RvR Hot Topic 10/20/2008: Focused Scenario Feedback

[Browncoat-WHA]

Greetings,

Once again I am creating a consolidated thread for feedback regarding hotbutton topics.

Let me repeat again this statement:

You are expected to provide productive feedback to the developers and each other regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Failure to do so can and will result in infractions up to immediate temporary or permanent suspension from the boards.

The point of doing this is not only to keep the forum cleaner, but also to give out some good feedback. We can't do that with flaming, trolling, being unable to criticize with respect, and sensationalism.

This one is going to have a lot of feedback attached to it, but it is one in which there are plenty of topics (Tor Anroc anyone?), and that is scenario feedback.

Scenarios are one of the main elements of RvR in WAR, and whether you like them or not, they are currently a part of the game design. Some scenarios are great fun and need little adjustment. Some may need a little more work. This thread is to allow you to provide some feedback about specific scenarios, what works, what doesn't work, and how to improve upon them in general.

Please note that expressing the idea that scenarios should not exist in the game is out of scope for this topic. Assume that for this topic scenarios are in the game and that is not changing any time soon. General concerns about the existence of scenarios should be directed to other threads.

So when giving feedback in this thread, please include the following:

What scenario is this feedback about?

What makes this scenario work pretty well? Why? Give examples.

What needs improvement in this scenario? Why? Give examples.

How do you feel the "team" dynamic and the scenario objectives work with this scenario? Are players more or less inclined to work with one another for this scenario? Why or why not?

Other comments, or comments about scenarios in general? Again, assume scenarios are not going to be taken out of the game.

I think this is a good opportunity to really get those thoughts you have about scenarios into a good format that will make it easier to read and understand.

[Browncoat-WHA]

I guess I can put my money where my mouth is.

What scenario is this feedback about?
Mourkain Temple

What makes this scenario work pretty well? Why? Give examples.
The scenario is in a small area, making it easy to get to and engage the enemy. There are multiple paths to fight at and the terrain layout is such that you can use flanking and ambushing strategies to great effect. You can go around the side of the temple, fight on its grounds in a narrow space, or take the long way around and come up behind the enemy.

This is a short scenario, meaning it is quick, easy, and done in 5 minutes. it's perfect for someone who doesn't have a lot of time to play.

There are no issues with getting people to attack one another or group together to slug it out. In short, this is a good scenario just for straight-up endless slaughter, easy to understand and get into.

What needs improvement in this scenario? Why? Give examples.
The problem with Mourkain Temple is the fact that all the terrain and possible strategies simply are not being utilized. This is because Mourkain Temple has essentially become "who can turtle with the artifact first", where whoever grabs the artifact immediately rush it back near the spawn of their own team. While the turtling strategy is completely legitimate it really lowers the fun factor of the scenario. The defending team has the clear advantage of having a close respawn, the use of the terrain to defensive advantage, and ability for ranged and support classes to help the team from the top of their spawn while being unable to be attacked effectively. Because this strategy is so effective, you never see any kind of fighting anywhere else, making the rest of the terrain underused. I would make the artifact auto-drop outside of a certain range of the temple. This forces the fighting into the area around the temple instead of at spawns.

I really feel the murderball element needs a more dynamic change. Right now, someone can essentially hold onto the artifact for 3/4ths of a game even when damaged by it. This may sound extreme, but my suggestion would be to immediately kill the person holding the artifactl after a certain amount of time. This forces the team holding the artifact to think about who is carrying it, and who to pass the artifact to when the person dies. This gives the team not holding the artifact a chance to get the artifact back or steal it to tip the score in their direction, making for more exciting scenario dynamics and a see-saw element. I've seen Mourkains that are won and lost at a value of 500 - 16, 500-25, and someone even posted a 500 - 0 score. This kind of domination, while interesting, needs to be evened out.

How do you feel the "team" dynamic and the scenario objectives work with this scenario? Are players more or less inclined to work with one another for this scenario? Why or why not?
The team dynamic works pretty well. Teams have to work together to attack and defend the artifact. Anyone thinking they can solo down and steal the artifact for themselves will quickly find that without backup they will not be holding onto the artifact for long if they get it. The objective of killing people pretty much speaks for itself - you have to do it, and people do get it done.

Other comments, or comments about scenarios in general? Again, assume scenarios are not going to be taken out of the game.
I like scenarios. They are balanced elements of the game that are quick RvR things I can get into if I don't have much time to play. They're team games, not dependent on population differences, so it all comes down to what your team can do.

But I also think that scenarios need to force teamplay by not allowing people to drop the group they are assigned to at the start due to experience and renown gain concerns people have brought up. I also think that doing objectives should reward significant renown or at least experience. For example - running or defending flags in Phoenix Gate, running the bomb in Talabec Dam, capturing objectives in Nordenwatch - none of these reward experience or renown at all. While people need "fun" to do scenarios, from a purely practical standpoint some quantified benefit should be given for actually doing the objectives, because some scenarios turn into nothing more than Mourkain Temple even when they aren't supposed to be.

[Rerisen]

I'll start with reviews of just 2 Tier 3 scenarios.

I haven't played these a lot, because Tor Anroc gets all the action. But they have obvious problems that should have been seen from the get go.

Black Fire Basin: This map is far too large and badly designed to be exciting.

Because you have to ride across this huge basin and it takes so long to do, attacks are hard to organize.

Worse, defenders spawn points are a few yards away from their flag. This means that even if you successfully attack, defense can quickly respawn and make a second defense thus thinning your forces and usually resulting in a failed attack.

This encourages turtling and hideously boring matches where a few people try to play offense and are repeatedly killed. Games usually end after 1 team gets a lucky early cap and then just turtle for 15 minutes, or else no one caps and it ends based on kills, something like 30 to 15, giving terrible experience and renown.

Suggestions: Make the map smaller. Move spawn points farther from the flag. Put more obstacles in the middle, particularly areas that are defendable or can be used to play mid field. A good CTF map has mid field attack and defense, not just two sides sitting at their bases turtling as they wait for the opponent to run unmolested across the map to attack them.

Temple of Isha: Another map that encourages turtling. 99% of games here are decided by which team initially controls the objective point. It should reset after a set period of time rewarding a certain amount of points.

Suggestion: Make the "Murderball" generate more points and also reset after a set period. Thus the team that doesn't hold the Temple has a chance to grab the ball and use it to accumulate more points while they attack the temple to try and take it back.

There is not much strategy in simply squatting on the temple once you hold it, and kills are not rewarded nearly enough as they should be. A side that does not hold the temple but valiantly attacks it several times should be rewarded for putting up a fight. Instead matches usually end up something like 500 to 40 and the losing team often gives up and simply sits at their spawn waiting for it to end.

[Calyfas]

Feedback Subject:
What makes us play only certain scenarios.

Explanation and example:
So, I'm an avid scenario lover myself, I have played basically all scenarios already(I'm currently in T4 but haven't had a chance to play more than 2 differente scenarios as the others didn't pop, but this is not the case). Having that into mind I can say I have deep experience in T1, T2, T3 being a mid T4 player, now on with the point of this feedback:

As it is right now, all scenarios are fun if you look into them as without taking time x rewards into mind, you can tell they all have some special objective or something that makes them pretty different from other scenarios, but what makes us play only one specific scenario for every tier? In tier 1 we focus on Nordenwatch, tier 2 Morkain Temple, tier 3 Tor Anroc and tier 4 Serpent's Passage, and there is a simple reason to that, they are not only fun like the other scenarios, but they also reward you well for the ammount of time you play them.

Let's take tier 3 choice scenario, Tor Anroc. In that scenario you must capture and hold the objective that's located in the middle of this scenario, however, killing players will award 10 points to your realm counter and whoever hits 500 first will win. So we can say you can win the scenario by either holding the objective or simply slaying your enemies. What we have here is an ordinary scenario, as ALL scenarios are extremely fun, but it's a scenario that ends faster than all other tier 3 scenarios, so if your team loses you won't be so annoyed to play it again... but if your team is losing a long 15 minute game in any other tier 3 scenario for example, you won't want to play it again as you may lose another 15 minutes since the scenario is "slow".

Possible solution:
Try making other scenarios have faster matches, perhaps increase the ammount of points your realm earn by doing the scenario objective or simply increase the ammount of points given by killing an enemy player, that will "equalize" all scenarios, as they're all fun, but not all of them are rewarding us well, usually only one scenario is not "turtle" per tier, if all of them are fun AND smooth as those listed in the explanation certainly we will all not be like "ahh, I don't want to play this scenario when I can simply play Serpent's Passage which will end faster and be as fun as this one!".

[Browncoat-WHA]

Oh yes, that was a general topic as well.

I do think "Join All" needs a little work. I find it highly unlikely that with such a convenient button to push for all scenarios, that only certain scenarios pop. I imagine the system decides to put all the players into a fixed order of scenarios. I would make this more random, making the scenarios people are put in different.

I'd like to ask who actually queues for JUST the one scenario that pops most frequently, because with Join All, I don't think very many people do.

[Rerisen]

Other comments, or comments about scenarios in general? Again, assume scenarios are not going to be taken out of the game.

In order to encourage more diverse scenarios to be played, I think scenario victory points should be capped per hour.

For instance if Tor Anroc has been won 25 times (throwing a random number out there) in the last hour, then it no longer counts toward victory points in that zone.

I also would like to see more points awarded for WINNING the scenarios. Too often one team loses, but because they had DPS doing a lot of the damage these losing players top the renown and experience charts.

When I was in Tier 2, most often players had no clue (or maybe care) how to play Stone Troll's Crossing and just did deathmatch in the middle.

If pacifying the trolls and getting the bauble were actually more rewarding, players would learn how to play these maps properly.

As it is now, often playing the map correctly actually hurts your renown and experience as you are wasting time that you could be getting kills, which is all that is rewarded.

The healing changes have also significantly hurt teamwork and correct gameplay. Healers are punished for healing anyone beside DPS. Healing tanks has diminishing returns and healing players that haven't done damage or killed recently (15 seconds?) has no value. This is outrageous and needs to be corrected so people can stop worrying about how to maximize renown to compete with other classes, and simply perform their role best they can.

[Isotropic]

In my guild the thing that makes scenarios so popular is that it is something we can all easily do together without having to travel to meet each other (i.e. as long as we are grouped together, it will teleport us all from wherever we happen to be) and without being concerned about what rank people are (as long as we all stay in the same tier). Open RvR has the bolstering mechanic as well, but it doesn't have an easy way to teleport to where you need to be. PvE is even less attractive because it doesn't have bolstering or teleporting.

Regarding the specific scenarios, the ones that my guild enjoys the most are the ones that encourage and reward fighting such as Tor Anroc and Doomfist Crater, because they are always action packed and give good XP and renown. We really dislike the ones that end in stale mates and seem to favor turtling such as Black Fire Basin and Temple of Isha.

[DarkHors3]

Scenario: Any w/ any objective besides killing

Issue: No rewards for trying to accomplish the scenario. More exp is given for killing then completing objectives.

Solution: Provide large rewards (renown and exp) to the person and anyone in the general vicinity who completes a task (caps a flag / pacify a troll / ect). Those who fight to win a scenario shuold come out on top for exp/renown. Currently no exp durring the round is given to players who complete the task. Only exp at round end (and everyone gets it... not just those who helped out and not just killed players)


Scenario: General Issues

Issue: Same scenarios are played over and over.

Solution: Provide exp bonuses to scenarios that are not played very often in each tier (much like low population servers). a 20% bump for 2-3 days when a scenario is not played very often. Just announce this the main website as the "featured" scenario of the day/week.

[Souldrake]

My feedback on a few of the scenarios.

Tor Anroc (T3)
I used to hate Tor when I first got into it. It has since grown on me, but there are a few things I still don't really like. Either 1) remove the snare and make it actually easier to get out of the lava when we get knocked into it which, inevitably, happens at least 2-3 times per game... or 2) make the lava instant death so we're not struggling to get out of it which is, in most cases, futile. The other thing I don't really like is the length of time it usually takes to run back to the action when you do die (see further comments regarding Ressing...)

The Dam Scenario (T3)
I like this one. It's fun, there's no BS lava to get knocked into, but the problem is there is so little reward for killing people that most of the time the scenario ends when time runs out and each team maybe has 100 VPs max and thus gets like... 1-3K XP for those 15 minutes which... is very disappointing.

Doomfist Crater/Temple of Isha
I hate Doomfist, but I can tolerate Temple of Isha. Whenever I play Doomfist, destruction usually always gets in the center and turtles up and with the LoS issues and such, it's horrible trying to DPS or even heal someone as inevitably someone bottles up the little narrow hallways leading to the center where the enemies are and our melee are fighting...

Black Fire Basin
I have nothing to really add the above posters have already mentioned. This is the only one that Destro on Monolith actually seems to leave as soon as they pop into it. I guess they don't read the queue when it pops.

[D3spair]

Originally Posted by DarkHors3

Solution: Provide exp bonuses to scenarios that are not played very often in each tier (much like low population servers). a 20% bump for 2-3 days when a scenario is not played very often. Just announce this the main website as the "featured" scenario of the day/week.

I completely agree! And somehow list the bonus in the queue window to encourage people to choose that scenario (like highlight it red).

[Ghurt]

Mourk Temple Grab'n'Turtle

Regarding the criticism of the "grab'n'turtle" dynamic in the Mourkain Temple scenario, I have several suggestions for enlivening the game. I'll begin by responding to some of Browncoat's ideas, then fire off some ideas of my own.


Responses to Browncoat's changes

At first I agreed with Browncoat that the turtling dynamic was at the heart of MT's problem, but now I'm not sure if turtling is the problem so much as that the game promotes boring turtling with little to no turnover. I would focus on ensuring that the ball drops frequently, and resets back to start a few times per match. This would ensure that players would have to hustle in order to preserve their lead. I wouldn't restrict the movement of the artifact, so much as make it impossible to spawn camp it from start to finish.

I believe forcing more movement around the map would encourage craftier use of the terrain.


Suggestions

Simple changes

1.) Speed the death of the artifact carrier. My Ironbreaker can carry it for half a game at the moment, I wouldn't mind if that were closer to a minute.

2.) Force the Artifact the reset at determinate time marks, or after a certain period of continuous possession by one team.

Complicated changes

1.) Start the artifact randomly at one of two locations on either side of the temple.

2.) Give the artifact carrier a better incentive to be on the front lines... a ticking pbaoe, a big damage proc, something.

3.) Create tactical points (aoe artillery?) on the map, especially near spawns. If both teams can aoe bombard the other's spawn, spawn turtling will be less of an option.

I'm not asking for all of these, obviously, just throwing them out there as ways to spice MT up.

[Octavious]

You about t3 scenarios now but tier4 are worse I would be happy with we have temple and Tor on tier 4

[Galbrech]

Just some general comments.

Please look into how players are "assigned" to scenarios. Tor Anroc (especially), Lost Temple of Isha and Talabec Dam come up a disproportionate number of times compared to the other three.

Consider adding renown for damage taken so tank classes can get a boost. I'd also recommend taking a look at how renown is spread between healing and kills. As an Archmage, I can get 2-3 times more renown if I'm in a party that's heavy on tanks and Bright Wizards than if I'm with other healers or other DPS classes. I'm not quite sure how that holds up after the most recent patch, but it doesn't seem very fair that healers get renown based mostly on who's in their party while other classes just need to kill.

Consider adding fixed renown gain for taking/holding an objective in scenarios so there's an added incentive to win the objectives instead of dumping the scenario-based renown at the end.

Also, unless I missed something, it's impossible to move the scenario party displays with the UI editor. It'd be great if they could be moved around as well, especially for healers.

[Hobbiticus]

This is a small laundry list of things that don't get mentioned much, but when put together, they make a big impact on my enjoyment of scenarios.

1) No reward for playing the objective.
The best example is Serpent's Passage. Almost every one of these ends up being one team spawn camping the other. That's because it's the best way to get XP/RP. The one carrying the objective is actually penalized in XP/RP for winning the game for their team. People that carry or escort should get an XP/RP bonus for actually contributing to winning the game.

2) Spawn fall damage.
The best example is Maw of Madness. If you're not bolstered, you will only have about 1/3 of your health by the time you make it out of your spawn. Granted, it regens quickly, but if the fight is very close to your spawn, you are entering the battle in a severely weakened state.

3) Unbalanced XP/RP rewards across scenarios.
Tor Anroc is a very good example of this. The scenario pops almost instantly, is guaranteed to take between 7-12 minutes, and results in huge XP/RP for the winning team. Talabec Dam almost never finishes before 15 minutes are up, and doesn't give nearly as good XP/RP for completing the scenario. Serpent's Passage is probably the worst offender, and gives about as much XP/RP (in a GOOD scenario) as Tor Anroc does (in an AVERAGE scenario), even with the tier difference.

[Ellianna]

I like most of the scenarios, and enjoy playing them.

But I don't know why they are imbalanced so often, especially from the start. Thus ending after only a few minutes and having to go back to the end of the line in queue. Are people too lazy to "leave queue" of the scenarios they don't like, then when they pop they leave? This is very frustrating. Here is another thread on the subject: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=156181.

I also agree with how Black Fire Basin and Temple of Isha are prone to turtling. Turtling is no fun. I like the idea of resetting the flag in Isha, and maybe rearranging the map in BFB. Maybe stick in extra capture points for power-ups or something to overcome the turtle.