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ChaseW
Member Posts: 9
First off let me say that I've been watching this game since around May and am very pleased at the direction Mythic and EA are taking it. I feel that it has the oppurtunity to bring some bar-setting standards to the genre.
The point of this thread however is to test the waters so to speak and get some feedback on how others thought about an issue that has nagged at me for a while. But before the meat of the topic begins I would also like to say the game still is in the beta stage, early closed beta at that, so how we percieve things may turn out now could ( and likely will) turn out differently at launch.
Anywho, the issue is this. I cannot confirm but I get the general impression that some careers, namely the hammerer, swordmaster, and blackguard, ( and possibly the witch elf---- daggers) are going to be restricted to one type of weapon (i.e. hammerer- hammers, swordmaster- swords, blackguard- halbards). Now some people may feel like this may not be that big of a deal but for some reason the idea just kinda bothers me. In my opinion different weapons giving different benefits ( think sword, mace, or axe specialization for warriors in WoW) might be a better option, but i certainly am no game designer.
Do you think Mythic and EA can create enough skins/ models/ abilities to keep things interesting? Now I could be completly wrong about limiting careers to certain weapons. The mechanic could be that certain abilites will require certain weapons ( and perhaps a main-hand or off hand designation) to be used, and hammerers could get maybe a damage /defensive buff when using hammers, and so on and so forth with each different career. I think the overlying problem I have with it is that I feel I'm being somewhat limited, although in reality that may not be the case at all.
So the question is, what do you think? Would being limited to certain weapons discourage you from rolling a certain career? I personally don't see it being that big of a deal and certainly not a game-breaker, but I would like some feedback from different players to get some perspective on the issue.
Comments
Its pretty much the same with daoc, the game is about pvp/rvr & not about pve for weapons. Once u get the weapon u want u will be using it for a year till new one comes out.
Well, it was mostly the same in daoc, Although you could use several types of weapoins, you had to spec into one. So, an armsman who speced into crush polearms will not be using slash polearms or 1handed slash weapons, even though you could equip them.
You also have to remember that in war, races will matter more so than they generaly do in mmos. ie, in daoc a troll or a kobold (1/3 the size of a troll )use the same weapons, as do all races in wow etc. But in war, orcs will not be usign weapons used by dark elves, and you won't see dwarfs running around with human swords (though it does seem that humans/dwarfs might have some shared weapons, like hammers)
But to answer your question, yes it's very possible to create enaugh different skins so that even though class x uses weapon type y, there are enaugh options that you don't have everyoen running around with the same weapon. Now, weather or not mythic will actually create that many skins, and weather or not people will still be runnign with the same weapon because it's uber (as was the case with artifact weapons in daoc) is a different question, and one that won't be answered untill late in beta or after release.
Anyway, I hope you ment to say that this game is about pvp/rvr for weapons(equipment), not pve for weapons...
If theres no point to the pvp, you minus-well play Halo with the kids and the guys with the backwards hats that dont mind a completely empty game.
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"Everything is awesome. Fundamentally."
nah, what he ment is that you pvp because you find it fun (imagine that
who would play a game because it's fun?) Rahter than you pvp because you need points to buy a new uber sword (aside from the fact that uber swords destroy pvp for anyone who doesn't have one) it's simply a crutch used by games whose pvp is not fun.
There are people in daoc with millions of rps. They've played that char (and many alts) for years, they have all the equipment and additional abilities (master and champion levels) they want, have almost all the realm abilities they will ever be able to get, and already have all that matter. Yet they still play, every day too. Why? Because it's fun.
On the other hand, wow's pvp before honor change was not fun. Ever herd "I am just trying to get to rank x (usually rank 10? or 13, or 14) and I am never pvp'ing again... yep, quite a few people in wow used to say that. You never herd it in daoc "I am going to get to rr6 and never rvr again" lol.
Pvp is ither fun or not. Having incentives is nice, be it full loot, rps or points used to get gear. However, at it's core pvp must be fun, incentives are there for bragging rights and to mark one's progress and what not, but pvp still needs to be fun.
Also, war is going slightly different road with equipment than daoc. I doubt you'll have such drastic difference between equipment as in wow (ie, 2h uber weapons with 150%dps of a good blue weapon etc)
PS; As you probably don't know, in daoc, all weapons are caped at 16.5dps, been caped at 16.5dps since release of the game (pretty much) and haven't changed for the last 5 years
You do get weapons with better stats or better procs, but usually, once you get your weapon of choice, you don't change it untill expansion comes out with some even better weapon, or you can keep it even after that since the difference isn't that big to matter.
Let me add one or two thoughts to this:
1. IP
The Warhammer IP sees some troops using specific weapons and no other. So Mythic may be restricted by that.
2. It is what it is
I wouldnt want to see a Swordmaster wield an Axe. That would be stupid. And I hope the game is clever.
From the classes you mentioned only the Hammerer and the Swordmaster seem to be fixed to a weapon via their name. If you don´t like to play one in your next session of play, dont play them. And for example the Squig Herder will have Squigs and a Bow. Thats it. Now I don´t think this wont´t be fun.
3. Expansion
The game will be around for 7-10 Years perhaps. I am sure they will add all other Warhammer Races. That will be another four classes per race. Rejoice.
4. Some games have it and it´s not too bad
In COH/COV You are restricted to some weapons too and its still fun. A Mastermind with pistols shoots pistols. If I dont like it, I play another of my chars.
5. Only in beta
You are right. And we haven´t seen all the customization of weapons or at creating a char yet.
Don´t want to argue. Just a little brainstorm after your concerns. I guess if you like the game as a whole, the fun will push away your concerns in no time. And when the time comes you really want to cut people in half with grace and style, just load up your SWORDMASTER and dance away.
...
Can´t wait !
All valid and very good points. I would like to empahsize your first point a little. One of WAR's strong points is going to be its very rich IP which has been around since the early 80's and has attracted many fans, and the IP sometimes calls for very specific things as you've mentioned. I really don't see it as being a problem at all as I'm sure they'll be plenty of interesting ways you can have fun and customize your character so it suits your style of play ( experimenting with different morale and tactics builds etc). I think your overarching theme was, if you don't like being restricted to using one weapon, play another career, which I believe to be a very acceptable ( and effective
DAOC wasnt about making a lot of different weapon/armor skins (not like WoW, EQ2, etc)
But DAOC was about putting you in different pvp situations. For me, that was the best. in fact, DAOC was all about having different weapons/armor for different situations, actions...much more so than WoW.
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Nice video.
I get what you are saying but here is the thing. These classes were raised and trained fighting with specific weapons and master that weapon. You will never be as good with weapons that other people train with.
What you are missing is that under each category can have many different things in it. I don't really know Warhammer lore so I don't know what they have exactly but look at it like this. You can have sledgehammers, claw hammers, impact hammers, ballpene hammers, etc. You can have straight swords, short swords, curved swords for slicing, pointed swords for stabbing armors weak points, long swords, etc. Maybe they will have flaming swords/hammers/etc, or different infused elements. Maybe have serrated swords that give a dot , double hammers, hammers with longer handles, spikes, etc. There are so many variations on the basic weapons that it is rediculous.
If you trained all your life in a certain fighting style with a certain weapon you are not going to change that when you go into a life or death battle. Why? Because the moves, reactions, limitations are ingrained in you and you can do it without thinking. Give an idiot a sniper rifle and they automatically start aiming and trying to hit the target. Give that same rifle to a sniper and he will take into account distance, wind, and what the targets are doing. I am not saying it is impossible to have a person that can master several weapons but that is what makes legends, legends.
I never did play doac, but one thing I liked about WoW was the idea that there was always better equipment to aspire to. I find the idea of getting the best 2h sword in the game, then waiting for an expansion to get something better a little sad. PvP for the sake of PvP is fine, but I dont think that represents the whole mmorpg pvp community, I think that does represent the whole FPS community though. In an mmo, theres supposed to be more to the game. ie equipment, honor/rank, etc... Because this isnt a twitch game, this stuff is supposed to give you slight advantages over other people to keep pvp from becoming static.
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"Everything is awesome. Fundamentally."
Then I'd suggest that a RVR centric game isn't for you.
RVR players want to RvR not PVE for gear. If ya don't believe me ask a DAoC player what ToA did to the game.
I love the fact that once I get my sets worked out I don't have to PVE ever again.
The advancement in RVR is to gain "realm points" or whatever they call them in WAR and ear skills/talents/abilities... which is better than gear if ya ask me.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
It seems apparent to me that they're compensating the lack of equipment diversity (relatively speaking) with a crapload of skills along with a pretty deep combat system. It won't exactly be about what you're wearing (like in, say, EQ 2) but about what you can do with your character. That's what most of the videos and podcasts seem about, and that's the focus they've been giving it. So I think it's safe to say that even when you only use one type of weapon the combat will be fun and deep enough as to surpassing the item-focused type of gameplay.
Thought I'd help clear this up. DAoC wasn't about a bunch of different armor. It was mainly getting a high quality crafted suit then spell crafting stats onto it yourself to try and cap all your stats you needed, resists and skill bonuses. So pretty much all the "better" players were on the same playing level equipment wise. That in turn turned RvR into more skill/strategy than equipment. No one complained about the lack of different armor b/c it pretty much was w/e you wanted and there were armor dyes to look whatever colors please you. It kept things even and let people customize at the same time, pretty nice imo.
Edit - Then Trials of Atlantis came out....
Then I'd suggest that a RVR centric game isn't for you.
RVR players want to RvR not PVE for gear. If ya don't believe me ask a DAoC player what ToA did to the game.
I love the fact that once I get my sets worked out I don't have to PVE ever again.
The advancement in RVR is to gain "realm points" or whatever they call them in WAR and ear skills/talents/abilities... which is better than gear if ya ask me.
I never said anything about PvE. I am interested in WAR because it looks like you PvP for equipment/experience/skills/whatever.
I just think it would be lame if you could easily cap out equipment-wise. Like if you get max level, then get the best weapon in whatever weapon class you specialize in then......what? I was just saying that I'd like there to always be something better (without waiting for a whole expansion pack to come out). That keeps things more diverse and gives you a chance to get that little extra advantage in your next round of pvp.
Frankly it keeps the game from becoming stale, I know counterstrike lasted forever but come on. we all want something more now-a-days.
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"Everything is awesome. Fundamentally."
Then I'd suggest that a RVR centric game isn't for you.
RVR players want to RvR not PVE for gear. If ya don't believe me ask a DAoC player what ToA did to the game.
I love the fact that once I get my sets worked out I don't have to PVE ever again.
The advancement in RVR is to gain "realm points" or whatever they call them in WAR and ear skills/talents/abilities... which is better than gear if ya ask me.
I never said anything about PvE. I am interested in WAR because it looks like you PvP for equipment/experience/skills/whatever.
I just think it would be lame if you could easily cap out equipment-wise. Like if you get max level, then get the best weapon in whatever weapon class you specialize in then......what? I was just saying that I'd like there to always be something better (without waiting for a whole expansion pack to come out). That keeps things more diverse and gives you a chance to get that little extra advantage in your next round of pvp.
Frankly it keeps the game from becoming stale, I know counterstrike lasted forever but come on. we all want something more now-a-days.
I assure you, so long as you enjoy RvR, the game will not become stale (if EA Mythic does their job and makes the game even half as good as they hype, of course).
Like others have said, equipment is but one way to show advancement. That is what players really crave, I think - that feeling of progression. EQ1/2, WoW, and others give this to you by dangling items in front of you, which is fine, but it is not the only way. And hey, that runs out between expansions, too, if you are a hardcore raider. Quite a few guilds have encounters like Illidan on farm status in WoW, so now what do they do? Kill, collect loot, repeat for the 89th time. I find that boring, but others like it.
WAR will have its PvE side, so I assume it will have a decent amount of loot, too, but there will also be tons of progression in RvR, so it is not like Counterstrike. You will unlock various abilities, probably gain something akin to "realm points", and also probably further your guild's level (and I bet cool perks come with that). Oh, and you get loot. That is to say, RvR will offer tons of progression that should keep people satisfied, as long as they prefer RvR over static raids. I do not think EA Mythic has ever said the PvE crowd would be totally thrilled with their game - it has PvE, but it is not expected that someone only plays that aspect, since it will be less expansive than games that focus on that. I know Paul Barnett basically has said they are doing the game their way, not trying to appeal to everyone, so if you like it, great, if not, no worries, play something else. What PvE they do have planned, mind you, looks pretty cool (public quests!).
Besides, the nice thing about RvR is that progression is not the only point, which is what I find PvE boils down to. Realm pride means a lot and quite a bit of fun is derived from simply protecting your realm without considering what you will get from it.
"I just think it would be lame if you could easily cap out equipment-wise. Like if you get max level, then get the best weapon in whatever weapon class you specialize in then......what?"
hahahahha
easy... get out there and use it! if you really like pvp the joy of being the better skilled person on an even playing field should be plenty of fun and end game content to please you.
There will be rps in war, with which you will be abel to buy reknown abilities (or so it seems) so there is progression after you hit max lvl and get items. Also, it seems items will be less caped than they were in daoc. Still, if Mythic goes does RAs like they did in daoc, then it follows a very steep progression.
Ie. in daoc, you get to max lvl never having done any rvr, you are at rr1L1, with no realm abilities. You are at disadvantage, in a few weeks-months (depends how you play) you get to rr5 and have most key abilities, but still lack some passives and such. By rr10 you have basically everythign that matters. Max rr being rr13 (not sure if anyone even hit that rr on a normal server yet lol)
So, not only is going from rr1 -> rr5 gives you a much bigger boost in power than going from rr5 -> rr10, but to get to rr5 you need 500k rps, and rr10 I think 8 or 12 millions (rr13 being 68mil or something crazy like that) You get ~1k rps per solo kill and usually around 200'ish in a full group (just as a reference point)
So, while someone at rr11 still has some more realm ranks (and levels =p) as well as realm ability points to look towards, I doubt any rr11 players go out to rvr with the thought "Just 10more millions rps and I can get aug str 4 to increase my str by 10 points!" lol. In fact, most players (except necromancers= pl bots) go to rvr to have fun, not to get rps or realm abilities, rps are just a bragging right/ mark of progress etc and realm abilities are a nice bonus.
So, while somethign to look forward to is always nice, people still rvr'ed in daoc because it was fun. Top gank/guild groups would rvr every day not so they could make 500k rps per week or something, but because they had fun rvr'ing/ Unlike say wow, where it seems pretty common for teams to only play 10 arena matches (minimum number required) a week because they will lose ranking if they lose, so that chance makes it not worth it to play more than 10 games. Kind of defeats the purpose of putting in arenas and one of the things that annoyed me about the way arenas were implemented in wow. It actually forces people to pvp less than one might like (if you ever happen to win all 10 games, as a high ranked team, I can bet there is nothing you can do to make your team play 11th game, especially if they actually care about their teams ranking and not just having fun, and it seems very few people in wow actually had fun pvp'ing, was alwasy about getting that uber gear)
Hmmm. I was liking WAR's focus on certain weapons for certain classes. To me, it seems like specialization.
Well, I look at it this way. Let's suppose you roll a Witch Hunter and that class uses daggers, rapiers and pistols. You don't expect -- and perhaps would not like -- seeing other classes running around with "your" weapons. It makes them less special. If every Tom, Dick (and you know there will be a LOT of dicks in WAR who you are going to want to kill
) and Harry is running around wielding daggers, rapiers and pistols if they choose to do so, then that might tend to make you feel as if "your" class has lost its distinguishing marks.
(Like the hat! I mean NOBODY except Witch Hunters better be wearing that cool hat!
)
So, generally, no, it wouldn't have a discouraging effect. Perhaps, just the opposite.
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As far as always getting better gear to aspire to, I feel this is very much a double-edged sword which cuts both ways.
If there are "always" higher and higher items to acquire, then you are stuck in the WoW-rut of perpetual raiding where itemization is a major factor in game success.
In WAR, what I expect to see is top-tier equipment which you can acquire relatively "easily" BUT the most important thing is the acquisition of Realm Skills.
In DAoC, it was very much a maxim that you feared the players who had higher Realm Ranks. People, to some degree, naturally wanted good items. But, in fact, it was the Realm Ranks that really gave you the edge in RvR.
I expect that WAR will be the same, and if I am not mistaken this has already been addressed by the devs who said something like: "Two or three months to get a max level character, but one or two years to get a max Realm Rank character." (Depending on play style and time invested.)
To me, this means that the "top" is less about acquiring gear and more about acquiring skills.
That is not to say that the devs will not produce new good, great or uber items on a regular basis. They most certainly will because everybody loves good loot and great items. That's just human nature.
One example I recall from DAoC was getting uber bows for archers.
Collecting them took time but was not super-tough. They were available and you could get them without too much massive raiding effort (but SOME effort was required).
However, once you GOT the item, then the Mythic folks did something very "Mythic-ish(tm)." And I thought this was a good idea. You had to go out and "level up" the item in RvR (and sometimes PvE) combat. The item actually acquired XP and gained buffs from using it! Okay -- I thought that was brilliant because that was a combination of 1) the effort of getting the item and then 2) the effort of leveling the item through use to gain it's maximum benefit.
Not everybody liked this concept, but I thought it was very, very good. It told you, basically, yes, you can get the item WITHOUT killing "Onyxia" a zillion times (apologies for the WoW example) BUT once you have the item you must now "work" to make it good. This, I liked. You work for it, you earn it, you get back what you put in. Made sense to me.
I don't know if WAR will have these type of itemization features in it, but I would not be surprised if they were added at some point.
Special note:
I agree with the above poster who says people RvR'ed everyday in DAoC because it was FUN. Yes, you did gain realm points for doing RvR, but gaining those points was a ton of fun as you were doing it.
I want to have that fun again!
~ Ancient Membership ~