Weekly Poll Analysis: Week of April 24

[Ariwyn-WHA]

Today's Weekly Poll Analysis examines April 24th's poll on 1.2.2 priorities. With the completion of 1.2.1, we were curious what your main concerns were for 1.2.2 and asked you "What should Mythic's priority be for 1.2.2?" Answer choices included: Performance/Stability, Class Balance, Bugfixes, New Content, and Other. As always, our poll was in conjunction with WAR Vault (Vault).

WA and Vault had the same polling structure--in both polls, players concerns were, by far, performance and stability. This option had 584 votes from WA and 143 from Vault. Following that was class balance with 286 votes from WA and 94 from Vault. In third was bugfixes, earning 100 WA votes and 26 Vault votes. This was followed by new content and "other," having 64 and 34 votes on WA respectively, and 24 and 6 votes on Vault respectively. WA had a total of 1068 votes and Vault had a total of 293.

This says a lot. I mean, think about it. If your computer can't play the game, you're not playing the game. If you're not playing the game, you're not subscribing to the game. If you're not subscribing to the game, Mythic is losing money. Yes there's issues with class balance, but what good is class balance if you can't even log onto your class without a CTD? Not only is performance a huge issue for players (and the unsubscribers), but a huge issue for Mythic. Without better performance, they'll inevitably lose more subscribers.

Perhaps the most frustrating part that I've noticed is that there isn't a real coherence as to what machines are stable and what one's are not. I know people with 3 year old machines that have no problems and others with brand new machines with constant stuttering. For those of you who do not have performance issues, it would be interesting to see what type of "rig" you're using versus those who do have performance issues.

To a lot of players in this poll, it seems Mythic has the wrong priorities. New content being generated is great and exciting, and a good way to draw in new players. However, there are many unsubscribed players who WANT to play, and new content isn't the way to fix that.

I believe Siberwulf summed it up perfectly:

NONE of the other options mean a damn thing if your client is a slideshow.

That's not to say balance, bugs, and content should never be fixed/implemented, but there are larger issues in play here.

Many of you commented on class balance, feeling that certain classes were overpowered while others were "underpowered." AoE is something that was mentioned repeatedly, as well as CC. While those aren't necessarily specific class balances, they're something that all classes have in one way or another, and the consensus seems to be that they need to be looked at as a whole. However, there are some classes that need to be looked at, such as the Shadow Warrior.

For those who voted "other," city sieges were on the plate. Time after time, posters mentioned incredible lag, crashing cities, and just a dull structure and way of capturing cities. As Devourer of Pancakes said:

Like others have posted, I'd love for content to be changed to be more fun. Particularly city-sieges need a rework.

Devourer then went on to make some great suggestions, such as including a bolster buff and making the stage 1 PQ "score based."

While maybe those ideas aren't something Mythic could or would implement, it's the sort of forward thinking change that Mythic should be thinking about.

Be sure to comment here about what you think Mythic needs to prioritize!

[Aumi]

Damn I love this site. Y'all fill me with some sort of optimism that someone will stop stepping/fetching to Mythic's tune and report the raw opinion of the community.

I think this poll is right in line with the general opinion of the WAR population. Nothing induces more dismay in vent during pushes than lag, server instability, and class balance issues.

Thanks guys!

[Rokzilla]

1. stability

2. client-server lag with UI and cast bars / pathing issues getting stuck on a pile of dirt. this is the main reason this game is broken.

3. tweak classes

4. new content

[Skeeterxi]

Performance issues are a definite #1 for me. I like WAR but the constant slow downs and stuttering lag just kills it for me. The client just seems slow and unsmooth in general. I can run games like AoC on high settings and LoTRO in Dx10 maxed out at 60fps smooth but War runs 40fps at high points and slow and not smooth at all. I've tried tweaking settings, updating and installing drivers, rolling back drivers, fresh installation of windows, nothing seems to work. I've come to the conclusion its not on my end and stopped trying. I won't be subscribing until there are some serious performance optimizations. I would like to know what computer specs they are running over there at Mythic.

[Akkuma]

There was a WHA poll back sometime before the large roadmap released by Mythic and the results here are nearly identical to the results back then.

I'm fairly certain WAR is now being managed completely by EA, due to how poorly it is doing, or Mythic has been giving the community the finger for 5 months now. Mythic might have a better understanding of what frustrates the playerbase, but as EA does not know this is assuming the old phrase "content is king" is really their problem. The alternative, which I think is just as likely, is Mythic simply is not skilled enough to fix the true underlying problems. It started with the Fort caps, then reducing it more, then trying Winds of Change.

The only solution they have seemed to try to solve their losing subscribers in droves is to counter it with volume rather than retention. The recruit-a-friend program is more than likely promoting the more hardcore to go get several accounts, sub them for a month, and then cancel after they unlocked all the rewards. This boosts WAR's money flow temporarily giving the illusion everything is alright, but once that starts to slow down and eventually stop they'll be in the same bad position with their game. All the new content and classes are another way of gaining through volume rather than trying to keep players.

The only content that is worth anything is Land of the Dead, but it still doesn't solve the longterm problems driving people away from this game whether they are new or have been playing for a long time and that is its inability to handle large scale RvR.

[Rancidmilk]

Was doing some more thinking on this one, and it dawned on me...

If you're having huge performance issues, then you are likely avoiding some content. You're most likely avoiding the content which is causing those issues, such as forts, keeps, or areas where more than 5 people gather at once.

If they fix the lag and client issues, then you can go back to playing that content. As far as I'm concerned, that's new content to me. Two birds, one stone.


I'd really like to see WA take some init here to help Mythic out. I'd like to see a thread where people explain a few basic issues at once:

1. When did your performance go sour?
2. Are you experiencing client lag, server lag, or both?
3. Do you notice anything in specific that is going on? Elaborate into who you might have been fighting, spell effects you saw, etc.
4. How do you have your graphics set? Best Performance? Best Quality? Custom? (settings like Specular Lighting and such are important to note here).
5. What zone were you fighting in? Was it at a keep, a fort, a city PQ, etc.
6. Approximately how many people were in your WB, or were on your screen at the time?
7. Does this happen all the time, or was this a chance occurrence?
8. Have you updated your video AND SOUND drivers lately, or at all in the past 3 months?


And finally, most importantly, have them attach a dxdiag file for more elaborate info.

I think with the volume of people filtering through here, WA could be a huge asset into Mythic's getting a handle on the big issue right now.

[BluepaiN]

Performance is my #1 topic of the most important thing in WAR. I got an old computer, that was top-notch at the time I bought it. But I cant even get a stable FPS in this game, even though I can run games that are alot prettier and more intense, both gameplay wise, but also on the graphic-side.

1. When did your performance go sour?
In Orvr, when the zerg arrives. Especially when you go up the stairs to enter lord-room at forts/keeps.
Secondly I CTD all the time in Altdorf. It may happen after 5 minutes, or it may happen after one hour. It just seems so random.

2. Are you experiencing client lag, server lag, or both?
Both.
3. Do you notice anything in specific that is going on? Elaborate into who you might have been fighting, spell effects you saw, etc.

Dont understand the question.

4. How do you have your graphics set? Best Performance? Best Quality? Custom? (settings like Specular Lighting and such are important to note here).

The lowest of the low, with lightning and shadows turned off.

5. What zone were you fighting in? Was it at a keep, a fort, a city PQ, etc.
Happens in all zones, and even in city sieges.

6. Approximately how many people were in your WB, or were on your screen at the time?

Ranges from 1-2 wb's, up to 8.

7. Does this happen all the time, or was this a chance occurrence?

Happens all the time. The only time I got a stable framerate, that is pretty high, is in dungeons.

8. Have you updated your video AND SOUND drivers lately, or at all in the past 3 months?
Runs with the latest released drivers.

[Rancidmilk]

Originally Posted by BluepaiN

3. Do you notice anything in specific that is going on? Elaborate into who you might have been fighting, spell effects you saw, etc.

What I'm meaning here, is what actions cause you to lag the worst? Some people say that when group members die, or when they change the groupings in the warband, or when you open up the Scenario Tracker window, etc.

[NiklasSteinhauer]

I'm running (the important things)
1. eVGA 8800gt 512
2. Intel Wolfdale 3.0ghz Core 2 Duo Processor
3. 4 gigs DD2 Corsair Ram
4. Decent Gigabyte mobo.

I'm running (in WAR):
1. All Fastest Framerate
2. Spells set to NONE: If I turn them to all, even on Fastest Framerate my fps goes down the toilet.
3. No names (friendlies or enemies), barely any combat chat (I filtered many combat settings out and gained a whopping 5 fps, which is hilarious)
4. 30 AT BEST, not in combat - only in instanced dungeons such as Lost vale. When I get in large open RvR battles, shoots down to about 10 fps, and in Forts and Cities, around 5 fps. Terrible, especially for something the game was advertised for, but I'm still playing - still hoping they will fix these things.

I can run:
1. Aion - between 72 - 143 fps, IN combat, AT max (8x AA, full shadows, etc).
2. Any current FPS game (L4D, TF2, ie) between 40-60 fps per load.
3. Hell, I could run Age of Conan better at times than WAR.

They need to fix their engine, or something. As stated previously -
it doesn't matter what content they add if I can't even play what they have in currently.

Forts/Cities are a joke, even if performance was good, the server side lag is awful, 15 secs delays at BEST.

[Devourer of Pancakes]

Watch out, I'm on a being-quoted-in-weekly-poll-analysises streak!

I'm hardly surprised that performance/stability came out on top. I myself would have voted on that. Simply because it sounds like the most important issue: a poor stability/performance can make the game nigh-impossible to enjoy.

Until I realized I rarely experienced server crashes (though occasionally some emergency maintenance, it's better to prevent than to clean up the mess ).

Performance has also improved significantly in my experience, where my machine had trouble running WAR at launch, I can now play on high graphics settings without worry (though I did get a minor graphics card upgrade in the meantime). WAR used to crash every hour or so on my brother's notebook, but no more. Lag can be annoying at times, but it's never been truly gamebreaking for me (unless me/my ISP was to blame).

As such, stability/performance isn't a very big issue for me personally. Should be noted that I almost exclusively play on a low population server.

What does surprise me, is that so many people consider class balance the most important. While WAR is a PvP-focussed game, and class balance greatly influences how enjoyable PvP is, I personally think WAR is incredibly well-balanced compared to other MMORPGs. It's not like Age of Conan where rangers reign supreme. Or LotRO where moderately skilled loremasters and minstrels count for 4 other players (Has this changed yet? It's been a while since I played LotRO...).

The occasions where a certain type of character becomes useless are caused by the content, rather than class balance. Mainly bottlenecks where tankwalls and AoE can make MDPS redundant, this problem lies with these bottlenecks.

Not to say that class balance is a non-issue (my second highest rank order character is a shadow warrior, and my second highest rank destruction character is a magus, so I should know). But the current situation really ain't that bad - it's still debatable whether warrior priests/disciples of Khaine, sorceresses/bright wizards, slayers/choppas, engineers or ironbreakers are the most powerful characters out there. And whether it's shadow warriors, magi, squig herders, or a random MDPS (due to bottlenecks/walls/focus-fire) who are the worst.

Basically, there's room for improvement at class balance, but I really don't think the current situation is all that game-breaking.

[stiltskin]

Every time I read these polls , it reminds me of the exact same polls and summary I used to read when I looked on the planetside forums.

The similarities are profound : both ( in ps hayday ofc) worked on premise of large scale pvp , and as such a collossal amount of data is being calculated from client to server to client . Hits , heals , partial hits , partial heals , aoe . That dosent even count into the graphical settings of each pc and how much special effects you try to run.

Games like wow and lotro are much simpler and usually run fine in comparison , I mean when was last time you needed to have 200 people fighting mobs at same time? Opening of AQ in silithus is only one that springs to mind .

Whats the solution? I dont think in its current state WAR will ever be great performance wise , and this will always be top priority for most subscribers : unless everyone out there runs exactly the same rig on same settings with same universal internet provider at same ping there will always be problems - thats the inherant problem of pc gaming and why the likes of xbox live or some form of it in the future will probably see the death of pc gaming as we know it.

For now , the only solution I can see is to change the game to encourage people to spread out over different objectives in a coordinated fashion rather than making being a zerg a default method of playing.

If you look at the games general flow in tier 4 , it works on capping zones to lock them , and people are funneled towards keeps / fortresses . Once a zone is locked , you are funneled even further until city siege is inevitable ( no pun intended) and people are drawn like lemmings chasing renown and the spoils of it all.

On paper , this sounds a great idea if your main idea for the game is drawn from playing table top WAR . But here lies the flaw , theres no lag on a table top !

This is an MMO , but the diversity to draw people to different areas isn't there .

The originally promised 3 pairings and 6 cities aren't here ( why would any dwarf or orc want to fight for Altdorf or IC ? ) , they obviously had timing/ monetary reasons for launching before these were implemented but this would have been a great way to spread people around to start with.

When zones are locked and city sieges start , the pvp side of the game takes a back seat to pve and the defending side is left twiddling its thumbs , and the pvpers on winning side must ironically have to pve . Its such a bizarre state of affairs when you think about it , I blame the locking of zones in first place . Why can't both sides be still involved and have to defend what they have taken ? This gives a whole plethora of strategic options for both parties , and more importantly something for all to do and a great reason to spread them across all zones rather than brainlessly forcing them into a certain lagfest and pve nobody wants.

There will always be some form of zerg in these types of game : the average gamer is uncoordinated and of average skill and mentality ,and a guild is merely a on line chat interface for them, and their main way to progress is win by sheer numbers . But even zergs can be halted or even defeated by good cooperative play and tactics .

Also, the keep / fortress design is severely lacking in imagination . It forces bottlenecks, an over reliance on area of effect damage and healing and franky renders many classes to be a 2/3 button spamming robot , and many reduntant especially mdps classes. The assumed OP or nerfed classes are more a symptom of the poor game design like keeps , and are made to feel worse or simply redundant in these situations.

Make more ways to enter , and have nearby connected gatehouses where attackers could break the gate/ portcullis chains . This spread defenders and attackers out . Also by making more ways to enter, it forces defenders to have to watch several points of entry , releaving the bottlenecks or at least making it harder to bottleneck. Attackers have more points to penetrate , making them spread out also.

These ideas also give players who want to run as small groups something to do , be it being a constant pain by attacking different areas on the map or at a keep or forming a rapid response unit to counter small insurgencies like these . Giving more options for 6v6 or 12 v 12 etc around the general movement of the zergs.

Lastly , bring some sort of ranking into the game so that by gaining rank by pvp you can access or gain gear in a way that negates the need to pve for the better gear . Just an alternative , not a replacement so both types of gamers have some focus . This might also bring some element back to the game that originally was forcast ie orcs growing larger . dwarf beards getting longer . Instead you gain the related title , which some other player could take from you .

Sorry for the unintended wall of text , but the game I believe needs these changes to stop intself from becoming forgotten as soon as any other reasonable game emerges that subscribers may look at as an alternative. As it is right now, that what will happen , and Mythic has only itself to blame .

[Voidcaller]

The Good: IMO Mythic have some of the best class balancing in the industry, and they keep tweaking and improving gameplay for all classes as the game progresses. This was very apparent in Daoc, and I think that it is in War as well.

The Bad: The lag is horrible. It completely destroys T4 gameplay. Its not a question of if it shows up, but rather when on any given night. The servers just seem to deteriorate over the day, to finally lag until everyone dies.

The Solution: Fix the performance issues [when im talking about servers in the below post, I mean the hardware, not whether you play on Karak-Norn or Karak-Hirn]:

1. Split up T4 zones into smaller fragments, with just one or two maps - like we have in T3. I have never experienced lag in T3, even with large number of players.

2. Move PvE out of the PvP zones. I do not understand why Mythic decided to put both in the same area - maybe if there was PvE content in the PvP zones, but not when there hardly ever anyone that ventures into PvE of the opposing realm, and very seldom with any combat to follow. It might have been a good idea at the onset, but Mythic should realise that it only helps to lessen performance.

3. Benchmark EU servers against US servers. It might just be me, but my understanding is that the EU servers are having great sub-par performance compared to the US ones. If that is the case, it should be an easy fix.

The addition: I would love for the game to have a 3rd realm. As it is, one side gets demoralized, and quits, leaving neither side able to play on. Like one person owning all the hotels in monoply. But a 3rd realm would open up for either of the winning, and the loosing realm to go focus on something else, meaning a steady supply of conflict. Daoc showed this to work, and weve seen games fail miserably due to a lacking twosided conflict.

[On a persona note that has nothing to do with WAR: I disagree on a lot of the posts about Daocs decline - New Frontiers was brilliant, TOA was the bomb, and itemization and economy was better. Simply better].

[gurgletus]

Originally Posted by NiklasSteinhauer

I'm running (the important things)
1. eVGA 8800gt 512
2. Intel Wolfdale 3.0ghz Core 2 Duo Processor
3. 4 gigs DD2 Corsair Ram
4. Decent Gigabyte mobo.

I'm running (in WAR):
1. All Fastest Framerate
2. Spells set to NONE: If I turn them to all, even on Fastest Framerate my fps goes down the toilet.
3. No names (friendlies or enemies), barely any combat chat (I filtered many combat settings out and gained a whopping 5 fps, which is hilarious)
4. 30 AT BEST, not in combat - only in instanced dungeons such as Lost vale. When I get in large open RvR battles, shoots down to about 10 fps, and in Forts and Cities, around 5 fps. Terrible, especially for something the game was advertised for, but I'm still playing - still hoping they will fix these things.

I can run:
1. Aion - between 72 - 143 fps, IN combat, AT max (8x AA, full shadows, etc).
2. Any current FPS game (L4D, TF2, ie) between 40-60 fps per load.
3. Hell, I could run Age of Conan better at times than WAR.

They need to fix their engine, or something. As stated previously -
it doesn't matter what content they add if I can't even play what they have in currently.

Forts/Cities are a joke, even if performance was good, the server side lag is awful, 15 secs delays at BEST.

I have nearly same rig with same problems 8800 512mb OC with 6000+ dual AMD and 6Gb RAM. Fix the game engine I say.

[Hex and the City]

Well I'm running the game on a quad core xtreme @ 3Ghz, 4GB of RAM DDR3 (1333Mhz), 2 Radeon HD3870x2 CG, and the software is on a SAS HDD (15k rpm) and it lags badly. I have lowered all the video settings, except the skill effects (and I wanna still be able to see the aoe, pits and such - it doesn't make it any better if I cut them off anyway) and it's still a pain. And I can play absolutely every other game with hgh video settings with no lag. So, you know...

I may also add installing the client is a pain for many players, and you gotta be really motivated sometimes to do it when you're a new player. In my case for exemple, I had this missing dx9 .dll error. After googling to fix it, I found out I had no texture IG, just the interface: everything else was a black screen. I finally found out (after a lot of searshing) it was caused by the fact I use the euro symbol as the default money symbol. What I'm trying to say is... most people probably just give up when they see stuff like that. Simply installing the client may take a lot of time and motivation. That's no good. Especially since most of these issues could be esailly fixed. Why not including the dx9 .dll in the installer for exemple?

I'd like to point out as well if the lag in-game is a top-priority, it doesn't mean players ain't waiting for new content. They do want new content. It's just at the moment, if you can't play the game at all you won't be able to play the ne content. But fixing the lag issues won't necessarilly make the players stay. People leave because of the lag, but they also leave out of boredom.