Updated: Gabe Amatangelo on PvP & Warzones
During this year's EA Winter Showcase, the United Kingdom received wonderful information from the developers about the Crew Skills system and PVP Warzones. During the Jedi Immersion Day the following week, we got a similar presentation with copious amounts of information on both game systems. One of these presentations came from Lead PvP Designer Gabe Amatangelo. After teasing us with clues about the forthcoming derelict starship Warzone -- including that it uses an Assualt-based scenario -- Amatangelo spoke in-depth about the Alderaan Warzone. After his presentation, we were able to sit down with Amatangelo to ask some questions about PvP.
Due to popular demand, we received answers to some additional questions and expanded answers after the initial publish. Even if you read through this earlier, it warrants a second read after the jump.
You mentioned the derelict starship Warzone would feature a version of an Assault-style objective. Can you describe what "Assault" means for those who may not be familiar with that kind of PvP scenario?
Gabe Amatangelo: Staged objectives where one team defends the active objective and the other attacks it. For example: the attacker attempts to set a bomb to blow a door down in an attempt to advance to the next room where they would have a new objective, while the defender would be trying to prevent the bombs placement and then maybe diffuse it in the case it was placed.
What does a Lead PvP Designer do?
Gabe Amatangelo: All of our PvP efforts; leading the design on that front. I have a team of people, but of course, titles schmitles. In the development process we all work cross-department, cross-project, cross-feature, etc.
You mentioned today that you wanted to avoid game-y type things like banners and flags so that it made sense to the Star Wars universe. What was the challenge there?
In the Alderaan Warzone, we wanted to do a three point objective type of thing but we didn't want to make it arbitrary. We wanted to make it immersive and make it feel like you are in a scene from Star Wars and in that scene against other players as opposed to just PvE, which is offered in Flashpoints and other things we talked about. So that is one way we went about it; what is one way we can make that immersive? Shooting down a ship instead of arbitrary point thresholds, and getting control of guns and seeing them fire instead of a banner and UI meter ticking arbitrarily, etc. There is inherent value in those kinds of items like flags and whatnot, but Star Wars allowed us to take it to the next level and add more immersive packaging to it.
We saw some companions in the Alderaan Warzone video. Can you elaborate on companion usage in Warzones?
The video was comprised of some actual in-game play as well as canned shots to convey a sense of "trailer narrative." As far as whether or not companions will be in PvP -- honestly, we're going through testing and we'll determine that later.
People shouldn't put a lot of weight into something that isn't fixed.
Exactly. Our aim is to ensure people have the most enjoyable PvP experience, and a number of things will factor in to this as we go through testing and iteration including how many people are in the Alderaan Warzone and other Warzones. Currently, the Alderaan Warzone is set at 8v8, but that may fluctuate with testing over time.
Do companions count towards that 8v8?
No. They don't count towards that 8v8.
Will people get a quest to get over to this particular Warzone?
You'll definitely get a quest that will direct you there, as well as tutorials, tips, etc. that point you toward the queuing button. Beyond that, things like daily quests we will determine and announce in the future.
What are the challenges (or pros and cons) of implementing a matchmaking system for Warzones? Can you describe the mechanics of the Warzone queuing system, i.e. is the Alderaan Warzone accessible to queue no matter where you are, or do you travel to a specific location in order to participate?
Starting at a very early level you can queue for the Warzone from anywhere at any time and when a match is made you will prompted to enter, which you can also do from anywhere at any time.
A challenge in development of the system is finding the balance between when to launch and when to wait to launch. In other words do you wait to launch until you have enough players to completely fill up both teams? What if you have 7 vs 8 in queue? Should that match be launched? The answer I believe is after you wait for X minutes then yes. And the trick is tuning to finding what value is right for X. This applies in the same way for level, group and class type disparity. We start with target values based on experience and then adjust with testing and feedback.
We noticed during the Warzone video what we thought was a quest giver icon that hovered over the head of one of the Sith Warriors on the battlefield. Is this an indication of questing used in the Warzone?
I think there was a perspective thing going on there. There isn't a quest giver in the Alderaan Warzone. What was there was a console for the targeting of the anti-aircraft turret which had an icon hovering over it to indicate which team last interacted with it. Note that it is early footage and some of the assets seen therein were proxy or placeholder.
Can you explain the implementation of how NPCs will function in Warzone progression?
There aren't any NPCs in the Alderaan Warzone. There isn't any PvPvE in the Warzone we are showing today, if that is what you are getting at. The only NPC in the zone that comes to mind is a ship transport captain found in each team's safe area, presumably the one who sets up your vehicles for respawn back into the match.
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Posted 12/18/2010 11:02:05 AMIMO this is the only truly heads-cratching, puke a little in my own mouth decision bioware has made. I hope large scale testing and feedback begins to show a very large portion of the community feels this way (one can only hope). But WoW for example and their pvp stats (resilience, then since that was WAY op for pvp they had to add penetration, then resist mechanics to compensate separately from pve resist mechanics, etc) we added to the game because of the massive gear escalation numbers without equal balance in defense and health pools. If putting on gear takes "Nut kick head shot" move from 20pts of dmg to 200m but my health pools only go up 10-15% and damage resistance only goes up 1-2% thats just poor design and balance implementation. There are numerous ways this can be accounted for a scaled to witout added entirely seperate gear and stats. My personal thought is: +Dmg, +crit, etc simply drop off in pvp zones. Your base values for each ability is what gets dealt, not the inflated values from having a +1000dmg blaster barrel, same with health pools and damage resistance. As you level up your base health and armor is calculated and adjusted to level bracket the second you enter pvp zones. Anyway, enough ramble. Thanks haters.
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Posted 12/18/2010 4:12:38 PMSeparate stats and gear for PvP and PvE is the BEST choice they could make. WoW has suffered, and continues to suffer, due to late implementation of PvP and "balance" of PvP in the game. Great abilities are constantly nerfed or removed due to imbalance in PvP. By separating the two areas and making specific gear and stats for each area, players know how to focus.
The problem with Resilience wasn't that it was a PvP stat - the problem is that it was a band-aid. WoW was never properly designed or balanced for PvP. When they shifted focus onto more PvP, due to player response, the entire process became painfully clear. CC skills get nerfed and placed on diminishing returns, everyone gets huge HP buffs to undo one-shot kills, etc. The whole thing just falls apart.
By starting with a clear PvP design, and providing PvP players with stats and gear that suit their play style, we will hopefully see Bioware avoid the pitfalls of WoW and other games. Because PvP stats also allow PvP gear to serve its purpose, rather than allowing people in Raid gear to show up for PvP and "roflstomp" everyone around them. Separate gear rewards players for excelling in their chosen field, and if you want to do both, you'll just have two sets of gear, not a big deal.
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Posted 12/20/2010 2:35:08 PMNow if your Bioware and have a brand new game. There shouldn't be that divide in what you can do PvE vs what you can do in PvP. You can bet your butt that the only reason they are doing split gear is so people complain too much about how they have to pve in order to be competetive in PvP.
This is a joke. I'm so sick of game developers afraid to make people play their whole game. In no other Genre do we choose which small facets of a game we play and just play it over and over. Especially in RPG's. This goes with the arguements of solo vs groups, ad groups vs raids. I want to be competive so let me solo every thing. I want to be competetive so let me pvp everything.
How about this. learn to play solo, group, and raiding. Learn to be great a Pve and Pvp. Those people who should have the advantage. Those people are the ones that see the most content. Those people are the ones that experiencing the whole game, so reward them.
So before everyone goes bonkers let me say this. I don't mind people getting 90% of their crap from soloing. I don;t mind people getting 90% of their crap from PvP. I don't mind people getting 90% of their crap from raiding. What i do mind is these segregating stats on specific gear like this pvp stuff that pigeon holes people into one part of the game.
So somebody who likes raiding and does it 95% of their time and wants to play some pvp will do it even less because all the sudden this massive uber gear he has isn't worth a spit. Its the same the other way around. People who pvp all the time , wont be able to join raids or groups because their pvp gears isn't worth anything in pve.
If they want seperate stats for pvp and pve then fine. But people need to be able to convert their gear back and forth so people are in no way discouraged in playing the game as a whole.
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Posted 12/20/2010 8:51:15 PMThe separation of PvE and PvE using player/gear stats is completely absurd. I don't mind where you get your gear from, as long as its regulated by the difficulty of the content.
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Posted 12/18/2010 2:50:36 AMAnyway he had strict instructions, forcing him to reduce the talk to Aldeeran's warzone.
E- Ah this is an update, ok.
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Posted 12/20/2010 5:25:39 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 12/18/2010 3:30:04 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 12/18/2010 2:03:14 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 12/18/2010 8:32:03 AM- View User Profile
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Posted 12/18/2010 2:44:11 AMIn any case, if you want 50v50 or 100v100, maybe it's good you're disappointed. Extreme numbers of players in either direction, low or high, can have serious implications on how the sub-game plays out.
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Posted 12/20/2010 2:18:18 PMtheunwarshed- I not counting PvP servers. I'm sure there will be open world pvp servers. I was talking about RvR type large scale pvp zones like DAOC had. It seems like large scale pvp pbattles wont exist on pve servers which will be a shame.
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Posted 12/17/2010 10:35:47 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 12/16/2010 6:44:51 PM- View User Profile
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Posted 12/16/2010 6:59:20 AMYou'll definitely get a quest that will direct you there. Things like daily quests and stuff like that we will determine and announce in the future, but the set thing is that there is a quest that will direct you towards it as well as tutorials, tips, etc. that direct you to click on this icon to queue up for the Warzone."
the last part he says click on an icon to que up. I was wondering this for awhile..if we had to report to a npc or how wow lets you que from anywhere.