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WAR Design flaws?
mrw0lf
Member Posts: 2,269
I guess because I'm an old git, one of the first things I look at/think about when logging into a new mmo is the overall design. You can NEVER listen to any of the hype, because until you first get in yourself can't tell if the game will even be right for you.
So far I have no real issues with WAR (aside from Order being fugly beyond belief). So I began to think about the long term playability of the game. For me, FPS's have long term playability if they are good on physical mechanics. SWG had long term appeal also as you kind of made the game up as you went along, but mainly because of the crafting and economy, intertwined with the other aspect of the game.
I have thus far enjoyed the combat in WAR, at first it does feel sloooow and up to a certain level some clases are pretty much single button mashers, but games are all about the end game, especially this one.
An obvious design flaw for me is the order/destruction thing, but this is inherent with rvr if you can choose your side at character selection and it definately isn't just a WAR problem.
So with the lack of meaningful crafting atm and no real economy to speak of (at least not an 'epix loot' based one) will this game have long term appeal based on the combat alone? I have been subbed to Planetside since day one so this is absolutely possible and up until now I havn't sampled the end game keep sieges and all the goodies that come with it.
So can anyone else see this game keeping high subs without continually adding more levels (which they have said they will not do). Can anyone see other design flaws?
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Comments
yes.
AWEG RJN
That's a question I ask myself quite a lot. Reading first impressions on WAR I get the feeling the game is one HUGE battleground where you control different points etc.
Don't get me wrong I really want this game to flourish and be a success, however I would love to know the plans they got for long term appeal. If they're not adding lvls later, there must be some other idea or plan that can keep people playing, because I personally know that for me and others I'm sure, RvR won't keep me occupied for a couple of months (after I hit lvl cap).
This may be a stupid question (I haven't really followed WAR for years), But after getting all the renown gear you need, and conquer keeps/cities etc. what is there to do other than do it all over again for 1000times?
I am afraid not for me. I have been enjoying myself till lvl 16 or so. From there on leveling is very slow, scenarios are getting boring and the combat isn't too great. Don't think i'll be subscribing for very long tbh...
In short, yes.
There are many things people forget about. The chief example, as far as I can think of, would have to be Team Fortress. Now i've been playing TF since it came out as a quakeworld mod. Before Half-Life ever came out. TF has used the same basic maps for over ten years. 2fort5 and the well are two orignial maps. They were the most popular maps then, and they still seem to be very popular. The classes haven't changed much (aside from taking out nades and demopacks) and the core game-play is exactly the same. People still play and love TF. I can easily see this happening with WAR. Aside from the idea that there are still two capital cities that need to be implemented.
They can also add content without adding levels.
Also. I've never liked the gear treadmill most games are. To me there's no point to that. But I do enjoy mindlessly killing other players in PvP, even if it's done on the same map over and over again. I really think WAR appeals to a certian market. It's a Niche game that many people overhyped and called a "wow killer." Really it's for a completely different market, one I'm proud to be a part of.
Yes.
Dozens of them, but we can't say anything because we will get flamed.
Most important flaws on the long run : server populations in ALL aspects of the game (PvP-PvE-RvR-Balance-scenarios-economy- lag- territorial expansions - etc). You name it, it will influence everything. And they can't raise the server populations, so ....
Well, you can't level up at all in counterstrike... But they should have kept the original system with no levels instead, players still get better but not in the same god like difference as in War, Wow and almost all MMOs.
In the RPG game a witch hunter or free lance (Which you don't start as from the beginning but have to spend a lot of work to reach) can be beaten by a rathunter, it is just very unlikely. I think the original system don't have the "I reached max level, what do I do now?" thing. If you never played the RPG, you have no clue of what I'm talking about but it have a very smart system.
Still, as I said, you don't get better or much better anyways in a FPS and they have many players. On the other hand they don't charge monthly fees so we will see, it is really to early to tell, we'll see the tendency around Q1 2009.
In Guildwars it is the same thing, you can reach max level very fast and then you don't get much better, they do still have many players but no monthly fees either. It is possible to keep the players anyways, it all depends how good the endgame is.
RvR Population Balance.
In any RvR game this should be the first issue addressed. Yet every MMO with RvR I have seen has failed to consider this until very late in the design - if at all.
If the forum search function actually worked I could link you to the Mythic Dev quote where they said they hoped it would all work itself out.
Yeah, because it has worked itself out in all the other RvR games...
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Reroll?
Honestly - what is there to do in ANY mmo? I mean really when you get right down to it every single game is a grind to max skills or level and then...
But whatever. I just think if you aren't creative enough to make things interesting for yourself time to find a new hobby. I think keeps would be fun, even 1000 times because you aren't fighting NPCs, you are fighting other players who change what they do and are not predictable. I think that's why WAR is fun, not because it's NOT the same old game in a shiny new wrapper - it is. They will also probably add some things whenever they get around to it as well.
Things that will ruin this game.
1. Not adding any endgame PvE
2. Not adding a Human Tank
3. Not adding more classes in gerenal
4. Lack of cummunication
5. Empty promises and features (Aka AOC)
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I'm a self-proffessed fanboi and I think the game is marvelous, hands-down the best MMORPG out at this moment.
However, imo there are a few core design flaws here.. Nothing game-breaking and imo easily fixed but I hope Mythic will get down to it sooner rather than later.
1) Open RvR zones are not lucrative enough for solo players/small groups. Some repeatable PvE quests or maybe a PQ or two would fix that problem nicely. Taking out lesser objectives would make a good repeatable quest or a PQ for example. At this moment scenario rewards are much better and stable than those in open RvR and getting an open group going for RvR is really difficult when compared to those for PQs and PvE.
2) Running in T2 is tiresome. There should be more FPs (say 1 per zone rather than tier) and maybe give mounts a bit earlier (say 18 or 16). A second tome of recall that takes you exclusively to the capital would be rad as well. Any one of the three suggestions above would fix that problem quite successfuly.
That's about it. The rest of the game is simply fantastic, if you're looking at it from pure core game design viewpoint.
Reroll?
Honestly - what is there to do in ANY mmo? I mean really when you get right down to it every single game is a grind to max skills or level and then...
But whatever. I just think if you aren't creative enough to make things interesting for yourself time to find a new hobby. I think keeps would be fun, even 1000 times because you aren't fighting NPCs, you are fighting other players who change what they do and are not predictable. I think that's why WAR is fun, not because it's NOT the same old game in a shiny new wrapper - it is. They will also probably add some things whenever they get around to it as well.
New content and expansions. That's what keeps players playing MMOs. Every fan looks forward to a new expansion after playing "end game" and loves to discover new lands, new cities, gear etc.
I just hope Mythic plans to give players different end game possibilities alongside RvR.
This is a design flaw in most MMOs.
In RvR MMOs the RvR is supposed to be the endgame in itself.
That can work done properly.
But sadly most Dev Teams seem to do this:
Design meeting # 1
"Let's make a RvR MMO!"
>"Cool"
>> "Okay - let's break for lunch!"
Design meeting #2 - # 10856 "Let's design a leveling system and quests which players will finish in approximately 1 - 2 months of play!"
Design meeting # 10857 "Excellent work team - we release in a month - take a week off"
Design meeting # 10858 "So, who was working on endgame and population balance?..."
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
Besides the population, I think Keep Warfare is not done that well... I honestly think that Keep warfare should be alot more epic... It should not take a 10 person "PQ" team... There should be an endless spawning of NPC drone guys that come out and at least attack (not champion mobs), and I also think that NPC's should start using defensive equipment, so that players can have time to actually GET there and help before the damned keep lord is so quickly killed..
However, my BIGGEST gripe is that since this game is based on sorta a "set" population that taking over tier 1 zones when alot of people start leveling up. This will uneven the balance of the tiers causing tiers to be completely ineffective and unable to be reached.. Basically the population will outlevel T1 completely and leave maybe a few dozen to fight over each.
I seriously think instead of a chicken, that they add a debuff (like bolster, but debuffs your stats to the LOWEST in the zone so if you were 40 and wanted to help capture a zone in T1, your stats and skill levels would be set to a lvl 1 stats but you would keep your skills and tactic slots of course)
Hell, we cant even plan decisive campaigns across the map because the game basically becomes locked..
So its kinda silly that, the MORE I level the more content I lose.. So when I get to lvl 40, I will have lost most of the actual areas of the game.. Even lvl 40's should be able to go back toa zone and defend or attack it without being a chicken.. They should just debuff "out of tier" guys to the lowest rank allowable in the tier.. This would At LEAST give them a role...
1)first adding endgame PvE can be done later, asumming there is no PvE endgame. You properly make the mistake that assuming that there has to be WoW like Raids to be an endgame! TOK gives an very huge eksplorer/ achiver endgame ! Also the endgame that unlucks by building/improving city and/or sacking the enemy capital is a very different endgame than people are use too! Maybe we need to see whats thats like first!
My quess is that if the demand is big enough we will see wow like PvE endgame, but i doubt that the player base will demand that , most likely they will demand more RvR stuff!
But as long as there is endgame still ahead of the player base there is no danger that here. And i for sure have faith that Mythic would keep players occupied!
to point 2-5 i just have one comment ? do you have any idea of what you are talking about ? Would you please come with some argument why this is looking like its going to ruin the game! Because i don't see any of thesse issues as woth mentioning here!
I agree with the second gripe (content being locked) and imo something should be done about this. Atm the only way to help out / re-experience lower tiers is to roll alts. I hope Mythic does something ingenious about this..
About the first gripe I don't agree at all. I take it you play Destruction? Imo keeps are too hard to take for underpopulated faction which leads to static world dynamics. Order has fewer players and they simply don't have the time to take an undefended keep by surprise before they are overzerged by Destros desperate for some RvR action.
Imo keeps should be much easier to take when undefended by players. This would lead to keeps changing hands more often which will give everybody more things to do in open RvR.
This is how ALL MMOs are..there comes a point when you've reached the "end" until an expansion is released. Some games do it with PvE dungeons .. Mythic's doing it with Dungeons & City Sieging. Considering how the game is set up with the tome of knowledge unlocks, City Levels (which affect what you have access too and what the enemy has access too), how hard it is to get an area locked down for City Sieging and actually winning and the fact getting to Renown Rank 80 will take a really long time you probably won't reach WAR's complete end and actually 'accomplish' everything really fast.
Some people are like "yay i reached cap" but they didn't reach the end...they got their pve level cap but certaintly not their Renown One and they don't have access to Seiges and they most definitly didn't unlock the entire Tome Either since it requires you to do the content.
If you constantly seige a city every 2 to 3 weeks (how long they estimate it'll take to actually have your realm meet the rqeuirements) and that city stays constantly at level 1 or 2..You don't get the King or half the available content that gets you the rest of the set peices for end game.
Anyone saying Keep seiging is easy has only gone after Keeps that are empty. If you go up against one thats protected there's no way a 10 man group can take the Keep against a horde of enemy players, I've seen it happen...Order kept trying to take our keep in the Shadow Lands but a guild was protecting it..a group of 10 tried to get close and a horde of 30 players rushed out and chased them out of the RvR lake. Then they started a roaming patrol to keep them shut out. We've held onto the shadowlands keep for nearly a week (various other keeps have changed hands constantly).
T4 Fortresses will be even harder considering their massive size.
Let's see the only glaring one I can think of are :
1) population balance mechanic is bad design. It only works on concurrently full servers, not anything else. A never that never gets full has no balance. During off peak hours the balance is way off for all servers. Skull Throne was med/med today at 9am. Their current implementation hits the mark like 20% of time and is often circumvented. Clearly a weak solution. No question. It is not really even a half ass solution. It is just plain weak. Best you can say is its better than nothing
2) Mounts in T2. I have no desire to delay getting mounts. But When you hit 20 in T2 not only are you 2 level above bolstered people and have an extra tactic but the entire tactical mileu gets changed for the top echelon. IMO this is clearly contraty to the whol idea of bolstering people and having Tiers to begin with. Level 21s are too OP. Their is nothing analogous in the other Tiers. Seems to be an important oversight.
I am not too sure about the zone control stuff. I do not really see how Tier 2 and tier 3 will constantly see action throughout the games life time. Tier 1 I can see people constantl rerolling and playing. And tier 4 is where everyone will eventually wind up. But why would T2 and especially t3 ever have enough people to take keeps once a server is like a year old?
Maybe if they let you lock XP and not gain levels(ala old EQ2 pvp ) I could see guild and people makes alts of each Tier. Which might be a good idea. But since that is not the case I just don't see it. And no matter how slow you take it you get ok xp if there is any action. You just can't keep someone in T2 for a real long period of time.
It seems to assume a larger amount of re-rolling or new players on a server than I would think would be there. Plus you have only have 10 char per server.
No calling this a flaw since it depends on population flow, but I do not really see how they will have the appropriate population flow.
lol, i can tell the original Poster is a WoW player. Not adding additional levels? wow.
Take a look at Dark Age of Camelot. The level cap has always been 50. Yet they have added enough content to keep people addicted for 6 years. Added content does not need to come in the form of additional levels (which is in my opinion the absolute worst. seriously, i get so angry just thinking about it). Examples of "extra levels" in DAoC were Realm Abilities, Master Levels, Champion Levels, etc. Things that enhanced your character and caused you to strive for something, yet did not force you to continue to level beyond 50. It added various layers to the game, and made things alot of fun. Having been someone who was rr11, i was always still "striving" towards rr12. Now ifyou look at how many realm points it took for realm rank 11, i could have gotten 11 other characters to rr6 if i wanted to. or 22 characters to realm rank 5.
I think your views of "end game content" are simply skewed because of WoW. I suppose mine are as well. Personally, i heavily favor the DAoC approach. added abilities (NOT FREAKING RvR gear) for realm points (renown points), and then added epic loot that gives simply various forms of utility, rather than making the old gear obsolete.
Lewk- Healer of Legacy Gareth
McDee- Spiritmaster of Maelstrom Percival
Murgu- Skald of Mordred
I agree with the second gripe (content being locked) and imo something should be done about this. Atm the only way to help out / re-experience lower tiers is to roll alts. I hope Mythic does something ingenious about this..
About the first gripe I don't agree at all. I take it you play Destruction? Imo keeps are too hard to take for underpopulated faction which leads to static world dynamics. Order has fewer players and they simply don't have the time to take an undefended keep by surprise before they are overzerged by Destros desperate for some RvR action.
Imo keeps should be much easier to take when undefended by players. This would lead to keeps changing hands more often which will give everybody more things to do in open RvR.
This is what happens on my server. Destro outnumbers us like 3:1. Its low pop, but order side is very low and destro is only medium low.
We order guys go in and take points. We get no opposition. We get like 60% of t2 rvr people to form a 20 man WB and take a keep and 100 destro show up and zerg us. And they just sit and hide in the zerg and 10 on 1 people too.
Its complete crap PvP really. Not because of the zerg per se. But because all you get is nothing or a huge zerg.
the funny thing is Destro is so deparate for some action that they don't realize they are ruining the PvP action. But they don't have the patience to patrol the points to get better small group action.
So it is the crappy all or nothing deal. They Zerg us with 100 people. We have no renown merchants and leave to grind 1 million boars (ala south park). Since we will never be reinforced because all order RvR players are already in the WB. And there isn't multiple fronts or enough order people to even have multiple fronts you can't just say attack two keeps and capitalize on the confusion.
You can call it a flaw I guess. But I do not think a server opreates at all "right" when either side is below some threshold number.
The keeps work with the idea that not everyone on a faction is all in one zone or all together. There may be some massive zerg but at least a few people will split off and take some objective When the population is low there is no strategery because there are simply not enough people to confuse or distract or cause other extra sondierations to give an order WB enough breathing space to do something.
Even a vastly outnumbered order warband can serve some purpose if they draw off enough destruction so that second orde rwarband can take a keep or clear a different zone or whatever.
But on some servers Destro has all the keeps. And order does not have enough people to cover the zones. So everything gets concentrated even worse and it all becomes completely in one dimensional. As long as they know where the one order warband is they never need to worry about anything getting take.
All it winds up being is one warband vs a zerg and no real possible outcome except retreat. You need to have a fairly high order population such that it can cover the zones sufficiently to deal with a 2:1 margin with any real possibility of success. If the population is too low they do not have the necessary tactical ability available for dealing with zergs.
I think the endgame will get boring quickly for people who are looking for an in depth game.
For casual people who only play an hour here and there maybe not.
I would not be at all surprised if the missing endgame cities were deliberately excluded from release to allow them to add extra content quickly later on to combat player boredom and improve the games longevity.
Wow you have no idea at all about the end game do you? No depth? Maybe you should atleast know what your talking about. There's alot of depth to the end game and it requires alot of work and effort to do it ...
I agree with the second gripe (content being locked) and imo something should be done about this. Atm the only way to help out / re-experience lower tiers is to roll alts. I hope Mythic does something ingenious about this..
About the first gripe I don't agree at all. I take it you play Destruction? Imo keeps are too hard to take for underpopulated faction which leads to static world dynamics. Order has fewer players and they simply don't have the time to take an undefended keep by surprise before they are overzerged by Destros desperate for some RvR action.
Imo keeps should be much easier to take when undefended by players. This would lead to keeps changing hands more often which will give everybody more things to do in open RvR.
This could be part of the 'incentives' package they will need to help even the realms. Higher or lower NPC guards. Not ideal an what is essentially a pvp game, RvRvR would have been a better solution but NPC grading would be an esy step to allieviate somewhat.
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The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Yes, all 30000 people (3000 online) playing DAOC are hard core addicted...
Not exactly a good "example" for your point to use.
RvR is a failure, WAR will prove this yet again. When one side dominates, the other side unsubs. Its really simple. Plus, even with all the "unlock" crap and Reknown levels to gain, its Fury all over again. Heck, it even LOOKS like Fury, except without glowing powerups.