I wrote part of this as a reply to a discussion over at Wizards and Wenches. Folks were discussing the contribution system that is used to determine the loot at the end of a Keep siege. Currently the system decides how much you contributed, via some equation that nobody understands, and gives you a bonus number of points between 0 and 500 that is then added to a random number between 1 and 1000. There was a poll there, and most people felt that more weight should be given to the contribution, and less to the random number. Many felt the random roll should be removed altogether. I could not disagree more.
The problem is the contribution system does not work. The system is mysterious, and usually it is hard to tell whether it is working or not. Occasionally we come across a clear example that it is not based on any measure of contribution that rational beings would recognise. For instance this recent example of a chicken getting a silver medal for contribution.
Even if it was not completely broken, and I know opinions differ on whether it is or not, different actions are weighted differently. Think of all the different ways people can contribute during a Keep Siege. There are the obvious things like doing damage, healing, and tanking. But also you have the people who actually bring the rams, organise the troops, keep the enemy players off the backs of the folks fighting the Lord.
As an Engineer, for instance, I am treated harshly even by a non-bugged contribution system. I don’t heal, I certainly don’t tank, and I’m not going to be out-damaging a lot of folks. I do root, I throw our foes off the battlements, I knock the Keep Lord and Champions on their backs as often as I can, and I protect our healers with my life. These things are not really rewarded by the contribution system, and it would be very difficult to programme one that did give proper credit for all possible actions that help the goal.
I would further move that a fair contribution system is impossible to create. All you can do is take some very crude metrics. People being people, some will focus on raising their score in those metrics even if it is not actually the most useful thing they could be doing. That penalises the people who really are concentrating on doing what is right for the group.
In my opinion, the only thing you can do is assume that everyone present is doing the best job that they can, which is, if we’re honest, usually true. That being the case I would remove the current contribution mechanism. Perhaps you could instead simply give a bonus for being there from the beginning instead of turning up at the keep late, as well as removing obvious AFKers from the roll completely. That would at least be easily understandable and rational. Because our classes are, by their nature, unequal, and our roles during a siege different, the contribution system as it stands is inherently unfair and should be removed.
Were it up to me, everybody who participated in the successful Keep Siege would be given a token. These tokens could be saved up to buy the rewards that currently come out of the various bags we get from the Keep Lord chests. Maybe it is the liberal in me, but I just feel that an equal reward for participation is the way to go. When I lead a warband to take a keep I think of us as a team, and I reckon it would be a good thing if the reward system thought of us as a team too.
Folks in Britain have recently been blocked from watching the Colbert Report on the official Comedy Central website. Apparently FOX has just bought the rights to show it here, and does not want us to be able to view it online.
However, I have discovered that if you use the embed links kindly provided on the Comedy Central site for the very purpose of putting on your own blog, the embedded video can be viewed from any nation, including Britain! To watch them, however, I need to embed them somewhere. That somewhere is here. Henceforth, as a public service, I’m going to try to remember to embed the whole damn episodes worth of clips every day. The Colbert Report is bitingly superb satire, a vital part of feeding my addiction to US politics, and I’m not about to let Mr Murdoch stop me from being able to watch it without a fight. You can find the clips below:
Continue reading The Colbert Report, 19th of November 2008
Dev : Right. For the next Event we’ve built a great new scenario. We’ve also made these nifty cloaks as a reward, and our players will have the opportunity to unlock the two new classes a week early. Pretty awesome, eh?
Boss Dev: Awesome indeed. Perhaps a little too awesome. Could you make it a bit more frustrating?
Dev: Umm, OK. Like how you made us add that massive influence grind to the Witching Night event?
Boss Dev: Exactly, but this time, design it so that many of our players can’t even take part! And for those that can, force them to play every single day for a week. So they have to choose between completing the event, and doing anything else with their lives! *Cackle*
GOA and Mythic know that there are many European servers that do not have scenarios any more. Makaisson, my server, has never had a tier 3 or tier 4 scenario, and I don’t imagine that it ever will.
Yet they designed the Heavy Metal event’s scenario, Reikland Factory, to need 18 people on each side. They also designed it so that you had to complete every daily task in order to gain the elite reward.
Predictably, on Makaisson, as well as many other servers, we cannot complete the daily tasks because we cannot get into the scenarios. (On Mak we can’t even get into the t1 version). Even on more populated servers, if you happen to play outside of prime-time, you have little chance of getting into the Reikland Factory.
On top of that, the Event is designed so that you have to play every single day, and complete every single task, in order to complete it. Punishing your players for taking a day off is not a healthy thing, and should not ever be considered as a mechanic for something like this.
The sensible and easy thing to do would have been to allow the Reikland Factory scenario to launch with fewer than 18 a side. That would also have been the solution to our never having had any t3 scenarios. For some reason, this option was discarded, causing a large proportion of WAR characters to not be able to participate in this much heralded live event.
Of course, last week GOA promised server transfers this week. This week there has been no information, and they chose to release Heavy Metal in Europe before enabling transfers. Leaving those of us on the dead servers (Frequently dead BECAUSE of the announcement that we were going to be transferred off) trapped, unable to take part in the event.
I shake my head. They take something that is good, a fun event, and through short-sightedness and apparent obliviousness to the state of their own game, they manage to turn it into something that brings annoyance rather than joy.
I have created a level 1 engineer on another server who is going to be trying to get the elite reward, as unlocking that will unlock the new classes on every server.
But I should not have to. And it does not help all my established characters, the ones I WANT to play, rather than the throwaway alt, get their cloaks.
On Makaisson, the global channels are filled with nothing but people being upset they can’t participate. THAT is what the Heavy Metal event means to those of us on underpopulated servers, while we wait for GOA to get around to letting us transfer. It is something that reduces, rather than increases, customer happiness.
US transfers started, what, a month ago? Europeans have still not been allowed to move. Equal service? Ha! It is like they are deliberately trying to make people not enjoy the game. I would actually like the opportunity to write a happy Warhammer post once in a while, instead of ones born of extreme irritation.
Mythic has good people making good things, but at some point in the process, someone is coming along and poisoning them with bad ideas. This person needs to be found, and put in charge of something less important than player enjoyment.
Makaisson has died. Those of us who remain wait for the server transfers to begin that we might once again find enemies to fight.
It was not like this until the last few days. It is true we had a low population, but we could always get a decent bit of RvR going. Once transfers became certainty, some people started alts on Burlok while they wait to be able to move their mains. Others, not wishing to move to Burlok, have rerolled on other servers already. Quite a few are so annoyed at being messed around that they’ve stormed off in a huff. No doubt some are trying out the new WoW expansion.
So why did this happen?
Staggering the launch of Makaisson to three days after Burlok meant it would always be the sickly sibling, instead of the healthy twin. Folks will gravitate to the highest population server, unless it is so full that there is queueing. I’ve seen this happen every time an MMO staggers its server launches, but they keep doing it. I would have been on Burlok myself if my guild hadn’t decided Burlok would be its destruction server.
Words have power. Words from a Dev can kill. The moment Makaisson was included on the list of transfer servers, our population nose-dived, which in turn caused the transfers to become necessary. A sort of corporate fait-accompli which really gets under my skin.
So it is with a certain amount of schadenfreude that I noticed this understated comment by Mark Jacobs yesterday:
As to our EU players, I know I’ve been rather quiet regarding Europe lately and I apologize for that but know that it isn’t because we aren’t paying attention or don’t care what is going on there. When we signed the deal with GOA we were assured that our European customers would be treated in the same way as our North American customers. We are aware of the issues that have been raised here and in other places. And that’s all I can say on that subject for now.
Maybe he is just making noises to pacify customers. Perhaps he is finally going to raise hell with GOA, and force them to either not be rubbish, or find a new partner. Given EA’s worldwide reach, I never understood why they can’t host the darn thing themselves.
It could be the final straw for Mythic was the situation this week wherein cancelled European WAR accounts were reactivated and put onto recurring billing. This has been rather lightly breezed over by the official GOA statement on their website, but I suspect it was quite impressively illegal.
Anyway, I’m sitting here in Altdorf, waiting for the server transfers to begin. We have been given a rather nebulous “probably this week”. The US, of course, had it’s transfers almost a month ago, once again bringing into question the commitment to provide Europe with an equal service.
Will Burlok be as much fun as Makaisson was? From what I hear, there is a lot of bullying and nonsense within the Order faction from the larger guilds towards the smaller ones. If that is the case, then we’ll have to see what we can do about it. I’ll be trying to help keep Makaissonians in touch with eachother, so we can stick together if confronted with hostility.
Destruction has all but evaporated on Makaisson. We could not find a single person to fight last night. But soon, perhaps. Soon I shall hunt again.
In a week or so, our players will be encouraged to move to Burlok, Europe’s only other Core RP server.
Most of us, the people of Makaisson, like our server fine. Our only issue was lack of scenarios, which could have been dealt with by fixing the parameters by which scenarios are launched, and a growing population.
Servers have to exist in pairs, because you cannot (and rightly so) have characters in both factions on a single server. That being the case, it is the height of foolishness to sacrifice one to save the other. BOTH must remain viable. Other server rulesets will be left 2 or more viable servers, but if the current plans go ahead, there will be only one viable Core RP server.
Makaisson’s problems originate from Burlok being opened 3 days before, instead of launching simultaneously. That unwise move ensured that Makaisson would always be behind on population.
We hoped that over time our population would build up, especially once we got the the holiday season. We’ve seen an influx of new folks recently, but with the news of transfers, we are doomed to dwindle away to nothing. New players will not come to Makaisson if they see everyone being encouraged to transfer away. Already we have been stripped of our low population xp and renown bonuses, to discourage people from starting here.
GOA could have helped our server by running some of those RP events that they’d promised us. They could have helped us by launching the servers simultaneously, instead of three days apart. They could have enough respect for their players to consult us before pulling the plug.
If people are allowed to transfer off Makaisson to Burlok, Makaisson will become completely beyond hope of fixing. So what will be the point of Makaisson even existing?
Save Our Server! Please, GOA, do not kill our community. Give us a chance to grow.
Please take the time to sign the Save Makaisson petition
Update: As it turns out we failed. Transfers will be going ahead as planned.
I wrote about this a week ago, but further information has been released in the latest Warhammer Online grab-bag from Mythic:
Zone control is based on several pools, each of which is worth a percentage. Together, these pools tally up to 100%. Every time a player is killed, a quest is finished, or a scenario is completed (win or lose), this contributes points towards zone control. Battlefield objectives (BOs) and Keeps are binary. This means that once you own a BO or a keep, you have a chunk of zone control points that don’t go away unless the enemy takes it from you.
Most everyone these days looks at the map, discovers that they own all the BOs and Keeps, and thinks that’s all that’s needed to capture a zone. This assumption is false! In order to control a zone, players also need to win Scenarios associated with that zone, do quests, and kill players in that zone. Zone Control is all about total dominance in everything involved with a Zone. You must push on all fronts!
Before anyone thinks they can get around giving the enemy points by not going to fight, we have a safeguard that grants points to the realm which is queuing, in case the other realm decides not to queue — Defend By Not Defending is what we call it. It takes longer for those points to accumulate, but if one realm decides not to queue for a Scenario in contested zones, the other Realm will get points towards zone control. This is similar to the forfeit rule in sports. Also note that points earned from queuing only gives points if you have enough players to launch 1 Scenario, not 50. This means that if Destruction has 500 players queued for a Scenario that requires 18 players to launch, they’re only getting credit for 18 players. This is to ensure that over populated Queues don’t get anything extra for having 500 in the queue or just 18.
BO’s and Keeps provide the same amount of control for both realms, in other words, if order owns a keep or BO, they get the same amount of control as Destruction does when they own them. Battlefield Objectives offer less control than Keeps. When a Keep is captured, the Zone Control bar will show much more movement than when a BO is captured.
Prior Zone control is a direct correlation to the points you get for the higher Tiers. For example, if Order owns 50% of Tier 3 in HE vs. DE, then 50% of that Prior Zone pool is carried over. If Order took over Tier 3 completely, they would not get 100% of the Prior Zone pool; they would simply get as many points as they have earned in that lower tier. The lower tiers don’t cap out at 65% either. Players can keep pumping points into the lower Tiers to get up to 90%+ ownership, which results in owning 90%+ of the Prior Zone control pool for higher Tiers.
Finally, points degrade over time in all of the pools except for the points contributed by BO and Keeps ownership simply because they are either owned or not owned by a realm. The reason that points degrade is to ensure that a stalemate doesn’t occur over long periods of point gains.
Now let’s look at a few situations:
The Zone control bar is pretty even between Order and Destruction, but Destruction owns all the BOs and Keeps in a zone. This means that Order is doing very well in Scenarios. Destruction needs to step it up in Scenarios to flip the zone.|
The Zone control bar is empty on Destruction, about half way for Order, and Order owns all the Keeps and BOs in a zone. This means that no one is fighting in Scenarios in that zone. Order needs to queue up and fight or Destruction needs to queue up and take BOs/Keeps to flip the zone.
The Zone control bar is about ¼ full for both Order and Destruction and BOs and Keeps are split 50/50. Usually this means that no one is fighting in Scenarios in that zone, or killing anyone in that zone at all.
So the long and short of it all? Fight on all fronts! Take BOs and Keeps, fight in Scenarios, kill players in open field…it all counts!
As I have mentioned before, on some servers, including my own, scenarios in the higher tiers simply do not happen. (This does mean we have a whole lot more open RvR than other servers. However, what this article seems to be saying to me is that without scenarios (or at least one side having enough people signed up to launch a scenario), that it is impossible for either side to take control of a zone. As each source of victory points has it’s own discrete cap, it just doesn’t seem possible. Without knowing the exact maths it’s hard to be certain, but that looks like what is being said.
Also this means, under the no-contest rule implemented in 1.0.4, that on servers where one side has enough to launch a scenario, and the other side does not, only the larger side can EVER take control of a zone. Doesn’t matter how good the smaller side is.
As I’ve said many times before, requiring 18 on each side for t3 scenarios is unreasonable. Reducing that requirement would go a long way to seeing scenarios launch on the lower population servers which are otherwise perfectly viable.
In any case (on servers that do have scenarios), I don’t want to have to leave to go play arena games in a pocket dimension during a pitched battle. I’m not against scenarios. They’re a lot of fun, and a great source of renown and xp. As currently implemented they should be left out of the zone control equation entirely.
Quests are another pool of victory points, but what if I’ve done them all in that zone? And anyway, why should I have to go fiddle around with PvE content in order to attain an RvR goal? If I’m doing that, I’m not in the RvR areas any more where I want to be. For the sake of pure PvE players, I am not completely against quests getting you some bonus points, but they should not be essential to gaining zone control.
Killing Players is another source of Victory points. This one is still vulnerable to the losing side withdrawing from the field to deny points. In any case, most of the time kills on both sides are not going to be vastly uneven. Sadly, the risk that my death would help the enemy get control of the zone is a discouragement to me trying to fight, unless the odds are in my favour. (We saw exactly this behaviour in the recent Witching Hours PQ.) Because of this I would remove this source of victory points altogether. We already fight for the objectives. Risk should not be deincentivised.
Prior Zone Control granting victory points is not something I have a huge problem with in theory. In practise, under the current rules, it means that there is a source of victory points for tier 3 that is entirely outside my ability to influence as Osgard. If I go to tier 2, I will turn into a chicken. If I have a tier 2 alt and load them up, that means I’m no longer available for fighting (or scenario queueing) in tier 3. It also means that I’m having to play a character other than my favourite one. Do I have to have a character in each tier in order to fully be able to affect my own tier, and do I have to keep making more characters every time one levels out of the tier?
Until higher tier characters can fight in the lower tier zones (Obviously de-powering us to the point that we’re on an equal footing with the normal residents of that tier. Or heck, make us slightly weaker than them. I’d be OK with that.), I can’t support this source of victory points. Also I’m always left wondering what happens when the lower tiers are all but deserted, and there are no longer any victory points bubbling up from below.
Conclusion.
The only source of victory points I support at the moment (I daresay there are other ways to get points that would work that no-ones thought of yet.) is the taking and holding of objectives and keeps. It needs to be possible for Open RvR to be sufficient to take control of a zone. I would suggest that the longer you hold an objective or keep, the more points it be worth (the amount would be capped, but controlling all of them for sufficent time would lead to zone control). That simple system would do everything needed to add urgency and excitement to Open RvR.
It just feels to me like the dev team is confused as to its goals. Are there two different teams working at cross-purposes, I wonder? Either they are trying to encourage open-world RvR, or they are not. I would appreciate it if they would make up their minds, and inform us of their decision.
|
|
