Remember my design challenges?

The second in particular was thought to balance the four “tiers” of the level up process, so that the fights between the players could be always fair and balanced and so that all content in the game was always accessible, removing some “barriers”.

This was done by “auto-levelling” an higher character entering a lower level zone. By delevelling that character to the max cap (along the recruit system) it was possible to keep the fights in a zone always balanced, while keeping all the game world accessible and playable all the time. Giving the players an open choice about where they prefer to fight.

So, for example, a tier 4 character could go fight not only in the tier 4 zones corresponding to his level, but also de-rank to 1, 2 or 3 and go fight in those lower-level zones. Permeable barriers, permeable tiers.

The point of the design challenges was to offer some design solutions founded on my ideas and watch if Mythic ones, in the case they differs from mine, were going to be better or worse than what I proposed.

We have already something. From the grab bag:

Q: Will a character of Tier 1 be able to compete at all, even if poorly, against a character of Tier 4? Will multiple Tier 1 characters be able to take on and defeat a Tier 4 character?

A: This is a question with many potential implications, so don’t read any more into this than my exact words. Also, please remember that we are still a long way from launch, and that this may change.

Higher tier players who enter lower tier zones will not be able to attack or be attacked by lower tier players. However, if a lower tier player wants to enter a higher tier zone, all bets are off, and attacking/being attacked can happen.

The specific answer to your question is that Tier 1 players cannot win a one on one fight with a Tier 4 player. A pack of Tier 1 players will be able to cause harm to a Tier 4. We have not yet set an exact level of intended damage (and it will vary hugely depending on the player and the circumstances), so I cannot give you a specific answer.

See the part I underlined. Yeah, lame.

I’m already winning ;)

There’s more. In my first design challenge I analyzed a way to coherently lay down the structure of Warhammer’s PvP based on the parts that they already disclosed: skirmishes, battlefields, scenarios and campaign.

In my proposed structure the skirmishes and battlefield were exactly how Mythic defined them. A persistent zone, with a PvP territory. You enter this territory and you can fight. My proposal was to use the “instanced” scenarios as a cohesive, automated part of the overall structure.

Basically players go normally fight in a battlefield. These are persistent. As there are enough “x” players on a battlefield, an instanced scenario is triggered and spawned automatically and all players in the battlefield ported over. So it’s an automated system that instances itself as there are enough players. The more players, the more instances are spawned. Not enough players and only one persistent zone is active.

This had multiple purposes, but it was also an idea to balance the load and the number of players engaged in PvP.

Here’s instead Mythic’s way:

Jump into a Scenario and you’ll be automatically grouped via our lobby system for a balanced fight. Scenarios are instanced battles against two groups of equal strength.

Yeah, WoW.

You queue for a Scenario (WoW’s Battlegrounds) and an instance is then spawned on demand.

It’s much poorer version than the one I proposed. It feels faked and not consistent with the rest of the PvP structure. While what I proposed was “transparent” and seamless for the players, better integrated, realistic and tied more tightly with the rest of the structure of the PvP (as the instances were triggered to balance the load, not to remove the persistence).

Sad that all that Mythic is doing is copying WoW on every aspect. As I wrote before, they are repeating the exact mistake they made with DAoC ToA (copying EQ, in that case).

Scenarios offer different game play, ranging from Deathmatch to Capture the Flag to Assault.

Heh. It’s so saddening to see PvP treated like that. Why things cannot change? Why we have to deal with this shit?

I just cannot accept it.

Realm vs. Realm (RvR) has come a long way since it was first introduced in Dark Age of Camelot. We’ve had over five years of experience with the system, and we’ve learned both its strengths and its weaknesses. The RvR gameplay being implemented in WAR is truly a next generation implementation of the original system.

So you learnt deatmatches and CTF from playing DAoC?

Be ashamed.