f13.net

What I am hearing on other boards (and stuff that isn't "well at T4 X sucks" that I can see from personal experience):

1)  The four second-class RDPS need a buff (Magus, Engineer, Squig Herder, and Shadow Warrior).  BWs need a large nerf, and sorcs need a small nerf (read many threads that do the math on Sorc v. BW dps, the difference is large according to the number-crunchers).  Sure, Magus and Engineer can pull you into the lava at Tor Anroc, but the much vaunted "utility" of those classes doesn't amount to much more than what BWs and Sorcs get.  Squig Herder is especially hurting (double whammy of being a non Sorc-BW RDPS class thats also dependent on Captain Retarded and the Handicap Gang, aka the four squigs). 

2)  Knockbacks.  No, this isn't about TA.  TA will be a distant and unpleasant memory in a month.  Its about point #3 below (MDPS problems).  We need some combination of (A)  reduced distance (probably only the ironbreaker), (B)  knockback resistances/cooldown abilities, and (3)  outright removal from classes that really shouldn't have them (tanks).

3)  MDPS- gossip is that at T4, they seriously suffer since everyone has an AE knockback and an AE root.  Witch Elves and Witch Hunters need SOME survivability.  The line between gimped and WoW rogue CoS overpowered god is a thin one, but something has to be done.  Again, less AE roots (or diminishing returns on roots) would go a long way toward solving this.

4)  And, if #1 didn't make it obvious, nerf Bright Wizards.  Hard.  Like, 50% damage reduction across the board in immolation, maybe even 60% or 70%.   Tone down withering snare and playing with fire (which actually procs on DOT ticks). 

Thoughts?  These seem to be the global concerns I am seeing.   

Those aren't global concerns. But its nice to know what the folks you're playing with think.

Mhm, let me just say that at tier4 concerns are... different. (I'm not at tier4 yet, just barely tier3, but I was in the t4 part of closed beta)

There are plenty of other disadvantages from the other side of the fence, including discrepancies in mortal strike-type effects (destruction have better ones, more of them, and easier to apply / harder to dispel in general, one is an AOE attached to a tank even), AOE knockdowns (the only order-side KD is the engineer turret self destruct, while destruction has an aoe kd on the marauder, and I think at least one more... can't be arsed to look it up now though), runepriest vs zealot survivability (both of them get an AOE knockback, but zealots also get a pulsing AOE knockback on a shorter cooldown), etc. Pet AI (or lack thereof) arguably hurts white lions just as much or even more, since a lot of their crucial abilities (ie snare) are tied to the pet.

The grass is always greener on the other side I guess. :p Though I agree in that roots need diminishing returns.


-- Z.

wow those are off the mark

destroy complaints, right?

The problems with tier 4 are far, far different.

How about this?

1. Less, better scenarios. Corral people together, stop tearing them apart.
2. Less EXP grind, it's probably just about CoH bad in tier 3 and 4.
3. Better experience rewards.
4. Better quest rewards.
5. Better loot rewards, everyone involved in taking a keep should get something, particularly since Renown Gear is total fucking shit.
6. Better reasons to hold a keep. Maybe access to a special store that opens 12 hours after grabbing the keep or something. So defense is paramount.
7. Bring Witch Hunters in line with Witch Elves. Either that or teach Witch Hunters how to play. I'm not saying nerf witch elves, I'm saying buff witch hunters regular attacks.
8. Buff the shit out of squig herders. Stupid fucking useless class. They have a sign over their head that reads FREE EXP HERE. JUST SHOOT THE GREEN TURD.
9. Less walking, more killing.
10. Finally, and most importantly, reward people for finishing battle objectives (like taking the bauble from one place to the capture zone) in scenarios.

Oh, and a bonus one:
11. Rework scenario EXP.

Good points.  I don't want to turn this into a BW whine thread, but do people on Order side believe they are ok?  I won't respond to any comments because I don't want that fight here, but I am curious how seriously Order people take the BW crying. 

They need a healer. Any BW moaning you hear is the same as Order moaning about sorcs. Without a healer, they're both poopy. Period. They don't need buffs or nerfs, but they do both need one or two of their abilities either moved to tier 3 or made to scale differently.

My BW doesn't even bother with fireballing anything once I've got detonate & flame breath. A 3 sec cast is not worth using especially when you have so many instant attacks that lead to a heck load of dmg and aoe with detonate. It's reaching to a point where I don't even look at my targets anymore, tab, immolate, tab, immolate, tab..oh healer, boiling blood. Hmmm nice clump detonate. OK, firebreath for instant aoe dot. Ok Repeat again, who wants immolate. If I wanted direct damage I always have searing, meltdown and pyrokinetic blast. all 1-2 sec cast time that crits 25% of the time.

But schild is right with healers. With healing and 100% combustion and if destro ignore me, they're toast.

Order currently has a slightly better class make up, just that White Lion needs a big fix or else majority are quitting that class for good. :grin:
Swordmasters needs a slight tweak on their masteries, at the moment their 2hander mastery does not give them more dmg compared to their other 2 options. :uhrr:
Ironbreakers are really really good tanks, people just need to play them better and Destro would have a hard time matching these mini panzers.
Shadow-warriors need to stop thinking of mass-spread dmg and focus on what they do best: Sniping.

Yeah, I play an IB and I don't deny that IBs are pretty darn powerful atm. They can do hideous amounts of damage if specced for it, do crazy cc (if there's one thing I'd nerf, it's lowering the knockback on powered etchings... srsly, a 10 sec cooldown secondary aoe kb on par with the primary KBs of other tanks?), and do very well as damage soakers if they want to. It'd be even crazier if you could switch between 1h+shield/2h in combat, but that's not possible atm.

IMO pet mechanics are borked, and engineers/magi are "utility" classes (gawd, I hate that designation in a MMOG... to steal a quote from the wow pally forums, everyone wants to be the porn star, nobody wants to be the fluffer. :awesome_for_real:) and pretty pathetic in smaller scale engagements.


-- Z.

To me there's two grind that's hurting my Warhammer experience badly - one is the XP grind, it's really bad and gets worse with every level you gain.

The other is the item grind - renown gear is substandard, with no crowds you grind influence on mobs in PQ areas... with each tier/chapter requiring more and more influence on a soul-sapping grind killing the same mobs over and over and over and over again.

My Arm Chair designing says: Either both sides get a healing debuff Aura, or Neither side gets a healing debuff Aura.


Seriously, what is that bullshit?

Buff WH? Are you kidding?  Your WH need to Learn2play and keep good gear on.

If you buff anyone buff SW.  I face them in RvR all the time and they are the SH of Order.  Not ONCE has a SW pulled his blade on me when I got to melee, they run like hell.  Then they die face down in the dirt like chumps.  :drill:

You are right Renown Gear sucks, I RvR for fun now and PvE for my phat looties. 

You are right about quest and xp rewards.  Need to boots the +stats on items.

If you GOT to an SW, they're doing it wrong. Don't blame the designers, blame the SW.

IBs are incredibly OP.

If you don't realize that, you're playing the wrong game or with terrible people.

Over one TA I smacked 17 people into lava. The knockback is the easiest mechanic in the world to exploit and has the most lenient activation requirements of any of the tank ones (30 grudge >>> AP).

Combine that with MASSIVE and I mean massive single target DPS output and you get a rogue in plate with AoE knockback when stuff gets nasty. I'm amazed that Stubborn as Stone hasn't been nerfed into the ground. 50% melee haste whenever you get hit with a spell 20 sec duration, 5 grudge refresh for a corporeal resistance buff? This alone, combined with a veng spec and dropping stone break (-armor) allows me to eat a caster in seconds, assuming I don't play golf with them. This is while providing a giant willpower armor and toughness buff to my healer as well as a 10% crit buff.

I don't care that WHs are terrible, IBs are twice the MDPS class they are atm. And if you ever need to, drop combat and put on a shield.

At 100 combustion crit chance is +50% and crit damage is +100%. The BW you're complaining about are the ones running aound at 100 combustion constantly.

Without a pocket healer a BW cannot run around at 100 combustion constantly. A BW with no heals does far less damage.

In T3 it usually takes a couple of healers constantly tossing HOTs on my BW to keep him in full 100 combustion BBQ mode for long periods.

And DOT ticks can crit.

BWs and Sorcs both need to be toned down, and have their backlash effects reduced. BWs deal too much single target damage. Sorcs deal too much AE damage. Both deal far more damage than their backlash mechanics really make up for. Anyways, a BW will kill you no matter what. A Sorc will kill a group no matter what in some of the scenarios. Seriously, their AE crits harder than my single target burst while using unshakable focus.

Knockbacks DO need a defense mechanism. It's a fine thing to have in game, but it's the only ability you can't build a resist to.

Pet AI needs a complete rework, or the pet class themselves needs to not suffer such a huge skill penalty for assumed pet damage.

Shadow Warriors need no buff in any way, beyond some mastery skill fixes (seriously, what the shit is Fell the Weak? And why is Glass Arrow in Scout when Scout is the only spec that doesn't adore it? Why is Barrage just Lileath's Arrow with a cooldown?)

Why shouldn't tanks get knockback?

All I ask is for diminishing returns on roots, snares and knockbacks. It's frustrating to get rooted by a BW, pop my ability to get out of root and am promptly rooted again by the next BW since there's usually 3 or 4 around.

I do love the OMG NERF THE OTHERSIDE that dominates these conversations. To me that says things are pretty good which BOTH sides whine and complain and bitch and point fingers that the OTHER side has the OP class. Not saying that it's a perfect balance or anything, but I do find it funny. Only thing that everyone can agree on is that Squig Herders need some lovin's.

PS. Nerf Ironbreakers!

IB are OP. I think people on both sides agrees on that. BO seem better now that exploiting the 10sec proc doesn't net them much free healing in t3. Chosen are fine, except when you get stacking auras. Swordmasters seem to be great pve tanks, but I don't see many in pvp (except the Bat Country ones)

Sorcs/BW need to be toned down, but not nerfed by 50%. They don't seem nearly as OP in t4.

Squig Herders are teh suck, though I have seen some people do okay with them. Seems much like Magus/Engy to be very situational. The SH barrage can be a nasty surprise when you're charging a Shaman.Magus/Engys need a buff in T2/T3, but seem to do okay overall. WL would be fine if it wasn't for the hideous (and worse each patch) pet problems. Without a pet, they're a totally weak Marauder, with no cc.

Zealots/AM/RP/Shaman seem to do great when they play as healers, and are fucked when they play ranged dps.

SW/WH/WE/Maraud all seem pretty good, assuming non-stupid players. I still see many SW charging into battle, or shooting tanks from short range while healers are up.

WP/DoK go from OP in Tier1, to decent in Tier2/3. Tough to play fully effectively, but good ones do great.

Meh I tried to introduce my friend to the game and his destro toon kept meeting 6 BW teams in Nordenwatch, it's just not gonna work out for his chosen or black orc. And he's pretty stoked on playing melee too. But it's too bad really. MMOs never really favor close range due to latency. i told him if he can tolerate people warping around and dying first in battle, stick with melee. If not, roll ranged dps. If not...quit. There's just not much point in forcing yourself to play a melee class in Warhammer if you can't take the warping and crazy ranged dmg. The scenarios will never put a cap to certain classes make up. There's no amount of healing that can counteract a 100% combustion 6x Immolation dot ticks at Tier 1.

Talking about buffing/nerfing classes at this stage of the game when <25% of people are active in Tier 4 and NOONE is RR80 is retarded. Like White Lion pet retarded. Some tweaks could be made but crying for a 50% reduction to a DPS classes damage when you're likely not even at the endgame is just whiny bullshit. Let's give it a while.

Tell him to be patient.  DAoC eventually became very balanced between casters and melee... granted it did take 6 years.   I have some hope that they have learned from the past, but given the shitty engine design, all of the lag exploiters may just chase away anyone that really enjoys melee.

I giggle every time I see engineers called RDPS. Where do I find this mythical class?

It's true, they're more like aggro attractors and particle effect generators. :awesome_for_real:

They lay down phat beats in town, that's for sure.

(drop turret then destroy it in town and the sound continues for about 5 minutes.)

I love my WP, I have a great time with the class, I just wish the itemization wasnt so erratic. Some chapters ALL the gear is +willpower and +wounds, some are +weapon skill and + toughness, overall though there is way to much willpower on their gear. 2 of the WP lines get a great return on strength, yet in some places there is a horrible lack of str on the gear. Level 20 to 24, I think I found maybe 2 pieces of gear with str that was worth upgrading. It was very frustrating, now I am 25 more is starting to show up.

It seems that WP falls in to the old WoW hybrid problem, of the devs not knowing how to itemize the class for the different specs so they just sort of throw all kinds of random stats on all the gear.

Yesterday I decided to play my Engineer in scenarios.  I had given up on her at level 8, as soloing through PvE was getting painful.  In Teir 1 scenarios, at least, I was consistantly in the top two for damage.  All but a handful of people ignored my turrets which were just off to the side of the battlefield, but in plain sight.  I would find a high perch to snipe and throw acid bombs.  Usually the only time anyone came after me was if there weren't a lot of targets left.  My Morale 1 ability would be ready, so I'd launch them away, usually quite successfully.  (My favorite was sending a Witch Elf off the backside of Nordenwatch's Fortress.  I bet she was pissed.)

I'll try some Teir 2 today and see how that goes.  Their layout doesn't seem like it will be as favorable, but then I'm only learning those maps.

Right now, I'm inclined to think most people simply don't know how to play the classes.

If you want them to kill BW or Sorc damage then they better give us more hp's and resists.  Sorry i can't kill any melee once they get up to me.  My damage isn't nearly as high is what a WE can do to me in the same amount of time.

Sorc/BW survivability is pretty much the same as SH/SW and Magus/Engie survivability.

They just do a crapton more damage.

I don't get the hate on BW's. Yeah they do a lot of damage, but as a Black Orc I can juggernaught out of their stun and beat them to death even if they are 4 levels above me.

Tru dat.  lol.

Another thing.. You all might not want to stand all in one place and then keep standing there when I drop my aoe's on you.  :)

Granted, we are an all-dwarf guild... so we have the most OP tank/healer classes in the game.  But, so far the only competition we have comes from scenario teams stacked with sorceress.  And, in reality it only takes 2 IB and 2 RP to handle 3-4 sorcs.  I suppose everyone's experience is different, but I find our engineers to have perfectly acceptable survivability.  They don't seem nearly so squishy as the destro RDPS.  They might not have the burst damage, but if you have seen Electromagnet at work... well then the term "utility" now has a new meaning.  I love the utility of the class.

I suppose I am heavily on the side of the "lets wait until everyone is in T4 and people have a clue about how to play their classes and work together before we make major class changes" camp.  T4 seemed fine in beta.  In another 2 weeks our guild should be mostly T4 so perhaps my experience will change.  But, so far the "grind" has been less than WoW, and the enjoyment factor is still high.  There is enough to do that I don't have to spend my nights worrying about that little yellow line racing across the screen to the next Ding!

You won't see ANY order nerfs for a very long time, i don't care how op you think BWs are.  In fact they should probably bring the other order classes to BW levels.

I'd be behind the diminishing returns on roots (especially the AE ones) and/or lowering the durations. The knockbacks are annoying, but not deathly yet. I still haven't hit t3.

Knockbacks are something that really seperate this game from other MMOGs for me. Especially with the lava. Using mine was a tough decision every time. Save up my morale for my tier 2 morale ability - which was an instant kill.

Speaking of, global thematic PVP changes?

(http://dl-client.getdropbox.com/u/39720/games/warhammer%20online/tick_boom.png)

This is my 'healer/witch elf/sorc killing' face.

Tick, and boom goes the dynamite.

T3 knockbacks are annoying because they're instant death if the user knows what he's doing. Yay fucking Lava.

You can also exploit them a bit in Nordenwatch and knock people into the ocean, at which point they're out of the game for a good minute trying to find somewhere to climb back onto land.

As for AE: I simply believe AE should not do as much damage as single target. Pit of Shades is being used as an instant nuke right now because the per tic damage is so good, and it tics immediately. That's just stupid.

heyhey what addons are you running? I want floaty xp and renown numbers!

Warhammer Scrolling Text  (http://war.curse.com/downloads/war-addons/details/wsct.aspx)I suspect - I use it and it's perty.

Eh. That's the default damage shit. I don't have anything installed that would change it, unless LittleBlackBook or CleanUnitFrames changes it.

Huh, thats the default setting.

Yeah, uh, my client does that automatically, with no addons installed.

And unshakable focus is great when I get morale abilities to fire correctly ><

Huh. Hard to tell without seeing it moving I guess. SCT does all effects, low health warning etc. (combustion...)

huh. Never really noticed the numbers floating by that weren't damage related. Could be because I'm all melee and they all kinda run together or could be because I need to wear my glasses when I game.

I don't get why tanks shouldn't have knockbacks. Arguably tanks are the ONLY ones who should have knockback.

The tank paradigm in WoW is basically a PvE paradigm. You give the tanks abilities to compel the computer-controlled targets to attack the tank. Then the only twists are whether the tank uses those abilities correctly, whether the tank can respond to unplanned events (someone drawing aggro), etc.

In WoW PvP, a tank's only virtue is relative unkillability, and that means very little unless the only player that is available to be killed is a tank. Even then, not such a big deal, since the tank can't attack at range, and can't do that much damage if he can attack. Obviously there are variations in WoW, tanks whose spec shades them towards DPS-dealiing. But then they're easier to kill. When they're not, ignore them and kill everything else. It's even true against NPC and mob targets: if you have a group of mobs to kill, you deal with the tank mob the last.

WAR gives the tank a more satisfying job, or a more satisfying thing to do with relative unkillability: keep the other players from dying long enough for them to achieve objectives of some kind. The tank has a lot of tools to do that with which are unavailable in WoW: actually being able to physically block other players, hold the line coupled with charging in first, rooting, snaring...and knockback. It's a completely consistent power for a WAR tank to have: used properly, it gets an enemy off of a flag carrier, or gets them away from an objective.

The classes that should absolutely not have a  knockback are melee damage-dealers of any kind, even hybrids. It makes no sense at all for them to have an ability like that: their job is to get in and kill the squishies, hard. The other knockbacks should belong to ranged damage-dealers, for the opposite reason of the tank. The tank wants to protect objectives; the ranged damage-dealer needs to protect himself.

WARNING: OPINION ALERT!

Being able to do that much damage in a single attack is a broken element.  MMO PvP is a more tactical affair (else it would be an FPS).  At its best, battles should be based on attrition rather than a determination of who had their I-WIN buttons available most.  I can't imagine that people find it fun to be two-shot. 

I always thought roots as intended were fine but that all of the things that were supposed to be happening with them aren't.  Namely, they break like 50% on damage and they have a lockout timer.   Neither of those things seem to be happening much.  I've seen the Unstoppable buff lots but I'm guessing it applies to everything BUT roots.  If I mutate or juggernaut out of a root (guess which classes I play!) I can be rooted again instantly.  If this is by design, well then, thats a seriously fucked design.

I think the thing with some of the knockback nonsense is that they were given to some of the classes with the intention that they would be used as defense tools and they aren't using them that way.  Hello lava.

Too early for class balance changes but I think saying a BW can rape face if he has a healer is sorta missing the point.  Yes they can, very much so, but can sorcs as well?  If no then BW may need a change if yes then maybe both BW and Sorcs need a change.  Or change all the other DPS classes.  Choose your poison.  Then again if MDPS could do their job and not suffer all these stacked CC issues BW/Sorc would hold less power over the outcome of fights.

Word up. I hoped WAR, as it seemed that way to me in the early game, would take this to heart, but alas... Poof, here comes that fucken Witch Elf again and I'll tell you, dwarf does blend. Rather well, at that.

Are you saying Witch Elves aren't tactical? Are you crazy?

They are tactical whilst maneuvering into position to kill a BW without dying, but once you get there you spam your buttons like anyone else and hope the BW doesn't root and run before you can kill him.  Tactics go out the window once you actually get into a fight mostly, beyond learning to swallow your pride and run away..

I'm no advocate of claiming "skill" in an MMOG. I'm good at killing because I know how to maximize damage output. A skill? No. Just simple analyzation of how things interact.

But tactics? Yea, I can see where they'd apply, and they don't take skill to learn. Running away? A solution, but there's better options out there. Detaunt, root, back up a bit, lob a festering arrow, knock back. Freaking out when you get close to someone is how you lose.

Perhaps it's different for your class, but after killing a squishy guy with my DoK and suddenly every dress wearing Elf is trying to hump my leg or something, I run away.  Eventually, they'll kill me if I don't, and at that point there's not much hope of killing another one.  I'm not talking about a WE anymore, but for me, that's about all there is for tactics.  (And I do damn good at winning as far as the scoreboard is concerned)

I wasn't really literal about what I said - it was more the gist that WAR, too, suffers from the same 3 second executions that WoW does. Which I hoped it wouldn't. Well, more time for Princess Maker!  :drillf:

Note: I'm speaking for IBs. If other tank classes are not up to par, well...should have gone stunty.

An IB is a better damage soaker, better DPS than a real MDPS class and has the most controllable and the largest range knockback in the game, as well as the most easily usable AoE knockback linked to an essential DPS ability.  I can also provide the largest single damage reduction and buff to any player, with 200 willpower, 10% crit and less damage taken. Combined with AoE detaunt and you have a class that is amazing in solo PvP(knockback into lava gets me at least 2 kills before I croak, what with  my tank level defenses) and beyond amazing with healers pumping healing into you (magic is the best way to kill a tank, but with stubborn as stone that lets me keep 50% melee haste up all the time, which is enough to pure DPS a class down, even through healing and even without knockback).

Tanks should be useful but knockback mechanics of all kinds are too powerful. Hell, even if the lava didn't kill you, I used it to great effect in MT to dot up a target and smack them out of los so they die before a healer can make it to them. You can't cast while flying either, so you can do the same to a healer.

Battlefield control does not have to be battle field domination.

The problem is the lava, not the knockback. Get rid of the lava. Knockback works beautifully in tier 2 scenarios and in open-world RvR.

And by beautifully you mean makes every class that can do it better than every class that can't do it by say.. 50%.

And then makes every class that can spec into doing it AoE on a short timer better than every class that can't by say... 500%.

You don't get as much knockback in t2. If you did, people would be bitching about getting curb stomped as I run to the backline, smack the healers off into the river and watch as the rest of my DPS burninantes your now healerless DPS during the 15 seconds it takes to run back with a 40% slow. Oh you mean your tanks can't do an AOE knockback with an added slow effect?

Too bad motherfucker, should have rolled stunty.

First off, stop whining about knockback people.

Secondly, roots and snares are annoying in this game and it only gets worse. They need to have a cooldown on the person who is snared/rooted so if you get snared/rooted you can't be subjected to it again for 10 seconds or so. It's very annoying to be chain snared/rooted, especially since my ability to lose them only drops the current one and doesn't seem to keep followups away from me!

How fast do you REALLY think mythic will be patching in any changes like the ones you suggest? Seems like they're mostly concerned about the important things...like mob run speed...?!

In DAoC, melee could keep a target snared permanently.  The tradeoff was that most snares were positional attacks, so you could pre-kite or avoid some attacks to minimize the effects.  I think there may be some carryover.  I'm fine with snares.  I'm mostly fine with knockbacks.  The roots are a problem.  More classes need a purge/immunity timer.

Knockbacks are a good idea in practice, but things like cliffs and lava are giving too much advantage.  Solutions would be to eliminate the damage component of lava and replace it with a snare or somesuch.  Similarly, give the border terrain a bit more thought when playing... it's a good thing to keep positioning in mind.

Lava should have a small damage component and force you to leap out of it like a Warner Bros cartoon with its butt of fire.

If you are a ranged class you should not be knocked into the lava, period.  Every time I have it has been the reult of poor positioning on my part.  Melee classes are in a bit more of a bind, but they also need some situational awareness...  There are walls there for a reason!  Hug them!

Well, I'm into tier 3 now, and...

Tier 3 is where the fun in the game goes to die. Hard.

It's not quite the hidden layer of non-existence and suck that Age of Conan was concealing in its higher levels, but it sure as hell is evident that Mythic just said, "Copy and paste the game mechanics we've had for the first two tiers, make them more grindy and boring, add some difficulty, and voila! tier 3 is finished".

1) Tier 3 PQs? So far I haven't seen a single one that has a fun new wrinkle, new kinds of mobs or strategies, anything to make them appealing. What I have seen is that the Stage I of the Tier 3 PQs is fucking AWFUL in its grindiness. Presumably maybe to tempt solo players who are doing the regular PvE quests that take you to the PQ areas to stick around for a while and grind up their influence in that chapter, and in so doing, keep them busy. The consequence though is that I almost never come across a group of people who spontaneously just start doing the PQs, which was the whole point of the idea in the first place--to get people to group up without the relatively elaborate coordination provided by guilds or the need to hang around a central gathering place spamming to get a PUG together. This is very much a consequence of the bad design of those PQs. Look, if Mythic is worried that a very small number of people are going to "game" a PQ and get the loot without having to really work for it, and ergo think to themselves, "Let's make sure they're tough by making Stage I involve killing fuckloads of rapid-spawning mobs", they're missing the point. If you cut the Stage I mob-quotas in half, you still wouldn't get two or three people finishing the whole thing for the same reason you don't see them doing that in Tier 1, because Stage 2 and 3 require larger numbers and more coordination.  Mythic might as well pull out all the Tier 3 PQs and do them completely over. Right now, they take one of the clever design ideas in the game and piss all over it.

2) Regular PvE in Tier 3? Far more boring and grindy that what has come before. The questlines were never very interesting, but now they become actively stupid and mechanical with a very few exceptions. (I did like the dude in Talabecland who basically asks you remove some excretion from him, which then becomes a nurgling). The zones look increasingly like generic ass, or like screamingly derivative WoW retreads. Avelorn and Badlands particularly. I'm fairly grind-tolerant, but I almost can't stand doing Tier 3 PvE solo or in groups for more than thirty minutes or so. And yet, given the way the game is evolving, if you don't keep up with the levelling wave, you'll have no alternative...which leads to...

3) RvR in Tier 3. First off, even though on my server a lot of the players have characters in Tier 3, the scenarios are just not popping at anything like the rate that they were before. I think either people are going back to alts, shelving their characters, or grimly grinding through PvE. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, though I've been talking to various people. Some of it is that people increasingly dislike or avoid the scenario design in Tier 3--Order players particularly don't like the map design for Tor Anroc, but that's apparently what Destro is queueing for when they're queueing. Everyone has a sense of ennui about the scenarios--that the only new elements that appear in Tier 3 make them less rather than more fun. The basic patterns of play have become boring by that point as well, and new wrinkles in your character's abilities start to become fewer and far between. There's less sense of progression through RvR, whether through renown, gear, or ranks.

Gameplay is starting to become waiting for a long time for Tier 3 to pop, not liking it much when it does, getting stuck on fucking boring PvE in the meantime, and hoping that some open-world RvR might start up somewhere around 10pm EST. Sometimes when it does start, only a few players on the other side actually respond to what the others are doing, and they're often so badly outnumbered that they get sick of it and go back to boring PvE, figuring that tomorrow, maybe they'll get into a small group that can retake some RvR objectives while the other guys aren't into it.

If some fun doesn't come back into this somehow, I'm not feeling motivated to continue--and I'm not falling for the "but the real FUN begins at level 40" schtick any longer.

Have you found a guild that you like that puts together guild groups?  It makes PvE and PvP a lot more interesting.  Taking and defending keeps offers nice reknown/loot rewards (although crappy xp).

Right now I'm in an especially weakly motivated guild, but talking to the other Destro guilds, they're not super-active either. There are two fairly strong, cohesive Order guilds on my server, though.

But, to return to the larger theme (and this is important for thinking about PvP), if Warhammer's dynamics require not just being in a guild, but being in a highly organized, strongly motivated guild in order to experience the content in a fun way, that's no improvement over what WoW or any other MMOG offers. The flavor of the fun is slightly different, maybe, but not the barrier. I could just as easily say, "If you're in a highly motivated guild of 60 people, you get to see some really interesting PvE content in WoW".

The basic point of PQs as a game mechanic is to incentivize casual social play--to get the best of both worlds. The same for scenarios--it's to structure social play in such a way that you can log on, click a button, and blam! get into it. If instead you have to find a guild that has a critical mass of people who want to do certain kinds of content at the same time that you want to do it and are available to do it, and more complicatedly yet, you have to do that at a time when there's a guild of strangers from the other faction who are happily synchronized with you in order to have real fun, then the PQ mechanic and maybe even the scenarios are kind of useless adornments.

Quite aside from this, even with a well-coordinated group (I ran last night with another guild as their guest tank), the tier 3 PQs are just bad. We did the Chapter 11 PQs in Talabecland. Small well-balanced group where everyone knew what they were doing. We all found the PQs boring. The first stages were just terrible, ugly grinds even at a very rapid rate of killing. The second stages had no twists or novel elements, and in at least one case, the time requirement is really tight. The bosses who come out in Stage 3 are just long, dull tank-and-spank bosses. So even in a good, friendly group, these were basically drawn-out sessions of whack-a-mole, without any spark or novelty to make you think at all or even any scripted content where you said, "Hm, that's kind of cool." All of us were in the queue for Tier 3 at the same time and not a single scenario popped all night long.

There are ways around that root and plenty of options after your initial opening as a WE; while I'm sure less experienced people will just go in there spamming more than usual, in the end it will just get you killed.  So yea, I disagree with your statement but will note that, as a WE, I'm obviously biased.

Funny thing about knockbacks... they don't do any damage no matter how far you fall.  So, last night we were sieging Passwatch in Talabecland, and if you get booted in just the right spot you fly a Looooooong way all the way out of the RvR lake.  So a Dwarf IB friend gets booted and lands in the middle of 4 lower level, RVR tagged Destro doing some PvE quests.  He kills them and I can only imagine what the text/voice of those players was like after seeing a dwarf fall out of the sky and then chop them to bits.

Damn that's fucking awesome.

I prefer the Mario 64 approach to lava, where you get shot up in the air screaming while holding your butt and kicking your legs wildly. I think that's what you're going for there.

See, this is what I like about knockbacks: they really do have a vaguely twitchy, skill element to them. Knock someone the wrong way and you haven't really done anything useful. Really knock them the wrong way and you've done them a big favor--I've had people knock me forward along my path when I'm a flag carrier, further away from the pursuit. And without lava, getting knocked way out of the playing field is just a really radical form of crowd-control, not a one-shot kill. I've knocked people off of the top of STC only to have them come bounding right back up while there is still a heated struggle for the flag.

So much of my experience in WAR has to do with the fact that it seemed to be designed for a Guild even more than a solo player.  This is bad for them in regards to competing with WoW for the average player.  But, it is great for them in regards to competing with WoW for guilds like mine that are about Guild accomplishment instead of Personal Gain.  We run PQs quite a bit.  Some of them are interesting or difficult (check out the ones in Empire CH 11 if you want something less bland... or at least more challenging).  But, they are also one of the most efficient ways to level a guild.  AND, you can run them with the whole guild.  You are not forced to tell people, "Ohhhhh we only need 10 people for this dungeon run... you other 3 just wait and we will let you play with the guild later".  Everything WAR does is about including my guildmates and accomplishing things as a guild.  Even our low level folks feel like they contribute everytime they are online and the Guild XP bar moves up a little.

I am hearing these same responses from other guilds like ours.  They are loving the experience of the game and the guild-experiences they are having while playing.  I guess time will tell if there are enough of those experiences or enough people enjoying them to fill enough servers to keep the game going.

WAR seems best played by a large guild made up of a collection of regular 6-person groups.  Tight communication, large raiding parties, and big guild benefits all maximize abilities. 

Now... I just need to find 5 other people to play with regularly!

There's plenty of us leveling slow in Bat Country.

Tell me what you need and I'll be there.  I think I have a rp, but seems redundant to have two of them in a group.

It's really not.  Just the buff rune doesn't stack, but all the HoT stack.

This is one thing WAR got right, and AOC fucked up soooooo badly.  AOC healers didnt stack at all at launch.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

WAR's biggest issue appears to be server population - I read elsewhere that the actual per server population limits are in the range of 5000 (so 2500 per side) so that means each server can fill up quite quickly (someone can tell me I'm wrong if this is incorrect). However, a lot of the content only works if you have large population sizes that allows for a decent player distribution over the content range. When I'm playing off-peak (which is my usual play time) only one scenario will pop regularly (although infrequently) and you rarely see enough players getting together to do a PQ successfully. At least Order side. Destro appears to have less of an issue, but then they have to queue and I understand they run into the same problems at T3.

So WAR's much vaulted strengths are getting undercut by not letting enough people getting together to play. If WAR had half the number of servers but twice the maximum server population allowed, I'm sure we'd be seeing a very different game.

I think this is a direct result of how testing in beta was done in blocks. it basically forced players to all be in the same teir at the same time, thus achieving maximum player saturation. It all falls apart however when people get further and further spread out.

Yeah, Lucerok (white lion) and myself (Ozeigi, ironbreaker) are taking our sweet time.  Still in T2 even...

I'm a level 9 RP named Codger.  I'll try to catch up.  Been playing my level 20 RP on another server, but getting tired of playing with small groups and pugs.  Nothing like healing for 120k hp and having BW's tell you that you suck at healing. 

So what you're saying is that when they were testing the game, they weren't actually testing the game that real people are playing, but some other, magical game that doesn't exist anywhere except for in Mythic's imagination?

You know what, now that I think about this, that doesn't seem to be too far from the truth.

They weren't testing the game at normal player distributions.

Which would lead me argue that they really should have been.

I like the WoW betas: let people just play the damn game the way they want to play it and they'll give you the feedback you need. Targeted testing works best with commercial testers, not people who are doing it for free and for fun. You just get too much QQ this way.

WoW betas? You surely mean every beta that isn't WAR.

I'll keep an eye out.

Pretty much, yeah.

Yes. Even though I got filetted for implying the same thing in the 500k WAR thread :-)

I think they assumed their player control mechanisms were going to work and never bothered testing what ifs.

Of course they should have.  We've pretty much seen through playing that trying to divide your game into tiers and test the segments is an abject failure. You do that sort of stuff with your testers and QA people.

The only thing beta testers not under your employ should be testing is the entire game and providing feedback at that.  The end-to-end experience.  When you really only test in segments, you end up with something that ends up feeling uneven (and some stuff that just doesn't work when pieced together with the rest).  With all of the wipes, focus tests, etc they never likely got enough of a prolonged end-to-end test.  They probably had some people getting to higher levels but poopsockers and exploiters aren't going to give you the best feedback on how your game needs to work for the masses.

The reality of it is that you probably need to do both - test the blocks of content to see how they work in isolation, then test it end-to-end. But it's not a valid comparison to lvl up everyone for a concentrated 4 hour play test, then extrapolate those findings to how things will work at launch. Especially if you do some last minute character advancement changes.