A grand ole time in T3 tonight

Amidst the increasing pains of burnout in Warhammer came a gem of an evening in Tier 3.  I was on the Phoenix Throne server on my level 31 Ironbreaker (named Stocky) grouped with a guildy (Conjunction guild) named Plucky ( 29 Runepriest).  We started out the evening kinda slow by participating in the usual zerg vs. zerg battles going on in Avelorn and Saphery.  Not that this wasn’t fun, because it was actually quite evenly matched on the open-field, but it was just more of the same that I’ve been experiencing for months.  At the suggest of Plucky, we broke off from everyone else and went to Highpass which is in another zone entirely.

In Highpass we came upon a huge zerg of Destruction taking objectives like they usually do… you know, mindlessly moving objective to objective like a herd of cattle for their points (I know, because I’m one of them on Dark Crag).   We hung back for a while just observing them and watching where they went.  It was a weird feeling being just two dwarves out on a hill looking over a zerg of red names.  When they started to move out is when we made our move.  We positioned ourselves behind a hill that stood between them and where they were going next.  Reliably, there’s always a couple stragglers and these were our marks.  We swept in like vulchers and made quick work of the people who were moving quite fast enough.  It was intense!  The adrenaline rush of knowing their friends are still in view while snaring and dropping them quickly and sprinting away was awesome.

The evening was packed full of experiences like this.  There was one point where we were on this wall that acts like a Milgate did back from the DAOC days (a chokepoint of sorts) where we did the same thing as before by picking off the late arrivals to take objectives and the stragglers.   Another memorable battle (that Plucky fraps’d) was when he ran into a group of 4 people while I was catching up from a quick AFK.  He engaged a sorc and turned to run since 3 of the sorcs friends showed up.  I came in right as Plucky was in retreat and began to retreat with him.   Having faith in our abilities, Plucky told me to go ahead and fight them (you can see him type it in the video below).  I turned and went to town on all 3 of them as Plucky worked his amazing healing magic.  We smashed them 3v2 and could have done it 4v2 if the other guy stuck around.

Tonight brought back great memories of DAOC and the smaller scale battles.  We used strategy, skill, and teamwork to overcome odds and find action where, under most circumstances, many would have just changed zones to finda fair fight.   We didn’t earn a ton of exp and we certainly didn’t earn a ton of renown.  We could have done way better for ourselves in scenarios or following the herd, but we had amazing fun.  I’m definitely not burned out on stuff like this.  If I can get more of this in WAR then I’ll be set.

Thanks to Plucky for teaching an old dog that the old tricks still work.      (Click more to watch the video from Plucky’s point of view). [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTHuEXDKees&fmt=6[/youtube]

  • quite simply good to see you enjoying yourself again 😀
    its always more enjoyable to read a post by someone whos clearly in a good mood.

    I feel that somehow this is what BO’s should be all about little fights between small roughly even groups where teamplay not numbers determines victory. But how to get there i don’t know.
    All the current suggestion ive seen would just turn them into even bigger targets for a zerg than they are currently. The only thing i can thing of off the top of my head is if there was some sort of bonus for capping all the BO’s within a short time of each other forcing the zerg to split up.

    anyways your post earlier inspired me to do this
    http://printscreengg.blogspot.com/2009/01/give-me-zone-cap-quest-or-give-me-death.html
    and im sure your current post will inspire people to thing about what gives them that special feeling in WaR and what they think they can be done to make it happen more often

  • been there done that. odd enough to just read it here 5 months after release o_O where have you been all the time? ^^

    with victory comes fun and having done a t3 keep deff all by myself (40 sorc) or with another guildy (guild banner ress 4tw) against 3-4 groups of 20-30 was even more fun. But in the end its zerg + bo rotation + zone control rp gathering to get what you really want. Conclusion –> burnout (I quit …).

  • I haven’t done this small scale stuff because up until now I have been content roaming with the larger crowds doing the big sieges. However, in T4 and now in T3 for me it’s been either too repetitive or the design issues are too blatant for me to continue (aka burnout).

    Ultimately, while fun, the small scale stuff gets you nowhere. In DAOC the 6-man’s could get you places. In WAR you need zergs.

  • The only real RvR I’ve done since hitting rank 40 has been in a duo with a Shaman, which has proven to be quite fun… very frustrating at times, but killing four or five people when you’re two offsets all the times we get steamrolled by the zergs, er, warbands.

    I need to get my Ballistics up over 800 again, since I put on this new gear, I feel like a complete gimp. 😛

  • I think this post covers a lot of why I dropped off the game after a bit over a month. ORVR small group stuff was fun and varied… but not very well rewarded which means it was hard to find. Large group keep stuff got repetitive very fast, scenarios lasted me as long as a good multiplayer shooter, and PVE… let’s not go there.

    How could they give meaningful incentives to small group ORVR? Bonuses for kills when you’re locally outnumbered? Bonuses for capturing a BO in a small group? Named to kill in ORVR areas that are worth it for small groups but not warbands? Open instance BO’s that only 6-mans can enter? I’m spitballing here.

  • I’m not concerned with gains. I can get those grinding or doing scenarios. Little RvR groups like that are great to break things up.

    Keen you’re partly right in saying that you ultimately need a zerg, but it depends. You can take a keep with just one group (yeah it’d most likely have to be PvEd unless there were only a couple of defenders and they didn’t play it smart) and you can divert a large number of Destro with a few (or vice versa).

    It also depends on the server. Some servers are all zerging while others are mostly small group play. Then there are those in between that have a healthy mix. PT is one of those servers in between imo. You’ll find 1v1, 2v2, 6v6 and 24v24 or more easily. There’s always something happening worth participating in imo. Sometimes there’s the usual BO/keep trading, but awesome moments far outweigh the dull parts for me.

  • Small scale has nice rewards though. In a group of two, you should have at least gotten 5k exp and a bunch of renown for each kill. When in a warband, it is usually closer to 300xp.

    I know in T4, I have gotten close to 12k xp for a single kill… it is pretty satisfying.

  • Glad to hear there is still some fun left in the game for you.

    This also proves that Destruction on PT tend to ignore healers…I get frustrated at that fact often.

  • Damn nice video there, warhammer have really gotten to me, have left wow for good now. Playing a little IB myself, tons of fun.

  • @Sto: Small groups can definitely take keeps and BO’s and do open-field fighting (as we proved). The big thing though is that you can’t take fortresses or cities and you really can’t do the “realm war” in WAR like you could in DAOC.

  • Seeing that video made me want to come back. Unfortunately good times like that were too far between the other problems. Hoping for lots of changes to drag me back, really so many aspects of War while I played. Nice video!

  • Salbos, what server were you on? It’s not terribly hard to find this type of action on Phoenix Throne. It’s still as simple as following the zerg (the opposing sides zerg) and picking off groups/soloers trying to catch up. That or just camp in a spot and watch a high traffic area and pick your fights that way. Yeah I admit that’s not really what WAR is about and I admit you’ll have a lot of waiting time, but it works for me and often the quality of the fights is better that way.

  • Oh good grief, I can see Plucky’s head getting stuck in the door to Sigmar’s Hammer now.

    Keen,

    Don’t encourage him!

  • The sorcerer is question was me. Had a good fight, albiet a losing one, with Plucky before the zerg showed up. Good to see that Order isn’t a completely mindless zerg.

  • Kudos to you and Plucky, really wish that there were more players who sought out small scale fights like this. It’s great fun as it relies more on individual skill than numbers.
    (Sadly didn’t get to chase you guys down as Plucky managed to hurt me enough to make me limp around.)

  • Good fight Specter =). Look forward to seeing you around in T4.

    You make a good point though. There are a lot of players I know that would rather do small scale fights, but they stick to zerg fights because they think that it’s the only viable option. It’s not the only option though. As much as folks like to poke holes in what Mythic is selling us, they’ve done a good job at making a game where the PvP is actually fun. I disagree with some of their methods, but overall the PvP in this game is awesome (especially if 2 equal forces meet each other in ORvR).

  • Nothing is more enjoyable than employing “light cavalry” tactics in an MMO.

    Reason: Most people don’t understand the tactics, and get frustrated by them.

    Some of my friends and I have used tactics like this to make our own fun in games like WAR and WoW for a couple years now, following the example of classic cavalry leaders like Cooke, Buford, Stuart, Forrest, Pleasanton and others, conducting guerilla style warfare, hit and run skirmishing and generally annoying the enemy forces we encounter in an effort to disrupt their operations. Nothing quite beats disrupting an enemy zerg to the point, where they will actually turn off their zerg objective to chase you across the battlemap!

    Ride on, good sir! Ride on!