Warhammer Online: Second Impressions

Let me start by saying that I really want to like this game. Really. I can see the potential of the game, and I have friends who are playing it. But time and time again, I find myself utterly disgusted with the game. That isn't to say the game is bad, but there are so many problems - large and small - which just keep me from being able to enjoy the game.

I'll start with the smaller problems. Firstly, I mentioned Public Quest before. They're great, I love em. But there has been a problem with them recently. As you progress with the game, and move onto more difficult areas. You find more and more of these public quest. In a single area, for one chapter there can be three or four different public quest for you to do. The problem with this is, there are too many PQs, and too few people to do all of them. If there were only one, or in some cases two PQs - more people would be able to focus on a single PQ instead of being spread out among many PQs. So the problem I've been experiencing recently is there aren't enough people to complete the public quest.

This is pretty troublesome considering the PQs are one aspect of growing your character in the game. In both levels and gear. And when there aren't enough people working together to complete a public quest, you start to miss out on opportunities to advance your character. Like I've said, Public Quest are a really great idea. But there's no point if nobody is doing them.

Another problem is I think I might have picked the wrong class. I'm not entirely sure yet. The Sorceress is a glass cannon. I'm not really used to playing glass cannons, and that might be part of my problem. However I seem to do fine in PVE, I just have problems in PVP. Though it's hard to say, because there are way too many things wrong with WAR's PVP at this point in time for me to really be sure why I hate it so much.

So enough beating around the bush here, the real problem with WAR lies in it's PVP. I've touched on the RVR previously. And unfortunately I'm going to have to complain about it again.

Let me start off by explaining the three RVR battles I just had. They were all in the Nordenwatch area. This is a first tier RVR scenario for levels 1-11. I'm level 11 myself. The first game we got stomped on. Their team outmatched us in just about every way. They had several level 11s, 10s, and 9s. We had a bunch of low levels. So admittedly this wasn't too surprising, especially for the Destruction side. I did about 15k damage and got 7 kills. Meanwhile Bright Wizards on the Order side were doing just as much damage, but they had 40 kills. Yeah, balance. We lost something like 500 to 150.

The next game pitted us against a group of low level Order. They had 1 11, and 1 10, and a bunch of 5s and 6s. On our side we had 1 11, 2 10s, and a handful of other levels. We won that round pretty handily. Yet that is the only way Destruction can win from the games I've played. You have to outrank the other team so severely that it's near impossible for them to win. The Proof?

The third game pitted two equal teams against each other. We had about the same number of every level. The result? We got pounded. I still did a ton of damage, only got a single digit amount of kills. The other team had Witch Hunters and Bright Wizards with 30 or so kills. What the fuck?

So to recap, Destruction side can only win when the odds are stacked against Order. Every other time the Order wins - easily. So Yeah, losing all the time and being vastly inferior to your mirror class on the other faction isn't very fun at all. In fact I'd rather just not do RVR at all if that's the way the game is going to be. And that, coupled with the problem of Public Quest - the game is literally no different than WoW - and there's very little reason for me to stick with it after Wrath of The Lich King comes out.

So what is the problem exactly? I mean, it seems pretty fucking obvious that the game is unbalanced right now. Another problem might be that the Destruction side just got shafted with all the shitty players, and The Order side is full of elite PVPers. In either case, that implies that I have to roll Order in order to enjoy the game. Wonderful.

And guess what? I did try that. I rolled one of the most overpowered classes in the game - The Warrior Priest. I've seen these guys take on a group of enemies in RVR, kill them one by one, and not die. They're like Paladins from WoW, but they can do tons of damage at the same time. I was able to get to level 3 from RVR alone, we won every single time. And I was always near the top for Most Healing done, and in the top 10 for most damage done. Fair, right?

So back to my actual main character, the one on the side I actually want to play. Aside from the whole Destruction side losing all the time. I don't seem to be contributing much to the battle myself. I always do a ton of damage, but for what? My kill count is always really low, and my deaths are many. Not that it would really change much, but maybe I'm just playing the wrong class.

One other thing, which is pretty minor when you consider how broken the RVR is, but it doesn't pop nearly enough. I don't know why Mythic didn't make the RVR cross-realm like WoW. Because it just does not pop nearly enough, especially for a game that is very PVP focused. Even on a high population server - which we are on - we get server queues during the day - the scenarios maybe pop once every 15 minutes, if we're lucky? This is on an Open RVR realm by the way, so there should be more than enough people willing to PVP.

Regardless of the reason, I'm not having nearly as much fun with this game as I thought I would. It's nice to be playing with a couple friends, and the majority of the PVE is just like WoW so I don't have many complaints there. But it would still be nice if I could properly experience the unique things about WAR. In any event, I'm sure I'll stick with the game until Wrath comes out regardless. I just wish it were more enjoyable along the way.