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But I’m kind of burned out on it. I certainly wouldn’t pay money for it unless it would be improved massively. And while this news tickles me a bit, I am unlikely to download a huge trial when I have the game at home, in a box. It’s the thought I think.

Then again, I’m not exactly the primary audience of the game.

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The game is split into four ‘tiers’ (1-10, 11-20, 21-30 and 31-40), and you can ascend in each tier via. either PvE or PvP. My first dedicated character (White Lion) leveled through PvE with a friend, while my second and third dedicated characters (Archmage, Shadow Warrior) leveled almost exclusively through PvP, with some PvE to pick up some quick levels when in the earlier levels of a tier. The latter is far, far better.

I say ‘dedicated’ characters above because I made a ton of alts, pretty much one of every class, and leveled them from 1-10. The earliest levels are just about the most balanced (with exceptions for Warrior Priests and Disciples of Khaine, which have to be focus fired as they’re pretty much 50% MDPS, 75% tank and 100% healer at that stage in the game.

The thing is, though, while leveling from 1-10 is a great diversion and can be a lot of fun, the 31-40 stage of the game is pretty brutal. Trying to get from 31-39 through PvP is agonizing (and not recommended for several reasons, including the fact that you’re hurting your realm’s chances of success). At that point, you’re not just eight or nine levels below the curve, but as many as 40 or 50 levels below the curve as far as ‘RR’, or PvP ranks (Max level is 40, max RR is 80). On many servers, you won’t get into a tier 4 scenario (battleground) without going up against premades – organized teams of RR60-80 players that will dispatch any PUG with a vengeance. Outside of scenarios, victory in the open PvP areas is decided more by the number of people fighting than anything else.

I say I have a love hate relationship with WAR because I really do like the classes, the background, the flavor and the overall concept. I just despise the implementation. I was incredibly frustrated that, when playing classes that were generally seen as being among the weakest in the game, patch day would ~nerf~ said classes as part of sweeping changes to game mechanics. An example: changing how procs (% chance on hit effects) worked to nerf Witch Elves, reducing their strength by 15%, while at the same time accidentally/ignorantly nerfing White Lion DPS by 30-40% (Because white lions had/has very few skills worth using, one of which was a proc). They did update the Archmage (the third class I leveled) to bring it up to par, but the Shadow Warrior (Elven archer) remains rock bottom (and terribad compared to it’s evil counterpart, according to ongoing complaints in the forums). The overarching balance system boggles the mind, has failed to significantly improve over more than a year’s time, and if the company’s earlier game DaoC is any precedent, may never be fixed. That’s poor form for a game that’s so PvP centric.

PvP endgame is a mess and endgame in general is not something to look forward to. I don’t know if they’ve changed it, but getting sets together endgame (which you need to do to compete) is a nightmare. Someone did the math and it was said to take an average of 40 runs of the second ward dungeons to get a complete set of armor. Each run takes 30 minutes to 1.5 hours, gives you about an 8% chance per boss of getting the item you want (need), and you get locked out of the dungeon for 2 days after trying. Once you’ve done that, you move to the next dungeon, where runs take longer and you get locked out for 3 days after each attempt instead.

TL;DR: Great concept, poor implementation, don’t get suckered by the first 10 levels. Balance issues are really bad for a PvP game and endgame is really, really disappointing.

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