Game Update 1.0.4b

[waylander]

I have 2 pieces of Bloodlord, and 3 pieces of annihilator gear that I mix and match up. But it took weeks of running Bastion Stair to do it.  Because Order healers are so sucky to play, our limitation is mostly due to only having enough healers to support 1 warband worth of folks at a time. So yeah the ward stuff sucks, but it seems like hardly anyone likes playing a healer in this game so that holds up progress as well.

[Mrbloodworth]

Whatever, Most of its been "OMGWTF endgame". Other than that mythic has been making some very nice changes and additions addressing many things. In fact it was OMGWTF Endgame that got it dened. The rest has been new users spouting off shit with no examples, or room for discussion, just mater of fact-ly posting VN board style.

/end rant
/back to regular posting happiness and MMO stalking. 

You're right.  The endgame doesn't matter.  I'm level 24, but have done three-fifths of my realm's content and surrounded by level 29 mobs to progress, I'm pretty much dead in the water.  I won't make the endgame, so there's no point in me bitching about it.

I could go to another realm, but I was hoping to do those with other characters.  I'm not invested in those story lines having not played them through T1 and T2, so it'll be just grind.  If I want to grind, there are better options out there.  So yeah.  I've tried, but I think I'm hitting the cancel button today.  There's not much point when I've put in an hour over the course of the last two weeks.

That's fine, but see your talking about real issues.

[Rendakor]

Whatever, Most of its been "OMGWTF endgame". Other than that mythic has been making some very nice changes and additions addressing many things. In fact it was OMGWTF Endgame that got it dened. The rest has been new users spouting off shit with no examples, or room for discussion, just mater of fact-ly posting VN board style.

/end rant
/back to regular posting happiness and MMO stalking. 

You're right.  The endgame doesn't matter.  I'm level 24, but have done three-fifths of my realm's content and surrounded by level 29 mobs to progress, I'm pretty much dead in the water.  I won't make the endgame, so there's no point in me bitching about it.

I could go to another realm, but I was hoping to do those with other characters.  I'm not invested in those story lines having not played them through T1 and T2, so it'll be just grind.  If I want to grind, there are better options out there.  So yeah.  I've tried, but I think I'm hitting the cancel button today.  There's not much point when I've put in an hour over the course of the last two weeks.

QFT. I've gotten my third character to tier 3 last week and slammed right into the WALL OF GRIND. I hate TA with a passion (lavalol) so grinding scens isnt an option. I tried running Gunbad a few times but its very difficult to do in a way that earns xp (either with players below a certain level or less than a full warband).  I've done all the quests (including PQs to elite) and am still only level 24. There's simply no "fun" left to have that also gives me xp. As lame as this endgame crap sounds, it pales in comparison to my inability to get there.

[Gurney]

It still boggles my mind that there Zone Control has at least  3 different mechanics that encourage people to leave the RvR.  And they don't seem to understand that is a bad thing.

People don't always want to do RvR full-time. Some people like to take a break from that and do other stuff but still contribute to the "war effort", so to speak. For example in PlanetSide I liked to drive around refill the bases' energy supplies when I got tired of zerging or being zerged in the game. The problem with Mythic's design is that the "side stuff" is as or even more important than the zone RvR.

Yes I play like this and that is fine.  But the key problem is dependence.  You cannot make side stuff a dependency then it is no longer side stuff.  It is integral stuff.


Someone on Warhammer Alliance suggested that instead of contributing VP scenarios should just give a RvR zone buff like 5% damage and healing.  That would be fine.  Or at the very least if all 6 BFO would capture the zone its ok.  But as it stands right now you MUST leave the zone.


It is ok if PvE affect the RvR lakes in some way.  But as it stands right now, if I only want to RvR I have to leave the RvR area.  Or even if I like PvE but am currently working on RvR I may have to leave the RvR area once the BFO are taken.  


This should really be very obvious to anyone who designs anything.  This design should ring EXTREMELY loud alarm bells to anyone who works on it.  That it does not is rather scary.  I can tell you from designing computer software that this sort of analysis is intrinsic to all system design.


I mean its like they simply never said to themselves "Ok what happens next?"  Because the answer is "Oh we lose people out of the zone".

So either they are startlingly incompetent or they think its fine to lose people form the zone.


I personally think it is the latter.  Unfortunately this still makes them incompetent because now they do not understand network flow or even realize that is extremely important.  They have a bunch of nodes that traffic is flowing in-between and then they wonder why no one meets up for a fight.  Yeah well you are not directing your network traffic right of course no one is there.


They are directing large groups of people all over the place will nilly and expecting everyone to meet up in the RvR lakes.  That is their intention; they want everyone doing everything all at once.   I think this comes directly from Mark Jacobs (pure speculation of course).  And they honestly believe as long as everything is fairly fun there is no problem with that.

But that is completely wrong and is a fundamental misundesrtanding of how network flow works.


They send everyone off in a million different directions.  And they think "Oh but what happens when too many people go PvE and they lose some BFOs".  Then they pat themselves on the back and say "Ah but that is where the strategy comes in.  Then you go back take them back."

No.  Wrong.  What you get is a bunch of perpetual tail chasing and a lack of RvR because A is always chasing B and no one has any clue what is going on.

They should be having every single thing directing people into RvR lakes.  That should be the population concentration.  Same thing with PQs.  It should be like water flowing downhil and tributaries going into rivers.    Why are the Scenario quest NPC in warcamps?  Put them in keeps.

But its not, they just spreads people all over the place and there is no way to even have a clue who is going where when or why.  Its just throwing darts at a board with a blindfold.


The problem is not really so much that they don't understand that things should not be dependent so much as they simply do not seem to understand that they are directing people all over the place at random.  


Well I would say that I think Mythic (well Mark Jacobs) wants everything dependent on everything else, but does not understand the implications of how this affects population pooling and perception of what is going on.


Even making it so that PvE and BFO and Scenario VP contribution had to be done simultaneously would change how things worked.  As it stands right now an entire zone can empty in no time as that group starts to focus on the PvE or scenariop contribution.  At least if there was some simultaneous requirement then the RvR conflict could remain at a slow burn while the other stuff was going on.  But the current implementation encourages a complete abandonment of the zone.  Which in turn completely kills the idea that there is even a conflict going on.


There is absolutely no mechanic for a sustained conflict.  And multiple mechanics to actually periodically defuse or minmize the conflict in a zone.  The more you exclusively fight in that zone the LESS likely you are to take that zone.  This is exactly backwards of what it should be.  Mythic's goal in regards to RvR should be to keep as many people as possible in the RvR area as long as possible.

Perhaps they can keep PvE dependent perhaps not, I dunno but my guess is not.  It seems pretty clear that they want to spread people out evenly between the 3 major portions of the game.  But the problem is they are thinking of it like there are static pools.

There are not static pools there is a constant dynamic shifting.  An RvR zone can have 80- people in it one minute and 10 minutes later have 10 people in it.  And the major problem is that their mechanics for "spreading the  wealth" are basically completely defusing conflict.


They are not spreading things around.  They are just causing a number of warbands to empty out of one pool and shift to another.  Mythic has completely failed to grasp this central idea:  NEVER LET ANY POOL GET EMPTY.

  

[HaemishM]

You're right.  The endgame doesn't matter.  I'm level 24, but have done three-fifths of my realm's content and surrounded by level 29 mobs to progress, I'm pretty much dead in the water.  I won't make the endgame, so there's no point in me bitching about it.

I could go to another realm, but I was hoping to do those with other characters.  I'm not invested in those story lines having not played them through T1 and T2, so it'll be just grind.  If I want to grind, there are better options out there.  So yeah.  I've tried, but I think I'm hitting the cancel button today.  There's not much point when I've put in an hour over the course of the last two weeks.

That's me in a nutshell. I got stuck at 24, so I decided to finally go to the other realms to PVE for leveling. And I hit 25 and realized that I get NO NEW SKILL at level 26. WTF? Then I keep hearing about these armor wards, which is clownshoes development of the highest order. It's HUGE PVE cockblocks in a PVP game. Then I log in, and there is NO oRVR ACTION ANYWHERE. I traveled to all 4 available RVR lakes for my tier and there was nothing going on. NADA. Hit scenarios and while I did get a High Pass to pop, the very next scenario was Tor Anroc, which I've played to death.

I think I'm done. I just can't take anymore. The game was fun from 1-20. Somewhere after that, it went way the fuck off the rails.

[dd0029]

There is absolutely no mechanic for a sustained conflict.  And multiple mechanics to actually periodically defuse or minmize the conflict in a zone.  The more you exclusively fight in that zone the LESS likely you are to take that zone.  This is exactly backwards of what it should be.  Mythic's goal in regards to RvR should be to keep as many people as possible in the RvR area as long as possible.

I think I got what you were saying with the network flow idea but it was a bit confusing, but this is a really good point highlighting the problem.  Particularly about defusing conflict.  This was the real problem with the Witching Night event.  The long reset time effectively defused the conflict fairly quickly as the ostensible reason to be there vanished fairly quickly.  I am still unclear about how the lakes are supposed to work outside of the VP idea.  Other than securing VPs to foward the PvE effort to access the city loot, why should anyone want to do the RvR?

I was reading a WHA thread that suggested pride should be a reason, but frankly, the game does not offer many options to "show" that pride. You can claim a keep, but unless or until your guild is a high enough level, you can't display your guild emblem.  And even that pride option comes with a fairly steep monetary cost to the claiming guild.  Though, I suppose that keep claiming is what they think might be their gold sink as nothing else really is at the moment.  The BOs themselves are fairly meaningless outside of the VP mechanic.  Though I did just find out that if you talk to the sergeant there you can get a buff - apparently the Artisan one is fairly nice for the crafter - but the others are really weak.  Maybe if you could claim a BO, that might be more interesting, but even then, why do it?

I believe they may have wanted to make something like Eve and the ability to secure areas for your group, but most of what can be secured can't really be "secure" - what with late night/early morning claiming - and what you get out of claiming that area benefits you mostly outside of the area and not in a gated sort of way.

[Arthur_Parker]

Had to take 6 keeps tonight before I got a gold bag, everybody is out trading keeps.  And by everyone, I mean 80 people or so.

[Hindenburg]

Why is that witch hunter hat sporting an Ironbreaker icon? 

[Arthur_Parker]

The slowest part of capturing a keep is knocking down the doors.  Destruction on our server had a warband with about 50 players, we had two warbands of about a dozen each (only worked together for one keep to avoid splitting the loot bags).  Twice tonight, destruction flipped one keep back in a zone before we had managed to kill the keep lord on the 2nd keep, also twice tonight they grouped on the lower level of the inner keep, inside the 2nd door, waiting till we had capped the keep and then charged the new keep lord to recap, using the advantage of numbers to avoid having to knock down both doors.  This whole setup is incredibly flawed.

[Fordel]

I have seen comments regarding ToA in numerous places, but unfortunately was never into DaoC. Would someone kindly either post a response detailing what the hell happened and what ToA was supposed to be that made it so bad, or at the least point me to an article/blog about it? I would love to learn about this.

ToA (Trials of Atlantis) was a DAoC expansion that added a HUGE PvE grind to a successful (for the time) PvP game.  It included master levels (pve), artifacts that required aquisition, farming drops to activate, and leveling (more pve), all resulting in a new arms race. The addition of this lengthy PvE grind lead to a mass exodus of the playerbase.

That help? 

 

ToA made people level their pants, in the rain, at night time, in a specific zone.

If you didn't, you were pretty much going to auto-lose against anyone who did.

[Ingmar]

I have seen comments regarding ToA in numerous places, but unfortunately was never into DaoC. Would someone kindly either post a response detailing what the hell happened and what ToA was supposed to be that made it so bad, or at the least point me to an article/blog about it? I would love to learn about this.

ToA (Trials of Atlantis) was a DAoC expansion that added a HUGE PvE grind to a successful (for the time) PvP game.  It included master levels (pve), artifacts that required aquisition, farming drops to activate, and leveling (more pve), all resulting in a new arms race. The addition of this lengthy PvE grind lead to a mass exodus of the playerbase.

That help? 

 

ToA made people level their pants, in the rain, at night time, in a specific zone.

If you didn't, you were pretty much going to auto-lose against anyone who did.

I would argue that artifacts, outside of a couple specific ones, weren't the main problem with TOA, they were just the poster child. The really big problem in PVP balance, well beyond everything else and the thing that really forced RVRers to do PVE they hated, was master levels, not gear. The main balance effect of TOA gear was to widen the pure class/hybrid class gap, and that was more due to all the new types of stat bonuses they added than anything specifically artifact-related.

[Sjofn]

FUCK did I hate master levels.

[Nebu]

ToA made people level their pants, in the rain, at night time, in a specific zone.

If you didn't, you were pretty much going to auto-lose against anyone who did.

I forgot that part.  Coupled to the ridiculous drop rates and slow respawns of the bosses, it was the worst of EQ added to a pvp game.  Boat missed and all that.

Oh yeah... they added boats too.  You really could miss the boat both literally and metaphorically! 

[Fordel]

The whole expansion was just a 'RvR Tax'. Pay the tax or forever be useless at the part of the game you actually enjoy.


Ing is correct that on a whole, the Master Level abilities were more powerful and influential then most individual artifacts. You were a heavy tank without Bodyguard? (ML8) well grats, you are useless now.

But they still don't match the absurdity of leveling your God Damn PANTS. In the rain, on a deserted island, at night.


If there was ever a moment of "What the FUCK am I doing?" clarity, it was that.

[Arthur_Parker]

Linky

Greetings!

We have two additional Hot Fixes for you this evening:

Items
In response to player feedback we have reverted the recent change to the Ward system on high level encounters throughout the game. Players will once again do regular damage and the set bonus will only impact your resistance to the encounter’s attacks.

The ward system will continue to undergo further testing and development on our internal and public test servers. In the future we intend to introduce improvements to not only the ward system but to the item rewards tied to the system as well.

Please note if your character is currently logged in you will need to un-equip and re-equip the pieces in order for this change to take effect.

For more information on the Ward system and high level armor sets please see this Grab Bag.

RvR
Based on player feedback we have adjusted the amount of time between launches on the following Scenarios: Tor Anroc, Mourkain Temple, Serpent’s Passage and Nordenwatch.  We will continue to evaluate and adjust the amount of time between the specified scenario launches based on player feedback.

 

[khaine]

So now ,I imagine there will be heaps of praise for their wisdom and response in removing something that was so blatantly stupid they shouldn't even have considered putting it in ?

That about the way it works lately it seems

[tolakram]

I'm getting tired of

1. blame toward Mythic when they correct a mistake (no matter how stupid)
2. People claiming nothing can be done to fix the game and yet still complaining.

Yes, I'm just as frustrated with Mythic and I think Jacobs will go down in history as a mediocre designer not able to comprehend what players like in a game, but I'm still rooting for WAR.  The final straw for me will be the 1.1 patch notes.  Jacobs said that he saw problems that needed some big fixes, and I expect to see those fixes in 1.1.  A new influence system geared toward RvR combat would be a big fix and I'm counting on seeing it.

[khaine]

I'm getting tired of

1. blame toward Mythic when they correct a mistake (no matter how stupid)
2. People claiming nothing can be done to fix the game and yet still complaining.

Yes, I'm just as frustrated with Mythic and I think Jacobs will go down in history as a mediocre designer not able to comprehend what players like in a game, but I'm still rooting for WAR.  The final straw for me will be the 1.1 patch notes.  Jacobs said that he saw problems that needed some big fixes, and I expect to see those fixes in 1.1.  A new influence system geared toward RvR combat would be a big fix and I'm counting on seeing it.

They "fixed" a "problem" that was an incredibly stupid idea they came up with and were about to implement in the game ,

I don't see how they deserve kudos for that

It gives me pause it took a couple weeks of outright screaming on the boards where even the diehard defenders were going "wtf" to make them back off on it

Its something that shouldnt ever have entered their design ideas to begin with

Why shouldnt they deserve grief for it ? Maybe it will keep them from coming up with further stupid ideas,

I dont think they deserve any praise for not implementing it

[Kail]

I'm getting tired of

1. blame toward Mythic when they correct a mistake (no matter how stupid)

They "fixed" a "problem" that was an incredibly stupid idea they came up with and were about to implement in the game ,

I don't see how they deserve kudos for that

Because it's a change for the better.  Bad move = complain, good move = praise.  If you bitch when they screw up and then bitch more if they fix it, all anyone sees is this mass of incessant whining, and who wants to read that?  That they realize they made a mistake is good.  That they're fixing it is good.  That they're listening to their players is good.  The argument could be made that they aren't doing this enough, but with regards to this particular issue, this is (I think) a good outcome.

[khaine]

I'm getting tired of

1. blame toward Mythic when they correct a mistake (no matter how stupid)

They "fixed" a "problem" that was an incredibly stupid idea they came up with and were about to implement in the game ,

I don't see how they deserve kudos for that

Because it's a change for the better.  Bad move = complain, good move = praise.  If you bitch when they screw up and then bitch more if they fix it, all anyone sees is this mass of incessant whining, and who wants to read that?  That they realize they made a mistake is good.  That they're fixing it is good.  That they're listening to their players is good.  The argument could be made that they aren't doing this enough, but with regards to this particular issue, this is (I think) a good outcome.

So in your mind
__________________
Mythic announces upcoming patch 1.05x

Healing reduced 50% across the board
Armor reduced 50% across the board
Damage increased 100% for all ranged dps

After a week of "thats the stupidest thing we've ever heard of" on every fan board

Mythic announces
Due to feedback , we have decided to hold off on the said changes to healing and damage and will keep an eye on possibly implementing something like this in the future

___________________

This should be viewed as a "good thing" and praise heaped on them for not doing this and "listening"

You go that way all you want , I say they deserve grief for coming up with such a moronic idea to begin with

To you avoiding a monstrous blunder that shouldn't ever have come up with earns them "praise"

Now I see why the crap that gets released today still gets released

[Hindenburg]

What Khaine is saying is:

Everyone here bashes the game because we all (or most of us) want to see the game work, and work well.

Since the developer(s) have a very severe case of put shoe on head, and insert retarded idea after retarded idea, while taking very fucking minor steps in the right direction (read: they should quadruple xp gains for everything), we get pissed.
People get pissed, shit gets broken.

We hurt you because we love you.

[khaine]

Actually you are dead on , for me , there's this really small ,small hope I have for a game I wanted to like and enjoy , and its dwindling more each day

Once I decided 100% a game isnt for me I just move on and don't even worry about it any more , I haven't visited a LotRO board nor read about it since last May , I just dont care about it , I know its not for me

WAR could have been , its really in the ball park all around but keeps coming up with such glaringly obvious stupid decision it's beyond frustrating

To me praise comes for fixing something quickly , implementing much needed changes in Open RvR and xps , coming up with good ideas and putting them in ,

Praise is not deserved for ducking a ridiculous idea that shouldnt even have been considered by a competent design team , and if anything the ONLY reason it isnt going in is the hue and cry , which is disconcerting

(ok I did still visit and keep up with the Vanguard meltdown for a month or two ,but who can blame me , the drama on the boards for that game for the few months after launch was something I just couldnt stay away from  )

[UnSub]

If your playerbase can immediately point out 5 serious flaws in your game design within the first few hours of gameplay, you have a problem. 

This isn't whats happening however.

Before I even played I questioned the design of PQs (too team dependent, what happens when no-one else is around?), the lack of a realm imbalance correction mechanism and why xp was nerfed for Tier 3 just before launch.

From playing, my thoughts have questioned the big empty world, the game design based on Tiers that further separates players, the long distances required to travel to get into an RvR zone and why all the reward systems are set up so that RvR provides the lowest rewards of all.

The cherry on the top of this has been Mythic's questionable choice of how to fix a number of these items.

[Arthur_Parker]

Because it's a change for the better.  Bad move = complain, good move = praise. 

It doesn't work like that.  The ward damage change is something they designed, tested, implemented and then rolled back.  You can ignore all the time they wasted doing that if you like, but I wouldn't praise them for it.  The whole point of the ward damage nerf was to slow progression down by a massive factor. 

The key thing is, they haven't come out and said they no longer want to slow progression down.  So although the details of what they replace it with aren't known, there's zero reason to believe their core intent will be any different.  Players might be more accepting of a different way of having their end game progression slowed, but ultimately, it doesn't matter, because you don't attract new players by slowing progression down.  Times up, WAR had it's moment in the sun and EA isn't going to keep signing off on massive amounts of development time forever.

[Bismallah]

It doesn't work like that.  The ward damage change is something they designed, tested, implemented and then rolled back.  You can ignore all the time they wasted doing that if you like, but I wouldn't praise them for it.  The whole point of the ward damage nerf was to slow progression down by a massive factor. 

The key thing is, they haven't come out and said they no longer want to slow progression down.  So although the details of what they replace it with aren't known, there's zero reason to believe their core intent will be any different.  Players might be more accepting of a different way of having their end game progression slowed, but ultimately, it doesn't matter, because you don't attract new players by slowing progression down.  Times up, WAR had it's moment in the sun and EA isn't going to keep signing off on massive amounts of development time forever.

They are losing a very large chunk of the money that funds games years down the road, casual gamers, by trying to slow them down even further. Powergamers will still plow through the content and go nuts, while the casual gamer guys are stuck behind the curve. WAR will continue to have it's niche based group of players (like that Shaman on Darklands that is already RR62+ what he is gonna do in a month I have no idea) that will plow through the content, get maxed out in their gear and keep playing for a long time (or roll alts). Same with DAOC. They still have players taking keeps, doing Relic Raids, you name it. Sure alot of DAOC turned into groups of 8 running around farming one another (which will happen 6v6 in WAR) but they keep the heartbeat still on the monitor. My guild just last nite finally got some Bloodlord pieces for members, so they will be farming it for a few months to get most of the players into some decent gear (350+ member guild) but what do they do past that? What do they do when their server is losing so many people that they can never push into the Inevitable City? By making the "end game" so player-number dependent any server without the players is dead on arrival. I am glad that I had a chance to experience WAR, being a table top player for 13 years I cringed when I see things like "Ogre Butcher" that was wielding a Cathayan Longsword like a Bruiser... sigh... but whatever those are small things that I had issues with that to me meant a lot but to other folks didnt even phase them. If you paid that much for the IP, did you have anyone from GW beta this game and look through the lore? I live right near the US HQ for Games Workshop and frequent their 'Battle Bunker' and I dont remember anyone talking about this game before release, at all. No posters, no fliers, no advertising, I didnt see anything.

WAR was a much larger endeavor for Mythic and because of that the impact of the casual gamer mecca to other games to never return again will be devastating on their overhead/capital/development budget/expansions. I wish them the best, really I do, because competition is great for the market. However I have to play where I have fun and where most of my friends are (let's face it, the game can be shit but if it has a good community it will live forever).

[Modern Angel]

I want to touch on this GW being actively involved in promotion thing. They're miserable at it. I've been easing myself back into GW after years away; prior to my years away I was an employee and extremely hardcore player. So I picked up a White Dwarf last month and the entirety of Warhammer Online's exposure was a screenshot or two. That was it.

GW has an almost actively antagonistic relationship with any of their IP branches which aren't specifically miniatures game. It was the same way with the pen and paper RPG: we didn't carry it in stores when I worked there in 99 because of some insane belief that it would bleed money from the miniatures games. Never mind that it could do the opposite, where you get some cross pollination between different niches interested in your product. There's a disturbing one true wayism involved in their marketing: you do it on the ground, in the stores, and you gladhand your way to miniatures sales only by selling miniatures.

So no mention of it in Glen Burnie, while disturbing, is par for the course.

[Mrbloodworth]

Jesus, and here i thought thats what the test server, in game data, trends, and player feedback was for, and that MMO's are constantly changing beasts.

Shows what i know, every change, or tweak must be meet with QQ it seems. Even if its a good one.

[Modern Angel]

If the changes suck who cares that they have a test server? If they're not alleviating the soul crushing grind in the 20s who cares? I don't. They don't get my money.

[Arthur_Parker]

Shows what i know, every change, or tweak must be meet with QQ it seems. Even if its a good one.

Heh.  Who's crying?  It's funny.  QQ seems to be the new trendy thing to say, along with linking xfire stats, at least some people put more effort into it than others.

[Mrbloodworth]

Shows what i know, every change, or tweak must be meet with QQ it seems. Even if its a good one.

Heh.  Who's crying?  It's funny.  QQ seems to be the new trendy thing to say, along with linking xfire stats, at least some people put more effort into it than others.

You know what im talking about. 

[schild]

Age of Conan in that second week is hilarious. Talk about Buzz and then dropoff.

Warhammer is just going to be a line straight down. Neat.

[Bismallah]

Oh jeez yeah, Warhammer's line is going to look about the same as AOC...

[UnSub]

Jesus, and here i thought thats what the test server, in game data, trends, and player feedback was for, and that MMO's are constantly changing beasts.

Shows what i know, every change, or tweak must be meet with QQ it seems. Even if its a good one.

Players like to see progress being made in the right direction. You aren't going to please everyone, sure, but I can't say that WAR's changes since launch have made many people happy.

The one thing I'll give them - in-game spam was slashed from when the game launched to when I cancelled. Most other things are questionable.

[Khaldun]

The real problem I see is that the changes that they're reversing on now were put into place to solve a serious design problem, namely, that the endgame turns out to be massively flawed. What I think Mythic was thinking with wards, etc., was to cockblock the players off from the endgame until they could come up with a more sustainable, serious solution. Now that they're reversing course, they're back to having the underdesigned endgame be exposed. Add to this the clear underlying flaws in the way victory points work or don't work. I think that's another case where Mythic is trying to keep the sensitive, vulnerable innards of the endgame from being exposed, by having an overly convoluted VP model that obscures exactly what it is that players are supposed to be doing.

If they can't figure out a sustainable and fun mechanic for the endgame that doesn't take a lengthy detour through PvE grind, they're sunk. And I feel real sympathy for them on this score, because this is not a quick fix kind of design problem. Arguably it's something that no PvP-centric MMOG has ever succeeded in figuring out: what makes the endgame feel big and important and full of renewable excitement and fun? What makes it something you're willing to do again and again for months on end? Shadowbane had a few ideas about this, but they were lost in the miasma of their initial decisions about the economy required to support guild towns and the problems with the map design and distribution of key resources.

[waylander]

You still need ward gear so you don't get obliterated by NPC's you'll encounter as you progress to the King. The DPS move was dumb, but the gear is still required if you don't want to be 1 shotted by the NPC's.