Tag Archives: swtor

Domination is a Thing I Guess

Posted on February 6, 2012 by TwilliK| Leave a comment

So, this week I’m going to talk about ‘domination-style’ game modes. In these, you capture and hold points on a map to accrue points. The winner is the first team to obtain a certain number of points.

To start this off, let us talk about Arathi Basin. A 5-point map, this gamemode has been frustrating people since 1.7

This BG is the yardstick to which I measure all other Domination style battlegrounds. A fairly simple map, a good number of flags relative to the number of players, and generous flag-turning mechanics, lead to this BG being one where a good offense almost always pays off.

While I have (jokingly) refereed to Arathi as “the worst BG of all time” there’s a reason it’s so popular, and that is that you always feel in the race. The scaling of resources gained to bases owned means that a lucky 5-cap can turn the game around (although these are incredibly fragile, which is probably a good thing). Battle for Gilneas on the other hand, feels somewhat less… I’m not quite sure what it is. The most obvious changes are the number of Flags (3 opposed to 5) and Players (10 opposed to 15), and the map does a better job of restricting infomation about incoming players with lots of line of sight blocking doodas and terrain (which you can’t really see from the map here), opposed to the relatively wide open terrain of Arathi.

My personal problem with 3 point domination is as follows. Once you hold 2 points, you can usually turtle your way to a win fairly easily. If the other team pushes very hard, you send players from your other flag to smash their flag. Generally speaking the tide of battle is much harder to turn in a 3 flag scenario. This is also my main problem with Civil War in SWTOR. The other thing that is the case in TOR is that flag turnaround is very short once taken, and the damage dealt to the enemy ship appears to scale linearly. This means once you get 100 points behind, you’ve probably lost the match with 10-20 minutes to go.

In addition to my general distaste for TOR’s PvP mechanics (I’m not sure, it never feels ‘fun’ to attack in TOR, it’s hard to say), this makes for a painful experience. Generally speaking, Civil War games are the ones that make me want to Queue dodge the most, as they’re long (at least they feel long) and always painful.

Before we finish up fully, I’ll also make a brief word on Rift’s domination Warfront, The Codex. I don’t play it very often, so I don’t have that much to say on it, but it feels a bit better than either of the 3 point offerings (I believe it has 4), in addition to Rift having some nice PvP in general (unfortunately the best WFs don’t have equivalents in other games, but I might do a post on just them at some stage soon)

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PvP is Fun and So Are Diagrams

Posted on January 27, 2012 by TwilliK| Leave a comment

I was thinking to myself, why do I enjoy PvP. Obviously I don’t take it quite as seriously as Cynwise or probably even Gnomeaggedon, but I go in there to have a good time, and to probably net myself a win (because let’s be honest, who likes losing?) (Me, sometimes. BUT ANYWAY, MISSING THE POINT)

I was playing a game of Eye of the Storm, widely lauded as my least favorite BG OF ALL TIME. We were losing. We were losing so badly, it was as if a hundred angels had descended from the heavens right ontop of all of the towers, but you know what? I was having fun.

LOOK MA, A RANDOM PICTURE

FUN

I know, how strange, right? We were losing, the team was horrible, but who cares? I was holding off a million assholes, all trying to tear me a new one, I was fighting DKs left and right, fire-mages who cast frostbolt endlessly (I have no clue why, I wasn’t going anywhere (I would of won that fight except LOL CAUTERIZE, which was kinda confusing at the time)), and I was cackling like a madman.

Part of this has to do with how WoW’s PvP system never feels like a horrible grind. While Arenas and Rated Battlegrounds probably do a little bit, that is because people actually take them seriously, and then suddenly I stop having fun. >>;;

Speaking of fun, I ventured into the Raid Finder this week… that was an interesting experience. The fights are pretty easy, and it’s really… fun! It’s raiding for people with less than 9 friends! (I like it for the same reasons I like the LFG tool as a DPS. It makes grouping easy (no finding groups), and it makes the content easier, it’s a win win win situation)

Your face when you realize this image is irrelevant too.

Anyway, getting back to my point, let’s talk about TOR a little bit. TOR’s PvP is, for the most part, less fun. Ignoring the much grindier feeling (PvP levels that don’t reward anything at all is a pretty annoying system – and the PvP dalies are super annoying, oh man), the gameplay itself tends to feel less fun than WoW or Rift (I’ll go back to it after the PvP changes go through and probably talk about it more then) managed to do.

Huttball is entertaining, but 90% of people have no idea what to do in it, which often makes it an exercise in frustration. That being said, if you get a decent team you can have a lot of fun (before winning the game really fast). Civil War is 3-point AB, and TOR’s general bias towards defenders in PvP means it’s a race to cap 2 points before the other team does, most of the time – it also feels like it goes FOREVER. Voidstar is okay, it has the Attack/Defend stylings of Strand, but again, the bias is towards long defensive games there.

Actually, let’s get into some more details. Firstly let’s go over Strand.

EPIC ART SKILLZ

Obviously, the circles are the boat dock spawns, and the attackers then use demolishers (powerful, big, obvious things) and seaforium bombs (items that can be grabbed and dropped next to doors, kinda hard to disarm), to blow through the HP of the various gates, eventually reaching the relic (or running out of time).

This means that the attackers can chip away at each gate, or amass a great force and blow through, or whatever they like. More options are usually better for the attackers, assuming they can co-ordinate a little bit.

MY ARTS, THEY ARE THE BEST ARTS

Voidstar, on the other hand, tends to be a bit more punishing for the attackers. This partially has to do with the mechanics of breaking doors (more like capping a flag than breaking a gate), and TOR’s pretty strong defending bias.

The best strategy here is to co-ordinate with a couple of Sage/Inquisitors (or whoever else has sprint) and quickly cap the bridge (2nd point) and 2nd door before the defenders can regroup and bring the pain.

Voidstar also feels really long. I’m still not sure why that is. Although it’s not uncommon to see both teams failing to reach the goal, and the winner being decided on how many doors were broken.

Not sure what brought on that, but whatever. It’s also interesting to note that a lot of people really hate Strand. I’m not sure why, I really like it as an objectives focused PvPer.

Still, getting back to my point, I like PvPing for fun. Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t take my games seriously. I’ll hound that objective like nobody’s business, because, to be honest, I really like winning.

However, I like losing, too. I love the whole ritual of raging at my enemies, or my teammates, or whatever. Venting is important. But once I’m off that field? It’s gone. I’m not going to abuse you outside of the BG for something. I’m probably not going to abuse you anyway, most of my anger comes from passion, and it’s not a bad thing. When I get passionate I start 3-capping flags and killing DKs.

Which reminds me, one of these days I should sit down with a microphone and PvP for an hour or two, and see what comes out the other side. Haha. Although if I know people will hear it I’ll hold back or something. This is why I am usually much quieter when playing with people over Skype/Vent/Whatever, they don’t need to hear an endless stream of “WHY YOU NO FIGHT ON FLAGS ASLKDJHASLKDJALSJKDASDlkAJSDLas” and I can’t deadpan “oh no what are you doing why are you chasing that champion to their tower oh god now you’re dead and there’s two of them and now I’m dead yay” for more than 5 minutes.

 Anyway, I’ve been rambling for a while, go figure. Turns out writing about PvP is pretty enjoyable. Although I must stress that I am not some strategical genius, and you should take any PvP advice dispensed here with a heaping fistful of salt. That being said, I will gladly ramble like I know what I’m doing for extended periods.

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Play All The Games

Posted on January 23, 2012 by TwilliK| Leave a comment

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of this post, I’ll probably point your attention towards the Arcane Envoy Podcast, now on iTunes! (alternately, feel free to subscribe to the feed using whatever you like using this link here)

I play this game a little bit. Also a ton of another game I didn't think to get screenshots from. :x

Anyway, aaaaanyway. Recently (read: literally 2 days ago), I totally went back to WoW. I’m not quite sure how to put ‘how’ into words.

Nothing to do with TOR, I’m still playing that a bit, and as I said in the AEPlays episode on it, it’s a good game, but suffers from a lot of there being nothing to do solo at the level cap. I still have alts to level there, but I’m unlikely to spend much time on my ‘main’, just because there’s nothing to do (apart from raid, and eeeeeh, I’m going to respectfully pass there (grouping in general, esp in a performance-driven environment? Not really my cup of tea, although I do like playing with friends)). (Also there is PvP, but WoW’s is better, and the gear doesn’t look half as horrible)

So, WoW. yeah. I was away for all of a month or so since I actually let my sub go, although in practice I’d not played much since pre-4.2 (although I did do some of those dailies for a while). I’ve been doing, amusingly, LFG-tool 5 mans. You know why? Because (as a DPS) they’re super relaxing, for the most part. DPSing is easy, and this takes care of the hardest part about grouping, which is actually finding people to play with.

Mostly inaccurate image of what I've been playing recently.

Still, I’ve also been playing other games, as that doesn’t account for the other week and a half of game-playing that has been taking place recently. I’ve also been playing more Sonic Generations, because I like that game a lot, and a frankly silly amount of Final Fantasy XIII (which becomes less silly when you realize XIII-2 comes out in 10 odd days and I need to be prepared), also Skyrim. I am the best at being a sneakthief, but I am not the best at being a combat guy. Even a magic combat guy. >>;;

I’ve also been slowly organizing everything in my life into lists, because why not (alternate reason: after 3 months of summer vacation, my mind has finally broken into a million pieces, and it really likes lists)

Alternate alternate reason. I FUCKING LOVE LISTS (also I am best at arts)

I’ve also been playing all sorts of other stuff, like “write all the things” and “read all the things” and “listen to all the things”. You know me, I’m not one to do things by half-measures.

Still, once I finish FFXIII (read: when I stop grinding for lulz and instead actually continue playing the game), I will probably move onto OTHER GAMES (oh noes), in total I’ve probably spent a few 100 hours playing games over the last month, which, frankly, doesn’t feel like enough. I’ve only done… 10 work week’s worth of gaming? Maybe 15? Over the last month. What kind of game addict am I? NEED MOAR GAMING. (Figures do not account for time spent ‘double dipping’ playing Pokemon while in queues or whatever)

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Binary Versus Continuious Rewards

Posted on December 31, 2011 by TwilliK| Leave a comment

So, I was playing TOR and got the idea for a post exploring various reward structures used in games. Specifically, we’re going to look at reward systems that operate in a binary fashion, specifically, you either have it or you don’t, and ‘continuous’ systems, which mete out rewards in a more steady fashion.

Unrelated, but I need to break this up a little bit, haha ^^;;

The simplest example of a binary reward is a feat from the 3rd  (or later) edition of Dungeons and Dragons. You either have them or not (so they have binary (2) states), and they are all bought at a constant rate of 1 magic feat point.

A simple example of continuous rewards is leveling up. Everything you do (kill) gives experience points, which as you accumulate, increase your strength. You can’t skip levels, the progression is a straight line, like a traintrack or something.

A more relevant example would be, for instance, gear. In most MMOs, the primary source of gear is through killing bosses and taking the gear from their corpse. With gear, you either have it or you do not. While you can have intermediate items, they are essentially separate from your obtaining of the final item.

Gear, of course, also has other ways to be given out. For instance, the highly common badge systems that has been in place in WoW since the Burning Crusade, and both TOR and Rift have had it at launch. Even here, the gear itself has binary states, even if it is earned in a more gradual manner. It presents an interesting set of decisions. Do you buy every gradual upgrade, or just save your tokens for the good stuff?

Crystalsong is pretty. This is a super old screenshot.

Some games gate the good gear behind lots of different currencies. Blizzard have the most elegant system at the moment, with their fluid point system. Although it took them plenty of iterations to get to that stage.

I for one, prefer the single currency with obscene inflation (see Burning Crusade), as it gives everyone a chance to get the good stuff with a bit of time and effort. It also makes it possible to twink people up by running them the higher tier content to let them swim in tokens.

The ‘every tier of gear gets a new token’ system I find annoying, as it leads to lots of gating that makes gearing up nigh impossible. It’s inelegant, and frustrating.

Blizzard’s “upper tier” and “lower tier” currency system, where the current content rewards points just for it’s gear, and everything else grants lower tier points is quite elegant, and is a good compromise between letting the raiders have their fancy exclusive gear, and letting the rest of us stay in touch.

Almost always, rewards themselves have specific states. Even leveling you have ‘tiers’ of XP at which you get to level up, which is when your power actually increases. In some cases, however, the reward scales as you gain whatever it is you gain. Usually these have an ebb and flow to them, much more like power ups than the rewards that have been discussed thus far.

Rage probably bears a mention here as a good example of a fluid system. It starts empty, you fill it up by getting hit in the face // hitting things in the face, and you spend it to hit things in the face hard. Of course, you don’t get stronger by having lots of rage. Although that would be nice, I’m sure. It would also make rage an even more interesting mechanic.

Come to think of it, there aren’t many mechanics that work like that that come to mind… well, I’m sure I’ll think of one 20 minutes after I post this, haha. >>;;

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A Week In TOR

Posted on December 21, 2011 by TwilliK| Leave a comment

Well, the title more or less gives away the point of this post. I’ve been playing TOR since the 15th-ish. Depends on who you ask, and where you’re from.

A lady defined by her love of hats. I can't blame her. Hats are great.

The point of this post is to be a discussion of what I’ve done over the last few days, in as many words as I can remember in. You’ll have to wait a week or so (at least) before I can really talk about how I feel about the game in great detail.

Most of my playtime has been spent on my Jedi Sage. She’s a pretty nice lady, who likes to help all the people with their problems, mostly in exchange for XP and light-side points.

While I’ll go into the group-based exploits of my character in more detail again, at a later date, I can and will reveal that I spent a significant amount of time grouping through portions of my 30 levels. Specifically, I grouped with people (specifically just Kiki) for all of Coruscant, Taris and Nar Shaddaa.

This was good fun. Although I wish we’d done a tiny bit more together, I’m at about 690/750 social points towards Social II, which unlocks more social gear (pretty dresses, fancy hats). Social points are earned by doing conversations in a group, and are gained pretty slowly. Still, it’s no biggie. I’m happy to be Social I, otherwise I’d not be able to have my fancy hat. (That I don’t use because better stats elsewhere, but it’s cool looking, so that’s something)

Let’s also talk about class quests. This probably won’t be so much of a problem if you’re soloing and taking the time to do all the missions and stuff, but these are hard to solo below the intended level. Not impossible, I know I did many 2-4 levels higher than my own, although that made them annoyingly difficult. I am slightly ashamed to say, but I may of ragequit from one particularly annoying boss. In my defense I’d been awake too long? Went and ground out gear & another level and kicked his ass.

I’ve also just started playing my Imperial Agent. She’s great. Like, super great. While her first companion isn’t as cool as the Bounty Hunter’s, she’s got a great voice, and she’s written well.

Anyway, this post has actually been sitting here a whole day, while I tried to think about anything else I wanted to say right at this stage.

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Arcane Envoy Plays TOR Beta

Posted on November 27, 2011 by TwilliK| Leave a comment

Yes, I am in this beta weekend. I have been playing the TOR (redundant redundancy is redundant). This probably does a good job of being my “first impressions” of TOR. I went in mostly blind, although I did have a few ideas about things. (did you know you can be a Jedi?! Dude)

I had a lot of fun recording this episode. Lots of  fun indeed. That being said, the 2nd half is maybe a touch random complaining at times. Still, I had a lot of fun recording this episode, and I hope you all enjoy listening to it.

This week’s written post might be a bit later than I would of liked, because I’ll be playing TOR all the time ’till it closes, haha. >>;;

It’s also imporant to note that none of this should be considered a review. Just the ramblings of a man as he plays the vidya games. I probably unintentionally shouted out like dozens of people this week, but only one is a ‘true’ shoutout, the others are just “yeah that sounds good whatever man” shoutouts.

Get it here!

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