General Game Discussion

The Goblin In The Tuxedo

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Source:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=0B9BC88A4C5BEB57AC2DB0963E0034E9.app01_06?topicId=6136325779&sid=1



In the wake of the Season 4 ratings announcement, a couple of things have become clear. One, that Arena will remain the source of the best PvP gear in the game. Two, that Blizzard is doing what they can to try to shape it into a “viable eSports platform” (to quote a recent developer interview). Clearly, the Arena will remain the focus of PvP for the indefinite future.

Before the release of the Burning Crusade at the start of 2007, PvP in WoW referred to skirmishes in the open world and organized encounters in instanced maps called battlegrounds. World PvP could mean anything, from a level 60 killing a lower-level character to a chance encounter between level 60s in a high-level zone that escalated to a mini-war as each side called in more friends. A fundamental element of world PvP is that it was random, unpredictable, and often unfair--leading to stacked retaliation on the part of the victim through his friends or even other strangers in the zone. On a PvP server, these battles could become exciting and dynamic, lasting for hours (and the rivalries created could last indefinitely afterward).

Battlegrounds were an organized method of getting two factions together to fight in large-scale battles. The epitome of this was the raid-level battleground, Alterac Valley. The original versions of this map could last for hours or even days, with the tide of the battle moving back and forth. Alterac Valley used to be considered so important that people would wait in queue for hours, and if they were in an instance when the queue popped, their party members would understand if they left. The battleground’s playtime has been significantly shortened since then, but its scale remains.

Today, while battlegrounds and world PvP do exist, PvP is now encompassed by the Arena. Introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion, it consists of rated duels within small, instanced maps. After the expansion, it became clear that certain class combinations were superior to others, and that many classes had significant strengths in some formats. Over the course of three seasons of Arena, the scale of PvP has been reduced to cookie-cutter class compositions running around a pillar, the only differences between teams being the names over their heads. The funneling of MMORPG classes of different races and specs into small instances for the purposes of eSport has caused a large amount of controversy when it comes to balance, particularly for classes that have struggled to achieve the success of other classes based on representation statistics available online. There is also a contingent of people who prefer large-scale warfare on an MMO-scale, since this is, after all, an MMO based on a well-known franchise of real-time strategy games.

The problems that arise from running MMO classes through staged duels can be summed up as follows:

# Because classes are based on different roles due to their PvE roots, some classes don’t survive when matched up against classes whose role is stronger in a small-scale PvP setting. Certain classes don’t hold up well in the Arena environment itself, such as hunters and mages. Large numbers of players are enduring an uphill battle that other players don’t have to face.

# Race choice, originally an aesthetic decision with special abilities to add flavor to your character, suddenly become major decisions that can determine how far you can push through the upper echelons of Arena battle.

# Classes are able to choose different specs of talents that alter the way they are played, but in the Arena, only certain specs have viability in a small-scale PvP setting (regardless of how fun that spec is for the player).

# Balance changes for the Arena affect other areas of the game. For instance, Blizzard tested a change to the Life Tap mechanic of warlocks that would have significantly altered their itemization requirements and playstyle in a PvE setting. Only when warlock Arena representation began to recede during testing did Blizzard abandon the change. Shamanistic Rage was changed into a physical effect so that it could not be dispelled by enemy players, but the duration was halved, affecting enhancement shamans in PvE. Neither are (or would have been) game-breaking changes, but they are noticed and resented by players not participating in the Arena.

# Establishing instanced duels as the top form of PvP in the game ignores three continents of open land already populated by both factions. World PvP is significantly diminished. The scale of PvP is reduced to five people waiting around a goblin in a tuxedo.

# Certain professions are locked out of the Arena because they are considered overpowered in a rated, small-scale setting (many engineering items, for example). However, other professions like enchanting or blacksmithing--which can produce a stun-proccing mace--are allowed.

# Arenas ignore all established lore. There is no regard for faction or setting. Members of the Alliance fight other members of the Alliance undisturbed in the ruins of Lordaeron, for example--an impossible situation.

# Cheating to ensure a high rating, and selling ratings to undermine the ratings system.

# Community elitism based around Arena ratings.


This year, two competing MMOs are set to be released that have a lot to offer large-scale PvPers. Because of its recent PvP stress test, Age of Conan is currently the most talked-about, and later this year, we will see the release of Warhammer Online, perhaps WoW’s biggest challenger given the history of Warcraft itself (the first game was originally supposed to be a Warhammer game). Both of these new MMOs will encourage large-scale world PvP in ways WoW does not--city sieges, realm control, ransacking, trophies, conquering towns, and huge rewards for killing enemy leaders. Guilds in Age of Conan can build their own fortresses and battle against other guilds. Warhammer features a tier-based level of control for a realm that leads to outright invasion of the enemy capital, and Mythic has brought back keeps from Dark Age of Camelot. Keeps are NPC-guarded forts that players can fight over, complete with siege weapons and bosses. Guilds can claim the keeps and place their tabard for rewards, so these locations act like miniature battlegrounds taking place day and night in the game world.

Because of Blizzard’s focus on smaller-scale battles, the Arena has potentially pushed WoW into a corner when its larger-scale competitors are released to fill the niche that Blizzard has left unaddressed. The problem will manifest when players are able compare a typical evening of PvP activity between WoW and other MMOs and find WoW lacking. Age of Conan players will be leading large-scale sieges on enemy fortresses using group formations to provide buffs, while WoW players will be waiting around a goblin in a tuxedo. Warhammer players will position their tanks in keep entrances to block out invaders while their teammates dump hot oil from above, while WoW players will be waiting around a goblin in a tuxedo. The worlds of the others games will be alive and full of activity, compared to WoW in which most PvP is taking place in instances, and much of the world is empty except for those who are leveling, ganking lower-level players, or doing daily quests.

The much larger scale of battle in Warhammer will mean your choice of class and specialization will be less of a factor in determining your ability to contribute to the war effort (in fact, everything you do including PvE quests will contribute victory points to your realm), because the dynamics of a large battle mean anyone can find a fun, useful role. This remains true in WoW battlegrounds, where a shadow priest, balance druid, or enhancement shaman who would normally have difficulty in the Arena is able to have a good time in Alterac Valley. Unfortunately, the Arena has compartmentalized talent specifications into “PvE spec,” “PvP spec,” “utility spec,” and so on.

Competitors are also implementing features to address common player problems. For example, dual-targeting was recently added to Warhammer which means you can have a hostile target and a friendly target selected simultaneously, reducing the targeting work that some classes must do in large-scale combat such as healers (and some spells will utilize both targets). Guild control is improved to make it not a chore to run one, and guilds can even form named alliances with each other. WoW still ships with many of the same interfaces and controls it had in 2004, to the point that addons exist to replace not just unit frames, but the quest log, inventory, profession dialogs, and more. It all makes Blizzard look slow and conservative when it comes to keeping up to date with the playerbase and its needs. Warhammer will ship with 20 scenarios (instanced PvP zones equivalent to battlegrounds for players who want a quick PvP game), and starting at level 1, a player can just click a button in the interface to enter a queue. In four years, Blizzard has only released four battlegrounds. The Arena runs just three maps.
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Pretty interesting commentary, except this gem:

Quote:
WoW still ships with many of the same interfaces and controls it had in 2004, to the point that addons exist to replace not just unit frames, but the quest log, inventory, profession dialogs, and more.


, bag on one of the great advancements of WoW and act like it's somehow a bad thing that the user community has been able to improve the game. Silly.

I hope that Warhammer and AOC deliver on being something different. I very much hope so. Looking forward to finding out.
 


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TiquorSJ wrote:
Pretty interesting commentary, except this gem:

Quote:
WoW still ships with many of the same interfaces and controls it had in 2004, to the point that addons exist to replace not just unit frames, but the quest log, inventory, profession dialogs, and more.


, bag on one of the great advancements of WoW and act like it's somehow a bad thing that the user community has been able to improve the game. Silly.

I hope that Warhammer and AOC deliver on being something different. I very much hope so. Looking forward to finding out.


Yes, Modding was awesome......was my favorite part...
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I agree that the modding thing is great, but at the same time I kinda see what the guy's saying. Sometimes when I'm on my laptop with no mods installed, I'm annoyed that Blizzard hasn't built equipment comparisons into the game. How basic an RPG function is it to be able to see if what you're going to equip is better or worse than what's already equipped? Especially when you get into epics where they can typically have three stats and several different "use" and "equip" effects. Same with inventory. People are still shuffling through five bag windows 3+ years into the game. Really, Blizz?

Both WAR and AoC will be good for WoW players because Blizzard will actually have some competition and will have to up their game because of it. Although since the only thing anyone's ever touted about WAR is its PvP, it's probably safe to say that anyone who wants PvE content is going to be hanging out in Northrend.

And again, I get the complaints about gear and class disparity, but I maintain that every MMO by nature will experience this. You don't please the hardcore 10 hour a day players by giving the 10 hour a week players the same gear. And I don't believe for half a second that the WAR developers have somehow found the magic formula for perfectly balanced classes. It's just not going to happen.
 
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