Getting your feet wet in Warhammer Online RvR
June 24, 2008 – 1:35 pmIt has been discussed a number of times recently… how do you bridge the gap between the hardcore PvPer and the non PvPer in Warhammer Online? What can EA Mythic do to attract the average player versus player pacifist to a game fundamentally about realm versus realm combat?
Spinks from Book of Grudges just noticed something that hadn’t really crossed my mind, but has been known since the early history of WAR’s development: the ability to participate in meaningful RvR as early as level 1.
Why is this important? What affect will it have on the less homicidal-minded WAR player?
Primarily, it removes a lot of boundaries. At level 1, an orc is an orc is an orc, so to speak. You only have a handful of common skills and your methods of attack and defense are quite limited. This is perfect for someone new to PvP-combat because it evens the playing field with the more hardcore gamers. Short of twitch play, you really only have 1-3 buttons to worry about, so the level of strategy required to compete is low.
Even group play is more simplified because the roles of each character are likely to be fairly narrow/defined during the early levels.
Think about how many people buy characters on eBay, end up sucking terribly, and usually ditch them shortly afterward. It’s pretty common knowledge that you’ll be much more effective with a character if you’ve raised in from infancy, practicing all the new skills and abilities as your character learned them. Jumping onto a new class with dozens of unique, complicated, and highly situational skills is no easy task.
Hop on over and have a read. The full scope is larger than what I’m reporting here, but this is what stood out the most to me.
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9 Responses to “Getting your feet wet in Warhammer Online RvR”
I think in general WAR will create some very highly skilled PVP players due to this notion.
I mean, there will still be people who suck no matter what (me), but I also think in terms of skill in a traditional MMOG’s gameplay WAR will be the new standard bearer. Not only in 1v1 gameplay, but more so in team-based RvR.
By Bildo on Jun 24, 2008
This does sound like a way to good way to ease into PVP, but would a level 1 be matched against only other level 1 toons? WoW works on a range of levels and the difference between a level 1 and a level 10 can be pretty significant.
By silo on Jun 24, 2008
“I think in general WAR will create some very highly skilled PVP players due to this notion.”
There’s the rub.
On the one hand you are going to have your hard-core players, highly skilled pvpers, your power guilds on vent doing rvr.
On the other you are going to have casual players, hardcore pve’ers, fly by night guilds.
Who do you think is going to win in a fight?
Do you really think a pug rvr group is going to get a keep from FoH or the Syndicate?
No, it’s going to be the powerguilds.
Getting players to try pvp/rvr will be the easy part. Keeping the lesser skilled players will be the challenge.
By Isanox on Jun 24, 2008
I think this is a great concept also. The only thing i’m worried about is Twinking. Has anyone in Mythic addressed twinking yet?
By deaa on Jun 25, 2008
Since you gain XP by RvRing, and there’s no way to turn It off, twinks will level past the brackets pretty quicky, and thusly become pretty useless.
That’s the impression I get anyway.
By Haggen on Jun 25, 2008
I guess one would also hope that the gear disparity at such early levels is minimal. Like, at level 5, I’m hoping not to run into items with +20 “stat” that makes them insanely overpowered.
To be honest, I hope the gear disparity is small all the way through the game!
By Snafzg on Jun 25, 2008
I think the level 1 through N bracket will be pretty hard on new level 1 players for one reason; skills. Not the skill of the actual player, but the skills that your in game character gains. New skills in most games happen very quickly. A level 1 player will only have a few skills to use, but even a level 5 will likely have double the number of useful skills.
This gets even worse for the level 1 or 2 characters if the level break down for RvR/Scenarios is level 1 - 10.
Personally, I think level 1 fights will be great on opening day, or even opening week. For someone that comes into the game a month or more down the road, they will probably want to PvE until level 5 - 7 before jumping into the RvR. It will give them the best chance of not being irritated by the fact they keep dying so fast.
By Ryver on Jul 1, 2008
Thanks for your comment Ryver.
What you say makes sense if the scenarios aren’t capped properly, but we haven’t had confirmation of whether or not they’ll be 1-10 brackets or 1-3, 4-6, 7-10 brackets. The latter system would definitely lessen the problems you bring up.
Tiers, however, are known to be at least 1-10, so open-world RvR may experience the problem you bring up. However, you have to hope they’ve designed it in a way that pits opposing factions against each other at locations where people should be close to each other in level. One could speculate the chapter system helps with this.
By Snafzg on Jul 2, 2008