Intrepid - Please Limit Testers Game Knowledge

Full disclosure, I am an Alpha one tester. I wanted to start this discussion though because I have seen a lot of forum posts about people being worried about certain players using their game knowledge and enforcing a certain "meta" for those who participate in end-game content.

There has been a lot of arguments against this being an issue in the game because of the way it is being designed, but for the sake of this discussion, I would like to assume that this will not be the case, or that at the very best, the games design decisions will just slow this down.

When I played Classic World of Warcraft, I had quite a bit of fun in the initial release of the game, but didn't when I really started to get into end game. I wanted to participate in end-game, and was willing to conform to the meta where needed to do so, most of the time. Sometimes though, I wanted to do silly thinks like try to get into unreleased parts of the map, or hold social events. Many players were not willing to do such things though because they saw no point in doing something that would take time away from their need to prepare for raids or do battlegrounds. No one wanted to try out silly alternate specs like Warlock tanking for instance.

I am worried about a similar atmosphere being present in this game with how much time testers will have access to it, but also the open nature of the testing once the visual NDA lifts. At some point (probably during the Beta) they will have to raise the size of the world, and we'll have plenty of time to theorize about game mechanics and builds. This is a good problem to have, but one that still needs solving.

Would it be possible to at least limit the world size during the Beta and Alpha tests? Or, if you need to make sure quests and terrain are tested across the whole game world, could you split each zone into it's own test? What about classes, gear, and dungeons/raids? Could bosses be switched around into different places than they will be on launch? Perhaps the same can be done for Nodes? At the very least, I think it would be helpful to at least switch around names of the Nodes.

Basically, I think it is most important to prioritize the testers ability to make sure the game is in a condition that is ready to be launched, but as much as possible, this needs to be balanced against obscuring our knowledge of Verra so we can't "game the system."

What do other think? Are you worried about meta gaming? What other ways could Intrepid balance this so that the fresh experience a launch is supposed to be is protected?

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Jerec Tharen

@Dygz

Dygz wrote: »

We will not have the exact same configuration of villages, towns, cities, metros, dungeons and raids at Launch as we have during Beta.

Do you have a source for this you can PM me, I'd love to look over it!

As far as your other points. You may be right that no end-game meta might exist. I guess what truly bothers me is the nature of gamer's to focus on efficiency. I just want to try to find people that will do silly thinks with me where we try to do things outside of what was "intended" for us to do. A few more examples of things that I have wanted to do in Classic more are doing Ragefire Chasm as the Alliance (although since it is low enough level, I have been able to find a few groups of people willing to do it, but I get ridiculed a lot when recruiting for it), Warlock tanking, and playing games like Tag or Hide 'N Go Seek. I like finding weird things to do like this because it breaks up the grind, and helps me feel more immersed in the community of the game - like I am making an impact on it.

Jerec Tharen

Vhaeyne wrote: »

With Ashes things, will be different. There is nothing to "Solve". As Dygz said there is no classical "end-game" as you know it. Nothing is static. You might solve an excellent strategy for downing the ice dragon raid boss, but it can be different next time you have to fight it because a different raid might be there fighting you for it.
Open-world raid bosses are PvX content. You will have to fight other raids before, during, and after the raid to secure the loot.

Yeah, I hope this really is the case and that they really have a lot of different kind of content that is hidden, locked, and impossible to find without progressing a specific node. However, I worry that the cost of adding that much content will be too much and that pressure to release will force them to do so where you have a set of "cookie cutter" content that can be predicted and meta-gamed for. Perhaps that's a worry a bit outside the topic of this discussion though.

Jerec Tharen

truelyyy wrote: »

I mean we are on "alpha" island what more do you want? You can't test the game without playing the game doesn't make sense.

This is true right now, but what happens after Alpha 1? I am assuming here that they will need more tested, or that what is learned on Alpha island can be used to ruin surprises outside of that area.

Azherae

Not everyone can learn just by watching videos of someone else doing something, but so far, there isn't a single system, nor any indicators of a system, that would imply this can happen (ruining of surprises).

If you just 'need a ragtag bunch of crazy people who don't value efficiency above all else', those exist. I find it's best not to worry about it too much, you only need to find one stable group like that, and after that, you don't have to care.

As for the Alpha Island thing, the current build is 9 nodes within a space that would normally hold twice as many, so even the individual zones of influence are gonna be different.

This probably can't be true for Beta, but Beta is supposed to be shorter.

There's been talk of a lot of reactive content in the world, too (example below in the spoiler is mine, but I remember hearing something similar) and reactive content has two benefits. It can take long to trigger, and most parts of it don't need to be tested as strictly since it 'failing to trigger' isn't gamebreaking.

Imagine a node in a forest where it develops high quickly and now there's so many gatherers that the trees are always camped and chopped down instantly, some number of 'trees cut' racks up until it spawns a Corrupted wandering boss "Eater of The Forest's Rage". But this couldn't spawn until literally months into the game, and therefore wouldn't have spawned in Alpha or Beta.

I have formulated systems for adding their content type before, it benefits from a specific thing. You don't have to have 'a long list of Node specific quests'. You can have a 'Metropolis node quest template' with different parameters to fill it out, and players will take months to see any of them. By the time they have raised a Metropolis, sacked a Metropolis, and raised a new, different Metropolis, not only might the quests seem unfamiliar again, the Devs would have had time to make new stuff.

They can literally 'react to this in real time' on the Quest maker side. If they see you pushing a City up toward Metropolis level they can focus on building new unique quests for when you manage, a month in advance. Maybe quests and emergent content may be bugged, but you sound like you'll be happier with that possibility, as long as you get to react to the world.

Conrad

I think perhaps they should do like 1 or 2 special tests for public like... let's say the stability test and stuff? Thats my opinion at least

McMackMuck

I'm not an Alpha tester, as my name clearly shows.
I don't think there's much you can learn in Alpha 1 that will be present in the released game. Alpha 1 is about server testing, so all the race and archetype abilities are placeholders that are only what they need to be to load the server. The game mechanics of clicking on a guy to go out through a castle door is a prime example!

The only thing that I can think of that may not change significantly is the partial map that Alpha 1 testers play on. Memorizing the map is an advantage. Learning the best routes from A to B is an advantage. Speculating where the nodes will be when that area of the map has a higher node density might be worthwhile.

Beta testing will be the point where test experiences will give an advantage in the released game, IMO.

Maezriel

Jerec Tharen wrote: »

@Dygz

Dygz wrote: »

We will not have the exact same configuration of villages, towns, cities, metros, dungeons and raids at Launch as we have during Beta.

Do you have a source for this you can PM me, I'd love to look over it!

It's the entire selling point of the Node system. Every server will have the same layout of Nodes but how players go about developing them will vary greatly so every server is going to have cities, towns, & ports in different locations which in turn effects the world around to give access to different dungeons, quest, and monsters that other servers won't have.

Dygz

Jerec Tharen wrote: »

You may be right that no end-game meta might exist. I guess what truly bothers me is the nature of gamer's to focus on efficiency. I just want to try to find people that will do silly thinks with me where we try to do things outside of what was "intended" for us to do. A few more examples of things that I have wanted to do in Classic more are doing Ragefire Chasm as the Alliance (although since it is low enough level, I have been able to find a few groups of people willing to do it, but I get ridiculed a lot when recruiting for it), Warlock tanking, and playing games like Tag or Hide 'N Go Seek. I like finding weird things to do like this because it breaks up the grind, and helps me feel more immersed in the community of the game - like I am making an impact on it.

Seems like it should be fairly easy to find people willing to do stuff like that. That's what Twitch, YouTube, Discord and twitter are for. People used to do naked dungeon runs or drunken dungeon runs back in the day.
And, you should be able to know when other silly people are online at the same time as you...and also know where they live.
You could set up a weekly or biweekly event. Advertise on social media. Especially fun as post-podcast activities.

Jerec Tharen

Conrad wrote: »

I think perhaps they should do like 1 or 2 special tests for public like... let's say the stability test and stuff? Thats my opinion at least

How would that help limit game knowledge?

Jerec Tharen

Maezriel wrote: »

It's the entire selling point of the Node system. Every server will have the same layout of Nodes but how players go about developing them will vary greatly so every server is going to have cities, towns, & ports in different locations which in turn effects the world around to give access to different dungeons, quest, and monsters that other servers won't have.

Oh, you meant how nodes will develop differently when the game launches, not that Intrepid will change around their locations, names, attributes, etc for launch. Yeah, that could definitely help if they have enough content and set it up to only be revealed under certain circumstances.

Dygz

The Node Type locations will be the same on every server, but...
Which Nodes become a village, town, city or metro will be different on each server. And different for Launch than they were during Beta.
Same for racial population and which buildings and services are constructed.

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