 Warhammer Vault Interviews - Warhammer Vault Exclusive Developer Interview |
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Apr 29, 2008 - 7:50 AM - by Thamelas
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By Swanny (04-22-2008)
Originally posted here.
Warhammer Vault: In the gameplay videos I've seen, the UI clutter factor has been kept to a minimum, with only one hotbar visible. Is it going to stay that way? One thing that does kind of bug me about most MMOs now is that you need multiple hotbars (I have 6 open in EQ2..) for all your abilities and such.
EAMythic: That's a great question. The challenge of working on the User Interface is that people tend to use their interface in completely different ways, so building a system that works with all of them can be quite difficult. The reason you tend to see one action bar in most screenshots, honestly, is that it's not often the UI we're trying to showcase, but moreover some aspect of the gameplay or the environments. So the setting simply hasn't been turned on. This leads to, what I think is really your question, which is... will you need to use multiple bars? Well that all depends on how you play, and how you like to manipulate the UI. Our goal while working on it is to provide as many options for you as humanly possible, so that whether you're a person who likes to keep the display to a minimum, or a person who wants to have action bars all over the screen, you'll easily be able to do either.
Warhammer Vault: How much do positional attacks make in the damage of a melee DPS? In a face-to-face fight, would a Tank do similar damage compared to a DPS (perhaps in slow, massive hits rather than fast, multiple hits?), but the DPS would do more damage?
EAMythic: Melee DPS careers do significantly more damage face to face than Tanks do. This is because they have significantly less HP & Armor. As such, for a fight to be even between a tank and a Melee DPS career, the Melee DPS has to do more damage per hit to overcome the significant armor mitigation of that damage and the Tank's Increased HP. The lighter the armor the MDPS Career has, the higher its damage output. Which leads into the next question: if tanks do low damage how do we keep tank on tank fights from taking 3 years? Simple: Armor penetration. Based on your weaponskill, all of your attacks penetrate a certain percentage of your target's armor. While this has less effect on targets with lighter armor, it has a significant effect on targets with high armor. Tanks as a whole have very high weaponskill, so instead of dealing large amounts of damage with +DMG bonus from strength they can ignore more of their opponent's armor instead.
This helps keep the heavy defense tanks balanced vs lighter armored careers since the damage bonus from armor penetration is not nearly as good vs Med or Light armors.
Warhammer Vault: The Zeal page on the official site describes a 'network' of Harbingers and Marks. But other have heard that Zealots can only cast one Harbinger at a time. In the current build, do Zealots cast more than one? What's the design and intent of this?
EAMythic: The Zealot is an intresting case; his site page is a little out of date. At the time of writing we did in fact have multiple Harbringers that also gained extra effect from being effected by rituals. However since then we've been adjusting the career based off feedback from our BETA process. As it stands we're still not completely finished with our adjustments, and I'm sure we'll be going through more in the next few BETA phases. That being said the final way that the Harbringer & Ritual mechanic will work is YTB, but you will be able to use combinations of these abilities for greater affect. As soon as we are happy with the BETA Feedback on the career we'll be updating the website. Keep in mind this all holds true for all of the careers. The information on that site is our general overview and initial vision of a Career. These views will change through BETA and as soon as we firm up new versions you'll see updates to the site.
Warhammer Vault: Can you (realistically) obtain end game gear through solo/pick up group play, or do you need hardcore players in highly organized guild (aka Uber Guilds) to do so?
EAMythic: Those are really two extremes of play that represent a very limited percentage of players and play-styles, so it’s never a case of “either soloable OR requires hardcore guild.” Obviously, a ruthlessly controlled, extremely organized group of super-hardcore players will be more efficient at many tasks in the game, but our intention is for players of all stripes to have the same basic opportunities to be effective in WAR. Players will be able to join scenarios solo or grouped all throughout the game which, in turn, will help them get involved in the high level portions of the campaign. They’ll be able to loot and pillage a fallen enemy city as a solo player and grab all of the goodies involved with that. They’ll obviously be able to contribute to Public Quests effectively as a solo player.
With that being said, no, a single player will not be able to – for example – break down the city gates, fight their way through the Bright Wizards College, knock down the doors of the castle and successfully defeat Karl Franz in solo combat. There comes a point in all MMOs where players have to at least partially commit to the social, cooperative side of the game and work towards major goals as part of a group. Super high-level encounters will definitely require groups of players (although not necessarily super-hardcore groups).
Warhammer Vault: How big of a part will public quests play in WAR and what can we expect from them in the future after release? Could one gain just as much experience from doing public quests all day as someone who pursued another form of leveling?
EAMythic: PQs are a HUGE part of WAR and they offer an awesome array of awards, achievements and experiences for players throughout the game. As for whether or not playing PQs EXCLUSIVELY will provide the same amount of experience as other ways of playing the game, obviously it won’t. The most effective way to level in WAR is, was and forever shall be to engage in a mix of ALL of the different elements of the game. That means PQs, scenarios, questing, persistent world RvR, exploring and on and on. Players who really, really don’t want to make use of some portion of the game will be able to do so, but that will always come at the cost of efficiency (and loss of new, exciting experiences).
As for the future of WAR post-release, PQs have been a major hit so far with beta testers and we’re absolutely committed to continuing to use them and improve them in the future.
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