Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Does The Blending Of Factions in Modern MMOs Make For Dull Play?
sirchive
Member UncommonPosts: 72
My wife and I started back with Rift when the new expansion was released last week. When we played a year ago I enjoyed the PvP battlegrounds (called Warfronts in Rift I believe), at least at low and mid-level when the gear and rank disparity is not extreme.
So yesterday I tried a few warfronts with a couple of my level 20 and 30 characters. It confused the hell out of me because sometimes I found myself playing for the other faction. I'm a Defiant and I was put on the Guardian team! Really threw me for a loop to start from the other side of the map and to be the blue team instead of the red. It turns out that Rift PvP has been turned into a bunch of buddies playing flag football for fun because now the factions are blended.
As always, this was obviously done to ease queue times. Players want nothing more than fast queues so that they can grind out whatever tokens or reputation they are granted. But this trend makes the game feel dull. We are all just one big loving family of two factions that can guild together and quest together and jumble up to play warfronts for points. It's like playing poker for matchsticks with your nephews.
I absolutely loved the early days of WoW battlegrounds when they took place on your server against the other faction on your server. You knew your enemy and it really felt like the two sides were at war. But recently MMOs seem to be on a trend of blending the factions to the point where they are meaningless even when lore or logic tells you that the factions are in conflict. All in pursuit of fast play and easy grinding and easy developement. It's much cheaper to make zones that everybody plays in.
In recent MMOs I've played like GW2 or Secret World and now Rift there is no real sense of factions being in conflict. Even if you play on a PVE server because you don't want to spend the majority of your game time getting ganked there should still be a sense of conflict between the sides.
Right now I'm regretting my decision to come back to Rift. Something about signing up for PvP and then being randomly put on the other side is simply depressing.
Comments
I agree but that's not the point.
True, you will not get the best PvP in an MMO that is primarily designed for PVE and raiding. But, for many of us, you can still get some very enjoyable light PvP. I play MMOs with my wife and she will never play a hard-core PvP game. But it's nice for me when there is some decent PvP to be had.
My main point is that there is a recent trend towards making factions less and less meaningful in order to speed the grind and to ease developement costs. I think this makes MMOs less enjoyable.
My golden rule is:
"If there's a queue, the game is scrueue."
Once upon a time....
I can see where you are coming from op. The merc system threw me off a bit when the first time I found myself on the opposite faction. And I do agree that the early days of WoW PvP felt much more "real" in the sense that you were fighting for something. But, this new system allows for much more of a "community" feel in my opinion. Not only do you get to mingle with your own faction, you also get to meet the enemie's behind the curtain. No doubt it breaks immersion, but there is always a bright side to things.
The immersion I experienced during my first months of WoW, I believe, will never be experienced again. I can no longer look at things from a "I am Alliance, crush all Horde!" perspective. It's more like "We are all just human beings sitting behind a screen having some fun". Hope this sheds some light on the subject. Maybe you can relate too
Thanks for the thoughtful reply aWray. Yes, I can see your point.
But I miss those days of "I am Alliance, crush all Horde".
And if a game wants us all to be buddies then don't even have factions. Just put us all on one side and let us fight against the PvP enemy like in LotR.
With Rift it's more a case of the faction system failed. So now they retain the structure of a faction based game while in actual gameplay the factions mean nothing. Feels odd to me at least.
The world based systems where there are totally seperate worlds put problems on faction based games.. There's always an imbalance, so therefore your design suffers... If you go in wow pvp servers, its ridiculous that most pvp servers are so heavily favored to one side.. like 90% horde 10% alliance...
The trick to meaningful pvp is to alleviate segragation.. this was a solution to a problem they did not foresee in beginning design... Thats the problem with games.. constant cheap fixes.... to alleviate poorly concepted games.. Now, I say poorly with all due respect... But I do believe games made today are not spending enough time at the drawing boards and think players will be in areas that will never happened because there is no purpose to be there... There must be purpose at all times for all things created..
Regards,
Mike Cackle
My YouTube Channel
For me personally, I found the setting, lore, and overall atmosphere of WoW to be my main hook when it came to faction allegiance. Oh do I miss the days of defending stormwind for the sake of defending my home! I feel that is what is missing in Rift. Also, with gear/rep being the main focus in PvP, players no longer have an incentive to fight for honor