I don’t think I’ve ever seen a WAR live event cause such mixed opinion. Some very vocal people have been calling it out for being a load of PvE rubbish, some have been saying it promoted great RvR around the portals and then others just loved the whole thing. I found it a bit of a mixed bag.
The Hunters Vale
The instance was good. Ok, other than the cloak there was bugger all gear relevant to me, but to be honest it would have sucked if the dungeon brought in the latest uber weapon of doom. It doesn’t have to be an arms race anytime something new arrives; sideways itemisation is no bad thing. By giving the dungeon armour from the Ruin set, moderate weapon drops and the stag cloak, it ensured that instance was relevant to everyone.
The dungeon itself looked great. It was very pretty and absolutely nailed the wood spirit theme. The mini bosses were not the most exciting ever tactic wise, but that’s fine for a live event, you don’t want to be researching tactics for an instance available for just one week. The puzzle and main boss fight (which had a bit more too it) worked perfectly, not too hard to learn, but not one everyone would instantly beat either. Also having the PQ timer to complete the instance in (or you got less loot) added a bit of spice to the dungeon as a whole. On the subject of time, Mythic got this exactly right. Depending on your group it took between 20 to 45mins to complete, which is spot on. I like mixing in PvE to my gaming, but I don’t like having to spend 4 hours in a dungeon. I’d love it if Mythic added lots of instances on a similar scale to Hunter’s Vale. Oh and I didn’t encounter a single bug in HV.
Stag chasing…
For a week Benny Hill has been alive, well and playing WAR. There were these Lord level Stags that run through the zones and if attacked they just keep running. Part of the Live Event required us to kill these 5 times, which obviously resulted in zergs of players chasing bloody Stags around everywhere trying to hit the damned thing. The zerging whilst funny to watch was dull as hell to take part in, but if you chased a stag in a quiet area it was potentially great fun. I grouped up with Khalie a sorc from Kill Frenzy and we went stag hunting in Etaine. At first there was nobody else there, but then a few Order turned up and joined in. What followed was running battles around the zone trying to not lose sight of the stag, while fighting off enemies. It was actually a brilliant laugh. Small scale combat rocks ;)
You’re the Piggy Pig!
Some of the other popular tasks were killing or being killed as “beast hexed” players. What happened here was whilst in the PQ area people could get a hex on them, they then had 20 seconds or so to pass the hex onto another player or they would turn into a pig. This could be both frustrating and fun. When in Zergland it was very hard to get credit, but in smaller scale stuff it was most amusing. It also provided the epic title “Squeals like a pig”. Alas no banjo though.
Other bits.
Other tasks were a bit meh. Kill a variety of animals, a brief PvE quest, do some elf scenarios, that sort of thing. Nothing to shout out about.
All in all, it was a fairly good event. If you got into it and ignored the “its all PvE” crying then you’d find there was something for everyone and I certainly had some quality PvP scraps out of it. The dungeon shows great potential and I really hope Mythic pick up on this. On the negative side there were too many humdrum tasks and I know some people had problems completing certain tasks because of zerging.
Not as much fun as the Night of Murder one, but it had its moments.
I think that the live event wasn't too bad.. It's no hooray-event, but still a nice one. It's an ok mix of PvE and RvR. The dungeon itself is a good one..although it's too..elfish ;)
ReplyDeleteI haven't tried everything, but the things I've done were fun. I think it's cool that it's not always the same thing.
Now we had live events with PQ's in RvR lakes, other ORvR tasks, special scenarios, mindless NPC-farming..and a dungeon in the RvR lake.. imo it's a nice mix.
I really enjoy Live Events and the Wild Hunt had its good things and bad things.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind the checklist of things to do. Some of the creatures on the Hunter's List were in out of the way places so I was able to explore zones I never really took the time to previously.
I really didn't think I was going to finish this one ... because of the "Kill 5 Hexed Players" item and the "Target the Stag of Kurnous".
Killing 5 hexed players was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Having a PQ in the middle of an RvR lake is pretty cool. It typically brings out players from both sides and this event was no different. There were some awesome battles going on in the Elf zones all week. But get the chance to sneak a pig kill when there's a zerg of Destro and you are alone ... well ... it ain't gonna happen. I got most of mine either early in the day or late at night.
That stupid stag was a real bugger, too. The one to kill wasn't so bad ... unless you've been chasing him all over the map and have him near death only to get ganked by a party of Destro who then steal the kill. LOL That happened a couple time. The one to target was really a challenge. In trying to find him I heard stories of players seeing him multiple times a day and those that never saw him. And I was doinf RvR. I eventually did but was thinking how potentially impossible this could have been.
I really enjoyed the Hunter's Vale. For those that saw the PvE sucks in WAR, sorry, not all of it does. This was a lot of fun. I ran the thing close to 10 times on two different toons and it never bugged out. It was challenging and fun and I enjoyed riding an eagle. I'd love to see more things like this.
And I agree, just because WAR is an RvR/PvP game doesn't mean we all only want to do that. Looking forward to three weekends of scenario live events!
I got lucky with that Stag with both the characters I did the live event for. I didn't go looking for it at all, it literally just strolled past and I clicked. I saw plenty of others searching high and low for it. Random...
ReplyDeleteRegarding the instance, I think it should be the way Mythic goes from now on. Short, entertaining and well made instances. These would have the added bonus of not being a headache to drop out of should you need to drop out to go defend something.