Meandering through MMORPG's...

Author: t0nyd

 Lets begin by saying, I have almost every class in t2 and t3. I get bored of playing the same class. My favorite part of an mmo is to take the least played classes and find a way to use them effectively. My main from the beginning is an engineer. To this day, engineer is my favorite class.

          Scenarios

I enjoy most of the scenarios that ive played. It seems that they are varied enough to keep my attention for a little while. So after participating in open RvR for a few hours, its nice to jump in some scenarios. Comparing scenarios to DAOC battle grounds, scenarios are disappointing. I assume DAOC battle grounds are supposed to be compared to RvR lakes...

           RvR Lakes

This is probably the most disappointing aspect of the game for me. When I first imagined it, I imagined battle grounds in DAOC. I imagined these big maps where you can go farm mobs and participate in RvR. I imagined intricate keeps. I imagined moveable siege equipment.

I could get by the static siege spawn locations. I could get passed seige weapons being immobile. What I cant get passed is the keep layouts and how npc focused keep defenses are. With DAOC, once you finally breached the outer wall. You then lay seige to the inner keep. Battles would be all over, bridges, keep walls, pretty much everywhere. War keeps are so small, with little space to move, where aoe obviously reigns supreme. Then you take in consideration that not all keep lords are created equal. No one, unless your in a sizable raid with semi-intelligent tanks and healers, fights all the mobs in the lord room. Mostly its pull the lord to the pad and fight only him. Ive tanked stonetroll with a lvl 13 IB with a two hander, easily. Then ive been in groups in spite's reach, where the lord goes insane and hits everyone every second for 275 damage, til the entire band wipes.

Now lets talk about how fast the mobs spawn and the door mystically gets repaired. In DAOC, the keep door got repair when you took the time to repair it. It mystically repairing itself is pretty retarded.  Also, wtf do mob guards respawn so damn fast. This is a player vs player game, not a player + mob vs player. Its no wonder people dont like attacking keeps. Atleast in scenarios its players vs players...

           Closing Thoughts

I would relate War to being the arcade version of DAOC. They took every controversial aspect of DAOC and flipped it. They flipped it so much that most of the strategy has been taken away. For example, giving every class in the game a spammable ranged attack is because so many people in DAOC complained about roots. Obviously not realizing when you make a melee healer class like DoK/WP and give them a ranged spammable ability that gives them se/rf you basically take the one tactic for fighting them away, kiting. Ive tested this with players many times, an SW vs a DoK, a DoK can simply charge the SW forcing him backwards, the SW can try to dot/snare while walking backwards, the entire time the DoK has to simply hot himself and spam fist of khaine with CoC. With CoC on, fist of khaine can now snare dot for 300 damage from range. Now with my DoK at lvl 21 I can kill any SW level 20 and below with out even trying, from ranged. Cause with CoC on, your going to get snared doted, and im going to get into melee.

 I dont understand why every class must have a spammable ranged ability. I dont understand the new root set up. Most classes that have aoe roots have dots, so they are forced not to use their dots, and anyways, if someone makes it into aoe root range, your going to get snared. It would make more sense to have an aoe 4 second root than an aoe 10 second root that will break 50% on any damage. I mean, every class is going to snare you anyway, so how far are you going to get in 4 seconds. Its not like 18 out of 22 classes have a snare, oh, they do dont they.

I know im probably going to be flamed for this but, I believe the player should have choices. The player should pick what his character is good at and not be proficient in everything. Classes like DoK and WP should get picked apart by a ranged class. Tanks should have a hell of a time getting into melee, because we all know, tanks have perma snare, so once they get on ya, your not getting them off. Ranged class should die in melee, and they do, easily. Otherwise we end up with everyone playing the same classes, bright wizards, tanks, and melee healers...

  It seems that people are grasping to the idea that dying should have strict penalties. Also lumped in there seems to be the idea that if a player ganks another player, than the ganker should suffer some penalty for the action.

       Strict Penalties Relating to Death

  I have never really understood the idea of strict death penalties. I do believe penalties should exist. I just dont understand how strict death penalties will encourage players to PvP. I believe that dropping some money and random inventory items is penalty enough. That is, with a mild res sickness timer to deter, death, regank maneuvers.

        Gankers and Penalties Related to Ganking

  I constantly read, in open world RvR discussions, people saying that the penalties to ganking are never balanced. I just dont understand this concept. Logically, if im an assassin. I sneak up on you in some wilderness, with no one to see but the bear you're trying to stab. I gank you and you die. So, what kind of penalty should I receive?  Personally, i believe, none. Why you ask. I doubt the bear, whom I just saved from death, is going to go to town and be like, hey, im a fucking bear, and I just witnessed a murder.  Is the guy I just killed going to rez and be like, hey town watch, this fucker named t0nyd just killed me. You look alive to me fucker. Shrug...

 In my opinion, your going to have a couple types of open world PvP games.

  1. Faction Based

        This type is much easier to control. Just dont allow any faction on faction fighting. Now you know who your enemies are and if you need help, you know who to ask. Ganking still occurs, but there is no reason to have penalties due to you dying to the opposite faction, its simply part of the game...

   2. Free For All

        Free for all is pretty much a niche crowd type. If items and levels didnt matter much, you might actually see this type get a larger audience. Due to levels and items always mattering to the extreme, FFA will never have a large audience due to massive amounts of noob frustration.

    In the end, i dont believe that you need strict death penalties nor anti gank mechanics. If you give everyone a fighting chance, then no one will feel bad when they die. Its the standard MMORPG mentality of " I spend countless hours grinding so I should be tougher than you and automantically win ", that ruins FFA PvP. Simply put, 3 vs 1, i dont care what your level is, the 1 should have a tough fight on his hands... 

 Lets start off by saying that I believe that I want an open world PvP mmorpg. Atleast, I believe that I want one. Lets take a venture into Shadowbane to see why this open world PvP mmorpg is probably proof why people dont want one.

 I browse around checking classes and templates to see what would fit my play style. I settle on a Minotaur Doomsayer. I like the idea of big hit points, life drains, mana drains, and stun immunity. In a few hours of play I burn through the noob levels. This is a good thing. In a PvP game, where levels matter, and its free for all, you need fast leveling or levels shouldnt matter much. In this game, levels matter a lot. So leveling has to be fast. I hit 30, ventured out into the open world. Ran to my first node, dead with in seconds to a stealthed level 75 archer. Shrug, im back to it. I run to my second node, a different node of course. I kill a couple mobs, dead, to a different stealthed level 75 archer. Hmmm. Back to it, port to a different neutral city. Run to a different noob node. Dead before I even attack a mob, this time is different tho. This time it isnt an archer. Its a stealthed level 75 melee scout. So, i decide fuck this. I am going to find a guild and do it the smart way.

 Before I get into the smart way, lets get into the failure of this first paragraph. Stealth + tracking = bullshit. For the most part, this is a truth. If levels matter a lot. Stealth + always knowing where everyone is = gank fest city. Now in my opinion, stealth is a very powerful tool. A character should take a power hit to gain the ability to control the beginning of every combat situation. This is especially important in shadowbane due to the fact that scouts will have a very high defense. In most situations, a lowbie wont even hit them. Also, the stealth mechanic in this game is to the point where they can simply stealth in melee with you swinging or casting. If you dont dot them, they are gone. Now add in tracking. Im not even going to bother...

 Im in a guild. Im having a decent time of it. I find a nice hole to solo in near our guild town. I hit 32 pretty easily. A guild mate walks up and we decide to party. Next thing I know, we are 40 and heading out to a new area. This is a more dangerous area so im pretty ready. We hit 49 with out any action and port back to train. I train for PvP. Fuck training for PvE. I hit my blind spell pretty hard and my life drains. We head out and a 75 scout jumps us fighting three mobs. Luckily I already have them life taped doted. I hit precised stance to make sure I hit. My blind lands. My life tap dot lands. My drain life spam lands. My hit points never go below 75%. She dies. Im like fuck yea. Three mobs and a level 75. We are feeling pretty good about that. We see a few other lowbies roaming and dieing so we snag them into our group. Everything is decent. I hit 59 and we all log.

 I log in two days later to find our guild disbanded and our city gone. Great, and the guild hunt begins. After another hour of trying to find a node to kill at and dieing constantly to level 75, all scouts, I give up for the day.

 In my opinion, this is the perfect example of why people refuse to play open world PvP mmorpg's. Here are the reasons...

 Bad Game Mechanics

  Stealth in most games is implemented poorly. Stealth classes usually have over the top damage combined with attacking you at the worst moment possible. In my opinion, a stealth class should be more of a tactical, intelligent play class and not simply, boo, your dead, next, type of class.

  Tracking is a gankers dream. Knowing where everyone in the area is from very far away is a potent ability and should be treated as such. Combining this with the stealth mechanic is asking for frustration.

  When level and gear matter to the extreme, lowbies simply can not compete, even with greater numbers. This is frustration.

 The Average Mentality of an MMORPG Player

  It seems that the average mentality of the mmo'er is " I want a guaranteed win ". It seems that a majority of the players in shadowbane would rather roll a scout, with help from a fully functioning guild, max this scout, then kill lowbies all day. I really would like to see the numbers on this game. If I had to guess. I would say that around 60% of all characters online at anytime would be a scout. Leaving 40% for the many, many other classes.

  I guess I just dont understand this mentality. Personally, im looking for a challenging fight. Of course I want to win, but if winning is simple and guaranteed, I wont play that game very long. In a game like shadowbane, levels and gear need to matter less, and intelligent play a lot more. I believe that todays mmorpgs are the antithesis to intelligent play. It seems players want time to be the most important factor involved in deciding a winner. Simply, I played longer, i have better gear and am a higher level because of it, so I should win.

   Hopefully some new MMO will promote intelligent play as its primary focus, because in all honesty, todays mmo's bore me. Now let the flames begin... heh