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Warhammer Woes at 60 Days
Paragus1
Member UncommonPosts: 1,741
I just published a new article that has is up here on MMORPG.com as well as on MMOCrunch.com that discusses the state of the game 60 days after release from a players perspective. This was written as a constructive criticism by someone who wants to see this game succeed. So please try to refrain from flaming me or name calling.
I am very interested in the opinion of the community here regarding the contents of this article and your feedback is appreciated.
You can find it HERE.
Thanks.
Comments
Very interesting read, thanks for the link. I left WAR a while ago because the PvE was not to my liking, tho a lot of my friends play on Skull Throne Order as well, you may know them, the guild "Ignition".
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Playing:LotRO
Waiting for: anything better than whats out now.
I have seen Ignition around
I am very concerned about that destro guilds that have been vanishing. Without them we will have no RvR.
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Spot on OP,I left the game mainly for those same reasons.
In the land of Predators,the lion does not fear the jackals...
ooh hey guys, i play on skull throne also (though latly i been playing the test server more)
am bloodlessdeath (all my alts are bloodless something)
Great post.
I was really hoping for WAR to succeed (was even a blind fangirl for it), but already began to see some of the problems you mentioned in the article while in closed beta- like I never even thought the contribution system might have worked like that, but I could tell something was definitely wrong with it.
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Playing:
FFXIV, TERA, LoL, and HoTS
My Rig:
GPU: GeForce GTX 770, CPU: i7-4790K, Memory: 16 GB RAM
MMO companies have simply forgotten what makes a good, immersive MMO.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
My totally biased, lazy, nitpicking opinion:
Disclaimer: I just really don't feel like going to sleep yet, but don't have the time to read everything. I looked at the pictures, so my comments are only about the pictures:
Picture 1: I don't know what "increases mastery path 3" means exactly. It puts a free point in Skirmisher? <shrug>. The balance pass coming up is changing SW's archery to be based on STR instead of Ballistics, to allow for easier itemization and flexibility in a SW (gearing for melee doesn't gimp your range and vice-versa) so, on the whole, that "WTF" item looks pretty good to me.
Picture 2: Scens do matter for zone control. Not as much as they used to, but they still matter. What gives a better image of dominance: A group of people running around, taking over a bunch of control points uncontested, or a group of people beating the snot out of another group of people over a "strategic location" (hey some scens look... important...ish... from a lore perspective)
Picture 3: I hate random number generators. I hate them, I hate everything about them. The reason being that you CANNOT design a RNG that is, well, random. They're all scripted in one way or another, which usually results in heavy streaking. Too tired to make poo reference.
Picture 4: That is scary.
Interesting article, especially the part on itemisation, but I am still not sure about the 'Loaded Dice' theory.
I have seen posts about that a few times before & almost all the evidence is based on personal anecdotes rather than hard data. This will probably always be the case because it would be extremely difficult to create anything quantifiable when the only test of "Do feel lucky today, Well do you, Punk" would be to endlessly repeat tasks in exactly the same way with everyone periodically leaving the zone to 'Reset the Dice'.
Whilst random number generators are often slightly biased, it is fairly easy to come up with one that is a reasonable compomise & I find it hard to believe that Mythic couldn't do better than that. The real problem seems to be one of 'Selective Memory' & 'Soured Expectations'.
People have a natural tendency to remember the bad things & once exposed to a negative concept often find it hard to forget. Many of these negative theories are effectively just 'superstition memes', like when people tell you about having terrible luck after breaking a mirror.
Of course like any true sceptic, if someone had some real data I would be very interested to see it.
If you can't "Have your cake & eat it too", then how can "The proof of the pudding be in the eating"?
Take the Hecatomb? TCG What Is Your Doom? quiz.
It boggles my mind that that contribution base number isn't zero.
Another point on itemization is that I don't know what some of the stats even mean! I have an epic chest with +2 HP Regen. WTF does that mean?! +2 HP per tick? +2 HP per second? +2% HP Regen? The same could be said for stats like + Morale Generation and others. It sounds like something you would want, but you don't know to what degree you are benefiting.
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Good post, one of the few posts I've seen that includes actual shots of things someone is mentioning so the complete picture can be discussed.
Although you didn't notice it, you actually painted a good picture for the game, and would wonder why people are still leaving. Your 30 day post listed these as the top five problems:
1. ORvR rewards.
2. Class Balance
3. Performance
4. Itemization
5. Bugs
Your next review listed a whittled down list of only 3 major problems;
1. Itemization
2. ORvR
3. Contribution System
Looking at the two lists and the time between them, a casual reader could rightly assume these things are no longer a major problem in the game and deserving of high priority by Mythic(or at least a problem for you):
1. Bugs
2. Class Balance
3. Performance/Lag/CTD
Is this so? Are you saying these 3 things are no longer an issue in game or just for you? Or are you saying that they still are there, but not a major problem. Or are you saying you'd rather have all the shinies from loots as priority fixed first, then go back to these three? Any game I played better put these 3 fixed first, if you are saying that is what Mythic did in 30 days since you posted, I am simply astouded and would wonder why people still continue to leave. It should be good news that loot is the biggest problem. (although the contribution system you describe is S C A R Y.
I don't think it can be that said that the majority of people leaving Whammer is due to the bad loot stats or contribution system. I don't think most people that left even thought about those two. Most didn't even get to endgame.
If it's not these three things, gotta be something else not listed in your top five maybe?
But what?
"TO MICHAEL!"
Morale, Regen etc. are per second. It says so in the tooltip as far as i remember. so an armor with 4 AP Regeneration will give you 4 points of AP more per second.
2% HP Regen is 2% of your current regen. You can see that in your stats. If you have 100 HP Regen per second you will have 102% wearing it.
Block, Parry, Dodge etc. add directly to these stats. If you have 10 Dodge and put on gear with 2 Dodge you will have 12 Dodge. All these are in % as it says if you look at the tooltip.
In general, getting +Disrupt is supperior to getting Willpower. You need a lot of Willpower to get +2% Disrupt (You can find the formulas on warhammeralliance if you are interested).
It takes about 15 minutes to figure all this out by simply checking your stats pages and trying on some armor. It is not really rocket science. Not saying you are lazy but it is not something that Mythic is trying to hide from you.
Hope that helped.
Well written and unfortunately true. I'm on till theend of December then I think it is time to go and this amkes me sad.
I don't see your point with armor. Maybe you should look at it a bit closer and add up all the stats you get. Looking only at the Bonus wearing more than one pice does not give an accurate reflection of that armor.
And your statement that Sentinels armor is not better...i am speechless. Let me put that in perspective for you:
Are you freaking kidding me?! Did you look at the set bonuses?! I play a range class for God's sake! WTF am I going to do with strength? Yes, let me sacrifice all my ballistic skill for stats that are little to no use for my class. I am so sick of people trying to spin the itemization debate. I could show you dozens of other examples from other classes that make no sense. Please tell me how weapon skill benefits a bright wizard? Or how intelligence benefits a healer? I have a green helmet with 45 Ballistic skill on it, show me any other helmet in the entire game that has that much.
The only reason people even wear those other sets is for wards to do PvE dungeons, which in turns gets you more poorly itemized gear.
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Are you freaking kidding me?! Did you look at the set bonuses?! I play a range class for God's sake! WTF am I going to do with strength? Yes, let me sacrifice all my ballistic skill for stats that are little to no use for my class. I am so sick of people trying to spin the itemization debate. I could show you dozens of other examples from other classes that make no sense. Please tell me how weapon skill benefits a bright wizard? Or how intelligence benefits a healer? I have a green helmet with 45 Ballistic skill on it, show me any other helmet in the entire game that has that much.
The only reason people even wear those other sets is for wards to do PvE dungeons, which in turns gets you more poorly itemized gear.
I am not trying to spin anything. You said in your article that Sentinel is not as good as Bloodlords. I included the facts and i think we can agree that Sentinels is far superior.
As on your argument of a Helmet with +45 Ballistic. That is all fine and dandy as long as you can get enough pieces to get a total of +307 Ballistic skill, because that is what you need to get the damage increase you have on the Sentinel Armor, not to mention the 5% Critical, additional HP from wounds, Defense from Toughness, Evasion, Parry, Dodge...
Like i said, do some homework and look at the sets and what you could get if you collect individual pieces. If you find something that beats Sentinel then let me know.
Very good reviewe, imo. Very well done, Paragus1. You pointed three of the main problems in a very clear way.
As someone said in this thread, your two reviews shows how WAR is evolving in the good direction (in the sense of acknowledging problems and fixing them).
I dont care much for itemization (yet... I will in the future for sure hehe).
And the community knows about the contribution problem (which I hope it's ahuge bug... if it's not a huge ug, then its a huge joke from Mythic and I cant imagine them doing somethign likk that)... I hope Mythic will fix this asap.
I dont worry too much about Itemization becuase it's fixable with time and neither about the contribution becuase it must be a function that can and will (I hope) be fixed.
Finally, the second problem... I am very worry about ORvR (not only Victory Points/Control Zone but ORvR as a whole. Why do I worry more about this issue than the others? Because this involves core design.
The letter from MJ published today is a good indicator (although he doesn't talk about zone controling). I think Mythic accepts ORvR is not what it should be and they are looking for ways to improve it.
I hope to see more of your reviews in the future Paragus1.
Thanks for the positive feed, I really appreciate it. I am concerned as well about him not talking about the zone control mechanic. I logged on yesterday to take some pics for the article and couldn't find a keep fight anywhere because the zones wouldn't flip and one team wasn't out trying to get the keeps back.
Here is Mark Jacobs Letter for those who might have missed it....
Folks,
Over the last few months I’ve spoken about our continued focus on improving our open RvR systems. While we have taken some major steps in the last month, we believe that there is much more we can do to encourage people to take part in oRvR throughout the entire evolution of their character(s). Over the next few months we have some very exciting changes and additions taking place. Please note that as always, this does not represent everything that either we are doing or thinking about doing, just what we, as of now, plan on adding to WAR.
We have a number of major initiatives planned for oRvR in WAR. Please keep in mind that these changes/systems apply to oRvR only and not to scenarios. This is not all we are working on but these do reflect the majority of oRvR additions that we are currently working on/planning for the next few months.
First, we have created an RvR Influence system. This system is designed to reward our oRvR players with lots of new stuff that you can only get through oRvR. This will be a complimentary system to our PQ Influence system. This system is already implemented in 1.1 and is scheduled to go LIVE along with that version in December.
Second, we want to improve the visibility that players have into oRvR and make it easier for players to get involved in the action quickly and easily. We have a number of wide-ranging changes going into our map and travel systems to allow players to better understand the state of oRvR in our game and also allow them to get to the action faster. We have already taken one step with putting a Rally Master in each Warcamp but we will also add the ability for people to have a second bind point to make it even easier for players to move around the maps. We will also make it easily for players to see where players from their Realm are engaging in oRvR, a Campaign HUD for all tiers and other improvements We will also improve Tier-wide messaging about what is going on in Battlefield Objectives and Keeps. Other additions include changes to the UI, in-game manual improvements, map enhancements, and a few other changes.
Third, we want to provide greater incentives to players to participate in oRvR. In order to accomplish this we will be adding additional layers to the questing system of oRvR including the addition of Keep Quests, “Daily Event Quests”, Chained RvR Missions, improve the initial Tome Unlocks and other oRvR-oriented Events. We will also improve our BO itemization. Our goal is to provide players with even more incentive for participating in oRvR than we have already.
Fourth, we want to encourage guilds to take and control keeps, and we will continue our work on adding better rewards for Guilds who own Keeps as well as the addition of a system of Keep upgrades. This system will be added to the game in several stages beginning in the late winter.
Finally, we will begin work on a global oRvR “Fame” system that will be tied directly to the Tome of Knowledge which will provide more rewards, titles, experience, etc. for participating and being successful in oRvR. This system will provide even more incentives for people to participate in oRvR than the current systems and one that fits nicely both with the ToK’s concept as “This is your life” as well as an additional advancement and reward system.
Please keep in mind that these additions are subject to change and given the nature of these changes/improvements, they will not go LIVE until we have thoroughly tested them. However, these are crucial improvements to WAR and are being treated as such by the team.
Finally, I want to close this out with a brief explanation about the role that we believe that oRvR should play in WAR. It’s really as simple as this, oRvR should be a major focus for leveling, item gain, etc. in WAR. Some of the systems are already in place and in Tier 4, oRvR is alive and well. On other Tiers, however, oRvR is not being engaged in as often as we had hoped when we launched WAR. Our goal is to ensure that oRvR is the place where players can level the fastest, get the best items and overall, have a great time while doing it. It is supposed to be riskier, more challenging but ultimately, more rewarding than any other place within WAR. What is outlined in this letter are some of the ways we plan on making this happen over the next few months and beyond.
As always, we thank you for your patronage and support. We won’t let you down.
Mark
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The discussion on that is in *this* thread
Are you freaking kidding me?! Did you look at the set bonuses?! I play a range class for God's sake! WTF am I going to do with strength? Yes, let me sacrifice all my ballistic skill for stats that are little to no use for my class. I am so sick of people trying to spin the itemization debate. I could show you dozens of other examples from other classes that make no sense. Please tell me how weapon skill benefits a bright wizard? Or how intelligence benefits a healer? I have a green helmet with 45 Ballistic skill on it, show me any other helmet in the entire game that has that much.
The only reason people even wear those other sets is for wards to do PvE dungeons, which in turns gets you more poorly itemized gear.
Ummm, weapon skill adds to parry as well. So yeah it can aid a bright wizard. So for itemization, take it with a grain of salt. Im not trying to argue, but every stat adds to something. Some are more important then others, but in the end they did a pretty good job of it. Im sorry you feel the opposite.
And I saw you used class imbalance, your kidding me right? This game is based on TEAM. Some classes may seem hindered in combat but they all have a place. To say otherwise is poor judgement in which your article can actually be considered Bias. I mean look at every other mmo ever created. Theres always classes that seem op to some and piece of cake to others. Diffrent scenario's can thrive on diffrent mixes.
Basically what I am saying is your articel was well thought out, and well typed up. But some of your facts seem, how do I say, can be used against many mmo's.
So my honest opinion is that this is just a PERSONAL review and thats all. Your article does not dictate this game for what it is. People may agree with you. People may say your spot on. But I see somethings diffrently. But you do have some valid points.
(Just glad you took the time to actually play the game before giving a round about of your opinion unlike others who played 2-3 weeks or a month and some never played at all and bitched this game out)
Enjoy : )
Sure every stats adds something, but at the cost of a stat that is your classes primary role. As a bright wizard would you rather have the weapon skill or the intelligence? These are the types of decisions they are asking their players as they find higher end armor, and frankly they are no brainers.
Class balance was an issue I touched on at the 30 day mark. Is this a team game? Sure, Ill give you that. But apparently Mythic sees it the way I do as well as most of the community, otherwise there wouldnt be a 17 page patch for class balance coming next. 4 of the classes in this game are damn near worthless, and 2 new classes are coming.
Regardless I appreciate your feedback and the time you gave to read it.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
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Sure every stats adds something, but at the cost of a stat that is your classes primary role. As a bright wizard would you rather have the weapon skill or the intelligence? These are the types of decisions they are asking their players as they find higher end armor, and frankly they are no brainers.
Class balance was an issue I touched on at the 30 day mark. Is this a team game? Sure, Ill give you that. But apparently Mythic sees it the way I do as well as most of the community, otherwise there wouldnt be a 17 page patch for class balance coming next. 4 of the classes in this game are damn near worthless, and 2 new classes are coming.
Regardless I appreciate your feedback and the time you gave to read it.
Mythic is making the changes cause the fans said so. From what I played and many others were not seeing it.
Magus mostly this guys are nuts. If played right
Enjoy : )
Just because this is billed as a team based game it does not justify the condition some classes are in, nor does it make valid any class being subpar because they are part of a collective. Class balance is more than just who pwns who and everyone needs to carry their own weight. There are some classes that just do not bring anything worth while to the team that another class can also bring and then some additional dps/utility on top of that.
Most classes are fine, but for a team based game I sure could fill my entire warband with 6-7 of the classes and never ever miss the other 3-4.
Reeeeally great article! This is EXACTLY what the game needs. More intellingent and well-put information like this. If it ever wants to be saved.
$OE lies list
http://www.rlmmo.com/viewtopic.php?t=424&start=0
"
And I don't want to hear anything about "I don't believe in vampires" because *I* don't believe in vampires, but I believe in my own two eyes, and what *I* saw is ******* vampires! "
I would greatly appreciate it if someone could post a link to this article on the VN thread where Mark Jacobs is talking with the community. I don't have an account over there and don't have the time at work to delve into it.
TwitchTV Partnered Streamer
MMORPG.com Spotlight Blog Writer
Co-Leader of Inquisition
Youtube Channel
Just because this is billed as a team based game it does not justify the condition some classes are in, nor does it make valid any class being subpar because they are part of a collective. Class balance is more than just who pwns who and everyone needs to carry their own weight. There are some classes that just do not bring anything worth while to the team that another class can also bring and then some additional dps/utility on top of that.
Most classes are fine, but for a team based game I sure could fill my entire warband with 6-7 of the classes and never ever miss the other 3-4.
And what classes are you refering to? I see alot of dislike towards the magus. Not sure why, because I have a magus and they very good. Path Of Havoc offers very good damage, no chance at recoil. Since there is no chance at recoil obviously hes not gonna push out as much as sorc or BW. Cause if that was the case then there would be no sorc or BW's (According to peoples play styles)
Next one is swordmaster. I mean come on. Check my Vid, seriously im a lvl 29 SM in tier 4 and look at it. I have 4-5 guys pounding on me in 1 scene, that alone means theres less defence for there squishy guys which means offence can focus on them.
Squig herder was another. And I laugh at this one. I have a squig herder (unfortunatly on a low pop server) but these guys are deadly, path of quick shooting is very good tree to go. Mid range maybe but the cc these guys can contribute is unreal.
Shadow Warriors have a bad rep also, these guys can have some great output on damage, PLUS with alot of teh same ccing offered by SH (minus a few things) But these guys also have the ability to take a battle to hand to hand if need be, granted there not very strong but with there assualt stance and some skill these guys can make a decent amount of close quarter damage.
White lions are another, my god those pets are a pain in the butt (My zealot knows) these things can keep any healer for full attention on there main healing target pus with there pouncethey jump right in to take down clothies with a well played WH.
So yeah, what classes are you reffering to? After I started seeing alot of hate towards these classes I tried em, and yeah I did not get to 40, but not everything is endgame. They have all made it to tier 3 scenario's. So please explain where this handicap comes from.
Edit:about my Vid that was all from last night. My magus is the only 1 non tier 3 i mentioned above. Wasn't really a maruder fan but there scenario was popping fast. Just wanted a vid for action
Enjoy : )