Non-helpful BO-Hugging Cats Vs. 3 Man Ambush Squad

Well I was running around with Ryntle my R25 Marauder in Saph with a two group PUG Warband and by the end of it I was fuming.

We'd just cleared Well of Qhaysh and the moderate Order defenders and had moved up to Sari'Daroir the BO just directly north of their.

On the way one of our members gets jumped by a Slayer/Witch Hunter/Bw Trio taking advantage of the AAO buff (and who'd come back to dog our steps across the rest of the lake.) They went down quickly after me and a couple of others jogged over to assist and a nearby healer came over to Res our fallen. (Not one of our healers who were far to busy sprinting to the next BO, a theme about to reoccur)

We moved onto Sari'Daroir capped it and moved across to The Spire of Teclis, we'd just moved in and started the tick when a message comes in from one of our DOKs who'd been jumped on route by the same three and gone down. Now bear in mind that from one BO to the other is literally about a 30 second sprite and he fell on the way, who was stirred enough by a group members plight to double back and help?

Well me and a choppa. By the time us 2 got there the hit squad had faded back into the scenery. The chop buggers off back for his tick, while I sit there failing to Res the DOK using pure mental willpower alone!

I start requesting (nicely) in /WB for a resser or some kind of assistance by which point a Shammy volunteers to double back. In the mean time Order return and unsurprisingly I go down. I warn the Shammy back off without the help of the other 9 Destroy warband members all happily cuddling the BO Flag not a minute away.

Well lo and behold the tick happen a couple of minutes later and then sweeping majestically to the rescue the Group floods in wipes the resistance (All 3 of them) and we're duly ressed.

Not to be ungrateful but FFS what's wrong with you people?!

Why in for the love of Jiff would you sit around when you had plenty of time to go and return you bunch of jerks. I don't blame the choppa for doubling back, without a healer to res it was pretty pointless him being there. Likewise the Shammy who came out afterwards and ended up missing the tick because he was trying to find a way round the hit squad to res us while unsupported.

I ended up apologising to the DOK for the bunch of jerks who made up are our PUG even though none of them were anything to do with me!

I mean I could understand if there was seconds on the clock for the reward but seriously....My Frustration and rage about this relatively minor incident will power me through the weekend!

Also kudos to the three order who hit us again as we we're leaving the Woodchoppa camp after locking everything down and again took 3 of us down while the rest of the group ran unconcerned back to do what ever it was that was so pressing for them.

But really am I expecting too much of people? Would you double back for group mates under attack or just ignore them in favour of free renown?

No more (new/old) cities anymore

Well between the Q&A (Check Gaarawarr for a transcipt or Bruglir for a recording) and the Buffed.De interview Carrie has pretty much ruled out re-introducing the lost cities back into the game.

Which is kinda a shame. I wasn't around for the Beta so I've never seen them or had a chance to poke around in them. :-(

Personally I think they should meet some where in the middle, add them in as Instances only ala IC/Aldorf Siege and have them unlock when ever the relevant pairing locks down instead of the current system or Empire/Chaos + Elf = IC/Aldorf unlocking.

My thinking behind this is it would add some variety (never a bad think in my book) to the city sieges instead of it always being IC/Aldorf for the end game and hopefully spread out the Zerglings with the opposing force being able to split and counter attack for a different city across the pairings. It would also take advantage or the current system with Orvr opening up during the current city sieges giving multiple targets and something to aim at.

Sadly you'd probable need some kind of incentive to get people to defend threatened pairings rather then just pushing through a undefended zone....Perhaps increased rewards for defense in the outer zones in the form of either a generic Renown increase for the defensive side (So Order in Reikland/Kadrin Valley/Eataine and Destruction in Chaos Wastes/Caledor/Black Crag - combined with the Against all odds would be a pretty strong reward) or increased lock rewards for these end zones (Less keen on the last idea and as would probable led to increased Zergs concentrating in one area rather then spreading out)

So....was just something that I thought might have a impact/salvage the old cities/add some variety...kinda works in my head but what do other people think?

Why I'm not out fishing on the Lakes

Well at the moment anyway.

The new teaser information given out over the last week has got me thinking about this. Recently for…maybe the last 4-5 months I think I can count the number of times I’ve gone out into the lakes for something other then duelling/getting to a city siege on my fingers…and possible toes but over 4 odd months still not enough.

I think in part it’s been due to always falling in with a pre-made running scenarios but I always loved, especially when I first hit T4, to join an open warband and get out there. Somewhere along the way the Zerg lost its appeal to me.

With a bunch of alts spread across the different Tiers I’m beginning to get an idea of why and the culprit seems to be the amount of people and losing the sense of contributing to anything. It’s seems any time I venture out into T4 lakes there’s always a Zerg, either a Destro one, in which case you just ride along, or a order in which case you try and not die. Realistically if you’re riding with a PUG WB and 2-3 warbands of order come over the hill there’s only ever one way things are gonna end! About the best you can hope to do is slow them down for a little while but when numbers are weighted that heavily nothing you do is gonna make that much of a difference.

Not that it’s a one way Realm problem either. The Zerg runs both ways and though I’ve enjoyed completely over running an enemy position in the front lines of ridiculously large charge of players. It’s never lead to any particularly memorable moments for me or anything I’m that bothered about repeating.

My small army of alts have taught me that the lower the Tier the more I seem to enjoy it:

Tier One? You can’t pay me to get out of the Empire/Chaos Lake, I rarely if ever both with Scenarios at this stage, other then repeat queuing them while walking from the Destro new spawn point down to the war camp.

Tier Two? Love it, keeps at this stage are great fun and the zones are nicely sized. I’ll queue for Scenarios more often at this stage but probably 9 log-ins out of 10 will be out on the lake.

Tier Three? Uuuugh I lose almost all interest at this stage and I’m guilty of doing what ever I can to get the hell out of this stage as quickly as possible. And if I can’t power level through? Well the Alt just tends to languish at this stage till I can.

Tier Four: Welcome to the Zerg. At this stage I tend to occasionally romp out but nowhere near as often as I should.

The upshot of this post? Well honestly I don’t have one…yet. Going to spend the weekend breaking down why I rate each Tier and try and chuck out a proper, constructive post about how I think T4 could reel me and perhaps others back in.

1.3.6 Producers Letter Orvr change

Right so, 1.3.6 Producers letter is now out and if my any change you've not read it yet it can be found here.

Seems to be the first of a major ORvr change being rolled out with the second half being 1.4 at a guess since all clues seem to point to that being one their pretty excited about. Or maybe 1.4 will be related to the still theoretical expansion and they'll be a futher 1.3.7 prior to that, who knows.

The changes seem pretty good so far. With more info to follow through Developers Diaries and some further specifics already starting to go out through the Forums.

Firstly there been the following annouoncement: (Thread can be found here.)

We'd like to announce a couple upcoming changes for General Gameplay in v1.3.6. Please keep in mind that these are not patch notes and additional adjustments may be in the works.


*New User Interface option: Sticky Targeting. Enabling this option will prevent you from clearing your target(s) by clicking an empty location in the gamespace. (Developer Note(s): clears the offensive target first in the event that both an offensive and defensive target is selected.)
*Player health bars will now update correctly when receiving damage or heals. (Developer Note(s): this corrects an issue where health bars would "flicker or bounce" upon receiving a heal or damage.)

Now the second part of that I'm not too worried about, I've never realise noticed a flicks or bounce on the health bars, late in updated correct health displays sure but not flickering. Having said that I tend to use the squared add on for my healer which has it's own share of problems, non of which are any thing to do with Mythic! Sorry Bioware Mythic!

The first point however I'm looking forward to, I've learnt to compensate for it a fair bit but can be extremely annoying loosing your offensive or defensive target due to a misclick and in a chaotic melee trying to track them down again before it's too late can be a massive pain!

Second announcement mainly concentracts on a re-jig of how victory points are distributed (Taking away PvE elements and Prior Tear = Great Idea)

They've also up and stopped mailbox leechers although all it will take is a quick job down to get RvR flagged every 5 mins which would involve a 20ft walk to the other side of the guards and back to get round it. Sure it'll stop people actively AFK but not any one who's crafting/chatting/idling about. So how effective it'll be I don't know. Personally I've never really had a problem with the mailbox guards, I've only really been annoyed by it when a zone is on the point of locking down and then Order come out to play people would rather stay safe in the warcamp and lose the potential Renown Reward rather then come out and fight for it. Of course I doubt this'll make any difference to that situation they'll just idle some where else/stay in IC/not get rewarded for nothing! I know people have issues with people leeching off their hard work out in the lakes but the rewards have always been skewed (rightfully) towards those going out and helping in the form of bonus rewards per BO/Keep take you've been involved in. Dunno have to wait and see how that all pans out.

Against All the Odds sounds like a great little buff however Bootae's raised some good points about wheather this'll make any difference to Zerg distributions as it's doubtful it'll have any impact on smaller groups taking on larger WBs within a contested, active zone.

Only other points I'll bring up is I'm not sure about the new Quitter Debuff angle, frankly if I get D/ced (Which has happened to be a few times within the last couple of months) in the middle of a scenario while playing with a guild party, I'd prefer to requeue with them and join with them for no personal gain till the debuff wears off. Now how ever I'll effectively either have to leave the group for 15 mins (And defending on pops rate could be up to half an hour by the time the group has finished up a scenario) or else the whole party has to sit out and wait for me to be able to play again.

Likewise how is the Quitter debuff going to effect city sieges? Are they including Instances as a "Scenario" for the purposes of this? Other wise the quitter will have no effect at all as a deterent against instance hopping in Cities. Not really happy about this change at all but I guess I'll see how it pans out. Still plenty of time for me to resign myself to being punished for a shoddy connection lol and I can at least see their reasons behinde the change, well I'm guessing it's to drive people back into the lakes. "Can't queue for scenarioes for 15 minutes but can still gain Renown? Get into the lakes for 20 minutes, who knows you may enjoy it!"

Having said that more information should hopefully follow closer to the time and on the whole I'm looking forward to this patch and a shift in the focus within WAR.

Just my two pence worth.