So far I haven't found many bugs in Warhammer, which is a great change of pace after playing Age of Conan for a couple months. Still you can tell that Mythic had to rush the game out faster then they wanted to since they're a couple holes in the their user interface and basic game design. I know its unreasonable to expect a newly released MMO to have all the ease-of-use features that older games have in them. Still some of these items should have become apparent in beta testing and I'm not really sure all of them can be categorized as low priority. I guess we should just be glad that Mythic isn't churning out a ton of broken patches to try to fix these issues. I know Funcom went that route and sometimes their patches introduced more problems then they solved. Then again it would be nice to get some of these addressed within the next month.
1) Public Quest Difficulty Levels
Some public quests are just much more difficult then others. In particular there's a couple chapter 5 and 6 ones that have a Lord at the last stage of it. I'm guessing this type of mob is a step up from Hero and they hit insanely hard for their level. So far I've never seen any public quest with a Lord at the last stage actually get completed. Most of the time on the Order side I only see 3-4 people in a public quest, but I've also seen groups of 12-15 fail against Lords. I don't know if the loot for these public quests are higher, but they seem to be exponentially more difficult.
2) Restrictive Class/Race Itemization
I never really played a Mythic game before so I'm unsure if this is their normal itemization scheme. Basically almost every item dropped in the game is restricted to one class and sometimes one race. This would seem to make getting gear quite impossible except that it looks like loot tables are dynamic. When an item drops it sometimes actually appears different to everyone in the group. Thus someone may see Warrior Priest boots and someone else may see Witch Hunter boots. Its very confusing and a lot of fights break out because it looks like someone is rolling "need" on items they can't use. Of course a person really could be rolling "need" on an item they can't use, but there's no way for other people to verify. This has created an environment where everyone just rolls need.
3) Chicken Mechanic needs some fine tuning
Some classes are going to have problems with the chicken mechanic while trying to finish PvE content. In particular this problem pops up in public quest areas where some players are still flagged for RvR. My Warrior-Priest has some attacks that automatically heal anyone around me. If anyone around me is flagged for RvR then it also flags me if I heal or buff them. Then BAM, I'm a chicken. I'm not sure if this is intended or not, but it makes finishing content a pain in the neck. This happened to me after I had just leveled to rank 12 in the middle of a public quest with rank 10 mobs. It wasn't like I was doing really low level content.
4) Ability to link Items to other players
I thought this was a basic functionality that every MMO was supposed to have. Some people told me that Mythic had some weird rules about linking items in Dark Age of Camelot, but I believe they just prevent linking items in general chat. I have no idea why you can't link items in Warhammer, but I'd be willing to bet it has something to do with the unique itemization and loot distribution that Mythic uses in the game. Age of Conan had a similar problem where item statistics reflected the buffs and damage modifiers of the person looking at the item.
5) Right click functionality on names in chat
Just a small personal peeve here, but player names that come through the chat window have no right click functionality. I've gotten used to easily reporting spam, adding someone to ignore, or inviting someone to my group by using this feature. I understand the open grouping system makes it easier to fill groups, but it doesn't really work over long distances. It would be helpful to be able to just right click on a name especially when getting requests for a group invite through a tell.
I was going to list out a couple more items I noticed, but I see there are already forum threads and blogs that have gone into much greater detail. On mine own personal list I really only consider the first item to be game breaking at the moment. The others are important, but players can work around them. Though as people get max rank and items start becoming more important the itemization issue is going to turn critical. Mythic needs to greatly improve the Auction House functionality so that its easier to redistribute the items that everyone is rolling need on. They also could tinker with the looting system so its more obvious when people are rolling on items they don't need. I see what Mythic was trying to do by basically making a token system where the token trade-in is done automatically when loot is rolled for. However, they need some transparency in the system since it's very ninja friendly at the moment.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Some Fine Tuning for Warhammer
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7 comments:
Take a big swig of Man-Up and stop questing in lowbie areas. On a side note we should do scenario groups again tomorrow.
Ok, I am pretty sure you are wrong on #2. Those people are rolling need nonstop not because they need it and it appears to others like they don't, but because it is a public scenario and a randomly formed group and they feel like being an asshole in that situation is OK. It sucks because occasionally someone will drop something you can use and you won't get it because someone else rolled need on it. Still, most people on my server (order) don't roll need on everything so usually it works out pretty good with just the people getting the right stuff for their class. Now, as far as it being different for each person, this is not true. Yes the loot IS definitely tailored to the person, I'm sure this is true in many situations. However, I KNOW I have rolled "need" for things that I did not really need (accidentally) and I got some dwarf boots by doing that.... I felt bad but luckily there were no dwarfs in my group who got stinted.
Really, Mythic should make it like in EQ2 were only the class that can actually use the items is able to roll "need." Otherwise that one bad apple is always gunna roll need and always make a problem for those people who roll greed and are perhaps even forced to roll need themselves just to be competitive.
I've heard some differing opinions on the dynamic loot tables. It think it might be limited to items that need repairing. Apparently those items show different stats based on your class.
I wish I could find some official word on the matter. I've been searching warhammer alliance forums without luck.
For #2 I like how WAR handles loot. It's pretty close to the way I'd wanted to see WoW's loot revamped, it avoids a lot of drama.
#4. The lack of item link spam is a joy! For most of the situations where I'd like to share my thrill of new gear, I prefer meeting up with friends and saying "inspect me". =)
Both of these fit in with what Mythic said about making a less gear-centric game. It's still there and not so different from what other MMOs have, but how it's doled out and accoladed is what's different.
Oh man, they so need to get that right click functionality for names in chat.
In an ironic twist, you can right click on names in your friends list to do all sorts of things, including adding them to your friends list. But can you do that from their name in chat... or on their character... or on their portrait when grouped?
I've seen a decent amount of functionality by right clicking on a character's portrait at least. I have a feeling they'll put the ability to right click on a player's names in the chat box pretty soon.
Had exactly the same experience in a PQ loot roll for repairable equipment. It definitely read shaman-only gloves to me, and someone else claimed they were class specific to them as well while we both rolled Need and he won them. I chalked it up to douchebaggery, but perhaps the mechanic does exist to be different things for different classes.
Here are some things WAR got right IMO:
- no eating or drinking
- far, far fewer long runs as a normal course of the game
- instant flight times
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