From a thread on Grimwell were I keep attacking Blizzard’s proposed system.
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What I do not understand is the rating system. They stated that your honor points won’t be wiped, they stated that even the hardcore players will need months before reaching the top, they stated that above the sixth level the rank system becomes a ladder where those with the most points are at the top and with limited amount of slots for each rank.
Still, they say that this is accessible for the casual players and that you can still compete even if you start years after.
HOW?
If the honor isn’t wiped and it becomes just a pile of point, it’s obvious that the ranks will skyrockets. If instead the rank system is only a “weekly” performance this basically contradicts the fact that the points aren’t wiped and that the higher ranks won’t be reached at the start.
If there are ranks far away it means that you are supposed to STORE something. And if you are supposed to store something in a limited and competitive ladder, it is also obvious that the requirements will skyrockets.
Blizzard is hiding something here. Believe me. Whatever they are planning it is absolutely shady. And for a reason.
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Darniaq:
They’ll be doing this is Battlegrounds. Battlegrounds are the best place to gain Honor Points because you will never be fighting people too far below your level (given that it’s level 55-60 only, at first).
No. At least not without special, undisclosed rules (that is why I think the system is completely idiotic: or it’s hidden or it doesn’t work).
If you keep killing the same players you won’t gain honor. In a battleground this directly happens. You keep fighting against the same groups. So, or they disable that mechanic or it won’t work.
For the informations they have disclosed the best way to farm HP is to build gank group of stealthers and patrol the most popular quest spots (this on the PvP server, which will be *destroyed* by this new system).
But MY POINT is exactly what you are explaining. They are keeping what matters hidden. But at the same time it happened with the “meeting stones”, I discussed them a lot before their release, for example on QT3 and all the players attacked me saying (and inventing) how they would have worked. What happened? It happened that there was NOTHING behind and these “meeting stones” were effectively *retarded* design.
So what about this honor system? Is Blizzard keeping it hidden as you also assume or it’s really retarded as it seems?
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Darniaq:
I should have said the Honor Pool. Damned post was long enough I started misstyping Player Honor Points do not get reset, as mentioned earlier in trying to clarify why it’s not a “decay” system.
I still cannot understand.
If we assume that the ranks come from an “evaluation” of the % of honor points of each character compared with the overall pool and then confronted with the percents of other players, we finish with a “weekly” ladder. There’s NO persistence.
This week I’m at 2% and I’m the highest. I’m rank 14. The week after I do not play and I fall to zero?
Where’s the persistence? How it works? Or there’s persistence (so the Honor Points grow exponentially with no limit), or there isn’t (so everything is wiped from week to week). Or there’s an hidden system that joins the two parts following hidden rules that Blizzard hasn’t disclosed.
Darniaq:
They’ve either played enough to maintain their Rank, played more and gained another rank, or didn’t play enough and lost their ability to use the Realm Reward they purchased.
And this is another of the hugest flaw. This is pure catass. Reward to play as much as possible. Grind till your hands fall on the ground and keep grinding forever if you don’t want only a temporary carrot in your hands.
Is this “fun”? Is this a good PvP system? Is it especially good in a game that is openly aimed and marketed for casual players? Or is it a complete overturn in the approach?
Not long ago on MUD-Dev me and Raph were discussing:
“Designing a game which allows players not to HAVE to play regularly. A possibility, not an obligation.”
The system Blizzard is proposing is a grind *nightmare*. You are FORCED to play if you want to achieve something. We have players ranting because there are long instances in the game and here they are pushing on a system that makes that requirement skyrocket.
Abalieno:
If you keep killing the same players you won’t gain honor
Darniaq:
You gain steadily less Honor Points. Plus, you’re thinking a Battleground fight starts and lasts four five solid hours with the exact same participants.
Five hours? How many players can fit one BG? With 60 for each side it will be already a lag and zergfest and I don’t think they’ll go above 50 to keep the game playable. In TEN minutes, within a small zone dedicated to PvP, you’ll kill the same players more than once. There’s no need to remain logged in for hours.
This while you can camp (on PvP) the most overcrowded choke points to farm constantly the new blood passing along.
Darniaq:
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with Meeting Stones. The only ones I’ve come across so far, since they were patched, were below my level. What about them doesn’t work for you and how does that relate to your prediction/commentary from Quarter to Three earlier?
The meeting stones are a joke. And it’s *obvious*. My previous commentary before they were release was:
“We still have to see but, supposedly, you’ll have to walk till that point to flag yourself and beg the randomized system to not build a group full of tards. It’s rather obvious that the “pool” of players from where it will draw will be the two other guys that ARE JUST SITTING NEXT TO YOU, waiting from two hours at a stone that noone uses.
At best these stones will be an altar of sacrifice for high level players to raid and laugh about.”
As I wrote there the main purpose and need of an LFG system is how many peoples it can reach. That’s the measure of quality.
Before these retarded stones we have zone-wide channels. So you are able to reach at least everyone in that zone or go to Ironforge and ask there for “visibility”. In ALL the case what matters is how many peoples you can reach.
With these meeting stones you can only reach that tiny percent of other players who walked till that precise stone and flagged themselves and that you can see next to you waiting to be ganked by horde patrols. Plus you have NO CONTROL on how to build the group.
NOONE uses them, they are WASTED time on a completely stupid feature that every player with some experience would have figured out.
It’s already HARD to build proper groups when you type /who priest 48-54 and spam each. And with that command you reach the whole population.
What the game *needs* is a server-wide system. I wouldn’t ask for FFXI complex custom search strings or the LFG window in DAoC listing players and groups in an organized way. No. Just an “LFG” flag (like in the goddamn beta) would be enough.
Instead we have these worthless stones. Also bugged. There are reports of players that started the instance being joined with other partial groups and getting their instanced resetted and kicked out. Forcing them to restart from zero.
Darniaq:
Designers can be a fairly secretive bunch too. These ideas are their ideas, and in a company like Blizzard where game design (vision) is held up as high as game execution, people treasure their sparks of creativity, and may even want to continue to own them.
Come on, where’s this “Vision”?
There’s nothing new aside a really polished game with all the pieces put mostly right. But there’s absolutely NOTHING to hide. Or mind-blowing innovation. It’s the same stuff done a lot better and following what the jaded community is preaching from *years*. They finally listened to some complaints but those complaints have been available for years.
Darniaq:
But what I don’t like is that Dishonorable kills seem to only come from hunting folks well below your level. Suppose you have a group of 20 level 60s constantly harassing a 5 level 60s? hey get diminishing return on Honor Points, but they don’t gain what would be the more appropriate DKs. And, of course, they can’t because of Battlegrounds, which require similar-level fights by design, so having HPs turn into DKs for repeated kills is out of the question.
Yeah.
