I want to give a closure to the previous post so that I don’t need to come back to it.

The instance performance of a realm can also be calculated in a absolute or relative way, this may be an objection to what I wrote.

For example WoW’s arenas performance is relative, in the sense that your performance is calculated on a ratio, a so playing more isn’t necessarily improving your performance. In fact it can worsen it.

This one model brings to the internal realm competition I described. In the sense that elite players are lead to fight their own faction as less experienced and geared players will worsen the performance of the whole realm. This would destroy the idea of “realm”, and so be detrimental to the kind of gameplay Warhammer is offering, as it brings a faction to fight itself and divide players instead of uniting them against the enemy faction.

Not a case that WoW’s arenas are detached from the faction Vs faction concept. It just doesn’t fit there. And they know.

But there’s also another possibility where the performance is calculated in a absolute way. Similar to how honor and badges work in WoW, but applied to the whole realm. In this case even when you lose, you win. You just win less than you would if you really won. Still win, but less.

The difference is that while in WoW the instances are completely volatile and reset, in Warhammer these instances will contribute to overall progress.

Assuming that 1 instance has always one faction against the other, this means that both have equal chances. If 200 instances are played and Destruction wins 101 times, then Destruction wins. In all cases. And this once again means that if you lost an instance, you also lost for your whole realm. And so better let the elite play alone instead of trying yourself and damage your own realm.

Your attempt to contribute will likely be detrimental. In particular in a scenario where these detrimental players are the great majority: casual players who would like to enjoy the game and finish to play against their own realm.

Lum’s devs already whimper in WoW:

Yeah, basically the point I’m getting at here is just that the gear disparity is really frustrating for newbies. I’m basically dead weight on any BG team I join because everyone has full gladiator sets. I do my best to help out, but I can’t really hurt anyone. I’m bringing whatever team I’m on down, but I have to do that in order to get to their level.

Which isn’t a so uncommon feeling. In fact I think EVERYONE at least passed through it once, if not sat there permanently.

Now just think what happens when not only you feel miserable because you feel useless. But your mere presence is also making lose your whole realm with your crappy performance. Also because the organized guilds will have all kinds of phat loot and power ups (if they don’t then what’s the carrot to dangle in front of players and keep them addicted?). And you can’t compete. You aren’t catass enough. And you are making shame of your whole realm.

And I also wonder if Mythic is aware of the dead end where they are going. Blizzard has nightmares just to balance three BGs. Even if that balance doesn’t matter so much. They make a smallish change and Horde wins all Alterac instances for six months. Make another imperceptible change and is the Alliance to win for another six months.

And this with classes being the same.

Mythic is pushing more class differences, and, in particular, Battlegrounds that will matter sensibly to the overall game progress.

That is a balance NIGHTMARE. They are going to pile the class issues DAoC had, on top of new balance issues due to the Battlegrounds progress. I wouldn’t be surprised if the game comes out and we discover that a faction totally dominates the other. It’s a no-win scenario. Either the RvR has no real consequences, and so is pretty bland and repetitive without real hooks, or it is meaningful, turning possible balance issues into severe wounds.

I really would like to know how the Beta is going, because all I wrote in this and previous post aren’t foretelling of a distant future, but problems that should be explicit already in this phase of beta. So all I write should be already verifiable RIGHT NOW. And I’d like to know if I’m right, or where I’m wrong.

The only two things I’m curious about Warhammer and that haven’t been fully revealed are those at the core of the game:

– RvR character advancement
– How real RvR and instances battlegrounds are interconnected

I was kind of baffled when I read this reply of MJ (no, it’s not Mary Jane) on the forums:

Random guy: It is already going to be that way. The king fight isn’t only accessible for one group/raid. The instance is simply capped, that is it. But everyone can fight the king when they want to, once per city siege. I am really not sure why people think it is only for one raid/group when Mythic never even said this, nor hinted it.

Mark Jacobs: You are correct. That would be stupidity on a whole new scale. We’ll make mistakes over the next 6 or 7 years but none on that scale I hope.

To explain and complete the few informations I already had, Warhammer endgame RvR should be structured in a number of linked maps, probably similar to how the multiplayer worked in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

We should have the capital cities maps at the two extremes of this imaginary segment, and in between a number of transitory maps. So the opposed factions fight to “push” the front line further toward the enemy city. In theory the map where the fighting happens is just one (as only one front line is supposed to exist), and so you move back and forth through these maps only when objectives in that map are won by one of the two factions. Then the front line either moves forward (next map) or backwards (previous map), depending on the point of view.

At a point it will happen that a faction is stronger enough to be able to push this front line/map progression all the way to the enemy capital city. And there, after a number of objectives, the last goal is supposed to be the attack to the king and the conquest of the city.

This is what I knew, assuming it is correct at least as a general scheme. The real question, as said above, is how you make all that work when you have BOTH real RvR (meaning persistence of maps and battles outcomes), AND instanced battlegrounds (meaning lack of persistence and relativity of victories).

If there’s real RvR, then a conquered keep is a conquered keep. A truth. But if the RvR is instanced then your efforts aren’t absolute and objective, but relative to that instance, then shattered through a number of other instances where other players are playing and obtaining different results.

So the legitimate question: how persistent RvR and instances are supposed to work and relate to each other?

And we came to that answer above from Mark Jacobs that baffled me. He says “you are correct”. So: the instance is capped, and everyone can spawn his own instance and go kill “his” king.

This means that the “king encounter” is a group instance, that can happen an unlimited numbers of times, but only once for each player.

You know, kinda like in WoW’s PvE, where everyone had his occasion to kill Van Cleef in the Deadmines (minus the farming).

Makes sense? Sure, but while PvE is an experience relative to yourself (personal adventure), the RvR is supposed to be a communal experience. Your realm. Where these fights are fun because they are supposed to be persistent. Fight for something as “concrete” as possible.

If Mark Jacobs confirmed that crucial events like the assault to the capital city are instanced, it means that this kind of RvR is going to work like Guild Wars. Where there’s no real war. But the results of a number of instances are charted together, then compared to the global results of the opposite faction, and then the victory mathematically deduced from that comparison. Order won 155 times, Destruction 160, so Destruction wins and the front line moves one map further toward the Order capital.

I called that “projected” PvP. As you aren’t fighting for what’s in front of you (territory warfare, as in conquest games), but you are fighting to collect “stats” on a chart, and then hope your performance is overall better than a vague idea of “enemy” that also appears on a chart.

I’m sorry but this isn’t RvR, as the war between the two factions is detached and filtered. It is just charts compared one to the other. Leader board game. Ladders.

But no RvR in the sense of persistent war and fight for territory.

So virtually identical to the PvP in WoW, and completely different from the RvR of DAoC. Assuming that the whole difference between DAoC and WoW is about the persistence itself.

Which is still a legitimate game. But it isn’t what is being advertised. It’s no RvR in the sense people expect.

And also leads to a number of problems. For example this kind of “sport PvP” (a definition that matches more closely the game) is by its nature more divisive than inclusive as it encourages the “elite” to despise their own faction as other players who aren’t on par with skills and gear become DEAD WEIGHT for the whole faction, as their losses worsen the performance of the whole realm.

The RvR existed to offer a different model. A model where every player contributed. Even if low level and with crap gear, but still better being there than not participating. That’s what built the sense of realm in DAoC , that brought everyone together to defend relics, that built the community, cohesion, motivation and longevity of the game. And that put less focus on the personal performance and phat loot.

Which is what Mythic systematically destroyed by promoting 8vs8 gank groups and that made the RvR (keeps and relic warfare) almost irrelevant and just a mild “flavor” on the background. And that consequently destroyed the unique qualities and value the game had, and dig the hole where the game now lies.

Warhammer seems to be a game with a new coat of paint over gameplay that people decided to abandon. Saving what in DAoC didn’t work, and burying what worked. We’ll see if, after the game’s launch, the players will still appreciate the game after having scratched below this new paint coat and discovered the exact same gameplay they decided to quit.