Those of you in Tier 3 will understand.
Scenarios seem to have several issues right now. The first issue is that only one scenario per tier seems to get played. In Tier 1 it’s Nordenwatch, T2 Mourkain, T3 Tor Anroc, T4 Serpent’s Passage. Even with the advent of the Join All button, we still end up playing the exact same thing. Why is that? There are several conspiracy theories floating around out there but the ones I subscribe to seem to make the most sense.
1. The system must be bugged and sorting the scenarios in a predefined order. If everyone hits Join All and it goes down this list of ordered Scenarios, and the ones that always pop are on the top, then it’s going to say (in computer talk) “Okay, everyone is queued for Tor Anroc, let’s put them in there!”.  The solution would be to program them to shuffle or be picked at random for those queued for “all”.  Or…
2. There really are some masochist sobs out there who only queue for these and that creates a bias. The randomness of “join all” is skewed by the bias of those who ONLY queue for Tor Anroc.  The computer will say “Okay, I have 2 queue’d for Tor Anroc and 414 queued for All. Let’s fill the game of Tor Anroc”…. and they all go into Tor Anroc.
Those are the theories that make sense to me. Whether or not they’re more than theories, I don’t know. One thing for certain… the comic above sums up T3 in a nutshell.
Must say I fit this description. Currently on the edge of T2 and I only queue for Mourkain. It’s simply the most fun, quickest, most efficient experience, and popular scenario.
The other two just lack something. The capture the flag one takes forever for the same experience, as well as taking 3X as long to find a scenario.
The other one is just utter chaos, Mourkain is the only organized one where we actually work together.
I think Hav0k hit it on the head in his second point. There are more, faster points in scenarios through Murder Ball. They pretty much always end before 15:00 and everyone participates/gets points. In the others, you don’t get points for defending capture areas or flags, meaning in order to win you have to “take one for the team.” Murder Ball doesn’t really encourage you to do that.
My group just queues for all scenarios, then we all leave the ‘popular’ one. Instead of waiting 1 min, we have to wait 5 mins… Not really a big deal for me to be honest, but I admit it’s not how it should be.
The problem with mourkain temple is that its one of two things…
1. a slaughter fest where one side just dominates and wins
or…
2. a heal fest and like no one dies because of the healers but it still ends quickly because one side will have the ball indefinatly.
to me, it seems that number 1 happens more often but not much. only once or twice has the scenario been balanced.
Im just now getting into T3 with my DoK, but it seems to me that tor anroc looks the same way. just with tons of knockback into lava. I do admit though, that i still enjoy my time in both scenarios regardless.
Take the solution to the first one, and get rid of the option to join the scenario you want. This will never happen, but it would be funny!
Tor Anroc is an easy win for the Order cuz of lots of knoskbackers Order side. Thats why in T3 Order queues exclusively for this scenario…
I canceled my subscription today because of the lack of things to do. Like I got bored in WoW when it first came out, I waited 6 months for more content to come out and hearing from friends of all the new stuff that game out. I am going to give the game some time so I have something to do at level 40. Bastion Star is going to be a UBRS grind from what I hear.
I bought the game wanting more RvR but right now Keep loot gives only level 33 blues when I’m level 40. I do not feel like grinding 48 levels in RR to hit the max with nothing in between besides serpents edge and non rewarding keep sieges.
Another thing is the lag. I did all that stuff from Bartlebee’s link and still get lag in scenerios. Without lag I get to decimate people. This was the reason I went monstrosity with my marauder cause I could aoe, the targeting didn’t target well so I just aoe to hit people.
These are the reasons I am waiting a few months now I have an end game character to pick back up once things get fixed. GL.
As a Zealot, I dont have any Knockback yet (r23) and the one I get, seems ‘broken’.
As Dread said, I got the Join Selected Scenarios addon from Curse.com, and Sign for ALL BUT Tor Anroc. After about 2 hours, I got a Lost Temple of Isha pop up, the lag there was BEYOND redemption, ultimatley we won, but still. TA = Gay.
I hope they can ‘fix this’, if its a problem. If not, ill hope to atleast play one Twisted Tower Scen in my life :s
So sad, so true.
It’s because Order picks only the one’s they can win.
Actually, I’ve done this on other servers, as Order, and same thing happens, it always joins those one’s. It doesn’t seem to matter what you do.
Personally, I think it’s a bug in their code or something. One thing I’ve noticed at Tier 3, with a few of the other Scenario’s, I’ve joined games where it’s unbalanced and not both sides fill up. So that says something is wrong and it’s buggy.
One nice thing is that it makes it easy to decide where you are going to park your butt. Just pick the Warcamp that has those Scenario’s, since it’s the one you’ll most often play, easier to get extra XP.
I don’t think it’s a bug, but instead a combination of multiple factors:
1. Mythic’s weighted system, however it works, is easily tipped.
2. Population imbalance plays a role, if Order does have a preference, they basically get to choose as the lower pop.
3. There’s good old fashioned popularity. For instance, at first Lost Temple of Isha popped more often than Tor Anroc, but I think like me a lot of other Destruction players took it out of their queue loop. Tor Anroc is popular for both sides.
Maybe Mythic needs to force some weight in their system towards Scenarios that get played less, so that people who use Join All will get more variety. That’d be a lot easier than solving problem #2.
I believe it’s actually the sadists on Order who only queue for Tor Anroc so that they’re guaranteed a win.
The Destro know they’re going to lose, but no other scenarios will pop so they have to queue it anyway.
They just need to remove Tor Anroc from the rotation imo so we can all get burnt out on the new flavor of the month.
Pretty much what Melf said. Tor Anroc is the most consistently won scenario for Order. Plus it’s usually the fastest. So that means it’s the best for fast XP and renown. Temple of Isha is probably my favorite, and it’s usually a pretty even one.
The problem I have with the capture the flag maps (especially T3) is that they are real slow. I have seen very few of them finish before the 15 minutes are up, so they end up taking forever with low rewards. These need to have the value of the flag capture buffed, and the T3 one needs to be made a bit smaller.
The other scenarios take some better coordination, and if you’re queuing with PUGs that can be a pain.
So right now if you’re interested in the most efficient XP/Renown, those are the best ones.
Theres a lot of biased, Order only does this because thats the only way they can win. Coming from the side that use to take the bauble into their spawn and drop into the lava and hold the bauble there for the duriation. I personally pick join all and everyone I know also selects join all. The other scenarios do not pop. Soo maybe I can go rant Destro only picks Tor Anroc so they can find new cheap ways of hiding the bauble but i’ll be the bigger man and go with Keen on the it’s obviously bugged theory.
tor anroc makes me want to punch babies 8(
I forgot to mention that, with a guild group, and even with some PuGs who DO listen, I won quite alot TA’s then I lost em. I still hate the goddamn place tho.
Tor Anroc has been competitive on Averheim, at least in my playing times. Destruction always gets the bauble (except for 1 time I saw Order get it first), Order has a bit more knockback, and I see Magi but never Engineers with the magnet ability. I get my knockback ability at 28, so I am looking forward to that. We neither win so much that I think of it as a given nor lose so much that I think of it as pointless.
Whenever I get Doomfist Crater, the teams are radically unbalanced, to the tune of 2 or 3 versus 7 to 9. It sometimes ends up as 12 on 12 by the 3-5 minute point, and I have seen Order overcome that initial deficit.
This issue is really hurting the enjoyment of the game for me. I feel that I may be one of a great minority of players that actually want to experience every aspect of this game. I do not feel that a 15 minute battle, with a score of 150-100, is a horrible scenario, but actually a well balanced contest. I have played in 1.5 hour Warsong Gulch matches that gave me crap honor, 0 xp, but gave me a memorable battle.
I have a solution to propose to Mythic that would give great joy to most of the players in WAR. Allow them to get xp/renown by attacking trees. This way they don’t have to worry about taking damage, and they can get to level 40/RR 80 by doing the least amount of work as possible.
Perhaps Mythic has given the players too much to do. It appears that most players would rather do less. Forget about the excitement of open world rvr, players could die:O. They just want xp/renown as quickly as possible, by doing a minimal amount of work.
I think that WAR is a great game in and of itself. The psychology of most of the players, in the game, are killing the enjoyment of the game imho.
I think it’s a bogus assumption that players are doing Scenarios because it’s the fastest xp (aside from it isn’t unless your queue pops quickly).
Scenarios are popular because they’re convenient and fun.
The rest of the game doesn’t need incentives or exp increases to get people playing. It’s the fun and convenience that needs to be matched.
I use the Join Selected Scenarios mod because I simply cannot stand the Temple of Isha nor Doomfist Crater.
http://my.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/jss.aspx
However, the last handful or so that I’ve done makes me want to swear scenarios off forever.
So I assume a Magus and a Shaman combining their Magnet + AoE Knockback abilities would instantly wipe an entire spawn of Order baddies in Tor Anroc?
And they say BWs are OP. ;p
Wickidd I want variety too. But weeks of the same scenerio got boring.
I wrote an post with a possible solution to the problem a few days ago. It borrows from the Guild Wars ‘random arena’ style queuing. Worth a read if your interested.
[…] 3 Scenarios 20 10 2008 Loved this comic over on Keen and Graev’s blog today and sums up my experiences and obviously a lot […]
I think Rog is right – convenience of the scenarios is one of the big factors. Not only the xp is the decisive factor, it’s the fact that you can do one thing, and scenario pops up, and you go in and have some quick fun, and then pop out and continue where you left – that is mighty convenient.
RVR on the other hand needs effort to even get where the thing is happening and when you finally make an effort to get there, there can be nothing there, or there can be a group of enemy players and you alone. So you have two choices – either go away or start spamming the channels to get some people to join you which might or might not work. In the end, lets say you got two hours of gametime that day, you just blew at least half of it and achieved exactly zero.
I don’t know how the engame is, but before that, Mythic needs to re-think how they place RvR into the world and how they award it.
For starters, they could make it more quick to get into with something like a NPC that summons people from across the map when the opposite side attacks. Lets say everyone in a certain level range in the playfield, would get a popup “Raven host needs you, order forces have just attacked Manfred’s keep – do you want to answer the call YES/NO” Upon which you would be sumonned to the warcamp if you picked yes.
Second they really need to make it more interesting to posess a keep – right now its what – you get renown gear merchants for equipment that is in many cases worse than the one you get as you push through the storyline, and a buff. That is maybe a reason to take a hold, but what they need to do is make it FUN to have it, so that both sides would want to have it and so RVR would errupt all the time. Place some unique quests in there. Mix it up with Pve, place a PQ in the keep’s dungeons. Make the time you own the keep matter for example – the longer your side holds it, the more the other side needs to want to take it over and the more your side needs to want to defend it under all costs. Only then we will in my opinion see some more world RvR.
left 4 dead will fix this problem
In general I would say this is indicative of the attitude of most MMO subscribers now. Gone are the days of people expecting to spend hours (all day even) playing their MMO and expecting hard work, even grinding to advance their character. People don’t have the time anymore, so if given a choice they will take the easiest route.
Mark Jacobs didn’t mention any changes to scenarios in his statement about the upcoming patch but I do hope they’ll implement some kind of “fix” to the queuing.
If not I’ve just started leaving the Tor Anroc queue and since I play on a high population server the other queues do pop, just not instantly. I may not be level 40 anytime soon but this should keep from getting fed up with the game.
Korlyth: that attitude is the result of more and more regular people with schools and jobs entering the world of MMOs in the last couple of years I think. For better or worse, depending on your point of view, gone are the times when gameplay of such sorts was in the realm of enthusiasts and devotees who were prepared and able to invest alot of time and “work” to claim the rewards. It shifted to people that come home from work and instead of sitting infront of the TV to get some entertainment, they spend time in MMOs with online friends and get their daily dosage of fun and relaxation. Although I’ve been arround MMOs for a rather long time, that is exactly how I treat them – a way of social entertainment with other people I got to know online over the past decade that I do for a couple of hours almost every evening instead of watching TV on the couch.
I don’t know if scenarios are faster for XP, but they are the best means for renown. For T3, the best I have gotten is 15k XP. But I can easily get over 700 RP (assuming not a complete route).
Finding a good area of White Con mobs, I will get about the same XP in the time it takes to do a scenario. Add quest bonuses, then I can sustain better XP in PvE. However it gets very lonely out on your own. So scenarios help break that up.
As for 1 scenario per tier. I am sort of surprised that Gates of Ekrund isn’t popping as much. It is just as good as Nordenwatch. On the other hand, I understand why Mordikan’s and Tor are good because it really just a free for all.
If it were possible to “win” one of the other scenarios in less than 10 minutes consistently, then I can see more appeal to them. But people don’t want to play tactically, just go and kill.
Just queue for the other scenarios and ignore the ones you don’t like. Works just fine for me, I find Mourkain Temple boring, and loathe trying to get a team to work to win in Stonetroll Crossing, so I only queue Phoenix Gate. Might take a few minutes on a med/med server, but it often enough I can live with it.
Those that queue for a scenario and then moan and whine about it have only themselves to blame.
@ LTWarhound: I agree, except in most cases none of the others pop at all or within a reasonable amount of time. Tor Anroc (when I was in T3) was the only scenario that ever came up. Waits would exceed 4+ Hours for anything else or not happen at all. T4 right now is Serpent’s Passage or nothing.
@Keen: Agreed.
I took Lost Temple of Isha and Tor Anroc out of my queue loop (the Join Selected Scenarios addon works great)… and the result is much longer queue times, especially if we queue as a team (usually 3-5 of us).
No doubt most players use “Join All”, so I have to assume Tor Anroc is just plain popular for people that select it specifically. Regardless, I still think Mythic’s weighted system should allow for more variety, players selecting Join All shouldn’t be spread across all the Scenarios.
I can imagine easily how their system got this way if its main intent is to go for the shortest queues overall.
And finally, I’m wondering if they’ll hold back on giving the queue system much attention when right now they’re probably more interested in players queueing for Scenarios less, not more.
*(correction) players selecting Join All should be spread across all Scenarios, not just sent to the most popular.
I get WAY more XP doing scenarios than questing/grinding when i leave the warband.
I’ve been in a couple groups that have purposefully queued for Mourkain only. These groups were either questing in Marshes of Madness, or just sitting in the Marshes warcamp, and focused on Mourkain because they wanted to get back and turn in the repeatable quest faster.
I can understand this desire a bit. It’s much faster to just queue up, do the Scenario, finish up, run to two quest givers and queue again, as opposed to flying from zone to zone.
The other possibility is that the system will take someone queued for all and put them into the scenario linked to the zone they queued from. Since most people seem to be playing in EvC or Marshes, this theory might have some merit… but I’ve always felt like there are more people playing in EvC than DvG…
I agree with Mike’s thoughts (#25). And if Mythic doesn’t do something about this soon then I’ll probably cancel as well because it’s extremely frustrating. WAR’s Open RVR is pure bliss but rarely do I get the chance to play it. Instead I have to settle for Scenarios instead. I mean if I wanted to play instanced PVP (which I don’t), I would have stayed in WoW.
this commic is awxsome and so right,i can say ive done at least 50scenario battles in tier 3 and yet i have only had the pleasure to play tor anroc and talabec dam.
id love to see the others but the que for all just brings up tor anroc.i just reached lvl 29 and am also able to do tier 4now and ive done a least 5battles there…all in serpents passage 🙁
im always using join all button with a hope to play something different, and it actually worked yesterday so i happened to play that lost temple of something scenario. and believe me, it was x10 times fun and with full of action than knockback fest.
Great comic! hahaha You hit the nail on the head!