TLDR:
Amazon made a game, implemented core mechanics, then changed A TON but never removed how they work, thus pasting two different game modes on top of one another that clash.
I am no a casual. I love PvP since Ultima Online. But an MMO doesn’t stand for “max level before you can do anything fun”. I hear so many people saying “a level 1 shouldn’t be able to kill a level 60” correct, a level 60 should be better, which is then followed by, then play fortnite, to which I say, the one thing that stood out in this game over other MMO’s for longevity was PvP scaling and a feeling that PvP was even on all ends at any level.(minus a few perks here and there)
Ya know what people I dislike, people who think you HAVE to be max level / grinding to be playing an MMO
How has the worst part of the MMO the societal norm for it? It stands for Massive Multiplayer Online, not “suck your life away doing shit more boring than RL”
That is what PvP scaling in Open Beta was HORRIBLE and this “we tweaked it” doesn’t feel far from it, if anything this feels like to me, a validation of this archaic “can’t think out of the box, MY OLD MMO has to be THE SAME AS MY NEW MMO, even though in a week I will be BORED because it is just like my OLD MMO” attitude.
It kinda feels like this game is just catering to the really loud, “influencer” type voices versus being innovative. A healthy MMO has an influx of young, new players, coming in at all times. And that new influx of players can engage with the older players too! PvP scaling allows that type of interaction and positive experience that keeps new players around.
An unhealthy MMO puts in PvP toggles and then punishes you for turning them on before you hit max level… I really really hope I am wrong… but the wording just feels like this is where it is going.
I had so many encounters of 1v1ing/dueling and just fighting different level players from beta. Got my cousin to turn on his PvP flag when he normally is PvE only. HE LOVED IT. It was the highlight of my experience, honestly.
It also made it REALLY easy to level up a ta rapid pace like I do and still go back and level with him without feeling like I was just his “body guard”. I dislike killing lowbies, but ya know what, when I see a red name, I will swing, and this is a terrible experience for new players.
I loved the idea of being able to play the game how I want to and level scaling prevented me from getting griefed by max level players coming back to lower level towns. This is actually kinda depressing - people spamming to max level as quickly as possible, running out of content to do, and coming back and griefing new players to killing low level pvp.
Thanks for that change Amazon. :\ I highly doubt people who actually wrote game feedback were asking for this change - I really hope the streamers didn’t influence this. This literally encourages people to keep their PVP flags off so not to get steam rolled. Depressing.
The ONE feature that made ya really stick out from the crowd of point/click MMOs
LET ME BE SUPER CLEAR, Since people miss it: I am not upset they didn’t BALANCE it as they said they did, I am upset they basically removed it. I now find myself not wanting to engage in any fights 2 or 3 levels of difference and unflagging.
It goes against your whole view of pvp that you put out an article for.
New World – 12 Dec 19
Here is the most important piece:
It changes a CORE value of this game as did removing Stagger. But this one just feels wrong and like it rips out the last living bit of what this game could have been and now it is a game that we already have in other titles. I am upset because it made me and my interactions with this game so much more fun when it scaled and now it is hard to even wanna flag.
----ADDITION AFTER PLAYING FOR MORE TIME----
Not only do I dislike the fact that someone 10 levels higher than me is an immediate “RUN” moment, I feel bad when I am the person 10 levels above. This not only causes me to feel like my battle (even if they attacked) is invalidated, but if I lose, was I playing bad? Was the scaling broken? is the scaling even a thing? If I kill them, do they just think well it was lack of scaling they suck. It causes a toxic environment on both ends. I get it you grind hard and got your gear! AWESOME you should kick butt at PvE then! But If you didn’t grind it doing PvP why does it matter? And if you did grind it on PvP you should be sick skilled by now! Please stop with this hypocrisy.
---- More ----
Did my first Territory War today. We were outleveled by the competition. We lost hard. It wasn’t even a competition. We had no chance in an “instanced” battle without scaling. All of these features were designed with scaling in mind, without scaling, we might as well not even flag til 60. I am considering taking a break from this game as it just isn’t special anymore. Tired of seeing this:
More thoughts as I play more:
There is a part of me that wishes so badly that when people do hit 60 they stop playing the game. (this is ASSUMING people actually get past the core grind loop after 15-20)
Why?
Because I truly want you to learn from this moment: If new players cannot PLAY with FRIENDS until a month of time later and there is NO incentive to flag for PvP in the world, there will be NONE.
“Run” is not a fun game mechanic. “Get Gud” is not relevant. People can be bad and still feel they had a fighting chance, lose, and walk away ready to do it again versus deflated and ready to give it up. I run a major company and 90% avoid PvP at all costs. With scaling you can get them out of their shell, without, forget it without a zerg.
New players keep games alive. I worked at Blizzard, we did more work and focus groups on how to make the leveling and new player experience better than we did on end game content. If not the same.
This idea of “you have to do it this way” is flat out wrong. For you, this may work, for others it may not. An MMO is massive multiplayer online, meaning it caters to MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PEOPLE ONLINE. Which means, many play styles and can benefit from giving them all a great experience from level 1 to 60.
So we shall see how this plays out. So far, it sucks. Even for me who levels fast and loves PvP, because I am killing low players myself, due to A: the rewards and B: the fact that if I don’t they can gain town influence.
This is what the current GAME MECHANICS REWARD you with for killing low level players because they were supposed to be SCALED, but the CORE mechanic of rewards was never changed:
A nice green item sometimes blue, and great xp for weapons. Meanwhile You 1 - 3 shot someone. Fun?
Amazon made a game, implemented core mechanics, then changed A TON but never removed how they work, thus pasting two different game modes on top of one another that clash.
- Faction Control for PvP quests requires you to kill ALL players doing faction quests to prevent takeover, thus promoting killing of low level players to keep your city as anyone of any level can do them in any level zone. And ignoring them actually hurts your city.
- City and Faction battles DO NOT SCALE thus gating people further from joining or gimping people in an instanced PvP fight by their gear and level. Punishing an already unbalanced faction system by level.
- A game that used to have PvP on all the time is now “flag only” which means PvP scaling helped incentivize others to flag and make all PvP competitive and enjoyable. But now it is the exact opposite, you have the “mindset” of “get good” or “max level only PvP”.
- Currently the way it is you have a game where PvP was supposed to be by their own game description fair, even, and skill based, but is now gear and level based.
- Leveling faster than friends is now not as fun as you cannot go back and do PvP with them as you will essentially just two shot those they are fighting, ruining their experience.
- You no longer know if you won a fight because of skill or because of gear.
- You feel like an ass if you end up killing low levels, but the game is incentivizing it through territory control.
I am no a casual. I love PvP since Ultima Online. But an MMO doesn’t stand for “max level before you can do anything fun”. I hear so many people saying “a level 1 shouldn’t be able to kill a level 60” correct, a level 60 should be better, which is then followed by, then play fortnite, to which I say, the one thing that stood out in this game over other MMO’s for longevity was PvP scaling and a feeling that PvP was even on all ends at any level.(minus a few perks here and there)
Ya know what people I dislike, people who think you HAVE to be max level / grinding to be playing an MMO
How has the worst part of the MMO the societal norm for it? It stands for Massive Multiplayer Online, not “suck your life away doing shit more boring than RL”
That is what PvP scaling in Open Beta was HORRIBLE and this “we tweaked it” doesn’t feel far from it, if anything this feels like to me, a validation of this archaic “can’t think out of the box, MY OLD MMO has to be THE SAME AS MY NEW MMO, even though in a week I will be BORED because it is just like my OLD MMO” attitude.
It kinda feels like this game is just catering to the really loud, “influencer” type voices versus being innovative. A healthy MMO has an influx of young, new players, coming in at all times. And that new influx of players can engage with the older players too! PvP scaling allows that type of interaction and positive experience that keeps new players around.
An unhealthy MMO puts in PvP toggles and then punishes you for turning them on before you hit max level… I really really hope I am wrong… but the wording just feels like this is where it is going.
I had so many encounters of 1v1ing/dueling and just fighting different level players from beta. Got my cousin to turn on his PvP flag when he normally is PvE only. HE LOVED IT. It was the highlight of my experience, honestly.
It also made it REALLY easy to level up a ta rapid pace like I do and still go back and level with him without feeling like I was just his “body guard”. I dislike killing lowbies, but ya know what, when I see a red name, I will swing, and this is a terrible experience for new players.
I loved the idea of being able to play the game how I want to and level scaling prevented me from getting griefed by max level players coming back to lower level towns. This is actually kinda depressing - people spamming to max level as quickly as possible, running out of content to do, and coming back and griefing new players to killing low level pvp.
Thanks for that change Amazon. :\ I highly doubt people who actually wrote game feedback were asking for this change - I really hope the streamers didn’t influence this. This literally encourages people to keep their PVP flags off so not to get steam rolled. Depressing.
The ONE feature that made ya really stick out from the crowd of point/click MMOs
LET ME BE SUPER CLEAR, Since people miss it: I am not upset they didn’t BALANCE it as they said they did, I am upset they basically removed it. I now find myself not wanting to engage in any fights 2 or 3 levels of difference and unflagging.
It goes against your whole view of pvp that you put out an article for.
The Evolution of New World’s PvP 17
Last month, we premiered our “Aeternum Awaits” cinematic trailer at the Game Awards and opened up Pre-orders.Here is the most important piece:
Making it so level gaps are more important in pvp goes directly against the above and removes skill as the deciding factor in pvp.
It changes a CORE value of this game as did removing Stagger. But this one just feels wrong and like it rips out the last living bit of what this game could have been and now it is a game that we already have in other titles. I am upset because it made me and my interactions with this game so much more fun when it scaled and now it is hard to even wanna flag.
----ADDITION AFTER PLAYING FOR MORE TIME----
Not only do I dislike the fact that someone 10 levels higher than me is an immediate “RUN” moment, I feel bad when I am the person 10 levels above. This not only causes me to feel like my battle (even if they attacked) is invalidated, but if I lose, was I playing bad? Was the scaling broken? is the scaling even a thing? If I kill them, do they just think well it was lack of scaling they suck. It causes a toxic environment on both ends. I get it you grind hard and got your gear! AWESOME you should kick butt at PvE then! But If you didn’t grind it doing PvP why does it matter? And if you did grind it on PvP you should be sick skilled by now! Please stop with this hypocrisy.
---- More ----
Did my first Territory War today. We were outleveled by the competition. We lost hard. It wasn’t even a competition. We had no chance in an “instanced” battle without scaling. All of these features were designed with scaling in mind, without scaling, we might as well not even flag til 60. I am considering taking a break from this game as it just isn’t special anymore. Tired of seeing this:
More thoughts as I play more:
There is a part of me that wishes so badly that when people do hit 60 they stop playing the game. (this is ASSUMING people actually get past the core grind loop after 15-20)
Why?
Because I truly want you to learn from this moment: If new players cannot PLAY with FRIENDS until a month of time later and there is NO incentive to flag for PvP in the world, there will be NONE.
“Run” is not a fun game mechanic. “Get Gud” is not relevant. People can be bad and still feel they had a fighting chance, lose, and walk away ready to do it again versus deflated and ready to give it up. I run a major company and 90% avoid PvP at all costs. With scaling you can get them out of their shell, without, forget it without a zerg.
New players keep games alive. I worked at Blizzard, we did more work and focus groups on how to make the leveling and new player experience better than we did on end game content. If not the same.
This idea of “you have to do it this way” is flat out wrong. For you, this may work, for others it may not. An MMO is massive multiplayer online, meaning it caters to MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF PEOPLE ONLINE. Which means, many play styles and can benefit from giving them all a great experience from level 1 to 60.
So we shall see how this plays out. So far, it sucks. Even for me who levels fast and loves PvP, because I am killing low players myself, due to A: the rewards and B: the fact that if I don’t they can gain town influence.
This is what the current GAME MECHANICS REWARD you with for killing low level players because they were supposed to be SCALED, but the CORE mechanic of rewards was never changed:
A nice green item sometimes blue, and great xp for weapons. Meanwhile You 1 - 3 shot someone. Fun?
