I apologize for the catchy polemic, it's only half sincere, since I am subscribed to WAR atm myself, so calm down, its not personal.

Still, I have this overwhelming feeling of oddity every time I play WAR a while. Now the thing is, me being a Christmas-hater because I passionately hate all the emotinal pseudo-ruckus, and everyone of my friends is gone visiting the very family they hate the rest of the year, I am kinda bored enough to give WAR another try. Especially since the Knight, my long awaited class was added.

Now to say the good thing first, the Knight of the Blazing Sun is the most enjoyable class of Order IMO. Havent played Destro enough to say about them. Part of the fun of the Knight is, that your Auras or stances affect the entire group, so you really feel contributing to the battle. Knights can dish out good and take a lot, so they are one of the most useful classes. Another very simple reason is, that the enemy usually passes by the tanks and aims for the Bright Wizards and healers first, so you have a wee bit more time to actually fight.

Now, lets be honest here. The reason to play WAR is and will ever remain RVR. Sure, Warhammer has a lot of other stuff, but I am not buying that Mythic really put the same effort in the making of the PVE parts of the game, not at all. They are not all bad, but not good enough for anyone to play the game, if the RVR would not exist.

Either way, now I will admit freely, that I had almost no PVP experience whatsoever, besides a few weeks SWG Restuss zerg and another few weeks Monsterplay in LOTRO. I am the classic PVE gamer, I love stories and interesting quests and gaming at my own, personal pace. But somehow I fancied to play a real PVP, because I had hoped for a more thrilling and interactive gameplay. In reality, my experience with PVP is quite disappointing. The reality is, the real meeting on the battlefield is quite a rarity, which has many reasons.

One reason is, that its not really worth to undertake the hassle to attack the keep which is defended. Or defend one which is under attack. You get much faster your points running through the various undefended places than acutally defending your realm. When the enemy takes a keep, you know it doesnt hurt you. You know, you can re-take the keep minutes later. But what is the sense in battlefield objectives and keeps you can re-conquer every 15 minutes? Or what does it make a difference, when the impact of a lost keep is minimal? Added to this is the factor, that it is nigh to impossible to conquer a keep unless you outnumber the enemy at least 2:1. I took part in about 100 keep conquests, maybe more, and I havent yet seen a single one where anyone conquered a keep with a 1:1 ratio in numbers. The defense is considerably more powerful, and the only way to conquer a defended keep, is hoping the enemy gets tired some times and gives up. Which aint gonna happen when there are practically no death penalities.

I never was a fan of too harsh penalities, but as it is it kinda takes the sense out of the entire war, when a character you just killed runs back to the battle over and over every 60 seconds. Usually I spent much more time running towards the battles than actually fighting. (Not counted the long times I just wait, inside keeps or in front of them, waiting until the gate breaks.) The defense of a keep is ridicoulously overpowered. You may shoot at the oil pot with three cannons and hosts of wizards, they can rain down oil endlessly, every 5 seconds so its impossible to buld a ram, and as a result, any good organized crew of 5 people can defend a keep long enough to call for a big raid to come and push off the assault. Its a total no brainer, and as a result 90% of all keep action is actually AVOIDING the enemy. Usually the warbands dabte goes like this:

"Where is destro?"
"Destro attacks the keep in Barrak Varr."
"Ok, then we take the keep in the Swamps, while they are gone."

Sure, there are enough warbands trying to conquer keeps, but its mostly a waste of time, and why care, when there are no repercussions for losing a keep and when you can re-take it the minutes later anyway? So really confronting the enemy is actually only for the brain dead, because it doesnt really give you points. You get points fast for attacking things which are NOT defended.

And then when there really IS combat, its usually you run towards the battle 90 secs, fight 30 secs, die and redo the process ad nauseam. The time you really spent in combat is relatively short. The vast time spent is running and waiting, not combat. And thats were I really step back, shake my head and wonder what for the game is played? I mean, seriously! In the end, its all quite a mindless zergfest, and maybe thats all PVP ever is. I just had a way more strategical idea in mind when I was first interested in WAR, something like a chess game, a combat of strategy, planning and superiour thinking, not mere superior numbers and run - die - run - die. Simply said, you are dead way too fast, once really encoutering the enemy to really have time for strategy or thinking, save maybe of the most elementary things. But  even they dont function. When I run ahead as tank on the ramp, up in some keep, usually 2-3 follow and the rest needs about 60 seconds to realize what they are supposed to do, or maybe thinking "hey, better let them die than me". It just doesnt work, for whatever reasons.

Maybe it was idealistic folly from my side to expect something like battles of strategy and planning in a keep raid between two sides played by humans, I dunno. And while it can be fun for a very brief time, in essence once you hit level 12 and enter Tier 2 with the keeps what you have is all you will ever get, and no matter if keeps get bigger in the higher tiers, it remains a relatively mindless zerg. Nothing of the formations, strategy, planning and maneuvering a battle COULD be. Maybe thats not to expect when everyone is free to do what he wants. What remains is my disappointment of a game concept which in reality is a rather dull, repetitive and primitive form of entertainment, and right at this moment it strikes me as if PVP really is an entertainment form for ppl who are generally easy entertained.
 

Happy Christmas. ;)

Just one thing. About the 2:1 ratio of taking a keep, isn't that the way it should be? Isn't that why they were build in real life? So a smaller number of people can hold a larger army at bay?

As someone with an obviously higher cognitive capacity than most, at least you attempt to come off that way, surely you realize that a keep should in fact be difficult to take unless you vastly outnumber your enemy.
Now assuming that you are following me on this highly evolved line of thinking, as I am sure you are able to; wouldn’t you agree that a few number of organized players with boiling oil/cannons etc. should be able to fend of a rather large group?
Also as a last note, don't you agree that people tend to follow the path of least resistance; ala taking un-manned keeps. Surely a scholar as yourself has studied the social sciences in great detail and has come across this once or twice.
 

You do have some valid points, when I was subbed to WAR, i often avoided the unorganized large, zergish battles (ie 4+ warbands).  The smaller, ie 1-2 warbands vs 1-2 warbands, were much more enjoyable, and did require organization and strategy to win.  I've been involved in a warband that was successfull against a larger (2 warbands, a few straglers) group of destro.  We hit and ran, lured some into ambushes, and pretty much killed 3 destro for every 1 of us, even though we were outnumbered greatly.  Warhammer definately shines when the battles are medium sized, but I do agree that the huge battles do end up being mindless zergs, although 1-2 organized groups can sometimes determine the outcome, while everyone else attacks random people who are closest to them.

It seems the people who say war is mindless, and requires no strategy, just jump into a random orvr warband and get frustrated when they get surrounded by twice as many enemies and get stomped. Try and get some intelligent friends, come up with a plan before you go killing, keep communication up, mark targets in an intelligent fashion, and you'd be suprised how much the game changes.  Only problem is getting an organized, intelligent, pvp group is a bit difficult unless you are playing with rl friends, or are in a good intelligent pvp guild.  If you take the time to build a good, balanced, group/warband with people that know how to play, communicate, and listen to a leader (ie not your average pug), the game is much more enjoyable.  It's too bad that about 20-30 minutes of some excelent small/midsized battles, the masses seem to stumble in and turn everything into a giant, confusing, blob of a zerg.

---

One reason is, that its not really worth to undertake the hassle to attack the keep which is defended. Or defend one which is under attack. You get much faster your points running through the various undefended places than acutally defending your realm. When the enemy takes a keep, you know it doesnt hurt you. You know, you can re-take the keep minutes later. But what is the sense in battlefield objectives and keeps you can re-conquer every 15 minutes? Or what does it make a difference, when the impact of a lost keep is minimal?

---

Zerging. Fastest, easiest way to play Warhammer. You really just load up on firepower, run in, kill the boss, run out. Even though intially it can be fun to steamroll NPCs in a keep, this can get tiresome if done over/over in a month. This becomes the most addictive style of play due to its ease and why its going to be the favored attack mode of Warhammer groups. Setting up strategy and telling people their roles just takes too long and people don't want to sit through all the instructions. Zerging you kill and move on.

Unfortunately, the way Warhammer is set up, this is going to be the best viable strategy.. .just hit and run. Some like the dragout 4 hour battles, but most want a clear victory for the time they put in.

I don't think Mythic will be able to counter this strategy. Its warfare in its most basic and purest form.

 Yes, it looks that way in T2, and T3, but that's for you to practice the BO/Keep take, and to understand the following the intricacies of the battle mechanics:

1. postern doors (guard these, or allow the enemy to bolster their defenses)
2. siege pads, and weapons (understand what they are for, and where they should be located)
3. keep door (how long does it take to break them -  about 3 min with a full WB)
4. BO (how many peeps - 6-12 max, and how long does it take to turn it - 5 min max)
5. Oil (repair it often, this is the RP generator, and which should be destroyed first, by the opposing faction)
6. Ram (reload and hit it often, don't wait until 90)
7. Champs (ignore theses pesky NPC)
8. Lord (where your firepower should concentrate)
9. 3rd Floor in Lord Room (where your rangers, healers, and casters should stand on)

When it comes to T4, it is a bit of strategy, in order to get the end-game content, City Siege. Your faction will have to take down 2 fortresses before you can invade the city.    And your faction would have to do this in the span of 36 hours, or all of the efforts are lost.    To accomplish this would require massive coordination among the different alliances of your faction (if the server doesn't croak first). 

I am of the opinion, that there isn't enough Keeps in T4, I would say to make more of them.    

Originally posted by popinjay

 

---

One reason is, that its not really worth to undertake the hassle to attack the keep which is defended. Or defend one which is under attack. You get much faster your points running through the various undefended places than acutally defending your realm. When the enemy takes a keep, you know it doesnt hurt you. You know, you can re-take the keep minutes later. But what is the sense in battlefield objectives and keeps you can re-conquer every 15 minutes? Or what does it make a difference, when the impact of a lost keep is minimal?

---

 

Zerging. Fastest, easiest way to play Warhammer. You really just load up on firepower, run in, kill the boss, run out. Even though intially it can be fun to steamroll NPCs in a keep, this can get tiresome if done over/over in a month. This becomes the most addictive style of play due to its ease and why its going to be the favored attack mode of Warhammer groups. Setting up strategy and telling people their roles just takes too long and people don't want to sit through all the instructions. Zerging you kill and move on.

Unfortunately, the way Warhammer is set up, this is going to be the best viable strategy.. .just hit and run. Some like the dragout 4 hour battles, but most want a clear victory for the time they put in.

I don't think Mythic will be able to counter this strategy. Its warfare in its most basic and purest form.

Gotta admit though, just steam rolling Order with 2 full Warbands taking over all of T2 is pretty fun, but after doing it every day for a week, it's boring.

Originally posted by veritasall

Just one thing. About the 2:1 ratio of taking a keep, isn't that the way it should be? Isn't that why they were build in real life? So a smaller number of people can hold a larger army at bay?

You are wrong, the ratio to surely take a keep is 5:1 IRL(well, IRL a long time ago).

So actually WAR is making things very easy for the attacker here.

I wouldn't say WAR is a game for braindead, it is kinda easy entertainment off course but it still isn't anything for the retarded.

But what I really think needs to be done is implemented a system like in the game "Stronghold" were a guild holding a keep can rebuild it the way they want, that would make you want to defend your keep harder.

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But what I really think needs to be done is implemented a system like in the game "Stronghold" were a guild holding a keep can rebuild it the way they want, that would make you want to defend your keep harder.

---

I think the biggest missed opportunity by Mythic is this above post. There should have been some way a guild would have been able to conquer a keep, move in and "own" it. This way it puts more pride into actually defending a keep. People have a base other than a warcamp to gather at. The game would eventually have developed structured guilds that would own a particular keep (no guild able to own more than one keep at a time) so now you have a whole side with some interest in defending the keep. This would have killed the zergfests that will eventually stigmatize Warhammer down the line. It would have lead to say, 20 or so "superguilds" on each side, but let's face it: there are way too many half-assed guilds in games anyways. They can still guild up for social reasons or make alliances, but understand that the true nature of PvP warfare is to conquer and own land, as in olden medieval days.

Perfect World MMO has something like this with towns. A guild can attack a town that is held by another guild. Other guilds put up a certain amount of gold in bids (this is where the guild dues in Warhammer would actually be useful instead of just being for fluff) for the right to fight the landowning guild. If they beat that guild in a fair open RvR battle, that town is now theirs. It gives way more incentive to people to log on and make some sort of strategy. It gives people both a reason to attack AND defend a keep equally.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

---

But what I really think needs to be done is implemented a system like in the game "Stronghold" were a guild holding a keep can rebuild it the way they want, that would make you want to defend your keep harder.

---

 

I think the biggest missed opportunity by Mythic is this above post. There should have been some way a guild would have been able to conquer a keep, move in and "own" it. This way it puts more pride into actually defending a keep. People have a base other than a warcamp to gather at. The game would eventually have developed structured guilds that would own a particular keep (no guild able to own more than one keep at a time) so now you have a whole side with some interest in defending the keep. This would have killed the zergfests that will eventually stigmatize Warhammer down the line. It would have lead to say, 20 or so "superguilds" on each side, but let's face it: there are way too many half-assed guilds in games anyways. They can still guild up for social reasons or make alliances, but understand that the true nature of PvP warfare is to conquer and own land, as in olden medieval days.

Perfect World MMO has something like this with towns. A guild can attack a town that is held by another guild. Other guilds put up a certain amount of gold in bids (this is where the guild dues in Warhammer would actually be useful instead of just being for fluff) for the right to fight the landowning guild. If they beat that guild in a fair open RvR battle, that town is now theirs. It gives way more incentive to people to log on and make some sort of strategy. It gives people both a reason to attack AND defend a keep equally.
 

If there wasn't already horrorific lag and stability issues I'd think these ideas were awsome..unfortantely ideas at this point and reality mixed in with the stability issues are...well ...seriously.    One can dream though right for later expansions when the game is in  a better working state.

To be honest I don't see "world building' mechanics coming into the game anytime soon...they dont' even have crafting working right.  

Don't forget this is not a GUILD VS GUILD game but  an RVR Game the objective is to fight the other team not your own realm.   They wont stray from their RVR ruleset that much.and I hope they don't I seriously would be ticked off to never get to enjoy taking keeps because some jackass guild in our realm wants to charge people to fight for it. 

"Warhammer- a game for the brain dead"?

I don't think brain dead people can play games....or even live.

Why do you post such idiotic topics in forums...wait you have that right to do that, everyone here does.

He likes the sensationalism otherwise no one would listen to what he cries about.  I kidna stopped paying attention to the OP earlier this year its just easier.   He's a constant complainer.

Originally posted by Hazmal

As someone with an obviously higher cognitive capacity than most, at least you attempt to come off that way, surely you realize that a keep should in fact be difficult to take unless you vastly outnumber your enemy.
Now assuming that you are following me on this highly evolved line of thinking, as I am sure you are able to; wouldn’t you agree that a few number of organized players with boiling oil/cannons etc. should be able to fend of a rather large group?
Also as a last note, don't you agree that people tend to follow the path of least resistance; ala taking un-manned keeps. Surely a scholar as yourself has studied the social sciences in great detail and has come across this once or twice.
 

I think it is more that I am willing to not overlook the flaws in games, not the capability. As some notice about me regularly, I complain more than others. This is the case, because I believe games can be much better than they are now.

You are surley right, in real keep conquests, the attacked needed way superior numbers. But there are two important things to notify. First, in a real war, whoever is killed stays dead. Sure, the enemy can recruit new soldiers, but only so far. Its kinda frustrating to see the same nametags you killed return every 60 seconds. Also, in real war one gives the order and thus you can plan, you can do maneuvers, strategy, in a RVR game, everyone can do what he wants.

So maybe this "simple entertainment" is all there ever will be in PVP, who knows. I am not experienced to have seen all PVP games there are, so who knows. I dont really mind it. Sometimes I watch a simple sit-com episode. Thats also simplistic entertainment. But I cant entertain myself in such ways often, and I think they dont replace my desire for more complex and advanced entertaiment, and atm I dont see this in PVP, or better in the PVP I have seen so far.

One way would be to make the question who controls the keeps more influental to everyone in the game, and to make sure a conquered keep is not swapped in ownership every few minutes. Or making death more meaningful, but all this would have their pros and cons.

Originally posted by Elikal

I apologize for the catchy polemic, it's only half sincere, since I am subscribed to WAR atm myself, so calm down, its not personal.

Still, I have this overwhelming feeling of oddity every time I play WAR a while. Now the thing is, me being a Christmas-hater because I passionately hate all the emotinal pseudo-ruckus, and everyone of my friends is gone visiting the very family they hate the rest of the year, I am kinda bored enough to give WAR another try. Especially since the Knight, my long awaited class was added.

Now to say the good thing first, the Knight of the Blazing Sun is the most enjoyable class of Order IMO. Havent played Destro enough to say about them. Part of the fun of the Knight is, that your Auras or stances affect the entire group, so you really feel contributing to the battle. Knights can dish out good and take a lot, so they are one of the most useful classes. Another very simple reason is, that the enemy usually passes by the tanks and aims for the Bright Wizards and healers first, so you have a wee bit more time to actually fight.

Now, lets be honest here. The reason to play WAR is and will ever remain RVR. Sure, Warhammer has a lot of other stuff, but I am not buying that Mythic really put the same effort in the making of the PVE parts of the game, not at all. They are not all bad, but not good enough for anyone to play the game, if the RVR would not exist.

Either way, now I will admit freely, that I had almost no PVP experience whatsoever, besides a few weeks SWG Restuss zerg and another few weeks Monsterplay in LOTRO. I am the classic PVE gamer, I love stories and interesting quests and gaming at my own, personal pace. But somehow I fancied to play a real PVP, because I had hoped for a more thrilling and interactive gameplay. In reality, my experience with PVP is quite disappointing. The reality is, the real meeting on the battlefield is quite a rarity, which has many reasons.

One reason is, that its not really worth to undertake the hassle to attack the keep which is defended. Or defend one which is under attack. You get much faster your points running through the various undefended places than acutally defending your realm. When the enemy takes a keep, you know it doesnt hurt you. You know, you can re-take the keep minutes later. But what is the sense in battlefield objectives and keeps you can re-conquer every 15 minutes? Or what does it make a difference, when the impact of a lost keep is minimal? Added to this is the factor, that it is nigh to impossible to conquer a keep unless you outnumber the enemy at least 2:1. I took part in about 100 keep conquests, maybe more, and I havent yet seen a single one where anyone conquered a keep with a 1:1 ratio in numbers. The defense is considerably more powerful, and the only way to conquer a defended keep, is hoping the enemy gets tired some times and gives up. Which aint gonna happen when there are practically no death penalities.

I never was a fan of too harsh penalities, but as it is it kinda takes the sense out of the entire war, when a character you just killed runs back to the battle over and over every 60 seconds. Usually I spent much more time running towards the battles than actually fighting. (Not counted the long times I just wait, inside keeps or in front of them, waiting until the gate breaks.) The defense of a keep is ridicoulously overpowered. You may shoot at the oil pot with three cannons and hosts of wizards, they can rain down oil endlessly, every 5 seconds so its impossible to buld a ram, and as a result, any good organized crew of 5 people can defend a keep long enough to call for a big raid to come and push off the assault. Its a total no brainer, and as a result 90% of all keep action is actually AVOIDING the enemy. Usually the warbands dabte goes like this:

"Where is destro?"
"Destro attacks the keep in Barrak Varr."
"Ok, then we take the keep in the Swamps, while they are gone."

Sure, there are enough warbands trying to conquer keeps, but its mostly a waste of time, and why care, when there are no repercussions for losing a keep and when you can re-take it the minutes later anyway? So really confronting the enemy is actually only for the brain dead, because it doesnt really give you points. You get points fast for attacking things which are NOT defended.

And then when there really IS combat, its usually you run towards the battle 90 secs, fight 30 secs, die and redo the process ad nauseam. The time you really spent in combat is relatively short. The vast time spent is running and waiting, not combat. And thats were I really step back, shake my head and wonder what for the game is played? I mean, seriously! In the end, its all quite a mindless zergfest, and maybe thats all PVP ever is. I just had a way more strategical idea in mind when I was first interested in WAR, something like a chess game, a combat of strategy, planning and superiour thinking, not mere superior numbers and run - die - run - die. Simply said, you are dead way too fast, once really encoutering the enemy to really have time for strategy or thinking, save maybe of the most elementary things. But  even they dont function. When I run ahead as tank on the ramp, up in some keep, usually 2-3 follow and the rest needs about 60 seconds to realize what they are supposed to do, or maybe thinking "hey, better let them die than me". It just doesnt work, for whatever reasons.

Maybe it was idealistic folly from my side to expect something like battles of strategy and planning in a keep raid between two sides played by humans, I dunno. And while it can be fun for a very brief time, in essence once you hit level 12 and enter Tier 2 with the keeps what you have is all you will ever get, and no matter if keeps get bigger in the higher tiers, it remains a relatively mindless zerg. Nothing of the formations, strategy, planning and maneuvering a battle COULD be. Maybe thats not to expect when everyone is free to do what he wants. What remains is my disappointment of a game concept which in reality is a rather dull, repetitive and primitive form of entertainment, and right at this moment it strikes me as if PVP really is an entertainment form for ppl who are generally easy entertained.
 

Happy Christmas. ;)

It seems your problem is more player than game. Take your example of "impossible to build a ram" due to oil. Two things there, first oil can be taken down fairly easily with focused fire. Second, it is still not that difficult to take down the main door without the assistance of a ram by using ranged DPS. In fact, may of the T4 raids don't even bother with a rams any more. And to prevent reinforcements from getting into the keep you set up guard groups on the postern doors to attack defenders who rush in singly or in small groups. Voila.

Where you seem to see insurmountable problems and lack of thought, I see potential challenges with alternative solutions requiring at least a bit of thought and coordination. Maybe you want to stick with the PvE rather than blame Warhammer for lacking what you yourself appear to be missing.

Originally posted by Elikal

I apologize for the catchy polemic, it's only half sincere, since I am subscribed to WAR atm myself, so calm down, its not personal.

Still, I have this overwhelming feeling of oddity every time I play WAR a while. Now the thing is, me being a Christmas-hater because I passionately hate all the emotinal pseudo-ruckus, and everyone of my friends is gone visiting the very family they hate the rest of the year, I am kinda bored enough to give WAR another try. Especially since the Knight, my long awaited class was added.

Now to say the good thing first, the Knight of the Blazing Sun is the most enjoyable class of Order IMO. Havent played Destro enough to say about them. Part of the fun of the Knight is, that your Auras or stances affect the entire group, so you really feel contributing to the battle. Knights can dish out good and take a lot, so they are one of the most useful classes. Another very simple reason is, that the enemy usually passes by the tanks and aims for the Bright Wizards and healers first, so you have a wee bit more time to actually fight.

Now, lets be honest here. The reason to play WAR is and will ever remain RVR. Sure, Warhammer has a lot of other stuff, but I am not buying that Mythic really put the same effort in the making of the PVE parts of the game, not at all. They are not all bad, but not good enough for anyone to play the game, if the RVR would not exist.

Either way, now I will admit freely, that I had almost no PVP experience whatsoever, besides a few weeks SWG Restuss zerg and another few weeks Monsterplay in LOTRO. I am the classic PVE gamer, I love stories and interesting quests and gaming at my own, personal pace. But somehow I fancied to play a real PVP, because I had hoped for a more thrilling and interactive gameplay. In reality, my experience with PVP is quite disappointing. The reality is, the real meeting on the battlefield is quite a rarity, which has many reasons.

One reason is, that its not really worth to undertake the hassle to attack the keep which is defended. Or defend one which is under attack. You get much faster your points running through the various undefended places than acutally defending your realm. When the enemy takes a keep, you know it doesnt hurt you. You know, you can re-take the keep minutes later. But what is the sense in battlefield objectives and keeps you can re-conquer every 15 minutes? Or what does it make a difference, when the impact of a lost keep is minimal? Added to this is the factor, that it is nigh to impossible to conquer a keep unless you outnumber the enemy at least 2:1. I took part in about 100 keep conquests, maybe more, and I havent yet seen a single one where anyone conquered a keep with a 1:1 ratio in numbers. The defense is considerably more powerful, and the only way to conquer a defended keep, is hoping the enemy gets tired some times and gives up. Which aint gonna happen when there are practically no death penalities.

I never was a fan of too harsh penalities, but as it is it kinda takes the sense out of the entire war, when a character you just killed runs back to the battle over and over every 60 seconds. Usually I spent much more time running towards the battles than actually fighting. (Not counted the long times I just wait, inside keeps or in front of them, waiting until the gate breaks.) The defense of a keep is ridicoulously overpowered. You may shoot at the oil pot with three cannons and hosts of wizards, they can rain down oil endlessly, every 5 seconds so its impossible to buld a ram, and as a result, any good organized crew of 5 people can defend a keep long enough to call for a big raid to come and push off the assault. Its a total no brainer, and as a result 90% of all keep action is actually AVOIDING the enemy. Usually the warbands dabte goes like this:

"Where is destro?"
"Destro attacks the keep in Barrak Varr."
"Ok, then we take the keep in the Swamps, while they are gone."

Sure, there are enough warbands trying to conquer keeps, but its mostly a waste of time, and why care, when there are no repercussions for losing a keep and when you can re-take it the minutes later anyway? So really confronting the enemy is actually only for the brain dead, because it doesnt really give you points. You get points fast for attacking things which are NOT defended.

And then when there really IS combat, its usually you run towards the battle 90 secs, fight 30 secs, die and redo the process ad nauseam. The time you really spent in combat is relatively short. The vast time spent is running and waiting, not combat. And thats were I really step back, shake my head and wonder what for the game is played? I mean, seriously! In the end, its all quite a mindless zergfest, and maybe thats all PVP ever is. I just had a way more strategical idea in mind when I was first interested in WAR, something like a chess game, a combat of strategy, planning and superiour thinking, not mere superior numbers and run - die - run - die. Simply said, you are dead way too fast, once really encoutering the enemy to really have time for strategy or thinking, save maybe of the most elementary things. But  even they dont function. When I run ahead as tank on the ramp, up in some keep, usually 2-3 follow and the rest needs about 60 seconds to realize what they are supposed to do, or maybe thinking "hey, better let them die than me". It just doesnt work, for whatever reasons.

Maybe it was idealistic folly from my side to expect something like battles of strategy and planning in a keep raid between two sides played by humans, I dunno. And while it can be fun for a very brief time, in essence once you hit level 12 and enter Tier 2 with the keeps what you have is all you will ever get, and no matter if keeps get bigger in the higher tiers, it remains a relatively mindless zerg. Nothing of the formations, strategy, planning and maneuvering a battle COULD be. Maybe thats not to expect when everyone is free to do what he wants. What remains is my disappointment of a game concept which in reality is a rather dull, repetitive and primitive form of entertainment, and right at this moment it strikes me as if PVP really is an entertainment form for ppl who are generally easy entertained.
 

Happy Christmas. ;)

Get into a guild that is built for PvP.  The one I am with employs a lot of strategy.  You also probably don't realize the micromanagement going on because you are either not in a ventrilo or teamspeak server with a group of players or you are just joining pick up groups to take uncontested objectives and keeps.

If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine.  Good luck, I hope you find what you're looking for.  If you take that mentality to every game that has PvP, it will only ever end up being a zergfest.

1) Defending keeps gives MASSIVELY better rewards than taking them, especially if they're defended - stealing keeps does not pay unless you're hunting for that chest piece from the set.

2) Strategic endgame part of the game comes into play from tier 3 since it affects tier 4 with spillover VPs.

3) You can play strategic starting from T2. Most fun with my alts in T2 comes from playing cat and mouse with overpopulated but less agile Destros. We even stage fake attacks on keeps to make them disperse and buy time to take over the keep we want.

4) Different keeps drop different items. It pays to know which one you want to take. Different influences for different pairings are also a consideration in individual decisions where to go.

5) Get in a guild. Preferably one with vent.

6) Get into an alliance. Preferably one with vent.

7) Get to know people willing to take charge on your server. Stay in contact with them. Ask what is happening with their WBs. Coordinate. Endgame WAR requires server-level coordination without any exaggeration whatsoever. The majority of people are happy to play brain-dead and follow the first WB that comes along, that's perfectly fine and I like to relax that way sometimes - however you do not have to. If you want to lead and coordinate then the whole server will be thankful to you.

This saturday the Orders on my server attempted to coordinate and lock down destro zones in T4. Six different alliances had their representatives on a closed vent channel to coordinate the effort (I was one of them ). Each of the representatives had to relay info and orders to the alliance WBs that were in action in all 3 pairings simultaneously. The organizer of the event had a map in front of him marking our and destro deploymets based on scout reports.  We almost had them in  one, possibly two pairings but various little kinks in the system (that was our first attempt lol) prevented us from pwning them despite their numerical superiority. If that's brain-dead then I don't know what's brain-alive.

Originally posted by Loke666

But what I really think needs to be done is implemented a system like in the game "Stronghold" were a guild holding a keep can rebuild it the way they want, that would make you want to defend your keep harder.

Actually this has been announced as "coming up" in the following months. Guilds will be able to upgrade keeps and customize them. Open RvR influence is just the first in a series of open RvR boosts to come.

"Fourth, we want to encourage guilds to take and control keeps, and we will continue our work on adding better rewards for Guilds who own Keeps as well as the addition of a system of Keep upgrades. This system will be added to the game in several stages beginning in the late winter."

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=472

Originally posted by Elikal

Originally posted by Hazmal

As someone with an obviously higher cognitive capacity than most, at least you attempt to come off that way, surely you realize that a keep should in fact be difficult to take unless you vastly outnumber your enemy.
Now assuming that you are following me on this highly evolved line of thinking, as I am sure you are able to; wouldn’t you agree that a few number of organized players with boiling oil/cannons etc. should be able to fend of a rather large group?
Also as a last note, don't you agree that people tend to follow the path of least resistance; ala taking un-manned keeps. Surely a scholar as yourself has studied the social sciences in great detail and has come across this once or twice.
 

 

I think it is more that I am willing to not overlook the flaws in games, not the capability. As some notice about me regularly, I complain more than others. This is the case, because I believe games can be much better than they are now.

You are surley right, in real keep conquests, the attacked needed way superior numbers. But there are two important things to notify. First, in a real war, whoever is killed stays dead. Sure, the enemy can recruit new soldiers, but only so far. Its kinda frustrating to see the same nametags you killed return every 60 seconds. Also, in real war one gives the order and thus you can plan, you can do maneuvers, strategy, in a RVR game, everyone can do what he wants.

So maybe this "simple entertainment" is all there ever will be in PVP, who knows. I am not experienced to have seen all PVP games there are, so who knows. I dont really mind it. Sometimes I watch a simple sit-com episode. Thats also simplistic entertainment. But I cant entertain myself in such ways often, and I think they dont replace my desire for more complex and advanced entertaiment, and atm I dont see this in PVP, or better in the PVP I have seen so far.

One way would be to make the question who controls the keeps more influental to everyone in the game, and to make sure a conquered keep is not swapped in ownership every few minutes. Or making death more meaningful, but all this would have their pros and cons.

It is a good thing pretentiousness isn't communicable via internet forums.  We would all be infected from this thread. 

If you are wanting realism maybe they should add perma-death along with a requirement to eat.  This way you can just camp outside the keep for a few months (real-time of course since we are going for realism) and just starve out the defenders.  That sounds like a real hoot!  I doubt it could keep my highly evolved brain pacified for more than 8 minutes though.

Oh no!  I've got the pretentious!

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Actually this has been announced as "coming up" in the following months. Guilds will be able to upgrade keeps and customize them. Open RvR influence is just the first in a series of open RvR boosts to come.

"Fourth, we want to encourage guilds to take and control keeps, and we will continue our work on adding better rewards for Guilds who own Keeps as well as the addition of a system of Keep upgrades. This system will be added to the game in several stages beginning in the late winter."

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Late winter of 2008. Given how long something like this usually takes design teams to design, test, perfect and implement, would it be fair to say that the earliest they could IMPLEMENT this in would be late summer of 2009 into Fall 2009?

Or do they mean late winter of this year, which goes into March of 2009? That link was pretty vague.

Originally posted by popinjay

 

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Actually this has been announced as "coming up" in the following months. Guilds will be able to upgrade keeps and customize them. Open RvR influence is just the first in a series of open RvR boosts to come.

 

"Fourth, we want to encourage guilds to take and control keeps, and we will continue our work on adding better rewards for Guilds who own Keeps as well as the addition of a system of Keep upgrades. This system will be added to the game in several stages beginning in the late winter."

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Late winter of 2008. Given how long something like this usually takes design teams to design, test, perfect and implement, would it be fair to say that the earliest they could IMPLEMENT this in would be late summer of 2009 into Fall 2009?

Or do they mean late winter of this year, which goes into March of 2009? That link was pretty vague.

 

This really merits no attempt at a reasonable response. I'm speechless at how far you're willing to go to post ANYTHING negative about WAR, no matter how ridiculous or pointless it is. "late winter of 2008" means before the spring - that's 23 of march if I'm not mistaken - and they're doing it for free. 90% of the mmo companies would make something of this magnitude a part of a paid expansion - and yet they are giving it away... and without it even being a part of pre-release feature set (like those classes). If they were giving away free porsches with each monthly subscription you'd say you don't like the color. What is the matter with you?