WAR NDA officially lifted. Post pics and info!

[Daezuel]

Elder server has been down for a patch. I'll see if I can post patch notes once they release them. (closed beta is not the same thing as elder either, closed beta is over)

[Velk]

Originally Posted by machineman

Fact. Fighting in WAR is very similar to WoW in all ways, but .5 seconds slower.

Actually the global cooldown is 1.4 seconds, the cooldown timer just doesn't show decimals.

With that 'fact' out of the way, then yes it's very similar to WoW combat, except that nearly everyone is ability spam happy in a way that makes combat rogues look sedately paced.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

I disagree sir. Witness exhibit A. Armory crawlers such as this are certainly reasonable ways to gauge game balance.

This doesn't show much. 2200+ is a pretty high rating, the lower you go, the more spread out it is. Also, this is purely arena, which is well, exactly that, deathmatch arenas. Now, I'll concede wow bgs are pretty much dead, but if you add arenas to warhammer, I'm sure you'll see exactly the same kind of imbalance, with the most synergetic classes for a particular bracket being at the top. You're comparing top rating arenas balance with scenario/keep siege balance. A 10man WSG optimal team looks pretty different than 2 stacked arena groups. Classes roles change decently too, and hell some retarded specs for arenas are actually good(prot wars, feral druids).

Thus my comment pretty much stands right, it's quite hard comparing general balance between 2 games, and it's especially hard to compare a pve game pvp balance with an unreleased untested pvp game, especially when you don't even compare the same gameplays(small scale deathmatch vs large scale scenarios/objective based gameplay). I'll go ahead and say it's impossible.

[Daezuel]

Everything you said above is true but the meat of WoW pvp IS the arena, and rankings/gear are the best rewards for pvp in the game. Therefore that is really the only place that balance matters in WoW pvp.

I said it before if WoW had added more BG maps and made that its focus of pvp instead of Arenas I'd still be playing. I just enjoy objective oriented pvp more I guess rather then simple deathmatches which you'll find trying to complete pvp objectives anyways.

[Necrolyte]

Originally Posted by Pyros

This doesn't show much. 2200+ is a pretty high rating, the lower you go, the more spread out it is. Also, this is purely arena, which is well, exactly that, deathmatch arenas. Now, I'll concede wow bgs are pretty much dead, but if you add arenas to warhammer, I'm sure you'll see exactly the same kind of imbalance, with the most synergetic classes for a particular bracket being at the top. You're comparing top rating arenas balance with scenario/keep siege balance. A 10man WSG optimal team looks pretty different than 2 stacked arena groups. Classes roles change decently too, and hell some retarded specs for arenas are actually good(prot wars, feral druids).

Thus my comment pretty much stands right, it's quite hard comparing general balance between 2 games, and it's especially hard to compare a pve game pvp balance with an unreleased untested pvp game, especially when you don't even compare the same gameplays(small scale deathmatch vs large scale scenarios/objective based gameplay). I'll go ahead and say it's impossible.

I partially agree.

Sure, arenas can't be compared to WAR scenarios directly since it's a different metagame, but the fact that 2200+ teams are 15-25% a certain makeup and 15-25% of a second makeup means that up to half the 2200+ teams in some categories are 1 of 2 group compositions--something is wrong there.

You disagreed and said I was retarded earlier for saying WAR is more balanced, but I'll take some time to try and dig a bit deeper into what I meant. As you know, WAR has fewer CCs, and no such thing as stunlocks. Stuff like this you also agree makes WAR more "balanced" per se, though balance might be the wrong word. The fact WAR was designed from the ground-up to be a PvP game is what I mainly mean when I say "more balanced." When given a choice in design between PvP or PvE, WAR chooses PvP and WoW chooses PvE--that's why stuff like stunlock existed in WoW and intentionally avoided in WAR.

But a side reason WAR is more balanced (in my opinion) is because of the math behind the classes. Note--I am going to simplify this discussion a lot, so please don't take this word for word as representative of current gameplay.

It's not too evident yet since most people have played only T1/T2, but the classes are almost hardcore stringent in the algorithms calculating their tanking, damage, healing. What this means is that you can literally substitute a Archmage/Rune Priest/Shaman/Zealot, and assuming equal skills, you'll contribute to the group the same "amount." This is partially due to shared skills, and partially because they design classes heavily based on exact amounts of mitigation/damage/healing they can perform or sustain. There's been a few threads on the CB forums where they analyzed the numbers in-depth behind the classes and found "Hey wait a minute all these classes fundamentally do the same "healing" or "tanking" or "damage"" and complained that it makes the classes boring--true, it might be more boring but it's more balanced because now all classes are more viable. Doesn't mean it's perfectly balanced because of course the X-factor is the utility each class brings above the fundamentals.

In WoW, each class is truly unique. No shared skills per se and that results in some classes doing better in PvP in certain scenarios (be it 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 5v5 or WSG). In WoW, groups aren't about "tank/caster/healer" as it is about specifically "Druid/Warlock/Priest." In WAR, you can actually think about group composition in terms of tank/caster/caster/DPS/DPS and substitute many classes into those slots and still compete at the highest level.

Disclaimer: Again, it gets a lot more complicated than this and of course a 15v15 optimal group is going to look different than a 48v48 optimal setup, and again there might be slight differences due to utility, but you can "compete." It's not a super uphill climb to beat that other team because you have a Archmage instead of a Rune Priest.

Anyways, that's the intended goal. It might not be there yet, but you can see how WAR might have that goal in mind, whereas WoW might sacrifice some PvP decisions in favor of PvE and doesn't want to dilute classes and share skills across them because that would make them lose PvE flavor.

[Mist]

In WoW, each class is truly unique.

Well, they were, until today. :P

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by Pyros

Thinking about it, I wrote that but I'm unsure war has any stun, trying to remember. Witch elves had a gouge type ability(stuns you until you take a hit, for a short duration) but not sure about stuns. There's knockdowns however, which act as stuns, so there exists some CC. They're pretty short duration and not chainable, so it's not much of a problem. In WoW, there's multiple type of stuns which have different diminishing returns, and even if you hit the same DRs, it still takes 3 application until you're immune. In war there's only one type, and you're immune after you've got hit once.

Myself, I never had an issue with wow CC, but some people are still crying to this day about the CC chains from 4years ago, so thought it was worth mentionning.

Rune Priests get a 3s stun if they put 13 points into the Path of Grungni (it does a little damage, too, on a 20s cooldown). I saw somewhere that diminishing returns hits all the CC in Warhammer pretty hard, but I haven't seen a quantification of that yet.

[Libra]

Originally Posted by Dashal

Good interview with Jeff Hickman who talks about itemization, character customizing and weapons.

Video: Exclusive Interview with Jeff Hickman | Ten Ton Hammer

So it sounds like there are going to be some other dye color choices that are available besides the ones that are offered on merchants. At least that's how I interpreted him saying that there are dyes available from crafters and rare monster drops. Hopefully there will be some nice looking Chaos Black.

[wild_whiskey]

Damn, 25% of the top teams in WoW are the SAME combination?

There are 36 possible class combinations. If the game was properly balanced to award skill, you wouldn't see 1/4 teams being the exact same combination. Since classes play specific roles, I could see like 8-10% because there are only so many damage + tank or support + damage combos, but 25%? that's not balanced. Not even close.

[Havelock]

Originally Posted by Libra

So it sounds like there are going to be some other dye color choices that are available besides the ones that are offered on merchants. At least that's how I interpreted him saying that there are dyes available from crafters and rare monster drops. Hopefully there will be some nice looking Chaos Black.

I got some dye drops and quest rewards during preview weekend. Nothing great - in fact, some of the colors were godawful bad - but I figure the good stuff comes at higher levels.

[Lost Ranger]

If I remember right black dye in DAoC was the most expensive or one of the most expensive. If any really dark colors are available I imagine it will be similar because most people seem to favor dark coloring. The merchant dyes are terrible though with the exception of the silvery/white colors.

I don't normally go for pure black but some darker shades of blue/red would be nice. Don't want to look like a circus clown now do we.

[Skrigg]

Here are a few beta 1 screenies when i went through my Zealot and chosen phase. All 3 of these colors had slightly darker and lighter iterations available. I believe they are all now loot/craft only.

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by wild_whiskey

Damn, 25% of the top teams in WoW are the SAME combination?

There are 36 possible class combinations. If the game was properly balanced to award skill, you wouldn't see 1/4 teams being the exact same combination. Since classes play specific roles, I could see like 8-10% because there are only so many damage + tank or support + damage combos, but 25%? that's not balanced. Not even close.

Doesn't work like that, I was feeling like explaining why, but it will be too long, if you can't comprehend something as simple as that, there's no need to. As necrolyte pointed out, wow classes are much more unique than war, and as such you simply can't replace a healer by another healer. But there's no point of comparison anyway, since war doesn't have arenas.

That's what I've been saying since the first post, you simply can't compare balance between 2 games that don't use the same gameplays. It's like comparing wow and war PvE. And again, it's even more baseless since no one has tested in detail war's endgame. In the end it'd be better for war if people stopped comparing to wow when it's not trying to achieve the same thing at all.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

and as such you simply can't replace a healer by another healer

Isn't that the definition of balanced?

[machineman]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

Isn't that the definition of balanced?

No, that's the definition of generic.