f13.net

Read all about it here (http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&thread.id=1345&page=1)

Quick Summary:

Each Tier will have its own set of tokens

End game RVR will require tokens + rare crests

Vendors will be easy to find, and you can buy gear for each tier

You earn tokens and rare crests by killing players, capturing keeps (defending in some cases), capturing zones, and winning city invasion PQ's.

My Thoughts

I think its decent, but I dislike the fact that they are leaving in the renown requirements to wear the gear.  RR55 can take a long ass time to get depending on your server, and other than lottery style PVE drops in Lost Vale its RR55+ for superior wards and beyond. I could see casual Joes lucking up by killing high RR players, earning a boat load of tokens, but still needing hundreds of thousands of renown to get RR55.  That just means he'll have shiny armor sitting in the bank that he can't use.

So this is two steps forward, one step back unless they remove the renown requirement. If you can buy it, you should be able to wear it.

Man, I'm find with that. When dealing with chromosomal freaks you have to take what you can get. But seriously, the mere fact that they floated the idea AT ALL shows some sort of shift in thinking. The PvE gateway to PvP is the single thing that killed this game for me, even more than the xp grind.

RR 55 is about 20 days played, depending on the activity level of any server.  I think that removal of the RR restrictions would piss off the core of their fanbase too much to do it immediately, but may be something that happens in the future (Mythic did eventually tone down the ToA restrictions). 

I really hate that gear defines the character in a pvp game.  Mythic is making all kinds of errors in design.

So we're back to WOW, eh?  Grind PVE content for tokens.............sounds great. 

Seriously, if they were going to put all this PvE in why not make it less shitty?

I believe the tokens are a way to get the best gear by doing pvp, not pve.  You get tokens for keep taking etc in pvp. 

Age of Conan class/item overhaul sounds 10x more promising and exciting than this half-assed Mythic bullshit.

Color me jaded.  I'm so not optimistic that I went ahead and uninstalled this uninspired piece of crap from all my comps.

It's.... a pvp system for getting the best gear. It's sort of what everyone was clamoring for.

Can I come out of the closet as an ex-Funcom employee now who's excited about that AoC patch?

What a load of crap.  This means a) that realm rank is worthless as anything but a cock block, b) they aren't going to fix it and c) still think the solution to failing pvp is more grind.

Yes, more grind. The trouble with a token system is the same as the trouble with the RR system: It makes advancement (and gear) the reason you PvP. Suddenly if you're just having a good time on somewhere that isn't particularly token or RR productive, you feel guiilty that you aren't spending your precious playtime working towards that endgame gear. Maximizing gain/time BECOMES the game. So just like grinding scenarios for experience, it takes the potential for fun and crushes it to death through repetition.

It's amusing to watch WAR pile system upon system upon system rather than working to figure out what went wrong with the ones they have.

Truth.  I just can't seem to look away. 

I have to confess that I'm hoping for them to fix the game in a way similar to the addition of the classics rules servers, but I don't think it's coming any time soon (if at all). 

Absolutely no question. But even if this is half-assed it's LOADS better than forcing PvE grind in order to PvP effectively. Retards have to take baby steps.

I don't have a problem necessarily with a token type system.  I do take umbrage to them adding experience bar after experience bar, in addition to the various tokens.  What's next?  A rep grind?

Again, it's about putting anything at all to get the best gear through PvP exclusively. It's the only metagame decision they've made that's even a little bit right. Should it be divorced from realm rank? Yes. Should it be more accessible? Yes. Is it enough? No. But nobody's been more critical with more swear words than I have and I'll admit when they do something good. It's hopefully the start of a change in direction even though I know it's probably not. I still won't sub but I'll at least pay attention to patch notes from now on to see how things go.

I still won't sub while Barnett works there, though.

They're still missing the big point.  You don't need rewards for the RvR because it is just a boring system at this point in time.  The combat is bland and repetitive and the CC is unbearable at times.  They need to fix the basic mechanics before they start trying to entice people to do the PvP.

So you don't have to grind pve to get ward gear, but you still have to make it to level 40 and then level your realm rank.  This sounds ok, but it misses the point that most players couldn't even hit level 40, let alone RR 55.

This is how I'm feeling.  I have a level 40, but never play it.  The AE stacking and healing/casting through walls has ruined the endgame for me.  So in the past few weeks of playing, I've leveled an alt to 28, played three toons to 11 and may be quitting again.  The trip from 11 - 40 is too long and isn't rewarded with a quality endgame experience.  You play the first tier and have fun, then wonder why you should bother leveling any further.  There really is no incentive for getting to level 40 beyond being obsessive about leveling to cap in an MMO... which I no longer am.

I'm confused, tokens for gear I understand, but what is the point of tokens being 'required' for 'end game RvR'?

You need the top end gear to be competitive in PvP.  Until now, the best gear was available in sets through pve.  The token system makes obtaining the best gear through either pvp ro pve. 

When you say you need gear to be competitive, do they mean, you need good gear in any dikummog, and this is how you can get some; or do they mean, you need this specific gear from these tokens or you get wiped out by arbitrary aoe attacks that wipe out everyone not wearing approved outfits.

In other words, this isn't ward gear for pvp is it?

From my limited endgame experience, having the best gear helps you to compete better (just like any other diku-based MMO).  The AE stacking, class balance, out-of-control-CC-issuews, and chokepoint problems will still wtfpwn you, but you'll last longer with the better gear.  This gear allows you to cap many resists which will help you survive against the ungodly ranged dps, but in no way makes up for the flaws currently present in the game. 

LotD has played both Order and Destro factions, and last night was the third time we've pushed Order's capital since we started playing Destruction 2 months ago (http://www.lotd.org/showthread.php?t=23127).

On Order I have an 40 Iron Breaker in full sentinel gear (greater wards), and a fulls set of RR55 Invader Gear (superior wards) sitting in the bank because I can't use it (I'm RR 47 on this toon). 

On Destro I have a 40 Black Orc and just hit RR40 last night.  He's in 4 Sentinel pieces (greater wards) and 1 Annihilator piece (lesser ward). I've run through the highest PVE dungeon twice (20 hour investment of time) and gotten 2 pieces of superior ward stuff. PVE armor can be worn without needing renown rank, but its basically a loot drop lottery so you aren't guaranteed to get pieces for your class by running the dungeon.

So Ward Gear breaks down like this:

Lesser Wards = RVR Zone Fortress Lords
greater wards: rvr forts / city stage 1 needed (to survive PQ bosses)
superior wards: city stage 1 / stage 2 needed (to survive PQ bosses)
excelsior wards: city stage 2 and King Assault needed (to survive King and sub bosses or other mobs)

If you don't have the right wards you can on progress so far or the mobs in each stage will 1 shot you instantly. The more wards for each set you have, the less damage you take and the more damage you do to the mob.   I've seen a Fortress Lord instantly destroy a whole Warband because none of them had full lesser wards.

So basically the End Game (RVR) is really a PVE Game (PQ's) that require full sets of these armors to complete in order to move on to the next stage. Without them you have 0 hope of completing this.

Now again, tokens are nice but I still think if we have enough to buy the armor we should be able to wear it. Otherwise the previous posters are correct in that Mythic is only trading off one type of grind for another. The problem with RVR grind is that players who are killed to recently, which happens often in RVR, are worth little Renown, so people like me who get RR from mostly zone PVP take a long time to get to RR55.

War would be a good game if they could fix performance issues.  The game seems to run worse with every patch, and I have well above the recommended system specs. It would also be a great game if they could remove the cockblocks such as RR req's, and over reliance on Ward gear to move forward in the RVR end game.

You missed one step. 

Lesser wards: rvr keeps
greater wards: rvr forts
superior wards: city stage 1
excelsior wards: city stage 2

As far as i know thats it, sovereign gear gives you all wards.  Theres no stage 3 for cities.  You also don't need full sets of wards to do stuff, 3 is more than enough for most people, 4 if you are a tank.  Seeing as how you can buy 2 for each set (one on the AH, one from rr vendors) its really not much of a cockblock at all.

Yah yer right. I was looking for that info cuz what I typed didn't look right. I've made it to stage II a lot, but never beyond. The King Assault is what they sort of call Stage 3 because it unlocks the city for 24 hours.

Wow, I didn't realise it was already that retarded, I thought the ward stupidity only applied to the king and various other pve encounters.

Yeah its a huge disappointment that the end game is a PQ race, and entirely gear based. No wonder they had to close 60+ servers.

Yeah, I take that back, too. I thought wards were only required for the big end fights. Christ...  :ye_gods:

(http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00386/SNN0939D_180_386441a.jpg)

You must be this tall to ride.

Don't forget that the trip to the endgame is a long grind where you're noncompetitive in RvR and in scenarios most of the levels.  I've resubbed to this game twice for the people, but find it harder to stay each time. 

It looks to me like Mythic just put in this blatant stop gap measure as an attempt to get people already on the fence about leaving to stay for a while.  While it is pointless while endgame pvp is so borked as to be keep trading (see Nebu's wise words in my sig), this is the first time that Mythic's compass has pointed anywhere except to magnetic wrong.

Instead, it pointed to the other default position: grind.

This ward thing is always a bad idea. I can't believe people were defending it in WHA when a post mentioned that one RANDOM piece a day isn't enough to get most 5 casual players party to gear up just to do higher content. One dude said without sarcasm that he wanted it this way so "I will feel it's an achievement to get this rare piece of equipment, if everyone gets it..then the achievement value is lessened, not mentioning the amount of hatred coming from people who exclusively RVR for their set gears. We shouldn't complain about the PVE route random drops"

Mind you he's talking about the Bastion Stair gear drops that most people can take on in less than 1 hour in some bosses. I've got friends who didnt' bother to resub because they're stuck looking for people to do instances for set drops while the vets are too busy trading keeps and gaining RR "Quit PVE-ing you carebears!" was their reply.

This.  While not perfect it is at least progress in the right direction.  PvE cockblocks for PvP were the straw that broke the camels back for me.

Starting to notice a trend. 

Seems like whenever Mythic does some things right or better than they have managed in the past, it seems eerily scary that the moves they do/did take them one step closer to resembling WoW, or something in it.  And people applaud it without even realizing what they just did. :uhrr:

Oh, I guess the reason for that is that WoW is a fun, well-designed game, run by professionals.  :grin:

Dude in my guild is checking the system out. Likes it but you have to loot the corpse... hahahahaha. Yeah, you have time for corpse looting when war is everywhere. Even still, he got about a quarter of the way to a piece of badass gear in one siege just doing normal PvP which isn't too shabby.

He also claims little to no casting lag finally and balance fixes re: ranged dps that actually work.

Of course my free ten days runs out on Saturday so I won't see it.

You have to loot the corpses already, thats the only way to get the boots for every single pvp set so no corpse goes unlooted anyways.

I know but it just feels odd to me.

Loot should still be automatic.  I'm still pissed about losing the gold bag due to dying before being able to reach the chest. ><

You can loot the chest from any range.

Most people dont seem to know this and everyone crowds around the chest making it hard to loot from a distance.

How?  Since I died I was nowhere near it, and no one in our full warband knew it either.  Not that it really matters now, but you've made me curious.

Just click on it. There's no range check. If you can see the chest, you can loot it.

She couldn't see the chest at the time, because she DIED and was at the war camp, while the chest was in the keep. Just like what happened to me.

She mentioned no keeps. But yes, if they let you click on that awful rolling dice screen, might as well let you loot from there.

I was in some instance in the Dwarf lands, but yes.  Essentially that was the problem.  We had to fight through respawns with two minutes to get to a place that was a three minute run unmolested.

Oh, and it was the only loot I won (besides a green bag [or blue -- whatever the junk bag is] on the last one) out of six or seven PQs despite contributing first or second for every one of them, so it was a bigger "fuck you" to the night. 

Hey chucklefuck:  If they had designed a game that was exactly the same mechanics as WoW and instead of a PvE endgame had an engaging PvP endgame they would be drowning in a see of cash right now instead of taking the gyrocopter to failtown.

No, you get tokens from PVP.

In the next patch, there is absolutely not reason to PVE at all.

I think the token system will be great and it's too bad they didn't have it there in the first place.

Every MMO is a grind of some sort, the WAR grind for RR is fun. If open rvr isn't fun, play another game. Doing open RVR for RR, I'm on my third RR 40+ character, so it isn't that hard (and I'm a casual player) and it's lots of fun doing it, so you don't even think about it. Conqueror gear only needs RR 40 and TBH for most classes it's all you need.