November 2014 – MMO Juggler

Open world PvP

Massively ran a 3 part SoapBox series on why MMOs should abandon raiding. The 3rd part of the series contains links to the first 2 parts.

It’s an interesting read… the main argument comes down to resource utilization and what percentage of the player base takes part.

There is a great quote in the 3rd article about open world PvP:

Raids as a staple in MMOs are, ultimately, just like open PvP: They were something that seemed necessary for a while, something some people liked and a lot of others disliked… and they ultimately are holding the genre back.

And this I heartily agree with.

The kind of PvP I enjoy is battlegrounds style: separate zone, limited numbers, maybe even some objective like CtF. Guild Wars had the best implementation in their Alliance Battles: fairly balanced small numbers (12 on 12) where the fighting occurs in a separate zone. Guild Wars 2’s PvP is more zerg-like since the number aren’t necessarily checked. Plus, GW lets you create a PvP-only character so level and gearing is a non-issue. GW2 up-levels you as well (I think – I’ve only gone into WvW on a level 80).

Even WoW’s battlegrounds are fun – the major downside is the level restrictions are quite large (a decade, at least it was the last time I went in). LoTRO’s PvP is also OK, but since the two sides are totally different and there isn’t any number balancing it can be fairly lopsided.

All of the above PvP implementations (both Guild Wars games, WoW battlegrounds, LoTRO Ettenmoors) are in a separate zone, so when you are in the mood to PvP, go there and get your fill.

But in open world PvP, I’m not sure what the design actually selects for. Between level differences, class differences, gear differences, and possible numerical advantages (lets say outnumbering your target 2 to 1 or more), I’m not sure what comes about from open world PvP other than attracting opportunists and gankers, basically the scumbags of the MMO community.

I’ve seen the argument made that that PvP worlds produce better PvE players. But I don’t see how. What I’ve learned is that being outleveled is a disadvantaged, being outnumbered is a disadvantage, not grinding the same gear quality is a disadvantage, being in the middle of fighting PvE content and being jumped is a disadvantage, and that ranged attackers have a significant advantage in starting fights and running away if things don’t go well for them. None of which helps me in any particular way. Besides, correlation is not causation and it could simply be players “better” at MMO-type games also like PvP, not that playing on an open world PvP server makes them better (where “better” boils down to more progression down end-game content).

Now a RL confession is… I’m older than your average gamer. I’m well into my 4th decade and creeping up on my 5th. 😉 My reflexes aren’t as razor shaped as they… well they probably weren’t ever razor sharp haha. I can play the content well enough but against another person, I react slower, especially initially. If it takes me an extra 0.1 seconds to interrupt or use some critical defensive skill, that might be something I can’t recover from. Imagine I were attacked by my clone except a Horde (enemy faction) version and we both execute the same rotation and skills. Except I am late on a handful of them by a tenth of a second. Yeah.

It’s times like this where I like EVE’s gameplay. It certainly isn’t “twitch” and is more about your planning in advance what modules you fit to your ship. And if someone else does attack you there are multiple avenues for responding: coming back in another ship (basically the MMO equivalent of changing classes), or putting a bounty on them (no real analog in other MMO’s). I also like that EVE lets you stealth (i.e. fit a cloak module) on basically any ship. Granted some cloaking modules will have major drawbacks, like a movement penalty, but many times it is handy to be invisible while gathering intel. In WoW, only a few classes can stealth (rogues and druids as far as I know) and otherwise you can make a potion to do it for 18 seconds… bleh.

EVE – quick errands

It’s been a while since I played – I forgot to reset my planetary interaction last week. Oh well.

Aurora is nearing 32 million skill points, so her Xi clone wouldn’t be good for much longer. Thus I swapped into the Buzzard and started the scan procedure for hisec, in order to get to a station and run these errands.

But first, I checked the corporate bookmarks and it looked like there was a pair of current entries: the N110 to hisec and the K162 back home. I decided to give them a try since it would save me 5-10 minutes and maybe even more.

After a quick d-scan to make sure nothing unusual was around, I took a risk and jumped 0 km to the N110. And it was there, so I passed through and found myself in Jouvulen (which I already knew from the K162 bookmark info). This meant the closest trade hub was good old Jita.

Well, it isn’t too bad unless there is some “Burn Jita” event going on ;).

Once in Jita, with a nice eventless trip, I docked up and did a bit of shopping: various skills and a clone upgrade. My skill queue is a mix of missiles, electronic warfare, logistics, and drones and it is lengthy as well – 295 days. I’m sure 2 months from now I’ll juggle stuff around, adding and subtracting skills, so what is there right now will change drastically.

WoW – My Garrison

Suldrun is level 98 now, with a Level 2 Garrison and various level 2 buildings.

So far, I am enjoying running the Garrison. It generates 30 mins to 1 hour of stuff to do each day, and provides me some tangible benefits.

It produces resources, so pick them up after logging in.

Then I’ll wander into my town hall and check on any completed missions (that I sent my followers on). The mission rewards are typically experience (for the followers), gold, garrison resources, or sometimes items – but I haven’t completed one of those yet out of two I’ve tried. The first one I failed because I misunderstood the mission obstacle – I didn’t send followers that could counter all the obstacles. Doh! The second one I failed due to bad luck – I had countered the obstacles, but due to the level of the challenge versus the level of my followers, there was just a 67%, and I was not lucky that time.

I swing by my alchemy lab and sometimes a follower I assigned produces an extra item for me to pick up. While I do appreciate the items that Bruna Swiftstone generates, I might take her off alchemy duty because she’s my only follower (right now) that can counter Minion Swarms and I need her available for missions. Plus she needs to level up!

After that I’ll go outside the wall to the herb garden, pick up any previous work orders, and harvest whatever is there. Sometimes a single enemy spawns so I’ll have a quick fight. The garden is nice because Suldrun is an alchemist/herbalist, so I can use what I harvest to skill up. I’ll check with the gardener and send in some work orders if I have enough Draenic Seeds.

I’ll then zip over to the excavation, pick up any previous work orders, and descend into the mine and harvest all the available ore. Even though Suldrun isn’t a miner, I can mine the nodes that appear in the excavation. I’m assuming that non-herbalists can similarly pick from the herb garden. I’ve had a single mob spawn here as well, so sometimes there is a quick fight too. Once outside, I’ll check with the foreman and send in work orders if I have enough Draenic Stone.

Sometimes I fish but not always. It is kinda dull and the only reason I do it is for cooking, which isn’t too exciting BUT cooking provides huge benefits via food that heals giant amounts of health/mana. I did one daily quest about getting fish eggs, and wondered what to do with the leftover meat. I looked through the Draenic cooking section and saw that I could make food that healed 170K health over 20 seconds (?!) so I tossed out all the meals I made skilling up in Pandaria and made a bunch of the new foods which are hugely better. But of course they need to be because the level cap in MoP was 90 and now it is 100. Anyway, what was even nicer is I received more recipes while my cooking skill climbed.

I also have my own Bank, Lunarfall Inn, and Dwarven Bunker (various building options I chose). Like everyone else, I have my own flight master.

And then when I’m ready, I’ll fly off to a quest hub and work on various quests or the storyline more. Before logging off, I’ll check available missions and send followers out on any that look good.

I like this system a lot since it provides some useful benefits.

I can fiddle around a bit and essentially gather several resources in the garrison instance in peace – I also gather while questing but the garrison is a nice supplement. Sending followers off on mission is a little mini-game that scores me some gold once in a while, more or less trades garrison resources for gold. Or, gets me bonus garrison resources… the typical mission just gets experience for the followers I sent on it.

I can fish and cook right near the fish shack, and on a PvP world it is handy having food around – after some fights I need to heal up and it isn’t too wise to wait for natural regen or blow all your energy casting healing spells.

There is still plenty of player interaction – I keep chat open and a steady stream of messages scroll by. That of course is a minor issue given I have several RL friends playing so chat with friends, guild chat, and queueing for instances provides plenty of player interaction even tucked away in my garrison instance.

And of course having that 2nd hearthstone is extremely convenient!

I realize that my garrison is essentially a clone of every other player’s garrison; the differences being what buildings they choose and the upgrade level of those buildings. There aren’t decoration options available, which I know many players enjoy. But while I had fun decorating my house in LoTRO, I don’t really use it except for the extra storage. And to listen to the awesome background music I have playing when I’m there ;). But I visit so rarely I forget I have a house so it is good thing I pay the upkeep fee 3+ months in advance.

What the WoW garrison lacks in customization it makes up for in usefulness. It provides a few mins of easy tinkering before getting ready to quest out in Draenor. It’s a nice feature and Blizzard can really some cool stuff to its mechanics in future expansions.

WoW – early Draenor

I haven’t blogged much about gaming, because I’m too busy playing and having fun instead.

Draenor

I was having fun in Pandaria, maybe I’m the only person playing that enjoyed it or something. Granted, the Pandaren race didn’t excite me, but I do very much enjoy the class that they brought in with them (the monk) and the zones and music. So pretty much most everything except the physical appearance of the Pandaren, which I realize is a personal preference.

I finished up all the quests I could find in Jade Forest and moved into other zones, but WoD released so I jumped into that as soon as I could. It started with a quest line that lead to my initial garrison… but I’m sure you knew that because everybody has talked about it.

I’ve finished off Shadowmoon Valley and started in Gorgorond; there are 4-5 other Draenor zones I haven’t been to at all. And eventually I’d like to go back and see the rest of Pandaria even if I’m overleveled for it. Maybe I’ll work my way backwards through the expansions and arrive at vanilla WoW areas. 😉

Garrison

So far I am enjoying the garrison mechanics. I’ve upgraded to a Level 2 garrison, and have an alchemy lab, dwarven bunker, storage, and inn. I’ve tried out alchemy work order, as well as mined in the excavation just outside. I started the fish quest and am midway, and notice there is an herbalist as well, with a grayed out exclamation point (quest marker) – so that’s something I’m not yet eligible for.

As an aside: it would be awesome if I could name that future garden “Suldrun’s Garden” after the book I took the name from. 🙂

Dungeons

I’ve queued up for 2 Draenor dungeons so far: Bloodmaul Slag Mines and Iron Docks. Both were mostly with guildies and fun to do. The loot is good too but we’re not in gearing up mode right now; I just like the grouping plus the gold and experience is really worthwhile.

I enjoy Blizzard’s sly humor and pop culture references:

Quests

I’ve noticed that certain tough boss-type monsters in the open world – I’ve seen the playerbase refer to them as elites and also as rares – aren’t tapped/tagged by a single player. Meaning, you can join in while somebody else is fighting, help out, and get credit for the kill too. That’s really cool and promotes light teaming here and there.

If nobody is around I’ll give it a shot, but keep my Touch of Death skill handy. That one lets me kill a target of less health than me (there is a modification to where it works on a raid boss if the boss is less than 10% health) so I’ll fight, heal myself, and keep an eye on when my enemy dips under that threshold.

Boost

The level 90 boost is an excellent idea, IMHO. It lets somebody like me actually play with others that have max level chars. The timing was good too, I had a few weeks before the expansion went live so I could play a class for a while to see if I liked it, then boost and have some time at the old level ceiling to quest (earn money) and acclimate to new skills I gained.

If the boost didn’t exist, then either my friends would have to be willing to level yet another char, or I’d just pretty much be solo while coming up the ranks. I tried that before and it didn’t work, leading to my first unsub. I don’t mind mostly soloing while leveling, but being left out of grouping when you have RL friends also playing is tough – even though it is nobody’s fault really. I was too low level to join them, they were too powerful to join me, so the two options were: (me) level like crazy to catch up, or (them) start another char to level with me.

GW2 has a nice solution with the down-leveling mechanic… maybe Blizzard could think about implementing something like that. But GW2 was always that way from the start; I can imagine many WoW players wouldn’t want to downlevel the char they’ve played to a high level. Or who knows, maybe they would.

WoW take 3

What’s different for me this time around is I have 3 real life friends also playing AND I have one high level character that can join them. So I’ll quest a bit, and when we have critical mass (including other guildies as not everybody overlaps their play) we’ll do a dungeon which is great variety and lots of fun.

I do plan to level another char as a secondary goal, but I can’t say enough how the level 90 boost really made the difference for me.

Anyway, just a bunch of random thoughts from a level 95 monk.

WoW – Level 90

So after playing a monk to level 30/31 and enjoying it, I decided to use my “boost to 90” option on that char. And things immediately changed.

Initially, it was disorienting because I lost the skills I had and was back to a minimal rotation. It seems when you boost a char, you get some nice gear (your original stuff is mailed back to you), bags, gold (150 I think) and you then have a small quest chain to open up the rest of your skills, talents, glyph slots, etc. I can see why Blizzard did this, rather than just dump everything on a new char – I’m sure a lot of current players will boost a class they hadn’t leveled much. For me it was only annoying because I used the range taunt Provoke quite a bit, and that was a skill that wasn’t restored to me until I finished the quest chain.

My friend met me in Stormwind and showed me how to get to Pandaria, and we threw in queueing for instances and a raid.

And they were tons of fun!

This is what I think of when I think about WoW – endgame instances, crazy boss fights and so on. I had never really experience any of it before. The previous times I tried WoW my friends preferred to run me through a dungeon (i.e. I was a lowbie compared to them so they’d just bring their max level chars and annihilate everything). It would take too long (for them) level start a new char and catch up to me, and the same was true for me to catch up to their lowest level chars. I was at an awkward middle level, too high to quickly reach, too low to really do anything they wanted to.

But this boost has changed everything and lets me group with friends without convincing them to level another char, or me focusing entirely on leveling to catch up.

We group for a solid 2 hours, doing whatever instances popped and I had a ton of fun.

It got even better a few days later, as a 2nd friend joined us. So we were a group of 3: tank, healer, DPS; and queued up for a bunch more stuff, all 5 man dungeons/instances this time.

It was super fun as well. In fact, so much fun I’m half tempted to pay for a boost on another character, just to have two level 90s to switch between for added variety and flexibility.

But I’ll think about that first a bit more. I enjoy leveling and do want to work at least one char up through the various zones. It’ll partly depend on whether a friend is also interested in leveling a char; then we’d just set those chars aside for grouping with each other.

Questing

My perspective on in-game money has changed. Before, when I had played ~30 levels and saved up a grand total of 5-8 gold (I can’t remember if I did buy a gear upgrade at auction or not), money was always tight.

I’m not rolling in it now, but so many quests in Pandaria award 9-11 gold, I’m stunned even a week later. I just haven’t gotten used to making about twice as much gold as it took me 30 levels to make, in a single quest.

I understand completely now why prices are skewed and things always seemed to expensive. Now with my max level char (at least until tomorrow when WoD releases, haha), quests award gold instead of XP and this is an amazing way to earn money. Longer term players with more high level chars probably have 100x or more than me and without any real gold sinks, just bid up everything to sky high levels; hence the ridiculous pricing and outrageous inflation.

But now, I have a char that can dip into this income stream and that gives me (a bit of) in-game financial freedom. My 90 monk basically earned the gold to buy decent bags for all my alts and it is still piling up. I kinda like harvesting my own materials (mining, herbs) so I can save for other nice things to have, like glyphs or other misc items I haven’t run into yet. Perhaps buying dual-talent trees, etc. I’m not complaining; it’s great to not be under money pressure that probably 99% of the playerbase cannot imagine having.

I’m also enjoying questing in Pandaria: the soundtrack is awesome, nice harp/strings background Asian-influenced music. It isn’t ground breaking stuff, lots of the usual quests, but with a flying mount and being decently geared and leveled, it goes quick and there is so much to do.

I’ve been working on the storyline, doing solo instances to unlock new outposts, with the occasional session play tossed in.

It’s just been some of the most fun I’ve had playing MMOs. For a bit in Guild Wars I had a reliable guild to adventure with; same with LoTRO. But right now, I’ve got 4-5 friends playing WoW and see myself shifting around which games I play to make plenty of room for Warcraft. 🙂

Downsides

The worst thing continues to be open world PvP. It’s just as terrible as it always is, with ganking out numbering the “fair” fights 3 or 4 to 1. And “fair” is still pretty iffy as most players either wait until their side outnumbers you or opportunistically jump while you are partly distracted fighting mobs.

That’s fine, I can keep situational awareness up and partially mitigate those situations.

But there really isn’t anything I can do when a stealthed char hit my level 15 alt for 3200 overkill. I just run back, rez, and keep going. I tell myself I’m not pathetic enough to creep around stealthed and kill players that have no chance whatsoever of fighting back.

Actually, if Blizzard didn’t offer a character boost I probably wouldn’t have resubbed and played on a PvP server.

WoW – Misc Notes

I got a bunch of random stuff done.

First, I leveled a Paladin to 21, another Draenei. What can I say, I think they look really cool! I have more Draenei in the wings as well – a shaman – plus a warrior and hunter just for variety. I figure I need a break from the Draenei starter area so I decided to try a Gnome Priest too (part of my goal to play various classes to 20 or so). Part of me wants to play each class to level 10 or 20, but eventually pare that down to a main and an alt.

The Paladin felt like a solid, fun class to play, decent variety of skills, flexible (can tank, heal, dps). I’ll keep leveling on the side, as an alt.

Second, I made a Gnome Priest as I mentioned. I really liked the whimsical goofiness of the starter area, and made it to Loch Modan and reached level 15. At level 10 I picked Shadow spec because I’ve got to kill stuff to level.

And unfortunately… this is the most boring class I’ve ever played in a MMO (the Shadow Priest through the first 15 levels). I know that healing for groups is plenty challenging, but so far at level 15 I have a 3 skill rotation: Shadow Word Pain, Mind Flay, Power Word Shield. It’s been this way for at least 2 levels already and I’m bored out of my mind doing quests. I looked ahead in the spellbook and the priest doesn’t get another combat skill until level 21! I get Resurrection at level 18, then Devouring Plague and Mind Blast at level 21 which means 6 more levels of hitting 3 buttons without anything more sophisticated (e.g. watching for a proc that might change the rotation) other than cast on cooldown for Mind Flay and Power Word Shield (and reapply on expiration for the Shadow Word Pain). Those skills are 2 instants and 1 channel and ZZzzzzz…. Oh sorry I fell asleep thinking about it.

I cannot fathom doing 6 more levels of this rotation so I’m going to shelve the Priest out of massive boredom. I would respec and try queueing for dungeons but you don’t get dual spec until level 30. It would be cumbersome to keep talking to a trainer to redo talents and so on to work around this issue.

I think Blizzard should go through and smooth out skill acquisition – there is no reason to NOT get a skill every other level at this point. Perhaps the method to their madness is to encourage Priests to go Holy or Discipline by making it so ghastly boring to be Shadow (at least for the early levels)?

So I talked to the flight master in Iron Forge and flew Melancthe to Stormwind where she will hang around the bank just hold stuff for others.

Third, I used my boost to make my monk 90. I figured what the heck. My previous high level char was a shaman but that was 4 years ago and right now I’m playing and enjoying the monk. More on that next time. 😉

EVE – Activity After a Lull

I had been playing the skill queue shuffling game in EVE for weeks. The good news is Aurora is getting to be a better Battlecruiser pilot; the bad news is I haven’t actually done much else. So I logged in over the weekend resolved to play a bit.

On Summer I exported Planetary Goods and also picked them up with the Epithal. My overview settings weren’t showing anything for some reason, so I had to spend a few minutes digging through to find what to enable. After I while I found what I needed: Orbitals->Orbital Infrastructure made the customs offices display again, and Celestial->Planet made the planets show up. I wonder why that tab quit working but whatever, I fixed it. Huzzah.

The most recent corporate bookmarks were from a few days ago, which were undoubtedly out-of-date, so I switched over to Aurora to scan for my exit out. There were 8 (!!) cosmic signatures to resolve; 6 of those were wormholes (a mix of K162, N110, E004, C125) and the other 2 were gas sites. After finding the N110 I popped out into hisec and found it led to Bereye, very conveniently located near Dodixie (meaning, only 8 jumps).

After saving several bookmarks I switched back to Summer so I could haul the PI goods to market. Except… I noticed Aurora’s scanning ship was no longer insured. I supposed it had been several weeks since I last ran hisec errands (well, anywhere I could purchase insurance which for me is hisec). So I did a side errand of piloting the Buzzard and the Drake to Bereye to re-up the insurance.

Then I switched over to Summer and hauled goods to market (and also re-insured the Epithal). Then I did the same thing on Autumn – updating planetary production, picking up good, hauling to market.

It didn’t even feel like I got that much done, but it still took over 3 hours to do it all. Ugh.

My subscription is up in a few days and after some deliberation, I decided to do another 3 months. I do like EVE but sometimes the logistics are a little too close to reality for me. 😉