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WAR: 1 step forward, 2 steps back? (realistic flame)
Jeremy8419
Member Posts: 20
Well, I guess that got your attention. Yes, this is a flame, but only a slight one, and hopefully not one that will enrage anyone
WAR does look like a great game, and I most likely will play it, at least for a little while.
DAoC made a huge step with its RvR combat, and honestly has the best pvp i have played yet. However, when Mythic announced a new MMORPG, I expected that it would take a step forward, which in many ways it has, with its detailed RvR system leading ultimately to a capital's capture, but it fails in my hopes in some ways. In DAoC, part of the excitement was that it was never one side versus the other. There was always a chance that it would be a 3 way FFA between the three distinct realms. I thought that Mythic's next game would either have more sides, say 5 or 6, or be structured more like AoC's pvp, where there are many, small, player-created "sides". In WAR, though, it is only truly 2 Realms, Chaos and Order. Though there are 6 "nations", they are divided into 2 allied factions, 3 "nations" on each faction. At any given time, you can still only fight one other faction. It just seems a little odd to me that Mythic would go from a superior 3 realm RvR system, to a 2 realm RvR system. Though the possibilities of variety in pvp battles in WAR is near limitless, it will come nowhere near to the variety of DAoC's 3 realm pvp battles.
Hope that makes sense, may have been rambling a bit.
WAR's classes are very unique and sound interesting. The amount of "feats" or what-have-you also has the chance to greatly add to the classes they have developed. However, WAR has 24 classes total, whereas DAoC has a whopping 44 classes! Part of the fun of DAoC was the huge number of classes, giving players a lot of options as "who to be", and each class had around 4-5 viable ways to specialize their skills. Just seems weird that Mythic is nearly cutting their amount of classes in half. I would have at least expected a comparable number of classes available. Perhaps, though, the ways of customizing characters in WAR will allow for each class to have 6-10 ways of being completely different.
Thoughts everyone?
Comments
If you've got 44 classes, its either a tough job balancing them or a number of those classes are similar in the first place.(leaving the question why do they need to be seperate classes?)
24 is pretty good from my perspective, lots more than WoW or EQ.
Besides which more isn't always better. Its often better to have fewer well balanced classes than a large number of classes of which only a certain number are viable and the rest are underpowered or gimped in some way.
The factions do make sense due to the IP, but then again, they didnt have to choose WAR, but thats a whole nother debate.
There are several classes, say around 6, in DAoC that are quite similar, however, they are all pure melee classes, so that is to be somewhat expected. The rest are very different. In fact, some of the counterparts are so completely different that they dont even really seem like counterparts. The balancing does have a small bit of issue, but no more than any other game.
Keep in mind there are hundreds of units in the WAR universe, they most surely could have come up with more than 24 classes. Also, there are 6 "races", and i'd reckon around 1/4 - 1/3 of the classes will be near identical to the other race's counterparts, especially the tanks. Usually there are Melee tanks, and DPS tanks (which you can see in the class list for WAR), whose gameplay will MOST LIKELY be very very very similar. Either you whack stuff with a big ol thing, you whack stuff with two little things, or you whack stuff with one little thing and a shield.
EDIT:/RE: Actually the classes are all viable. When I played a great deal, I enjoyed near all of two realms classes, say around 20 of the 44. There are no "gimped" or "overpowered" classes. Sure people complain, but thats because they arnt very good, lol. The amount of people of each class is within a 5-7% range of the other classes in its realm. They all have very unique roles and niches, and are all equally capable.
Must remember to say that to a Games Workshop staff member next time i'm in store... "come on... either i whack stuff with a big thing, you whack stuff with 2 little things... or whack stuff with one little thing and a shield"
hmm.. and is it me or is he describing what he does in the comfort of his own bedroom?
High elves famous for- magic, horsemen, archers
Dark elves famous for - assassination, torture, reptile training
even if they were very similar, so is WoW... whats the difference between a tauren warrior and a human warrior... one gains rep much faster
Although i did want vampires, skaven and wood elfs too. (treemen for the win) or an opportunity to play blood bowl
Hahaha, no im not making mention of something unmentionable.
My point by that remark is, there arnt very many ways to have much difference between pure tank classes. The Bright Wizard and the Chaos's disc riding damage dealer are very different in description and theory, as would be say the witch hunter and it's counterpart. However, there are 6 near pure tanks out of the 24 classes. My point is that a substantial bit of their large number of classes will be near identitical. The visual methods they attack with will be between 2hnd weapons, 1hnd + shield, or dual wield, but other than that, their actual gameplay will be very very similar. In DAoC, there are 3 nations, meaning that for tanks and dps tanks, there are 2 counterparts for each type. But in WAR, there are 6 nations, and they have 5 counterparts for each type.
WoW isnt really a good comparison to WAR for the race/sides debate. WoW was originally made to be very PvE, while WAR is being made to be very PvP, for one. Also, keep in mind that in WAR, the classes are directly tied to races. You cant have an Ironbreaker Orc, or a Dark Elf Bright Wizard.
I can near 100% guarantee you that when the High/Dark Elf classes are revealed, they will both have a tank class near identical in gameplay to the other 4 race's tanks.
DAoC isn't a good comparision either.... it takes a while to "spot a player" especially when you just start now....
Classes are tied to races because of LORE not gameplay; there's actually 8 collegues of magic. It's unfortunate they only include Bright, but again that was always a firm favourite even within the game mechanics.
High Elf magic incorporates ALL of the 8 schools in ONE. Not exactly the same.
Chaos magic has NOTHING to do with either of the two.
Dark Elf magic... well Chaos magic has more in common with High Elf than their distinct cousins do.
Orc magic tends to make heads explode quite literally from Gork and Mork.
Tank wise, what exactly did you expect.... it's a tank.... every race needs a tank, in the actual GAME every race has individuals who rise above the rest.
I mean gawd forbid if Dwarf Warriors and Chaos Warriors on the battlefield in the Warhammer game... are actually OMG the same (they're in fact not, due to mostly upgrades and various other "things")
in other words, you talk rot.. know nothing of the Warhammer Universe, and can troll elsewhere... thank you for playing =]
and since you haven't even played the game.. nor know of the differences in-game, what are you doing here anyway :-p
assuming isn't good for you, if we all assumed things.................... the computer world would have stopped at 64k
Uh, okay, no idea what you are going on about, cuz it has near nothing to do with the point i was making.
I never even brought up magic, did I? so no idea why half your flame is about magic that wasnt even brought up.
Of course I expect the tanks to be tanks. My point was that they have near half the classes as DAoC, and that 1/4 - 1/3 of those classes wont even be unique, since 1/4 is automatically similar tanks. Bright Wizard is very unique compared to the other classes, as is say witch hunter, or squarg(?) herder. However, I think they could have come up with far more unique and interesting classes than they did. They managed to do it from scratch for DAoC, certainly they could have done it from a well developed IP with tons of background and different units.
I have no idea why you're praising yourself for owning me, because you completely didnt grasp the concept of what I was saying, and half your flame was on a complete tangent that had nothing to do with what I was talking about.
And excuse me? "what am i doing here"? Is this the official WAR beta forum? am i supposed to be expected to be a beta tester for the game? Seems to me like you need to go troll the Beta forums, and stop flaming people on a public message board for voicing concerns over a game thats currently under an NDA. If you play it, you're not allowed to speak about anything that isnt public. So your argument that i "shouldnt speak if i havnt played it" is completely null and void. Keep in mind this is a public forum for people to discuss public knowledge, not a beta forum under an NDA
gw owned :x
This game is a more PvP orientated mmo and thus can offer more hours of gaming without people getting tired of it halfway through, plus it has an endgame agenda: sack the enemies capital at which point the battlefront is reset and the war continues.
But the game stil has the fundamental flaws that these kinds of mmo's have, the world is static as nothing ever changes unless its a patch. It will always be the same kind of gameplay and the same quests etc that players can enjoy themselves with.
So I wouldnt say that its 1 step forward 2 steps back, its just like most other games out there but with warhammer univers in the mix. The game isnt bringing anything we havent seen before, but im sure its going to be more fun and since its mainly a PvP game it wont IMO become as tiresome as a PvE game will.
"I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said..Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?...No, but i served in a company of heroes"
Sgt. Mike Ranney E-company 506PIR 101'st airborn
The original plan was to include something like 48 or so professions across the races. Unfortunately I can't remember if it was Mark Jacobs or Paul Barnett that said it nor can I find the post containing said information. But they were cut because Mythic felt by focusing on a smaller amount of professions right out of the starting gate would give us a better overall game experience. They wouldn't have to worry about balancing as many classes and can focus on more of what will make the game fun.
As for the factions...you really can't do a 3 sided faction war in WAR. Nor can you do the skirmishes between races on the same side. Even raising the race count to 9 would present problems because who would you put in the third faction? Mythic can't split out the 4 Chaos gods. Slaanesh would remove the teen rating. Khorne is all about warriors only. Nuurgle while some people would find cool, most would not want to play anything that ugly. That's why Mythic went with Tzeentch. Who would you add to each of the racial pairs? High Elves historically fight Chaos or Dark Elves. They do take on the other races, but not enough to build anything around a 3 way war without destroying other racial pairs. The Empire is pretty much the front line on Chaos. They have small battles with Bretonnia and Wood Elves and sometimes take on Greenskins but not to the same kind of level as with Chaos. Hard to add a third race into that one. Dwarves and Greenskins. This one is as old as it gets for a racial war. Dwarves also do fight other races, but not like they do Greenskins. High Elves and Dwarves have fought in the past, but you can't make Dwarves the third race in the High Elf/Dark Elf war.
The way Mythic has gone about developing this game is I feel the best way to handle it. I'm just glad it isn't Climax that's developing it because we'd quite literally have another WoW on our hands as it was being designed as a pure PvE game. That doesn't feel like Warhammer at all.
Games Workshop is very protective over their IP. They have to be, it's their bread and butter. 40k is the more popular of the two, but Fantasy Battle is not an unpopular game. They hold global campaigns for it every year. In fact, the latest one is called the Nemesis Crown. Mythic is still making leaps and bounds in the advancement of the MMO genre. The Public Quest system is absolutely revolutionary. The Tome, while we have extremely limited information about it, could also be a revolutionary aspect to the game. The fact they are completely cutting out stealth, long duration CC and Buffbots are also huge steps forward. Reducing the war to two sides and the classes to a starting 24 doesn't mean they are taking steps back. It means they are putting much more energy into putting the "fun, you ****ers" back into the MMO genre. (By the way, that quote is from Paul Barnett, you can find it here:www.mmognation.com/2007/05/16/face-the-nation-paul-barnett-pt-1/)
This is the full quote:
MG: Excellent. One of the things that I took away from one of the conference calls, I thought it was just inspiring: “Fun, F#ckers?”
Paul: “Fun, you F#ckers!” I tell you what, the amount of people who don’t get that just drives me mad! Right, it drives you mad. The people who work on this game, they have to understand that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. There are people all over the world who want our job. There are people who would kill to get our job. Look at where the planets are in alignment: we got a really good property, we’ve got the right timing, we’ve got good tech, we’ve got a good design, we’re going to win! And you sit there and you say to yourself, “It’s not going to happen again! It’s not going to happen for another 10 years, there isn’t another property out there. It’s … just unbelievably good.” So that’s a really good thing. So then you have to say, our job then is: don’t be crap. Make something what is not rubbish. So then you say, what’s important? It’s a weird thing, right? You talk to people about what’s important they get obsessed on the product. The get obsessed on the frames per second, the colors, the brightness, the usability of the interface. And you go: “It’s none of those things!” That’s just the dressing, that’s the just the stuff that makes you go: “Yes, yes, yes, I see, I see, I see.” What is at the core of it? FUN! Fun, you F#CKERS!
And that is what it’s about. Don’t give me another mechanic! Don’t give me another great design idea! Make sure it’s fun. Do I laugh, do I cry? Do I want to play? If I go down to QA, and they are are play RvR scenarios off their own back, and laughing, and keeping count, and bragging … if I walk round and find that the animators are giggling at their own animations, that they’re actually doing the quests and laughing about them … if I look around and see happy people … people that are overworked and underpaid, obviously, but happy people … then I get better. You’d be amazed … fun is this sort of nebulous thing, it’s like last on the agenda. So in the end we wrote it on the white board in great big letters. And you have to swear, because if you don’t swear they don’t take you sensibly. It’s like when people say “compelling”. And you go, “What the bloody hell does that mean?” Or they go “engaging.” No! FUN! You F#CKERS! You do that, they’ll play it, and they’ll love it, and it’ll be huge, and I won’t have wasted four years of my life.
This is why I feel WAR is taking many steps forward and none back. How long has it been since we've really had fun playing an MMO? I know for me it's been quite a while.
"I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day when he said..Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?...No, but i served in a company of heroes"
Sgt. Mike Ranney E-company 506PIR 101'st airborn
Very good post.
48 would be far too many starting off. However, I think they went overboard when cutting back on the number of classes. 6 tanks, probably another 3-6 dps tanks. I dont like playing either. I dont like playing "evil" characters either. This gives me about 7-8 classes to choose from. So far, I find about 2-3 of those to be interesting. I guess I dont like the way the realms and nations are setup. I would prefer if they had found some way to make it so that each of the 6 races didnt have to have an equivelant. Could have just chosen 12 unique classes per side and scattered the races between them. Then there wouldnt need to be 3-6 tanks on each side. Probably they decided that it wasnt WAR enough tho to have a straight united front with PVP groups always being mixed race.
Ironbreaker/Hammerer/Knight VS BlackOrc/OrcChoppa/Chosen/Marauder ........
Sorry, those just dont seem that great, or cool, or unique, or anything that would make me find it cool to play as any of them. Witch Hunter alone stands out. Seems like they just kinda killed over on their creativity in choosing those 7 classes. They would be cool if they were 7 out of 35, but 7 out of 24? thats a third of the classes seeming stale, and thats if there arnt any dull looking tanks in the High/Dark Elves. Maybe im just a jerk, but they came up with some other cool choices for classes, why couldnt they have come up with more for the tank-like ones? like the Witch Hunter? 2-3 total tanks like that per side would be fine, but thats like half the classes looking like stale unimaginative classes. NO ONE else thinks that they could have made better, more creative choices for classes?
I understand the 2 Realms is due to the IP, was just hoping for more from Mythic's next game. I concede to their choice for WAR as an IP as a great business choice, though.
I can understand that they want it to be as "fun" as possible, and I am a huge fan of Mythic, as I've been playing their games since 96, but I honestly dont think I am going to have that much "fun" playing the game. I'm sure i will enjoy parts of it for a while, but I doubt I will stay with it for long-term. It's just looking very "cookie-cutter" and "simple" to me. I like complex games with tons of possibilities where you really have to think and plan. I know people can say "well thats WAR!", but compared to DAoC, this just looks really cookie-cutter and simple, even though there are some nice features.
as previous posters have said, 24 good, well balanced classes are better than having 44 unbalanced classes as in DAoC.
chill and think towards the future, open your mind.
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This game will be strictly another small niche game. You can't have 24 classes in a game and have successful pvp because you cannot balance them enough to make them all viable.
Mythic has already demostrated that with DAoC. They have yet to make many of the classes in DAoC decent in pvp or they were and were nerfed into oblivion.
At least Blizzard saw the major problem and restricted their class list to maintain decent class balance.
There will be fotm classes once players realize which ones are overpowered, then Mythic will nerf and others will become fotm and on and on the cycle will go.
I think DAoC was the original inventor of the fotm classes moniker due to their ludicrous efforts at balancing them.
We come together cause opposites attract...
GG 80's.
"unbalanced classes" in DAoC has always IMO been nothing more than people whining.
I played the game for 5 years, and never once had a complaint about a class being "overpowered" or "nerfed". I've played a majority of the classes in PvP and was able to play them all well. People complaining classes are nerfed or fotm, is usually because they arnt skilled enough to play the game.
My blog:
there will be pvp servers in AoC, maybe not at launch.
My blog:
One thing you are forgetting is its not just 2 faction RVR, In the Metagame it is 2 factions, but what you actually have are 3 subfaction RVR battles taking place. As a Dwarf, you could be fighting Greenskins exclusively and NEVER see DE or Chaos on the battlefield.
Then again, on your battlefield you could see both, meaning dorfs vs de/chaos/greenskins. To me thats a step forward.
I would just like to say that having anything less than total war between all of the races would be very un-warhammer like. I can understand the need to keep it organized and fun, as in the case of a specific story line or campaign, but it is also important to stay true to the roots of the game. There should be no restrictions whatsoever on who you can march your army against!
I think that the interaction of the different skills in the game in various situations will provide a lot of depth and diversity, though it may lack a high number of classes like Daoc.
Okay well first big hole in the OPs complaint is that DAoC has been out for like 5 or 6 years. They've had expansion packs. Did they start with 44 classes? Hell no. They had classes added on afterwards.
Secondly, while there are two major alliances Order and Destruction (not Chaos btw, they're a sub-faction), the sub factions are will be what influences your gameplay. If you're an Empire character, and you go fight Chaos, your PvP will be very different than if you go over to the Dwarf lands and fight some Greenskins, and it will be different still if you go over to the High Elf lands and fight some Dark Elves. But then again, you could be an Empire character, fighting in the Dark Elf lands, and a group of Orcs shows up to change the gameplay up.
Also, more doesn't always equal better. Two major factions that are well balanced might be better PvP-wise than 3 factions that just subscribe to rock-paper-scissors. It's certainly alot harder to balance 3 factions as opposed to 2, not that it's the easy way out but it'll provide a better pvp experience. (I hear there's a boycott by 2 of the sides in DAoC because one side is more powerful, doesn't sound like pvp fun to me) In addition, there's nothing that says the devs can't add in a 3rd faction later on. There's PLENTY of more races that are potential PC races. Skaven, Lizardmen, 3 different types of Undead, Brettonians, Wood Elves, and so on. Maybe they add a 3rd faction called Entropy or something and drop in the Skaven, Lizardmen, and Undead. That's what's great about the IP is that there's so much potential for growth simply because it's been around and growing already for 25 years. Like Mr. Barnett says, WAR is about people fighting wars, all the time, forever.
I thought I'd add some quotes from the official warhammer page to respond to your idea that "all tanks are the same".
The Ironbreaker Specialty
Playing as an Ironbreaker
Fighting Ironbreakers
Fighting an Ironbreaker calls for some tough choices: do you try to wear away the anvil or do you attack his friends and hope that the anvil doesn’t fall on your head? The best approach is probably to remove the Ironbreaker through magic and ranged attacks, aiming to eliminate him before he can bring his power to bear. Barring that, a concentrated melee attack on the Ironbreaker may be your only hope to avoid creating an indestructible melee monster that knows your name and holds a grudge for a very long time.
The Black Orc Specialty
Playing as a Black Orc
Fighting Black Orcs
When you fight a Black Orc it’s most important to know your enemy and his abilities. This allows you to counter them and keep him from reaching the potential of his deadly power. He will always have the tools to engage you, so there’s little sense in trying to get around him. If you’re aware of his abilities – especially the multiple attacks he can chain off of one another – you can maneuver and break his chains, denying him maximum performance. Maneuverability, selective engagement, and an intimate knowledge of your enemy’s abilities are the keys to defeating the Black Orc.
As you can see, fighting and playing as either of these tank classes is done differently. I mean sure, they're both "Tanks" but that's a pretty loose term, and there's still "tanks" in DAoC. The other tank classes really haven't been talked about much but could easily be different still. The truth is it's too early to say that all the tanks are the same, especially when the ones revealed so far are actually different, or atleast as different as they can be while fulfilling the same role. Each race has to have these "roles" because any race left without one is going to suffer a severe disadvantage when it comes time to balance them all.
So as far as your "2 steps back", which I assume are:
2 Major Factions not 3: Not necessarily true (different subfactions play differently) and not necessarily bad (more is not always better)
Less than 44 classes: Not necessarily bad (see above) and more classes will likely be added with time anyways.
-Sub complaint to above Classes are too similar: Classes will atleast be as different as the ones between the 3 sides of DAoC are and so far they appear to be different enough that their playstyles are different.
In the end, I think it's too soon to be judging the game on stuff like the final pvp matchups (which aren't even done yet) and when you haven't even had a chance to play the game.
I was lucky enough to get to try the game at a GamesDay (they didn't have any NDAs or anything, so it's public) and I can say that I was quite impressed with the way the game is now. EA Mythic really knows what they're doing and you need to just have a little faith before calling doom on the game. If you get a chance to go to a GamesDay near you, I highly recommend it. You might even win a beta account.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I just wanted to say to be careful about classes. Quality is ALWAYS preferable to quantity and in quality, many original daoc classes left a lot to be desired. (come on, a fire specced wizard had like 7 abilities total...)
WoW has shown that you can have a smashing succes with 9 classes, as long as each is unique and play differently from the rest.
So I do not care they have 24 classes instead of 50, as long as each is interesting to play.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"