It’s no big secret that many people in the WAR community have had their enthusiasm for the game nuked these past few weeks for a number of reasons; principally the game just isn’t living up to their expections (based on promises made by Mythic and their own individual preconceptions, hopes, and dreams).
However, sometimes the best ideas are born out of inner confusion and turmoil. Unsatisfied with the state of WAR, people have been setting their brains to the task of coming up with a number of interesting ideas to “fix” the game. Here are some of them I found particularly thought-provoking and worth a mention.
I’m not saying every one is a spot-on save the game idea… but they are very interesting concepts.
Via: http://potshot.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/can-rvr-ever-work/
I think that the war effort should be focused at all times, from all factions, to limited areas of the game. For example the NPC general of faction X says to you “Hey, we really need to go and cut off this supply train”. The opposing faction should be saying to its players “Hey, we really need to protect this important supply train”.
That’s not to say players can’t go and do whatever they want to do, but rewards would be greater for going to the directed areas. The key is definitely to direct both sides into conflict with each other. To help avoid overcrowding, you can make the number of rewarded goals at a given time proportional to the player population on the server.
Also, you should have a bunch of conceptually different tasks leading up to the player’s goal. For example, in WAR you can just run up to a keep and lay waste to it. In a more realistic world, you’d need to cut off supply lines, burn surrounding villages, maybe sneak in and assassinate some key personnel to lower morale, defend your siege weaponry from being raided, etc. In WAR it’s…. siege this keep and this keep and this keep and then unlock the zone to progress to the next area and siege some more keeps. The gameplay this way just feels too bland, keep sieging loses its special feeling.
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Taking the directed hot zone/objective idea further, include alternate goals that might also play to different play styles– interrupt supply lines, blow up bridges to slow down the influx of reinforcements, burn crops, sabotage/covert activities, etc. all that would aid the directed war effort.
If Karl Franz called for an offensive in Zone X and strategic objective quests were given out by a one of his generals in that zone…
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The problem with War is the limited amount in which guilds can gain recognition, there is no meta game to play for the natural born leaders (except petty intra guild drama and politics). Keeps just get flipped and flipped, and the rewards for claiming one are not enough for the guild leaders to convince their troops to prevent that from happening. There are not even ladder competitions to prove you are top dog.
[Ed. There are statues of the top individual players in the capital cities, but they are located in out-of-the-way places. It would be great to move these statues into the main hubs of activity. There is also a Realm War page located on WarhammerOnline.com, however, every time I have tried accessing it lately, it seems unresponsive to the point of making me not want to bother.]
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They have the cute trinket idea. How about expanding it so we get medals or something for every keep we capture. Perhaps the size, color and ornateness change based on the size or effort of the battle. Let me wear them as badges of honor that show how many successful sieges I’ve participated in or how many keeps my guild owns or something to show, “That’s right, I am RVR awesomeness.”
Via: http://wnw.blogwarhammer.net/2008/11/17/another-way-to-capture-zones/
So how about this idea? Holding an Objective or Keep in a zone gives Victory Points over time instead of instantly? Holding all Objectives and Keep for 24 hours give you enough points to capture the zone, and even if the other side recaptures things the points will still remain, they will just slowly go the other way.
As the zone gain VP over time all people in the zone will also gain renown and experience. This make people stay to defend and the battle and it’s just as important for others to take up the torch when you log off as when you captured the things in the first place. Killing enemies in range of Objectives and Keeps give extra renown and experience.
This also removes the possibility of capturing zone in the middle of the night. You could still do it and capture the objectives, but the zone still won’t be captured until the points have slowly trickled in.
[Ed. Patch 1.05 brought some improvements to the zone control mechanic, so we'll have to see how it pans out. If it doesn't get any better, I really suggest Mythic considers the above idea.]
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1) Add crafting vendors to keeps that improve over time. For every hour you hold a keep, the quality of the items will improve by 10-15 tradeskill, starting at a decent base (e.g., 50). Therefore, after holding a keep for 4 hours, your vendor will sell items up to level 110 (15/hour + base). By hour 8, 170 tradeskill. And so on… Give members of the guild/alliance who are holding the keep a discount on prices.2) Decrease the cost of claiming keeps. If the maintenance cost was 1 to 3 gold per hour, it would become much more affordable. At the moment, only the richest of the zerg guilds can afford it.
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Put level 40’s in their own scenarios …Level 28-39s are competing for renown and xp. All level 40’s care about is renown.
Via: http://www.keenandgraev.com/?p=1653
If the enemy chooses not to defend then the fight should make it to their capital city. A city siege has never once happened on Wolfenburg or Phoenix Throne (two “very populated” servers with supposedly active RvR). If players are going to stay then they need to experience city sieges and be faced with a truly imminent realm war. This is a realm war and players need to feel the pressure of losing territory to feel motivated.
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Warhammer Online, back in November 2007, was delayed in order to transform the game to align closer with DAOC’s RvR but it forgot that one crucial element… the PURPOSE. Sure, city sieges are a purpose but let’s be realistic - a keep is under attack in Praag… why would I go defend if it poses no threat to our city? It’s going to take like 8 keeps, 2 fortreses, and a TON of RvR to make our capital city vulnerable. As of right now a city siege is not going to happen. So, we come back to the PURPOSE. I strongly feel that Darkness Falls provides that purpose. Find out more about Darkness Falls here.
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Let’s face it, WAR was designed in such a way that a lot of players participating in the realm war is mandatory. Right now, especially in light of recent mmorpg competitions’ releases, we’re seeing the populations dwindle. Merge the freaking servers and you will improve the enjoyment of the game globally for all players.
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I honestly hate to admit it, but I fear the game’s core design can not have open world elements tacked on to it. Honestly, Mythic should just instance the keep sieges to 40 vs 40.
The city sieges are already instanced, there is no sense in having this tiny little stop gap of open world RvR that runs absolutely horribly when twenty players get on screen.
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Introduce more siege pad items that can variety the strategy of keep battles. The single chokepoint to the 2nd level keep lord is so boring. Obviously don’t allow for zerg rushes but hell even adding an Orc Thrower siege weapon for getting people slowly up on a battlement would spice things up. Another idea could be a siege tunnel item that lets you tunnel to under an outer siege wall (again slow access thru it though to avoid zerg rushes). Again this eye is taken from Planetside with it’s deployable items.
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Make BOs objective provide global buffs to the zone so everyone benefits from them immediately (no need to go to the Sergeant). Makes them more valuable to everyone (even those doing PVE), so hopefully more people will want to maintain them. Even if this isn’t done, the idea is to provide a very very strong LOCAL incentive to do RVR. As you said, cities are a distant thing that have no local meaning or incentive for people.
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I think what’s truly needed is a solid LFG mechanism. I am a frequent organizer of outdoor RvR… and I’d LOVE to be able to browse a list of ALL the people on the server either DOING or LOOKING for outdoor RvR.
That seems like a no-brainer to me.
Via: http://waaagh.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/ai/
Apart from hero and lord mobs, we just don’t see a lot of special abilities popping out of these guys. A lot of my skills are set up to combat fairly complex player behavior in PvP, yet surprising few of these moves are necessary in PvE. Spell interruption? How often do these guys cast at me? Do I ever need to root a mob to prevent their escape?
[Ed. I really think this would make keep taking a lot more dynamic, especially undefended keeps. ATM you just zerg-rush the mobs. There is little to no strategy involved. It would be a lot more cool to see this take place more often in PvE too (e.g., knockbacks, knockdowns, disarms, roots, debuffs, etc.).]
Have you seen any others I might have missed? Have any of your own you’d like to contribute? |
