1. #39061
    Quote Originally Posted by lawow74 View Post
    I expect people to be bad in POTD, but I had a real gem earlier this week, a WHM who just completely ignored a dead party member and sat at the Cairn. I finally called them out, asked if maybe they cared to play their role sometime today and res the dead party member, they tried to make a joke about me chilling out, I snarkily explained that that button marked Cure heals people, and they got all butthurt and left group shortly after. Which I was fine with, saved me the trouble of vote-kicking their useless ass. Only healer I depend on in POTD is my Sustain Pot.
    I got called out leveling RDM for not healing a tank from two rooms away, so YMMV.

  2. #39062
    Quote Originally Posted by lawow74 View Post
    That's definitely a plus, and not having World PvP garbage to clog up design and balance elements goes a long way to keeping things running smoothly. I think the way they framed PvP as duels, competitions and military wargames was the way to go, instead of this 'hurr durr we hate each other murder death kill murder death kill' nonsense. I also liked the way they did it in GW 2, with it being framed as invaders from another dimension through the Mists warring with you.
    One thing they should shamelessly rip off from this game (and any that did this before) is having the abilities in pvp be similar to their pve counterparts, but differ in values such as damage and what not. While it's an area of contention among people who've done pvp in FF14 prior to SB, as someone who didn't give a shit about it due to having to go to external resources (Google) to find out what gear I needed in order to be optimal (not to mention needing the armory space for said gear), I'm absolutely a fan of what they've worked to do with pvp in this game. For a game with such a heavy pve emphasis, they've done a reasonably decent job with setting up the pvp to where they can make tweaks to a job there that have zero impact on them in pve (and vice versa). It's one area that WoW has sorely lacked in, but I may be biased on that because I've had at least one friend quit WoW completely due to such "balancing".

  3. #39063
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    I'm honestly confused as to what they're trying to accomplish with the narrative there. Disclaimer: Haven't played since WoD.

    From the snippets of lore I picked up from Legion, I am under the impression they were working more toward having the two factions united against a common foe, which has been an angle they've had at various points throughout the years. Yet now there is a new xpac looming, and it seems to firmly draw the line between the two factions to where each of them loses a capital city to the other...??? On that note, how is that supposed to work when it comes to new NE/Undead characters? Perhaps these have been answered if I cared to delve into the details (which I may do later, for my own amusement).
    They're going to use phasing. New players (and likely old players who talk to an NPC) start in a phased out version of Tirisfal or wherever, and at max level they are phased into an 'azeroth at war' with fucked up undercity and burnt down Teldrasil

  4. #39064
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    This is an incredibly tough and nuanced discussion because there are players who don't care about factions or pvp at all (FF14 playerbase obviously heavily leans this way). However, some of my best memories in gaming were world PVP against Horde/Alliance (pending which side I was on at the time). That exciting twinge that someone could be sneaking up on me while I'm questing and having to compete for mobs/the quest hub. The need and want to be with a friend in the open world so it isn't as dangerous, etc. Those exciting 2v2 battles against 2 random other players, etc. If you don't enjoy that it's easy to be annoyed at the idea of it, but like I said, some of my best memories in gaming spawned from this type of gameplay.

    I love FF14 as much as the next guy here, but it's not because of the playerbase. In fact I can't even stand most of them. They have no pride in themselves as jobs, they have no pride in themselves as what GC they belong too, and they have no pride in their performance. (I'll give credit for race pride tho, cause potatoes/fem roes). These things make it really hard to care about the playerbase because they feel artificial. They don't feel like people to me.

    I will tell you then when I play the new expansion I will be PVP flagged 24/7. Because, I personally enjoy that threat. If I get repeatedly killed/ganked/camped etc. I'll toggle it off so I can keep doing my thing. It's actually a pretty good compromise.

    Sidebar though:

    I saw that WoW is going to be using a procedurally generated island system that has advanced AI/PVP built into it. I am pretty interested in this. It seems literally right up my alley. Enemies will have advanced AI that focuses down low HP players/healers, or runs to grab other trash packs, they'll interrupt and focus CC and other such measures. I'll be curious to see just how this shakes out in the future. As you know I've advocated for systems like this in PVE.

    What I am not interested in is losing artifact weapons for BFA greens. I'm also not super keen on their concept of 'keeping classes largely the same' bit they mentioned. I know some people hate classes changing every xpac, but I quite like it, just like I liked not having to chase weapon drops in Legion.
    Part of me had a "holy shit, wtf" reaction to the idea that WoW servers are basically going to all function akin to pve servers, where you have to toggle pvp on in order to duke it out in the world...and that's coming from someone who was a career pve server denizen aside from a few months on Mal'Ganis as Alliance. That said, it's not much of a secret that majority of pvp servers (actually, I dare say all servers) basically became lopsided population wise for one faction over the other.

    Pretty sure people don't give a shit about what GC they are on because it worked to split up an already small portion of the player base (those interested in pvp) in a game that has far fewer folks playing it than WoW, which only splits people into two factions. The freelancer option was an absolute godsend, although it isn't without it's own issues (namely botters in Shatter, idk if they show up on other maps).

    Even being a pve server denizen for most of my WoW heyday, some of the best times I've had were doing world pvp, whether it was Tarren Mill vs. Southshore line/trench warfare (when I could charge into the middle of 20+ people and fearbomb all of them), Wintergrasp, punting people using Thunderstorm (including an entire alliance raid on Thunder Bluff...I got a couple of them to log on alts and they were all "LOL DUDE THAT WAS HILARIOUS"). So as long as they let people flag up, I think things will be ok. Maybe all those folks clamoring to gank low level people will end up on the classic server to scratch that itch.

  5. #39065
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    This is an incredibly tough and nuanced discussion because there are players who don't care about factions or pvp at all (FF14 playerbase obviously heavily leans this way). However, some of my best memories in gaming were world PVP against Horde/Alliance (pending which side I was on at the time). That exciting twinge that someone could be sneaking up on me while I'm questing and having to compete for mobs/the quest hub. The need and want to be with a friend in the open world so it isn't as dangerous, etc. Those exciting 2v2 battles against 2 random other players, etc. If you don't enjoy that it's easy to be annoyed at the idea of it, but like I said, some of my best memories in gaming spawned from this type of gameplay.
    I'd argue that can still be achieved without forcing the entire playerbase to suffer devastating losses ecxlusively to their faction and theirs alone for the sake of the other's enjoyment.

    From what I remember, EverQuest had world pvp with higher stakes than WoW ever did and it had jack all to do with forcing all players to view half of their fellow gamers as somehow the "enemy." EQ had guild war pvp. Guild leaders essentially agreed on the spoils of war and those two guilds were flagged for open PvP to one another. Spoils could range from a small amount to gil to a number of items from the slain player's inventory.

    There are ways to implement PvP and world PvP without having to basically screw portions of your playerbase on a regular basis for it.

    I'm talking about the fact that in order to advance their story, they crapped on every night elf player who feels any connection to their race's history. Teldrassil? Gone. And if the're legit that the continents are basically faction split now, then night elves lost Ashenvale, Winterspring, Hyjal, Moon Glade, every moonwell, the world tree, and the remnants of the Well of Eternity so that the other faction of players can now have them.

    Same goes for the Forsaken apparently losing Lordaeron (though there's some confusion in that since mixed signals at Blizzcon). If nothing else, they've outright said Lordaeron can be reclaimed by the Horde (reason for one of the new conflict areas in Arathi is to regain Lordaeron) while the Night Elves....well they ain't got jack to reclaim since their home was BURNED TO THE MUTHA FUGGIN GROUND! You basically poke groups of your player base in the eye and spit on them and expect them to be happy?

    Where with FFXIV, the entire playerbase at the time shared the shock of the end events of A Realm Reborn. There was a collective "WTF" not "screw Ul'dah players, hahahaha, look what happened to them" designed into the story.

    It's just kinda crappy to tell large swaths of players their race just had everything they own wiped out so the "other faction" can win a big victory all for the sake of an arbitrary PvP storyline that doesn't make one bit of sense whatsoever from an in-game story perspective.

    I much prefer FFXIV's design and with MMOs in general I prefer methods of implementing choices of PvP rather than hard, arbitrary requirements "because they're the wrong race so kill them."

    Going to EQ again, high elves and dark elves absolutely hated each other, but if you were dedicated you could gain favor with your sworn enemies and walk freely in their cities. And if you didn't do that, there was still an aspect of "in the dangerous parts of the world, anyone who protects my back and kills the thing trying to kill me is, at least temporarily, my ally."

    I love FF14 as much as the next guy here, but it's not because of the playerbase. In fact I can't even stand most of them.
    No, you don't say. I never would have guessed.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    I'm honestly confused as to what they're trying to accomplish with the narrative there. Disclaimer: Haven't played since WoD.

    From the snippets of lore I picked up from Legion, I am under the impression they were working more toward having the two factions united against a common foe, which has been an angle they've had at various points throughout the years. Yet now there is a new xpac looming, and it seems to firmly draw the line between the two factions to where each of them loses a capital city to the other...??? On that note, how is that supposed to work when it comes to new NE/Undead characters? Perhaps these have been answered if I cared to delve into the details (which I may do later, for my own amusement).
    From what I've picked up, they'll just use phasing but after 110, Darnassus no longer exists and Lordaeron is...... occupied? I have no idea. They seem to imply it could be reclaimed, so it can't be razed to nothing or that wouldn't be possible.

    The whole idea makes no damn sense immediately after a costy unified assault against the Legion and it's stupid to keep forcing a faction vs faction all out war since the game's design itself doesn't allow either side to ever win such a war.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    Even being a pve server denizen for most of my WoW heyday, some of the best times I've had were doing world pvp, whether it was Tarren Mill vs. Southshore line/trench warfare (when I could charge into the middle of 20+ people and fearbomb all of them), Wintergrasp, punting people using Thunderstorm (including an entire alliance raid on Thunder Bluff...I got a couple of them to log on alts and they were all "LOL DUDE THAT WAS HILARIOUS"). So as long as they let people flag up, I think things will be ok. Maybe all those folks clamoring to gank low level people will end up on the classic server to scratch that itch.
    I've never cared for PvP, which always seemed to be "run around in circles and rely on the game not letting them attack behind them more than my actual abilities used at the right time, lag is the best pvp weapon!" but with the number of people and EVERYONE struggling with lag, South Shore vs Tarren Mill was always a blast.

  6. #39066
    Quote Originally Posted by blackblade View Post
    They're going to use phasing. New players (and likely old players who talk to an NPC) start in a phased out version of Tirisfal or wherever, and at max level they are phased into an 'azeroth at war' with fucked up undercity and burnt down Teldrasil
    That makes sense. Makes me appreciate how the story in this game is handled, though, in comparison, seeing that it starts in the past and advances up to the present. The only weird time lapses occur if you go back to level a new job after reaching max level (the DRG questline being the biggest offender, and it's been explained by the devs that the job quests are current as they are introduced or somesuch). With WoW, a newly created character starts in the past, ends up further back in the past (~5 years), then jumps to a time in the past closer to the present than where they started, then back in time to a point in the past ~20 years before where their character started, then finally jumps to the present time...something to that effect.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    From what I've picked up, they'll just use phasing but after 110, Darnassus no longer exists and Lordaeron is...... occupied? I have no idea. They seem to imply it could be reclaimed, so it can't be razed to nothing or that wouldn't be possible.

    The whole idea makes no damn sense immediately after a costy unified assault against the Legion and it's stupid to keep forcing a faction vs faction all out war since the game's design itself doesn't allow either side to ever win such a war.



    I've never cared for PvP, which always seemed to be "run around in circles and rely on the game not letting them attack behind them more than my actual abilities used at the right time, lag is the best pvp weapon!" but with the number of people and EVERYONE struggling with lag, South Shore vs Tarren Mill was always a blast.
    I had forgotten they can use phasing to accomplish that.

    So I wasn't totally off the mark concerning the idea that the factions were being brought in line to combat a greater threat? Only for things to go "reeeeeeeeeeee muh faction battles" or whatever and lead us to this new xpac. I said this much when WoD was announced and it seems to be more and more correct as time goes on: They really don't have a clue and/or give a shit about lore at this point. Yeah, people whined about "ermagerd kung-fu pandas", and there was a bit of Carebear shit going on with players battling amalgamations representing negative emotions, but MoP had some pretty dark moments for such a "disney xpac".

    Eh, maybe I'm just a jaded former player, nothing more, nothing less.

  7. #39067
    For the most part, other players in this game are just NPC's to me. Some look stupid, some act stupid, some do both. But otherwise they're just things on a screen. Don't care about them unless they impede my progress. Then I want awful, awful things to happen to them.

    As far as WoW goes, I've stopped caring. I gave up following anything really related to it by the start of WoD. It's nothing but the Metzen Show anymore, all about HIS characters, HIS creations, we're just there to justify the story, like some derpass D&D DM who railroads everyone along to let his pet NPC's all shine in the spotlight. I know, story railroading is all part and parcel of a game like this, but at least I could ride inside the train, not being drug along behind on the railbed.

  8. #39068
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    Anyone ever listened to Ertuan's original lyrics for FF songs?



    Her version of Answers got some flak and she felt she didn't do it justice because her voice is too weak, but I love the contrast from Calloway's performance. Calloway feels like it's Hydaelyn herself. Erutan's version feels like a bard singing it in a tavern, especially with her instrument choices.



    Sadly she can't do videos anymore. Something about a muscle spasm affecting her voice and it's gotten weaker and weaker to the point she no longer feels she can sing.
    These are nice arrangements, she definitely put a lot of work into them. I would agree with you interpretation of the second song.
    Really like the flute playing (big surprise there )...

    Sucks that she can no longer sing. Life can be pretty mean at times.

  9. #39069
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    That makes sense. Makes me appreciate how the story in this game is handled, though, in comparison, seeing that it starts in the past and advances up to the present. The only weird time lapses occur if you go back to level a new job after reaching max level (the DRG questline being the biggest offender, and it's been explained by the devs that the job quests are current as they are introduced or somesuch). With WoW, a newly created character starts in the past, ends up further back in the past (~5 years), then jumps to a time in the past closer to the present than where they started, then back in time to a point in the past ~20 years before where their character started, then finally jumps to the present time...something to that effect.
    Even then, some of the stormblood job quests have subtle differences if you're running it pre and post completing the expansion's MSQ, so it's something SE is very consious about moving forward.

    WoW has always been gameplay first, and it kinda shows. The game does a bad job of handling the story between expansions, to the point where it's entirely offboarded onto out-of game sources like books/comics/etc. Stuff like Garrosh's trial and subsequent escape into AU Draenor with the aid of the bronze dragonflight and Wrathion. Legion had the invasions and the broken shore scenario which helped set the stage for gul'dan (which is a step in the right direction)

  10. #39070
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    Man, looking at the new expansion for WoW makes me appreciate how well an MMO works that doesn't artificially split the player base and pit them against each other. When catastrophe hits Eorzea, we all share in what that means. The new WoW expansion just drives a spear through Forsaken and Night Elf players' hearts and rips every important area away from them. :/

    The forced faction split worked early in WoW, but made no sense to me when EQ2 went that route. The storyline Blizzard has built over the last number of expansions makes me think WoW would have benefited from detaching players from their faction military and its politics. Class Order Halls should have set the players back as adventurers apart and independent from whatever war their factions engage in, allowing for that Classic & BC era adventuring/exploration vibe.
    Honestly, I was completely "meh".
    Don't get me wrong the cinematic was AWESOME from a gfx/artistic PoV. I loved the raw, unchained holy magic Anduin was casting, damn if we had actual spell effects like these in the game. :Q

    As for the story: bleargh. I think Legion will be a "wrap" for me personally. For the first time in 10 years I don't feel the urge to buy and explore the new expansion. :/

  11. #39071
    Quote Originally Posted by lawow74 View Post
    For the most part, other players in this game are just NPC's to me. Some look stupid, some act stupid, some do both. But otherwise they're just things on a screen. Don't care about them unless they impede my progress. Then I want awful, awful things to happen to them.

    As far as WoW goes, I've stopped caring. I gave up following anything really related to it by the start of WoD. It's nothing but the Metzen Show anymore, all about HIS characters, HIS creations, we're just there to justify the story, like some derpass D&D DM who railroads everyone along to let his pet NPC's all shine in the spotlight. I know, story railroading is all part and parcel of a game like this, but at least I could ride inside the train, not being drug along behind on the railbed.
    Ironically he's not there anymore. He retired, or semi-retired at least. He comes in to read lines for Thrall and that's about it.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Granyala View Post
    Honestly, I was completely "meh".
    Don't get me wrong the cinematic was AWESOME from a gfx/artistic PoV. I loved the raw, unchained holy magic Anduin was casting, damn if we had actual spell effects like these in the game. :Q

    As for the story: bleargh. I think Legion will be a "wrap" for me personally. For the first time in 10 years I don't feel the urge to buy and explore the new expansion. :/
    10 years and Legion resolving all the major plotpoints is a pretty good place to close the book on it. I'm not entirely sure if I'm interested enough to explore the new one when it releases either. At the same time, I twitch imagining giving it a try, enjoying it, and not having the CE on the shelf lined up with the rest. One day I'll find a used copy of the original CE, but I don't wanna spend $200 on a box, map, book, and a CD and/or DVD.

  12. #39072
    Quote Originally Posted by blackblade View Post
    Even then, some of the stormblood job quests have subtle differences if you're running it pre and post completing the expansion's MSQ, so it's something SE is very consious about moving forward.

    WoW has always been gameplay first, and it kinda shows. The game does a bad job of handling the story between expansions, to the point where it's entirely offboarded onto out-of game sources like books/comics/etc. Stuff like Garrosh's trial and subsequent escape into AU Draenor with the aid of the bronze dragonflight and Wrathion. Legion had the invasions and the broken shore scenario which helped set the stage for gul'dan (which is a step in the right direction)
    They've very careful/subtle about doing that, too; I've been noticing reference to having completed the 4.0 MSQ as I'm doing some of the job quests for alt jobs. Generally speaking, it's usually the level 60 quests that start off the SB quests for each job. It's a pretty cool touch without adversely affecting the story line for each job.

    There's things like this game's lore book, which fill in gaps for things/events we already know of and exist (most notable being the full backstory of Nael), and then there's providing all new lore to fill the gaps between xpacs to where if you didn't read said books or whatever, you'd have no idea of "why are we doing this?" going into a new xpac. The story here may leave folks wanting at times, but the way it is handled and executed is much smoother, imo. Only thing I would ever wish for (and I'm very certain it won't happen) is VA for all the MSQ quests/npcs. That's my one takeaway from SWTOR that other MMOs should look to as a good way to handle storytelling...not that I'm adverse to reading text ie old school FF style (or any other RPG for that matter).

  13. #39073
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    10 years and Legion resolving all the major plotpoints is a pretty good place to close the book on it.

    At the same time, I twitch imagining giving it a try, enjoying it, and not having the CE on the shelf lined up with the rest. One day I'll find a used copy of the original CE, but I don't wanna spend $200 on a box, map, book, and a CD and/or DVD.
    On top of that, my guild pretty much disbanded while my account has been inactive (some raid related QQ me thinks), so even if I were to reactivate now, I would be all alone.

    Heheh yeah, thankfully I don't have collector ambitions like that in RL. Not that it would work, living a tiny 1 room apartment. Esp not if you are contemplating SOMEHOW stuffing a digital piano in there.

  14. #39074
    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    I'd argue that can still be achieved without forcing the entire playerbase to suffer devastating losses ecxlusively to their faction and theirs alone for the sake of the other's enjoyment.
    What did I lose? I'm not sure I follow this train of thought.

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    From what I remember, EverQuest had world pvp with higher stakes than WoW ever did and it had jack all to do with forcing all players to view half of their fellow gamers as somehow the "enemy." EQ had guild war pvp. Guild leaders essentially agreed on the spoils of war and those two guilds were flagged for open PvP to one another. Spoils could range from a small amount to gil to a number of items from the slain player's inventory.
    The guild v guild wouldn't work because it's just too small scale (the opt in model is infinitely better than this in every conceivable way IMO). The opt in model has its issues (immersion vs. gameplay), but it's a fair compromise for sure.

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    There are ways to implement PvP and world PvP without having to basically screw portions of your playerbase on a regular basis for it.
    I don't follow this either, a little more clarification would help. What am I as a player being screwed on a regular basis for?

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    I'm talking about the fact that in order to advance their story, they crapped on every night elf player who feels any connection to their race's history. Teldrassil? Gone. And if the're legit that the continents are basically faction split now, then night elves lost Ashenvale, Winterspring, Hyjal, Moon Glade, every moonwell, the world tree, and the remnants of the Well of Eternity so that the other faction of players can now have them.
    Ok fair enough. I can see where you are going here. However, I will say that, as a vanilla alliance player, you knew being on Kalimdor was much higher risk for running into Horde than, just like a Horde knew the same about EK. That was part of the charm though. I like you, speculate just how "hard coded" these continents will be and is certainly a point for contention.

    On another hand, that "loss" does have the ability to connect with you as a player. I imagine Faroth, the mighty reknowned Night Elf Hunter, born and raised in the wilds of Ashenvale would be devastated over his home being destroyed by the Horde and would empower him in his quest to free Ashenvale of its detractors.

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    Same goes for the Forsaken apparently losing Lordaeron (though there's some confusion in that since mixed signals at Blizzcon). If nothing else, they've outright said Lordaeron can be reclaimed by the Horde (reason for one of the new conflict areas in Arathi is to regain Lordaeron) while the Night Elves....well they ain't got jack to reclaim since their home was BURNED TO THE MUTHA FUGGIN GROUND! You basically poke groups of your player base in the eye and spit on them and expect them to be happy?
    My understanding is that these areas are "war zones" in that like Wintergrasp can fluctuate who owns/in control of the area. and that over time as the warfronts move, the consequences for winning/losing one is that it may stay with them. It wasn't super clear, but I'm curious.

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    Where with FFXIV, the entire playerbase at the time shared the shock of the end events of A Realm Reborn. There was a collective "WTF" not "screw Ul'dah players, hahahaha, look what happened to them" designed into the story.
    And even though my character hails from Ul'dah and is one of the most powerful Paladins to walk the halls of the Sultana, I was completely unphased by this. The event was neat, but meant literally nothing to me. It did not empower me to seek Retribution or come to the Sultana's aid, nor did it change anything about my care or my gameplay.

    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    It's just kinda crappy to tell large swaths of players their race just had everything they own wiped out so the "other faction" can win a big victory all for the sake of an arbitrary PvP storyline that doesn't make one bit of sense whatsoever from an in-game story perspective.

    I much prefer FFXIV's design and with MMOs in general I prefer methods of implementing choices of PvP rather than hard, arbitrary requirements "because they're the wrong race so kill them."
    So apparently in the sundering of the world soul or whatever its called a resource spills out that if a left unchecked could fall into the wrong hands. In this vein, the Horde and Alliance reignite tensions about who should control it and by how much and it sparks an all out war. Naturally the story will likely progress to us working together to stop Azshara and the Old God N'Zoth. The story premise is there and actually really grounded in reality if you think about it and really not that far off the GC issues we had back in ARR/HW.


    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    I've never cared for PvP, which always seemed to be "run around in circles and rely on the game not letting them attack behind them more than my actual abilities used at the right time, lag is the best pvp weapon!" but with the number of people and EVERYONE struggling with lag, South Shore vs Tarren Mill was always a blast.
    Well that's not how PVP played out at all lol. PVP is always about timing resources and cooldowns and preventing the opposition from countering you.

    WoW PVP isn't anything to write home about, but it's better than FF14's for sure. BNS arena was still my favorite as far as PVP goes (Wpvp was tricky, because gear mattered a little too much). It was like a fighting game in an MMO. It sucks the game was handled by NCSoft, because it had the bones to be good.

  15. #39075
    As an Alliance player I'm really excited that we finally get Kul'Tiras in BFA but I'm not sure if I trust Blizzard with creating a decent story. Systems wise it looks really great though. I love the islands system were if you have PVP enabled you fight other players instead and of course the new PVP toggle is great too as it should finally fix faction imbalance. Separate questing zones also excite me as I'll finally level up a Horde to 110 for this and with the new old zone scaling feature it's going to be really fun. Nightbourne Mage/Warlock here I come. ;p

    Lack of class changes has me worried though. Just like Legion even if the content is decent I can't stand doing it when my Warlock is a snooze fest to play. We'll see though.

    edit; oh yeah Buffs are finally coming back in BFA haha. why am I excited for that? makes no sense.

  16. #39076
    The Unstoppable Force Granyala's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Faroth View Post
    I'm talking about the fact that in order to advance their story, they crapped on every night elf player who feels any connection to their race's history. Teldrassil? Gone. And if the're legit that the continents are basically faction split now, then night elves lost Ashenvale, Winterspring, Hyjal, Moon Glade, every moonwell, the world tree, and the remnants of the Well of Eternity so that the other faction of players can now have them.
    Considering that the NE zones are unique in feel and appearance and that they are my favorite zones, yeah I'm pretty sad about this move too.
    I mean it's one thing to give territory to the other side in a war. That's expected to happen. It's a whole other dimension to flat out remove the home of a race completely and irrevocably.

  17. #39077
    Quote Originally Posted by Wrecktangle View Post
    What did I lose? I'm not sure I follow this train of thought.
    Night elves & Forsaken are losing their entire cities and it looks like all surrounding areas. That's taking away the places a group of players remember fondly because of the forced faction vs faction storyline they can't let go of.

    The guild v guild wouldn't work because it's just too small scale (the opt in model is infinitely better than this in every conceivable way IMO). The opt in model has its issues (immersion vs. gameplay), but it's a fair compromise for sure.
    You're thinking exclusively as a 1:1 comparison.

    Using WoW options for an example: guild vs guild, faction vs faction, race vs race, absolute free for all (why would a highwayman say "Oh man, you guys are from the same city as me, it's cool, I'll just go hungry for a few more days. Wouldn't wanna attack my own faction, after all"), etc.

    And EQ has the Priest of Discord which marked you for PvP.....by everyone. But that was just PvP. The guild war option added the legitimate risk of losing things of real value. Not just losing time when you're corpse camped by an asshole 8 levels higher than you.

    I don't follow this either, a little more clarification would help. What am I as a player being screwed on a regular basis for?
    You probably don't relate if you don't care about the game world and lore.

    Ok fair enough. I can see where you are going here. However, I will say that, as a vanilla alliance player, you knew being on Kalimdor was much higher risk for running into Horde than, just like a Horde knew the same about EK. That was part of the charm though. I like you, speculate just how "hard coded" these continents will be and is certainly a point for contention.

    On another hand, that "loss" does have the ability to connect with you as a player. I imagine Faroth, the mighty reknowned Night Elf Hunter, born and raised in the wilds of Ashenvale would be devastated over his home being destroyed by the Horde and would empower him in his quest to free Ashenvale of its detractors.
    Great. Now look at Stormwind's park. How many expansions did it take before they patched that up? Teldrassil is "burned to the ground." Darnassus is gone. That's permanent. There is no reclaiming it. The Undercity has been SPECIFICALLY stated as a target for the Horde to reclaim. So it's Cataclysm all over again. The Alliance repeatedly got their teeth kicked in, demoralized at every turn, and Blizzard never did anything whatsoever to turn it around. For two entire expansions, the story was how much the Alliance could get their asses handed to them without being wiped out until the Horde just gave up and turned on itself.

    That's the result of an arbitrary split playerbase. One side has to feel shitty for the other side to feel powerful, yet the powerful side eventually has to feel incompetent because they can't finish off the enemy they've face stomped for 4 years or they have to fracture and turn on their own people to hand a victory to the losers who can't win a damn thing on their own.

    Unrelated, I get a chuckle at "mighty renowned night elf hunter" comment as I can see Faroth giving a slight wince and motioning to stop with that like Aragorn did when Legolas got mad on his behalf at the council or Elrond and Aragorn told him to sit down.
    Faroth's pretty humble and I pick and choose which game events he actually had a hand in. During WotLK I always imagined he had absolutely nothing to do with the battle against the Scourge. He heard about the Wrath Gate, but was nowhere near it. He was, however, involved in the Dragon War against Malygos.

    While it definitely gives some motivation for him to engage in the war, it utterly demotivates me as a player because I have absolutely zero faith that the night elves will ever regain one damn thing. Apparently they're getting a place added in Stormwind. That tells me they're never reclaiming jack squat. Blizzard has shat on the night elves for years. This is actually enough to demotivate me from even buying the expansion and being done with the game for good.

    Defeating the Legion feels like it was the end of Warcraft. This is some parallel "What If" version from here on out I can ignore without missing out on anything. At least that's how it feels right off the bat with the expansion announcement.

    My understanding is that these areas are "war zones" in that like Wintergrasp can fluctuate who owns/in control of the area. and that over time as the warfronts move, the consequences for winning/losing one is that it may stay with them. It wasn't super clear, but I'm curious.
    I didn't get that impression, but if that's the case it's not going to be permanent, or lead from one war front to another. It's going to be like Wintergrasp and affect that "war zone" only. They're not going to design the possibility that the one side conquers all of Azeroth and 50% of their playerbase is just SOL because they're outnumbered (even though they claim their server tech will balance populations) in PvP.

    And even though my character hails from Ul'dah and is one of the most powerful Paladins to walk the halls of the Sultana, I was completely unphased by this. The event was neat, but meant literally nothing to me. It did not empower me to seek Retribution or come to the Sultana's aid, nor did it change anything about my care or my gameplay.
    You've never struck me as a story/lore guy. Most players who talk primarily about player power and raids rarely seem to be invested in the games for story, where that is the primary draw for me.

    The fact that you're still focusing on your character's power and gameplay in a story element further convinces me the story can be scrapped entirely to add more raids and you wouldn't really be impacted much. If that's incorrect, it's the impression I get based on what you've said here and in the past.

    So apparently in the sundering of the world soul or whatever its called a resource spills out that if a left unchecked could fall into the wrong hands. In this vein, the Horde and Alliance reignite tensions about who should control it and by how much and it sparks an all out war. Naturally the story will likely progress to us working together to stop Azshara and the Old God N'Zoth. The story premise is there and actually really grounded in reality if you think about it and really not that far off the GC issues we had back in ARR/HW.
    After the war in Northrend wiped out around 50% of your forces followed by Cataclysm wiping out resources followed by the Cataclysm war wiping out more forces followed by MoP wiping out a large % of Horde's most populous race followed by Legion's massive effort causing massive casualties and resources, immediately launching into a world war doesn't make sense. (I skip WoD because that doesn't seem like it would have been that much of a resource/forces drain since it was a small unit trapped there for the majority of the expansion).

    They shouldn't have resources, troops, or morale for a large scale world war at this point. It's a tired as hell desparation to keep "Orcs vs Humans" as the forefront, which didn't work in Cataclysm & MoP and it won't work here either. Because neither side can win and it will feel ultimately pointless and more like the faction leaders are incompetent morons, just like the end of MoP felt weird with the Alliance just handing over control back to the Horde and going home without any reparations, any concessions, any negotiations, etc. It was just "Oh, you guys turned on Garrosh at the very end, so you're all pardoned of all wrong doing, please go back to business as usual." It makes no sense at all. Because it simply can't make sense without pissing off half your playerbase.

    And from what we've glimpsed, the world soul/blood/maguffin doesn't even seem to factor. Why would Stormwind, in pursuit of something in Silithus, wage a large scale invasion of Lordaeron? Why is Sylvanas in the prelude book wanting to attack Stormwind? Nothing to do with a maguffin resource. Just looks more like our faction leaders are idiots because Blizzard thinks they can manage "muh faction war, muh war in Warcraft" when they've fumbled it twice already.

    Oh, and how about those Class Order Halls? Guess those just collapsed the second the Legion was defeated. Those established the player as a part of something separate, putting them apart from faction politics and military service. It was the perfect set up to make them adventurers again, pursuing things in their way and addressing what they believed was most important. Y'know, like Classic WoW. But they've immediately thrown those in the garbage and made the players grunts in the military again (oh they'll be lauded as heroes and commanders and high ranking officers in text, but they'll do all the grunt work).


    Well that's not how PVP played out at all lol. PVP is always about timing resources and cooldowns and preventing the opposition from countering you.
    Brace for a megaton of snark here......

    Oh, I've never experienced PvP in WoW in my life. Thanks, Wreck, I guess it was a fever dream for 10 years. I'm sure lucky you're here to tell me what I experienced. Standard in world pvp, standard in BGs. Not one time did I never see that. Because "You are not facing the target. You are not facing the target. You are not facing the target. You are not facing the target." as I spun to face them constantly running around/through me was just a hallucination I imagined. As a hunter, rogues and I were arch nemesis for years and even when I was stunned (and stun breakers on CD), rogues STILL ran around in circles while stabbing you rather often. Part of it, when not stunned, was them trying to get behind for backstabs and such as well.

    Respectfully, piss right off telling other people what they did and didn't experience.

    *huffy snort*

    I did have fun in Arathi Basin with my friend on his dwarf hunter (engineer crafting) and my gnome mage. The two of us could jump from the Lumber Mill and do an aerial assault on the Blacksmith. The mage had enough tools to survive drawing guards away and then ice block while the dwarf could grab the flag. We weren't going for actually taking/holding the Blacksmith.... just making the Horde fall back to defend it and buy time at the other locations. Sometimes it's not about victory, it's just about being a pain in their ass.

    Bringing that aspect back to FFXIV, I do love that in XIV's PvP. Everyone's fighting in the middle, waiting for ice to spawn and I'll mosey over to a base as a tank and take it. With tank's natural sturdiness and some cool downs in pvp, you won't hold their base long since 2 of them and 1 of you means they'll reclaim it even with you alive, but once there's 5 or 6 of them wasting 30 seconds on you, that's 30 seconds almost 1/3 of that Alliance isn't elsewhere killing your team or gaining resources at a big ice. I tend to specialize in being an annoying distraction in PvP when it will ultimately benefit towards victory.
    Last edited by Faroth; 2017-11-07 at 03:27 PM.

  18. #39078
    I'm really not a fan of vast swathes of in-game territory being destroyed in the name of a forced and increasingly contrived faction conflict that should have ended long ago - especially when certain playable races would do far better simply making peace or just declaring neutrality outright from a story perspective. It doesn't help that certain characters should have been killed off long ago - such as Jaina and Sylvanas - instead of being kept around purely to fuel tensions in a way that doesn't even make sense.

    Cataclysm ruined a lot of what made Azeroth special to me and that was the point where I ended up giving up on the game altogether. Every subsequent expansion has simply chipped away at even more of the stuff that drew me into the setting in the first place. I was always a huge fan of the blood elves and night elves - because unlike in many other settings the elves are both regal and gritty.

    Garleans are the closest thing I've found to blood elves in FFXIV so naturally I'm very fond of them even if they're not technically playable. Still, that's what role-play is for.

    Still, I may not be invested in WoW these days but it's painful to think of Teldrassil being destroyed along with Darnassus. It was always one of my favourite cities in the game. When I first began playing it was as a night elf - and I wandered around like a fool and even fell off the edge of Teldrassil in my eagerness to explore. I eventually made my way to Darnassus and was left in awe.

    Sadly the elves in WoW have been given a very raw deal at every turn. If they wanted to destroy an in-game city so badly then why didn't they just do it to one of the lesser played races? Instead they're just taking something very special away from the game. I'll be honest - I never liked the Horde or the Alliance. I was only ever interested in specific playable races. Yet I could never truly invest in either faction to any great extent.

    So I'm very glad that FFXIV does not divide its playable races through a faction based split. Wildstar and ESO irritated me due to the presence of such concepts - I really liked the Dominion in Wildstar but the Exiles were the far more popular faction so that's where everybody I wanted to play with went. In ESO I felt like the faction split was just silly - especially since the game was designed to allow every character to go everywhere eventually anyway...

  19. #39079
    On the PVP note...Rival Wings and the BRD Perform action set to come out with 4.15 on the 21st (only link I'm finding for the date is JP Twitter account currently).

  20. #39080
    Quote Originally Posted by Kazela View Post
    On the PVP note...Rival Wings and the BRD Perform action set to come out with 4.15 on the 21st (only link I'm finding for the date is JP Twitter account currently).
    I'm really looking forward to goofing around with the perform ability!

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