The problem is they know ladders scare people away, Rythgar above so eloquently put it that ladders are great because they give players a sense of progress. But he doesn’t realize the double edged-sword. Only around HALF the players progress in a ladder. In reality with quits its maybe 80%, but you lose that 20% over time. Then the new bottom 20% starts getting annoyed and falling out.
Saving grace is technically there’s PvE and 2 other types of PvP (WvW and Scenario/Battlegrounds which will probably come). But all three forms of PvP in this game are pretty mediocre and I think the idea of focusing on some fantasy of e-sport-iness will mean complete death. Then again, the whole idea of e-sports is just crazy BS so you never know what somebody can pull off…
It’s so cute to watch you guys try to blame the flag capture mechanic and not the fact that the game’s general class mechanics and design sucks, or that they are inexplicably trying to force 3-flag maps down the throat of players who clearly just want a 5v5 arena. (Except those solo superstars who think playing by yourself is truly what a team game should be about ..I guess that’s who this three-flag 5v5 idea is meant to placate).
The fact is if you had a system that didn’t degrade into button mashing with more than 6 people, the flag mechanic would be no issue. Neither would ‘bunkers’ really because you’d have enough people assisting to take them down unless they did something more interesting than stand there. (Of course, what would they do in a game where support, healing and CC are all so mediocre?)
This game is less complicated than most of the PvP MMOs out there. In a week or so of playing WvW and the hot joins I don’t really see much strategy and tactics at all. I’d solidly put gameplay for this game in the ‘twitch’ category compared to the other past similar MMOs.
I don’t think much is possible without voice chat because the fights are just scooby-doo style chase scenes with people teleporting, cloning, stealthing and rolling everywhere. It’s no surprise to me everybody wants to burst because I don’t think people would reliably die otherwise. The only reason bunker works is because of holding points… I haven’t heard anybody claim it’s good to make defensive class with the purpose of buffing, healing, or CCing, because all of that is pretty mediocre right now. Is it possible?
Their main design decisions of crazy amounts of movement and very adaptable classes with little core…. well it means they have to throw out all the lessons learned by other PvP games… GW1, WoW, DAOC, WAR, etc. But people really want r a game that learns from all of those. I think?
So it’s kind of annoying to sit around here waiting for them to invent something new from scratch, especially when it’s hard to see how it could ever work. My opinion is they’ll have to really become more liberal/abandon their goals and give classes more focus and tone down the hyperactive amounts of “action movement” if they want to make more than Arena-style 5v5 fights or smaller work.
Just an opinion though.
Probably twice as many as most games, how many designers do you think they need?
All they do in a modern game is collect craploads of data about who is winning and losing and feedback from forums and compile it, pretty easily see problems, tough part is fixing without breaking something else.
Eh, you’re assuming the worst case scenario of healing…. other games have already fixed this god-mode healer issue fairly well and this game could have learned and done better.
It doesn’t. This whole thing is fundamentally flawed and they are going to have to give classes more pronounced themes, strengths and weaknesses if they want the game to be interesting and balanced for fights one group or larger. But I’m not sure they will bother since according to these forums, the PvP audience is made up mostly of people who want a WoW Arena-like experience. They should just make 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 deathmatch and be done with it?
People are going on about zerging but they really should be asking themselves why maps that support 10-20 people per side in every other game feel like complete chaos, chicken-head-cut-off-running and button mashing with just 8 people per side. But it again, won’t get much attention probably because people here will tell people who enjoy the type of play in scenarios in other games they should just go play WvW….
That’s some BS, please be serious. You think WoW 5-man fights required more skill than DAOC 8-man? Following that logic, I guess solo fights in every game are always the best test of skill.
You’re just valuing skills like mashing buttons and counter-buttons against individual abilities more than skills like positioning and CC and assisting required in bigger fights.
Well it sorta feels weird singing the praises of a mostly dead game (Warhammer) but the fact is playing a few days of PvP in this game just makes me long for Warhammer Scenarios and wish things could be different. cries
I played 12v12 scenarios there constantly even with all the typical problems (pug vs premade, quitters, balance arguments, wait times when servers were not busy)…but still had a blast. I even had fun in WoW scenarios even though I felt it was a bit button-mashy and chaotic compared to WAR.
So far this feels kind of like a step down from WoW and I see people cheering it in what I personally think’s the wrong direction… putting three flags in a 5v5 map just seems like a total waste of effort to me….that’s just a straight up group vs group fight.
Reading here, would seem fights bigger than 5 people are considered zergs, a three flag map can only support 5 people(what?!), and everybody’s more concerned about balance with 5 people or less.
To me, I’m concerned why the maps and the game aren’t considered to be able to support fun fights with two groups or so when even WoW managed it alright most of the time?
Should I run for it now? If the folks here get their way it seems we are going to end up with just Arena-style matches in PvP…
Any ability that makes you watch your UI and not the fight is poor design, IMO. Not sure why games are still putting in abilities like this… they don’t really add much as far as strategy but cause all sorts of weird stuff.
I don’t think you’re correctly diagnosing the problem. I’d say, for example, both DAOC and Warhammer Online did this… and perhaps other games. “Levelling” PvE is so easy in most games that it doesn’t take a powerful character to do it…in fact I can’t imagine PvE difficulty would stop them from making changes in this game either… they could just make killing mobs a little easier and everybody would probably cheer because it allows them to get to the fun parts in PvE (exploration and events).
I honestly haven’t seen any issue with people staying together and running eight in a hotjoin maps so far….they split up almost immediately. Even if they had, the fact you’re calling eight people a zerg is pointing to a weakness in this game and one that I’m sort of noticing (sadly) already. That’s not a zerg in any other game unless you’re running around solo…. but here an 8v8 does seem to be spell effect soup and button mashing.
New to the game here, but I’m wondering about the evidence for your assertion that the maps are balanced for 5 people.
It’s not like it’s just this MMO design team that thinks a three-flag map supports more than 5 people….just about every single one does. (In WAR it was 12, in WoW it was always more than a group).
The problems don’t seem to be the maps at all, it my initial opinion it’s that combat in the game overall seems designed to be balanced at 5 people (or less)….which is a sad mistake IMO. (I am finding myself wishing things had gone different for Mythic and Warhammer Online currently..but gonna keep giving it a chance to grow on me and maybe get fixed).