Lets begin by saying, I have almost every class in t2 and t3. I get bored of playing the same class. My favorite part of an mmo is to take the least played classes and find a way to use them effectively. My main from the beginning is an engineer. To this day, engineer is my favorite class.
Scenarios
I enjoy most of the scenarios that ive played. It seems that they are varied enough to keep my attention for a little while. So after participating in open RvR for a few hours, its nice to jump in some scenarios. Comparing scenarios to DAOC battle grounds, scenarios are disappointing. I assume DAOC battle grounds are supposed to be compared to RvR lakes...
RvR Lakes
This is probably the most disappointing aspect of the game for me. When I first imagined it, I imagined battle grounds in DAOC. I imagined these big maps where you can go farm mobs and participate in RvR. I imagined intricate keeps. I imagined moveable siege equipment.
I could get by the static siege spawn locations. I could get passed seige weapons being immobile. What I cant get passed is the keep layouts and how npc focused keep defenses are. With DAOC, once you finally breached the outer wall. You then lay seige to the inner keep. Battles would be all over, bridges, keep walls, pretty much everywhere. War keeps are so small, with little space to move, where aoe obviously reigns supreme. Then you take in consideration that not all keep lords are created equal. No one, unless your in a sizable raid with semi-intelligent tanks and healers, fights all the mobs in the lord room. Mostly its pull the lord to the pad and fight only him. Ive tanked stonetroll with a lvl 13 IB with a two hander, easily. Then ive been in groups in spite's reach, where the lord goes insane and hits everyone every second for 275 damage, til the entire band wipes.
Now lets talk about how fast the mobs spawn and the door mystically gets repaired. In DAOC, the keep door got repair when you took the time to repair it. It mystically repairing itself is pretty retarded. Also, wtf do mob guards respawn so damn fast. This is a player vs player game, not a player + mob vs player. Its no wonder people dont like attacking keeps. Atleast in scenarios its players vs players...
Closing Thoughts
I would relate War to being the arcade version of DAOC. They took every controversial aspect of DAOC and flipped it. They flipped it so much that most of the strategy has been taken away. For example, giving every class in the game a spammable ranged attack is because so many people in DAOC complained about roots. Obviously not realizing when you make a melee healer class like DoK/WP and give them a ranged spammable ability that gives them se/rf you basically take the one tactic for fighting them away, kiting. Ive tested this with players many times, an SW vs a DoK, a DoK can simply charge the SW forcing him backwards, the SW can try to dot/snare while walking backwards, the entire time the DoK has to simply hot himself and spam fist of khaine with CoC. With CoC on, fist of khaine can now snare dot for 300 damage from range. Now with my DoK at lvl 21 I can kill any SW level 20 and below with out even trying, from ranged. Cause with CoC on, your going to get snared doted, and im going to get into melee.
I dont understand why every class must have a spammable ranged ability. I dont understand the new root set up. Most classes that have aoe roots have dots, so they are forced not to use their dots, and anyways, if someone makes it into aoe root range, your going to get snared. It would make more sense to have an aoe 4 second root than an aoe 10 second root that will break 50% on any damage. I mean, every class is going to snare you anyway, so how far are you going to get in 4 seconds. Its not like 18 out of 22 classes have a snare, oh, they do dont they.
I know im probably going to be flamed for this but, I believe the player should have choices. The player should pick what his character is good at and not be proficient in everything. Classes like DoK and WP should get picked apart by a ranged class. Tanks should have a hell of a time getting into melee, because we all know, tanks have perma snare, so once they get on ya, your not getting them off. Ranged class should die in melee, and they do, easily. Otherwise we end up with everyone playing the same classes, bright wizards, tanks, and melee healers...
Hey man. Thoughtful entry. I am a War player and former DAOC player ( I prefer DAOC). I am not sure if you have experienced this but in tier 4 the keeps really open up and some of them are very difficult to defend because they are so spread out and there is so much going on. It takes strategy. However, I agree with you on the classes. I know it is not a 1 v 1 game, but the balance is a bit off in my opinion. A healer can get hit 2000 times by someone *and* do respectable damage *and* heal. It's a bit of a weird approach. I got a 60 day game card for like 9 dollars during a sale so I am still subbed. It's just a very lightcore game, in my opinion, whereas DAOC had much more depth. Still, my guild has a lot of fun, we play Order. If you are looking for people to go sick with send me a PM here on MMORPG. If you focus on the social aspect and hanging out with your guildies it makes the game much more fun, although I suppose that holds true for just about any MMO.
Thu Dec 25 2008 1:23AMwhy even defend? no reward in defending...
rvr sucks...
Thu Dec 25 2008 12:25PM^ cagan is right.
RvR is inherently flawed. Everone grinds scenarios because open RvR is dumbed down so hard that apes can play it. The combat is just too simple and boring. All that matters in open RvR is numbers.
This game doesnt come close to Daoc.
Thu Dec 25 2008 12:51PMCome play wow, it's easy but at least everything is a bit more balanced after wrath's release. Plus there's some siege warfare, and destructable buildings, etc etc. I've been having a blast since Wotlk came out. It was pretty boring in bc.
I never played warhammer and I probably never will. Posts like this makes it more and more unlikely everyday :P.
Thu Dec 25 2008 1:11PMlol @ the come play wow. Sorry kid, but not everyone likes to spend their life being spanked by mobs and farming endlessly. with PvP reduced to some completelyb meaningless minigames.
Anyway, why even defending? Defending keeps now is very rewarding, given the last bonuses added, it's a ton of renown, influence and xp gained.
Attacking is more rewarding until you need a certain piece of set armor, but once you got it, defense and attack are even at best, or defense is even more rewarding than attack.
At the moment RvR is very close to DAOC, if not better.
DOK's and WPs are just as vulnerable as any other class. You're doing a very basic error. Considering RvR as an 1v1 balance affair. 1v1 might as well not exist in warhammer. Warhammer is REALM vs REALM. If you whine because of 1v1 balance you simply didn't get what the game is about.
it's funny to see how you compare the size of DAOC and WAR's keeps. besides tier 2, which is just an introduction to keep warfare, from tier 3 on Warhammer's keeps are MUCH bigger than DAOC's. and given that inside the walls the configuration of such keeps is very different (expecially in tier 4), they pose some very interesting and diverse tactical challenges, while in DAOC, fighting in each keep is always the same, every time, because they're exactly the same of each other. So overally, you might want to rake in a few more levels before making comparisons.
To be honest, as an ex daoc player myself, I can tell you that you definately seem quite a bit blinded by DAOC nostalgia. Get rid of that, and you'll enjoy much more, otherwise, well, DAOC is still running.
Thu Dec 25 2008 1:27PMNumbers are NOT everything. We spanked wave after wave of order warband with 3/4 of one, all at the second keep door. The doors shut several times which kicked the battle back out. There must have been 60 of them against our measily 15-18. Good startegy kept our keep ours for hours.
It's very fun to defend, infact I find myself running from keep to keep alone at the chance to whoop some order and hold them off long as possible with some oil. Also, the new rewards give me something to shoot for, though I'm level 30 now so I have only a little while left in t3 :)
Thu Dec 25 2008 2:52PMI dont see defending a keep as being even marginally difficult. With my engineer and my roomates SW, we kept a full warband busy as hell. We simply sat up top and waited for them to pull, then it was knock healers off the wall time. With concussion grenade i can knock people off the roof constantly. My roomate is skirmish spec, so he simply aoe's a clump, while I knock people off, then we both use point blank, which we build up fast, to knock more off.
With Daoc, the lords were not so tough that 2 players could defend the keep. It did take time to kill the lord, giving the opposition time to gather up and defend it. Time, is all we really need. We dont need super tough lords that can wipe a raid by themself.
Thu Dec 25 2008 4:05PM@ Abriael
DoK and WP are not just as vulnerable as other classes. Take away their ranged ability that builds se/rf and they become vulnerable. They have abilities that let them turn AP into se/rf. Giving them ranged is simply overkill on a class that can already do about everything while healing themself and wearing moderate armor.
Thu Dec 25 2008 4:09PMHmm.. open RvR is a bit bland content-wise, I concur. Rewards and player pop is cool now but keeps do need more variety and some PvE tasks in the zones would be most welcome. However it is bound to be changed soon. I fully expect PQs and farmable mobs in very close future (this last event could be a test for it).
I don't agree with this "spammable ranged attack" thing though. My Swordmaster has this ability but it is extremely situational - you can throw axes at a sorcerer for 20 damage while you're rooted, but it's just to show you're not dead - the damage is so pitiful. It does reasonable damage only when the target is low on HP and turns its back on me - not a smart thing to do when trying to run away from a tank. :))
Thu Dec 25 2008 4:31PM"I would relate War to being the arcade version of DAOC," I think this pretty much sums up WAR completely, WAR seems a lot more intense (even way more intense than WoW) but there just doesn't feel like there's any long term interest.
Thu Dec 25 2008 6:42PMWar is a dumbed down version of DAOC at the same time defferent. Do to they are using a story lore it limited what they can do and can not do. While DAOC was the first good grinding MMO you have to remeber we gone away from that time play. All games have gone into a Next Gen game play. Everything made for only 5 hours of game play cause childern will get bord to fast. Damn I remember whe games could last over 140 game play. Where puzzle where puzzle. now I beat game in 3-5 hours and call it a waste of money. it all about the easy game play. MMO have gone the way of easy game play too. WAR sadly does not want kids crying about getted a full group to kill a butterfly 4 levels below you. Lol any DAOC people will know about that. Have to get a high level to grind your level.
Sat Dec 27 2008 3:59AMMMORPG.com writes:
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