Blood Bowl: Nuffle is a cruel bastard.

I had one of the oddest Blood Bowl games last night, where after four turns it looked like I was going to slaughter the other guy, and after 16 turns the score was 3-0. Him.

It was my 1860 TV Human team against his 1440 TV Lizardman. Due to the TV disparity he purchased a star Saurus player and a wizard, giving him a ton of Str 4 lizards, plus his str 5 Krox. I kicked off to him, and in two turns he had a Skink on my goal line protected by three Saurus’. To my surprise, he delayed scoring, no doubt hoping to inflict some casualties with his remaining players.

That did not go well for him, as I not only injured a Saurus and a Skink the next turn, but also fouled his star player and got an injury roll on him as well. As he only had one reserve player, he was going to play the rest of the match with no more than 9 players on the pitch. He quickly scored the next turn.

On my first turn after his score, I KO’ed his Krox, along with a Saurus, and knocked another Saurus out of bounds (no KO or injury though). After performing all possible blocks, I walked my 4 Agi, Sure Hands Thrower over to the ball (2+ to pick it up), and… 1, reroll, 1. Turnover. While annoying, not the world’s worst turn of events, since he did not have a player who could reach the ball, and with my significant player advantage, it just meant another turn of bashing lizards and hoping for injuries.

Next turn: more blocks, unfortunately this time no injuries, although I did stun a Skink and Saurus. Thrower moves to pick the ball up. 1, reroll, 1. Turnover.

Now I’m too lazy to do the math, but I’m fairly sure failing a 2+ roll four times in a row is fairly rare.

This turnover was also problematic because he now had a Skink close enough to grab the ball. Granted, the odds were somewhat low, with him needing a 4+ to get it, but it would have been a whole lot better if the opportunity did not exist at all.

Especially since, on the very first move of his turn, he runs his Skink to the ball, picks it up, dodges away from my incompetent Thrower, and races towards the goal line. Luckily he is a few squares short, and with Skinks only having 2 str, this allowed my Thrower to roll two dice when blitzing him.

Blitz, push + trip. The Skink has dodge. Reroll. Push + push. FML.

Next turn the Skink dodges away and scores, and it’s now 2-0 just before the half.

Next turn starts, and all of his guys fail their KO rolls. My 11 vs his 7, but only one turn to play. I bash as many as I can, but no further injuries are dealt.

I receive the ball after the half, and his Krox again fails his 4+ KO roll again (the other Saurus is back). It’s a high kick, so my Thrower gets to move under it and, hey look, actually catches it. First block of the turn, two dice with my guy having the Block skill vs his guy with nothing. Skull + skull. FML. Reroll. Skull + push. Push it is. Next Block, also two dice with my guy having Block. Skull + skull. Turnover.

Nothing of interest happens during his turn, and on mine I land a few knockdowns and move my Catcher into position, with a Blitzer near him. He moves two Skinks to slow them down on his turn. Back on mine, I knock down one Skink and throw the ball to my open Catcher. Accurate pass, catch failure, ball lands next to the other Skink. His turn, he picks the ball up on a 5+ roll, makes two dodge rolls to get away, and is out in the open. My turn, blitz the Skink, two dice + Block. Push + trip (Skink has dodge, plus Side Step). Fail. I surround the Skink with five players, and tie up the rest of his team.

His turn, 4+ dodge, 4+ dodge, 4+ dodge, all successful, and he scores. 3-0, game ends.

Unreal.

Posted in Blood Bowl | 9 Comments

EVE does things better than your game does them, again.

Not. Even. Fair.

Edit: Awesome, three word post and I go 2/3 with the spelling.

Posted in EVE Online | 18 Comments

Character grind

Darkfall has come a long way since launch in almost all areas. The PvE is much better (and in sync!), PvP balance is at a good level (it’s never going to be perfect, but can always improve), server and client stability are solid (and again, always room for improvement), and perhaps most importantly, the population is on the rise and overall sentiment towards the game by both new and veteran players is positive.

And yet the ‘grind’ remains.

I still very firmly believe a long character development path is one of many aspects needed to capture what it really means to be an MMO (or even better, a practically infinite one like in EVE), but that belief does not also mean that all paths are created equally, and its here that I find Darkfall still presents the biggest hurdle to new and old players alike.

Simply put, there are just far too many skills/spells/stats ‘required’ by a new player to really feel on-par with a veteran. Yes, there are a TON of things someone can do to contribute without access to all of that, and that is a major strength, but for those who wish to reach a somewhat level playing field (not 100% equal, mind you), the path is both long and, well, grindy.

For instance, there is simply no reason NOT to have access to every worthwhile buff spell in the game, but to reach this point, and to have those buffs at 75+, requires a silly amount of time and gold, and by far the absolute best (and some would argue only) way to reach that point is to afk macro. Again, as a new character, you don’t NEED these spells all at 75+ to jump into PvP with your clan, or to engage in all forms of PvE, or to experience many of the games sub-systems (villages, sea fortresses, sieges, etc), but if you want to be part of a 3-4 man group that goes out to PvP against ‘veterans’, well, yes, you basically DO need them, or you accept that you will simply be weaker than those who have them by a considerable margin.

This differs rather dramatically from say, having 90 strength (a very high number) compared to someone who has 110 (the max), as the difference in both damage and HP is very minimal, while the time to close that gap is immense (which is fine). The buff spells simply offer too great a power swing, as do other utility spells such as Begone, Wall of Force, Confusion, and others. Same goes for those with 100 quickness and those under. Again, you can still play without this stuff, but if you go out into small-scale PvP, and certainly a 1v1 situation, the lack of these things will be very noticeable.

The solution however is not to make acquiring all of this easier, as this just cuts down on overall development time but still leaves the have/have not gap intact. If people complain about a 200 hour (random number here) grind, they will still complain about it if you cut it down to 100 hours. No, the solution is to cut down the overall number of ‘required’ things, and turn most of them into options and choices.

Early in its life, Darkfall limited what schools of magic a character could learn, so for instance if you selected fire, water spells would be blocked. This limitation was removed shortly before launch, and I can’t help but look at this and see it as a mistake. And it’s not just that limiting characters to one or two schools at a time would reduce the overall grind (it would do that as well), but more so that it would open magic up and force players to make choices. Do you go with fire for the strength buff, or earth for stone skin? Currently, the answer is both, to 75+, asap. That’s not only grindy, but boring. Watch any top-tier PvPers video and you will see the same dozen or so buffs up at all times, and the same six or eight ‘utility’ spells used in key situations. A spell selection from basically every school of magic, meaning if you want it all, you need to grind it all out. The actual choice of damage spells is, sadly, almost an afterthought by comparison.

100 quickness is a similar problem, in that those who have it are noticeable better (faster swing speed) than those without. It’s also problematic that the only really viable way to reach 100 quickness is to afk swim every night for a good three months straight. Its EVE’s Learning skills issue all over again, but in many ways far worse. I’ve never been one to cheat in games, as I feel it usually cheapens the experience, but you really are hurting yourself badly if you don’t do some afk stuff in Darkfall, and that’s just straight up bad design.

I think the worst part about all of this is that, in most cases, the ‘why’ behind the problem is very weak. Why, for instance, does swimming give skill gains after you have reach 100 swim skill? Actually, why does it give skill gains at all? Did Aventurine really think players would naturally gain a large amount of their stats from naturally swimming around Agon? Or for that matter, how exactly is ANYONE supposed to reach 100 packmule without macroing? The skill only goes up, very slowly, when you walk around overburdened. Now does Aventurine really think players are naturally going to spends, literally, DAYS of in-game time walking around overburdened? Ever?

Now sure, packmule is a rather minor skill and by no means ‘required’, but so what? Any intelligent gamer coming into Darkfall is going to look at that skill, see how it goes up, and shortly come to the conclusion that the only way they are going to increase this skill is to get naked, grab 80 stones, and hit auto-walk into a wall for a few nights. Is that really the message you want to be sending here? I’m not talking about something like rigor pyramids here, where players really went out of there way to get skills unnaturally fast, I’m talking about something that most, if not all players are eventually going to come across and figure out. Either you macro it, or you abandon the skill and let it linger in the low teens.

I think (and hope) Prestige classes solve some of these issues, especially in terms of character diversity and the whole “choices” thing, but there is simply no way, even in a best-case scenario, that they will fix all the existing skill-related issues. Same goes for off-line skilling, which, really, should have been in the game day-one as the primary advancement method. Frequent readers here know I’m not a huge fan of copy/paste design, but when it comes to skill-based, sandbox character progression, EVE’s system stands head and shoulders above everything else, and it’s really silly not to emulate them here. I’m looking forward to seeing what Aventurine has planned for their system, but I fear it will be a small band-aid over the overall much greater wound.

And I bring all of this up not as someone who has a weak character (I don’t), or someone who hates to ‘grind’ (I like MMOs after all), but as someone how has seen countless potential players turned away from this game simply for this reason. Someone who has seen, time and time again, veterans struggle to get their friends into the game because they themselves know what lies ahead for the new player, especially if they really want to jump into the daily PvP scene (which, after all, should be the main draw here).

In EVE, the perception that a ‘noob’ will never catch a ‘vet’ is laughed at by anyone who actually knows the game, and the entire concept of a ‘grind’ is in many ways non-existent. In Darkfall, the perception that a ‘noob’ will have to (shadily) grind to join the ‘vets’ on their level is, sadly, an accepted truth, one that turns players away daily. For a game closing in on it’s second Anniversary (February), that’s simply far too long for such a core issue to exist, especially for a game that does so many other things so well.

(DarkFall-related post disclaimer/reminder. If you click the image link near the top-right of this page and buy a DarkFall account, I get paid 20% of the client cost. If you believe this taints my views and reporting on DarkFall, your opinion is wrong.)

Posted in Combat Systems, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, MMO design, PvP, Rant | 9 Comments

Blood Bowl: League and MM team updates

Blood Bowl League Update: A bit of a slow start over the weekend for the league, with only 3 or 4 games being played. Hopefully everyone else sets up times on the forums and gets their games in before the League week ends. I was hoping we would not need to do this, but if games are not played the coach who made an effort to set up a game (based on the forums) will receive a 2-0 win. As that’s not much fun, just play your games people!

In matchmaking league play, my human team “Good old Average” is still kicking butt, up to a Team Value (TV) of 1780. My real star is a strength 4, block/mighty blow/tackle Blitzer, who is a mobile injury machine that really puts in work. I don’t have the stats in front of me right now, but he definitely leads the team in injuries caused by a wide margin, and has changed the outcome of more than one game. Two games ago I got a bit of a scare as he actually died, but luckily the apothecary came in and turned death into just a scratch. Thank you doc!

The other standout on the team is a agility 4, sure hands/pass/accurate/block thrower. Much like the perfect stat increase on the Blitzer, +1 agility for a human thrower is as good as it gets, and along with the accurate and pass skills, my thrower can sling the ball around at will, plus has an easy time picking it up (which for anyone who has played knows, is a monumental task in Blood Bowl).

My last game was a 4-3 victory against a similar TV High Elf team, and the differences between humans and HE were on full display, even though the two are somewhat similar in many ways. The HE were able to move around a bit more thanks to their 4 agility, but their lack of Guard (no natural Strength skills access) made the blocking game difficult for them when matched up against my Blitzers (three have guard, the 4th is the guy with 4 str). If a block or two went their way, they could easily score in two turns, but if I was able to bog them down and turn the game into a fight, I had the edge.

The other key was my star Blitzer, who inflicted two critical injuries, and set the second half of the game to be played 11 on 10 in my advantage. A one player advantage is not insurmountable in Blood Bowl, but it makes the blocking game that much harder with the Guard/No Guard advantage. At one point my opponent was specifically targeting him, hoping to take him off the pitch, but despite multiple foul attempts, he never got a positive result.

It was a great game though, and my final touchdown occurred on the 15th turn, a pass from my Thrower to a Blitzer in the endzone (I had to reroll the 3+ catch, but thankfully got it). I’m still a bit worried about going up against a highly developed Chaos or Nurgle team, but so far in all my games I’ve only played one Chaos team and two Nurgles, so perhaps they are not nearly as popular as they were in the original edition (another benefit of going from 8 to 20 teams).

Posted in Blood Bowl, Site update | 1 Comment

MMOs being niche, the non-issue?

What hasn’t been conquered, still, is making alternate worlds accessible enough to broad audiences.

Raph Koster over at his blog.

I’d ask if this is really a problem that needs solving. I think this is one of the unfortunate side effects of WoW having 12m or whatever subs and MMOs being a ‘hot item’ (though this has cooled down recently, and will likely be completely over a few months after SW:TOR is released); where future MMOs look to hit the ‘mass market’, yet still deliver something resembling an actual MMO, or more precisely, a virtual world. As I see it, the very core ideas behind a virtual world only appeal to a relatively small niche due to all the factors that go into playing in one (time commitment being the biggest issue), and the only real way to broaden that appeal is to reduce those core values, which, at some point, we are no longer talking about an MMO.

Now behind every game is a company and that company needs to make money, which it will only do if it gets enough customers. We all get that. But it’s really only because of WoW that the expectation for many is millions rather than low 100s of thousands, and more than a few examples exist of 100k sub games raking in the dough, whether Take Two knows it or not. Sure, it would be great to be WoW, just like it would be great to be Google, but does every startup set out with “Google or bust” as their opening statement? Because post-WoW, that’s EXACTLY what has been going on in the MMO genre, and, well, the results are not pretty.

Let’s go back to the beginning, where the only major MMOs out were Ultima Online, EverQuest 1, and Asheron’s Call. Was anyone at Turbine losing sleep because AC1 only had 200k (or so) subs compared to EQ1s 500k (or so)? I’m betting not. Actually, I’m betting everyone over at Turbine was thrilled just to have as big a hit as AC1 was. Now, EQ1 was the ‘winner’ of that time, and made SOE boatloads of cash, but even if EQ1 had ONLY hit 200k subs, guess what? SOE would STILL have made money, and the game would have gone on in much the same way as it did. The added success was nice, no doubt, but I’d be willing to bet no one over at Verant (EQ1s devs at the time) set out to hit 500k or they’d fail, much less 1m+.

I’m all for games trying to be MMO-like, much like different games today are RPG-like with stats or character levels. No one is going to confuse Call of Duty with an RPG because it has stats, yet we continue to see games that don’t really deliver a virtual world lumped into the MMO genre, or try to incorporate too many MMO features just to qualify. WAR for example is a very poor virtual world, but cut a bit of the MMO out, and WAR could be a really good deathmatch-ish product (assuming some serious changes, but hopefully you get the point). A good example of success here is Guild Wars, which ArenaNet originally stated was not an MMO, and in many crucial ways is not a virtual world. GW is a success because it embraces what it is, rather than trying to fit itself into the MMO genre.

Point being, I don’t believe it’s possible to tweak something like Ultima Online, EVE, Darkfall, or whatever ‘true’ virtual world we are talking about, and turn it into something that millions find appealing. And, assuming from day one you as a company accepts that, it should not be a ‘problem’ that needs solving. Yes, you always want to improve and attract more players, but the last 13 years or so have shown that the closer you remain to the core values of the genre, the more the core, niche audience will respond.

Deliver a product worthy of that group, with an appropriate budget, and everything else is gravy. Chase the millions WoW attracted, and you will soon join a long list of high profile failures. That or you won’t be much of an MMO, which is perfectly ok.

Posted in Asheron's Call, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Guild Wars, MMO design, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

Blood Bowl, Darkfall, League of Legends updates.

Blood Bowl League Update: “The ball is up… and we’re off!” Season 1 has started, and everyone has their first match. Check out our updated website (including starting team photos!), set up a time with your opponent, and enjoy the games!

Darkfall: Due to an unfortunate brain laps, I missed out on Darkfall’s racial battle. An official post about it can be found here, along with some videos. Sounds like everyone involved had a good time, with some lag/load issues popping up for some. This can also be seen in some of the videos. If nothing else, I would have loved to see how my hardware handled the whole thing, as usually I get better-than-average results. Next time I guess.

Titan Quest: I’m still working my way through this game (10hr in maybe?), and it’s still fantastic. I’m still surprised at how good it looks for an older game, and some of the graphical ‘tricks’ it has continue to impress. Totally worth the $5 spent here, especially since unlike DF, LoL, or BB, it’s very easy to jump in for 30 minutes and make a little progress.

League of Legends: Captain Teemo on duty! Since his remake I’ve been playing Teemo almost non-stop (still play Shen in ranked when I can get him though), and really like what he brings. His strong early harass (especially in a side lane, as middle he is a little too easy to harass by many), blinding Q shot, and mushroom (or in my case, satellite) spam is all good stuff. I’m playing him without Flash as I expect it to be removed at some point, which makes escaping a team battle nearly impossible, and everyone loves to focus down the little guy. Usually I go out with a bang though, dropping a mushroom right at my feat, and usually setting up the area beforehand with them as well. Many have fallen to an unexpected explosion as they retreat at low health.

Allerion, Remastered and I have so far attempted two ranked 3s games, but both have not gone well. 3s is just a totally different game than 5s, and we are still figuring out which champions ‘work’. Not banning Shaco is a mistake that will only happen once, and I’ve yet to play Tryndamere thanks to enemy bans. It’s a work in progress, but at least we don’t have to fear the issues of ELO hell with an arranged team.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Darkfall Online, Inquisition Clan, League of Legends, PvP, Random | 13 Comments

Darkfall, Blood Bowl, and UO vs WoW (sorta)

Blood Bowl League Update: So it turns out if you set your league to 16 teams, you have to have 16 teams before you can start it, who knew? And since we only had 14 teams sign up, well, we had issues. So the original league was been deleted, and a new one (same stuff, just 14 teams) has been created. Hopefully everyone signs up by tonight and we can get started.

You would think, given all the guides about everything else in Blood Bowl, that there would be a guide for running a league, but so far my Google skills have not found anything. If someone has a link, it would be appreciated.

In other Blood Bowl news, my matchmaking league Human team is turning into a monster. A lvl 4 thrower with +1agi, a lvl 4 Blitzer with +1str, another with +1AV, and a Blitzer and Linemen who rolled doubles and picked up dodge, plus a level 4 catch all make for a very potent team. Last night’s game against a High Elf team was a massacre, with four of his players getting injured (including a fatality), another three getting KO’ed, and my team scoring two unanswered touchdowns (should have been three, but I got greedy on turn 8 and tried a pass to a lineman that the fool dropped in the endzone). I believe the team sits at 8w-4d-2l right now, 400th or so in the league with a TV of 1600ish. Just a bit better than my 2-0-7 Necro failure team, eh?

Random stuff time.

First, I’m excited for the racial battle royal player run event in Darkfall tonight. Should be a blast, and I’m sure there will be some great videos made, especially if Ripper X is around. That guy is a pro.

Speaking of Darkfall, Massively writer Jef Reahard is signing up soon, thanks to a crushing vote victory. Looking forward to his takes on the game, especially since so much has changed of late from a new characters perspective. Hopefully the joke ‘crafter/solo’ voting will fail.

My recommendation to him would be to join NEW for the first month, as they are not only helpful, but it would make for good reporting, and then after that first month join a siege-heavy clan to see that aspect of the game as well. After a month, assuming decent playtime (15-20hrs a week or more), his character should be more than decent enough to attend a siege and not get horribly overwhelmed, specially if he focuses hard on one combat skill (my suggestion would be archery, since it’s cheap and easy to skill up, and helps in a fight if you have decent aim).

Finally, Gamasutra did an interview with two early UO devs, talking at length about the differences between UO and WoW. How topical. I actually found the interview to be a little weak overall, in that I almost get the feeling the guys failed to see what really made UO so great early on (which of course might be true, since they may or may not be responsible for adding Trammel and other ‘advancements’ to the game), and what strength UO (and games like it) have over WoW. The differences between a class or skill-based system are almost meaningless without the other features that go into separating a game like UO from others, not the least of which are instances and player freedom. Worth a read if you have the time though.

Posted in Blood Bowl, Darkfall Online, MMO design, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 1 Comment

Blood Bowl: League Recreated!

Sorry for the confusion everyone, but please sign up again for the league (had to drop it down to 14 teams). Once everyone is signed up again I’ll start the season!

League Name: Inquisition Hardcore Casual Blood Bowl League

Password: Inq

Posted in Blood Bowl | Comments Off on Blood Bowl: League Recreated!

3000+ players playing lag-free? Ha, that’s impossible!

A bit of a follow-up from CCP Veritas on that record-breaking fleet battle in EVE can be found here. I found it an interesting read overall, but it also once again highlights some of the major benefits EVE has going for it in terms of truly being a massive multiplayer game.

Something like pre-setting hardware to a specific area in order to increase performance for a major battle is possible when you have one ‘server’ that holds all 300k+ players. It’s not something you will see happen in a game with 100+ separate, tiny (in comparison) servers. It’s also why said tiny server has issues with 100 players in one area, while EVE is working on making 3000+ more playable. It’s not exactly apples to oranges, but its close.

And ultimately, if you take two identical events (a battle), with the only difference being that one has 100 people and the other has 3000, which one is going to be more ‘epic’ or memorable? Which one is more likely to create a ‘hook’ to keep someone playing? Which one is going to bring a side closer together and strengthen their will to show up, to fight, and to continue fighting the next day?

The above questions have more or less been answered anyway; just one glance at EVE’s growth rate or retention rate says it all, yet seven years later, we still only have one MMO that operates on a single ‘server’ (yes yes, tech details, but you know what I mean), why is that?

Posted in EVE Online, Mass Media, MMO design, PvP, World of Warcraft | 36 Comments

Blood Bowl: Kickoff one day away!

League Update: The first ever Inquisition / Hardcore Casual Blood Bowl season is only one day away, and we have 14 of our 16 possible slots filled. Get in now or miss out!

I think I’ve pointed this out before, but one of the best things about Blood Bowl is that the core game and its rule set has been around for a long time, and over the years everything has been tweaked and updated to get the balance of the game to a very stable point. The video game adaptation of Blood Bowl follows the core rulebook point by point (a few tech issues aside) means that, from day one, the overall balance is near-perfect, and updates to the game need only to focus on either adding ‘more’ (as was the case with the Legendary Edition), or shoring up some of the technical aspects. This is a not-so-insignificant advantage when compared to most turn-based (Civ V for example) or RTS (StarCraft 2 is a similar example, using SC1 as the ‘base’) games.

Blood Bowl also plays very differently from a game like Civ V or Heroes of Might and Magic in how you approach decisions. In both Civ V, and especially HoMM, you make decisions based on a more-or-less known outcome. You attack a city in Civ because you feel very confident that the force you have beat the forces the enemy has. In HoMM, you make tactical decisions based on the knowledge that creature X or spell Y will do Z damage, and so the ‘puzzle’ is in figuring how to put it all together to get the result you want. It’s more of a chess match than say, a hand of poker.

BB is more poker-like, in that almost all your actions are based on probability, and the best coaches are the ones who stack the odds in their favor. The order in which you perform actions during your turn is huge not just in terms of outcome, but in the probability that you will be able to continue rather than suffer a turnover. Any guaranteed action such as movement should be done first, unless you have a good reason (say a block you expect to free up tackle zones) to wait. Preparing for unforeseen actions is also huge, as even a three-dice block with a reroll will, 2 out of 100 times, result in three skulls. Knowing the odds of an action is one thing, but being able to take steps to push things in your favor is what BB is ultimately all about.

It’s this ‘chess with dice’ gameplay that is so addicting, because while any one game can indeed be decided by pure luck ( I was down 2-1 with my human team against dwarves with just two turns remaining after they scored, outnumbered by two players. The kickoff result was pitch invasion, knocking 2/3rd of our teams down for two turns, allowing for a fairly easy score on my part), over time luck evens out and player decisions determine your teams success. Add in that not everything is determined by the dice (starting positions, when to use rerolls, team composition, skill upgrade choices, etc), and the strategic layer is indeed very deep, perhaps somewhat hidden by the comedic football exterior.

Another great aspect of Blood Bowl having been around for so long is the resources available.  Sites like Blood Bowl Tactics cover nearly every aspect of the game in incredible detail, and allow you to focus more on your strategy than crunching the numbers. For coaches old and new, it’s always worthwhile to see what others are doing with your favorite team, or to read up on the general strategies of your next opponent.

Is it time for the kickoff yet?

Posted in Blood Bowl | 2 Comments