There’s a part of WoW’s PvP system that I still haven’t commented but that truly interests me.

Right from Cosmik’s comment:

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to joining my team-mates in running past the enemy players in Alterac Valley and totally not killing them just so I can engage in some PvE against the Battleground boss first.

He is obviously sarcastic, but that’s an important theme.

I like goal-based PvP much, much more than “deathmatches” and mindless kills. I hate what DAoC became in the last years. With organized 8vs8 skirmishes and almost zero interest in the keeps and territorial control. I like territorial control. That’s one soul of PvP.

It looks like in this case Blizzard went too far. The objective (and reward) are so appealing that the players have learnt… not to fight.

This is an old discussion, in part already examined.

One of the problem at the core is that the conflict isn’t “real”. So the players learn how the game really works and exploit it. They see past the fiction.

But I don’t want to talk about that. Let’s see the possible solutions.

Well, this is one of the main issues that I tried to solve with my proposed PvP system. The Hotspot idea.

The point is not to find the right balance between the single kill and the objective, the point is to understand better how PvP works. My idea was based around the “convergence”. PvP action needs to converge. An objective should be an excuse to meet in a point and fight for it.

In the Hotspot idea the “points” were still gained mainly by killing other players (and without the stupid diminishing returns), but you gained more points the more you fought close to the Hotspot. The idea was basically to think these objectives as “magnets”. The closer you are the more points you get, so they make the PvP action to converge in that point and have a conflict.

If there’s one Hotspot, then it’s in the interest of both faction to control it. The Hotspot, aside the “magnet” effect on the points, had two functions. The first is to slowly build a bonus, like a multiplier to the points earned by the faction that controls it, so in the interest of the other faction to take the Hotspot back as soon as possible so that the multiplier doesn’t grow. The second was to slowly build up a “bounty” (for every kills scored in the meantime) that would work as another incentive for the other faction to take it back. When the Hotspot is conquered all the players in the area would be rewarded with the points in the bounty pool.

That was a simple solution to have goal-based PvP while still encouraging the players to fight each other, as you would get almost no points by conquering a deserted Hotspot.

The problem was that the system was designed for the world PvP. So how you “fix” the problem in Alterac?

The scenario you *expect* is: meet in the middle and starting to “push” to slowly gain territory till one of the faction is pushed back and the other can score a victory. The original Alterac battles could last many hours in fact and it wasn’t rare than one player logged out before the whole thing was over.

The scenario nowadays is: the two factions rush in opposite directions. Neither of them cares about what the other does. The “defense” is completely discarded and wins who can score a victory faster. Instead of a “collision” you have a parallel competition. Alliance and Horde play at the opposite sides of the map. And a battleground lasts half an hour on average.

Now, the duration of a single match is a design problem, and the “content” in the BG should get tweaked till the results are considered satisfactory. It’s pretty obvious that the right choice should be between the too quick current battles and the first ones that lasted way too much. From my point of view an average of 1/1.5 hours should be the target for the Alterac battleground.

But how to fix the problem at the core (the fact that the two factions don’t really… fight)?

It’s simple. The reason why they don’t fight is because the progression of one is disconnected from the other. I mean, if Alliance wins, the Horde could have been 30 seconds away from scoring a victory itself. The real problem is that disconnection.

Company of Heroes could be an inspiration for a fix. Instead of just graveyards and two different, independent battlefronts you add objectives that must be held so that you can score a victory. In short: you force one battlefront instead of two independent ones (or even: you design a more open-ended battleground when you need to hold multiple spots at the same time to score a victory as in Dawn of War).

Let’s say (A) is the alliance base and (B) is the horde base:

(A) x1 – x2 – x3 – x4 – x5 (B)

As it is now the alliance can fight at x5 while the Horde is fighting at x1. That’s the problem.

The fix: in order for alliance to reach (B), they have to conquer and hold all the “x”, from 1 to 5. Same for the horde in reverse.

This forces the action to “converge” in one point. One battlefront. The territorial control is progressive and linear. And the players would fight each other and try to slowly conquer territory and defend it, instead of avoiding each other.

Referred to the previous mock up.

I was thinking about the “Auto LFG Elite quests” option that automatically flags you for all the elite quests in your quest log.

The problem is that this is unlikely a default behaviour, so the option isn’t all that useful. If you are questing in Redridge you’ll unlikely join a group in Loch Modan. Even if it’s for an elite quest that sat there from a long time and that you want to finish (and in this case it’s more reasonable to flag for it manually).

The idea is to replace that option with a different one “Auto LFG Elite quests in current zone”.

This other options would automatically flag you LFG only for those Elite quests in the *current* zone. Also adding your name to the “location” tooltip so that other players can see you without even searching through the LFG matchmaking function.

So if you check both those options in the upper right corner of the panel you would be flagged LFG for the current zone and all the elite quests in the current zone. Which is more likely a “default”, useful behaviour for a majority of the players.

Oh, I was forgetting. Blizzard completely disregarded the PvP on their LFG tool (I did as well, but here I am demonstrating that I didn’t). Sometimes the LFG chat channel was used to organize PvP raids.

The idea is adding, for all levels, two generic static options to the “raid” list on the LFG panel: PvE and PVP. So that the players can flag for one of the two and then use the comment field to give more details (Azuregos raid, Crossroads raid or whatever).

And it would also be a good idea, when in the appropriate level range, to add to the “dungeon” list also the Arenas and Battlegrounds, so that you could flag LFG even for PvP.

This is a mock-up for a LFG system that WORKS. Based on the previous rants (rant 1 – rant 2).

There should be also a new icon that looks like an eye of a demon (and maybe even animated, for the cool factor). Eye open = LFG on. Eye closed = LFG off. It’s a simple toggle that you enable/disable with a mouse click on the icon.

The design idea is: If you make the LFG tool a predominant element of the interface instead of hiding it somewhere, then people more likely will use it.

In my design this icon/eye should be placed near the character portrait or at the upper right of the screen, between the zone name and the icon showing the time of the day. You click on this eye and a radial menu will open with just two icons/options (if you use Trinity bars you have an idea of how this radial menu could look). One will toggle the LFG flag on and off, the other will bring up the LFG panel shown above, where you set all the options and can perform the searches.

The LFG options you set from the panel are SAVED with your character. This means that your preferences will be carried over from session to session and you could log in the game and just toggle the LFG flag. Without the need to reconfigure the whole thing.

Trick: Another idea I got is that if you mouse over the zone name, just above the mini-map, you would get a tooltip that shows on the fly all the players who are LFG in the same zone.

Some more explanations:

– If you check the “Global LFG” option then all the fields below will be checked automatically and you’ll always appear in every search that another player performs if he is in the same level range.

– If you check one of the main fields (Zone, Dungeon, Quest and Raid) then all the fields below will be checked as well. Instead if you go check one of the single options while the main field isn’t checked then the main field will be checked as well, but not all the other options for that field.

– “Auto LFG in current zone”, if checked this option greys out the “Zone” field. If active it means that the game automatically flags you LFG only for the zone you are in. This means that when you move from zone to zone the LFG flag will be updated automatically to your “current” zone. Just remember that even if this option is active, you still have to toggle the “LFG” on (via eye icon) to be actually flagged.

– “Auto LFG Elite quests”, if checked this greys out the “Quest” field. It means that you are LFG for all Elite quests in your quest log and when you take a new elite quest it will join the list and get flagged automatically. Same as above, you still need to toggle the LFG on for this option to be in use.

Note: there will be a new option on the quest log that allows you to send a specific quest to the LFG panel. By default only the “elite” quests will be listed on the LFG panel, but you can use the quest log to “send” there even normal quests, and ask for help.

Note 2: When you flag an elite quest you are also flagged automatically for the corresponding zone. This allows you to “see” those players who are flagged LFG for the zone where the elite quest is, even if they don’t share your precise quest. This to make easier to ask for help and maybe trade favors (I help you with this if then you help me with mine). For example making visible two players who are LFG for two different elite quests in the the same zone.

Similarly, players LFG in a zone will see also all those players who are flagged for an elite quest in the zone, so that they can offer to help them.

– “Looking For More”. This tab is greyed out till you are “solo”. As you join another player in a group this tab becomes usable, while the options above the tab will be reset. All the options you set while in the group are “volatile” and won’t be saved, and as you disband your default options on the LFG panel will be restored. The purpose of this is to allow simple, aimed searches when you are in a group and going for a specific objective. So without overwriting the default options that you use normally while looking for a group.

For example lets say that you are with three other players going in the Blackfathom Deeps dungeon. Your group needs an healer. So you select Blackfathom in the dungeon tab, then check “1”, “Priest” and “Druid” under the LFM tab. This corresponds to the classic “LF1M healer”. When you’ll perform a search you’ll see all priests and druids who are also looking for a group for that dungeon. And all the priests and druids looking for a group in that dungeon will see your group set LFM.

The two major goals of this system are:

1- Allow for multiple choices, giving as much customization and “reach” as you want
2- Provide complete matchmaking results by performing ONE search

In particular I underline the second point. In the current system used in WoW you have to perform one search for each option available. Instead in my system you get ALL the results, sorted by group (first groups, then solo players), number of matches and then alphabetical order.

So you’ll get a list of names of all the players whose LFG options match at least one of yours. By mouse-hovering on a name you can see what is the result, or results that were matched.

Summary of the overall UI scheme:

• eye icon (eye open = LFG on, eye closed = LFG off)

(radial menu)

• LFG toggle
• (on/off)
• LFG panel (two tabs)
• LFG Options (this opens by default if LFG toggle is “off”)
• Search (this opens by default if LFG toggle is “on”)

This system has one apparent imperfection compared to Blizzard’s one. To be able to perform a search and get “matched” you are forced to set yourself LFG (as the search function will look automatically for all the fields you checked). While in Blizzard’s current LFG tool you can search LFG players even if you aren’t set LFG. This is a desired effect. As I want the players to flag themselves when they are searching, instead of using the tool passively.

It will encourage more players to turn the LFG flag on and get better used to the system.

EDIT: I revised some smaller parts.

I won’t really go deep into this because I’ve already analyzed WoW’s PvP from multiple perspectives and all I said is still valid today. There are tenths of links if you want to dig.

I didn’t play WoW’s “endgame” recently but I heard that a lot changed. Or at least there are “bigger carrots” who are making people crazy. I’m reading this on Tobold’s blog:

And I started wondering how exactly the honor points are calculated. Because there are some rather weird things going on around the way you acquire honor points.

Yeah, this is actually one of the biggest flaws of WoW’s system since PVP was implemented. Surely NOT a today’s problem.

Still today the mechanics that regulate the PvP are mysterious. The exact opposite of something intuitive. And also something that for this reason is different from all the rest of WoW’s design, that is usually quite linear and easy to grasp.

Today things improved because they decided to finally cut the part where honor points were calculated weekly based on a ranking system and a very complicated and counterintuitive progress system that no one ever completely understood. It’s like black magic. Magic formulas only known to a secret cult. But those latest changes were only a partial achievement as I read that those stupid diminished returns are STILL in the game and that honor points you see right away are only a rough “estimate” on what you’ll get the day after.

At the same time the arena system inherited the suck of the honor system: good luck figuring out how the ranking will work. But I won’t comment that, for now.

Maybe it’s not a case that still today the same designer (Kalgan/Evocare) is working on the system. “The fox can lose his fur but not his cunning.”

As Cosmik said:

where r u, DAoC Realm Points?

Really. The biggest problem is that Blizzard continues to use an obscure system that seems completely unexcused. There just is absolutely no reason, in particular after the most recent changes, that justifies that obscurity.

We moved for a very, very stupidly designed system that OBLIGATED players to play as much as possible in order to get more points and climb the ranks, to one that was asked MONTHS before the Honor system was actually implemented. All those HUGE, GLARING flaws were EVIDENT since the first day the system was announced. And today, one year and half later, they finally admitted that the Honor system was pure shit and replaced it with one where honor points can be used as currency. Exactly as EVERYONE ELSE was suggesting and has suggested for all this time.

The first curious thing is that you don’t get your honor points immediately. Instead you get an “estimate”, which tends to be far too low, and then get your real honor points the next day. Imagine experience points worked that way! “We estimate you have gained experience for two more levels today, but come back tomorrow for the exact value and the actual reward.” I wondered, if honor points are given out on an absolute scale now, why would it take one day to calculate the honor points? It’s better than the previous once-a-week calculation, but still not very logical.

Yeah. That question is gold. That’s exactly what I was wondering a week ago on Q23, we are on the same line. No one could really understand this and the best guess is that it’s all STILL because of those FUCKING diminished returns. My god, sometimes Blizzard is so absolutely stupid that isn’t believable.

This can really make sense only in Kalgan’s mind, because for the rest of the world this is blatantly flawed. And at this point isn’t anymore just flawed, but also completely unexcused.

NO ONE STILL HAS A CLUE ABOUT HOW THIS SYSTEM WORKS.

And, at this point, I guess not even Kalgan knows anymore what he designs.

So I did a bit of research, and my fears were confirmed by a “blue name” on the official World of Warcraft forums: “Honor is given at different amounts depending on the opponent you defeat. Doing those calculations on the fly would be extremely taxing on the realms if they attempted to calculate everyone being killed and how everyone involved got parsed out honor and in what amounts. If we are ever able to get to the point where the calculations are able to be done live we would certainly do so.”

While that explains why it takes a day to calculate honor, and confirms that honor points gained per honorable kill are still depending on your opponents rank, this confirmation opens up a whole new can of worms: How can you have a PvP reward system in which the points depend on the PvP rank of your opponent, but there is no more way of earning or losing rank? Somebody who only started PvP after the patch and now plays PvP all the time will soon be as skilled and well equipped as somebody who did his PvP before the patch. But he will be worth very little honor points to his opponents, because his rank will never go up from 0. The longer this system is in place, the more illogical it gets. If this continues, in a year on the battlegrounds players will actively hunt down the few remaining characters with a PvP rank, because they are the only ones being worth decent points. We are playing PvP in a league in which all the ranks are frozen, but rewards are still given out according to that rank. Totally crazy!

I think Tobold goes too wild here, but it is certain that this system just cannot work. It’s just not tolerable to design a system that is so messed up and unreadable like this one. ESPECIALLY in a game like WoW.

What the fuck is this system calculating that it cannot be done on the fly? It really is above me. There isn’t any fucking justification.

If we are ever able to get to the point where the calculations are able to be done live we would certainly do so

I’ll tell you what you should do: you should demote that designer who is responsible for all this and replace him with someone who has at least half a clue. I do not want Kalgan fired. But I DO want him REPLACED. At least. Take his own responsibility for all this shit.

But, even more important, why the fuck PvP has to always receive this treatment? I mean in general, why the fuck PvP has always to be the afterthought? Why it always has to have the worst, careless design?

Thanks to Lum and D-One to have pointed to this. LFG systems are one of my pet peeves (and, incidentally, something that Blizzard doesn’t get, like the PvP system). I already commented all this, but I guess there’s more.

From Lum:

The players of World of Warcraft discover the eternal dilemma of LFG systems: until a critical mass of people use them, no one uses them.

It becomes useful only if enough players use it. SURE. But, hey, the opposite is true as well and actually comes first (in particular from the design perspective): More people will use the tool when the tool will be actually useful.

Who’s born before? The egg or the hen?

This isn’t a fucking problem for game design because you first build the tools so that they are useful, then the players WILL use them. Because they are useful. If they aren’t useful then they aren’t used.

Especially: if they suck, then they won’t be used.

I ideally imagine a LFG system like a “punch card” used on those old mainframe computers. You go around in the game searching for someone else who has a card where at least one hole is in the same position of one of yours. When you find one hole that matches, you are set. You are a winner.

Now. It’s OBVIOUS that if you can have just three holes on your card and there are is a total of 1000 possible positions for those holes, then it will be really, really, really hard that you can find easily someone with a punch card with one hole that matches yours. Statistically your possibility to “succeed” are scarce. And things get even much worse if you add the fact that you have to repeat a specific search for EACH of those thousands of possibilities.

There’s no cumulative “look for anything that matches”. You have to go check MANUALLY one by one.

Now let’s make an hypothesis. Let’s say that every time you get an “elite” quest you are automatically flagged LFG for it, of course offering the possibility for the players to turn off this option if they so choose.

Right now it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find someone currently using the LFG tool and going to flag for that *precise* elite quest that you are also flagged for. If it happens it would be like one of those coincidences that only happen once. You DEFINITELY don’t build a LFG system that works on the premise of “RARE COINCIDENCE”.

There’s a label on this tool. It reads: “WORKING PROPERLY ONLY UNDER RARE CIRCUMSTANCES“. Yeah, I suppose it is going to be really useful. Expect many people to use such a wonderful tool.

Instead an automated system that flags you automatically for ALL the elite quests in your quest log right as you log in the game could lead to exact opposite results. It could work wonderfully. You could get quickly a list of all players on the server who share your quest and you could send them messages to ask if they are available for it.

You don’t get the possibility to flag, purposely, for THAT precise quest, in that precise moment. You get the possibility to, eventually, turn it off. That’s a subtle difference.

This would be as useful at level 60 as it is as you level up. My level 22 mage has elite quests that I will probably cancel or do only when I outlevel them just because I couldn’t find other players in scarcely populated zones such as Loch Modan. My level 60 has unfinished level 60 quests that sit in my quest log since more than a year. I have that last step for the Scholo key that wants me to go kill an ugly guy in the middle of the plaguelands but I was NEVER able to put together a group to go kill it. If there was a system that let me see all the others players on the server sharing that quest I’m more than sure than in two-three days I could manage to find someone and go kill that shit.

Hoping to do the same thing with the CURRENT LFG system that Blizzard built is just plain naive.

So don’t bitch because the LFG system isn’t used. The LFG system isn’t used because it sucks. That’s different. So bitch because it sucks. Bitch because we have waited two fucking years for a LFG system that is still inferior to some of those used in other games (even if I admit that the overall quality of LFG systems is crap).

From the “blue”:

First off, it diminishes the use of the new tool and makes it harder for us to refine it in a way that makes it more useful for players.

I’m sorry. You got your chances. Firstly with those fucking meeting stones, then with the server-wide channel, now with this. You cannot fucking get this right. I really cannot understand how Blizzard can be so completely clueless about something as simple but fundamental as this.

If you didn’t get it already then there isn’t any fucking possibility that you can “refine” it in the right way. It is just above you.

I have a feeling we’ll see a slightly different result in the use of the LFG interface once the expansion launches, but that will largely have to do with the players deciding to use it and doing so.

Yeah, the gates to level 70 will open up and the quest logs of every players will get SWARMED with a number of quests and new possibilities. And you’ll have to get along with THREE LFG fields that are supposed to cover all that? Yeah.

The release of the Burning Crusade will only make more obvious how inadequate is the LFG tool. Nothing else.

It’s a good tool.

No, it sucks. This WITHOUT A DOUBT. There really nothing at all to argue about. Objectively.