Honestly, I have never seen pvp done excellently in any MMO. DAoC and WAR were the closest, but they were both extremely problematic. GW1 had passable pvp but it didnt stand up t the pve in that game which was done quite well. I have yet to be convinced that MMO PvP can be excellent. I like the sound of a more action oriented system though.
I have yet to see a 2 faction MMO work well and i eagerly await what 40k thinks it can bring to the table to fix this issue.
If Vigil wants to take a page out of the table tops book, then the availability of vehicles can easily serve as an "equalizer" of sorts. Imagine a TT game of chaos vs space marines where chaos had an extra squad of 10. How would you balance the fight without the space marines getting more soldiers? Give them a predator.
If one side becomes overpopulated, they can just be the foot slogging swarm army, while their opponents suddenly become a mech army.
I have yet to see a 2 faction MMO work well and i eagerly await what 40k thinks it can bring to the table to fix this issue.
If Vigil wants to take a page out of the table tops book, then the availability of vehicles can easily serve as an "equalizer" of sorts. Imagine a TT game of chaos vs space marines where chaos had an extra squad of 10. How would you balance the fight without the space marines getting more soldiers? Give them a predator.
If one side becomes overpopulated, they can just be the foot slogging swarm army, while their opponents suddenly become a mech army.
Yeah I agree there are a bunch of mechanisms that can be implemented in combination to regulate the population in a 2 faction system. And in this game they will NEED these types of checks and balances as I find it hard to imagine any server where Space Marines wont be the dominant force.
The one you mentioned is a good idea, Vehicles beccomming more available to the losing/lowpop side.
Air strikes or NPC assistance for the losing side
a slight powerboost in pvp for the low pop/losing side.
Incentives for making a character on a low pop side.
PVE missions that allow one side to sabotage the allaince of the other side resulting in a temporary pvp state between the allaigned but sabotaged faction. you can regulate this by having this quest available to the losing side at greater frequency than the dominant side. This solves a couple problems 1. it gives the losing side a way to effect change on thier server and significantly weaken the enemy by cuasing them to fight eachother 2. It allows for pvp battle between allied factions which everyone would want.
PVP/PVE missions that will generally weaken the stronger sides position that are achievable by smaller groups.
area control that isnt completely reliant on keep zerging (like I said, it sucked in DAoC and it will always suck as a stand alone method of area control.)
There are still more mechanisms to balance sides that have really never been implemented and some combination of these systems would go a great way to solving a lot of the problems that can crop up in a game like this.
People are automatically assuming that this game will be 100% pvp centric, which in my opinion is a recipe for disaster. You want a pvp only game? Try battlefield or COD multiplayer. In this game i intend to explore the Sargos Sector as much as fight in it.
Needing is Wanting... Wanting is Coveting... Coveting is Sinning... I am SO going to Hell.
People are automatically assuming that this game will be 100% pvp centric, which in my opinion is a recipe for disaster. You want a pvp only game? Try battlefield or COD multiplayer. In this game i intend to explore the Sargos Sector as much as fight in it.
I agree 100% with this.
I think this was the major killer of WAR, 75 pvp and 25 pve was not a good idea at all. PVP just cant sustain continued play without good pve and good non combat activities. Its fun for stretches but its not good for long term.
They have said they are aiming for a balance between pve and pvp and I hope this is true. Afterall, a pve Space Hulk will be awesome.
Well, in all honesty, it's about as hard to screw up PvE as it is to make it exceptionally well. PvP, not so much. I cite World of Warcraft as exhibit A. Blizzard could make quite a few decent PvE encounters without any player feedback save for bug testing. PvP on the other hand after about patch 1.9 just got worse as the game progressed. Then there was that whole arena fiasco, and finally wintergrasp.
It's quite easy to tip the scales ever so slightly in respect to PvP and wind up with a disaster. Great care and precision, then, must be taken to ensure it's success. And of course, almost every player who has ever played against another player has an idea of what balance really means. Numerically, an even number of players is the most clear and obvious form of balance. Thus, it's only fair to expect that great strides be taken in effort to ensure the possibility of a fair fight.
1v1 is a totally different beast that I will not touch, however.
Yeah I agree that PvP is hard to balance but good PVE doesnt grow on trees either. However, i agree it is something that can be done with limited public testing.
And yeah I agree that balancing PVP is quite difficult and that no one has nailed it yet. WoW, however is one of the worst attempts at PVP I have seen to date, primarily because it was never intended to have PVP in its design until they crammed it in sometime in the last months of its development. Hence the "Standard" server uses the most asinine "flag" system I have ever seen. No, I strongly believe that WoW has no place in a conversation about MMO pvp.
On the subject of population balance, the fact of the matter is that this game will have a built in population imbalancer called space marines. I think the iconic space marine will most likely have enough draw to tip balance on a good deal of servers. So population balance in this game will certainly be an issue. This is why it's so important to implement systems that level the playing field for the side that is experiencing the shit end of an unbalanced population. There ae several methods they can take to do this, but a combination of a few systems IMO would go the longest toward keeping the game fun and ostensibly level as much as possible.
That list of possible solutions mentioned earlier in this thread has some ways this imbalance could be worked out. If they dont use something similar to the possibilities listed (ill relist them below, then I hope they have come up with stuff thats ever better. The attempts that other games have made (XP boosts and power increases) dont work by themselves and are measures that were used to fix an already broken system. If they design the game with population imbalances in mind from the beginning (what a crazy concept I know but its never been done to my knowledge) Then everybody will be better off.
Here is that list that has some ideas of how to level the playing field on pop/skill imbalanced servers. If you have other ideas (considering the 2 faction scenario that is already confirmed) add them to the list.
More or stronger vehicles becomming more available to the losing/lowpop side.
Air strikes or drop pods of NPC assistance for the losing side.
a slight powerboost in pvp for the low pop/losing side.
Incentives for making a character on a low pop side.
PVE missions that allow one side to sabotage the allaince of the other side resulting in a temporary pvp state between the allaigned but sabotaged faction. you can regulate this by having this quest available to the losing side at greater frequency than the dominant side. This solves a couple problems 1. it gives the losing side a way to effect change on thier server and significantly weaken the enemy by cuasing them to fight eachother 2. It allows for pvp battle between allied factions which everyone would want.
PVP/PVE missions that will generally weaken the stronger sides position that are achievable by smaller groups.
area control that isnt completely reliant on keep zerging but rather have additional and secondary missions that are able to be performed by small groups.
Lets see war 40k's goal , be a better clone of WoW. I think if i want to play wow ill play it not some hack of a game.
WAr 40k had a chance to try to make a good mmo... “We’re designing a cinematic, action-oriented MMO, balanced in terms of player-on-player and player-versus-environment battles." Cheer balanced pvp -- in otherwords bad pvp. I mean we can all admit that, that phrase might as well be the death nail in war 40ks pvp.
"A lot more attention is put into console games: if you sit down and you play an MMO, and you actually compared it to a triple-A console game, a lot of the stuff would never fly.”
Like fable 1-3. or GoW or GoW or most consol games. I mena these comments are just dumb. Who is throw-back talking about war 40k. Looks like this game will be another one steaming on stable floor.
Sounds like you might have 5 abilities in the game.
Its got to be actiony, but its not goign to be an fps... another game tried this style of combat and it was awful tabula rasa.
Cheer this report was the death nail in my hope and intrest in war 40k; and frankly it should be yours also.
Isn't this more of a mmofps ? Then I can't see it being like WoW at all othere than some art that make look similar because they want everyone to be able to play it on the current pcs. If it turns out polished and seems fun then I'll play it.
Technical difference, it's more like a 3rd person shooter. Which in my experiences are a bit more forgiving than first person shooters. That said, it's still likely to have at least a few different abilities MMO style just so basic roles can be fulfilled. A game with no healing, crowd control, burst, escape methods etc would be hard pressed to be called an RPG.
If this video is your support for Vigil being able to make an excellent MMO then I think you had better watch it again more closely.
It looked good (and fun) for a single player console based game.
Not knocking consoles - I play console games too - but when I do my expectation is very different to what I expect from an MMO. In a console (Single Player Game) I pay for a game that will give me a 20-80 hour campaign game and maybe a few fun arenas to play in for another few hours.
In an MMO I expect a world I can immerse myself in for months.
Look at the Video linked - very controlled.
The player is 'directed' to follow a set path to an end 'boss fight'. And the boss fight is typical for a game of that sort - wait until boss does ...blah... (in this case throws cars) and then do ..blah... (in this case throw them back - and then attack him when he lowers his head). Avoid everything else.
I have played many games like that - and they are 'fun' for a short while until you figure out the pattern or sequence and then you move on to another game. MMOs cannot work that way - if for no other reason that many of the enemies you fight are also real players.
The only way to have gameplay like that shown in the video would be a heavily instanced MMO. And we have seen that before too. It also makes it less of an MMO and more like a 'lobby' game.
This video is soooooo not enough information to say it looked good (and fun) or bad or anything, its simply showing off the graphics, which were good IMO. Only time will tell, as they release more mechanics for the game, whether its good or bad. The video was very controlled becuase it had to be... i mean really, the game is 2+ years away and they are simpley showing off what art assets and engine development they have done. what would you expect? a full interface and so forth? of course not; Id withhold judgement a little longer.
To play devils advocate, Vigil didn't exactly start out with a game made for blazing new trail. When people say that Darksiders is God of War crossed with Legend of Zelda, they really aren't kidding.
However, to get in an argument with myself, they were also a brand new studio with no credit to their name. If darksiders was an effort to show that Vigil knew what they were doing and could produce a smooth, fun, quality game, then they succeeded spectacularly. If the early reports are correct, THQ is writing them a blank check to get a 40k MMO to be just right, and they are dead set on making the gameplay action oriented instead of click and wait. I see no reason why they would look into the future with perfect clarity and decide to shoot themselves in the foot.
Of course, as always, actions and beta footage will ultimately say for sure just how well they are willing to back up that assessment. I agree with Unicorn though, a video containing non-consecutive alpha clips no longer than 3 seconds each is hardly enough to make a judgment on anything besides the game looking good graphically.
one thing is for sure, I am starved for a new video and more information. Though I fear we're going to have to wait till E3 in May or even longer at this point, which would be a damn shame. The 2 released videos are just not in depth enough to gleen any real information off of. I mean i think the interface items they did show are mach-ups anyway. I mean, the portrait in the upper left corner never changes whether they are showing orcs, marines or whatever.
I honestly dont even think we have seen the real interface at all.
You know sometimes I wonder if people really want "new" and more they just want something fun.
Everything has already been done, but not everything that has been done was done in a way to make it fun.
People are spouting out oh I am tired of kill this and that quest, then what else will you be doing? Its a game of war your going to be killing something anyway.
I suppose if they made "quest" more like large missions. Course I'd rather see the game be more on line of controling and tatical battles between three factions. This worked very well for Planet Side, but planet side was missing alot of stuff, but also did alot of things right.
Again I am the type to wait and see. Even if they don't make something brand new, or ground breaking as long as they make it "fun" no one is going to care. At least thats how I see it.
You know sometimes I wonder if people really want "new" and more they just want something fun.
Everything has already been done, but not everything that has been done was done in a way to make it fun.
People are spouting out oh I am tired of kill this and that quest, then what else will you be doing? Its a game of war your going to be killing something anyway.
I suppose if they made "quest" more like large missions. Course I'd rather see the game be more on line of controling and tatical battles between three factions. This worked very well for Planet Side, but planet side was missing alot of stuff, but also did alot of things right.
Again I am the type to wait and see. Even if they don't make something brand new, or ground breaking as long as they make it "fun" no one is going to care. At least thats how I see it.
I mean we play games for fun right?
yeah I agree with the fun, and I think that is thier feeling about the game too. The one area where they are concentrating all thier powers of innovation seems to be in what they call the "moment to moment" gameplay being more action oriented and intense, well this and large scale vehicle combat as well. Niether of these is a first time thing, but in the realm of a PVe PVP style game that DMO professes to be, there is certainly a bunch of room for innovation IMO. All with the main objective of making it fun of course.
but then again, the nature of fun is very subjective of course.
Lots of promises, lots of big talk, make fun of ther MMOs.... and when the time comes for walking the talk, the game ends up being a dud.
Been there, seen it all.
What are you babbling about? Vigil Games has never made an mmo before. They are a new company headed up by Joe Madureira. They have some really great talent over there in development. Joe is a god among artists (which is why darksiders had such amazing character design) and one of the guys that really pushed the comics industry for years.
I know personally they have some programming talent from the old Messiah team at Shiny Entertainment as well.
After Darksiders, Vigil has earned the benefit of the doubt.
Reading comprehension fail bro.
I am not just talking about Vigil but MMO companies in general. Words don't impress me anymore, especially all the big talk and promises.Vigil is making reputation for itself for bad mouthing other MMOS, i hope they can pull it off or they will end up getting egg on their face.
Idd ^^
Hype is carrying people to new heights, with youtube and the internet as a medium for info and even easier to build up hype around a game.
I can say iam hype immune after so many failures from the past 8 years.
I wait and see if a mmo/game is worth it, nothing more disapoiting to follow a game from early development stages for years only to be a major let down once you play it for 4 weeks.
MMO's are the hardest games to produce, much harder then fps or any other genre to create.
You can have the best people on your ship, and the biggest bag of money to spend, but that doesnt mean you are going to produce a quality mmo.
I have high hope for Dark Millenium and GW2 those 2 got my interest, but wait and see what quality they bring to us
Comments
I have yet to see a 2 faction MMO work well and i eagerly await what 40k thinks it can bring to the table to fix this issue.
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
Honestly, I have never seen pvp done excellently in any MMO. DAoC and WAR were the closest, but they were both extremely problematic. GW1 had passable pvp but it didnt stand up t the pve in that game which was done quite well. I have yet to be convinced that MMO PvP can be excellent. I like the sound of a more action oriented system though.
I agree if you are going to have Faction PvP of lots of players vs lots of players, then imo look at the combinations possible first:
3 Factions: AvB, AvC, BvC ; ABvC, ACvB, BCvA etc... (6)
2 Factions: AvB erm... (1)
Simplest way of looking at the forces arrayed against you and emphasis on who is fighting who. Just choose Space Marines, Chaos and Eldar.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
If Vigil wants to take a page out of the table tops book, then the availability of vehicles can easily serve as an "equalizer" of sorts. Imagine a TT game of chaos vs space marines where chaos had an extra squad of 10. How would you balance the fight without the space marines getting more soldiers? Give them a predator.
If one side becomes overpopulated, they can just be the foot slogging swarm army, while their opponents suddenly become a mech army.
Yeah I agree there are a bunch of mechanisms that can be implemented in combination to regulate the population in a 2 faction system. And in this game they will NEED these types of checks and balances as I find it hard to imagine any server where Space Marines wont be the dominant force.
The one you mentioned is a good idea, Vehicles beccomming more available to the losing/lowpop side.
Air strikes or NPC assistance for the losing side
a slight powerboost in pvp for the low pop/losing side.
Incentives for making a character on a low pop side.
PVE missions that allow one side to sabotage the allaince of the other side resulting in a temporary pvp state between the allaigned but sabotaged faction. you can regulate this by having this quest available to the losing side at greater frequency than the dominant side. This solves a couple problems 1. it gives the losing side a way to effect change on thier server and significantly weaken the enemy by cuasing them to fight eachother 2. It allows for pvp battle between allied factions which everyone would want.
PVP/PVE missions that will generally weaken the stronger sides position that are achievable by smaller groups.
area control that isnt completely reliant on keep zerging (like I said, it sucked in DAoC and it will always suck as a stand alone method of area control.)
There are still more mechanisms to balance sides that have really never been implemented and some combination of these systems would go a great way to solving a lot of the problems that can crop up in a game like this.
People are automatically assuming that this game will be 100% pvp centric, which in my opinion is a recipe for disaster. You want a pvp only game? Try battlefield or COD multiplayer. In this game i intend to explore the Sargos Sector as much as fight in it.
Needing is Wanting...
Wanting is Coveting...
Coveting is Sinning...
I am SO going to Hell.
I agree 100% with this.
I think this was the major killer of WAR, 75 pvp and 25 pve was not a good idea at all. PVP just cant sustain continued play without good pve and good non combat activities. Its fun for stretches but its not good for long term.
They have said they are aiming for a balance between pve and pvp and I hope this is true. Afterall, a pve Space Hulk will be awesome.
Well, in all honesty, it's about as hard to screw up PvE as it is to make it exceptionally well. PvP, not so much. I cite World of Warcraft as exhibit A. Blizzard could make quite a few decent PvE encounters without any player feedback save for bug testing. PvP on the other hand after about patch 1.9 just got worse as the game progressed. Then there was that whole arena fiasco, and finally wintergrasp.
It's quite easy to tip the scales ever so slightly in respect to PvP and wind up with a disaster. Great care and precision, then, must be taken to ensure it's success. And of course, almost every player who has ever played against another player has an idea of what balance really means. Numerically, an even number of players is the most clear and obvious form of balance. Thus, it's only fair to expect that great strides be taken in effort to ensure the possibility of a fair fight.
1v1 is a totally different beast that I will not touch, however.
Good post.
Yeah I agree that PvP is hard to balance but good PVE doesnt grow on trees either. However, i agree it is something that can be done with limited public testing.
And yeah I agree that balancing PVP is quite difficult and that no one has nailed it yet. WoW, however is one of the worst attempts at PVP I have seen to date, primarily because it was never intended to have PVP in its design until they crammed it in sometime in the last months of its development. Hence the "Standard" server uses the most asinine "flag" system I have ever seen. No, I strongly believe that WoW has no place in a conversation about MMO pvp.
On the subject of population balance, the fact of the matter is that this game will have a built in population imbalancer called space marines. I think the iconic space marine will most likely have enough draw to tip balance on a good deal of servers. So population balance in this game will certainly be an issue. This is why it's so important to implement systems that level the playing field for the side that is experiencing the shit end of an unbalanced population. There ae several methods they can take to do this, but a combination of a few systems IMO would go the longest toward keeping the game fun and ostensibly level as much as possible.
That list of possible solutions mentioned earlier in this thread has some ways this imbalance could be worked out. If they dont use something similar to the possibilities listed (ill relist them below, then I hope they have come up with stuff thats ever better. The attempts that other games have made (XP boosts and power increases) dont work by themselves and are measures that were used to fix an already broken system. If they design the game with population imbalances in mind from the beginning (what a crazy concept I know but its never been done to my knowledge) Then everybody will be better off.
Here is that list that has some ideas of how to level the playing field on pop/skill imbalanced servers. If you have other ideas (considering the 2 faction scenario that is already confirmed) add them to the list.
More or stronger vehicles becomming more available to the losing/lowpop side.
Air strikes or drop pods of NPC assistance for the losing side.
a slight powerboost in pvp for the low pop/losing side.
Incentives for making a character on a low pop side.
PVE missions that allow one side to sabotage the allaince of the other side resulting in a temporary pvp state between the allaigned but sabotaged faction. you can regulate this by having this quest available to the losing side at greater frequency than the dominant side. This solves a couple problems 1. it gives the losing side a way to effect change on thier server and significantly weaken the enemy by cuasing them to fight eachother 2. It allows for pvp battle between allied factions which everyone would want.
PVP/PVE missions that will generally weaken the stronger sides position that are achievable by smaller groups.
area control that isnt completely reliant on keep zerging but rather have additional and secondary missions that are able to be performed by small groups.And yet i have a feeling you'll still try it.
Isn't this more of a mmofps ? Then I can't see it being like WoW at all othere than some art that make look similar because they want everyone to be able to play it on the current pcs. If it turns out polished and seems fun then I'll play it.
Technical difference, it's more like a 3rd person shooter. Which in my experiences are a bit more forgiving than first person shooters. That said, it's still likely to have at least a few different abilities MMO style just so basic roles can be fulfilled. A game with no healing, crowd control, burst, escape methods etc would be hard pressed to be called an RPG.
If this video is your support for Vigil being able to make an excellent MMO then I think you had better watch it again more closely.
It looked good (and fun) for a single player console based game.
Not knocking consoles - I play console games too - but when I do my expectation is very different to what I expect from an MMO. In a console (Single Player Game) I pay for a game that will give me a 20-80 hour campaign game and maybe a few fun arenas to play in for another few hours.
In an MMO I expect a world I can immerse myself in for months.
Look at the Video linked - very controlled.
The player is 'directed' to follow a set path to an end 'boss fight'. And the boss fight is typical for a game of that sort - wait until boss does ...blah... (in this case throws cars) and then do ..blah... (in this case throw them back - and then attack him when he lowers his head). Avoid everything else.
I have played many games like that - and they are 'fun' for a short while until you figure out the pattern or sequence and then you move on to another game. MMOs cannot work that way - if for no other reason that many of the enemies you fight are also real players.
The only way to have gameplay like that shown in the video would be a heavily instanced MMO. And we have seen that before too. It also makes it less of an MMO and more like a 'lobby' game.
I hope they are not heading in that direction?
Nothing says irony like spelling ideot wrong.
This video is soooooo not enough information to say it looked good (and fun) or bad or anything, its simply showing off the graphics, which were good IMO. Only time will tell, as they release more mechanics for the game, whether its good or bad. The video was very controlled becuase it had to be... i mean really, the game is 2+ years away and they are simpley showing off what art assets and engine development they have done. what would you expect? a full interface and so forth? of course not; Id withhold judgement a little longer.
To play devils advocate, Vigil didn't exactly start out with a game made for blazing new trail. When people say that Darksiders is God of War crossed with Legend of Zelda, they really aren't kidding.
However, to get in an argument with myself, they were also a brand new studio with no credit to their name. If darksiders was an effort to show that Vigil knew what they were doing and could produce a smooth, fun, quality game, then they succeeded spectacularly. If the early reports are correct, THQ is writing them a blank check to get a 40k MMO to be just right, and they are dead set on making the gameplay action oriented instead of click and wait. I see no reason why they would look into the future with perfect clarity and decide to shoot themselves in the foot.
Of course, as always, actions and beta footage will ultimately say for sure just how well they are willing to back up that assessment. I agree with Unicorn though, a video containing non-consecutive alpha clips no longer than 3 seconds each is hardly enough to make a judgment on anything besides the game looking good graphically.
one thing is for sure, I am starved for a new video and more information. Though I fear we're going to have to wait till E3 in May or even longer at this point, which would be a damn shame. The 2 released videos are just not in depth enough to gleen any real information off of. I mean i think the interface items they did show are mach-ups anyway. I mean, the portrait in the upper left corner never changes whether they are showing orcs, marines or whatever.
I honestly dont even think we have seen the real interface at all.
At this point in development, I believe that is exactly the point.
You know sometimes I wonder if people really want "new" and more they just want something fun.
Everything has already been done, but not everything that has been done was done in a way to make it fun.
People are spouting out oh I am tired of kill this and that quest, then what else will you be doing? Its a game of war your going to be killing something anyway.
I suppose if they made "quest" more like large missions. Course I'd rather see the game be more on line of controling and tatical battles between three factions. This worked very well for Planet Side, but planet side was missing alot of stuff, but also did alot of things right.
Again I am the type to wait and see. Even if they don't make something brand new, or ground breaking as long as they make it "fun" no one is going to care. At least thats how I see it.
I mean we play games for fun right?
You know sometimes I wonder if people really want "new" and more they just want something fun.
Everything has already been done, but not everything that has been done was done in a way to make it fun.
People are spouting out oh I am tired of kill this and that quest, then what else will you be doing? Its a game of war your going to be killing something anyway.
I suppose if they made "quest" more like large missions. Course I'd rather see the game be more on line of controling and tatical battles between three factions. This worked very well for Planet Side, but planet side was missing alot of stuff, but also did alot of things right.
Again I am the type to wait and see. Even if they don't make something brand new, or ground breaking as long as they make it "fun" no one is going to care. At least thats how I see it.
I mean we play games for fun right?
yeah I agree with the fun, and I think that is thier feeling about the game too. The one area where they are concentrating all thier powers of innovation seems to be in what they call the "moment to moment" gameplay being more action oriented and intense, well this and large scale vehicle combat as well. Niether of these is a first time thing, but in the realm of a PVe PVP style game that DMO professes to be, there is certainly a bunch of room for innovation IMO. All with the main objective of making it fun of course.
but then again, the nature of fun is very subjective of course.