Grotnob
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2008
- Messages
- 154
As has probably already been alluded to in the balcony pull exploit thread, this particular exploit is kind of indicative of a wider issue in the game design. WAR is very much focused on T4, and anything leading up to that does seem to be a bit of an afterthought that the devs want to speed everyone through so that they can get to the endcrash..erm..game. We're not 6 months into official release, and already T3 levelling is being fast-tracked.
This may all seem well and good, however what these fast tracked characters are leaving in their wake is empty lower tier RvR zones where (on Hirn) its often not possible to get a full warband together to take a keep. I know it's possible, with co-ordination, to PvE down an undefended keep, legitimately, with as little as 1 group of 6, but the key word there is "undefended". Get a group of defenders in there, and you start needing a warband to stand a chance.
Eventually we're going to get to the stage where none of the regular players have characters under R11, or even R21, meaning T1 and T2 will be populated by casual players, alts of people on different servers, and the odd brand spanking new player (working on the pure assumption that new subscriptions are tailing off). Is this going to be enough to maintain a T1-3 playerbase capable of taking a keep, defended or otherwise?
I never really played DAoC beyond the trial period, but I'm told that there was a means of stopping your character gaining experience so that you didn't level out of a particular zone. Whilst this may introduce other issues, like "opted" 6v6 groups "booking" fights and bitching to high heaven if any passing random has gall enough to "add" on "their" fight, (which I'm reliably informed was a large factor in the decline of DAoC Europe,) but it would seem to be a possible viable solution to prevent low tiers drying up.
This may all seem well and good, however what these fast tracked characters are leaving in their wake is empty lower tier RvR zones where (on Hirn) its often not possible to get a full warband together to take a keep. I know it's possible, with co-ordination, to PvE down an undefended keep, legitimately, with as little as 1 group of 6, but the key word there is "undefended". Get a group of defenders in there, and you start needing a warband to stand a chance.
Eventually we're going to get to the stage where none of the regular players have characters under R11, or even R21, meaning T1 and T2 will be populated by casual players, alts of people on different servers, and the odd brand spanking new player (working on the pure assumption that new subscriptions are tailing off). Is this going to be enough to maintain a T1-3 playerbase capable of taking a keep, defended or otherwise?
I never really played DAoC beyond the trial period, but I'm told that there was a means of stopping your character gaining experience so that you didn't level out of a particular zone. Whilst this may introduce other issues, like "opted" 6v6 groups "booking" fights and bitching to high heaven if any passing random has gall enough to "add" on "their" fight, (which I'm reliably informed was a large factor in the decline of DAoC Europe,) but it would seem to be a possible viable solution to prevent low tiers drying up.