In the latest alpha patch, WoW introduced a new gearing mechanic: Secondary Stat Attunement. Each specialization is "attuned" to a specific secondary stat, gaining 5% more of that stat.
I am doubtful that this will be a good idea.
First off, I'm not entirely certain what advantage this mechanic brings. It might spread out the secondary stats, so that different specs chase different stats and thus chase different gear. It is a bad situation if the same piece of gear is Best-in-Slot for every single class.
It may also help a new player who doesn't know which secondary stat to look for. If they at least make sure that they have their attuned stat, it gives them a small basis on which to compare gear.
The problem, though, will come if the attuned stat does not match the theorycraft. Essentially, the theorycrafters will end up ranking the secondary stats for each spec. Gear with the top two secondary stats will be Best-in-Slot. If the attuned stat is one of those top stats (preferably the top one), then things will work out.
However, if the attuned stat is 3rd or lower on the ranking, Secondary Stat Attunement turns into a massive trap for the new player. The heuristic, "My Attunement is Critical Strike, so I should look for Critical Strike gear", is not just wrong, but it will cause new players to discard better gear in favour of worse gear. The potential for misleading people seems very high. Not to mention that it might cause loot arguments where players insist that specs must take gear with an attuned stat.
As well, it does seem like the possibility of multiple builds will be lessened. Arguably the most interesting time to be a Holy Paladin was back in Cataclysm when we had the Mastery builds and the Spirit/Haste builds. Having an attuned stat seems like it will always push us towards one specific build.
Holy Paladins
A specific problem with Holy Paladins is that the current Attuned Stat is Critical Strike. It's a nod to Vanilla and TBC when we desired Critical Strike above everything else.
However, healers are generally not fond of Critical Strike, no matter what the math says. Critical Strike is unreliable in the short run, and healing is all about the short run. Back in the day we chased Crit because of Illumination and mana regen, and mana regen belongs to the long run, when the Law of Large Numbers kicks in. As a means to recover mana, Critical Strike was great. As an aid to healing, it's suspicious.
Healers far prefer stats which always work. Sometimes healing pushes you to be pessimistic. In the crunch, Critical Strike will let you down.
Now, if heals are much smaller than health pools, then it's not as bad. As well, it does synergize well with Mastery, so if Mastery is our other chase stat, then it will work out decently.
Conclusions
The probability of Secondary Stat Attunement going badly and causing issues is high. High enough that I think it outweighs the potential benefits. The game has been fine when letting the theorycrafters determine the best stats from the basic math. Forcing the different specializations to have different "best stats" through this mechanism is overly heavy-handed, and likely to backfire, in my opinion.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Monday, June 02, 2014
Cosmetic Gear and Player Gender
This thought was inspired by a post by Njessi of Hawtpants of the Old Republic.
With the increasing amount of cosmetic gear and options like transmogrification in MMOs, has it become easier to guess at the gender of the player behind a character?
It's a total stereotype, but maybe women are more likely to put effort into making aesthetically pleasing costumes for their characters. Especially some of the more subtle outfits.
Certainly, the vast majority of female characters wearing bikinis and outfits that show a lot of skin are probably being played by men. So merely not wearing a bikini shifts the odds of a female character being played by a woman. And maybe men are more likely to wear "achievement" gear or martial gear, like items with a lot of spikes, or Sith armor. Or maybe not.
I just found this idea interesting because it doesn't appear before cosmetic gear. Before cosmetic gear, a character wears her most powerful gear. Gear at that point tells you more about what the character has achieved than anything about the player.
Cosmetic gear, on the other hand, is a window into the tastes of the player. Thus it says a lot about the player, and maybe more than some would want.
With the increasing amount of cosmetic gear and options like transmogrification in MMOs, has it become easier to guess at the gender of the player behind a character?
It's a total stereotype, but maybe women are more likely to put effort into making aesthetically pleasing costumes for their characters. Especially some of the more subtle outfits.
Certainly, the vast majority of female characters wearing bikinis and outfits that show a lot of skin are probably being played by men. So merely not wearing a bikini shifts the odds of a female character being played by a woman. And maybe men are more likely to wear "achievement" gear or martial gear, like items with a lot of spikes, or Sith armor. Or maybe not.
I just found this idea interesting because it doesn't appear before cosmetic gear. Before cosmetic gear, a character wears her most powerful gear. Gear at that point tells you more about what the character has achieved than anything about the player.
Cosmetic gear, on the other hand, is a window into the tastes of the player. Thus it says a lot about the player, and maybe more than some would want.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Malaise
I've been in a bit of a funk with games over the last couple of weeks. I just haven't felt like playing anything. Here's a bit of a round-up with what's going on in my videogame life.
Elder Scrolls Online
I gave up on ESO. I tried a dungeon and it was a terrible experience. Quasi-zerg, bad combat. No feeling of control or progress. I cancelled my subscription after that dungeon.
I do kind of regret not trying out PvP, but at the time everyone was talking about immortal vampires spewing bats and killing entire raids of people. That sounded pretty dumb to me, and I'm not really a PvP player at the best of times, so I just never got around to it.
The Old Republic
For some reason, I'm now the recruiting officer in our guild. About half our raid team decided to retire a couple months ago, so we're building back up. I'm trying to get a bench and rotation going. All in all, this is the main game I'm playing.
Final Fantasy XIV
I'm still subscribed, and I still kind of want to play it. I just never log in. In some ways, I feel like I got to the point where the game is too difficult for me. I'm not sure that's strictly true, it may have been entirely my experience with Titan HM. I just can't bring myself to attempt any of the new, more difficult, content.
Archeage
For some stupid reason, I bought into the alpha. I levelled a character up to 15 and then just stopped logging in. I really have no idea why. The game was rather interesting up to that point.
Diablo 3
I'm still playing D3 a bit. I got my Crusader up to 70 and up to about Torment II in difficulty. I occasionally play with a friend and he seems reluctant to move up difficulties, so we're farming Torment I and it is terribly easy and boring. I've been desultorily playing low level alts.
Transistor
A new game from the people who made Bastion. I reinstalled Steam just for this game. Then I ended up playing for 15 minutes on the Tuesday when it came out, and haven't touched it since. It looks like it will be an excellent game and those 15 minutes were a lot of fun. But I don't know, it's like I don't want to give it the time and effort that it deserves.
Wildstar
I haven't bought Wildstar. I tried it a few months ago in Closed Beta and did not like it. But the rest of the community seems very excited about it. I'm not sure if it would be worth trying again, or if I'll just end up disliking it for the same reasons as before.
Twitter
Technically not a game. I gave up on Twitter a few days ago and deactivated my account. Too much outrage, from every direction. It's like seeing a mob being whipped up in real time, and a new mob for a new outrage every day. The French Revolution wasn't that much fun the first time around, and I see no point in repeating it in a virtual space.
As well, I think Twitter really "misses the forest for the trees". Everything seems so focused on the micro, that there's little effort made to step back and look at the big picture.
Honestly, I've been without Twitter for several days now, and do not miss it in the least.
Summary
So that's what's been happening with me lately. My enthusiasm for games seems to have fallen off a cliff for some reason, and that's been reflected in the amount of blogging lately. Hopefully I will try to post more next week.
Elder Scrolls Online
I gave up on ESO. I tried a dungeon and it was a terrible experience. Quasi-zerg, bad combat. No feeling of control or progress. I cancelled my subscription after that dungeon.
I do kind of regret not trying out PvP, but at the time everyone was talking about immortal vampires spewing bats and killing entire raids of people. That sounded pretty dumb to me, and I'm not really a PvP player at the best of times, so I just never got around to it.
The Old Republic
For some reason, I'm now the recruiting officer in our guild. About half our raid team decided to retire a couple months ago, so we're building back up. I'm trying to get a bench and rotation going. All in all, this is the main game I'm playing.
Final Fantasy XIV
I'm still subscribed, and I still kind of want to play it. I just never log in. In some ways, I feel like I got to the point where the game is too difficult for me. I'm not sure that's strictly true, it may have been entirely my experience with Titan HM. I just can't bring myself to attempt any of the new, more difficult, content.
Archeage
For some stupid reason, I bought into the alpha. I levelled a character up to 15 and then just stopped logging in. I really have no idea why. The game was rather interesting up to that point.
Diablo 3
I'm still playing D3 a bit. I got my Crusader up to 70 and up to about Torment II in difficulty. I occasionally play with a friend and he seems reluctant to move up difficulties, so we're farming Torment I and it is terribly easy and boring. I've been desultorily playing low level alts.
Transistor
A new game from the people who made Bastion. I reinstalled Steam just for this game. Then I ended up playing for 15 minutes on the Tuesday when it came out, and haven't touched it since. It looks like it will be an excellent game and those 15 minutes were a lot of fun. But I don't know, it's like I don't want to give it the time and effort that it deserves.
Wildstar
I haven't bought Wildstar. I tried it a few months ago in Closed Beta and did not like it. But the rest of the community seems very excited about it. I'm not sure if it would be worth trying again, or if I'll just end up disliking it for the same reasons as before.
Technically not a game. I gave up on Twitter a few days ago and deactivated my account. Too much outrage, from every direction. It's like seeing a mob being whipped up in real time, and a new mob for a new outrage every day. The French Revolution wasn't that much fun the first time around, and I see no point in repeating it in a virtual space.
As well, I think Twitter really "misses the forest for the trees". Everything seems so focused on the micro, that there's little effort made to step back and look at the big picture.
Honestly, I've been without Twitter for several days now, and do not miss it in the least.
Summary
So that's what's been happening with me lately. My enthusiasm for games seems to have fallen off a cliff for some reason, and that's been reflected in the amount of blogging lately. Hopefully I will try to post more next week.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Alts and Challenge
Most games follow a pretty simple loop. The game presents a challenge, the player masters the challenge, and the game presents a harder challenge. Or if the game doesn't present a harder challenge, the player generally moves on. This idea is elaborated on in Raph Koster's Theory of Fun.
And most of MMOs work like this. As you level, the game presents harder and harder challenges for you to work on. Generally future raids and dungeons are more difficult that previous raids and dungeons.
But not when it comes to alts. Lately, it seems like most MMOs have your second or third character be an easier experience than your first character. Even before special effects, your first character involves you learning the game, and figuring out exactly how things work. So even if the difficulty was the exact same, you'd already have demonstrated mastery.
But modern MMOs are going further than that. They often give out effects that make leveling a second character less of a challenge than the first. For example, WoW has heirloom gear. The Old Republic makes your second character's companions more powerful.
But is this really a good idea? If you go back to the Theory of Fun presented above, this is the exact opposite of how a good game should act. The game should acknowledge the player's mastery, as evidenced by the first max-level character, and present a slightly harder challenge. Presenting an easier challenge will only lead to a player getting bored more easily.
Of course, this might be hard to implement in an MMO. Perhaps the best way would be a slider that increases the rate of XP gain, but also increases the amount of damage you take and decreases the amount of damage/healing you do. Of course this may have to be disabled in group content.
I think that the current approach to alts--giving the second character more advantages than the first--may be counter-productive in the long run, and may lead to players losing interest faster. The Theory of Fun implies that leveling the second character should be harder than leveling the first character, to keep the player interested and invested in demonstrating mastery over the new challenge.
And most of MMOs work like this. As you level, the game presents harder and harder challenges for you to work on. Generally future raids and dungeons are more difficult that previous raids and dungeons.
But not when it comes to alts. Lately, it seems like most MMOs have your second or third character be an easier experience than your first character. Even before special effects, your first character involves you learning the game, and figuring out exactly how things work. So even if the difficulty was the exact same, you'd already have demonstrated mastery.
But modern MMOs are going further than that. They often give out effects that make leveling a second character less of a challenge than the first. For example, WoW has heirloom gear. The Old Republic makes your second character's companions more powerful.
But is this really a good idea? If you go back to the Theory of Fun presented above, this is the exact opposite of how a good game should act. The game should acknowledge the player's mastery, as evidenced by the first max-level character, and present a slightly harder challenge. Presenting an easier challenge will only lead to a player getting bored more easily.
Of course, this might be hard to implement in an MMO. Perhaps the best way would be a slider that increases the rate of XP gain, but also increases the amount of damage you take and decreases the amount of damage/healing you do. Of course this may have to be disabled in group content.
I think that the current approach to alts--giving the second character more advantages than the first--may be counter-productive in the long run, and may lead to players losing interest faster. The Theory of Fun implies that leveling the second character should be harder than leveling the first character, to keep the player interested and invested in demonstrating mastery over the new challenge.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Useful on Day One
Wilhelm wrote an account of an Eve Online battle where a new player/account (only one-day old) contributed to a battle by "tackling" (preventing movement) of an enemy ship. Syncaine promptly seized on this as an example of why Eve is so amazing and all the theme parks suck.
I'd like to examine how Eve mechanics make this--a new player being useful to endgame players-- possible. There some obvious reasons, but also some subtle mechanics in play. I don't play Eve Online currently, so if I make a mistake with mechanics, please correct me in the comments.
I'd like to examine how Eve mechanics make this--a new player being useful to endgame players-- possible. There some obvious reasons, but also some subtle mechanics in play. I don't play Eve Online currently, so if I make a mistake with mechanics, please correct me in the comments.
1. No Maximum Group Size
The obvious mechanic is that Eve does not cap group size. You can take as many people as you want in your fleet. Thus taking a new player does not mean benching an experienced player. So you can take pretty much everyone to a battle.
2. Bounded Accuracy
In most theme parks, your chance to hit decreases as the level difference increases. Usually at a certain point, a low level character simply cannot hit the high level, and so is pretty much useless. In contrast, Eve pilots can always at least hit the enemy target most of the time. A new pilot might not do much damage, or be restricted to holding the enemy in place, but at least her abilities can connect.
3. Opposition Does Not Scale
The opposition in Eve does not scale. So bringing an extra player does not make the fight more difficult. It always makes it easier. If the opposition scaled, there would be a point below which bring lower level people would be a hindrance, would make the fight more difficult.
4. No Area-Of-Effect Attacks
This is the subtle mechanic, but in some ways it might be the key one. Eve is a single-target game with very few area attacks. I believe the few area attack weapons damage both friend and foe. The usual targeting mechanism is select a specific ship, lock on, and fire guns.
If you think about it in terms of global cooldowns, killing an enemy requires at least a GCD. That's one GCD not spent on attacking a different player. In PvP games, the priority targets are a function of the ones with the weakest defenses and highest damage. New pilots have very weak defenses, but very low damage. Most of the time, it is simply not worth the GCD to target a new pilot.
This allows new pilots to have pretty decent survivability, even in fights with much larger ships duking it out.
On the other hand, if ships had a decent AoE attack, a single AoE pulse might wipe out all the small enemy ships. Spending a GCD to kill several small ships at once might very well be a worthwhile tactic. If this was the case, there wouldn't be much point to bringing new pilots, as they would get AoE'd off the battlefield within the first few seconds of the fight.
Conclusions
Those are the four mechanics that I think allows Eve Online to have its new players be (theoretically) helpful in high level combat. In my mind, the first three are fairly obvious and could be implemented in theme parks in a straightforward manner if desired. The last one, though, is subtle, and has many ramifications. AoE is surprisingly important to Trinity gameplay.
Of course, I should note that just because Eve Online mechanics allow day-old pilots to participate in combat, that doesn't mean that most newbie pilots will ever see such a thing. From my experiences in Eve Online a while back, most corporations are so scared of getting scammed that they won't invite new pilots unless there is an existing out-of-game relationship to verify them.
It’s great that the mechanics allow this gameplay. Too bad the politics will make it inaccessible for most.
Friday, May 09, 2014
Blizzcon Ticket Sales
I didn't try to purchase tickets for Blizzcon, but by all accounts it was another fiasco. Effectively causing a self-inflicted Denial-Of-Service attack and then forcing people to luckily connect just doesn't seem like a good method of selling tickets. Blizzard should be able to do better.
The major problem, though, is one that most people are not going to be happy to hear: Blizzcon tickets are too cheap.
Yeah, I know, $200 USD isn't cheap. But more people are willing to pay that price than there are tickets available. That gap causes the rush and the bad problems. It also provides an opportunity for arbitrage, which adds scalpers to the mix, increasing the amount of issues. Blizzard tries to clamp down on ticket re-selling by authenticating tickets, but that has it's own flaws. Not to mention the possibilities of scams.
These types of problems are the issues that prices exist to solve. Raising prices would smooth out all these issues. Yes, it sucks that some fans won't be able to afford Blizzcon. But a lot of fans already can't afford it. Making the process smoother and taking the scalpers out of the mix would offset those issues. And at the end of the day, everyone who attends Blizzcon is a fan.
Here's how I would sell Blizzcon tickets:
1. Use a Dutch Auction
A Dutch Auction is an auction where a buyer puts in a bid for a quantity and the price she is willing to pay. When the auction ends, the price is lowered to the point where all items sell. Every buyer with a bid above that price gets the quantity of tickets they desire, and they all pay the lowest price.
For example, there are five tickets to be sold. Anna is willing to pay $1000 per ticket for 2 tickets. Betty is willing to pay $500 per ticket for 2 tickets. Charity is willing to pay $450 for 1 ticket. Daphne is willing to pay $400 per ticket for 2 tickets. Elsa is willing to pay $300 for a ticket. The five tickets are sold to Anna, Betty and Charity for $450 per ticket.
Essentially, this allows the prices to float, and the true price be "discovered". It drives scalpers out of the process, because there's no opportunity for arbitrage anymore. In the example above, if Charity is (ironically) a scalper , who is she going to sell her ticket to? Anna and Betty already have tickets. Daphne and Elsa are not willing pay enough to turn a profit.
You can set up a long period where people can log into Battle.net and place their bids. Depending on how credit card pre-authorization works, Blizzard might even be able to detect fraud earlier in the process.
It is a bit more complicated than normal rules for buying and selling, but we're all gamers. Learning the rules to new games is our raison d'etre.
2. Establish a Reserve Price and Donate the Excess Money to Charity.
Pick the price Blizzard needs to pay for the endeavor. Perhaps the current $200 dollars. That's the minimum price that tickets will sell for.
Then donate the amount over the reserve price to charity. So if the tickets sell for $450, $200 goes to Blizzard, and $250 goes to the charity.
What this does is mitigate concerns of unfairness, since BlizzCon is more public relations than profit. Yes, it is still disappointing for the people who couldn't afford tickets, but at least a lot of money went to a good cause. It's certainly far better than that money going to scalpers.
Final Thoughts
A Dutch Auction with excess profits going to charity is a far more sane way of selling tickets. We don't have to all spam the server within 10s of the start time. We remove the equipment failure factor from the process.
We remove the opportunity for arbitrage that attracts scalpers. This is pretty key by the way. Any solution that does not involve a price increase (a lottery, for example) will attract scalpers who will try to manipulate the situation. This in turn may make it easier for normal people to buy tickets.
Finally, some charitable cause will benefit, and that's always good, especially for a large public relations event.
Update: On Lotteries
A couple of comments have brought up lotteries. I posted this in response, but decided it's important enough to put it into the main post.
The thing about lotteries is that they run into the same arbitrage/scalper issue.
Let's say that you have 5 tickets, and 10 people want them. 50% chance of getting a ticket, right?
What will happen is an enterprising scalper will create 100 accounts and enter the lottery. The odds of you getting a ticket become drastically lower. The scalper wins the majority of tickets and resells them for profit.
Of course, Blizz can try for anti-scalper mechanisms, but those are hard to get right. Look at how much trouble we have with bots and RMT in the regular game. The scalpers--and the people who buy tickets from them--have more incentive than Blizzard.
The key point here is that floating prices work. When the fixed price does not match the "true" price, you always see weird behaviour. You see shortages, or hoarding, or complex arbitrage schemes. This applies to pretty much everything in real life.
The major problem, though, is one that most people are not going to be happy to hear: Blizzcon tickets are too cheap.
Yeah, I know, $200 USD isn't cheap. But more people are willing to pay that price than there are tickets available. That gap causes the rush and the bad problems. It also provides an opportunity for arbitrage, which adds scalpers to the mix, increasing the amount of issues. Blizzard tries to clamp down on ticket re-selling by authenticating tickets, but that has it's own flaws. Not to mention the possibilities of scams.
These types of problems are the issues that prices exist to solve. Raising prices would smooth out all these issues. Yes, it sucks that some fans won't be able to afford Blizzcon. But a lot of fans already can't afford it. Making the process smoother and taking the scalpers out of the mix would offset those issues. And at the end of the day, everyone who attends Blizzcon is a fan.
Here's how I would sell Blizzcon tickets:
1. Use a Dutch Auction
A Dutch Auction is an auction where a buyer puts in a bid for a quantity and the price she is willing to pay. When the auction ends, the price is lowered to the point where all items sell. Every buyer with a bid above that price gets the quantity of tickets they desire, and they all pay the lowest price.
For example, there are five tickets to be sold. Anna is willing to pay $1000 per ticket for 2 tickets. Betty is willing to pay $500 per ticket for 2 tickets. Charity is willing to pay $450 for 1 ticket. Daphne is willing to pay $400 per ticket for 2 tickets. Elsa is willing to pay $300 for a ticket. The five tickets are sold to Anna, Betty and Charity for $450 per ticket.
Essentially, this allows the prices to float, and the true price be "discovered". It drives scalpers out of the process, because there's no opportunity for arbitrage anymore. In the example above, if Charity is (ironically) a scalper , who is she going to sell her ticket to? Anna and Betty already have tickets. Daphne and Elsa are not willing pay enough to turn a profit.
You can set up a long period where people can log into Battle.net and place their bids. Depending on how credit card pre-authorization works, Blizzard might even be able to detect fraud earlier in the process.
It is a bit more complicated than normal rules for buying and selling, but we're all gamers. Learning the rules to new games is our raison d'etre.
2. Establish a Reserve Price and Donate the Excess Money to Charity.
Pick the price Blizzard needs to pay for the endeavor. Perhaps the current $200 dollars. That's the minimum price that tickets will sell for.
Then donate the amount over the reserve price to charity. So if the tickets sell for $450, $200 goes to Blizzard, and $250 goes to the charity.
What this does is mitigate concerns of unfairness, since BlizzCon is more public relations than profit. Yes, it is still disappointing for the people who couldn't afford tickets, but at least a lot of money went to a good cause. It's certainly far better than that money going to scalpers.
Final Thoughts
A Dutch Auction with excess profits going to charity is a far more sane way of selling tickets. We don't have to all spam the server within 10s of the start time. We remove the equipment failure factor from the process.
We remove the opportunity for arbitrage that attracts scalpers. This is pretty key by the way. Any solution that does not involve a price increase (a lottery, for example) will attract scalpers who will try to manipulate the situation. This in turn may make it easier for normal people to buy tickets.
Finally, some charitable cause will benefit, and that's always good, especially for a large public relations event.
Update: On Lotteries
A couple of comments have brought up lotteries. I posted this in response, but decided it's important enough to put it into the main post.
The thing about lotteries is that they run into the same arbitrage/scalper issue.
Let's say that you have 5 tickets, and 10 people want them. 50% chance of getting a ticket, right?
What will happen is an enterprising scalper will create 100 accounts and enter the lottery. The odds of you getting a ticket become drastically lower. The scalper wins the majority of tickets and resells them for profit.
Of course, Blizz can try for anti-scalper mechanisms, but those are hard to get right. Look at how much trouble we have with bots and RMT in the regular game. The scalpers--and the people who buy tickets from them--have more incentive than Blizzard.
The key point here is that floating prices work. When the fixed price does not match the "true" price, you always see weird behaviour. You see shortages, or hoarding, or complex arbitrage schemes. This applies to pretty much everything in real life.
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
American vs Japanese Players
Here is a very interesting reddit post on the difference between Japanese and American players in FFXIV. A sample:
The post is interesting throughout. The comments are also worth reading. In particular, there's a comment from a Chinese player comparing the two sides:
I find it very intriguing that the "elite" NA players (at least from Reddit) are very envious of the Japanese playstyle, but the American experience is regarded as friendlier, even if it is more inconsistent.
However the biggest difference between JP player and EN player is that you seldom see what is known as shijichu (指示厨) from the Japanese players. Shijichu is NOT taken favorably at all. So what is “Shijichu” it’s a Japanese internet slang word, it doesn’t exist in proper Japanese. It basically mean “Being puerile (childish) and telling people what to do”. EN players like to give unsolicited advice like “Stop using cleric stance, Stop using this and stop doing that”. That is considered Shijichu.
JP players usually let you do what you want (even if you gimp the party DPS or heals). They don’t preemptively point out your choices or mistakes unless something goes wrong and the group wipes. Even if they do point out they do it just in 1 sentence and don’t harp on it, like EN players. There are cases (not the norm) where Japanese players haven been shijichu,to me but a swift “shijichu ka?” (are you being shijichu) from me often puts them in place.
The post is interesting throughout. The comments are also worth reading. In particular, there's a comment from a Chinese player comparing the two sides:
NA players are free style. They don't give you a constantly enjoyable gaming experience. But the diversity itself makes playing with them more fun. And they are more open mind and willing to share which makes it easier for a foreign player like me to make real friends in the game.
I find it very intriguing that the "elite" NA players (at least from Reddit) are very envious of the Japanese playstyle, but the American experience is regarded as friendlier, even if it is more inconsistent.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
PvP Battleground Rotation
There are a lot of battlegrounds these days. Eleven in total. And Warlords may bring more.
In Vanilla, there were only three. While that may have been slightly monotonous, it was very good for learning the battlegrounds. People learned the strategies and even counter-strategies. With so many battlegrounds now, it's a lot harder to learn the nuances of every single battleground.
Perhaps part of the reason for faction dominance of specific battlegrounds is that there isn't enough time for strategies to evolve. Instead each side sticks to using the very basic initial strategy, which favors one side.
I propose the battlegrounds be organized into a rotation. Each period will be composed of one Warfare BG, one Capture the Flag BG, and two Resource Race BGs. These four will be the only battlegrounds available for that period. The period will last for about two months, then new battlegrounds will rotate in.
Obviously people would not be allowed to blacklist battlegrounds. As well, Blizzard would probably have to stop doing the weekend special battlegrounds. They also have to ensure that seasonal events with battleground achievements line up with the rotation.
I think that this focus will serve players better. They can learn and understand a smaller set of battlegrounds. However, they won't be doing the same content forever. After a while new battlegrounds will come in and mix things up. This is especially true for newer players.
This will also make it easier to add new battlegrounds. Unlike PvE instances, battlegrounds hang around forever. But simply adding new battlegrounds into the rotation keeps the cognitive overhead low. You only need to know the strategies for 4 battlegrounds.
In Vanilla, there were only three. While that may have been slightly monotonous, it was very good for learning the battlegrounds. People learned the strategies and even counter-strategies. With so many battlegrounds now, it's a lot harder to learn the nuances of every single battleground.
Perhaps part of the reason for faction dominance of specific battlegrounds is that there isn't enough time for strategies to evolve. Instead each side sticks to using the very basic initial strategy, which favors one side.
I propose the battlegrounds be organized into a rotation. Each period will be composed of one Warfare BG, one Capture the Flag BG, and two Resource Race BGs. These four will be the only battlegrounds available for that period. The period will last for about two months, then new battlegrounds will rotate in.
Obviously people would not be allowed to blacklist battlegrounds. As well, Blizzard would probably have to stop doing the weekend special battlegrounds. They also have to ensure that seasonal events with battleground achievements line up with the rotation.
I think that this focus will serve players better. They can learn and understand a smaller set of battlegrounds. However, they won't be doing the same content forever. After a while new battlegrounds will come in and mix things up. This is especially true for newer players.
This will also make it easier to add new battlegrounds. Unlike PvE instances, battlegrounds hang around forever. But simply adding new battlegrounds into the rotation keeps the cognitive overhead low. You only need to know the strategies for 4 battlegrounds.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Founder Packs
Lately a number of games, especially F2P games, have started selling "Founder Packs". These packs give some goodies, but mainly give you access to the Alpha and Beta tests. Many people in the community see this as the game companies taking advantage of their players. However, I am generally okay with this practice. Here's my reasoning.
First, Founder Packs allow F2P games to sell time. Eventually they will open up the game for free. The Old Republic does something similar by giving subscribers early access to features. In my view, this is more or less the same as sales of regular games or hardcover books. A regular game is available for $60. In a couple of months, you might find it on sale for $40. In six months or more, it starts joining bundles and crazy Steam sales where you get for $10. Or consider books. A book is first released in hardcover for $40. A year or so later it comes out in paperback for $10. Or consider movies. You pay $15 to watch the movie in the theatre. If you wait 4 months, you can rent it for $5.
All these are roughly the same situation. The consumer chooses to pay to access the content earlier. If the consumer is willing to wait, she gets the content later, but cheaper. This is same thing for Founder Packs. If you wait three months, the content will be free.
Second, Founder Packs are strictly better than Pre-Orders. How many people have pre-ordered Warlords of Draenor? That isn't coming out for months. What's better: pay upfront and get immediate access to alpha or beta, or pay up front and not get any access at all?
Third, it's good for the game company. I think that Founder Packs give the company a more realistic idea of who is interested in the game. I'm drawn to the example of The Secret World, which had over a million people in the beta, but only 100,000 or so at launch. As well, the people who are willing to pay are your core audience, and it's better to get feedback from them rather than get feedback from people who just signed up for fun, and aren't planning to play at all.
Perhaps a thousand Founders who paid for Alpha access would have done more for The Secret World than the million who signed up for free.
Of course, this can go too far, in that the devs are listening to very small minority. But it's a small minority that's proven their willingness to pay. In an age where people expect everything to be free, this is not to be taken for granted.
Not to mention that the company gets a little bit of cash flow, which is always helpful for an industry that runs on the edge.
Fourth, wanting access to Alpha/Beta can be rational. A lot of people dismiss Alpha/Beta access as "paying for the privilege of testing". And there is some truth to that. But Alpha and Beta are also the times when the games can be changed. Once the game hits release, change becomes a lot slower. If you want influence in how the game develops, Alpha/Beta access is your best chance. You can test things out, and arguments drawn directly from in-game testing, which makes it more likely that the devs will listen to you. Without Alpha/Beta access, it's just armchair theorycrafting.
Ideally we expect to play these games for a long time. If you're considering spending the next three years in MMO X, paying for Alpha/Beta access so you push the game in your desired direction is a rational choice.
Ultimately, I think that most consumers are somewhat rational. If many of them are willing to pay for Alpha/Beta access, may as well let them. It's worth it to them. Those of us who are unwilling to pay can just wait for the game to be released.
First, Founder Packs allow F2P games to sell time. Eventually they will open up the game for free. The Old Republic does something similar by giving subscribers early access to features. In my view, this is more or less the same as sales of regular games or hardcover books. A regular game is available for $60. In a couple of months, you might find it on sale for $40. In six months or more, it starts joining bundles and crazy Steam sales where you get for $10. Or consider books. A book is first released in hardcover for $40. A year or so later it comes out in paperback for $10. Or consider movies. You pay $15 to watch the movie in the theatre. If you wait 4 months, you can rent it for $5.
All these are roughly the same situation. The consumer chooses to pay to access the content earlier. If the consumer is willing to wait, she gets the content later, but cheaper. This is same thing for Founder Packs. If you wait three months, the content will be free.
Second, Founder Packs are strictly better than Pre-Orders. How many people have pre-ordered Warlords of Draenor? That isn't coming out for months. What's better: pay upfront and get immediate access to alpha or beta, or pay up front and not get any access at all?
Third, it's good for the game company. I think that Founder Packs give the company a more realistic idea of who is interested in the game. I'm drawn to the example of The Secret World, which had over a million people in the beta, but only 100,000 or so at launch. As well, the people who are willing to pay are your core audience, and it's better to get feedback from them rather than get feedback from people who just signed up for fun, and aren't planning to play at all.
Perhaps a thousand Founders who paid for Alpha access would have done more for The Secret World than the million who signed up for free.
Of course, this can go too far, in that the devs are listening to very small minority. But it's a small minority that's proven their willingness to pay. In an age where people expect everything to be free, this is not to be taken for granted.
Not to mention that the company gets a little bit of cash flow, which is always helpful for an industry that runs on the edge.
Fourth, wanting access to Alpha/Beta can be rational. A lot of people dismiss Alpha/Beta access as "paying for the privilege of testing". And there is some truth to that. But Alpha and Beta are also the times when the games can be changed. Once the game hits release, change becomes a lot slower. If you want influence in how the game develops, Alpha/Beta access is your best chance. You can test things out, and arguments drawn directly from in-game testing, which makes it more likely that the devs will listen to you. Without Alpha/Beta access, it's just armchair theorycrafting.
Ideally we expect to play these games for a long time. If you're considering spending the next three years in MMO X, paying for Alpha/Beta access so you push the game in your desired direction is a rational choice.
Ultimately, I think that most consumers are somewhat rational. If many of them are willing to pay for Alpha/Beta access, may as well let them. It's worth it to them. Those of us who are unwilling to pay can just wait for the game to be released.
Monday, April 28, 2014
PvP Gear: A Problem Worth Solving?
This is the current plan, as described by Olivia Grace of Wowhead, of how PvP gear will work in Warlords:
Is it really important for PvE gear to be mechanically different from PvP gear?
The origins of the split comes from TBC. At that time, PvE was strict-progression, while PvP was seasonal. Thus as new PvP seasons appeared, it became easier for people to get gear from PvP, even if they were stuck on hard bosses in PvE.
But now PvE is seasonal, just like PvP. When a new raid comes out, everyone moves to the new raid and gets new gear. It is far less likely that someone will get "stuck" and have to resort to PvP to gear up.
There will be about 5 levels of PvE gear: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic, Mythic-Warforged. Three levels of PvP gear, set at about LFR, Heroic, and Mythic-Warforged would be good, especially if the costs and requirements for that gear is set to match PvE.
With PvP and PvE gear being set at roughly the same level, people could more easily cross over and dip into both activities. I have very fond memories of working in Alterac Valley to get my [The Unstoppable Force], even though I was primarily a PvE player. However, since the gear-split, my desire and inclination to build multiple sets has really fallen.
Is it really so terrible that top PvP players have good enough gear to do high end PvE? Or vice-versa?
Really, the only items that caused significant imbalance were trinkets. Perhaps only trinkets would work differently in PvP and PvE. As for Best-In-Slot, the people who chase Best-In-Slot will always be crazy and go to extreme lengths. Is it really worth forcing the rest of us to navigate these complexities?
Basically, I just don't think it is worth jumping through hoops to maintain the PvP-PvE gear split any more. PvE has changed from progression to seasonal, matching PvP. Using the same gear for both activities would allow people to participate in both activities more easily. People could get away with maintaining one gear set per specialization.
The PvP-PvE gear split is complexity that we don't need anymore. As such, the game would be better off without it.
This is how PvP gear is going to work in Warlords of Draenor - it will have one lower item level for PvE content such as questing, dungeons or raids, as well as a higher item level for PvP. You can see that this piece's item level is 660 in PvE, and 690 in PvP.The PvP/PvE gear split is getting excessively complicated. At this point, maybe we should take a step back and ask ourselves: Is this a problem worth solving?
Is it really important for PvE gear to be mechanically different from PvP gear?
The origins of the split comes from TBC. At that time, PvE was strict-progression, while PvP was seasonal. Thus as new PvP seasons appeared, it became easier for people to get gear from PvP, even if they were stuck on hard bosses in PvE.
But now PvE is seasonal, just like PvP. When a new raid comes out, everyone moves to the new raid and gets new gear. It is far less likely that someone will get "stuck" and have to resort to PvP to gear up.
There will be about 5 levels of PvE gear: LFR, Normal, Heroic, Mythic, Mythic-Warforged. Three levels of PvP gear, set at about LFR, Heroic, and Mythic-Warforged would be good, especially if the costs and requirements for that gear is set to match PvE.
With PvP and PvE gear being set at roughly the same level, people could more easily cross over and dip into both activities. I have very fond memories of working in Alterac Valley to get my [The Unstoppable Force], even though I was primarily a PvE player. However, since the gear-split, my desire and inclination to build multiple sets has really fallen.
Is it really so terrible that top PvP players have good enough gear to do high end PvE? Or vice-versa?
Really, the only items that caused significant imbalance were trinkets. Perhaps only trinkets would work differently in PvP and PvE. As for Best-In-Slot, the people who chase Best-In-Slot will always be crazy and go to extreme lengths. Is it really worth forcing the rest of us to navigate these complexities?
Basically, I just don't think it is worth jumping through hoops to maintain the PvP-PvE gear split any more. PvE has changed from progression to seasonal, matching PvP. Using the same gear for both activities would allow people to participate in both activities more easily. People could get away with maintaining one gear set per specialization.
The PvP-PvE gear split is complexity that we don't need anymore. As such, the game would be better off without it.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
More Thoughts on the Elder Scrolls Online
Rarely does any game leave me as conflicted as ESO. I like the questing, I like the stories, I like the exploration, I like the skill system, I like the crafting. I really like hunting skyshards, especially how they are listed in the Achievements section, but each is listed with a clue, and you can use the clues to hunt them down. That was very clever, and leveraged the Achievement system beautifully.
Almost every system in system in the game is enjoyable, save one. Unfortunately that one system I dislike is the combat.
Combat is just--I don't really know how to describe it well-- "doughy". It's not crisp, it's not satisfying. Fights don't seem to flow, like they should. I often feel like I am flailing rather than in control of the fight, with wild swings in health and resources. I guess it kind of works, and it is serviceable. But I really do not look forward to combat in this game.
Very often, I'll start a new quest, enter an area with many enemies and lots of combat ahead. My first instinct on these occasions is to log out.
Now, maybe it's my class. I'm playing a Templar with a 2H weapon and heavy armor. A little fire magic and healing, along with big melee hits. Maybe another playstyle would work better. I also haven't tried group combat. Perhaps that stabilizes things.
In so many ways, ESO is the mirror image of Tera. I can't help but think that if they could have been combined in some fashion, it would have been an amazing game.
Almost every system in system in the game is enjoyable, save one. Unfortunately that one system I dislike is the combat.
Combat is just--I don't really know how to describe it well-- "doughy". It's not crisp, it's not satisfying. Fights don't seem to flow, like they should. I often feel like I am flailing rather than in control of the fight, with wild swings in health and resources. I guess it kind of works, and it is serviceable. But I really do not look forward to combat in this game.
Very often, I'll start a new quest, enter an area with many enemies and lots of combat ahead. My first instinct on these occasions is to log out.
Now, maybe it's my class. I'm playing a Templar with a 2H weapon and heavy armor. A little fire magic and healing, along with big melee hits. Maybe another playstyle would work better. I also haven't tried group combat. Perhaps that stabilizes things.
In so many ways, ESO is the mirror image of Tera. I can't help but think that if they could have been combined in some fashion, it would have been an amazing game.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Active Mana Regen for Healing
It's not in the patch notes, but the data-miners for Warlords of Draenor have discovered a plan to give all healers a form of active mana regen. For Holy Paladins, this means Divine Plea becomes a Holy Power finisher which returns mana:
Divine Plea
3 Holy Power
Instantly regain 4.5% of maximum mana.
Now I don't know if this is final, as it wasn't in the latest patch notes. But in my opinion, active mana regen is a bad idea for healers.
First, it is an extra button. Right now, healers may have 5-6 dedicated heal buttons, and we'll have to allocate another button for mana regen. When Blizzard is trying to cut down on ability bloat, adding more buttons is not a good idea.
Second, the presence of active mana regen will invariably make fights more deadly, leading to a less fun healing environment.
Essentially, from a healing perspective, a raid fight is divided into periods of heavy damage and light damage. During heavy damage, mana consumption goes up. During light damage, mana consumption is minimal. A properly designed fight ensures that the healer uses all their mana.
As a heavily simplified example, let's say a healer has 1000 mana. During heavy damage, she spends about 10 mana/second. During light damage, she spends about 5 mana/second. So a perfect fight might require 60 seconds of heavy damage and 80 seconds of light damage.
Now add in active mana regen. Active mana regen means that during the light damage periods, the healer spends even less mana, and may even have positive mana gain. Let's say the healer moves to 0 mana/second because she's hitting her active mana button. That means that, in order to challenge the healer, the fight must now have 100 seconds of heavy damage and 40 seconds of light damage. Or alternatively, heavy damage must be more extreme, in order to make the healer spend more mana.
Both paths lead to deadlier fights, fights where mistakes are more likely to result in a death.
The history of WoW healing has been that whenever mana regen increases, throughput increases, and damage skyrockets to balance, and the healing environment becomes less forgiving, more spammy, and less fun. Adding active mana regen is just to trigger that cycle faster, and put another skill barrier between those who are the best at squeezing in regen abilities, and those who are not as good.
In my opinion, the best healing environments have resulted whenever "overheal" becomes important. When healers are focused on reducing their overheal and becoming more efficient, incoming damage is at a reasonable level and fights are simply more fun because people aren't getting destroyed in two or three global cooldowns. Whenever efficiency gets thrown out the window in favor of throughput, healing becomes less strategic and more frantic, and just less fun.
Divine Plea
3 Holy Power
Instantly regain 4.5% of maximum mana.
Now I don't know if this is final, as it wasn't in the latest patch notes. But in my opinion, active mana regen is a bad idea for healers.
First, it is an extra button. Right now, healers may have 5-6 dedicated heal buttons, and we'll have to allocate another button for mana regen. When Blizzard is trying to cut down on ability bloat, adding more buttons is not a good idea.
Second, the presence of active mana regen will invariably make fights more deadly, leading to a less fun healing environment.
Essentially, from a healing perspective, a raid fight is divided into periods of heavy damage and light damage. During heavy damage, mana consumption goes up. During light damage, mana consumption is minimal. A properly designed fight ensures that the healer uses all their mana.
As a heavily simplified example, let's say a healer has 1000 mana. During heavy damage, she spends about 10 mana/second. During light damage, she spends about 5 mana/second. So a perfect fight might require 60 seconds of heavy damage and 80 seconds of light damage.
Now add in active mana regen. Active mana regen means that during the light damage periods, the healer spends even less mana, and may even have positive mana gain. Let's say the healer moves to 0 mana/second because she's hitting her active mana button. That means that, in order to challenge the healer, the fight must now have 100 seconds of heavy damage and 40 seconds of light damage. Or alternatively, heavy damage must be more extreme, in order to make the healer spend more mana.
Both paths lead to deadlier fights, fights where mistakes are more likely to result in a death.
The history of WoW healing has been that whenever mana regen increases, throughput increases, and damage skyrockets to balance, and the healing environment becomes less forgiving, more spammy, and less fun. Adding active mana regen is just to trigger that cycle faster, and put another skill barrier between those who are the best at squeezing in regen abilities, and those who are not as good.
In my opinion, the best healing environments have resulted whenever "overheal" becomes important. When healers are focused on reducing their overheal and becoming more efficient, incoming damage is at a reasonable level and fights are simply more fun because people aren't getting destroyed in two or three global cooldowns. Whenever efficiency gets thrown out the window in favor of throughput, healing becomes less strategic and more frantic, and just less fun.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Auction Houses and Mega-Servers
MMOs are moving towards a single-server model. But this brings up an interesting wrinkle with Auction Houses or markets.
Markets with a very large number of participants are hyper-efficient. As Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 proved, they are so efficient that they cease to be fun. Margins get rapidly driven towards zero. While that's great for buyers, it's not so much fun for sellers or traders. And we're all sellers at some point, if only to sell a neat Bind-On-Equip item we found while leveling.
I think what the last few years in MMOs have shown is that markets need to be somewhat inefficient to be fun. They can't be too inefficient, as in the case of too small servers, because there needs to be enough supply, and somewhat predictable prices.
It is interesting to see how the current single-server MMOs are handling this issue. The grand-daddy of this model is Eve Online. Eve has many markets. Every solar system is a separate market. These markets are separated by distance and time. This setup is pretty good. Some systems (Jita, for example) get known as trade hubs. Moving goods between trade hubs provides for arbitrage and interesting gameplay for the goblins among us. It's also a system which feels very natural and realistic.
However, this setup requires that your universe be set up in a certain way, with significant travel time between each hub, and a population spread out across the universe. It is not really a model for themepark games where people tend to follow the same "flow" as they move from zone to zone.
The Elder Scrolls Online handles things slightly differently. Each guild has its own auction house. Each guild is capped at 500 members. But a player can belong to up to 5 guilds at the same time. So most players will end up joining two or three "trade" guilds, which are dedicated to trading. This does give a decent selection, and also allows for a bit of arbitrage between guilds.
The downsides here are that it does seem a little weird to have these continent-spanning guilds which cannot talk to each other. As well, most guilds will want their 500 players to be active. I'm not sure how someone who plays very casually, maybe logging in once or twice a week, would fit into these guilds. Too many of these types of players, and your guild market becomes dead.
All in all, this is an intriguing problem. As more and more MMOs move towards the single-server model, it will be interesting to see what new solutions are brought forward.
Markets with a very large number of participants are hyper-efficient. As Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 proved, they are so efficient that they cease to be fun. Margins get rapidly driven towards zero. While that's great for buyers, it's not so much fun for sellers or traders. And we're all sellers at some point, if only to sell a neat Bind-On-Equip item we found while leveling.
I think what the last few years in MMOs have shown is that markets need to be somewhat inefficient to be fun. They can't be too inefficient, as in the case of too small servers, because there needs to be enough supply, and somewhat predictable prices.
It is interesting to see how the current single-server MMOs are handling this issue. The grand-daddy of this model is Eve Online. Eve has many markets. Every solar system is a separate market. These markets are separated by distance and time. This setup is pretty good. Some systems (Jita, for example) get known as trade hubs. Moving goods between trade hubs provides for arbitrage and interesting gameplay for the goblins among us. It's also a system which feels very natural and realistic.
However, this setup requires that your universe be set up in a certain way, with significant travel time between each hub, and a population spread out across the universe. It is not really a model for themepark games where people tend to follow the same "flow" as they move from zone to zone.
The Elder Scrolls Online handles things slightly differently. Each guild has its own auction house. Each guild is capped at 500 members. But a player can belong to up to 5 guilds at the same time. So most players will end up joining two or three "trade" guilds, which are dedicated to trading. This does give a decent selection, and also allows for a bit of arbitrage between guilds.
The downsides here are that it does seem a little weird to have these continent-spanning guilds which cannot talk to each other. As well, most guilds will want their 500 players to be active. I'm not sure how someone who plays very casually, maybe logging in once or twice a week, would fit into these guilds. Too many of these types of players, and your guild market becomes dead.
All in all, this is an intriguing problem. As more and more MMOs move towards the single-server model, it will be interesting to see what new solutions are brought forward.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
The End of Side Quests?
There was a surprising tidbit on MMO-Champion yesterday:
- The Jade Forest quests had a very clear story, but it also had a lot of side quests that could bog you down.
- In Warlords of Draenor, your map will show you where to go to continue the main storyline, along with the locations of bonus objectives.
- The bonus objectives no longer have any story text that go with them, just a list of objectives. Now when there is quest text, you will know that it is really worth reading.
I am more surprised and dismayed by this than anything else I've seen about WoD.
I know a lot of people skip quest text, but aren't there a fair number of us who don't? Back when it was still an option, I used to turn scrolling quest text back on when leveling so I could focus on the story.
I am not really thrilled with this decision. In fact, I thought a major complaint about Cataclysm was the extreme linearity of the zones. A single main storyline sounds like it will be even more linear than Cataclysm was.
I also liked side-quest stories because they would often give different perspectives on the situation. Maybe the three quest givers would send you to the same place, but each had different priorities. Now there will always be one quest and one priority.
This was one of the complaints I had about Guild Wars 2:
What I find is that this lacks context, lacks those small stories that weave together. For example, in Elwynn Forest in WoW, I really enjoy the Young Lovers questline. It's nothing amazing, you take a note from Maybell Maclure to Tommy Joe Stonefield, get Grandma Stonefield to direct you to her old suitor, the alchemist William Pestle, kill some mulocs for ingredients for an invisibility potion, and give the potion to Maybell so she can elope. Nothing amazing, just a short little story. But I guess I'm a romantic at heart, so I always enjoy doing that questline.
The thing is that, so far, the hearts in GW2 really lack that. They're just a bar on the screen to be filled with repetitive tasks. And the tasks don't really build on each other to form a story, except in the vaguest, most general sense. (There are bandits attacking the farm. You kill the bandits. The farm is saved.) It's also very UI-driven. At least normal questing has a semblance of interacting with the people in the world.
Now, in the end, maybe normal questing is just the same. That the stories of side quests are just an illusion, a fig leaf over reality, and it's all about filling up many smaller bars instead of one bigger bar. But it turns out that I like--and maybe even need--that illusion.
GW2 Hearts are quests for people who think that skipping through instant quest text is too much work.
Now WoW decides to follow in those footsteps. Apparently quests in WoD are quests for people who think that skipping through instant quest text is too much work.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
The Long Wait For Warlords of Draenor
It's pretty apparent to everyone that the current drought of content in WoW is going to be the longest since the game began.
It's rather interesting in light of how the expansion began. The first few patches came really fast. Almost too fast, in my opinion. Blizzard could have easily added another month to each of 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3. That would have spread out the content better.
But they didn't. At that point in time, Blizzard obviously believed that they would hit the deadline for the faster schedule. So I wonder what changed.
My theory is that they had to scrap a lot of already designed work and restart at some point. Maybe it wasn't up to their standards, or just wasn't working out.
Another possibility is that they wanted to make significant technical changes (perhaps the change to the new file format), and that ended up taking significantly longer than expected. Though I am not really certain that significant technical changes would have held up all the content generation.
I don't think, however, that Blizzard is delaying the expansion because they can, or because the "suits" felt it was the path to maximum revenue. Rather, I think something happened after the start of Mists, probably after 6.3, that made delaying the expansion the lesser of two evils.
It's rather interesting in light of how the expansion began. The first few patches came really fast. Almost too fast, in my opinion. Blizzard could have easily added another month to each of 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3. That would have spread out the content better.
But they didn't. At that point in time, Blizzard obviously believed that they would hit the deadline for the faster schedule. So I wonder what changed.
My theory is that they had to scrap a lot of already designed work and restart at some point. Maybe it wasn't up to their standards, or just wasn't working out.
Another possibility is that they wanted to make significant technical changes (perhaps the change to the new file format), and that ended up taking significantly longer than expected. Though I am not really certain that significant technical changes would have held up all the content generation.
I don't think, however, that Blizzard is delaying the expansion because they can, or because the "suits" felt it was the path to maximum revenue. Rather, I think something happened after the start of Mists, probably after 6.3, that made delaying the expansion the lesser of two evils.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Azeroth Choppers
I often find the MMO community to be rather snobbish and close-minded.
Take Blizzard's latest advertising venture, Azeroth Choppers:
It's an interesting effort to cross over into a market that may not have yet played WoW. At this point, the gaming community is probably saturated, with everyone at least having tried WoW.
Plus the existing mechano-hog/chopper in game are very popular mounts, especially since they were the first ones to allow passengers with the sidecar.
I think Blizzard should do more of this style of marketing. Some of it will work, some of it won't. But I think it shows some degree of inventiveness.
Heh, I think Blizzard should make an effort to sneak a Warcraft novel into the romance section of the bookstore. A full-out bodice-ripper. They could hire a recognized author in the romance genre. The trick would be to downplay the Warcraft part enough so that the bookstores don't automatically class the novel as fantasy. It would be interesting to see if they could pull that off.
Actually, to me, the most interesting part of Azeroth Choppers is that Blizzard is comfortable with giving a reward to only one faction. Or put another way, giving the reward to all players, but only allowing characters of one faction to use it. Both those formulations are the same thing, but they sound very different.
Take Blizzard's latest advertising venture, Azeroth Choppers:
It's an interesting effort to cross over into a market that may not have yet played WoW. At this point, the gaming community is probably saturated, with everyone at least having tried WoW.
Plus the existing mechano-hog/chopper in game are very popular mounts, especially since they were the first ones to allow passengers with the sidecar.
I think Blizzard should do more of this style of marketing. Some of it will work, some of it won't. But I think it shows some degree of inventiveness.
Heh, I think Blizzard should make an effort to sneak a Warcraft novel into the romance section of the bookstore. A full-out bodice-ripper. They could hire a recognized author in the romance genre. The trick would be to downplay the Warcraft part enough so that the bookstores don't automatically class the novel as fantasy. It would be interesting to see if they could pull that off.
Actually, to me, the most interesting part of Azeroth Choppers is that Blizzard is comfortable with giving a reward to only one faction. Or put another way, giving the reward to all players, but only allowing characters of one faction to use it. Both those formulations are the same thing, but they sound very different.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Holy Paladin Talents in Warlords
Let's take a look at the upcoming level 100 Holy Paladin talents in Warlords of Draenor.
The first thing to note is that Blizzard is effectively making different talents for each spec. The three Holy talents are completely different than the Retribution and Protection talents. Retribution and Protection do share two talents, but have a different third talent.
Beacon of Faith - Mark a second target as a Beacon, mimicking the effects of Beacon of Light.
Pretty straightforward, but also very easy to use and understand. Great in raids where you can simply beacon both tanks. In 5-mans, it's probably weaker, but you can always beacon yourself and not have to worry about your own health.
Note that if AoE healing becomes significantly weaker, this might prove to be quite powerful, as you are now healing three people at the same time with your single-target spells.
Beacon of Insight - Places a beacon of insight on an ally, increasing their healing received from your next direct single-target heal within 1 min by 30%. When consumed, or when the target reaches full health, it moves to the most injured ally within 40 yards. Limit 1.
One of your injured allies will always have a buff giving a boost to your heal. However, it is a little unpredictable in practice, as it will bounce around the group. But as it always bounces to the the most-injured ally, that probably is the one you should heal.
Heh, in some respects, this reminds me of that old Vanilla mod which would arrange players by health, and the healer would just heal the top bar. You could probably do a semi-decent job just by chasing the beacon around.
One open question is how Blizzard defines "most injured". Is it most injured as percent of health, as absolute amount of health remaining, or absolute amount of health lost? Each of those scenarios results in slightly different patterns in the bouncing. For example, absolute amount of health lost means the beacon will usually jump to a tank. Absolute amount of health remaining means it will probably bounce around the dps.
Saved by the Light - When you or your Beacon of Light target drop below 30% health, you instantly grant the injured target a protective shield, absorbing up to 30% of their maximum health for 10 sec. You cannot shield the same person this way twice within 1 min.
I will assume that this means that if you drop below 30%, you get a shield. If the beacon target drops below 30%, she gets a shield.
This is excellent for single tank fights, giving your tank another emergency cooldown. I don't think the personal shield will see much use in PvE, but it's always helpful to have. I can see this being the talent of choice in PvP, though.
The thing about this talent is that if things go well, it will never be used. But it might also be the factor which prevents a wipe and results in a successful kill. It's very strong against unexpected spikes.
On the other hand, the other two talents will straight up increase your throughput. That increased throughput might prevent the tank from ever getting that low in the first place.
Conclusions
I think all three talents are pretty interesting. I would probably use Beacon of Faith for raids, and one of the other two for 5-mans. But I can see it depending a lot on the fight and what your assignment is.
The first thing to note is that Blizzard is effectively making different talents for each spec. The three Holy talents are completely different than the Retribution and Protection talents. Retribution and Protection do share two talents, but have a different third talent.
Beacon of Faith - Mark a second target as a Beacon, mimicking the effects of Beacon of Light.
Pretty straightforward, but also very easy to use and understand. Great in raids where you can simply beacon both tanks. In 5-mans, it's probably weaker, but you can always beacon yourself and not have to worry about your own health.
Note that if AoE healing becomes significantly weaker, this might prove to be quite powerful, as you are now healing three people at the same time with your single-target spells.
Beacon of Insight - Places a beacon of insight on an ally, increasing their healing received from your next direct single-target heal within 1 min by 30%. When consumed, or when the target reaches full health, it moves to the most injured ally within 40 yards. Limit 1.
One of your injured allies will always have a buff giving a boost to your heal. However, it is a little unpredictable in practice, as it will bounce around the group. But as it always bounces to the the most-injured ally, that probably is the one you should heal.
Heh, in some respects, this reminds me of that old Vanilla mod which would arrange players by health, and the healer would just heal the top bar. You could probably do a semi-decent job just by chasing the beacon around.
One open question is how Blizzard defines "most injured". Is it most injured as percent of health, as absolute amount of health remaining, or absolute amount of health lost? Each of those scenarios results in slightly different patterns in the bouncing. For example, absolute amount of health lost means the beacon will usually jump to a tank. Absolute amount of health remaining means it will probably bounce around the dps.
Saved by the Light - When you or your Beacon of Light target drop below 30% health, you instantly grant the injured target a protective shield, absorbing up to 30% of their maximum health for 10 sec. You cannot shield the same person this way twice within 1 min.
I will assume that this means that if you drop below 30%, you get a shield. If the beacon target drops below 30%, she gets a shield.
This is excellent for single tank fights, giving your tank another emergency cooldown. I don't think the personal shield will see much use in PvE, but it's always helpful to have. I can see this being the talent of choice in PvP, though.
The thing about this talent is that if things go well, it will never be used. But it might also be the factor which prevents a wipe and results in a successful kill. It's very strong against unexpected spikes.
On the other hand, the other two talents will straight up increase your throughput. That increased throughput might prevent the tank from ever getting that low in the first place.
Conclusions
I think all three talents are pretty interesting. I would probably use Beacon of Faith for raids, and one of the other two for 5-mans. But I can see it depending a lot on the fight and what your assignment is.
Wednesday, April 09, 2014
First Impressions of The Elder Scrolls Online
I am not yet sure if The Elder Scrolls Online is a good game. But if you have any interest in MMOs from an observational or theoretical point of view, you really should give this game a spin.
ESO does so many things differently from what has become the norm. It is worth seeing exactly how things change.
For example, there is no minimap. I found this to be a surprisingly huge change. Apparently I primarily navigate by minimap, rather than looking at the world. The loss of the minimap seems to force you into the world a bit more, make you navigate by recognizing landmarks.
It's also amusing that your character uses a map animation when you bring up the map. So a very common sight is seeing other adventurers standing around looking at their map. Everyone is slightly lost and trying to figure out where they are.
ESO is the first game in a while that feels like it is in a world once again, rather than a highly-choreographed play or façade.
Character Creation
Character creation is pretty extensive. There are 9 races (though most are variants of human and elf) that give you a base to work with. There's a billion sliders where you can change your face and body shape.
I'm beginning to hate these slider-based character creators. I'm terrible with them. I simply cannot make a decent-looking character. I'll get something that is not bad, but then I'll log in a day later and it just looks worse and worse.
Sadly, I'm beginning to look at extensive character creators as a negative. The game company artists are much better than me at this sort of stuff, and I would prefer to leverage their expertise.
Basics
The game can be played in first or third person. I switched to third person pretty quickly, mostly because it is what I am used to. The mouse is locked to the center of the screen, and pretty much everything is handled by targeting the element and pressing E.
The color scheme is more towards the realistic, rather than the cartoony. It seems fine to me.
There are tons of barrels and bags that you can ransack. Most of them have pretty useless stuff, but this seems traditional for an Elder Scrolls game.
Abilities
The ability system is pretty interesting. It's a cross between a point-based system and a use-based system. Basically skills come from a lot of different areas. Some come from your class, some come from the type of weapon you use, some from armor, some from your race, etc. You can invest points in picking up skills, and put 5-6 skills on your bar. Those 5-6 skills level up as you do stuff.
The skill system is a bit wide open. You can take healing abilities as any class, or tanking abilities. Of course, the class skills emphasize the role, so I don't know how effective going against type will be.
Combat
Combat consists of your hotkeys, plus left-click to attack, hold left-click to do a big attack, right-click to block, right-click + left-click to interrupt. It is certainly serviceable, and is "good enough".
However, my first thought after engaging in combat was "I wish the TERA team had done this combat." Combat is very similar to TERA combat, only TERA combat is far superior in performance and responsiveness.
Heh, in a lot of ways, ESO world-building and design, combined with TERA combat, would have been an amazing game.
Questing
Quests are interesting. There are relatively few of them, but they are long, multi-stage affairs. You can only track one quest at a time, which somewhat forces you to focus.
As well, there's lots of activities that aren't tied into the formal questing system. For example, I found a treasure map on a pirate I killed. It showed a sketch of a tower on a hill, with several large rocks in the foreground. As I was wandering around, I saw the tower. I found the correct perspective that matched the sketch, and dug where the map was marked. And I found treasure!
All that didn't involve the formal quest system at all.
Conclusions
I am not very far in yet. I cannot tell you whether The Elder Scrolls Online is a good game or a bad game. But I can say for certain that it is an interesting game. And sometimes, that's enough.
ESO does so many things differently from what has become the norm. It is worth seeing exactly how things change.
For example, there is no minimap. I found this to be a surprisingly huge change. Apparently I primarily navigate by minimap, rather than looking at the world. The loss of the minimap seems to force you into the world a bit more, make you navigate by recognizing landmarks.
It's also amusing that your character uses a map animation when you bring up the map. So a very common sight is seeing other adventurers standing around looking at their map. Everyone is slightly lost and trying to figure out where they are.
ESO is the first game in a while that feels like it is in a world once again, rather than a highly-choreographed play or façade.
Character Creation
Character creation is pretty extensive. There are 9 races (though most are variants of human and elf) that give you a base to work with. There's a billion sliders where you can change your face and body shape.
I'm beginning to hate these slider-based character creators. I'm terrible with them. I simply cannot make a decent-looking character. I'll get something that is not bad, but then I'll log in a day later and it just looks worse and worse.
Sadly, I'm beginning to look at extensive character creators as a negative. The game company artists are much better than me at this sort of stuff, and I would prefer to leverage their expertise.
Basics
The game can be played in first or third person. I switched to third person pretty quickly, mostly because it is what I am used to. The mouse is locked to the center of the screen, and pretty much everything is handled by targeting the element and pressing E.
The color scheme is more towards the realistic, rather than the cartoony. It seems fine to me.
There are tons of barrels and bags that you can ransack. Most of them have pretty useless stuff, but this seems traditional for an Elder Scrolls game.
Abilities
The ability system is pretty interesting. It's a cross between a point-based system and a use-based system. Basically skills come from a lot of different areas. Some come from your class, some come from the type of weapon you use, some from armor, some from your race, etc. You can invest points in picking up skills, and put 5-6 skills on your bar. Those 5-6 skills level up as you do stuff.
The skill system is a bit wide open. You can take healing abilities as any class, or tanking abilities. Of course, the class skills emphasize the role, so I don't know how effective going against type will be.
Combat
Combat consists of your hotkeys, plus left-click to attack, hold left-click to do a big attack, right-click to block, right-click + left-click to interrupt. It is certainly serviceable, and is "good enough".
However, my first thought after engaging in combat was "I wish the TERA team had done this combat." Combat is very similar to TERA combat, only TERA combat is far superior in performance and responsiveness.
Heh, in a lot of ways, ESO world-building and design, combined with TERA combat, would have been an amazing game.
Questing
Quests are interesting. There are relatively few of them, but they are long, multi-stage affairs. You can only track one quest at a time, which somewhat forces you to focus.
As well, there's lots of activities that aren't tied into the formal questing system. For example, I found a treasure map on a pirate I killed. It showed a sketch of a tower on a hill, with several large rocks in the foreground. As I was wandering around, I saw the tower. I found the correct perspective that matched the sketch, and dug where the map was marked. And I found treasure!
All that didn't involve the formal quest system at all.
Conclusions
I am not very far in yet. I cannot tell you whether The Elder Scrolls Online is a good game or a bad game. But I can say for certain that it is an interesting game. And sometimes, that's enough.
Tuesday, April 08, 2014
Draenor Perks
From the patch notes:
As you can see, these are small passives that boost your abilities. Something to make up for missing talents while leveling. Something you gain at each level. Yet at max level, every character will have all the perks.
The only problem I have is with the fact that the perks will be given out randomly. I don't think this is a good idea. It will lead to more disappointment.
To see what I mean, imagine you are a masochist and leveling as Holy during the expac. You look at the perks at level 90, and you really hope that you get Improved Denounce or Empowered Holy Shock at 91, as those two will greatly help with questing. However, you only have a 2/9 or 22% chance of getting what you want. 88% of the time, you will be disappointed.
Randomness is not a good idea for one-time rewards. Imagine that there is a quest which rewarded 1 of 3 different mounts. But the mount a player gets is randomly determined from those three. There would be great unhappiness, as 66% of the population would not get the mount they wanted.
Another example happened to me in Diablo 3 a couple days ago. The first time you kill the last boss in D3, you are guaranteed a Legendary. I got an amazing staff, with 50% more DPS than my current weapon, gobs of intellect, and two other much-desired stats. Unfortunately, I was playing a Crusader.
(At least my Enchantress follower is happy. On paper she now does twice as much damage as my Crusader.)
The same principle was involved. A one-time reward was determined randomly, and the potential for disappointment was higher because of it. Randomness really only works when content is repeatable.
Blizzard should either allow us to choose which perk we get as we level, or give out the perks in a set order. The perks are not an appropriate place for randomness. People will end up associating Draenor Perks with disappointment. It is very unlikely that they will be lucky enough to get the Perks they want when they want them.
Draenor Perks is a new feature that adds rewards for leveling. Over levels 91 to 99, you will earn these 9 new Draenor Perk in a random order. Each class and specialization has a different set of 9 Draenor Perks.The perks for Holy Paladins are:
- Empowered Beacon of Light - Your single-target heals heal your Beacon of Light target for 10% more.
- Improved Daybreak - Increases the healing from Daybreak by 100%.
- Improved Holy Light - Increases the healing from Holy Light by 20%.
- Improved Denounce - Increases the damage done by Denounce by 20%.
- Empowered Holy Shock - Increases the damage done by Holy Shock by 20%.
- Enhanced Holy Shock - Your Holy Light and Flash of Light have a 10% chance to cause your next Holy Shock to not trigger a cooldown.
- Improved Flash of Light - Increases the healing Flash of Light by 20%.
As you can see, these are small passives that boost your abilities. Something to make up for missing talents while leveling. Something you gain at each level. Yet at max level, every character will have all the perks.
The only problem I have is with the fact that the perks will be given out randomly. I don't think this is a good idea. It will lead to more disappointment.
To see what I mean, imagine you are a masochist and leveling as Holy during the expac. You look at the perks at level 90, and you really hope that you get Improved Denounce or Empowered Holy Shock at 91, as those two will greatly help with questing. However, you only have a 2/9 or 22% chance of getting what you want. 88% of the time, you will be disappointed.
Randomness is not a good idea for one-time rewards. Imagine that there is a quest which rewarded 1 of 3 different mounts. But the mount a player gets is randomly determined from those three. There would be great unhappiness, as 66% of the population would not get the mount they wanted.
Another example happened to me in Diablo 3 a couple days ago. The first time you kill the last boss in D3, you are guaranteed a Legendary. I got an amazing staff, with 50% more DPS than my current weapon, gobs of intellect, and two other much-desired stats. Unfortunately, I was playing a Crusader.
(At least my Enchantress follower is happy. On paper she now does twice as much damage as my Crusader.)
The same principle was involved. A one-time reward was determined randomly, and the potential for disappointment was higher because of it. Randomness really only works when content is repeatable.
Blizzard should either allow us to choose which perk we get as we level, or give out the perks in a set order. The perks are not an appropriate place for randomness. People will end up associating Draenor Perks with disappointment. It is very unlikely that they will be lucky enough to get the Perks they want when they want them.
Monday, April 07, 2014
Tank Vengeance and Resolve
Most of the WoD patch notes are fairly straightforward. But there is one part I don't really understand:
However, as I understand it, Resolve means that a tank who is not taking damage is squishier than a tank who is taking damage.
But if the tank is not taking damage, does it really matter that she is squishier?
Or to put it another way, there's an equation that should balance in a successful fight:
Incoming Damage = Healing from Others + Self Healing/Mitigation + Healing/Mitigation from Resolve
Why not just remove the Resolve term? You could directly boost the self healing/mitigation or lower the incoming damage, and the equation would still balance. Removing Resolve would simplify things, and not create weird situations like a successful parry/dodge streak that causes Resolve to drop off.
I understood the purpose of Vengeance, and why it was structured the way it was. But I don't understand the purpose of Resolve. I don't see what it adds to the game.
I understood Vengeance. Vengeance boosted the damage and threat of the tank who is actually tanking, not one acting as DPS. It was important to differentiate between the two types, in order to prevent tanks from pushing out actual DPS characters from the raid.
- Vengeance has been removed and replaced with a new passive ability, Resolve.
- Resolve: Increases your healing and absorption done to yourself, based on Stamina and damage taken (before avoidance and mitigation) in the last 10 seconds.
However, as I understand it, Resolve means that a tank who is not taking damage is squishier than a tank who is taking damage.
But if the tank is not taking damage, does it really matter that she is squishier?
Or to put it another way, there's an equation that should balance in a successful fight:
Incoming Damage = Healing from Others + Self Healing/Mitigation + Healing/Mitigation from Resolve
Why not just remove the Resolve term? You could directly boost the self healing/mitigation or lower the incoming damage, and the equation would still balance. Removing Resolve would simplify things, and not create weird situations like a successful parry/dodge streak that causes Resolve to drop off.
I understood the purpose of Vengeance, and why it was structured the way it was. But I don't understand the purpose of Resolve. I don't see what it adds to the game.
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