I haven’t gone back to check, but I think in my Warhammer posts I alternate liking the game and griping about the game. Maybe it’s because I have fun in one session and it raises my expectations for the next one and then I get disappointed, so have low expectations for the following session and get a pleasant surprise? 🙂
Today’s gripe is once again back on the lack of polish and slow leveling speed. My Witchhunter was level 18 doing quests that required killing mobs level 21-23, and had rested experience. I completed 3 kill ten rats quests, a fed ex quest and a couple of Kill Collector turn-ins and earned maybe 1/6th of a level over the course of the session. That’d be fine for 3 easy quests, but if felt pretty paltry considering they were tough quests for my level (I died a lot…level 23 mobs are dicey) and the fact that I had to clear a lot of trash mobs of level 20-21 to get to the 23s I needed.
I mean, it wasn’t horrible, but I would go back to turn in one of these quests totally psyched to see the EXP bar zoom up and then it’d just nudge over a smidge. 🙁 A tad disappointing. And all the rewards are too high for me to use! LOL.
Worse though was more evidence of the lack of polish. I was fighting big cats that could stun me. What would happen would be my hotbars would suddenly go dark. Then I’d get a text message saying something about being stunned. Then finally my character would switch to a prone stance. These were distinct sequential events. And note how I didn’t say “my character would fall down” because he didn’t. One frame standing, next frame prone.
Plus the old ‘stuck in the shooting animation’ bug when I use my Trial By Pain (I think its called) skill to kill something. This is the Witchhunter skill where he rapid-fires his pistol at point blank range. If the target dies, the Witchhunter keeps firing and firing until you do something that’ll make it stop. I finally figured out jumping would do this. That one’s just aesthetic though and it impacts you *after* a fight, not during it. The stun thing, where seeing your character get knocked down is important feedback, is a bigger deal.
Quote of the day, heard on the regional channel where a warband was doing OpenRvR: “Get ready, I can feel the lag of their approach!”
I can’t wait to try Warhammer next Fall after Mythic has had plenty of time to polish and flesh out some thin spots. There’s a gem of a game hidden in there somewhere!
The polish and general performance is a major issue, at least for me — not in a huge in-yer-face!! way (but I wasn’t one of the people getting 5 CTDs an hour) but still in an ever-present way that gets hard to ignore.
As for the like/smite thing, I’ve felt the same. I wonder if we’re having trouble adapting to what WAR is, since it’s not really your average MMO content. RvR is a huge part of the game and, unlike PvP in (say) WoW or EQ2, you can’t really just ignore it and still have 95% of the game available. Many of us in this yay/gah mode seem to have trouble adapting to making RvR a “daily” or at least staple part of our WAR gaming.
Dunno, just theorising.
I’m definitely in the camp of not wanting to RvR constantly. And truthfully while WAR is supposed to be about the RvR, it’s always been marketed that this isn’t ALL you have to do. The thing is, like PvP in WoW is a sideshow, PvE in WAR is a sideshow and at my core I’m still a PvE kind of guy. I’d say I’m about 70:30 PvE:PvP.
So I need good solid PvE to keep me in a game world, alongside enjoyable and fun PvP on occasion. The PvE is what needs a little work I think in WAR. I’m not sure why, but for some reason even though it copies just about any game out there, it’s not as fun for me as the questing content in WoW/LotRO/EQ2.
Yeah, I agree with you both, and in all fairness I’m not playing Warhammer ‘correctly’ because at this point I’m ignoring 2 legs of the tripod. I don’t do scenarios ever, and in the past couple sessions I haven’t been doing any oRvR either.
The PvE is ok but I think what it lacks is variety. Most games you come across some weird quests now and then that kind of break things up. I didn’t really notice this omission in the early days and in fact argued that the PvE was fine in Warhammer, but I have to eat my words. Well, maybe it is “fine” but it isn’t “great.”
I think it *could* be great, but I think Mythic is pretty gun shy about doing much with the PvE after spending so many months hyping the “WAR IS EVERYHERE” mantra. The PvE players have mostly moved on. If suddenly Mythic starts talking up new PvE content, the PvP players might take it as a sign to leave. So I can understand if they’re hesitant. Or maybe they just believe that they don’t need better PvE…