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The nail in the head of Warhammer

Submitted by Abalieno on August 28, 2008 - 11:12.

Despite all the praises about the gameplay and design choices, there are still those glaring flaws that I and others pointed out... years ago.

In this case I quote someone else, as a good summary:

There are 7 public quests (that I know of) in the first Chaos zone alone. That means you’d need 42 to 70 people in that zone working on public quests to do them all at once. I even ran into one completely empty PQ over the weekend even though almost every Chaos player was in that zone.

Will there ever be that many people working on PQs in the same low level zone after the first week or two after launch? Probably not.

I suspected that they would dynamically scale public quests based on the number of players currently participating. When I found a PQ that nobody else was doing, I worked my butt off and completed the first stage alone. Then Champion mobs spawned in stage 2, and I was screwed. So, it looks like they aren’t doing any sort of scaling.

Unfortunately, even though public quests are extremely fun, I fear they won’t even be doable throughout the majority of the game for those of us who will get behind the curve. As soon as I fall behind the pack, which inevitably I will, I’ll be unable to do any PQs until the end game.

I was able to have a similar experience in the second chaos zone, even with 2500 players logged in. Not exactly during an off-peak. And not even weeks or months or years after a server launch.

There's a way to sum it up in an even more significant way:
- Too many parts of Warhammer's core design are strictly dependent on keeping a fine balance on the number of players participating, and so vulnerable. It's not about PQs only. It's about PQs, faction balance in open RvR, issues of overcrowding and depopulation in all the parts of the game. The *fun* strictly depends on that fine balance, to keep all the options viable at all times, and to keep the single option fun without suffering overcrowding or depopulation.

Right now Mythic does absolutely nothing to preserve that fine balance, and down the road I only expect XP, renown bonuses/disadvantages for a faction or the other that won't really move anything in any significant way.

There are certain workarounds that may help, some of which I also suggested (de-levelling, multiple scenarios queues, adaptable objectives for PQs). But to me it's very clear that this game required to be built different at its core.

- Dynamic server structure with a mix of persistence and instancing. Server(zone) created dynamically depending on the number of players. Something like a creative use of Guild Wars system.

Certain design schemes need their specific systems to work. Or they just remain pretty ideas that do not work in practice.

The scheme Mythic's adopting here will have its flaws hidden or sweetened for a while, but it will hurt them hard in the long term.

Filed in: Ravings | Tinfoil hats | Warhammer

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Re: The nail in the head of Warhammer

Hic (not verified) on August 28, 2008 - 12:10.

one of the first thing you learn in a programming course is not to make things static (for example, using "magic numbers" instead of variables or using a "for x from 1 to 10" instead of having 10 different lines counting 1 to 10). I'm not in the beta, but if they truly made stuff like that then they need to go back class.

it's so easy to have, for example, the damage and hp of mobs getting multiplied by the number of players currently in the quest, hence, providing low damage and hp to solo runners and a challenge to groups (in between boundaries, I mean, for example, minimum the hp equivalent for 3 players and max for 10, so not to make it too hard for bigger groups nor too easy for soloing).

But I guess you go to university to forget anything, and then push on with some dumb one-sided notion that you think is an universal truth.

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Re: The nail in the head of Warhammer

Avenger (not verified) on August 28, 2008 - 13:27.

Although I absolutely agree in principle that this is not optimal design I think both you and Ryan at nerfbat are being a bit too purist on the subject of PQs and are looking at it only from developer point of view.

PQs will be awesome at launch from what I hear - everybody agrees on that I think. They will be a great selling point especially when comes to word of mouth immediately after launch - hell they already are :)

After the initial wave of subs there are two things that will keep PQs alive for a decent period of time:
- The population of MMOs does not move forward at the same speed - people level at very different speeds so the population of a server spreads out across levels.
- After the initial launch, assuming WAR is even a moderate success, it will enter a period of growth in population for the first 3 months at least. This will bring new level 1 players moving up the ranks. Everquest II and City of Heroes for both more or less doubled their population in the first 3 months after launch, while WoW eve tripled it. (Ref: mmogchart.com).

Of course after the period of initial growth is over the effect you predict will start to kick in in full force, but by then PQs would have served Mythic very very well. My point is that although you're absolutely correct there really is no reason why Mythic would care about this problem at this stage even if they are aware of it.

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Re: The nail in the head of Warhammer

Innsmouth on August 28, 2008 - 15:13.

That's why I said that the impact of the problem will come later.

One strength that permitted WoW's continued growth is the possibility to solo and so not depend on the players' activity. Warhammer's strength is in the variety of gameplay, but this remains a strength only when all options are viable and always accessible.

Where you are "wrong" is that EACH of those options is going to suffer from the way the system works. Every part. PQs, Scenarios and world PvP all depend on players' activity to be fun. Every time the fine balance of the parts is not preserved, the experience will be soured.

As I said there are *already* instances of PQs not being fun (both for overcrowding and depopulation). Same as with Scenarios not starting due to faction imbalances (queues longer than an hour). Same for world PvP regulated by the turn of the tide.

Right now ALL those problems are already present, but they are still bland. Over time they will become critical, and faster than you expect.

And why caring "at this stage"? Because at this stage is already too late. These are basic schemes on which the game was built. These are the foundations.

1- The house eventually falls if the foundations aren't solid.
2- It's not simple to go back and fix the foundations when the house is already built.

It's simply about having a long term vision.

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Re: The nail in the head of Warhammer

TheDog (not verified) on August 28, 2008 - 18:41.

Keep in mind that you dont need a group of 40 people to do Pq's. i actually did one with 4 people. we had a tank, 2 healers and 1 dps. It took us about 10 minutes straight on fighting the boss alone, but we did it.

its a good point you bring up, but not as critical as it appears at first glance :)

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