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Star Wars: The Old Republic: Arenas and Dungeon Finder?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Guest columnist Greg Dodd turns his eye on Star Wars: The Old Republic and a pair of features that will not be coming with the game on release. Both arenas and dungeon finders are controversy magnets and Greg takes a look at both sides before ultimately coming to his own conclusion. See if you agree with Greg's findings and add your voice to the mix in the comments.
When The Old Republic ships it will be coming with more game play than you can shake a stick at. Quests, flashpoints, warzones, space combat and exploring a galaxy far far away all come standard. Two features that will not be included at launch (so far) are Arena PVP and a Dungeon Finder system. It only takes a quick browse through the TOR website to find a thread either arguing for, or against, the addition of these two controversial features. Personally I find myself on the fence, but as any decent man of logic would do, I will attempt to flesh out the pros and cons of each.
Read more of Greg Dodd's Star Wars: The Old Republic - Arenas and Dungeon Finder?
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Comments
I agree.
???WutBoth features come with more problems than they are worth.
When The Old Republic ships it will be coming with more game play than you can run fast!
I'll be the first to say that I absolutely hate what PvP stats have done to the PvP world in MMO's. I believe there should be PvP gear as rewards, but do away with the PvP stats on them. Just make them equal to what you could get in dungeons/raids of the same level equivalent. And I do fully agree with the impact of Arena play on balance as a whole.
As for the dungeon finder, at this point in the MMO genre, I feel they are a necessity. Nobody is forcing you to do them, but for those who have a limited play time, or do not wish to spend hours roaming while mindlessly searching for a pug group to a dungeon, it can be a godsend. I feel that the LFG tool hurts no one, helps everyone. But, that's just this one person's opinion.
I guess I should clarify on my PvP stats hate. While they may seem like they are "balanced" for PvP, look at it like this. You have Joe Cool who has been doing PvP non-stop, and has all the gear and 200 "resilience", making him take way less damage in PvP combat. Next, in comes Joe Random for his first PvP experience ever. Has good gear, but no PvP gear, so no "resilience". Joe Random gets ripped apart while barely scratching Joe Cool. Joe Random gets discouraged, never PvP's again, and possibly even leaves the game due to this fact.
The arguments could be made for or against, but, I feel that the huge discrepancy between the Haves and the Have Nots for PvP ruin the balance as far as PvP goes. When did fighting against other players become more gear based, and less skill reliant?
I have to say my issue isn't the dungeon tool and the arenas themselves that I used to find the issue, but the attitude it seemed to instill in people. There seemed to be no urge for alturism or socialisation. I know not everyone professes to be a team player and what not, but to play an MMO and be intentionally rude and anti-social just seems to go against what the games are designed to be - a social way to play games with others.
When you owe your dungeon run to someone letting you into their group rather than being magically added to a group... you tend to act a bit more like your tush is on the line and less like you have a sense of entitlement.
That also means the way you act, perform and the general impression you give and friends you make count towards future runs. That is the idea behind an MMO.
I agree with loulou321 on this. When they add groupfinders the worlds die out and the major city just becomes a lobby to wait in between instance runs. Part of the fun used to be the journey to get to the dungeon.
to answer your last question, when wow came out. wow made arenas, battlegrounds, and pvp gear more important than the actual pvp. wow ruined pvp and is ruining the entire mmo genre imo.
which is why im so on the fence about swtor, I look at the game and say its bioware and star wars, it has to be great. then I read into the game, raids, all about gear, battlegrounds, probably arenas, end game dungeons that you have to run endlessly to get gear to do the next dungeon, crap i got bored with in wow many seasons ago. rift did the same thing and I just wasnt into it. I am fine with themepark games, just stop the endless gear grind and gear gating, give us something to do other than dailies and dungeons all day. the most imaginative and innovative game company we have ever had is bioware and yet they seem to be happy and content following blizzard in making the same type of game.
I dont know if i should get the game for the class stories and play through them and then move on to something else or just wait and see if archeage or tsw turns out to be good but im pretty dissapointed in swtor and have been for about a year now.
Good article.
Arena's killed WOW's world pvp and the Dungeon Finder its immersion, as far as I'm concerned.
No problem living without either of them. ^_^
My brand new bloggity blog.
" forming PUGs is part of the territory" THis mentality is why MMOs are failing. The design the game the way it has always been designed instead of coming up with a creative or original solutions to a problem (inability to find the right people of the right level and right class, at the right time, who want to do the same thing as you, to run a group instance).
Dungeon fiinder does not have to be the solution. Some sort of fix to spamming LFG does.
I can abolutely do without thee features. They do not enhance the game for me in any way. Dungeon finder can be nice when you don't have a ton of time or it i hard to find a PUG. I use it is RIFT but that is because I am in a smallish guild and PUGs can be hard to find, especially in the lower to mid tear level ranges.
I am already in a large enough SWTOR guild and already have enough friends and family who will be playing that dungeons should not be an issue for me.
There will be plenty of PVP opportunities in TOR as well so Arena won't be mised except by the hard core PVP gear grinders.
If they don't put in an arena type system, I will be incredibly dissapointed.
I also disagree with the author's statement that if arenas are implemented ' This in turn, has rendered the only other PVP option, battlegrounds, little more than a place to farm gear with decent enough stats to eventually enter the arena.'
I played 6 seasons in arenas and never lost my love of BGs, esp AB. The week before I quit WoW I spent basically the whole time in BGs handing out the pain.
High end raid gear is only available if you do high end raid content. Why should pvp gear be any different?
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
-Elbert Hubbard
When wow came out it didn't actually have any of those things. Battlegrounds didn't come out for months after release and arenas and pvp gear didn't come out until the first xpac.
Your point of view could easily be turned around.
People needs incentives to do things, in life and in games.
Joe Cool was rewarded for his efforts/skills and has more going his way if he continues to work hard.
You have to understand that if both Joe Cool and Random were made equal despite their PvP experiences, there would be no incentives for Joe Cool to continue to play PvP, it would get boring after a while, and inevatibly for Random aswell.
People DO leave games no matter the rules, people get bored and/or frustrated, it happens everywhere, but what's likely to happen here in your scenario is that Joe Random might just realize that he could get as strong as Joe Cool if he works hard aswell, giving him a real incentive, a goal to aim for.
Now about the original subject..I see Arenas as an additional feature, as long as it is not the only way to enjoy PvP, WoW killed world PvP because there was not much incentives to go outside for PvP (like capturing keeps etc ..see DAoC).
Dungeon finder is lame on the other hand as its a cheap way to try to fix a broken social experience.
Have you never played an online FPS?
The first time I played Counterstrike (way back in beta), I lasted about 2 seconds in my first firefight. The learning curve in any competitive, ranked, head to head PvP is always going to be steep. If you can't hack it, don't play, but don't hate on the people that took the time to climb it when you gave up.
Complaining about resiliance was the first and last refuge of people who can't admit to themselves that PvP is a totally different skillset than PvE, and that just because you are 'leet in raids doesn't make you any good at PvP.
I've walked into BGs with a toon with zero PvP gear and done very well for myself simply because I had PvPed since launch in '04- skill can trump gear in may circumstances.
I wasa two-way player (hardcore raider and PvPer), so this isn't a PvP > PvE argument. Bother are great, both take skill, and both can be incredibly satisfying. I just don't get the expectation that some people seem to have that they are entitled to walk in to a BG or arena for the first time and be uber.
If you want the gear and props for PvP 'leetness, you better be ready to take the beats- because that's how you learn. Walking in and laying waste to everything in your path teaches you nothing.
The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.
-Elbert Hubbard
DF cross server no thank you, but if it were single server and you still had to travel to the place then why not? It kinda gives you the best of both worlds, you don't have to spend time LFG and you still have to be behaved or else word will get around on your sever that your a jackass. You could still make friends and if you make enough of them you might not even need to use the DF after a while.
A new game does not "HAVE" to have everything Warcraft has now does it? Wow has LFD so what.... tons of mmo's have done just fine without it. Me - I would rather let some semblance of a server community develop at the "cost" of a bit of convience time wise.
Pvp same thing. PvP is a ton of fun, and I love doing it in just about every game I play. On the other hand this E-Sport horseshit mentality about arena's and the like is old. You want competetive pvp.. play a fps, join the rts scene and play against that world champion kid in starcraft 2. Jump into EvE max Frig skills and go the lone wolf route and "Test" your skills. Whatever. Why do MMO's need to cater this arena garbage for a game that is primarily a PVE game from it's inception? If the game isn't designed from the ground up with arena, don't add it in after the fact. That's just a damn nightmare balance act.
LFD = Keep it server groups only, otherwise ...don't wonder why people act like scumbags in the instances.
Arena = Waste of coding for this type of game imo. If you want hardcore PvP there are better games for it.
My biggest fear for this game is it will be a huge success and get a ton of the wow crowd overnight. Which means we will get all the wow crowd wonderfull ideas and "must" haves along with the super craptastic community.
This is TOR, not WOW. Don't try to make it WOW.
All IMO of course. But I want to play TOR when it comes out. Not Wow 2.0.
I hate arenas and separate gear for them, it divides players in MMO rather than brings them together.
Group finder however is very welcome as long as it is only in your server and only forms a group but does not teleporting you anywhere etc.
Arena could have a tournament that gave out non combat rewards. Anything else would be a deal breaker for me. LFG server only, and you still have to travel there. Anythng more and it becomes another deal breaker.
The dungeon tool im okay with...I dont think thats a bad idea at all. They could always add a guild perk system for guild mates hitting the dungeon together, which will still make guildies want to go in a dungeon together...but also helps the solo guys.
As far as arena and battlegrounds, totally against both of them. I'm big on open world pvp, anything that can hurt that for me is a showstopper. It is true, all the rewards you get in bg's and arenas does cause pvp to take place only in the bg's and arenas.
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Yeah, I played in the WOW beta and started day one. I don't think it even had any PVP day one so I am not sure about what Hardicon is talking about. battlegrounds and PVP gear grind, etc all came in later expansions.
I have no problem with a dungeon finder. I despise making my own group and I don't like looking for groups to join and thus it's a great solution for me.
As for arenas, ah well... I don't have a problem with an arena type game feature being added IF and ONLY IF it's just there for fun. No special rewards, no gear you can earn through it and most importantly no balancing around it. It's there as a minigame, a distraction from the real game features. Only then would I want to see arenas in SWTOR, anything more and it would probably be a short run for me in that game. I already went through the horror that was arena in WoW and I do not want a repeat. Ever. Again.
I do not enjoy instanced gameplay in Online RPGs.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The exact same would happen with none "PvP" gear, the veteren player has more stats thus a stronger character either way. Infact its even worse as players die much faster, new players not only loose but die before they even do anything.
The only thing "PvP" gear does is seperate PvE and PvP progression.
People PvP because they want to compete against other players. Doing so on even terms seems like the best showcase of skill to me. And to whoever brought up playing an FPS game in a discussion about playing a Star Wars MMO, weird. But yes, I play FPS games daily as well. FPS makes a great argument for skill over gear anyways, so I'll roll with it. And also, I'm not saying remove PvP gear, only to remove PvP stats like Resilience. I wholeheartedly agree with getting PvP gear and rewards for your time and effort and conquests in PvP. I just simply don't see the need for a PvP stat. Make the PvP gear more stamina/endurance heavy and geared towards PvP, as it was in say, WoW in the beginning before Resilience.
I plan on playing on a PvP server in TOR and will be doing warfronts all the time, but I'm just trying to play the devil's advocate in that PvP stats do cause a giant rift between the Haves and Have Nots. I do not see the need to lash out with insults and such in a discussion.
Two of the things the PvP stat tried to alleviate in WoW were:
1) PvE raiders destroying everyone else with superior stats. If you were a casual player and just wanted to PvP a little in between dungeon runs, you really couldn't because the raid loots stats were even more imbalanced than resiliance. Haves and have-nots.
2) PvE players doing PvP only for the loot. It was easier to get the loot doing PvP, whether legitimately or not, and therefore many players were skipping PvE content. Welfare Epics.
I'm not saying the stat did a good job or not, personally I don't care for it much either. But I think enough players were upset about the above two things to cause the developers to try it.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.