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Topic: So, what do you think about the honor system? (Read 37913 times)
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Samprimary
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I have been known to make mistakes before. It's only human, of course, to make incorrect appraisals, especially given the fact that I have sometimes been noted to have been swayed by an 'inherently pessimisive' viewpoint. I myself typically try to define my pessimism as a product of pragmatic cautiousness, but this is probably an excuse mechanism. No, I suppose I have to concede the fact that I was foolish to have viewed upcoming changes with a fatalist lens; I have clouded myself to the munificent bounty that Blizzard has granted us with the introduction of the Honor system.
Now, I had gone on record as saying publicly that I believed that the Honor system was going to be a problem. I was quick to state that I believed that the Honor system, as I viewed it in developmental conceptualization, was going to be countereffective to the goals that it was ostensibly put in place to achieve.
I said that it should be plainly obvious to any developer who had an "iota of sense" that there were inherent and fundamentally terrible flaws with a system that turns players into a farmable resource in this particular manner. In my baseless ranting, I said that the very idea, understated though it was, that the Honor system was ostensibly being put in place to 'revolutionize' the PvP aspect of this game and deal with problems involving the interfering issue of quest NPC killing ... was absolute bunk.
I foretold problems. I spoke candidly, even sardonically, about the fact that Tarren Mill would become a miserable pit choked with rivers of fresh blood, and that it was foolish -- outright foolish -- to install this system knowing full well that the game had been sent to press with one faction holding an average of three quarters of all the players. I said that the system would be looked upon 'unkindly'.
Well, I'd like to apologize publicly for being such a party pooper. The Honor system is great! The game has never been this much fun and I believe that my experience in the game has been profoundly improved for virtue of the aspects of social/faction interaction that the Honor system have brought to my attention.
Take for instance the fact that quest NPC ganking has been revolutionized with a whole new paradigm of 'fresh' gameplay: The fact that Quest NPC's have become golden targets the enemy faction will utilize as often as possible in order to attract any and all opportunities to spur "defensive action" on the part of your faction. Before, people would just gank your quest NPC's for gits and shiggles, but now? Now they are slaughtered in copious, frenetic orgies of attempted farming. You see, the system has been changed so that it encourages factions to provoke flagging and goad the other faction into defensively minded action. Why, I even had a friend saying that they tragically had been trying to hand a quest in at Tarren Mill for the past four hours, but could not as the town was being systematically slaughtered by a mass of Alliance and had been occupied since shortly after the servers started up. You see? Some would call this 'lame' or 'stupid' or 'GG NO RE', but I understand it now simply to be a new creative aspect to the game: compensating for the fact that two factions have just been goaded into perpetual faction-farming simply makes Warcraft have an aspect of a puzzle game, like Zork, or Adventure! She has to figure out the secret, like logging in immediately after a server restart, or typing 'xyzzy', or something.
See, this isn't a bad thing, and certainly won't be when groups of Honor farmers attempt to get progressively more and more intrusive on Horde lands in an attempt to find out which targets provoke the appearance of the most farmable players. Soon they will find that Tarren Mill is a terrible place to farm honor, so they will form raid groups and try to attack places in ways that demand counterattack. Perhaps enterprising individuals will find that sitting a raid group in the middle of Crossroads will earn them more Honor points per hour than, say, Stonard, a place that no sane Horde member would try to defend at this point.
I also have to say that I love the system. I at first remarked that the method Blizzard used would only inspire heated 'rank races' between the most hardcore characters on either side; I further remarked that this would make raids of faction functions essential and constantly escalating as players competed for limited rank slots. But again, I wasn't looking at it in a positive light. I failed to realize the potential offered by the new and exciting challenge of turning, say, the Auction House into a war zone! Bidding has never been so much fun!
Perhaps I also hastily implied that the 'Honor' system might as well be called the 'Dishonor' system, as the actions it encourages are anything but honorable. Why, in fact, it straight up rewards skullduggery and exploitation of the game system. At first, I chafed when I witnessed that rogues were using 'flag tag' tactics to flag and assassinate suitable Horde characters for the easy 'Honor' it earned them. I errantly assumed that the act of flagging to attack opponents where convenient and where the outcome is inevetable -- aka, 'ganking' -- might be considered unbecoming of the concept of 'Honor', but then I realized that it is now the system that defines 'honor', not the silly outmoded concept *I* had. If I'm not willing to attack a character five seasons younger than me and nearly out of health, and another player is, that player will become much more honorable than me, and be promoted over me and have access to better equipment for virtue of the fact that the most unscrupulous among us now have the most tools for advancement! Ganking, I now realize, is Honor in the Warcraft World.
Last but certainly not least, I must wholly retract the concerns I had for the system of scaled battle physics and the server population disparity.
The alliance quickly utilized in their advantage any and all advantages of numbers that they could muster. With a huge excess of numbers and levels above and beyond what the Horde could possibly compete against, I said that it was 'downright unprofessional' to institute a system that would systematically benefit the capacity of an already superior force, or to use a game mechanic to encourage the act of 'zerging' as an efficient means of harvesting Honor. I selfishly called this concern 'vital' as it would 'become a severe problem' for the Horde on most servers. Again, I was being a negative poopy-face. I understand now, you see, that the Honor system was merely put in place to encourage humility in the Horde. For all this time, we've been strutting around, acting like we were a proud set of races; but Blizzard is merely .. expanding the game universe, you see, to teach us that the Horde's role in World of Warcraft is to be beaten, much as it was Lordaeron's fate to become consumed by a plague in Warcraft III. Blizzard's original concept of the two factions being 'equal powers' that engaged in assymetrical, contained disputes and occasional flare ups? It was a 'lead in' to WoW Chapter 2, where the Horde finds itself subjugated by a numerically indefatiguable Alliance.
Being that I am on a Roleplaying server, I am in a perfect position to respect and enjoy this exciting new paradigm that Blizzard has gifted us with! I have already done my part by shutting off the now useless Defense channels and preparing a new set of raggedy vendor-purchased hides to wear as I am marched off towards the new Tauren reservation. I am amazed that Blizzard has added a new dynamic to the game universe; perhaps they are trying to capture the unique aspects of playing a severely disadvantaged faction, to directly market to the idea that MMORPG's are games that some people play just to complain, such as people who joined borked servers in DAoC, or had characters rendered literally combat ineffectual by patches in SWG.
My apologies. I see now that the Honor system has a bright future in World of Warcraft, and will only be negatively received by those who remain as tragically negative as I once was.
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WayAbvPar
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Nicely said. I wish I could say I agree, but I think you are totally wrong. I think are some problems with the Honor system! 
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When speaking of the MMOG industry, the glass may be half full, but it's full of urine. HaemishM
Always wear clean underwear because you never know when a Tory Government is going to fuck you.- Ironwood
Libertarians make fun of everyone because they can't see beyond the event horizons of their own assholes Surlyboi
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Jobu
Terracotta Army
Posts: 566
Lord Buttrot
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Honor points rewarded only when inside a Battleground instance. Fixed.
That will be $500 in consultation fees, Blizzard. Thank you.
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Threash
Terracotta Army
Posts: 9171
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I assume you are in a pve server from your description of events. On my server which happens to be pvp hillsbrad foothills has become the defacto battleground, every other zone is deserted. You'd think lower levels would take advantage of this by going to the empty zones and questing/leveling, nope no one there. Being a rogue i detest the Tarren Mill zerg fest since NO ONE EVER CHARGES THE GOD DAMN ENEMY, they just sit barely out of spell/arrow range and run back and forth every few seconds to cast/shoot.
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I am the .00000001428%
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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The honor system blows.
I'm on a normal server where PVP is reserved almost solely for the level 60's with their farmed uber equipment, and Tarren Mill IS a river of blood, being annihilated on an almost hourly basis. I think this really, really sucks, and I'm playing Alliance.
My friends play on PvP servers, and one in particular has a level 38 Tauren Warrior who simply can NOT finish quests in contested areas now without his level 60 Rogue friend babysitting him. He has come to accept the fact that he will be killed at least a dozen times by people 15+ levels higher than him when he passes through contested areas or anywhere with high alliance traffic.
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« Last Edit: April 22, 2005, 11:56:38 PM by Fabricated »
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Merusk
Terracotta Army
Posts: 27449
Badge Whore
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Nicely said. I wish I could say I agree, but I think you are totally wrong. I think are some problems with the Honor system!  You mean like Mages and other AOEers racking up huge contrib points in a matter of hours. To levels it would take other classes days to achieve? Nah, working as intended. ;)
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The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
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Signe
Terracotta Army
Posts: 18942
Muse.
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Honor System = 
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My Sig Image: hath rid itself of this mortal coil.
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Sobelius
Terracotta Army
Posts: 761
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Silly players. When Blizzard said the system was one in which the goal was to "gain rankings" they really intended us to abbreviate this as "gainkings".
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"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire "A world without Vin Diesel is sad." -- me
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Llava
Contributor
Posts: 4602
Rrava roves you rong time
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 "Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?" "Are you kidding? This baby is off the charts!"
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That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell. -Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
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Ironwood
Terracotta Army
Posts: 28240
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Blizzard should have brought out battlegrounds and the honor system out together or not at all.
Bravo. (18 Honorable kills last night. Fun, but I'm not so stupid as not to see the problems.)
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"Mr Soft Owl has Seen Some Shit." - Sun Tzu
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Jayce
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2647
Diluted Fool
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I play on a PvP server (Alliance).
I like PvP (obviously, otherwise I wouldn't play on a PvP server) but what I'm seeing isn't really PvP. It's a somewhat interactive slideshow in TM/SS and everywhere else, it's a game that used to be soloable, but now if you are solo you might as well block of an extra 30 minutes per hour. For example, yesterday I needed to go to BB to work on the smith quest. It was (oddly) empty, but right outside of town I was ganked 5 seperate times on my way down the road by at least 3 Horde per ambush.
While I'm glad to offer my honor points to those in need, and I have played on PvP servers exclusively so I'm used to it, this is pretty insane.
STV is as described. TM/SS is as described. Plaguelands (as I hear, haven't ventured there yet) is the playground of 60 rogues who gank anyone lower and avoid anyone higher. Tanaris/Gadgetzan is entirely unplayable since the guards are (I hear) bugged, so it's occupied by Horde 24/7, 30 of which gank you the instant you land. Un'Goro almost has some interesting fights, but usually it's one person who I engage with, have a slightly interesting battle, then his 4 buddies show up.
I suppose I like that there is a point to PvP now, but competing with a million kiddies who all want to be Grand Marshal and aren't afraid to camp the griffin point to do it isn't my idea of a point.
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Witty banter not included.
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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Okay guys I am a bit drunk - and oddly some of you sound more profound than ever :P
Sam - liked your post - but for posts of that length - please use subheadings to outline your logic.
I agree that that the numeric imbalance favours the alliance. But only faggots play alliance. When BG comes out - Horde will have the day - since we can pick and choose our fights in a sea of qued alliance folks waiting to fight us.
I don't want to post a new thread on this - and it sounds consistent with your topic, so:
Kill one guy 5 levels above you, lose 10 fights to a guys 5 levels above you. I am scratching my head, in "honor" is it worth it going after tough foes?
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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Sobelius
Terracotta Army
Posts: 761
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But only faggots play alliance.
Miss thing I wish this was the case. We'd be having one big old disco party in Ironforge with bulging dwarves in assless chaps and invite Martha to redecorate the drabby Stormwind. It would also make it so much easier to find a date. As it is right now, every time I whisper "cute butt!" to some Night Elf hottie, I just get the cold purple shoulder. Must be he's just afraid to show how he realy feels. However, I have heard rumors that trolls have *5%43$#' as long as their ears! May have to switch sides...just to confirm the rumors and report back, of course.
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"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire "A world without Vin Diesel is sad." -- me
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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That was beautiful.
I also wish jpark would post more often when he's tipsy.
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Fabricated
Moderator
Posts: 8978
~Living the Dream~
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If I had some sort of irrational love for the color yellow I might play horde.
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"The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist." - George Bernard Shaw
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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WoW's PvP has been borked since launch, so this is pretty laughable.
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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Samprimary
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Sam - liked your post - but for posts of that length - please use subheadings to outline your logic. It's a deal! And yeah, it is more than just #1. Honor system sucksFor more, we go to Kalgan's responses to Honor system concerns. We're fairly certain that once Battlegrounds are released, players will notice that the player vs. player combat taking place in contested zones will be substantially reduced. Ha. Despite a very common misconception, Horde and Alliance numbers are pretty well balanced on PvP realms. Ha.The initial data has not indicated that any one class has dramatic advantages over another. Ha!Strike one.
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Morfiend
Terracotta Army
Posts: 6009
wants a greif tittle
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I personally am enjoying the fuck out of the honor system. But I have a few things going for me.
1) I play on a PVP server. Dont have to worry about quest NPCs getting ganked for flagging. 2) Im a rogue, I can pick and choose my battles (some times. Less now) 3) I am in a large guild (I founded it actually) and we all love PVP.
Yeah, TM is a total zerg fest right now. Its insane. On my server at almost any time of the day you can find around 50 on 50. It will start to sway in alliance numbers around primetime. To more like 100v50, but its still fun. Basically I feel really sorry for people around lvl 50, casue they are like a free drink to a alcoholic. But if you go to any of the zones where people under 50 level (except Hillsbrad and Gadgetzan) I cant find any alliance. I think leveling for lowbies on my server just got easier.
I did a little test run on kills vs contribution points. Mage AEing does not net you the insane amount of cont points you are claiming. On thursday evening, a group of 4 (2 rogues, mage, warlock) went roaming around, killing all the 60 alliance we could find in plaguelands and gadgetzan, and winterspring. I had around 300 kills, and got 5500 contribution points. The next day, I spent all day fighting in TM with those same people, and a few more. Ended up with 1100 kills for 6700 cont points. So imo, once more info gets around how this works, you will see a lot more groups of 5 roaming around, fighting eachother. And that is even more fun.
Seems to me, the majority of your gripes come from bad implementation on a PVE server, and misinformation about what gives the best cont points.
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Jayce
Terracotta Army
Posts: 2647
Diluted Fool
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But if you go to any of the zones where people under 50 level (except Hillsbrad and Gadgetzan) I cant find any alliance. I think leveling for lowbies on my server just got easier.
I'm on the same server, Alliance. While leveling for Horde lowbies may have gotten easier, I think it's a lot worse for Alliance lowbies than it was before. I used to solo. Now that's almost out the window because most of the time I find myself ganked by at LEAST 5 if not 10 or more lvl 60 Horde anywhere I go ... Tanaris, Maraudon, especially Plaguelands. I and my friends are in that level 50 bad place. If you're not a rogue, it's 10x worse. My warlock friend got ganked around 10 times trying to get from the Plaguelands to Kalimdor last night. The MO was the same - rogue stunlock and kills him... guards start to aggro, rogue vanishes, no repercussions. Rinse repeat. I don't know what you mean about Gadgetzan. I can't fly into it anymore because I get zoinked before I can move by at least 20 or so Horde. I hope they are right about battlegrounds, because if not, I don't see us playing much longer. We are used to PvP and PvP servers but there is simply no game before level 60.
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Witty banter not included.
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Margalis
Terracotta Army
Posts: 12335
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It's like a car moving at 5 MPH towards a cliff 10 miles away. "Um...you might want to, you know, stop or turn on something..."
Nope.
Sigh. Christ. What are these "game designers" being paid for exactly when they miss what 9/10 reasonably intelligent people can pick up on?
If I had one rule for MMORPG game designers, it would be to always ask "how are players going to abuse this?" At some point, SOME DESIGNER somewhere is going to realize that that's probably the most important question to ask yourself about any feature.
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vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
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Abel
Terracotta Army
Posts: 94
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One of the main issues with the honor system that noone seems to notice is that it measures honourable kills, who mean jack squat actually, BUT NOT CONTRIBUTION POINTS, which were it is actually all about.
As a result :
1) AoEing as a mage doesn't net you more contribution points 2) Moving in a zerg is the fastest road to not getting anywhere on the ranking list (due to CP dilution) 3) Ganking greens (lower 50s) is wasting your time because you can actually get a lot more from lvl 60s, even if you win only half of the fights
However because everyone is looking at their HK count they go farm greens in a zerg and envy mages because "W0000T EASY HKs!!!1!!"
The system is actually not badly designed and playing "on an even field" will get you higher on the ranking then typical ganking, but because of a discrepancy in feedback that will take most quite a while to figure out.
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Kageru
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4549
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I lost interest when they addressed his post "lead designer Kalgan". I suspect Blizzard, with its single player mentality and slow pace, didn't really need a great depth of talent in their designers. Nor is there any sign they're using the buckets of money they are making to improve that situation. "Enoyls" appeared to have a clue, but seems to have moved on to another project. "Kalgan" has managed to infuriate with his simplistic and one-sided analysis. He's also pro-PvP so no surprise that for him Battlefields are the most important things in WoW.
As for the current situation, what a mess. Overlaying PvP onto an environment designed almost entirely for PvE is just not a good idea. Making it open and unlimited was obviously going to highlight the inevitable numeric imbalance. And having points being scored primarily on the basis of kill count, with no cost for death and no objective, is an invitation to zerg. Admittedly people will realise that raid zerg doesn't net good points. A MMORPG community is insanely good at micro-optimisation. But instead what you'll see will be small, but very high DPS, gank squads. People will want as few characters as they need to make the fights trivial, but actual fair fights where you stand a chance of losing aren't efficient.
I'd expect in a couple of days people will be posting about 5 mage AoE squads and 5 rogue assassination squads earning sick points. Perhaps 5 man hunter sniper squads too, a syncronized aimed shot is insta-death for a target. They'll still love raids as cover though.
I'll also mention that this has made it even harder to find PvE groups. Not only are the meeting stones useless, and instance entrances camped on PvP servers, but the pool of people is now critically low. On my server (admittedly at aus times) there was *one* dire maul group over the entire faction. The newest instance is entertaining 5 people, all from the same guild? That's not healthy for a game.
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Is a man not entitled to the hurf of his durf? - Simond
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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If I had one rule for MMORPG game designers, it would be to always ask "how are players going to abuse this?" At some point, SOME DESIGNER somewhere is going to realize that that's probably the most important question to ask yourself about any feature.
Not sure mate. EQ2 did a great job of removing exploits found in EQ...
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
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I lost interest when they addressed his post "lead designer Kalgan". I suspect Blizzard, with its single player mentality and slow pace, didn't really need a great depth of talent in their designers. Nor is there any sign they're using the buckets of money they are making to improve that situation. "Enoyls" appeared to have a clue, but seems to have moved on to another project. "Kalgan" has managed to infuriate with his simplistic and one-sided analysis. He's also pro-PvP so no surprise that for him Battlefields are the most important things in WoW.
Kalgan is the lead designer of the Honor system -- he's not the lead designer of the game overall. That's why he's pro-PvP, that's his baby, so to speak. Edit: Stripped out PvP/Battlegrounds from his "title" since he may not be the lead designer for those. He is definitely the lead designer on the Honor system.
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« Last Edit: April 24, 2005, 07:24:27 PM by Trippy »
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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So I guess I'll see all you WoW people who want good PvP in Guild Wars soon?
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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Triforcer
Terracotta Army
Posts: 4663
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So I guess I'll see all you WoW people who want good PvP in Guild Wars soon?
I've never had as much fun in WoW, I think its awesome. But I just roam the land looking for 1v1 encounters. I laughed long and hard when I read the board and saw things like "I have 150 honorable kills for a total of 2500 contribution points) when I had 40 kills and 1800 honor points (I am lvl 56 and kill a lot of 60s in winterspring). Soon, the slow witted gankers will figure out that starting RAID GROUPS to kill people ain't exactly efficient. The paradigm will shift toward lone/duo gankers roaming the wilderness, which I absolutely love as my Arc/fire template can destroy anyone (save good shadow priests) 95% of the time.
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All life begins with Nu and ends with Nu. This is the truth! This is my belief! At least for now...
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Trippy
Administrator
Posts: 23657
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I've never had as much fun in WoW, I think its awesome. But I just roam the land looking for 1v1 encounters. I laughed long and hard when I read the board and saw things like "I have 150 honorable kills for a total of 2500 contribution points) when I had 40 kills and 1800 honor points (I am lvl 56 and kill a lot of 60s in winterspring). Soon, the slow witted gankers will figure out that starting RAID GROUPS to kill people ain't exactly efficient. The paradigm will shift toward lone/duo gankers roaming the wilderness, which I absolutely love as my Arc/fire template can destroy anyone (save good shadow priests) 95% of the time.
As with most things min/max related in MMORPGs the optimum strategy will be the one that maximizes honor points per unit time spent -- the number of kills involved is only a secondary concern. E.g. your strategy may give more HPs per kill but it might not per unit time given that the Hillsbrad zergfest is a "target rich" area so even though you may be getting less HPs per kill in a zergfest you may also be getting more kills per unit time. What Kageru said is what I would imagine the optimum strategy will evolve into -- a very focused 5 man group with maximum "alpha strike" capabilties fighting in the areas with the maximum number of appropriate level PvP targets.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60350
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Triforcer just say he loves his uber-templated toon?
Tell me I'm wrong.
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Samprimary
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Of course people are going to move away from the raids.
Remember: The maximum amount of slots for the highest ranks is incredibly limited, and the ranks are retallied each week.
Any week you fall behind in honor points will drop you into a lower rank, and any iterms you bought that require a certain rank will be automatically unequipped and put into inventory, and you cannot utilize them again until a week comes along after you have again earned enough honor points to own a top slot.
Seeing as continually escalating wars for honor points are necessitated by this continual jockeying for limited slots set by total rank population factors, people attempting to get/keep the totaly uber top slots will soon migrate away from any situation that is less than optimal for earning honor points.
Already on my server, roaming gangs of 60s have gotten very creative in trying to annoy the fck out of us enough to provoke flagging. They indeed have taken to continually waltzing into the middle of crossroads and setting off as many alarms as possible, then sitting in the middle of town and farting on people until people are forced to flag them out. Occasionally, these groups get brazen enough to start poking around in Orgrimmar or Thunder Bluff just because it provokes the reaction they want: Defense.
As a result of this quick uptake, there is not an hour going by where rogues are not poking around Crossroads and Orgrimmar. For the last seven hours, there has been a duo of rogues who purposefully get themselves killed so that they can spawn gank people for points as many times as possible. And they never leave, either. A hillside next to the Zep tower in Durotar has been the permanent roost of hunters who have been working in a team of three with one runner to bait people to flag near them.
The fact that raids don't earn you optimum point actually makes shit worse on PvE servers. Way, way worse. Otherwise, the Uber-kids would just thankfully limit themselves to the universally accepted 'You Go Here To Pvp' grounds, TM/SS, etc. Now, they are devoted, nay, encouraged, to go out of their way to be as annoying and exploitative as possible. Also the problem on PvP servers that duo rogue teams go around just feasting on tender, succulent mid-50's flesh in places like the Plaguelands or entries to instances.
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MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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I've never had as much fun in WoW, I think its awesome. But I just roam the land looking for 1v1 encounters. I laughed long and hard when I read the board and saw things like "I have 150 honorable kills for a total of 2500 contribution points) when I had 40 kills and 1800 honor points (I am lvl 56 and kill a lot of 60s in winterspring). Soon, the slow witted gankers will figure out that starting RAID GROUPS to kill people ain't exactly efficient. The paradigm will shift toward lone/duo gankers roaming the wilderness, which I absolutely love as my Arc/fire template can destroy anyone (save good shadow priests) 95% of the time.
As with most things min/max related in MMORPGs the optimum strategy will be the one that maximizes honor points per unit time spent -- the number of kills involved is only a secondary concern. E.g. your strategy may give more HPs per kill but it might not per unit time given that the Hillsbrad zergfest is a "target rich" area so even though you may be getting less HPs per kill in a zergfest you may also be getting more kills per unit time. What Kageru said is what I would imagine the optimum strategy will evolve into -- a very focused 5 man group with maximum "alpha strike" capabilties fighting in the areas with the maximum number of appropriate level PvP targets. While this is true, a 5 man group has to kill 5x as many people as a solo would have to do. As a rogue, I can do 1/2 a bar of health worth of damage in just over 2s to an enemy that is retreating from the 'zerg'. This means that the 15 people chasing this one guy get to split 1/2 the damage while I get the other 1/2. There's no threat to me since I have 15 horde chasing behind me. I can dump my damage, let the zerg finish him off, and target another. See, I've already optimized. I agree though, anyone below 56 is suffering in their solo play since all the areas where they might level (short of Un'Goro/Silithus) are going to be perma-camped. You are food.
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MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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The fact that raids don't earn you optimum point actually makes shit worse on PvE servers. Way, way worse. Otherwise, the Uber-kids would just thankfully limit themselves to the universally accepted 'You Go Here To Pvp' grounds, TM/SS, etc. Now, they are devoted, nay, encouraged, to go out of their way to be as annoying and exploitative as possible. Also the problem on PvP servers that duo rogue teams go around just feasting on tender, succulent mid-50's flesh in places like the Plaguelands or entries to instances.
I would like to see the PvE server problem addressed in some way. But I can't think of anything that woulnd't have more whining produced (Battlegrounds might go a long way towards this as you can earn Cont. points through completing objectives). Not sure what you mean by a problem on PvP servers. I think (and others agree with me) that the system works great there.
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Fargull
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Couple of points
One, as some of you probably know, I and a few friends had a pretty large horde guild up on Spinebreaker (PvP Server with hardware issues). My Troll warrior was just over 50th when we all sat down over lunch and decided a move to a non-pvp server and alliance till they fixed spinebreaker. Well, I am now a 33rd level human rogue. The alliance has the 1-30 gauntlet has been exceedingly easy and now with Gnomergan, I can see the 30-40 being a breeze. So far the Alliance have all the shiney for leveling, just way to damn easy compared to the horde. I had heard it discussed, but actually hopping over and trying the run is just amazing. No matter how much I prefer the horde, running my human rogue up the ladder has been way too fun.
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"I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit." John Steinbeck
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AcidCat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 919
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Honor points rewarded only when inside a Battleground instance. Fixed.
That will be $500 in consultation fees, Blizzard. Thank you.
Yep, this would pretty much make everyone happy. I thought the honor system was a great idea ... until it actually came out. - Rewarding players for ruining the fun of others beneath them on the totem pole. Players will naturally take the path of least resistance and minimize risk to themselves, so jumping players lower level than themselves, jumping in on a player mid-mob, or using numerical superiority by roaming in packs to defeat easy prey is now the norm, and it's rewarded. - The above just leads to frustration for players simply trying to quest. It is now considerably harder to reach 60, so the more hardcore players already there are clearly rewarded by this system. Players playing the PvE game to advance themselves and try to reach some parity with the 60s are now harassed at every step of the way. - Sure, PvP is expected on a PvP server - all manner of ganking occurred before, but now it's an epidemic. There is no longer any unpredictability to combat. Before, it was entirely possible to wave at an enemy, and the both of you continue to quest in peace. Now that you're worth special XP, you're just another mob to farm. The majority of level 60's aren't farming gear anymore, safely tucked away in instances - they're hunting YOU for their new shinys. Players 48 and up are in the worst position as they are an all-you-can-eat buffet for bored 60s. - When people actually meet in force and aren't picking on solo questers, chances are that lag turns the whole zone into an unplayable mess. So far it seems the Honor system doesn't reward any kind of honor or fairness, it just rewards the kind of cheap tactics players will naturally use to be at an advantage, and as a result just frustrates the whole playerbase beneath them.
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jpark
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1538
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So far it seems the Honor system doesn't reward any kind of honor or fairness, it just rewards the kind of cheap tactics players will naturally use to be at an advantage, and as a result just frustrates the whole playerbase beneath them.
Do we know this? Has anyone compared the honour obtained from killing a foe 3 levels above you vs. one 3 levels below you? Quantitively there could be enormous nuance here. The curve may not even by symmetric: killing those below you may give diminishing honour in a linear manner while killing those above you could give exponential reward. I just have no idea yet on what the "balance" looks like.
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"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation. " HaemishM.
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Paelos
Contributor
Posts: 27075
Error 404: Title not found.
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I think there should be a 30 sec timer between when you declare for pvp and when you actually become pvp. It should also activate a message or emote or something. I think people being able to just charge a person who's pvp declared from anywhere is dumb. It would at least cut down on people killing while others are fighting mobs. I also think it's royally stupid that pvp doesn't reset when you die immediately. That's just asking for ganking and corpse camping.
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CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
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