Warhammer is getting on my nerves. A great game wasted by so many small, annoying bugs and inconsistencies that I won't argue with anyone who is leaving the game because of them.
This morning was a perfect example of how WAR can be a HORRIBLE MMO to play.
1. Morning kicks off with some Tier 3 scenarios. Not bad until an AOE farm group shows up and starts winning every single one 500 to 0, and on a Sunday morning, they are the only group playing.
2. Guild group forms up and heads off to take some Tier 3 objectives. No destruction show up to defend or attack back. Thanks, I'll take my free renown.
3. Guild group goes off to a lair to see if its open. It is, and we head in, but the Hero owns our group.
4. We put out a call and formed a larger warband to go back into the lair.
5. While waiting on players to form up for the lair, we do a PQ at Grimbeard station. An hour of grinding 125 slowly spawning NPCs and the damn PQ drops only green bags. Not a single item that any of us will actually use. Some because the item is too high level, others because it is absolute crap compared to the E-Z mode gear we have from renown ranks.
6. After finishing the PQ we head back to the lair, wait a few minutes for bio breaks and the like.
7. We dominate the Hero in the lair. NO LOOT DROPS.
8. So we head back to retake objectives that were taken. No destruction defending. We take the objective easily. We jam up the door to the building with the flag. Destruction shows up with just over a full group. Chaos Magus up front who magnet pulls our entire warband out of the building into a nice little pile... AOE... and our entire warband wiped out in the time it takes to kill one player.
9. I figure I can do some apothecary to up my potion supply. Unfortunately, water drops slowly and rarely, and two are required to make every potion. On top of that, my skill and materials are too high, so all the potions I make are too high level for me to use. Plus, the potions strength is WEAKER than what I was making 100 skill points ago.
10. For all this trouble, I gained approximately 20,000 experience, 2,000 renown, and 5 apothecary skill points. That is four hours of play approximately. I could of gotten that in twenty minutes from scenarios.
Mythic, I subscribed for three months. This is my formal notification that I am done after that three months unless drastic changs are made to class balance, RvR zones, and the thousand other small bugs plaguing this game.
After we were wiped at the brewery, we did recover and knock destruction around the map, so we did get revenge. Of course they went to take the brewery again and a replay of the early issue occurred.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why fanboi-ism in general is bad, but ESPECIALLY pre-launch hype fanboi-ism... what if things don't pan out as well as you thought they would when the pre-launch hype machine was rolling?
ReplyDeleteFor what I was looking for in an RvR game, WAR isn't it. Most of the pieces to the puzzle seem to be there, but Mythic needs to work out some of the kinks before I'll give it another shot. I see no reason to spend $15/month on instanced PvP maps that reset and have no meaning when I can play any number of FPS for free and have a better experience doing it.
I wanted "WAR is everywhere!" like I was promised. What I got was WoW Battlegrounds 2.0. No thanks.
Open world pvp is dead because of bad design choices of creating instanced battlegrounds. They wiped what little world pvp WoW had, and Mythic aimed for a pvp game, unlike Blizzard. Really, they did not notice their fault because of their phase-beta testing, as we were allowed into one tier pairing, two at max, at one time. Scenarios were disabled for the reason of 'testing open world'. Now, that is what I call a bad choice. If I'd like to play the same instance over and over again, I'd go WoW, EQ2 or LOTRO for pve, and Team Fortress 2 for pvp. Least TF2 has no monthly fee, and Valve keeps making new maps and class patches with each achievement packs.
ReplyDeleteScenarios will always trump Open RvR in popularity, just because it is instant action. I don't have all day to wait for open rvr to get started.
ReplyDeleteYuu feel exactly the same about the game as I do Heartless_.
ReplyDelete"I am a Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning FANBOY."
ReplyDeleteI see no epic fail on WAR. More like you just don't like WAR. And prefer WoW. I'd say go play WoW if that is where the fun is for you.
ReplyDeleteHmm yeah...starting to get to me. Looking at WoW again. Sorry, need more PVE
ReplyDeletegorefang: Why bring up WoW? This has nothing to do with that game.
ReplyDeleteMythic has some improvements they need to make. No doubt about that.
Scott, there is nothing wrong with being a fanboy. If you talk positively about a game, you get tagged a fanboy. I'll gladly play the part about the games I'm excited to play. I have no regrets about my fanboy-ism pre-launch. I'll take that over the constant drivel that "X will suck".
ReplyDeleteGorefang, I like most parts of WAR, but I just wish they were put together better. By themselves, most parts of WAR are absolutely solid. Blended together, they thicken into a mess because they weren't pieced together correctly.
The Epic Fail is that Mythic forced WAR into a design crossroads of open world vs instanced content. It is so very apparent that instanced content was the original design and open world the secondary decision.
Mythic still has three months and they still can pull it off (just not those that have gone, because it was a very sour taste left in their mouth).
Anyways, my predictions for WAR are right where WAR is at. Successful, stable launch, but a decline to a core audience that is in it for what Mythic advertised (no matter how long it takes for Mythic to get it put together).
Misinformation!
ReplyDeleteWell, yesterday I canceled my account. Sorry but it's over for me. I just don't want to gring scenarios for 40 levels. After all this time waiting on warhammer it's kind of sad to see what Mythic did with this game.
ReplyDeleteWell, time to wait on the new Star Wars mmo!
I thought it was a great game... just not what you guys expected. Still, that said, I'm going back to Lineage 2!
ReplyDelete"This is my formal notification that I am done after that three months unless drastic changs are made to class balance, RvR zones, and the thousand other small bugs plaguing this game." Good riddance.
ReplyDeleteBeing merely labeled a fanboy by the drooling masses and actually being a fanboy are two entirely different things.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, you seem to be happy being labeled a fanboy even if your behavior in the past few posts demonstrates otherwise.
The mere fact you're able to say anything negative at all, admit there are issues (that can be dealt with) and not bash anyone else for saying negative things about WAR proves you are not actually a fanboy, which is ultimately my point. Nothing is perfect, and blind fanboy-ism is a Bad Thing.
Pre-launch, however, you were dancing dangerously close to edge of fanboy-ism...
I will post about my pre-launch discussions. There is only a couple points I will concede, but overall I was right on what I was defending. Mythic still knocked out a competitive product in a crowded MMO market in less time than it takes most MMO developers to get into alpha.
ReplyDeleteCan I have your stuff?
ReplyDeletewell WAR is not the only game failing currently. 3.0.2 wow has me canceling my account for the first time in years tonight.
ReplyDeleteI'm still enjoying it. It's just, like any game relying so heavily on RvR, you need a certain density of players, and a lot of servers don't have that.
ReplyDeleteIronically, because my server, Makaisson, can't actually spawn tier 3 scenarios, we have quite a lot of open world RvR.
Same problem as PotBS. The developers under=estimated how many players they needed per server to hit critical mass. Hopefully the server mergers will sort that out, though they've already taken a big hit for the mistake.
Great site description hahaha
ReplyDeleteWell Heartless I just canceled my sub. this morning. It really annoyed me how nobody was doing open RVR and it was all scenarios. Mythic brought me to WAR with the talk of how important and fun open RVR was going to be, and it was, until people figured out you can rank up faster in scenarios. Hopefully I'll catch you around in another MMO and good luck to the CoW's MOOOOOOOOOO!
ReplyDeleteI don't see any so called bugs or inconsistencies in the experiences you wrote in your post...
ReplyDelete1. You got owned by an organized group in a scenario... next thing you know you'll be complaining how a PUG beat your organized group...
2. So it's a bug that there were no defenders at the objective?
3. A lair hero owning your group which levels we don't even know is a problem? his drops I agree should have been at least guaranteed 1 thing and Mythic should fix that.
4. PQ loot also needs to be more consistent and not as random as it is now. At least blue bags or something all the time...
5. Crafting in general needs some tweaks but overall it's just a hobby and nothing really needed.
I agree that there should be more Open RvR incentives in general and Mythic has been trying to increase them by upping the XP/renown rewards and such. I'm sure they have more instore for the future.
What they really need to do is add PQs and mobs in there with increased XP to lure players in.
A lot of the problems people have with the game are related to participation of the people. T1-T3 is not a good representation because most people are probably trying to just level as fast as they can. They'll be doing scenarios more because those give more incentives and capturing objectives in RvR mean nothing.
In T4, i've seen a lot more Open RvR simply because it actually means something and you're working towards capturing the city. Also you don't have the need to grind XP and open RvR gives decent.
All the elements are there to make a great game but I think mythic just has to tweak some things a bit to make sure people are pushed into the right areas.
Granted, I am not in Tier 4 yet, but every single person I know in Tier 4 has thrown in the towel and headed to alts to level, at least until the majority of our guild gets up to Tier 4 to group up.
ReplyDeleteAnd anonymous, don't come here and say you see no bugs or inconsistencies and then proceed to list a few.
I don't care about dieing to an organized group. I care about dieing to a lame tactic that is being exploited ruthlessly to make my play experience a lesson in frustration. I can't wait for Tier 4, where most of the AoE groups are hanging out. I just love the idea of getting sucked out of a keep because of a lame "organized group".
Oh and did you miss the fact where I stated I was in an organized group as well, that was exploited into an AOE farm group and killed before we could even remotely think about a defense?
ReplyDeleteNote the Magus/Engineer AE magnet ability ruined both the scenarios and the open world RvR.
ReplyDeleteFun: collapse all the comments and read only the anonymous ones. Hey, the internet is full of jerks and idiots!
As someone who doesn't play WAR I'm curious, is the Hero not dropping loot a bug or deliberate game feature?
ReplyDeleteIf it's a game feature, that sucks.
If it's a bug, why didn't you open a GM ticket (I assume WAR has those)?
I'm also curious about your description of the Keep battle and the T3 scenario. Sounds like AOE is king in WAR (both were won based on AOE). Maybe Mythic simply needs to tone down the damager per player done by AOE?
Solidstate, after some research, it seems that the hero we killed does not drop loot for anyone, so it wasn't a bug, just an unfinished encounter at this time (which there seems to be plenty of).
ReplyDeleteAOE is king and only because of one massively overpowered ability that allows one player to suck in up to nine targets and stack them neatly in a pile. Of course, that ability ignores walls, solid objects, and collision detection... which makes it easily exploitable with absolutely NO defense against it.
AOE is needed in the game to break groups of players holding down choke points, but not to the point where it is now. DAoC was bad about AOE being overpowered, but WAR took it up another step.
Hmmm, game bugs, unfinished content after release, balance problems due to OP abilities...
ReplyDeleteI guess that annoying word "polish" really does mean something ;)
what bugs did I list? A bug usually refers to a game mechanic or something that's not intended like piece of armor with the wrong graphic I would consider a bug.
ReplyDeleteBut everything I listed is attributed to people participation or as intended by mythic. You think no mobs or PQs in RvR lakes is a bug? I think we have different definitions of bugs then.
So because the group used a "lame tactic" that's well within the game mechanics and not exploiting because that's how it works right now, you're crying about it? And you were in what? a PUG?
but if it was a balanced group that owned you guys over and over you'd be happy with that lol... again it's about the players, rarely will you see an AoE premade in scenarios, I personally have only encountered 1 instance where there were like 6 BWs and you know what? it wasn't as bad as you think, although we did lose ultimately, I don't remember it being a blow out.
again if it seems like you're just a sore loser. Why not go make your own AoE premade and rip them up?
Anon, by your definition there is no bugs, because if its in game, then its working as intended by your statement.
ReplyDeleteLoot not dropping from a lair boss for everyone is an inconsistency and a bug.
PQs dropping crap loot bags after hours of grinding with a small group, yet dropping blues/gold/purple bags to a group that rolled in at the end of a PQ is an inconsistency.
The magnet ability itself is not the bug, but the bugs that it creates and exploits are inexcusable.
My definition is that if it's not working as intended. Like an actual glitch.
ReplyDeleteLoot not dropping from a lair boss is not a bug if that's what mythic wanted. The drop rate could be extremely low also. Again it's only a bug if the developer didn't intend it that way.
PQs dropping crap loot bags is a side effect of the random nature of PQ loot in general. Whether that's a bug is up to the developer. If it's random then of course it'll be inconsistent... or if you look at it a different way, it's consistently random. Again that doesn't mean it's an actual bug but it just means you don't like the way it works now.
The whole point of the magnet ability is to what? gather mobs/players together in a small space.
Mythic Dev 1: Lookie I added all these AoE abilities to the game. But what if no one stays in one place?
Mythic Dev 2: I have an idea! I added an ability to pull a bunch of players/mobs together.
You don't think mythic intended people to use those abilities to AoE people? if AoE didn't exist, wtf would an AoE magnet type ability be used for? getting people together for a tea party?
sure, you might think it's overpowered but it doesn't mean they didn't consider that when they added the ability to the game.
Sounds to me like you picked the wrong game more than anything
ReplyDeleteSeriously?
ReplyDeleteLet's see what you're upset about:
1. The opposite group is too good using one tactic.
Then get your own group and figure out a way to shut them down. What's their weakness? Do the depend on one ability? How can you interrupt them? It's not rocket science, so put your head together with some friends or guild-mates and make a plan.
2. No enemies defending objectives.
Congratulations. Welcome to the early life of a PvP heavy MMO. Invite some friends, call out your enemies, or play at a time when more people are around. (Sunday morning isn't exactly a gamer's prime time to shine.)
3. The PvE boss beat you up.
Yep, that's the way it works. You go in undermanned and you get owned. This game is about team work. On the positive side for you, forming a bigger group was the correct response. Good job, I've no complaint with item 4.
5. The gear drop in the PQ wasn't the right kind/level.
Why are you complaining about this? You mention you have nice renown gear, paid for by your scenario time. Renown gear is nicer so that people focus on stuff that gets renown (live RvR fighting). That's the big focus of WAR, so it's no surprise that PQ loot is worse. It's made for the PvE folks. And for those who got gear above their level, it's a bonus incentive to level up so that they can use it. Don't expect PQs to drop the best stuff, that's not what they are there for.
7. No loot from the lair hero.
Cry me a river. Welcome to a world where not everything is handed out based on your ability to grind out a dungeon. Stuff from lair heros are supposed to be rare, special, and hard to get. Less frequent drop rates improve the rarity of an item. If you want the drop so bad, go after it again. No one is stopping you.
8. A less-than stellar class uses his one trick to cream your group.
I have no doubt that the ability in question will get a bit of a tone down over time. But can you blame for the Magi/Engineers out there for making use of their most powerful ability? Welcome to the first month of full release play. Stick around if you want to see it improve.
9. Crafting complaints.
Why are you crafting, if the system is that bad? Group with a healer and go to town. Drop a suggestion in the box with your idea about how to fix it. But don't tell me this is a huge deal-breaker. I don't know what to do with the potions that I get as drops, much less do I care to spend the time to create them.
10. Low reward to time spent.
Why are you comparing the rewards gained to what you would have gotten from scenarios? I doubt there would be much opposition to the position that scenarios are the fastest way to level up. Should the whole game go by that quickly? If you want instant gratification, by all means, play the scenarios. Just don't come whining about how nobody's in open RvR.
Long story short: Get happy about it. Have fun with what is there, and look forward to what is to come. This is the worst version of WAR that will ever exist, and IMO it already surpasses anything else on the market. I can't wait to see what the next weeks and months will bring. Hopefully, a lot less whining from the likes of you.
Nobody plays an MMO just for "fun".
ReplyDeleteIf you want fun you play an 1hour session of your favorite title.
If you invest hours after hours of played time, you want progression for your toon. Right now WAR offers no progression after you hit R40/RR36. Extra renown ranks offer next to nothing.
Max ranked players play alts! After a single month that the game is out. Even vanilla WoW did not have this problem...
Also about the statement that this is the worst version WAR that we will ever experience, that may be true, but nowadays, contrary to 2004, there is a variety of MMOs to play instead of the worst version of WAR currently available.
This post is full of whine..
ReplyDeleteDrunk yet?
I <3 heartless_
ReplyDeleteHere's something that always boggles me. I wish someone would explain it to me.
ReplyDeleteThis endless obsession with progression. In some form or other.
Does it really make it a better game if your level (or xp, or renown, or skill bar) keeps increasing numerically because of the 'work' or time that you put in?
Seems like one may as well run Progress Quest and get little happy boosts by seeing one's level number go up.
The above post suggested to me that there was a good mix of activities happening for the night, though perhaps marred by some things that need fixing. Why taint it by counting exactly how much you 'earned' for the night?
Is it just some commonly accepted method of keeping score that I am totally unaware of since I don't play WoW?
And is it really so special to achieve fast progression (and a high score) in a game which isn't structured like WoW's "real game begins at max level?"
I play MMOs for fun. I log in routinely and play 1 or 2 hours. Yeah I'm slow at leveling, but it keeps it a fun experience rather than becoming a second job for me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Heartless is saying on all points though. It's incredible how shortsighted some of this stuff was on the part of devs, but at the same time I'm not so upset that I can't give it time to see how it plays out. After sitting there and watching how battlegrounds killed WoW's large scale world PVP -- what WAR is supposed to be about -- they go ahead and make scenarios a huge element of RVR and leveling.
In theory scenarios/BGs are a great idea, in practice they don't seem to work out. They're quick and easy for casual play, but that's also the problem with them. People figure out what is quickest and most efficient and do it non-stop, even if it squeezes the fun out of the game for themselves. That right there should be in the back of the minds of devs as they create games in the future.
Somehow they couldn't predict that people would be doing nothing but playing the one scenario per tier over and over and over until they quit from self induced boredom.
I think in the future Mythic will be using more live events and additional rewards to entice ORVR. Hopefully it works.
Class balance issues, AOE problems, I'm chalking up to early release issues and I am putting my faith in Mythic that they'll be fixed so I'm not letting that bother me too much yet. We'll see what happens.
I think DAOC did it better, no instancing in that game. So which one was more fun to play? Hmmmmm
ReplyDeleteThis endless obsession with progression. In some form or other.
ReplyDeleteBecause in most of these games there's nothing else to do. There is little to no crafting, no crafting of housing items or fun items, because there are loot drops that invalidate most crafting and so you can't create a real player-interdependent economy.
The game is built and based around progressing your character. So naturally that's what people try to do. It's not like pen and paper DnD, where even though there were levels, having your own personal DM you could do anything. But in these particular online games like WoW and WAR, there is nothing to do but kill. You could sit around chatting, but then it's just an expensive version of IRC.
"Mythic, I subscribed for three months. This is my formal notification that I am done after that three months unless drastic changs are made to class balance, RvR zones, and the thousand other small bugs plaguing this game."
ReplyDeleteThis is like a parody of every MMO weirdo forum temper tantrum, but the funniest part is that you are actually serious.
This is my informal notification that there are few things more pathetic than a video game blogger threatening to quit an MMO unless a set of vague demands are met.
WoW needed 2 and a half years to get "pvp" running. You guys are going crazy after 1 f.. month!? Go and give Mystic time to get things better. I am sure they will.
ReplyDelete