Questing kills grouping

[Slamz]

It seemed to me like Warhammer would be the answer to a lot of your outline if they had a lattice system of fronts and advancement. Perhaps if they had greatly reduced the amount of time they spent on developing the classes and characters and had spent that time on developing the end game RvR, the game would have been better.

My thoughts exactly.

I was really disappointed when I discovered that Warhammer's tier 3 and tier 4 RvR content were no better than the tier 2 content I saw in beta. I expected it to keep getting bigger, better and more intricate with public quests and integrated PvE within the RvR zones, plus a sensible system of "front line combat".

Obviously the game fell far short of that goal. As usual, the vast majority of development effort had clearly been spent on PvE, even in the tier 4 zones, directly contrary to what they had indicated in their podcasts.

If we could take some concepts from WW2O or Planetside and mesh them with the Warhammer RPG system, we would probably have the perfect Purge PvP game.

Here's an idea. I really loved the concept of leveling a guild up. What if instead of the characters having classes the guilds had classes instead? You could have 'scout' guilds whose members would all be scouts and they would derive every ability they have from the guild and not from their own personal exploits. You could have the Magician's Regiment that would be your magic users. The Phalanx regiment that might be your tanks. The Healer Regiment etc.

There might be a shadowbane-esque guild architecture where you would belong to a network of guilds. Healing Regiment=>The Purge=>RedShirts Alliance etc.

Yeah, "guild leveling" is something I'm a fan of. Rather than everything being about improvements to your character, let it be about something bigger, be it guild, alliance, faction, whatever.

I do think a persistent world game needs something that players can focus on and see improvement in but I think we would do well to get away from personal improvement and towards some wider area improvement. There could be concerns about hard working players feeling resentment towards "hangers on" but I think you can keep them happy so long as their [guild/team/whatever] is better than someone else's [guild/team/whatever], and that their personal contribution is recognized even if the benefits are shared.

That is, you personally lead the charge to capture the enemy fort. Now it's your guild's fort. Dophuz, who wasn't even logged in for the fight, ends up sharing the benefit, but everyone knows it was you that lead the charge, and you got the satisfaction of seeing some other guild get defeated. Do you really need to be 10 levels higher than Dophuz and have The Holy Sword of Smiting +3 to justify the work you did? Or is it enough that everyone knows you did a good thing for the team, and everyone on the team sees the results of the guild banner on the fort's walls?

I'm thinking team rewards and personal recognition can be just as valuable to a individual as any personal reward could be.

In fact, it could be better. You make a name for yourself as a leader and a warrior for the guild and that's something that will last. You quit for 6 months and come back and it's a hero's welcome for the guy who will hopefully contribute to even more conquering.

Whereas you kill a boss mob and get an elite purple drop sword, you feel good about it but nobody else is going to care very much. You quit for 6 months and come back and not only do they still not really care about your sword, but your sword is probably outdated and needs to be replaced!



I do very much like the idea of a large scale entity (like a guild or faction) that "levels up", and anyone who joins can immediately obtain those benefits.

Like as a newbie you have access to, basically, scraps off of whatever you kill. Maybe as a newbie wizard you have access to the spells you personally created. But you join some established wizard's guild and now you have access to the higher grade equipment which they produce, plus you gain access to their extensive spell library, the work of three dozen wizards researching spells for the past two years. You also immediately gain power because of the pact they have with that demon they keep chained up in the basement.

You would still have "newbies" vs "veterans", but the gateway from newbie to veteran is less about spending 6 months killing rats and more about joining up with some existing veterans. From the veteran perspective, getting a friend to start playing the game is the best thing ever because they are immediately brought up to your level of power, rather than having to spend 2 months walking them through linear content which you were already sick of.



Basically, we need to move towards a "community" model and away from a "solo / individual reward" model.

There should still be specialization and maybe even some sort of personal advancement/customization similar to WOW's talent trees, but we need to get away from the "leveling" system that creates huge power gaps between players.