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WAR - Great Teamwork or Chaotic pugs? (pick up groups) POLL
mjkittredge
Member Posts: 126
I know, I know, it's all speculation at this point more or less. Oh well. Discuss.
What I think is sad, and I've seen it in multiple mmos, is that newer/inexperienced players are treated like retarded stepchildren by those who played since beta came out and are very good and knowledgeable. Instead of taking these newer players under their wing and showing them the ropes, they are often berated as idiots, even by people on the same team. So their bad habits continue without correction and negatively affect PVP battles for the whole team. The disorganization becomes widespread, the gaming population becomes polarized and negative towards one another, elitist snob groups pop up. These things of course all hurt team PVP. It's not everyone though, I know some players are kind and give helpful pointers, advice, show those with less skill and knowledge how to be more effective, which increases their teams PVP power.
What will be very interesting to see is how many converts WAR gets from WOW and other games with notoriously obnoxious, immature and poor quality player bases, and conversely how many players from DAOC and other games with a more mature organized player base join up, how that will balance out as the two groups try to get along in this new game.
Comments
pvp groups that want to "do whatever they please" will be wiping the floor with their own faces. period.
with collision detection, if someone thinks they can just "run in there are start hitting the healers" they are sadly mistaken. im hoping a zerg will stand no chance against an organized group of folks. while the meele is going to be trying to get past the tanks, the casters and ranged will be ripping them apart because they are attacking unmolested, and the organized force, once it has wiped out the zerg's meele because they werent recieving support and werent focus firing/prioritizing targets, will procede to shred the zerg's undefended ranged and casters to pieces.
maybe im just a hopeful, but i hope im right.
"If you can only feel safe when everybody else feels, thinks and looks the same as you, then you're a Hood-damned coward...not to mention a vicious tyrant in the making." -Scillara
I hope you're right too. The whole running straight through a person like they were a ghost in MMOs is silly (although effective). The only problem this collision detection creates (especially if there won't be jumping) is that people through AFK or linkdead or jerk-ward behavior can block off doorways, tight passages, ect in town or dungeons, preventing people from getting where they need to go. This was problematic in games like the original EverQuest, I remember the entrance to the Troll city, I stopped for a moment to check my inventory and people started bitching at me because they couldn't get into town! "Move yer ass!" was one of the more colorful comments.
You make a good point about focus fire DPS, which is tremendous and the best way overall to dispatch opposing teams in PVP, along with prioritizing targets. Pugs and zergs generally don't do this so the advantage goes to those who plan and organize.
Overall though, I with this in mind, I think WAR won't be much different, you'll have your jerks, you'll have your good players that make the game experience worth it.
I would expect that PvP is going to start out as complete chaos in PvP. No organization or "set groups" what so ever. However, after experiencing WoW, I also expect realy organized groups to take form eventualy. These "serious" groups will domminate the RvR sceene.
Depending on how easy it is to progress, solo players who are unwilling or unable to learn teamwork might eventualy disappear. After seeing paul's interview with curse gaming, This is the way i expect it to turn out.
What about daoc players that come from WoW? l I know alot of VERY experienced guys that played daoc since beta and for the last year or so have been playing WoW. They still remember the teamwork it took in daoc to win and we are using that to our advantage in WoW currently, assist trains, full time CC, rogues protecting healers etc etc. Its alot of fun.
Im sure there will be some uneducated noobsauce players.
Im kind of curious how well the warhammer fanbase will do if they are first time mmo players.
Personally Im not worried. I have plenty of daoc friends to make a solid guild.
Anyway, collision detection is a great thing - Team work will pay off, and will probaly be a required tactic to use if you want success. There have always been the large obnoxius guilds, taking applications before you can join, while having a solid hierachy. Not, by any chance, a democracy at all. They often call themself the "elite" of the playerbase, or just MMORPGs in general. On the other hand, there will always be the more open, casual guild, that actual contains great players too - They just don't want to be commanded around, but rather do what they want, when they want.
As any guild can benefit from an extra warrior in the front line, it's just a matter about training them up. Elite guilds doesn't do that, since.. Well, duh, they're elites, but most other guilds would probaly enjoy the process.
Anyway, collision detection is a great thing - Team work will pay off, and will probaly be a required tactic to use if you want success. There have always been the large obnoxius guilds, taking applications before you can join, while having a solid hierachy. Not, by any chance, a democracy at all. They often call themself the "elite" of the playerbase, or just MMORPGs in general. On the other hand, there will always be the more open, casual guild, that actual contains great players too - They just don't want to be commanded around, but rather do what they want, when they want.
As any guild can benefit from an extra warrior in the front line, it's just a matter about training them up. Elite guilds doesn't do that, since.. Well, duh, they're elites, but most other guilds would probaly enjoy the process.
To keep this relevant, I'm only listing these flaws to make note of exactly what I hope never happens in WAR.
I got the game as soon as it came out and played it here and there ever since. I'd get bored with a character around high 40s and make a new one at that point (especially if one character seemed to beat mine in PVP repeatedly, I'd build one up and see if I could have the same advantage they did). I heard the endgame was boring and required months of raiding to get your equip up to par with everyone else to survive in PVP.
My experience with the player base was, there were some friendly people, but more often there was hostility even among my team (Horde on Deathwing pvp server).
People were insanely greedy, stockpiling Blue/Purple items and jacking up the AH prices to insane amounts so only twinkers could afford them (just ask Headhunter). Then everybody else started raising prices on even common goods so it became a twinkers market, if you didn't have a lvl 60 farming hundreds or thousands of gold you'd have a very hard time upgrading or getting supplies via AH without going broke. What started out being a system for everyones benefit, became a polarized system for the rich and everyone else got excluded or had to spend every gold piece they had to get one item.
Then there was the chat channels, all of them laced with leet speak and immature babbling and fighting, people cursing each other out over ridiculous disputes, people flooding the trade channel with the links to their goods every 3 seconds, and ridiculing those who asked for any kind of advice or help. "STFU NOOB!""YOU DON"T EVEN KNOW HOW TO PLAY YOUR CHARACTER! DUMBASS!" It was plain nasty. We didn't need the alliance, we had enough infighting to keep everyone busy. Barrens chat was like a constant homage to Chuck Norris jokes, I never heard the end of it once that crap started.
Then there were the guilds, hundreds of them, and most of them crap ones that had no serious leadership and fell apart within a matter of weeks due to dessertion or nobody caring. Everyone wanted to go do their own thing, they didn't want to all get together for instance raids or whatnot, and if you're not getting together why even bother being in a guild? In a game where you can solo to 60, what do you need other people for besides a pug instance here or there to upgrade equip? Nobody cares what you do or who you are, you're just a competitor for resources and HKs, an obstacle to their pursuit of power and riches, or a tool to help them complete an instance so they can get their loot and then never talk to you again after you've served their purposes. I acknowledge the potential of a strong guild and it's many benefits, the problem was finding one.
Then there was the selfish PVP where everyone ran around doing whatever they pleased, not using heal spells and letting others die. WoW is a game crying out for a system of leadership were somebody who stands tall and has a plan, and people who listen and try to follow it, are rewarded. But there is no immediately evident benefit so attempts at organization and communicating better tactics are met with rebuke "Don't tell me how to play my character!!!" ect.
These are the problems I had with the player base, from the start until I let my subscription run out a few months ago. I'll check it out again when BC comes out, but unless more people stop acting selfish and childish and disorganized and apathetic, all the new features in the world couldn't make it worth it.
I'm hoping the WAR developers saw these issues and are taking steps to try and prevent them however they can in their game.
Everyone's got the right idea. WoW PvP is a great example of what NOT to put into a game's PvP system. Yeah its fun and simple and I know we all loved it at some point but its definitely not the best. Its a shame to log into a battle and see an organized group of people get mauled from 20 so called "snipers" just wailing on them. Those games quickly turn into who has the most people with the best equipment will always win.
Leaders get shot down quickly and everyone loves to see them fall. Its sad but true.
The fact of the matter is not everyone wants to step up and lead or doesn't want to put forth the extra effort sit back and keep track of heals or maintaining tactical status. It may be laziness or it may be balls but its everywhere.
Those that do go the extra mile I personnaly believe are the heart and soul of any fight. The groups that get their act together and follow a determined and proven leader always shine through. Guild Wars' PvP matches are great examples of organized teams constantly dominating Pick Up Groups (PUGs).
Its like a football team. It takes all 11 people to get the job done and usually requires the sacrifice of few for the good of many. Despite a select few that will become popular amongst the crowd of millions, the popular player knows they couldn't have done it without their team. Often most teams really need select individuals to shine brighter than others for inspiration and proof that a devout player who sticks by his fellow man can do great things. Leaders are needed everywhere and not always in the decision making process. The Warrior who starts the charge for the group or follows orders to the detail is just as important as the one who decided to attack in the first place.
The guilds and clans organized for the PvP that will come with Warhammer will kick some serious ass. I think with a game like this the selfish, childish player will quickly realize that they don't stand a chance unless they forfiet their ego's and wants of "extreme Kill-Death ratios."
What I like about the Warhammer table top is its a point value game with an end game points value tally score card. Even if you utterly wipe out an opposing army and you suffer very little losses, if they achieved their objectives you can still lose. IMHO, the player who gets 15 flag captures or scores more objective points and dies 30 times is quite the better player than the one who got the 45 sniper kills or 30 melee killing blows.
WAR will more than likely have many WoW converts. They will probably demonstrate similar behavioral patterns in WAR as they do in WoW. The real question is not IF this will happen, but how the game's design will discourage this type of behavior and how the player base coming from games such as DAoC and the tabletop Warhammer will discourage this type of behavior. People should stop acting this way if they don't receive backup from the rest of general chat.
The funny thing is people don't typically act this way in real life. It's the annonyminity that an online game provides coupled with a mob mentality. If you can remove the mob mentality, or change it to a more helpful, teamwork oriented theme, the behavior should die out. If someone insists on acting that way once the social norm has been altered, they will more than likely be ostricized by the new 'mob' and will change their behavior or quit the game. I'm sure there will be some exceptions to this generalization and there will always be those few idiots who have it stuck in their head that they were just born better than everyone else and everyone else NEEDS to hear about it, but that's why /ignore features are built in.
In a game that relies so heavily on teamwork, I really believe that it's the communities place to include or shun people based on the behavior they exhibit. This will often times create a set of so-called "unwritten rules" that people will just start abidding by as to not be the odd one out.
My final though on this is that hopefully there will be some kind of death penalty so people try to stay alive (the 30 sec rez time in WoW isn't really a penalty) I know I would start to run from a losing battle to heal if I had a penalty of some sort, 30 sec wait doesn't scare me into staying alive. Something like, being resurrected by a healer is the only way to rejoin the battle, I know I wouldn't want to die if there was a possibility i might not be rez'd for quite a while (if at all)
In DAoC it was in your benfit to help people out because, the more cap lvl people you have on your side the more you can resist your enemies. If all the Orcs did nothing but solo to gain exp. They would lvl much more slowly then say grouping high elves. Thus High Elves would mantain a lvl and numbers advantage in PvP over the Orcs.
This is different then games like WoW. In WoW since most end game stuff is instanced (and thus space is limited) when someone hits cap lvl they become a competitor. That is you have to compete to get into groups VS them. Every person that hits cap lvl after you depricates the value and competiveness of your char.
In DAoC people would ask you to keep lvling up and in some cases would help you grind the last few levels out. Remember in DAoC a death could cost you hours of exping. Every person that hits cap lvl after helps ensure you races abilbity to front the War.
But as far as an in game blind grouping system. A system to pair strangers with strangers. I'm sure WAR will have ways to do that. And in DAoC it was common to see "The hibs are attacking our keep, forming group PST for invite" but planned groups and groups on voice chat will have huge advantages expect in zergs. And there will always be newbs. And newbs can cost you the game. In Zerg warfare you can't do much about it, because even if you excluded newbs from your group they will be in someone elses group right next to you.
But in Group vs Group combat (if WAR plays anything like DAoC skill wise) 1 newb can cost you a match. As an example in DAoC you to mesmerise (stun) an enemey or group or enemies for 10-30seconds. That is the enemy under the effect can not move until they effect expires or they take damage, allowing your team to take them out 1 at a time. Well, one newb casting a AE damage spell would ruin that whole effect. If that attack was a DOT (damage over time spell) you just effectively made the enemy immune to farther mesmerizing effects. I thinking their won't be as many "enemey controling" effects in WAR. But planned group will still have an edge and thus players that are find their way into planned groups with prefer them.
do you have to write 12 year old kids? cant you write WoW fanbois like everyone else >.>
nothing personally, just the generalization of age discrimination is getting alittle old.