Wednesday 11 March 2009

Mmmmm Gud - review

Well time to appraise what I've been enjoying in WAR this last week or so. Things won't always change, there will be certain aspects I always enjoy so will always remain in the list, but I'll try to put a fresh perspective on them so as to avoid it being a copy/paste job each week.

1) Cultivation
I'm really enjoying this now. Prior to 1.2 I had a lowbie alt with 200 Cultivation (levelled without any repeatable quest seeds) but once he got to 200 I pretty much stopped doing anything with it due to lacking the time to invest in making sense of all my seeds. Now with the system streamlined it's much more accessible, you glace at your bags to see what you get from a special moment (would be great to get more than dye and an improved seed though, maybe a one shot special seed or spore? to give you a random effect, doesn't have to be a bonus to stats or skills, maybe something to make you glow, change your appearance or whatever). I've just been spending time in the game planting away even though I'm at 200, just chatting and making posts for the blog. Mmmmmm gud!

2) More fixes in 1.2.1
Nothing mentioned yet over than another 400 fixes. Thumbs up, never say no to getting the game smoothed out!

3) Easy PQ's
OK, really enjoying this as well, go into a t4 area and just smash some stunties over and over with influence, the chance of seeds (see Cultivation above). Being able to feel like I can read a story, while putting the boot in AND getting rewarded for it, either on my own or with a great friend while chatting away over Vent or spamming each other. Great on your own, better with a mate! Think I'll list my T4 favourite easy PQ's and see how they compare to others.

4) Continual open RvR in the lakes
Only happened once this week but still enjoy seeing ranks battle each other, shame it's not happening as often as I'd like it. There needs to be more incentive for armies to meet each other on the battlefield and not just zone hop once they have finished a clash. Increasing the renown for a pitch battle over time instead of making it slow down to single points as people die. hmm, I sense another post idea coming up.... *thinkz*

5) Exploring!
This week I found one of the new lairs and discovered a couple more tome unlocks for history and lore. Do yourself a favour and just read some of them. One of my favourites will become a basis of another post at some point. Just take a wander through a zone you didn't spend much time in... Your Choppa or Slayer will still be there when you get back. There's no rush...

So that was my top five things I've been enjoying or am looking forward to in WAR this week. WAR's Darkness Falls (I always forget what it's called) has dropped out the list for a reason, again this will be the basis for a post. Is it really going to be a good addition to WAR?

What's your top five?

3 comments:

  1. Always nice to play together pepper :) and ayiee we got some nice seeds that night!

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  2. I'd like to contest your fourth choice of fun things about WAR there Lok, oRvR is very hit and miss for me at the moment. I find that it needs a very careful balance of players numbers-wise to get any kind of enjoyment out of it. Obviously, equal forces on both sides goes without saying. But too few and it's all just running around without doing any actual fighting, and too many and either anything of any significance gets done by everyone else, meaning there's no point you being there, or it becomes nigh-on-impossible to actually kill anyone due to the incredible mass of heals being directed at your target.

    Equally Keeps are pretty boring, both to attack and defend. As a ranged DPS I'm pretty much useless when the doors have been breached. And nearly useless before then. No burst dps to speak of, so can't actually kill anyone before they move out of combat and regenerate all their health, either by moving out of range if I'm on the wall or moving out of LoS if I'm outside attacking. Which leaves me with killing the door/oil OR stand there and spam the same three buttons for 10 minutes. YAWN.

    The most fun I've had in oRvR has been when there's been one to two parties of HoBs running around together, taking on similar sized groups of Order and generally being quite tactical and sneaky. This is reliant on there being a big destro zerg somewhere keeping the Order zerg at bay, allowing us to enjoy these thoroughly enjoyable smaller scale skirmishes, which thanks to Domination system actually serve some purpose.

    Couple of problems with pursuing this kind of experience: It's already readily available in the form of scenario's, which when in a premade are the most fun I have playing WAR at the moment. Which is a little bit of a shame, as the game is meant to be about the oRvR. Secondly, small group tactics only work in the specific circumstances where you can avoid becoming the attention of a larger force, necessitating an allied larger force to take the heat off you whilst you do your thing, and it also doesn't really work in the more Open zones where Order can see you from a bloody mile off! We need more zones like Praag, which are pretty maze like, and less zones like Chaos Wastes / Dragonwake / Eataine / Kadrin Valley, where the action is all out in the open and funnelled, making it extremely hard to be sneaky. Fights in these zones inevitably end up being just two large groups bumping against each other, like wrestling jelly. You can pull bits off here and there but there always seems to be more of it.

    One final thought for improving ORvR, possibly allow the BOs to act as spawn points, as they do in FPSers like Battlefield 1942. More incentive to capture them, and less likely to reduce the battle to a warcamp-camp.

    For the record, the top five for me would be:

    1) Killing Bright Wizards - play a class/spec that doesn't use massive AoE as a crutch for a lack of play ability, dammit!

    2) Killing Witch Hunters - Something tremendously satisfying seeing a Witch Hunter jump out at you and hit you with a damage-whilst-moving debuff, only for myself to don my squig armour and melee dps them to death ^_^ Also great fun to kite if my Initiative breaks there stealth.

    3) Killing White Lions - See above comment about bright wziards, but replace massive AoE with Pounce and Fetch. Also really good fun to kite, they keep pouncing to where I used to be XD

    4) Scenarios - Best part of the game at the moment for me

    5) Mucking around in T1 - Plus side of having 9 alts pre-rolled, always something to do when I'm bored with Snikkit. Having a lot of fun with oRvR in T1 where there are no Keeps to grind against.

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  3. Whoops, there goes my lunchbreak! Lol. Sorry for the rant....

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