IGN has Mechwarrior interview - The game IS coming :)

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002164p1.html

And yeah, WAR blogging will return shortly ;)

Mechwarrior 5

Ok this isn't about WAR, so bite me :P

I'm a huge fan of the Mechwarrior games, in fact I still have Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries installed and am tinkering with the single player campaign again. I used to be in an excellent clan (Alpha Strike) for MW4 and played online a LOT. They really are great online shooters, these are games where team play, cooperation and cunning will beat brute force and ignorance. I can't wait for the new version :) There's a bunch of my guildies that used to play MW4, so expect to see Kill Frenzy stomping about in Mechwarrior 5 :)

More MechWarrior News & Previews

I notice I'm not the only blogger interested in this, seem Rivs spotted it before me. And judging by the effect on his crotch he's as excited as me :P

Balancing the Bomb

Bomb groups… bloody nasty things. The vast majority of WAR players will have encountered the horror of facing a bomb group, but as I know I’ve a bunch of readers that aren’t playing right now, I shall first explain what these terrors are.

Bright Wizards and Sorcerers have very powerful PBAoE (Point Blank Area of Effect) nuke spells, the damage is quite simply insane and is going to get the crap nerfed out of it, but for now it’s live and bloody dangerous. A bomb group uses these spells to maximum effect by having a tank using guard on the PBAoE spell caster combined with a team heal spamming healer. The casters and tanks open with AoE stuns/disables/etc to stop their targets escaping and then they spam the PBAoE to kill all the targets in seconds. It’s brutally effective.

Order and Destruction can both make use of this tactic, with each faction having slightly different advantages. Order has Bright Wizards that do a bit more damage than Sorcerers and they also have the Knight of the Blazing Sun, a tank whose AoE stun makes it almost impossible to escape once you’re in the bomb radius. Where as Destruction can use a Rift specced Magus to pull people from range into the bomb radius, then use the (less reliable) pet detonation stun and lay the smack down with the Magus’ considerable PBAoE. The Order groups are harder to escape from and the Destruction one has more control.

If the group is built with these abilities in mind, I don’t think either side has an too much of an edge. Typical Bomb groups will look something like this:

Order
Knight of the Blazing Sun
Knight of the Blazing Sun
Bright Wizard
Bright Wizard
Warrior Priest
Warrior Priest

Destruction
Chosen
Magus (Rift specced)
Sorcerer
Sorcerer
Disciple of Khaine
Shaman

I think it’s fair to say that a well-played bomb group is top of the pile and has a huge advantage in WAR. If you’re in a more mixed up group that’s not using bomb tactics, then against an equally skilled and organised bomb group… well… basically you’re buggered.

Bomb groups capitalise on the current prevalence of Crowd Control and AoE in WAR and there’s nothing wrong with that, people are just playing to their strengths. The problem is that this creates cookie cutter groups and risks isolating and annoying people that either don’t want to, or don’t have the option of, running in a bomb group.

I was running a group in Praag a few days ago, it wasn’t an uber group, far from it. I had some mates that had returned to the game and me and a couple of others were showing them round Praag. Our group consisted of my level 40 Chosen, a 28 Zealot, 35 DoK, 35 Shaman and a 40 Sorcerer. Hardly ideal, but they’re all good MMO players and we’d been holding our own against groups full of 40s. Then we walked round a corner and into one of our server’s Forum Ego Monkeys™ and his pet bomb group. It was a Knight of the Blazing Sun, 2 Wizards, a Warrior Priest and someone else that I don’t remember.

We died in seconds, a full wipe in a handful of bloody seconds. Not because the enemy was particularly good, just because we instantly had no control over our characters due to CC and their PBAoE damage output was so high that it killed all of us before the first unbreakable stun had worn off. It was impossible for us to have done anything. Now, I’m not complaining about them doing this at all. That would be hugely hypocritical since I regularly run in a Rift-Bomb group myself, yet I do think it demonstrates how these groups make a mockery of other set ups. Yes my group was a weak one, but regardless it should not be possible to wipe any viable Tier 4 group faster than the duration of unbreakable CC. Otherwise you’re just left with early DAoC style “who CC first wins”, wild accusations of being OP, claims of balancing being fooked and also risk players leveling in tier 4 feeling they can’t join in oRvR (it's not like they dont get shit already for daring to do scenarios).

Amusingly with the above incident, the Order players felt the need to laugh at our corpses and taunt us. Ironic considering not only was most of my group lowbies, but also a day or two before when I was in a more hardcore guild group doing scenarios, we ran into the same Forum Ego Monkey™ and farmed the crap out of them. :P Perhaps that’s another problem with bomb groups, it gives people delusions of grandeur… :D Not that I suffer from that at all, ehem.

Another example… I mentioned recently about us doing particularly well in Praag a few days back. We had a guild warband of two and a half groups and went up against (no exaggeration) 3 times our number of Order that were heading towards our warcamp. By using calm and coordinated Rift Bomb pulls, we cut our way through them, wiping the bloody lot and ending up at Martyrs. It wasn’t a one off either, when they resumed their attack we did it again, though we had another group or so of Destruction with us for the second fight so I won’t claim too much glory there. But then how much glory is there to claim? Yes we wiped 3 times our number, yes we were very organised on ventrilo and OMFG did we earn a lot of invader, etc as loot, but would it have even been possible to without us working as an oversized Rift-bomb group? I’m confident we would have done well, that batch of enemies can’t have been properly organised for this to have happened, but surely their numbers should have eventually taken us down? I mean 3-1 mannnnnnn....

Clearly bombing is over powered and I think it’s hard to argue that it’s anything but bad for the game. Will I stop running in our rift-bomb groups? Hell no. We have to be competitive or enemies will have our city on farm status, there’s no third faction for underdogs to work with in WAR. Once you’re on the back foot you’re in bloody trouble. Whilst it would be nice to be all sweetness and light, we can’t afford to drop certain abilities and/or tactics because they’re overpowered. No quarter given, blah, blah…

It’s down to Mythic to give us more diversity in powerful play styles and escape from “who CCs first wins”. Thankfully their next collection of patches is going to be all about balancing our characters. We know that AoE is getting nerfed and that CC is going to be seriously looked at. Assuming this spells the end of bombing, will we get an even playing field? No doubt us devious players will discover the next over powered combo, but can Mythic make it so that in future we have at worst only slightly overpowered options, rather than the (almost) auto-win groups of doom that we have now?

With 2 factions and a total of 24 classes, it’s an unenviable task.

Land of the Dead review – first follow up comments

There has been a most definite RvR resurgence on Karak-Norn. Since I wrote my first review of LotD I’ve seen a steady increase in activity outside of LotD, which includes people that have gained access to LotD staying to fight in Tier 4 instead of running for the flightmaster.

MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT

Recently my guild had some epic battles in Praag against much greater numbers of Order and I have to say we performed amazingly well. We only had 2 and a half groups in our warband, but we managed to repeatedly wipe 3 times our number outside the Destruction warcamp in Praag. The old Rift bot / Chosen / various AoE combo was in full effect and resulted in an insane amount of loot :D After a while Order wised up and started sending large numbers around to flank us, which got a bit hairy as warbands hit us from multiple directions. We refused to run and fought to the death :D Great fun. Also I have to salute all the Order we fought in Praag that night, when they gained LotD access they stayed put and kept fighting. We had a great couple of hours fighting and I’m really looking forward to more.

MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT

Moments like this becoming more regular again bodes well for LotD’s long term impact on WAR. I can see it settling in as a nice alternative optional thing to do, rather than being the entire end game in a zone. It’s been particularly pleasing to see Order (and to a limited extent Destruction) gain LotD access but still go on a big T4 RvR offensive, instead of just vanishing into the desert. I’ve taken part in some decent sized fortress battles, which actually ran pretty well too. Possibly this is a side effect of players being spread out across the game world more and the zones not being so stretched, Mythic would have to confirm that, but whatever it was a refreshing change.

MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT

Unfortunately due to a bunch of our healers being on holiday/stuff I’ve barely got to the Tomb of the Vulture Lord again. The one time recently that I did get in there we had a bit of a sods law moment, which demonstrated another thing with the Invasion system that I think could do with some tweaking. Order invaded the instance seconds before we wiped on the boss, which meant we couldn’t respawn. That’s a bit poor really, if we get invaded I’d like to at least have a chance to fight the Order. I’ve no problem at all with being purged and kicked out of the zone by the Order killing us, but being booted out purely by Order entering the instance is frustrating. Perhaps if we get invaded during a boss fight, we could have a one off respawn somewhere near the boss. Then we’d actually get a fight. A minor gripe perhaps, it’s not going to happen all the time or anything, but a frustration none the less.

MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT

Anyways, things seem to be settling down with LotD, which is all good. For me the only thing I'm really interested in with LotD is the Tomb of the Vulture Lord and the odd skirmish, but should I fancy popping into some Lairs or doing a few PQs, then it is nice to have more options.

Oh and one more thing... MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT

What is next, a Zippy mount?

Anyone else noticed that the special Manticore mounts look remarkably like Bungle from Rainbow?

Durtbocks from Kill Frenzy submitted this photo evidence:

Land of the Dead review type thing

Well then chaps, we’re a few days post launch of Lands of the Dead and now seems an appropriate time for a little review of how things have gone so far. Please note this is based on my experiences on Karak-Norn which is one of Europe’s busiest servers, but this may not be the experience of other people. More than in most MMOs your experience of WAR can vary dependent on server population.

A general note before I go off though, things would be working a LOT better IF GUILD CHAT BLOODY WORKED in LotD. Seriously guys, you hot fixed various little things and left that still broken? Sort that out pls :) Okies now I've got that shouty bit out of the way, onwards...

Has LotD delivered the RvR heaven we were promised?
No. In fact make that a resounding no, with a daemonic reverb effect and 100ft flaming letters. So far LotD has proven to be primarily a PvE experience with small bursts of RvR thrown in. Alongside that it has drained the tier 4 zones of players and I can no longer log in and RvR whenever I want. This is bad, really, really bad. Previously WAR was an RvR game with PvE as an alternative option, right now on my server it’s a PvE game with some RvR now and again.

If you are not currently subscribed to WAR then you might wondering how this expansion has basically stopped RvR, seeing as the key selling point for it was a thriller of a RvR zone. Basically what happens is… Order are in Land of the Dead, Destruction are on their own in the normal tier 4 zones. Destruction has to PvE lock zones to gain access to LotD. Due to the fact there’s very few (if any) Order to fight, this can take an hour or so. This also means you spend most of your time doing nothing, once you’ve claimed the Battle Objectives and Keeps you’re left just watching timers tick down. You can’t get any skirmish or scenario points, as there are no players to fight. Then when Destruction gets access to LotD they all rush over, quickly purge any Order that can be found and are then left with PvE in LotD. Order that got purged are then back in tier 4, it’s now their turn to PvE the zone locks and Destruction are PvEing. Annnnnd repeat…

This isn’t purely the design of LotD’s fault, it contributes of course, but more than anything it boils down to what players are choosing to do. Our greed for flashy new loot and something new wins through. People are choosing to be in Land of the Dead instances or buried away somewhere else PvEing amongst the desert sands. A lot of people are staying in Tomb of the Vulture Lord trying to beat it. They could of course decide to stay in tier 4 and fight each other, but whilst LotD is all new and shiney this hasn’t been happening and it won’t stop 'till people get enough.


On the positive side there are signs that this is changing, Tier4 RvR is on the increase, but it needs to improve fast. Big name players are quitting, guilds are dying and even within my own guild I’m seeing people getting very negative about LotD. And it’s fair enough, most of us play WAR for RvR, if we wanted PvE we’d go elsewhere. The big question is will enough players decide to kick start the RvR campaign themselves, or will Mythic have to respond with something off the wall?

Is the RvR in Land of the Dead any good?
Yes. The RvR doesn’t last long because after being killed if you release it’s only the controlling side that will respawn within Land of the Dead. The other side respawns in their home city and are locked out. It’s all gone too soon. However the fighting within LotD can be great, particularly inside invaded instances. I remember the time we trapped some poor group of Order against a huge skeletal boss, then slowly cut them apart and another classic moment where I was alone against 5 Order as we desperately tried to shove each other into the swinging axe trap, the rest of my group stuck on the otherside could only try and keep me healed and cheer me on over ventrilo (it ended badly for me :P ).

There’s also been some very cool group/warband scale skirmishing. My guild tends to keep away from the zerg and this has led to some great run ins against Order doing the same thing. Seriously if you wanna be startin’ somethin’ then you need to get away from the zerg and hunt down people across the zone, it’s much more fun.

What about the Public Quests?
There’s a few that aint so hot, for example the jar collecting ones are dull, the carrion one is rather glitchy and the roaming PQ Ricci’s Raiders is a bloody myth, but the majority of them are a huge improvement over all the PQs we’ve seen in WAR so far. I’ve not got the names of them in front of me now, but I’ve quite enjoyed most and there’s several I really like. The one down south with the huge skeletal giant surrounded by scaffolding is very cool, as is the Simon Says combination game outside the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, though if you’ve got idiots there you can’t win. In general the PQs are well thought out, engaging and make mob grinding (which essentially is all that MMO PvE ever is) enjoyable.

Lairs worth a visit?
It would seem so. Instanced lairs are the right way to go, I hope Mythic consider reviewing all other Lairs and making them instanced too. I’ve only done 2 so far and as such I can’t comment too much, though feedback I’ve heard has been very positive. From what I’ve seen myself so far I’ve been impressed with their design and think Mythic are on the right track with lairs here, but I’ve not been at all pleased with the buggy boss in the Tomb of the Sun. A one mob dungeon should not be bugged, this makes me want to scream.

So how was the Tomb of the Vulture Lord?
It’s great. This is the big instanced dungeon where Tyrant armour drops, the place with the infamous traps, enemy player invasions and difficult new bosses. I’m not going to say too much and spoil it for people, but from my experiences in there so far it has some excellent boss events and brilliant atmosphere. I love the traps; I’ve not had so much fun being frustrated by something in ages. Not since the wife decided to… uhm, in fact I’ll not go there.

It does need a bit of work with invading, there seem to be a few bugs with the invasion PQ ending and the loot appearing at all, plus there can be a lot of waiting around if the enemy poke their head in and then just leave. Also for people that are more into PvE, with the invasions you may end up saying just leave me alone.

To summarise...
Land of the Dead is atmospheric, has great graphics and has made some big steps forward with WAR’s PvE. It brings us good new instances, easily accessible loot and a wide range of things to do. However it hasn’t yet revolutionised RvR and instead is having a negative effect on PvP across my (and other’s) server, but I’m hoping that will not be a long term issue. It seems like players are already filtering back to tier 4 for some more reliable fighting, but “seems” is not enough, it must happen. LotD should be a sideline, not the main game. The tier 4 campaign and the RvR within is the core of this game, if you’re out in tier 4 looking for a fight, then you need to know that you are not alone and that you can get a PvP fight when you want.

LotD is cool, but I don’t think it’s gone to plan for Mythic. It’s black or white really, we need regular and reliable RvR back or people’s copies of WAR will just go in the closet. But instead of it being down to Mythic to fix, perhaps this time its us as players that need to sort it. Time for us all to look at the man in the mirror.

Should Land of the Dead be open ALL the time? Or should it be this, or that...

"Should Land of the Dead be open ALL the time?" is a question that lots of people are asking.

At the moment the oRvR and scenario scene in vanilla Tier 4 zones has almost totally dried up. Zones are being locked without any enemy to kill, they're all off hitting skeletons. No surprise there, people were always going to want to spend time in Land of the Dead when it came out, there's a load of cool things to go see.


But how long until the novelty wears off?


Until it does, it looks like the vanilla Tier 4 campaign will remain a predominantly PvE experience and Land of the Dead has already proven to be as much (if not more) about PvE as it is PvP. Short dramatic bursts of PvP followed by PvE.


When undefended cities' star ratings plumment and players realise they're not gaining much renown in LotD, will they be naturally drawn back to fighting in the RvR lakes of Tier 4? I hope so, otherwise the current back and forth access to LotD could prove to be more of a hinderance to RvR than a reason for it. It will probably be a while before we see how this will work out, but should LotD prove to prevent RvR, then Mythic may have to consider leaving the gates open.


A fully RvR enabled zone, with constant access available. Masses of fighting whenever you want! No more tumbleweed tiers! Sounds great eh?

Ahhh... but then would that mean the PvE content would become utterly impossible due to constant attacks by the enemy? Would we have one giant clusterfuck of every player in one zone? Oh bugger...

It's all very easy for us bloggers and forum posters to criticise Mythic and come up with our own amazing solutions (something I'm obviously guilty of), but in reality evolving a live RvR themed MMO game to find that perfect balance between PvP and PvE must be a total nightmare. Maybe our ideas would work, but maybe they'd do even more damage and we're too naive to realise.

Not that knowing that will stop us thinking we know best. Just like when watching the football... I know that we should be playing a 4-4-2, why can't that twat of a manager see it? It's obvious.