Warhammer Alliance Podcast Special: Interview - C&C Cornering!

[PhoenixRed]

This episode we've got something special for the WAR community: An interview with Nate Levy, Combat and Careers Team Lead and Andy Belford, Community Coordinator. We've been working hard to get this opportunity for the community and were happy to get some more insight into the C&C team.

The listing of questions is below, taken from variousa subtly manipulated thread in the forums and from our own observations on hot topics or notions people have been talking about with regards to C&C. Note that we asked followups to some of these questions and a few were worded differently when read.

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Tell us a little bit about how you ended up in this position. How did it feel to take the reins and what was the biggest challenge you've been facing since then?

Talk to us a little bit about your process. Jeff Skalski mentioned in another interview with MMORPG.com that you have an "iterative" process that goes through multple stages. Can you give any more detail here - the more the better - and more importantly, how does player feedback figure into this?

Give us some examples of where significant player feedback has caused a change in the game. How often does this feedback cause such a change?

Obviously, there are players out there who think that you play careers on one side of the fence, or certain careers more than others. What can you supply for us to help counteract such perceptions, and what is your personal feeling on why players might feel this way?

The C&C team has, as I said in Baltimore, the most thankless job ever and is under a ton of scrutiny. As the C&C lead, what are your feelings on the relative challenge of class balance, and how does the constant back-and-forth affect you, both on a professional and emotional level?

1.3.2 and beyond talks about many significant changes, such as the coming shift of CC to tank classes as well as the removal of Stun. These are massive undertakings that take multiple patches, but at the same time, players want immediate action. How will your strategy shift to deliver on your results while being efficient and timely about delivering them?

Specific classes appear to be getting a bit of love in 1.3.2. The Black Guard and Marauder appear to be among these. This seems to be the beginning of a more surgical look at individual classes, something that players want desperately, so what is your strategy going to be approaching not just the underpowered classes like the Shadow Warrior and Magus, while still balancing them in the whole "mirror" context?

Tell us a little bit about your personal experience as you have tested the various classes in the game, both in the testing and live environments. What are the things you feel good about? What are the things that frustrate you or feel that you could do better? Cite specific examples from your gameplay to support this.

What kinds of metrics do you use to gather "real world" statistics about class distribution? How do you deal with the idea that even though the ideal group setup is supposed to be comprised of mixed classes, sometimes groups contain a skew towards one class or the other?

In any game there are a number of folks that from their viewpoint can fix the game in as little as a week. There are many of them that bring up legitimate points about how problems are "easily" fixable, such as nerfing specific classes (like the oft-mentioned Bright Wizard or Sorc). What kind of perspective would you bring to them as the C&C team lead in terms of time to fix certain perceived "easy" problems?

What are your thoughts as you read the feedback the community has given and is currently giving about class balance in the game? Is there any dominant feeling you have in the course of having to respond to and tune classes based upon the rather "passionate" voice of the community?

To all those that have unsubbed due to class balance issues, give them a few reasons that they might want to consider coming back to WAR and trying it out. What's changed since the game came out and how does C&C fit into the general strategic shift Mythic has gone through these past couple months?

How do you tell if a class is overpowered or underpowered? Player perception, player feedback, metrics?

How do you keep sane in this kind of environment?

Do you see a major shift coming in the way you do class balance? Obviously stun is huge, but what about the possibility of other drastic things, like making mirror classes identical?

There's an argument that says that people feel like you're reinventing the wheel when you didn't need to. In Dark Age of Camelot there were some class balance issues but it was relatively balanced. By contrast in WAR people have asked why didn't they take what you learned in Camelot and applied it more to WAR? Do you feel you have integrated what you learned from DAoC into WAR?

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Total length: 28:44 minutes

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[MasamuneSSX]

Hmmm...not bad.

I couldn't help but get the feeling he was very specifically avoiding detail about the classes, except for that interesting nugget about the DoK. I guess I was hoping for some detail about my class specifically (Magus). It was interesting that they do not want to make the mirrors identical though - perhaps now that the destro population has grown to outnumber the order on Karak-Norn, things will seem a little more balanced in a general RvR sense.

[itnas]

shame they didn't gave mutch detail on specific classes, looking foward to see the changes for Magus, Marauder and Shadow warriors...

[solarbear]

Seriously, they seem like nice guys would love to have a beer with them. Honestly, their track record at ruining this game stands for itself.

[akalukz]

What I find funny is that Nate (i think) says that they take a metric of what lvl 40 classes are being played and why aren't xxxx class being played as much as yyyy class? And then they look at buffing xxxx to make them more inticing to play.

Ok when has this ever happened since 1.2? The classes that are currently underperforming are the same class that were underperforming for the past 6 months.

[PhoenixRed]

Originally Posted by akalukz

What I find funny is that Nate (i think) says that they take a metric of what lvl 40 classes are being played and why aren't xxxx class being played as much as yyyy class? And then they look at buffing xxxx to make them more inticing to play.

Ok when has this ever happened since 1.2? The classes that are currently underperforming are the same class that were underperforming for the past 6 months.

To be honest, if a developer says something, and you don't believe it happened, then they can't really say anything to convince you, right? In the absence of that, results and their track record, as solarbear has said, are what players use as measuring sticks for judgment. Whether or not they've succeeded in class balance is for everyone to decide.

Even though some people might believe the shift has come too late, there has been one, if the 1.3 series of AoE/CC and C&C surgical changes (not to mention the removal of stun) are any evidence of that. My thoughts on the class balance issue are pretty much summed up in my last WAH article - there have been some serious bumps in the road, with some sweeping changes and snap-responses to player concerns causing more damage than good. The shift towards a balancing practice that takes into account these mistakes and learns from them is just beginning now. Notions about survival of the game aside, such a shift will take a bit of time to fully take grasp in the community.

It's a catch-22. You can't make desperately huge balance changes recklessly in an attempt to keep players interested, because that's a short term fix. Yet you must provide some evidence of action in order to stop notions that you aren't doing anything at all or are moving too slowly. I'd be curious to see what people would do were they faced with that same situation. It's not easy.

On another note, yes, some of the questions were designed to get a little bit more specific detail on classes. They're probably not ready to release that just yet.

[akalukz]

Originally Posted by PhoenixRed

To be honest, if a developer says something, and you don't believe it happened, then they can't really say anything to convince you, right? In the absence of that, results and their track record, as solarbear has said, are what players use as measuring sticks for judgment. Whether or not they've succeeded in class balance is for everyone to decide.

I can easily be convinced... if there is proof in the patch notes. But from my perspective and my interpretation of the patch notes this has not happened. What is frustrating is them saying this is what they do... when they don't or atleast it is not apparent that they do. But again I don't know each and every change for all the classes, so maybe this has happened... but for the class I know about ... the Magus.. it has not happened, but yet it is a class that the community generally agrees is underpowered and needs some adjustment.. to which we have recieved none except for the "nerf all classes, buff all classes" situations.

Even though some people might believe the shift has come too late, there has been one, if the 1.3 series of AoE/CC and C&C surgical changes (not to mention the removal of stun) are any evidence of that. My thoughts on the class balance issue are pretty much summed up in my last WAH article - there have been some serious bumps in the road, with some sweeping changes and snap-responses to player concerns causing more damage than good. The shift towards a balancing practice that takes into account these mistakes and learns from them is just beginning now. Notions about survival of the game aside, such a shift will take a bit of time to fully take grasp in the community.

I don't want to speak about 1.3.2 yet, because its not hear yet, and there are no patch notes. Yes it sounds good from the bits and pieces we get... but again no proof.

Speaking as a Magus I have seen them say they were going to give us a Throwing Arm equivalant before... yet we still don't have one. We even have a core tactic that is only useable if we are specced fairly high into a mastery tree. No other class has such an issue. Also we have 3(4) tactics that affect just one spell. Again not true of any other class.

I wouldn't be playing still if I didn't think they would eventually get the balance and changes done to this game. I still have fun, although that is more do to the community of players I play with than the game itself.

It's a catch-22. You can't make desperately huge balance changes recklessly in an attempt to keep players interested, because that's a short term fix. Yet you must provide some evidence of action in order to stop notions that you aren't doing anything at all or are moving too slowly. I'd be curious to see what people would do were they faced with that same situation. It's not easy.

The problem as I see it is that even though they aren't making HUGE patches... they are still taking as much time for a small patch as they did for a HUGE patch. Maybe that is good... but at the same time it seems to be lacking in actual changes affecting the game in a timely manner.

On another note, yes, some of the questions were designed to get a little bit more specific detail on classes. They're probably not ready to release that just yet.

I felt the interview was really good, although I am getting tired of certain developers stating... we do X and then we do Y... when for all intent and purpose it appears as if they did 0. The game is getting stale... imo that is the biggest issue that WAR is facing... you can only take so many keeps, so many BO's etc. If the end game actually worked (IE City Sieges) then it wouldn't be so bad, but it is fairly broken at this time... even after they release a patch that was centered on the City Siege.. doesn't offer much hope.

As to thier response about returning players or unsubbed players. There is absolutely no reason for someone that was fed up with imbalances, BoP, lockout timers, population issues, city siege issues, stagnant crafting and stagnant economy to come back. nothing has changed to make these actually work.

Yes they tried fixing the lockout timers... the problem lies in the BoP random drops where you can run an instance and not one single person in the group gets anything they can use.. then they can't even try it again for 3-5 days.

Yes they tried to fix the city siege, but it is still dependent upon non-endgame players to decide the actual outcome of the end game. And this is not a new issue...it has been known and discussed since atleast april or may of this year.

There has been no attempt to address population issues, I play on a sever that is almost exclusively low/low with dead T2-T3 zones that don't change hands for 12 hours at a time if not for days.

Yes I know it sounds negative, and I am really burnt on hearing promises and oh we are working on this or that and it is getting better.. when in actuality it isn't getting much better. The only major change we have seen in the last 6 months that actually made a difference was the AoE Patch. And all that did was increase TTK.

But I am still having fun, because there is no other game out there for the casual PvP player to play other than LoTRO which has its own issues. So for good or for ill I am sticking with the game... not because I love it so much... but rather there is nothing else to play. So Mythic wins my sub by a default rather than by earning it.

[maideth]

i didn't undestand what they said about dok,new ability for pve?

[akalukz]

Originally Posted by maideth

i didn't undestand what they said about dok,new ability for pve?

I dont' want to ruin it for others that haven't listened... but DoKs will be getting something that only the WP has, and it is something they have wanted for a long time. If you still don't understand send me a PM or wait until someone else speaks about it

[maideth]

oh yeah got it thank you

[Vizyon]

Good job WHA gang for getting the big boyz on the podcast. Many of us will be paying extra sepcial attention to this. Lookin' forward to it!

[siduis]

lol ridiculous

a buff for the disciple ... no word about zealot/runi, the healer classes that really needs a buff. just another boring podcast

[PhoenixRed]

Originally Posted by siduis

lol ridiculous

a buff for the disciple ... no word about zealot/runi, the healer classes that really needs a buff. just another boring podcast

We thank you for your continued subscription to supposedly "boring" content.

[Noohasf]

I think mythic believes that if it keeps saying that player perception on imbalanced classes is wrong that we'll start believing it too. Would love to see Nate play a marauder in t4 and tell me my perceptions are wrong.

[Boozed Beerchugger]

It was a great podcast, and I think its proof for everyone out there who is reasonable that these guys CARE. They do want our feedback and they do take it into account -- even though taking our feedback into account doesn't necessarily mean AGREEING with our feedback.

Thanks for this, I look forward to seeing what is in store for us with the next patch.