Return of Reckoning

Also **** those people... Because competitive play is the only way to play, and if you're not with me and my reasons for playing ... you're my enemy and i will do everything i can to condescend to you and your idiot viewpoint.
[ For those of you in the audience about to reply: that's irony/satire kids. -- For those -still- about to reply: I ACTUALLY THINK THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. [ see: irony/satire ] ]

I don't think it's so much MMO's, but the combat system... tab target combat specifically.

Skill in this game is I don't know the word, "unexciting"? Our guild is full of nerds, and we always catch awesome plays and comment on them, but it's extremely rare. For instance last night our RP timed perfectly his stagger on a SW that was self punting (extremely small window of success) and that was cool and "exciting" but doesn't happen often, and really the opportunity doesn't show itself much in this game.

A lot of "good" plays come down things like knowing when to switch targets, when to get out, calling out certain things, dropping buffs, predicting your enemy. Not really spectator sports type things but stuff only people who are deeply invested in the game get. For instance most people into video games could watch csgo and "get it" and appreciate the good plays, but someone whos never played dota watching it would probably think it's like watching paint dry, this game falls into that latter category.

If the reason as to why balance changes are futile and must come to an end is that vertical progression inherently alters game balance (which I think we've established by now), why not opt for horizontal progression? Balance careers as they are now with annihilator, and each new set that is introduced is not a vertical upgrade (higher stats) but a horizontal one (different stats or benefits.)

This way, you're not dealing with scaling issues each new set, only the different interactions. A great example of this is team fortress 2. Each of the 9 classes are balanced around their base loadout, and every new item has advantages and disadvantages over the base item. If a new item causes balance issues, it's immediately identifiable and can be addressed directly rather than having to go back into the simultaneous balancing of 24 different classes.

Stmichael1989 wrote:If the reason as to why balance changes are futile and must come to an end is that vertical progression inherently alters game balance (which I think we've established by now), why not opt for horizontal progression? Balance careers as they are now with annihilator, and each new set that is introduced is not a vertical upgrade (higher stats) but a horizontal one (different stats or benefits.)

This way, you're not dealing with scaling issues each new set, only the different interactions. A great example of this is team fortress 2. Each of the 9 classes are balanced around their base loadout, and every new item has advantages and disadvantages over the base item. If a new item causes balance issues, it's immediately identifiable and can be addressed directly rather than having to go back into the simultaneous balancing of 24 different classes.

Wouldn't this limit the amount of styles you can play to your current rank? I don't know how it's done in TF2 so I'm just asking.

How about this idea. A system that sort of merges the horizontal and vertical progression. So, when you hit T4 there is a number of different gear sets that enable you to play a certain style. Quite like the current situation with anni and merc gear. Why would we not expand on this? There is a pretty big amount of different looking gear in the game files I'm sure, even gear that was never used, and that gives you quite a lot of possibilities. So as you grow in rank, those sets also grow in tiers, meaning their stats increase. It doesn't have to be anything major, so it would still give you a sense of progression. Maybe on the very high end gear there could be some sort of a proc or a different stat. But again, it would have to be well balanced and nothing major, just to give you that sense of not having exactly the same gear all the time, and to make you a bit different from everyone else since you played so much to achieve that rank. Perhaps you could even tie some abilties to gear, but I don't know if that's a good idea, as there are not that many abilites for classes anyway.

Of course, this would require a lot of thinking. There is only a certain amount of viable and reasonable builds each class can have, as WAR is not like, say, Path of Exile, where certain classes can have almost the same build, and where the lvling tree is the shared by every class.

As I never got even close to rr 100 on live, I don't know if this was actually the system they used. Personally, I don't currently see huge flaws with what I just described. But there could very well be flaws of course, as I didn't put too much time into this idea, it's kind of brain stroming.

@Stilton: I again wrote a big wall of text but I really can't see what it has to do with this topic so I'll be brief. If you're so interested in using "empathy" to further rational discussion (what?) then I invite you to somehow fit and insert your flawed opinion that you call objective into this fact:

MMORPGs - Notice the RPG part, the acronym stands for Roleplaying Game. Do you know what roleplaying entails? Character progression. Are you claiming MMORPGs don't need character progression? Because taking away WAR's gear progression is essentially neutering all progression, leaving a shell of a game. Or are you claiming that WAR isn't an MMORPG? I'm confused as to what your claims are, apart from the fact that you don't like grinding.

Or am I missing something here? Please enlighten me with your objective opinions.

blaqwar wrote: Because taking away WAR's gear progression is essentially neutering all progression, leaving a shell of a game..

I dont think that character progression is 100% linked to get gear progression. When grow in RR u hace access to new RPS to train new abilities.
My first MMORPG (and the best fun i ever had playing) was DAOC, and there was no gear progression through pvp rank, usually u run with the same gear at level 50 once u get a good template (always through pve/craft). The "only" thing u get doing rvr was RPS to train abilities (and ofc a bunch of fun doing it), and ppl keep going out rvr every day without complain about "rewards". well, there was a power gap between low/hig RR ranks, not in gear/stats but yes in abilities (mostly with very high cooldowns-like 30 mins)....well that was the "old times" and maybe the things works in a different way right now...