Public Quests Are Antisocial
I’ve already commented about how I think Public Quests in Warhammer Online will be underutilized to the point that they’ll have to be changed after launch. What I didn’t talk about at the time was how this theoretically social game mechanic — this savior of cooperative play in MMOs — promotes subversive, antisocial behavior.
Everyone is singing the praises of Public Quests. They have to be in every traditional massively multiplayer game from now on. They are so much FUN! Well I’m not going to sing the praises of the system, I’m going to tear it limb from limb.
My hypothesis: Public Quests are antisocial.
And I have proof!
The fastest way to max out your Influence in a given Chapter is to find an empty Public Quest and kill things for 100 Influence a pop. This is easy because most Public Quests are, in fact, completely empty. It is boring and grindy if you allow yourself to do it, but it’s still the most efficient way to max your Influence out.
If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of taking part in a populated PQ, don’t relent. Sometimes you actually want to have fun doing one, or maybe you don’t know where to find one of the empty Public Quests in the area (clearly, they are empty, so nobody else has found them either). The best way to gain Influence when participating in a populated Public Quest is to actively screw other players.
If the current stage of the quest involves gathering something from a barrel that is guarded by a mob, wait for someone else to aggro the mob and steal the barrel from the player, because he can’t interact with it while being attacked. Don’t make the mistake of fighting the mob yourself, because you won’t gain Influence and you won’t get closer to Rank 1 in the PQ overall.
Oh, and this applies to people in your group, too. You don’t share Influence with party members when you gather any kind of node, so make sure you get your tank to go fight the mob while you pick up the object and gain more Influence. Suckers.
When a Champion mob comes out with a few solo guards and you attack it, ignore the adds if you’re the tank. Sure, they may go kill your healer, but you aren’t going to gain Influence by saving his life, so stick to the Champion and let the poor sod die. Especially because that poor healer will let you die in a heartbeat if it means more Influence for him, and it does.
When you get to the coveted Hero at the end, do everything in your power to get the tank killed (or if you are the tank, don’t make the mistake of taunting). That way, you can get more of the Influence yourself. And never, EVER, debuff the mob. If you reduce its armor level or resistances in any way, other people will be doing more damage to the mob, and you really don’t want that! Only use buffs and debuffs that affect you, and you alone.
Did I mention that there are quests that send players to the Public Quest area that involve killing mobs inside that same location? That’s an exercise in frustration for the person trying to do the quest, because everyone else will kill the mobs they’re after (they must not have read this handy guide, because they shouldn’t bother).
Did I also mention that nobody ever talks during a Public Quest? That’s because everyone is trying to screw each other as fast as possible to gain Influence and get the highest rank so they might possibly get a good loot bag in the end. And my rant about PQ rewards… that’s another post altogether.
So, in summary, I will give you the proof of my hypothesis that Public Quests are antisocial in simple bullet point fashion:
- The best way to grind Influence is in an empty PQ.
- But an empty PQ is incredibly boring.
- And most PQs are empty.
- If you find yourself in a populated PQ, you aren’t out of luck.
- Actively subvert the efforts of others.
- Even if they are your only healer.
- And only ever do anything that gains you Influence.
- Because everything else will handicap you.
This is my proof that Public Quests in WAR are antisocial. And, all this said, they are some of the most fun PvE game experiences I’ve had in an MMO in a very long time. They are, indeed, one of the greatest new ideas that Mythic brought to the table with Warhammer Online. Why am I criticizing them so much?
Because of their potential. It’s like when you know your kid is capable of getting straight As (or is it straight smiley faces these days?) or making the junior hockey team but they just aren’t quite reaching their full potential.
Public Quests can be better. They can be amazing. They are quite fixable. The only real problem with Public Quests is players. Players are a-holes, and they will game any system you put in place.
And, on a side note, Paul Barnett has officially surpassed Doctor Who as my favorite fictional British person, and I think I owe him a cupcake.
WAAAGH!
Update: I never expected this post to get linked all over the place, so there are a lot of people reading this who don’t know how I normally write. This is written in an exaggerated, overly cynical voice on purpose. I know PQs are not antisocial, and they were definitely not intended to be. Hopefully this will stave off a few of the angry responses, assuming any ever reads this far.
Love, me.
Couple thoughts:
1. There will always be people looking to min/max their way to the top instead of having fun. Grinding empty PQs is not fun even if it’s more effective. Ditto with being a jerk and working against the other players. Unfortunately, that kind of attitude is not fixable. But it is avoidable .
2. I do agree that one of the quirks of open questing (at least the little I’ve seen of it in the lower levels of preview weekend and open beta) is that no one talks. People join, run over and pitch in, and drop out again — all without a “hi” or “bye.” As a long-time player of WoW — where you havve to be invited into a group — I was used to a regular stream of comunications as people joined, worked on a quest and then left. For events like PQs, where you can jump in mid-event, I can see why less communications is required and I guess as everyone gets more familiar with the game and each other talking will increase.
I was about to argue until I reached the end of your post and you echoed my exact thoughts. The potential of Public Quests is absolutely huge and, if handled properly, could easily encourage social gameplay in areas that are normally not suited for it. I showered Mythic with praise in my blog and elsewhere over Public Quests, but my experience with them was only in Beta where, for whatever reason, people actually seemed to want to help each other complete them. Perhaps they hadn’t yet realized the benefits of screwing the other players over. It sounds like some minor tweaks could greatly improve the system, so here’s hoping Mythic will realize these are issues and fix them soon enough.
Other than the PQs, are you enjoying Warhammer?
Hmm. Isn’t that’ a bit like saying that chat systems are antisocial because they can be used to abuse and harass other players?
That said, I agree with the basic point - if something can be abused, some muppets will abuse it, so Mythic should perhaps make some changes to minimise the possibilities for ‘PQ griefing’ and encourage people to help each other out (rather than the reverse).
I know that some influence, either kills or items, share between group members because I’ve been standing around doing nothing while my wife does stuff and I’ll get influence.
The biggest flaw in WAR right now is that the way RvR, PQs and Open Groups work is just so completely alien to the majority of players that they are approaching them is the same isolationist way that other games treat similar concepts. I have been kicked out of so many Open Groups, its not funny…
That, and their default chat UI sucks. Putting everything in one window just makes most people miss stuff.
Myrix: “Other than the PQs, are you enjoying Warhammer?”
Yes.
jason: “I know that some influence, either kills or items, share between group members because I’ve been standing around doing nothing while my wife does stuff and I’ll get influence.”
Kills do share, just not the stuff you pick up or otherwise interact with.
Ryan I agree here. I found myself wishing I was the only person at a PQ recently because the influence rewards in the T2 zone I was in were great. Grinding out kills (or worse, simple “pick ups”) for 100 influence a pop was the most efficient way to bang out max influence and get those rewards.
So, why not just quickly bang it out and get the rewards instead of doing the full PQ with many people several times hoping to get lucky and get a loot bag that probably isn’t as good as the influence reward is?
I think we’ll see more of this as the population gets past Tier 1 and start seeing rare and epic items as influence rewards for the PQ’s.
Is there a “Rules for MMO Development” somewhere that states that, when designing a system, devs should always remember that players will screw each other in a heartbeat if they can get even a little bit ahead by doing so..?
I can’t help but disagree with this. PQ’s in themselves are not anti-social. The problem is, as you said, the players. But even that is too broad, it’s the anti-social players that are the problem.
When you’re building a system, you should normally build it around optimal circumstances. You want to take into account the sub-optimal circumstances (anti-social people playing a social game), but you do not build your system around them. Instead, you make allowances for the sub-optimal circumstances. I’m not claiming to be in the minds of the developers, but it looks to me like this is what they have done with the PQ system, and WAR in general.
If you and your friends are in a PQ that is full of wankers, there are other PQ’s in your tier available to you. If you have already completed the other PQ’s, the wankers will most likely finish their influence grind in short order (2-3 completions, less than 15 minutes). This time can be spent doing any number of other things (regular quests in the area, queue up for a scenario, open world PvP, etc…)
You’re going to have wankers in any MMO, that’s an unavoidable fact. Wankers are going to cause problems for those around them, that’s why we call them wankers. But it’s not the PQ system that’s anti-social. For lack of a better term… Anti-social players are anti-social.
Overall, I’m assuming your saying this with tongue in cheek. Stealing quest crates and such happens, I’m sure, but I’ve never seen it and I doubt it’s common. And I’ve spent considerable time in Salzenmund and other areas with opportunities for that. It’s equivalent to PKs. In any game, some players will act anti-socially regardless of systems design, but that’s a small minority of players.
That is a problem, and a painfully obvious one that made me doubt someone’s intelligence.
I’ll half-agree with you there.
PQs encourage a frantic pace. The less you pause, the more you contribute and the higher your chances of winning loot… which is selfish, but not to the point of being anti-social since it means you’re contributing more to the common goal . If you’re recognized as the highest contributor, that doesn’t just mean loot. It’s a fame reward and a pride reward… pride for contributing to that common goal. Plus, the pace makes it more fun. That separates it from other PvE encounters, providing variation.
But you’re right that PQs often discourage coordination. The part of many PQs that involves killing lots of weaker enemies is the most problematic thing I’ve seen. Players frantically run around with little consideration for what other players are doing… though I have frequently noticed players coming to the rescue of others during that chaos. The social component is there, but frustrated. Players work more cooperatively when fighting tougher enemies which require coordination.
Anyway, the pace of PQs is the main reason people don’t talk during them, and that’s not anti-social. What I would do there is allow the frantic pace but offer more time in between PQ stages for participants to chat about their experience.
And here I was expecting you to focus on that “group up and just stand there” way of capping influence. Good chance to work on your cultivation!
“When you get to the coveted Hero at the end, do everything in your power to get the tank killed (or if you are the tank, don’t make the mistake of taunting). That way, you can get more of the Influence yourself. And never, EVER, debuff the mob. If you reduce its armor level or resistances in any way, other people will be doing more damage to the mob, and you really don’t want that! Only use buffs and debuffs that affect you, and you alone.”
I think, as a healer, you get more points for healing the tank. I know I did as the shaman. I also tended to heal the guys getting attacked by the squigs instead of leapfrogging them to get to the barrels. When people were full, I’d select through people on screen and drop heals on people that needed even the slightest little bit of a top up
As a tank you also get points for gaining threat. I found it easier to do as a Chosen than as a Black Ork, at least until about level 5 or 6 with the Black Ork. The Chosen gets an attack early that generates some hate on top of doing damage while the Black Ork has a number of lead up abilities before getting to a real hate builder or their actual Taunt ability.
Other than that, yeah, you’re right. There is an element of selfishness that the PQ can provoke in people, especially people you simply don’t know. Think of it as a free box of donuts someone opens up in a public area where 6 of the donuts are flavored and the other 18 are plain. Mmmm.. donuts. Where was I going with this? BRB, I have an urge for some donuts… mmmm….
(Some people will try to get away with taking two, people will grab the good stuff and some will probably even complain about the fact that only plain ones are left… Hey! It’s a free donut! Human nature)
Good to see some more critical thought applied to public quest. I love the concept but they have a lot of details to fine tune. The other night I was playing my Shaman and there where 20+ people doing a public quest. Attacking as fast as possible I for the most part could only get a spell or 2 off (Some times none). This hampered my contribution thus my bonus roll never got above 95. Basically it became appearent to me if I wanted to have higher contribution I would need to play a DPS class. Anyway I love the concept but they are going to need to tweak some things because right now it’s pretty clear the faster DPS classes will have a huge advantage in aquiring loot from the public quests.
I have to say I agree with you Ryan. Players tend to be a-holes who like to min-max. I am one too but to a point. Regardless of what is best, I like to group with my friends and do my job. Tanks shouldn’t die on my watch!
I think some minor tweaks are in order (and I’m sure they’ll come) but I don’t think one bad apple truly ruins a whole barrel. If my friends and I do the PQ, have fun but don’t get first place because someone else was stealing all the barrels I’m okay with that.
It isn’t like it takes all that long or much effort to max your influence per chapter anyway.
Yeah buuuuut people want to complete the PQs to get the purple shinys, influences just comes with time regardless. So you’re argument is slightly flawed!
Do you guys not realize that this is a beta and that people dont realy interact with each other because they know that their characters will be deleted tomorow ???
I for one am not using the chat alot, but i will certainly do when the games launch and my character is not getting deleted
Unlike another “care-bear” MMO I will not name, there is no way (for now and hopefuly forevere) of paying for server transfer, so if a player acts retard the whole server community will know that the player and probably that player’s guild are full of eager kids.
Excuse the bad english it is not my first language
It’s an interesting synopsis, and on the surface it would seem to be the most efficient way to do things. However, I’d be interested in seeing a breakdown of Influence per hour of two ways of playing:
1) Solo, at 100 influence a kill having to wait for a PQ to reset once you’ve ground out the number of mobs to advance to stage 2 (usually around 10 minutes wasted - would probably have to go through 2 dead times to max out a bar).
VS
2) Being in a full warband, getting smaller influence but still getting some for warband member kills, and blowing through the PQ in a very short timeframe getting both the lump XP and influence reward for finishing the quest.
In the second example you’d also get plenty of chances at a loot bag, and those rewards are very much worth it by Tier 2.
Granted, the points about taking items that give 100 influence a pop is valid and something people will just have to deal with (which is unfortunate).
Definitely some holes in the system, I hope they don’t degenerate too far away from what was intended (or that Mythic tweaks things to make it even better to share, though that might take some time with other high priority issues at hand).
Some aspects are true, but reversing the rule (PQs are antisocial) is wrong.
Some quirks in the implementation of the system encourage bad behaviors, but the principle works.
A step in the good direction, that still needs work (I’ve written endlessly about collaborative gameplay/communal objectives, the point here is to implement mechanics that aren’t selfish at their end).
I agree with you for the most part and like you say these problems are fixable.
What you forget is GOLD FARMERS. They could just group together and farm these public quests always getting the bags and have tons of gold quickly. They could also block other users from getting anything if they are organized. So it could totally suck for solo players.
It sounds like you never did a PQ past chapter 1 or 2. As people spread out and do other things to level the PQs become more difficult. Likewise influence becomes less of a reward and more of a consolation prize. A blue or gold bag is worth much much more than the influence rewards. Once you realize that you want a shot at winning the bag and you have much less of a chance of winning the bag if you screw over your realm mates then PQs become much more social. Influence is easily exploitable but contribution is not. If you want contribution (and a shot at winning the bag) you need to be healing/tanking/dpsing.
Likewise going to an empty PQ is not the fastest way to get loot/xp. You don’t get to advance the PQ often (so you miss out on the bonus XP from switching the PQ) and you generally can’t finish it on your own so you miss out on the bag rewards.
Some PQs no one talks but I’ve also had PQs where everyone grouped up and worked together to get them done fast. Likewise I’ve formed groups for empty PQs then grabbed passer bys and added to the ranks to help populate the PQs.
The whole PQ system becomes very social once you get past chapter 3 and the bag loot and xp becomes much more important than the influence rewards.
It’s also what you put into it. You can force people together all you want as a designer but there’s no way to actually make them socialize. You can run a 5-man in WoW without ever saying a word past cc assignments (and even then you can use markers).
I don’t think that they’re anti-social on purpose. Jason’s first post above, I think, hit the nail on the head: PQs are a totally new way of playing, so people don’t really know how to handle them. At this point, though, where there’s only a week of open beta before PW, people might just be interested in blowing through content. I am, as a way of evaluating whether or not I want to spend money on this title. If I decide not to, then I don’t see why I need to form lasting bonds with people. If I do pick it up, then I’ll work on socializing later.
Maybe if PQ’s weren’t about individual scores, but about completing an overall goal which benefits ALL of those who participate for a certain amount of time. Kind of like a walk-in Scenario.
These rules of Ryan’s do work if your goal is just to get the Influence. If you want to get loot bags from the chest, there is some weird mojo going on in Mythic’s system. As a warrior priest, I’ve noticed I get more bonus if I heal other people than if I heal myself (regardless of the fact that I was healing myself because I was tanking). So if I want loot from the chest, I step back and let other people tank and spam heal, doing damage enough to keep my healing power going.
And Bright Wizards suck. Every PQ I’ve done, the people with max bonus are always Bright Wizards, just happily nuking their way to the best shot at loot. Sure, the randoming helps, but when other people always have +500 compared to your floating +80 to +350, it gets disheartening.
Logo: Have they explained contribution anywhere? When I game the system and do what I explain in the post, I’m usually #1 in contribution. As far as I can tell, contribution basically translates to “amount of influence gained during this public quest.” The more I screw people over, the more likely I am to be in the top 3.
And yeah, the Chapter 5 influence reward of a blue item was pretty hot, which just encouraged me to be an even bigger dick than usual to ensure I got first place (I did three times. The first two times I didn’t even get a loot bag, and the third I finally won).
Scopique: Yeah, they’re definitely not antisocial on purpose. They actually social on purpose, players are just making them antisocial.
Good Fences make Good Neighbors.
wow.. just wow
And yeah, the Chapter 5 influence reward of a blue item was pretty hot, which just encouraged me to be an even bigger dick than usual to ensure I got first place (I did three times. The first two times I didn’t even get a loot bag, and the third I finally won).
Ive gotten #1 spots by mostly just healing. I dont want to be in your PQ if your attitude is such
An is correct
Ive been first in a PQ numerous times by just healing the tank and not doing any dps
Ryan do you realy think they would not make any system to reward the healers of the pq group ? thats just silly, everyone would be playing dps
Not fully but you definitely get contribution for healing and tanking. I’ve come in 1st for contribution plenty on times on quests where I don’t really deal any dmg or get much inf. Likewise for tanking.
I think they’re still balancing out the value of different contribution. In Closed Beta Tanks and Healers were almost always #1. Recently I’ve noticed the listing acting a little strange and DPS seems to have an easier time topping the list.
Also remember to look not at your position in the list (it seems to list you by the # from the highest base roll you’ll receive) but instead by the +bonus you get (500 is the max I believe).
I think the lack of PQs being social is less of a design issue and more of a personality thing. Recently it seems like more and more MMOers are anti-social while playing, especially the PvP going crowd.
another dickhead to ruin my day
not once during a public quest have i thought of any of these things. i’ve simply tried to do my best to get the quest finished. since you get a hell of a lot more inf completing the 3 stages than you do solo grinding, and you wont be getting any loot if the quest isn’t completed.
getting the tank killed really is a good idea too - might as well let the hero run loose on all the squishy dps guys then reset his health to full when everyone dead. heaps of loot for everyone then too!
i think you’ll see a balance of more people these goals in mind outweighing griefers or anti-social players. this larger group can then make it hard for those antisocial people by using any of these tactics on them (letting them die etc).
I wouldn’t worry about it. This sort of thing self-regulates past the first few PQs that are too crowded for comfort. If you don’t cooperate, the chances of being able to beat the PQ rapidly diminish. Everyone out for themselves simply means no one gets the cool loot in the end. At the moment, there’s the possibility for a lone parasite or two to piggyback off the work of others - happens all the time in real life, not surprised by it in an MMO.
But if you act like a lone asshole long enough, people will recognize your name and start booting you out of groups - including Need whores that roll Need on everything, stuff for salvaging and cultivation and equipment for other classes other than your own, etc.
Dropping out of a group kills your contribution bonus - 6 people go through targets faster and with more survival rate than a lone DPSer. And assholes don’t get healed either.
Healers get contribution bonus for healing, tanks for tanking, etc. It’s actually amazing how it encourages cooperation over antisocialness. I can outdo most lone assholes because I work at group contribution AND am just as fast on the bat grabbing influence-offering items, and I can do it without waiting for someone else to get entangled with a mob (there’s always more than one barrel).
Sure, if you’re working at just influence farming, then soloing the first stage of any PQ over and over will net you 100 inf a pop. The loot from those pale in relation to renown gear and the actual loot bags though.
They’ve already addressed one of the primary issues with the latest patch. Now, you get Influence killing pretty much any mobs inside the PQ instead of just mobs related to the current stage. Big win.
Hmm are we gonna have to start referring to this kind of behavior as “NerfDicking”
This guy is just whinning about nothing. Or just did one pq that he didnt like then is just bitching about all of them. I have had no problems gaining influence from any of the pqs and there is not really any ways to cheat. If you dont like that pq goto another one there are like 3 per zone you know. As for not getting inf for killing things i have noticed in the open beta that even guys that are not on the list to kill or part of the objective give infulence, so you are bitching about nothing. As for the grouping thing i dont want to wait 30 min to a hour to get a group going i always hated that in wow, if they are in the area and they are doing the pq they get added automatically no muss no fuss. We do the pq then we go onto green pastures its a great system. And its also the first game that rewards you for healing i always played one of the hybrid healer/dpser classes in the beta and i almost always ended up in the top 7 because i healed eveyone around me and got credit for it. If you dont like the game then be quiet and dont buy it.
I partially agree, I don’t believe all players are jerks, but the ones that are tend to ruin things for everyone else. I’ve always been of the school of thought that healers should get xp and other rewards for doing their job, which is healing not killing, but if there’s an mmo out there that does that, i’ve never seen it. PQs have great potential, I wouldn’t say they are totally antisocial, players mainly don’t talk much due to how fast the stages go, and everyones too busy killing/searching for objects. That would be like saying hockey is an antisocial sport. PQs just need some refinement, which hopefully mythic will recognize and fix.
I say we start a petition to get Paul a guest spot on 2010 season of Dr. Who, or better yet maybe he can be the next doctor!
So do you disagree that PQ’s should be included in pretty much all future MMO’s? These seem like specific design flaws for WAR, not for the idea of PQ’s in general. Tweaking the system would allow most of those problems to be minimized… doesn’t sound too hard to do for up and coming titles when they can just copy from WAR and improve on its faults.
First time to this blog.
This is a really low quality article.
The content is shortsighted, inaccurate and over-exaggerated.
Maybe the writer should try doing the Public Quest beside the starting ones.
Basically, this is the same as reviewing the concept of instance in WoW after playing Ragefire Chasm.
[...] wasn’t motivated to jump into the discussions rolling around the MMO blogs. I’ve known people can be jerks for years, I think we all have, so what’s to say there? I’m not going to AGDC so there [...]
Actually I still gain influence when fighting the mobs guarding objects that have to be clicked on in the stage 2s. Even though it’s not part of the objective for that stage. At least when the champion dies I see +xxx inf scroll by, so I assume I’m getting points. So there’s no reason, if you’re going for infamy, to not help out in attacking mobs while the PQ is going on (well maybe after clicking on the item to get the 100 infamy
).
Now maybe killing that mob does not count towards contribution (for loot bags), I am not sure, maybe it does.
However there is an easy way to maximize contribution, I found certain skills seem to contribute. I just spam those as much as possible. A BW or Sorceress just critted themself? Quick hit them with my big heal before anyone notices. Mob already on me or on another tank? Spam taunt as soon as the cooldown is up. Get in a group and buff the hell out of everyone even if they are already buffed. All these things help, since they count and the counter doesn’t seem to notice if you just buffed them a few seconds ago. I had zero problem getting #1 contribution on my ironbreaker PQ after PQ. Same with the zealot I tried.
Now you can take that both ways. buffing is an incentive to help. But wasting a GCD on a buff that is already on a player instead of a more damaging attack may not be exactly helping, at least not to my maximum ability. However in all the PQs I did I found the best way to get maximum infamy and contribution was to get in a group, precisely because your buffs, heals, taunts, and all those other skills are weighted so high in the contribution calculator.
eh not enough room.
I think you are wrong on the taunting part. As I pointed out taunt increases your contribution. Maybe not infamy, but certain contribution. I taunted mobs off other tanks all the time. I taunted them if they were already on me.
But as far as getting more XP and Inf if you let the tank die, .it depends if that XP and infamy and contribution all goes to the rest of the people who attacked, or if it is simply lost, or if it still goes to the tank if they haven’t released. I did not pay attention since I don’t usually die but it is worth testing. And even in the best case it goes to the rest of the people, it is still only 1/n more infamy (where n is the number of others). So.. really I don’t know if the benefit is worth the cost.
But the truth is, all they really need to do is teak the inf and contribution calculators to eliminate antisocial behavior. For instance, everyone in a 10′ radius gets inf for the click on an object, people get inf and xp and contribution for mobs they helped on even if they die, etc. It is certainly worth exploring these behaviors to correct them.
As far as I can tell, Contribution (the points needed to get the end loot bags) and Influence are completely different. You get Contribution by healing, taking damage (tanking), damaging mobs (not even just the champions or heroes, but anything in that PQ). So while you may not be hugely boosting your influence by doing those things, since Influence is strictly from the clickies and kills, you will be bettering your chances of getting a loot bag at the end.
The thing to consider is that the rewards from the loot bags for a PQ are typically leaps and bounds better than influence rewards for a given chapter. So with that in mind you are better off completing them with a group and getting to roll for the bags while getting influence at the same time, instead of just grinding stage 1’s solo for so so influence rewards. Even if the PQ is slightly crowded, influence gain might be a bit slower for the individual but you’ll fly through the PQ giving you lots of quick chances to grab a loot bag for a nicer reward.
Also, with the difficulty of PQ increasing as you level, while at the same time people are spreading out, you are really strongly encouraged to work well together and “play nice”. If you don’t, there’s a good chance the PQ will fail and nobody will get a chance at a nice loot bag.
Lastly, about the quests that have you go to PQ’s and kill the mobs involved, these are mostly designed to lead you to the different PQ’s in every chapter. I really like them because it’s easy to just go to a chapter hub, grab the quests, start working on them, and know that a few of them will take you to the different PQ’s in the area. It’s a win win in my opinion, you don’t have to worry about running around “searching” for PQ’s if your new to an area and at the same time you complete a quest for bonus exp and sometimes rewards while working a PQ thats worth your while to complete anyway.
[...] Come on people… Be social, not lazy! And dear gods, don’t be an anti-social a-hole! [...]
PQs are fine, it is the arsehole players that make them anti social.
Gun’s don’t kill people, PEOPLE kill people - get a clue
Questing at a Populated PQ site is actualy makes it easyer :p you join an open party there and wham…. instant kill quest completion…
it’s fkin stupid that you guys didn’t realized that… and you only need to hit the mob first to make the kill count even if some1 else finished it off…
After some more testing I confirmed I was still getting Influence for killing mobs even during the stage where you have to click on things. however, depending on the PQ, I noticed sometimes I only got influence for killing champion mobs. Some of the chapter 1 or 2 PQs I was getting influence for killing regular mobs even when clicking is what you need to do. i am not sure if the coding is different during those.
The one I was for sure not getting influence for killing regular mobs was stage 1 of the big ch4 Chaos PQ way down in the lower corner in that city (name starts with S). In that one stage 1 is clicking. I can’t remember if I got any for killing champions like in others. I was with you on Ulfr doing that one, the boring one where you said “this pq sucks!” heh
that huge city it could have been a really neat one too… but it did indeed suck.
[...] fact they’re being written) their subject has won. As in, they’re worth arguing about. Nerfbat argues that the Public Quests in Warhammer Online are fundamentally antisocial. Meanwhile, R1ftgaming discusses the inevitable Meh of Warhammer Online. The former is amusingly [...]
To my dismay, I discovered that a fix I thought they implemented (make all mobs in the PQ worth Influence, even if they aren’t the main objective) was not. It just happened to be implemented that way in one or two of the Dwarf PQs, but subsequent PQs (at least on the Destruction side) mostly were not.
MMOs are flawed because players can moke each other if they want to. Thats new!
I think you’ve gotten very much the wrong end of the stick here, you see what you’ve done is analyse public quests through the eyes of a grinder, and a grinder alone. The reason (I would assume) that Mythic put public quests into the game is so that those who aren’t MMOaholics, who aren’t already thinking in terms of those tropes, can have an epic experience.
Think about it, you have to be seriously dedicated to most MMOs in order to get together a group or guild for a raid or boss fight or anything approaching the level of Warhammer’s PQs. Most non MMO players don’t have the time or patience to grind until that occurs. Public quests aren’t about offering you more or greater loot, they could do that with regular grinding, they’re there for those who want a great experience, they don’t care about the fastest or easiest route, they care about the most fun.
And lets not forget, a determined party of four or five can take on a public quest, a guild easily so, so you already have all the options WoW and others give you, and then the option of the PQ function on top of that.