Finally they lifted the NDA so we can talk about Wrath of Heroes. It is so aggravating sometimes to not be able to talk about anything when in a beta. I have went from being excited about the game to feeling ho hum about it. What changed that made me lose interest? Can I still be lured back with the right changes?
The nice thing is I feel this beta the devs are really listening to the feedback. I see Bioware Mythic getting feedback by email, and on Facebook. I really think they want to make this a great free to play game. By dropping the NDA I think they really understand that bloggers, and players will voice their opinions to gain the best feedback for the devs. I strongly urge you to leave comments on this post on Google + because many Mythic devs follow me, and my blog because I tell the truth about games, and never get paid, or get freebies to bias my reviews.
The game is being marketed to be 3 faction PvP. Who hasn't wanted this since the day of DAOC? Does it feel the same? Is their realm pride?
Unfortunately the game is lacking in the biggest part of their marketing campaign. In no way, shape, or form does it feel like 3 faction PvP. There is no realm pride. It brings back nothing that I loved about DAOC. Why does it not feel like 3 faction PvP?
Actually several reasons that makes Wrath of Heroes not feel like 3 factions. You queue up for the game, and you randomly are chosen to be on the green, orange, or blue team. No faction names, or anything. One game you can be on the blue team, and the next time on orange. It causes confusion initially because you forget what color you are playing this game. Do you hate the orange, or blue team the most?
It doesn't matter in Wrath of Heroes. Every color team feels the same. You are basically playing a 6 v 12 instead of the marketing hype of 6 v 6 v 6. There is nothing in the game that gives realm pride so everyone kind of just does a FFA. There is a scoreboard, but no one really pays attention to it. Many times I see the second place team fighting the third place team, and the first place team also ganging up on the third place team. You can't win if you aren't killing the team in the lead. Why are players not working as a team with the third place team to knock out the current team in the lead?
I think you end up having no incentives except for winning, and most players are more worried about themselves than their team. It is obvious that kills gets you a higher overall score than assisting, healing, or whatever so everyone ends up with their own agenda. Wrath of Heroes is lacking something that gives realm pride like in DAOC with relics, and keeps.
I think since you end up on random color teams each time no one cares. No teams like in WoW so you don't have this competitive ladder that you go up if you win, and down if you lose. Maybe they should implement their current leveling to reflect that so you lose xp that affects your ability to use some tactics. Losses need to mean something. Rankings give team pride.
Most of the tactics are pretty worthless. A few are pretty decent, but some have a 2% chance of proc which is basically 2/100 times you attack it will go off. You can earn 4 different tactic slot loadouts depending on what hero you choose. Here is a few things about that though. It takes a while to earn the other loadouts so every time you decide to switch from dps, melee, tanking, healing etc you have to reslot all your tactics. You also are able to switch heroes after any time you die. The only problem is you can't change your tactics to go along with it. If you start off with your healing tactics, and you switch to ranged dps you tactics will still be for healing, and basically worthless. I could have missed the ability to change them, but even if you can are you going to spend an extra minute or two slotting new tactics leaving your team high and dry? I suggest a way of saving a tactic loadout for each hero so when a player switches from healing to dps because they have 3 healers they won't be penalized.
Another big marketing idea is the switching of heroes on the fly. Basically every time you die you can switch heroes. The one annoying thing is you can't switch at the very beginning when you are waiting for the game to start. This can automatically cripple a team initially if they end up with 4 classes the same on their team. It means they will be sacrificing valuable time when they all die from not having a good group setup. You should be able to switch all the way up to the game starting.
They also market that every hero has a nemesis. Every hero can be countered by another hero. The problem is you have to know what each hero does. Why not on the hero selection screen show what hero or heroes are your nemesis. This will make it easier for players to figure out how to counter another class, and make the battle more competive by quickly being able to change a hero to a nemesis.
I think many of the heroes have way to high cooldowns on their best spells. This is supposed to be a fast action game, but I tend to find myself waiting for timers, and being a huge target. It is fine if you are roaming around doing 1 v 1, but in big battles you may as well just teleport me to the spawn point now. I know players get one spammable spell, but 7 damage is like hitting someone with a wet towel. I think most heroes could use their timers cut in half.
Another pet peeve I have of heroes in Wrath of Heroes is the 5 spell rotation. It just seems like we need one or two more spells. This could also solve the cooldown issue if we had a better selection. I am disappointed in some of the heroes when this game is being drawn straight from WAR. Why not have the heroes have the same specs or talent trees like WAR. I should be able to pick three different specs for my bright wizard like in WAR which was a Direct damage, AOE, and somehow I forgot the other one. It should be the same way for each hero so players can play more to their playstyle or the one that will most benefit their team. Another idea is to give players a ten spell choice to choose which five they want sort of what I remember Guild Wars being like. Don't force us to be clones, and everyone fighting players who have the same spells. It makes for some very boring 1 v 1 fights.
I think queuing needs to be changed to be more like a dungeon finder. This way even pugs get a well balanced group initially. I would like to see a way to queue up as a shaman, warrior priest, bright wizard, or whatever. You can select what you want to play, and it will put you in a group that is seeking one, or doesn't have one yet.
The two current battles need some work. Both are unexciting to me. With a 6 person team it is hard to strategize in Mourkain Temple. You just don't have enough people to protect the artifact, and protect a flag, and possibly take another flag. I wouldn't mind if it offered more diversity that it expands to 8 or possibly 10 players. This would round out teams more a little bit because right now you have a hard time having the best ratio of healers, dps, cc, and tanks.
A big problem is a player can easily AFK the whole game once they die. Since the game allows you to switch heroes, or respawn you can sit there all day, and cripple your team. You won't be auto respawned after 30 seconds, a minute, or the whole 15 minutes, or booted out of the battle with a queuing debuff. You really need a timer like that. Also if someone auto disconnects because they are losing the team ends up with one less player the whole game. There needs to be a way to recruit someone in mid battle, or automatically bring someone in. I understand most players hate being thrown in a half over battle that is a lopsided victory so I am not sure where the happy medium is.
The individual scoreboard needs to go. If you want to leave something on a players personal profile than that is fine, but the scoreboard should only show 3 scores. That is Blue, Orange, and Green. The game is about teamwork, and the only way you are going to get players to work together is to show team stats. That means team kills, team deaths, team damage, team healing, and etc. You remove individual stats, and players will start paying attention to their team than their own agenda. Nothing pisses me off more to see me healing my butt off by keeping a teammate alive to see them score like 52 points, and I get like 22. How do you think he got so many kills? Because I kept him alive, and he ends up being the one that levels up twice as fast. It is easy team scoreboard, and team xp.
There needs to be some kind of tutorial in the game. No one seems to read these days. I would like to see before you can join your first battle you have to complete a tutorial. This is a flag, this is the artifact. If you don't have a flag you can't have the artifact. I think maybe the artifact needs something that if everyone leaves it automatically goes uncontrolled so players understand you stay and defend until you lose your flag. It doesn't take the whole team to take a flag. Send one stealther, or tank type to ninja flags.
Another idea is maybe make the artifact something you have to transport back to your flag. This would make teams stay to defend their flag, and support the artifact runner to make it back to the flag to score 50 points or whatever. Right now the whole objectives in Mourkain Temple are dumb with only 6 people. You can't defend an artifact, and a flag with 6 people against 12. With this artifact delivery it wouldn't be splitting the team up as much as both would be looking for each other, and help out if they get attacked halfway to the flag.
The arena is really pointless too. It is just mindless killing. No one pays attention to what color they are killing so once again it feels like a 6 v 12. Why have this huge thing in the center, and no objectives. Get rid of the stupid spawning get sprint for 5 seconds, power of healing, triple damage, and etc. It is dumb. Who is going to go out of there way to get this buff?
At least make Arena something about holding the center, or something. You need a way to direct players somewhere so they have a clue on who they should be killing. So many times I see the first place team, and the second place team camping each side of the third place teams spawn. How stupid is that? How does the second place team think they are going to win if they aren't killing the first place team? Free for all in an arena with no objectives, or realm pride means you are playing 6 v 12. Pretty pointless. No one is going to play a game where nothing matters so you just kill whoever is closest.
I would like to see some kind of Battle of Praag battle where you capture one flag to be able to capture the next flag. Once again this would let players visually see who is winning, and where to go to fight to take back a flag, and push them back. It may even create alliances when blue, and orange see that green has pushed to the third flag. I think a tug of war type system works best in pvp battlegrounds.
Removing chat in the battles also loses the ability to team up with the other team. I understand griefing so remove /whispers but incorporate /green , /orange, or /blue lets attack leading team together, and not attack each other? You need a way to be able to work together, or otherwise it will never, ever happen. In DAOC you could talk on the forums, and create alliances. Wrath of Heroes is fast paced. You don't have time to alliance because you are a different color every game you play. This is just another reason you should pick a color just like a faction, and that is what you play.
I don't think Tactics are real obvious on how to switch between loadouts. Initially I was trying to figure out, and eventually I saw it, and was able to change it after playing for about three hours.
It seems nothing is simple to figure out for new players. I see questions all the time what does leveling mean, how do I unlock tactics, what are the objectives? A big reason a tutorial for the whole game would be nice. You go to heroes page, and it just shows you heroes. You can't pick one until you are in the battle. You hit tactics, but it doesn't really explain how much xp is needed for each unlock. or how much xp is earned per battle or how xp is determined. No one even understands what the loadouts are for. Once again you should be able to have a default hero that loads when you enter a battle, and a default tactic loadout. Most players have one favorite hero so it just makes sense.
Another problem is Wrath of Heroes has to much AoE. You can't build alliances if your AoE spells do 100+ damage, and your single target does 7 damage. Everyone will still try to do AoE, and kill players they are allianced with.
Another idea is the ability to create an alliance while in battle. I would maybe change the 3 team colors to red, blue, and yellow. Just like in WAR when you create an alliance it turns into a green. So if red, and yellow decide to alliance to take out blue than red and yellow become one warband that is now green colored. This way it prevents friendly fire in the alliance, and everyone knows who they should be killing.
I want my original Warrior Priest from WAR. I want to either decide to single target heal, group heal, or be a dps. I think it would add alot of diversity to the game, and make it harder for players to know what spec you are. Single target heals really need to be in the game. You know how many times I have a player begging for heals, but my two AoE nearby healing spells are still on cooldown, or even if I cast both it takes forever for them to get their health back? I would rather see my spammable spell be a single target heal. It still would be hard to target each warband member so I don't think it would be to OP.
I think for today this is enough wall of text. Want to join the comment discussion than follow me on G+ for some of the best interactive comments on a blog? Please be sure to share this, and +1 on Google + so the Bioware Mythic devs see that players love the ideas I shared above.
I am also uploading a few videos to my Youtube channel showing every tactic, every hero, every hero spell, and some gameplay. You will easily notice that the cooldowns are way too long. Please be advised that I was interested in recording each hero, and the video may not reflect my normal epic pvp awesomeness, because it was faster to die, and respawn as a new hero.
To summarize my wall of text about Wrath of Heroes unless they make most of these changes I have a prediction it will fail even as a free to play game pretty much like WAR, and be known across the internet gaming community as the Wrath of Zeroes.
