenarios if open rvr was on daoc scale.

But with WAR weaksauce keeps, I'm not convinced it would be wise.

[schild]

Limited Scenarios.

3-2-1-1.

But it doesn't matter if most of the scenarios fucking suck. Right now there isn't a tier 3 or 4 one I could pick as that "one." But I haven't played Caledor Woods yet for Tier 4.

Sigh. Someone punch Mark on the gob.

[Morfiend]

I really dont understand why they didnt make the scenarios more like DAOC mini-RVR BGs.

[Goreschach]

I'm hoping they release this server, just so we can watch it crash and burn. Maybe that would shut up the people whining about scenarios. The scenarios are the only decent part of the game. People aren't ignoring the orvr because scenarios exist. They're ignoring the orvr because the orvr fucking sucks.

[HRose]

This is the WRONG way to look at the problem. The same that shattered DAoC with multiple servers because they were too scared to address the problems.

I'm completely against instanced PvP, yet I wouldn't remove Scenarios from Warhammer.

The key is to have all four parts always accessible and rewarding equally: Quests, PQs, Scenarios and Open RvR.

Players need to access all four. Right now it's just Scenarios. Removing scenarios right now would lead to an HORRIBLY GRINDY experience. Way beyond your worst nightmares.

[Mrbloodworth]

Is it to hard to keep them like they are, but make Open RvR more attractive, and a better path? I like scenarios due to my limited playtime, good quick action. Removal would have been my last option.

[kaid]

Open field RVR in teir 1 is fun a couple people can go out and cause some havok and take some nodes. Once you hit tier 2 you pretty much need a full group to do anything. So if you don't have a full  group you don' t go to cap nodes. If you don't have a full group you don't go to rvr either because you will either find nobody to fight or you will find a full group out node capping and they will curb stomp you.

The whole way Open RVR is setup there is nothing to keep a single person out there and full groups typically do ninja strikes they go in cap a node get their renown and leave. There is no reason to linger and typically reasons NOT to linger. Also for keep raids there are reasons to attack a keep but in the tier 2 and tier 3 areas I cannot see a great deal reason to bother with defending a keep. Most people seem to let the keep get capped and then go back and retake it later. You rarely see more than one or two people around and one or two people vs a warband has perdictable results.

[HaemishM]

I note that so far the poll is overwhelmingly leaning towards "No more server types" by 63%. Which is what I voted for. A new server type won't unfuck the problem.

The problem is scenarios are easier to join and give massive rewards in comparison to everything else in the game. Questing, PQ's, and Open RVR all take longer to get to, have less rewards/time played and/or require a group.

Add massive XP and renown to all open RVR areas, and provide a quick teleport to the nearest warcamp when shit really starts to kick off. Anything else is just pissing in the wind.

[Goreschach]

Add massive XP and renown to all open RVR areas, and provide a quick teleport to the nearest warcamp when shit really starts to kick off. Anything else is just pissing in the wind.

Am I the only person that sees the irony of people wanting a teleport to warcamps where active fighting is going on?

[HaemishM]

Probably. Would you like to explain the irony or just pat yourself on the back? 

Yes, it does rely on at least one side making an active attempt to attack, and at that point, if you would be arsed to go and start a fight yourself, you wouldn't need the teleport.

That really does nothing to help the solo guy who can't do a fucking thing in Open RVR unless there is already something going on and people there to help his side. People who can and do organize in groups will, but without giving defenders an easy way to get to the action, it's a lot easier to just not be bothered with the 15 minute walk to get gangfucked by an organized group.

[Mrbloodworth]

He may be referring to ,thats basically what a scenario is. True, but i think HaemishM's idea is a good one that would also go well with more "Carrot" for ORvR.

[HaemishM]

Well yeah... if part of the reason the scenarios are so popular is the mechanic that lets you get there without any trouble jiffy-quick and automatically puts you in a group, then applying that convenience to Open RVR would certainly help. Hell, I'd even go so far as to say let warbands open themselves up to people (in the same manner as the open parties mechanic) and give the members a "Teleport to warcamp nearest the warband" option.

The only reason I can think of not to do this is some outdated idea that a "world" without travel time sinks isn't a world at all. Of course, that argument gets a punch in the dick from scnearios anyway.

[Mrbloodworth]

The only reason I can think of not to do this is some outdated idea that a "world" without travel time sinks isn't a world at all. Of course, that argument gets a punch in the dick from scnearios anyway.

Use catapults, like the greenskins 

[HRose]

Well yeah... if part of the reason the scenarios are so popular is the mechanic that lets you get there without any trouble jiffy-quick and automatically puts you in a group

Not really.

Right now I only play scenarios and sit idle at a warcamp. If there was RvR it would take me very little to join.

Problem is that I won't. It feels like time wasted. No progress at all. Even if there's RvR I won't go there because I know that an hour later my exp bar won't have moved one bit.

The problem is the reward, the rest are details.

[Paelos]

I wouldn't mind scenarios if they would make the following changes:

1 - No more than 3 options at every tier. Anything beyond that is totally overkill because you are spreading things too thin.

2 - No scenarios that overwhelming reward scenario points for kills. Some points per kill are good. Things like "Murderball" are absolutely idiotic. The DPS classes love it because it's not real combat, it's just a clusterfuck in a bowl. Scenarios need actual objectives. They need to create objectives that remove the stupid one zerg mentality. Have 2+ objectives that must be simulataneously held/attacked/defended by one side, and all of a sudden you've introduced actual strategy into the game.

3 - XP gain shouldn't be based on kills. It should be based solely on team effort and completing objectives. Renown should be based on kills. Mixing up the two means that people just ignore objectives and play murderball.

4 - Increase XP gain on other things besides scenarios. Don't make them the ONLY option to level because your quest reward xp is in the toilet.

5 - From what I understand, people can drop groups in scenarios. That should not be allowed. You are on a team, and you need to get with the program.

[kaid]

When you are doing scenarious you can be out questing until one opens. In open rvr you can do nothing but run around an empty area until stuff happens. Whatever XP bonus they give does not make up for the fact that 90% of the time you are running in an empty woods with nothing to do. I like the idea of teleporting to the nearest warcamp if nodes are under attack but that could have nasty consequences to trying to take a keep.

[Paelos]

When you are doing scenarious you can be out questing until one opens. In open rvr you can do nothing but run around an empty area until stuff happens. Whatever XP bonus they give does not make up for the fact that 90% of the time you are running in an empty woods with nothing to do. I like the idea of teleporting to the nearest warcamp if nodes are under attack but that could have nasty consequences to trying to take a keep.

Or they could just remove 90% of the NPCs around a keep and let players teleport directly to one that's under attack. That way you're actually fighting players instead of fighting cheating mobs that can fire through walls.

[Threash]

You should get periodical exp just for BEING in the rvr lakes, if people were sitting in the pvp areas instead of the warcamps while they waited for their scenario to pop at least SOME pvp would happen.

[HRose]

You should get periodical exp just for BEING in the rvr lakes, if people were sitting in the pvp areas instead of the warcamps while they waited for their scenario to pop at least SOME pvp would happen.

Or people (me included, considering the grind) would just park the character there and then go read a book.

That's a terrible idea. You reward activity, not the lack of it.

[Kirth]

Give chest for defense.

make it a public quest, kill xx attackers then the doors respawn, and npc defenders pop to clear out any remaining attackers. then the keep goes into lockdown for an hour or something and a keep lord chest spawns. As it stands now once attackers break into the keep all you can do is stand on the floor with the keep lord and wait tell the door respawns, but even then by the time you force out the attackers they will have the outer doors almost down.

[Righ]

I'm not even going to vote in that poll, its as fucking stupid as the rule set for open RvR servers or the chicken rule on any server.

People aren't ignoring the orvr because scenarios exist. They're ignoring the orvr because the orvr fucking sucks.

I don't know about that - I enjoy keep assaults and defense and trying to gain zone control. Its all quite fun until some Six Mouthbreathers start exploiting.

As for teleports, it would be cool to implement the blessed scroll of teleportation as implemented in the original Lineage game - let me store 'bookmark' locations when I visit somewhere, and use a scroll to teleport to a choice of location from my bookmark list. Create zones around keeps, objectives and serial content such as dungeons that cannot be bookmarked, and everything else is fair game.

[Tmon]

...As for teleports, it would be cool to implement the blessed scroll of teleportation as implemented in the original Lineage game - let me store 'bookmark' locations when I visit somewhere, and use a scroll to teleport to a choice of location from my bookmark list. Create zones around keeps, objectives and serial content such as dungeons that cannot be bookmarked, and everything else is fair game.

Heck, just let me bind at war camps and store more than one bind point and I'd be happy.  As it is I usually just stay bound to the rally master closest to the war camp  and take a death teleport when I need to get back to a particular quest giver.  Although now that I have my gyro copter thing I do that less than I used to.

[Azazel]

What a great idea to bring up such game-changing questions on their offical boards like this.

Really, the obvious way to do this would be a login poll, but not one that people click onto any answer asap to get it the fuck out of the way. One people have to choose to answer.

After you login, or after the EULA screen:
"We are polling our players to blah blah changes to the game. Would you like to participate? Please check the box: O Yes  O No"

No gets you into the game rightaway. Yes gets you the poll.

Fucking amateaur hour. The login poll idea, btw, took me like 10 seconds to pop into my head. Not a hard thought. Better to nest it on the fucking VN boards though, so only the players who care enough about the game to seek out each board will find it, and the casuals will never know.. (who needs their dollars, anyway?)


Right after I wrote this post, I went to the VN board tab to close it down, and noticed something funny. Look and see if you can find it too.

Why would you want to have official forums?



 

[Tarami]

29 days left of the poll and the same to WotLK? Doooooooooooom!

[Threash]

You should get periodical exp just for BEING in the rvr lakes, if people were sitting in the pvp areas instead of the warcamps while they waited for their scenario to pop at least SOME pvp would happen.

Or people (me included, considering the grind) would just park the character there and then go read a book.

That's a terrible idea. You reward activity, not the lack of it.

Going afk in a pvp area, yeah that sounds like a good plan.  You'd be back at your warcamp in no time. 

[Tannhauser]

Gamers are like electricity; the follow the path of least resistance.  Which in this case is scenarios.

Improve RvR lakes
1. You can teleport to any warcamp you've visited before.
2. Maybe have keeps under attack flash on the tier map to help folks find where the action is.
3. Rewards!  Let scenarios stay the fastest way to level, but make keep-taking better for gear.  And I don't mean the top 3 guys get green items either.  So you play scenarios to level but need to play lake RvR to get good gear.  Lake RvR gear should be the best in the game then PQ loot then Renown gear then world drops.

Or something like that.

[Venkman]

Ya know, I never could figure out what happened to the idea of showing hotspots on maps so players can go to where the action is at. That's an old one and STILL a good one.

I also don't get the lack of teleporting in this game. If the world was maybe half the size as present, or we ran 3x as fast or something, maybe it'd begin to be palpable. But there's just too many things not working in harmony: too many separate PQs, too much distance between everything, too much distance for little/no reward RvR. The whole world is not going to change at this point, but they can patch in easier ways to cover it.

- Port stones to a Warcamp, easy.
- Perma boost to run speed: base 2x of present. Each tier adds another multipler. Horses double/triple that still. Easy.
- All the XP stuff for actively partaking in RvR. How hard is it to assess a) who's in an RvR area, b) who's dealing damage to an enemy players or healing, c) apply the diminishing-returns element to prevent two players grinding off in the distance; and, d) tie in the quests to provide the major XP boosts from turn-in at warcamp?
- Build an ingame polling system. Why do none of the old school studios ever do this first?

This really is feeling like 2004 again. I'd love to know why.

[Hawkbit]

- Port stones to a Warcamp, easy.....

This really is feeling like 2004 again. I'd love to know why.

1.  Reduce the 60m hearthstone to a 60s one, problem solved if you bind in a chapter camp near a warcamp (highpass 12 for T3)

2.  As far as it feeling like 2004, yeah.  There's more people on the forums than actually playing the game, it seems.

[tazelbain]

> Build an ingame polling system. Why do none of the old school studios ever do this first?
Haha.  They have one already.  It was used extensively in beta.

[Lantyssa]

This really is feeling like 2004 again. I'd love to know why.

Because devs from 2001 are making the game?

[Azazel]

> Build an ingame polling system. Why do none of the old school studios ever do this first?
Haha.  They have one already.  It was used extensively in beta.

Fuck, you're right. I remember that now. 

Even better that he's polling randoms on the VN boards, who don't neccesarily even need a sub instead of his subscribers (hell, I voted, I don't have anything beyond a beta account yet).

29 days left of the poll and the same to WotLK? Doooooooooooom!

You know, I didn't notice that. But it just adds to it. I was thinking of the huge WoW trial ad in the corner. I mean we all know about the 800lb gorilla, and it's mentioned in the other VN board forums up on top, but there's a fuckin' poster of that gorilla next to MJ's poll. Talk about an ever-present reminder of the other options if the WAR is not entirely to your liking...

 

[Venkman]

> Build an ingame polling system. Why do none of the old school studios ever do this first?
Haha.  They have one already.  It was used extensively in beta.

Yep. There is one in WotLK beta as well. And was in EQ2. I meant why don't they do this in live games. Seems like a stupid-silly thing to just keep using since it's guaranteed focused quantitative feedback of your exact audience.

Random internet polling sucks for anything other than smacking the beehive of malcontents and never-going-to-play-anyways.

[Hayduke]

I say this every time vnboreds comes up, but it pisses me off to no end that MJ uses that right wing asshat-infested cess pool.  Throw this poll on the login screen.  Throw it on the Warhammer Alliance boards.  Throw it on the Hello Kitty Online forums.  Ask your Avon representative.  You will get more intelligent and accurate results from any of them than on that room temperature IQ board.

That said, the answer to me is diminishing returns.  2-3 scenarios a night?  Good.  More than that?  Hit ORvR if you want some xp and rp.

[UnSub]

Well yeah... if part of the reason the scenarios are so popular is the mechanic that lets you get there without any trouble jiffy-quick and automatically puts you in a group

Not really.

Right now I only play scenarios and sit idle at a warcamp. If there was RvR it would take me very little to join.

Problem is that I won't. It feels like time wasted. No progress at all. Even if there's RvR I won't go there because I know that an hour later my exp bar won't have moved one bit.

The problem is the reward, the rest are details.

I now understand why you aren't enjoying this game. Not everyone wants to sit idle at a warcamp just in case someone from the other side wanders into RvR just to take a look-see.

The teleport is so players who might be interested in RvR don't have to wait outside a dead zone just in case. Let them do other things and use that rally book to teleport to the warcamp nearest to where RvR is happening.