f13.net

I don't get this.  I get some more HP, but my spells still suck.  Seems like this implementation is half assed.

You don't get new skills, but the skills you do get scale in power to a significantly higher level.  You will be weaker than those of the appropriate rank, but the disparity won't be enormous.  I think it works pretty well.

problem is you only get boosted to 8 wheras a lot of people in there are level 11 which is the max and they still own your face because 3 levels is a big difference.

edit to say i just got repeatedly killed and /lol'ed on today by a level 11 named 'hammernigro' somehow i think the worst failing of war not going to be bugs, it is going to be all the people that are actively trying to shit on your fun.

I have had no problems killing level 10s as a boosted level 4.  Unless you play a healer, then they all go for them anyway.

Indeed.. my runepriest gets mobbed all the time.

If you get a good compliment of skills that is. The group most affected by the level/skill disparity is casters. Many good abilities come later in the tiers. Being level 1 in Tier 1 bites, but only slightly more so than level 12 in Tier 2. Healers, melee, and weapons-based ranged seem to fair better.

I went in at level 2, got boosted to 8 and managed to rack up some kills (finishing blow) and points. At level 2. I'd say it works well, lets you play and score whitout being unfair to who's actually higher than you and earned his/her level.

Welcome to the internet. Enjoy your stay.  :why_so_serious:

Dude, seriously, cowboy up.

Dunno if it's spell power or itemization but 10-11 players are almost indestructible for me, exercise in futility.

I fire a spell and their health barely moves, if it moves.

Actually it happens often both in scenarios and RvR that a level 11 player charges right into a zerg and is able to stand there a minute with EVERYONE firing at him. Then stroll back and get healed.

The problem with jumping right into scenarios with only a couple levels is that you just don't have many skills to use. It's more forgiving once you get to tier 2, and even more so, I'm assuming, once you go beyond that.


It's the 'rr6' armor, which will probably be getting nerfed soon. Once you get level 10, and realm rank 6, go to tier 2. Find your keep there and head to the top. A guy there will sell you renown armor sets. Pick up the 10/6 one, and for the next two levels you'll basically break tier 1 scenarios.

This is almost Funcom stupid. Is there a dark reason for this to happen?

This has already been nerfed, you can no longer do this.

Can't say I'm sad to see it happen. You know there's a serious problem when a thread posted on Warhammer Alliance asking for the nerf is met with almost unanimous approval.

The biggest difference is the gear differential by the higher level players in the Tier. Lower levels are a lot less powerful, resistant, etc so they simply get rolled faster.  Meanwhile the top level folks for the tier have good armor/resists, and are very hard to kill.

Aye. They actually had it listed as a bug, but that might just be them trying to avoid using"nerf".

However from playing this weekend it does not seem to be fixed/nerfed. I am still fighting level 10-11s who, as has been said before, walk around with impunity pwning face.

Don't worry, most of these guys will go to the Open RVR servers, especially if they win the fight to remove Chickening from them.

I hope chickening is removed.

And what do you mean by 'these guys'? Last night, I plowed through the influence bar for the first chapter in the tier 2 zones to get a piece of blue tier 2 armor. It has total PvE stats, no resists or toughness/wounds. It has the same graphic, though, and I'd predict that the other people who look like they are in tier 2 did the same thing.

It does have a significant armor difference, however.

Weapon DPS ramps up a ton, and more attacks. Essentially when you get to certain points your power goes up a ton. For WPs, it's the mitenmoor hammer quest reward + divine assault at 8 that makes you got from "whee, I'm okay!" to "come here so I can pound you some more"

Bolster ups your level based scaling on skills (so the base damage/heal will go up), but not your equipped item stats (so as a caster, you'll have lower int than a real geared level 8 or whatever). It helps, but in Tier 1 you level so quickly and get core skills so fast that it's a huge power difference.

I agree with Kildorn.  I think the thing to keep in mind is that the later game has a lot more parity than the early game.  In the first tier, success depends heavily on gear and what level your class gets a key ability (i.e. a snare, detaunt, debuff, heal, etc).  When everyone has access to a larger host of tools, playstyle matters more.  Granted, being at the top of a higher tier in level and gear still makes you pretty damn tough.  It's less of an issue later on. 

I also heard it was nerfed, but "invulnerable mode" seems still there.

It's not there as much as tanks being brutally hard to kill with even just a basic HoT on them.

My WP can still wander up to a level 10 magus and proceed to tear him to shreds through chainhealing. An unhealed level 10 chosen however will be a 3 minute grindfest.

I do think something is way out of whack with chosen right now though in general.

It was nerfed to the current situation. Which I think was a worse idea. As it stands right now, you cant get good PVP gear until level 10, and at 10 you are already 2 levels higher than any one below level 8, so really the way they nerfed the gear just made it so that people under 10 had less change to compete. At least before when you could get the good PVP gear at level 6, the disparity wants so huge, now it seems like people level 10 and up just completely crush everyone in the BGs.
Personally I think it was a very bad move.

This has been my observation as well. Level 10's and 11's need a full group of level 5-8's on them just to have a chance of being killed.  They basically 2 shot the lower levels it seems. There were a lot of times we'd have one side that was mostly level 9-11 and the other side mostly levels 5-8, and the 9-11 group would win with scores like 500 to 50.  Back when the gear wasn't staggered like it is right now, this seemed to happen less often.

Short version is that this staggered gear idea is bad, and makes the lower levels non-competitive even with level boosts. They may as well be fighting naked.

seems like a lot of pissing and moaning for a bracket you lvl out of on day two/three of play.


if the same issues hold true in your 20s and thirties, then yeah that would be a serious issue.

It doesn't appear to be limited to T1.

GEAR BASED GAMES WOOT!

Try that one in the WoW forum.  They will eat you alive.

One thing is an even progression in levels and powers to give that sense of growth.

Another is a huge leap at some specific levels.

They should simply stagger the gear more uniformly, without major bumps.

This is very true.  Sadly, first impressions mean a lot in a system that profits from a subscription-based model.  If the early pvp isn't fun out of the box, many won't bother to trudge forward... particularly those new to MMO's.   

I agree with this and I would also like to add that the real problem is tanks.  Other classes go down fairly quickly to FF even with lower levels.  But tanks become brutes when they are at the top end of the level range.  Ask Tazelbain.  I would throw a Hot on his iron breaker and he would wade into like 10 players while I desperately tried to keep the clothies up.  30 seconds later he would be at half health and I would just throw another HOT on him ;-).

And just think, only three weeks ago I was being VEHEMENTLY told that there was NO WAY that DAoC 1.5 WAR was going to allow gear imbalances.

That would not have been me, i was hoping, but i wasn't betting.

About my 3ed scenario, i noticed i had no chance. If i ever feel like an ass woppin, or to see that nice hi-rez "you have died" screen, i may try them again.

Going to have to say, i enjoyed AOC's less reliance on gear for PvP, than this. I also want to say, WAR seems to have less Meshes for gear than AOC does as well, its just that they become more overt in higher levels (SHOULDER PADS!!!). Of the three possible sources of gear for my level, all three had the same graphic. PC loot, Quest loot, and drop. Same (talking about the set here, chest, feet, hands).

There is no massive gear imbalance. PVP gear = PVP gear = PVP gear.

Let me put it this way: As a level say 8rr0, you have really bad gear. Because the game doesn't give you a full set of green gear out of the gate. However, a level 8rr8 will be able to buy about half a set of green gear.

At level 40rr0, you'll have okay gear from leveling. Mostly blue, some purple. Likely not heavy in resists, but heavy in willpower/int/str as you need. A level 40rr40 character in full pvp gear will have lower dps/healing than you, but far more defense/resists/hp. They'll probably kill you, but it's anywhere near Scholo Blues vs Naxx.

There is no place for uber gear in a pvp-based MMO, staggered or not.

1) Gear should be easily obtainable.  So easy, in fact, that it's not the point of the game.    This is a great opportunity to involve crafters in your community.  A missed opportunity in most games.  

2) Levels should impart a wider variety of abilities, not an increase in power.  Players adept at using a multitude of tools should be the cream.  Learning to use tools takes time... this is what should reward retention.  Play more = get better.  Not:  play more = get more artificial plusses to your stats.  

3) 4 level 5's should have a 50:50 shot at beating 1 level 20.  If this isn't the case, your game is too PvE dependent.

4) Min - Maxxing should have limited value.  

5) A group with 6 different classes > A group without 6 different classes.  It looks like WAR is attempting this, but I think the playerbase will outsmart them by identifying the most overpowered abilities and stacking them.  

Bah... I'm rehashing 1999.  My apologies.

A lot of the problems you are seeing in the low level BGs are probably the result of skill access differences, not necessarily gear or scaling.

The game encourages you to go into the BG at level 2, when you have all of 2-3 abilities available to you, and doesn't have separate queueing for premades. So you often end up with a BG half full of level 2 new characters running up against a premade of level 10 guys in the better noob RVR armor, and they have all their skills including morale ability #1, which is a big tide turner.

Personally I don't think it makes much sense to do the scenarios before level 5 or 6 at a minimum, before that you will just get eaten alive, even with the level scaling.

I'd even argue level 8.  Most classes don't start getting their defining abilities until then.  Sadly, even at 8 a group of all 10's & 11's will destroy you if competently played.

Hi, have you read the thread?

That's all pretty far near impossible to do, though. Every game winds up with optimal classes for situations, and players create the situation.

As for the 4 level 5s vs a level 20.. enh. It's rarely going to happen. You'd need to provide massive boosts for proximity to other players or something.

WAR's gear balance isn't that big a deal. The top PVE gear (there's no raiding, this is all PQ and 5 man instance acquired) is equivalent dps/armor/stats to the top pvp gear. Period. There's no raid game, and the pvp grind is only a grind if you skip it for 20 levels and need to go pick up RRs to catch up. Then it's kinda lame.

What happens in the first 10 levels that makes people unkillable?

First Morale (.. yeah)
First Tactic (emperor's ward alone massively increases your 1v1 potential)
More Class Abilities (For WPs: getting your snare, and Divine Assault are huge.)

Is it the gear? Not really. The mitenmoor sledge (level 7 quest) is a whole 2 dps under the rvr hammer.

First tactic at 11 is silly. Heck, the brackets not being 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc is silly.

A chosen or WP with their first tactic is Nuts compared to anyone else.

Yes. Do you have any evidence that gear > spells? Is your level 8 character losing to it's level 8 analog constantly?

Have you?  The gear question is previous threads that you reffered to related to high-end access, not the Tier 1 zone.

Very good point.  I don't know how they decided on raising someone lower than 8 to 8.  Why not 9? Why not 10?  I realize that they're "rewarding" those that are the true level, but presenting them with cannon fodder doesn't seem like much fun for the fodder.  

What I'm saying is that if you want your game to be a pvp-based game, then make the pvp fun for all parties involved... not just those with the (gear, level, tactic) advantage.

It could easily happen in a game like Guild Wars, but you'd have a hard time finding an MMO where gear matters less. Really I think for most people, gear doesn't matter *enough* in GW.

If people like collecting gear, play WoW.  It's built as a gear-whore's wet dream.  I just don't see a good way to incorporate gear whoring into a pvp-based game without alienating the 80% of the playerbase that will always be on the losing end of a pvp encounter.  They're forced to rely on numbers for their superiority, which doesn't always end well.   

My only guess is that it is meant to be some sort of carrot for leveling via PVP or something. Really what they probably should have done is something to make the churn a little higher, so people couldn't/wouldn't want to stay in the BG at level 10. It may be that this won't be nearly as much of a problem at release when people have a reason (and ability) to keep leveling?

I  :heart: U.

I think you're correct.  At release, you'll see a race to the endgame.  Those that get to the endgame first will exploit the hell out of their advantage until others catch up.  By then, they will be far enough ahead to be king-of-the-hill for a while.  When that wears thin, they will leave or become BG warriors.  See: DAoC.

It is much easier for Mythic to balance the endgame than it is for them to balance multi-level BGs, at least, so I expect that endgame pvp won't as imbalanced. I'm *sure* it won't be as imbalanced as WoW at least.

I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm on your side this time.  The only way to balance these games is by homogenizing them (both sides get exactly the same of everything).  This results in a pretty bland feeling game with limited replay value (though chess seems to break this mold).  I find the differences in the realms the places where the most interesting tactics discussions evolve.  Of course, these are also the places where the most painful mechanics alterations (read: nerfs) occur. 

I would rather them fix the scaling than handing out overpowered gear.  The scaling should do more.  Plus the 7 and unders should get a temporary Moral ability.

With my latest IB, I started joining Gates at level 1.  I had fun besides being worthless.  Killed a level 2 shaman.  Really the lack basic strategy bothered me more than anything.  It would make it more pleasant if my armor scaled to level 8 to match my hitpoints.