If I were Mark Jacobs: Quality vs. Quantity
Posted by: Snafzg
On: May 08, 2009 at 12:41pm
Welcome to the second installment of If I were Mark Jacobs, a series I'm dedicating to the major issues I have with Warhammer Online and what I would do to fix them if I had the power.Quality vs. Quantity
No-one can deny that there is a crapton of stuff to do in WAR. Solo quests. Public quests. Instanced dungeons. Scenarios. Open RvR. Exploring the Tome of Knowledge. Crafting. Expanding on that, there are there is a huge variety of options to choose from when doing these things. There are three pairings, each with hundreds of solo quests and dozens of PQs. There are at least 6 instance dungeons accessible from ranks 15-40. Players have plenty of locations and setups when participate in scenarios and ORvR. The ToK is huuuge. Crafting currently supports 2 production and 4 gathering skills (not too many but not too shabby either).
The problem is that I feel Mythic has sacrificed quality for quantity.
- The solo quests in T1 are quite good for the most part but they feel repetitive and grindy from T2-T4 because they never really change get any better. In many cases, they get worse, resulting in the generic kill 10 rats formula. WAR is not a PvE-focused game, but if you're trying to make a mass market MMO to compete with a PvE behemoth like WoW, you must deliver the same kind of quality.
- Public quests are a brilliant innovation in WAR but has Mythic not heard the saying "You can have too much of a good thing?" PQs are freakin' everywhere in WAR and very few break away from the basic formula of Kill XXX easy mobs. Kill XX harder mobs. Kill miniboss. The ones that do are a stroke of genius. Mythic made PQs filler content for the most part when they could have had far fewer that were much more epic.
- Instanced dungeons are hit and miss in WAR. The first city dungeons are absolutely terrible. Gunbad and Bastion are decent the first couple times though but don't offer much entertainment value beyond that. The rank 40 city dungeons are great your first time through as well, but suffer the same fate. I haven't been in Lost Vale yet, but I hear it is good too; your first time through anyway. The problem with instanced dungeons in WAR is that you are forced through them so many times to get the gear you need and they get old fast. All dungeons also suffer from bugged encounters from time to time that just gets frustrating after your second wipe for no good reason.
- Scenarios aren't bad in and of themselves but they really highlight issues like career and population balance. They were originally too rewarding, so they were the only thing players did. Players became burned out and unhappy. Mythic decided to boost rewards in oRvR and now you're unlikely to see more than one or two scenarios pop in a three-hour gaming session. Scenarios now take a back seat to most everything else in WAR.
- Open RvR can be amazingly fun one day and then just brutal the next. Like scenarios, oRvR puts career and population balance under the microscope and to be honest, neither is very healthy. Every BO and keep siege plays out the exact same way because the content isn't dynamic enough. The old zone control mechanic resulted in too few zone locks. The new control mechanic results in several city sieges per day on some servers. Mythic still hasn't found a middle ground. Add on top of that zergs and performance issues from keep to fort to city siege and you have an even bigger mess. Tokens are a great idea but still drop too slowly. Let's not even talk about poor city siege designs (e.g., can't attack unless players are defending, can't actually win stage 2 of phase 1 if people are defending, etc.)
- The Tome of Knowledge is a really cool feature with lots of potential but it still falls a bit short. Most people get ToK unlocks purely by chance not because they were actively seeking them. A major issue with the ToK is that it is reactionary rather than giving players opportunities to be proactive about their unlocks. Without addons like Tome Titan and Dammaz Kron, the ToK wouldn't be much more than a way to unlock new titles. How many people actually have and benefit from Tome Tactics anyway?
- Crafting in WAR isn't exactly complex or interesting, even if the items gained from it are actually quite necessary. You are gimping yourself if you don't fork out cash for talismans and potions/liniments. Considering how easy all the crafts are to master, it isn't exactly hard to make the items yourself, but it is time consuming. That said, given the cheapish market for such items, I'd much rather pay for the items than make them myself. Comparing each of the gathering skills you'll also find that Scavenging is better than Salvaging and Cultivation trumps Butchery.
Solutions
- Solo quests - Look at WoW and aim for the same quality and feel. I hate to say something like that, but if you're going after WoW players you need the same quality of PvE content. Even if you aren't going after WoW players, WoW does it better than you, so why would you waste your time developing something inferior? Go big or go home.
- Public quests - Less of the same boring crap. More of the awesome PQs. Do we really need more than one or two PQs per chapter hub? Considering PQs were used as content filler, take the opportunity to introduce more interesting and exciting solo/group quests in these areas once you free up the space. Basically, more scripting all around.
- Instanced dungeons - Why do we have a three day lockout on some of these dungeons when cities are being sieged nightly? Why are you forcing us to run these dungeons 3-20+ times depending on our luck? There has to be a better way here. Instanced dungeons should give you gear that lends itself more towards PvE encounters. It boggles my mind that some of the sets gained in PvE are more viable for RvR than the RvR sets. Do an itemization pass and gaining gear from PvE won't have a huge impact on RvR. Doing so will still make the RvR sets more desirable. Oh, and for God's sake, add a token/influence system for PvE dungeons.
- Scenarios - The people have spoken. Open RvR should be more interesting and rewarding than a instanced RvR. That said, the are opportunities to make scenarios fun and rewarding again. Keep up with the special scenario weekends. Those are cool. How about this new brainwave? Run weekly or monthly "arena" style tournaments in the scenarios. You don't have to reward us with with oRvR quality set gear. Renown, titles, unique items skins, dyes, non-combat pets, mounts, trophies, pocket items, emotes, etc. would be cool enough to entice players to participate. This will really appeal to the guild groups of old (circa DAOC in its heyday). Wrap it all up in a neat little package with an online ladder system on the Realm War site and special mentions on the Herald.
- ORvR - Performance, performance, performance. That's your number 1 priority. Next, you should focus on adding some tactical diversity by expanding the siege system. I don't think I'm the only one that believes an oRvR system based on keeps and BOs should be on par or better than the one in DAOC. Towers? Milegates? Bridges? Destructible walls? Also, people should be directed out into RvR lakes for purposes other than just RvR. The recent live event proved that even a boring zone like Thunder Mountain can be made fun with a bit of PvP over PvE resources. I was a fan of the RvR dungeon entrances in DAOC.
- Tome of Knowledge - Again I pretty much stated up top that I feel the ToK should be more useful for players who wish to seek out their achievements rather than stumble upon them by accident. I'm not a huge explorer but I'll share a quick story from my second week in WAR to illustrate my point. There I was killing dwarves near this tower and I stumbled upon a big pile of dirt. My ToK alerted me that this pile of dirt was important but the description was so vague I had no idea what to do next to uncover more of the story. I spent over an hour talking to people and researching in-game and online but gave up in frustration. That simply shouldn't happen.
- Crafting - Butchery and salvaging need a boost imho. I don't mind having to butcher non-sentient mobs as long as I'm well rewarded for my time. WAR is full of NPCs but at least 75% of them in my estimation are humanoid. So if I want to farm items for my strength potions in Dragonwake for example, I need to spend 10 minutes running to the nearest bear spawn. And when I get there, the really good ingredients don't drop at a high enough rate. Not cool. Salvaging is great in threory but suffers due to all the BoP gear in WAR. One solution would be to allow us to salvage BoP items from a trade window. Also, I think it's time for a new tradeskill or two. How about trophy/pocket item with very minor stat boosts to make them desirable? Mount taming? I'm guessing armour/weapon crafting will open up a whole can of rotten worms, won't it?
So there you have it. WAR doesn't suffer from a lack of content imho, just execution. I think all these changes would help make the game more fun to play and more accessible for new players to join. People say WAR is an RvR game, but I see no reason why it can't feature impeccable PvE content as well. As long as the rewards from PvE don't trump those gained in RvR, you can provide an excellent experience for both gamer-types.
Also, I'd really like to pitch my idea for scenarios. I think it would bring an amazing new dynamic to the game without ruining its original flavour. Actually, it will pay greater homage to WAR's roots. My idea for scenarios would be a huge shout-out to the setup of GW's tabletop game.
Well, this person left because scenarios stopped popping. I really, Really, REALLY enjoyed scenarios. I'm a fairly casual player, and I loved that I could log in for an hour and be sure to get in some fun, fast paced PvP with a relatively small group. But one day they just seemed to stop, and I could easily find myself logged on for hours without a single scenario pop or, even worse, have one pop that was already half done.
At first, I enjoyed mixing in the occasional ORvR session... Until, that is, I realised that 1) people invariably want to go after undefended objectives, 2) what once felt like a world quickly turned into a city as I constantly found myself taking the bus to the next neighborhood with the team and 3) I realised the zerg rules.
Having the occasional scenario weekend or event to promote scenarios isn't a fix, IMO. There needs to be more incentive to scenario (or less incentive to ORvR).
I can't remember ever waiting more than 5 minutes for one to pop and it is not remotely unusual for them to pop instantly as soon as we join the queue.
ORVR is mind-numbingly tedious 9 times out of 10, just like it was in DAOC. Frequently it involves 2 hours of running about and 10 minutes of actual fighting. The best ORVR by far was during the recent Land of the dead event, when the fighting around the quest areas was excellent; taking keeps/BOs etc is just attritionally tedious though.
PQS are fine; the more the merrier and the less scripting the better.
Otherwise I more or less agree and a very good overview, all in all. Might as well go and shout your requests down a drain though, as Mythic clearly haven't learned anything in the last ten years, since WAR has virtually all of the same shortcomings DAOC had when I played it at launch.
@Zensun - While I'm sure many agree with you, the vast majority of WAR players vehemently protested against scenarios from all the way back in beta (circa fall 2007) to shortly after release, which resulted in the 200% XP gains from RvR kills, RvR influence system, and eventually zone domination system.
My idea pitch basically takes scenarios and gives them a place in WAR that won't negatively affect WAR's bread and butter, which is open RvR.
I like that you state a gripe and then constructively look at a way to fix it rather than just making this a dumpfest sort of post. The core of WAR is a good game but it's some of these things that would make it that much better. Thanks for taking the time to put these together!
As to the meat, you make a lot of very valid points and suggestions. Some I disagree with (loot is easier in this game to achieve than any other game I've played for example).
As for the Tome of Knowledge, if I'm remembering correctly, Carrie did a talk/interview/something about the ToK when she was designing it, and the intent from the get-go was for it be reactionary. They DIDN'T want people going around, trying to get all the unlocks. They wanted it all to come about organically from each players game-play.
Other than those two things, most of this is pretty spot on, well-done sir.
One of the problems with the group PvE material, especially at lower levels is that either noone knows it exists, noone wants to do it because its boring or there's no way of finding enough people to do it. Things like the Tier 2 city dungeons or the various Lairs scattered around the world all suffer from these problems, along with many PQs. An easy way to direct players into these tasks could be via Live Event tasks (eg kill dungeon boss, kill lair boss, complete hard PQ).
Back to the content of the blog.
Solo quest - not argument there, because I have not played WoW, and feel I don't care about PvE enough to have any basis for suggestion. Still, personally there are highlights in quests in WAR. One example is the "final" epic quest for Empire, in which you rescue 4 characters from Chaos Wastes and face a final showdown with a demon prince. Another is a series of quests in Elf Chapter 22, in which you break into an occupied Elf cities with a group of elves, fighting Dark Elves all the way to the objective. If you haven't guessed it - I would very much like more quests that is like Call of Duty - a group of characters that you stick with until the end, with character development and such.
PQ - I absolutely agree that we don't need so many PQs - at least PvE PQs. We should have RvR PQs in every single chapter, where the reward is greater but you have to fight against the enemy to get to the end. Of course, the upcoming Land of the Dead may feature more interesting PQs which might be retrofitted into the game, but for now I don't see them making big changes to PQ.
Instances - I absolutely agree with your thoughts on PvE armor sets, and I think they are doing PvE tokens in the upcoming land of the dead - but I am not sure about the PvE grind. Sure, the current design on loot is repetitive and boring, but do we want to make PvE sets easier to get than RvR sets? I think this is one aspect that requires very careful thoughts.
The other points I don't have any argument with, and I am sure they are working on some of your suggestions in land of the dead.
Why is oRvR meant to be the goal of play? End-game is broken from what I gather and is more PvE- than PvP-oriented. Even ORvR is more often than not PvE (ZOMG, a defended keep means less xp, renown and loot!) or, when PvP, involves a zerg rolling over the opposition. The last ORvR straw for me was when I was threatened with being kicked from a warband because I was outside the keep we were defending, helping a couple others to push the attackers back, and (gasp) they might have left and we'd stop getting the renown tick. Sickening.
In any event, why even spend an hour plus trying to take a defended keep when it's *going* to fall an hour later, and your team is just going to get it back anyway? The vast majority of people do it now because of loot, xp and renown; not because of the PvP which, IMO, sucks in ORvR.
Why should ORvR be any more preferred to or encouraged than scenarios?
A) Fix current issues
B) Release more content
I know for me, it would be A all the way - forget the LoD for now.
On your points, I agree with all but your ideas of a Scenario contest and that there are too many PQs. There are only 3 PQs per chapter, which is perfect. It would be nice if they all had awesome stages, because some are really fantastic, but its pretty low on the 'get er done' list IMO.
And man...please keep arenas out of WAR :/ I don't know why - maybe its the the immersion killing aspect of it - but I would hate to see something like this in game which leans towards the 'hey we're an e-sport game now!!!' bs.
And while you're comparing WAR to DAOC I'd like to point out that the RvR of DAOC actually benefited your realm as a whole, something WAR doesn't have...at all. RvR currently has one driving force - gear. Thats it. My lowbie alts gain absolutely nothing from my side sacking keeps and the enemy city. Testpig's videos on youtube outline an awesome change to RvR that would do just that - add an element of realmwide benefits to RvR. Totally worth checking out if you havent seen the 2 videos hes made yet.
You make some valid points there, but also some that look like you didn't think it through enough. This will most probably be a long comment. :D
Solo quests - While I agree that the solo quests in WAR aren't top notch, I also think the majority of the playerbase couldn't care less what they're about as long as they give decent experience for doing them, which they certainly do. If I had to guess, I'd say 90% of players don't even read the quest text, but rather just the goal of it. Also, I think the quest markers which are related to solo quests are pretty revolutionary - I don't know how I played without them before and I can't believe no one figured that one before Mythic did.
Public Quests - All in all, they are awesome. I agree, however, that there's a bit too many of them, but the root of that got fixed with the introduction of easy, normal and hard PQs. What I'm on about is that, depending on if you're soloing, in a group or in more groups, you only have 1 PQ per chapter to choose from (easy - solo, normal - group, hard - more groups) rather than 3 PQs like it was at release. I do agree that some of them could have a more "epic" feeling to it though. Also, what I'd like to see is that the solo quest contribution is removed from the Victory points equation (it only gives 5% of the overall victory points though) and replace it with RvR lake PQs. Put a single PQ that is doable by both sides at same time (like city siege PQs) in every RvR lake and make it so that the side who finishes it get's a set amount of VPs for it. Make them be part of the dynamic VP pool like solo quest PvE VP contribution is at the moment. This will guarantee that PQs aren't overlooked in RvR lakes. They will matter, but not too much. You will still be able to VP lock a zone without doing it, but doing it will help. Put Ordnance and Skulls of the fallen in the bags and maybe a token or two in the gold ones and you'll get constant fighting at them much like there was in the recent event.
Instanced Dungeons - While I agree that they are bug infested and pretty boring after several runs (except Lost Vale maybe), I do not think that getting gear through them should be made easier. I do not want every Joe and Bill to have the best gear in-game by doing a couple runs through dungeons.
Scenarios - I couldn't disagree more. Scenarios are less rewarding than ORvR (as they should be) but are still a major part of it. Scenarios pop all the time on my server (Karak-Norn, EU), rarely do you have to wait more than 15 minutes, and when there's a zone lock attempt (which is 99% of the time) they pop instantly after queueing. I obviously don't know what the situation on your server is, but scenarios on mine are serious business. The realms field their strongest premades in them, often combining the best players from several guilds or even alliances into one (and all joining on one guilds voice comms) to either help in a zone lock or prevent the enemy of doing so. If you're a solo queuer - chances are you're not gonna have a nice time in there. Also, you're proposing to take scenarios away from RvR and give players MORE rewards than what they're getting now (Quote: "Renown, titles, unique items skins, dyes, non-combat pets, mounts, trophies, pocket items, emotes, etc...", "Wrap it all up in a neat little package with an online ladder system on the Realm War site and special mentions on the Herald."). That's a whole lot more than what players get for doing scenarios now. Also, somewhere in the text you pull out the: "The people have spoken line.", and then you propose something as awful as WoW style arenas, when people have clearly said they do not want them. Ever. Also, you say scenarios highlight career issues but you miss to say that arenas highlight them even more, not to mention the possible issues with min-maxing classes like it is in WoW. Imagine 2 WPs, 2 BWs and 2 Slayers vs 2 DOKs, 2 sorc and 2 choppas fighting it out. Sounds like fun to you?
ORvR - I agree with what you say here. Keep sieges should be more dynamic (I think the keep upgrade system is a step in the right direction, especially the Altar part of it). I agree that Mythic still hasn't found the middle ground between zones locking too slow and locking too fast and that performance should be their main focus. I disagree, however, that tokens drop too slowly. Again, I don't want every Joe and Bill to have the best gear in-game in a couple weeks time.
Tome of Knowledge - As far as I know, they said they plan an overhaul to the tome tactics to make them more useful. Also, for me, the Tome of Knowledge feels more like a role-play tool than anything else. If I was into it, I'd surely take my time to uncover the mysterious secrets that lie within the pile of dirt you describe. (Un)fortunately I'm not so it's purpose is mainly to get the sweet jewelry from it's unlocks, titles, get the occasional laugh out of it and check my grudges, kills, deaths and so on once that gets implemented in it.
Crafting - I, personally, couldn't care less really. I don't play WAR to pick flowers, I play it to smash faces.
Going months on end leaving a horrendous bug in the game that leads to complete and utter domination of one side in RvR is retarded (Rain of Fire). Webster dictionary definition, retarded. When the misery couldn't be topped, when you thought there could be no way that they would allow it again? They do it again by making another ability (Scorch) be spammed with no global cool down.
THEN it's not even a priority to hot fix?
Do they have monkeys working on game balance? Did the guy who handles classes fill the minority quota of mental handicap for Mythic? I would pay a gross some of money to watch his ability to put the puzzle completely outside out.
Hah, scenarios don't pop. Try that they pop and you're stuck at your base 80% of the games and lose. Now try having that since OCTOBER. Try your city being contested every night. How about when you just got home? Try doing anything oRvR to push and having half the server thinking you're "out to the get them" and either do nothing or try to screw you so you can't win.
Tome of Knowledge DEFIANTLY the first area I'd like to improve it's quality. Top Pick.
I found it hilarious in the Choppa preview video they mentioned them releasing them to get players back. Maybe they shouldn't, I don't know, release a class as bad as the Blackguard. Just terrible.
I would love to see them post their numbers now that the Choppa has cooled down.
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
How many ROF videos are out there showing 1-3 guys completely owning droves of people? Then allow the ability to be stacked for 5k+ damage a tick?
Now we have the new bug. The one where Bright Wizards run into groups of people and kill them instantly with Scorch being spammable without a global cool down.
Yea this game, it's solid. I mean clearly if you get owned to 5k ticks of aoe damage or getting hit by Scorch 5 times in a second well that's CLEARLY sucking.
Please don't breed.
Just one Note: The one thing i allways wonder is the mob-AI: There is this camp full of critters, and I can pull the named one right out of the camp, without any danger of getting more critters than this one. why cant he yell, wave or jump around to inform his friends that their precius lair is under attack...
make it harder...when it is possible to pull the whole camp, then i have to be more carefull pulling, that makes it much more interesting (at least for me) :D
Kodiak,
This isnt a forum thread. Please try and stay on topic rather than ranting with flecks of foam all over your keyboard!
Mythic doesn’t need to add new content, they just need to modify what they have. Your comments are spot on. I’d like to add a few items that also need to be addressed.
The ToK needs a complete overhaul. WoW did their achievement system right. You would not believe the number of people who go completely out of their way to get certain achievements. Having the achievement broadcast in guild chat is brilliant. It goes back to a main motivating factor for MMO players – we want to show off our accomplishments. Why doesn’t WAR do this? Maybe they do and I’m out of the loop, but when I was playing, they didn’t. It’s all about the brags. I shouldn’t have to inspect a player to see what he’s bragging about. I should see achievements and tome unlocks in gchat. The trophy system also needs a lot of work. If I have 1000 RvR kills against class X, I should be able to show that off somehow. Give me a trophy that inspires awe and fear, not little ribbons with dots on them! And don’t get me started on the lame armor models.
There also needs to be a lot more stuff to do out of combat. There’s only so much questing or pvp I can do before I need to shift focus. If Mythic worked on those issues plus the ones you listed, it would go a long way towards bringing me back to the game.
I can't decide whether ORVR is broken or that I don't care for that style of PvP. I very much dislike zerg vs zerg. I dislike how ORVR warbands seem to want to avoid conflct, i.e. destro is in reikland so lets take dragonwake...
My biggest gripe is the PVE instances. First, let me say that I love Lost Vale. A group of friends have been running the instance for four months. I believe last week was our 16 time completing the instance. What annoys the hell out of me is 16 complete instances and getting 4/6 pieces of my Dark Promise set.
Would it kill them to add tokens of some sort? If I see DP shoulders drop for classes not present in our group a few more times I may lose it... I spend a fair amount in PvP but have spent roughly 48 game hours in Lost Vale.
The only reason I rvr in WAR is for gear. Period. Grinding influence so that I can get the rvr inf gear. Grinding keep takes to get chests. Now, grinding tokens to get gear.
All I want as a scenario player are some varied maps, some better gimmicks and decent queue times. I do not want any more keep takes. I did that crap for years in DAOC.
Regarding the rest of your list .. WAY to much focus on PvE. This is a PvP game .. you aren't going to win PvE-ers over from WoW ... but you can win the PvP-ers over if you focus all of your energy on fixing Tier4 PvP.