Still on my Soapbox

I know this is only the fourth post, and I know that I’m supposed to be talkng about leveling (seeing as how it is my favorite thing to do), but I’m not yet done ranting about PvP.  Hey – It’s my blog, if you don’t like it, take it elsewhere!

Anybody left?  Just a few?  Okay.  Actually, seeing how closely coupled PvP is in WAR, you really can’t avoid it and level with any kind of speed, so I am still talking about the ding.  As I have mentioned before, PvP in WAR is a great way to level up, which is why I do it.  It’s just frustratng when you get into a scenario and get trounced.  I don’t mind losing (much) as long as it’s not by a couple of hundred points.

I was on my main, Serica (Witch Hunter, 30 [w00t!  I dinged since the last post!]) and we were running the High Pass Cemetery scenario.  Now, I’m really bad about not reading load screens, so I will admit to ignorance as to exactly how the scenario worked.  I know, I know…gimme a sec.  It’s part of my point.  I generally just come out into scenario and follow along behind folks and shoot Destro when it shows up.  If we stop at a flag, I’ll stop, too.  I won’t carry the McGuffin, though, (if it’s that kind of scenario) unless it’s by accident.  I’m just too darn squishy. 

Anyhow, I’ve only run this scenario a couple of times before (due to the insane amount of love Tor Anroc gets) so dutifully followed the pack over to the nearest flag and parked for a sec.  When the majoity of them moved on, I made sure some folks were staying with our flag and moved on with them.  Woo hoo, killing time!  We were actually doing pretty well, targeting healers and taking them down and cleaning up the rest.

I looked up at the scores, though, and we were lagging pretty badly.  I was confused, so I asked about it in scenario chat.  Someone responded “Have to have both points.  Group stay at flag, the rest with me”.  So that’s what we did.

We WRECKED them.  Everyone sort of rotated in and out of flag guarding duty and destroying Destro duty.  We held both points for the majority of the match and only (temporarily) lost one or the other.  We wound up with something like 500 to 145, and I got 10K shiny XPs to my next ding!

So what, you ask?  If we were killing them that easily, we would have won anyhow?  Maybe, maybe not.  Like I said, we were lagging behind pretty badly.  The reason we won as well as we did was simple: Communication.  That one directive (and make no mistake, he was telling, not asking) told everyone in the scenario what they should be doing and to go do it.

I run too many scenarios where not a single word is said in scenario chat.  Well, except for expletives and whining that Destro always wins.  It doesn’t take much, just a quick note to let folks know what to do can make a huge difference.  Just letting them know what you are doing can make just as big a difference.

Don’t be afraid to speak up.  If someone knows better, or has a better plan, then do that.  But having any kind of plan, and letting folks in on it, is vastly better than twelve people running in random directions doing random things.

If it moves…

“If it moves, kill it. If it heals, kill it faster!” – Unknown

So, getting back to my original point, I’m gonna come in here, having absolutely no idea what I’m talking about and bad-mouth and trash talk a lot of people who have undoubtedly been doing this longer than I have. Hence the title of n00b, because that’s what they are all going to call me, right before they demand that I get off their boards and out of their internets.

So here is what I want to know: Why does Order suck so bad in PvP? Before the KotBS hit, my buddy Ventris kept saying “We have no tanks. As soon as we have tanks, we’re going to kill all Destro!” Uh-huh. That lasted, oh, about until they nerfed On Your Guard.

I was on the other night on my main (Serica, 29 Witch Hunter) and figured I would jump in the queue to kill time between quests. Boom, scenario pops and we’re doing Phoenix Gate. Run in, hit Incognito, jump the healer and start Abso-spamming. Suddenly I have 2 tanks and a Maurader eating me up, dead. OK, no big deal, they are just protecting their healers. Re-spawn, rinse, repeat. This time I look at what my team is doing.

They are skirmishing the tanks.

Destro healers, support, ranged DPS all sitting behind a wall of Black Orcs and Chosen hammering the heck out of the Order troops. And the Order guys are just hacking away, while the Destro support heals their tanks faster than they can be damaged. Even the Order healers are attacking the tanks. Granted a Warrior Priest can heal some that way, but I don’t think that’s what they were doing. Not based on how fast they all went down.

The thing that really amazed me was that Order had the level advantage. The Destro side was full of 23s and 24s, while Order was predominantly 27-30. We should have been handing them their heads, not team wiping. And this happened over and over again, for 15 agonizing minutes. The final score? Destro 397, Order 14.

So I pop back to Talabecland, moderately PO’ed, and figure that the next scenario has to be better and queue myself back up again. Boy, was I wrong. Different PUG for Order (I think there was one or maybe two names from the previous group I recognized), but the Destro group was about 75% the guys from the last scenario. And they were organized, too. I could not get hardly any strikes against one of them before a wave of DPS would crash down on top of me. I don’t remember the exact score this time, but I know Order did not break 20. Again.

So this goes on. For the next 4 scenarios, we get pwnt so hard my pwny is aching. Finally, at about 2 in the morning, something goes right and we actually compete. We still lose, but at least made Destro work for it. I decided to declare victory and log off then.

Now that I’m done ranting, I’m sure you would like to know what I think we need to do to fix this. Well, I’ll tell you. It seems to me that Order has lost sight of the roles they need to play in PvP to be successful. So, without further ado, a breakdown by class/role for priorities in PvP:

Tanks (KotBS, Ironbreakers, Swordmasters) – Kill their healers, protect yours.
Melee DPS (Witch Hunter, White Lion) – Kill their healers, then kill the rest.
Ranged DPS (Bright Mage, Shadow Warrior) – Kill their healers, then kill the rest.
Support (Archmage, Warrior Priest) – Support the tanks, kill the healers.

See anything similar? Then do it!

PvP for the Ding!

OK, let me be up front about this – I’m a n00b. Not a newb, which would be forgivable, or even a noob, but an honest-to-deity, card-carrying n00b. I’ve never PvP’ed before playing Warhammer Online.

MMOs, sure, I’ve played them. Ultima Online, Everquest, City of Heroes, WoW and now WAR (not to mention Guild Wars, EVE Online, SWG and a host of freebies.  But I digress…). But, PvP was always something I regarded the same way you regard something repulsive on the bottom of your shoe. Something to be discarded, scraped off, and left and forgotten as soon as possible. Until WAR.

WAR made PvP bright and shiny. It was dead stupid easy, just click a button and sign up for every scenario you are eligible for. Get the call, finish your fight, back away and you are whisked off to a glorious battle where you can run around in circles mashing buttons madly and somehow manage to only die six or seven times. But the really fantastic part? You get experience points for this.

Yep. The devs are going to give me the same amount of XP I can earn (doing a quest and turn-in) for 15 minutes (sometimes less) of shooting my fool head off. Not only that, but you get Renown in PvP – I get to watch TWO shiny bars go up! *swoon!* If I could jsut figure out how to do a PQ at the same time, I could have all three bars going at the same time.  I’m not sure my heart could take that.
 
There was a big to-do over in the City of Heroes/Villains franchise about PvP.  A lot of changes were made, supposedly to entice people to try PvP.  The devs actually asked the question “What would it take to get you to PvP in CoX?”  This was my answer.   XP.  Give me XP for PvP.  And not some paltry, second-thought amount.  Give me enough that I can level.  You want people to play PvP in your game?  Then make it *part of the game*, not an afterthought.