I concur that my conclusion in this case is slightly off from my desires from my earlier "the vicious cycle" post, but you have to consider that if you want to play the best RvR game on the market right now, WAR is it. In that case, we have to settle for an imperfect end-game that still requires the whole gear grind we’re used to from pretty much every other MMO out there. I’m not saying it’s perfect — far from it — but I doubt Mythic is likely to revamp their entire post-40 progression right now. If that’s the case, we should really focus on improving the endgame as much as possible, but I think baby steps help a lot here.

From my perspective, the lockouts are also really in place because (a) there’s very little post-rank-40 PvE content aside from Tome unlocks, the odd Lair, crafting (which is insufferably painful in this game, aside from scavenging), and the handful of dungeons I’ve already discussed, and (b) the want us to RvR. That’s truly what they’re after, and I see the lockouts as a forcible measure to get us out of PvE dungeons and into the intended endgame. Yes, they’re reducing the grind, but lockouts are a symptom and not the root cause here. There’s nothing wrong with wanting us to RvR; I just find the whole lockout thing artificial; it leaves a bad taste in your mind and really reminds you that you’re playing a game, losing the whole immersion of being in a dungeon.

Every time I think of immersion these days, I think of Age of Conan’s first 20 levels. Those really pulled me back to my early days of playing RPGs in the 80s and 90s and it was refreshing to see it back in the game.

But honestly, if they’re going to focus on trying to push us out of PvE and onto the battlefield (which is all well and good), they really shouldn’t focus so much on creating barriers to entry (like wards) that are *much* easier to obtain in PvE but are required to progress in the city siege arena. That’s where the frustration kicks in. And this post was mainly about frustration and not so much about logic. ;)

And hey, thanks for your comments. Like everyone else out there, I appreciate a good debate and I don’t always agree with the authors of the blogs I read, although I enjoy many of them tremendously. Tobold would be a perfect example of this; I disagree with a lot of what he writes, but he’s always insightful and always pushes the boundaries of what I think about the games that I play, and he covers a lot of games that I’d never touch, but enjoy hearing about nonetheless.

Cheers, and I’ll be checking your blog on Wednesday. :)

-nick

Lockout timers are there to prevent the worse excess’s of gear grinding. If all these dungeons had a 1 day reset, people would grind them hideously.
The 1st step of removing the idea of grinding from games is stop rewarding people for doing it.
Imagine how much worse Battle Objective farming would be if there was no timer before they could be recapped.

That said the ward system currently can force people who are on the loosing side of RvR to shift towards PvE as a way to gear up. But the obvious disadvantage is if PvE becomes too attractive people will loose any incentive to fight back at all & the RvR will become even less attractive.

I also think random drops is a idea long long passed its time, if your gonna have a ’set’ item drop make it a BoP token which can be took to a npc & changed into whichever classes gear is required.

The Ward system has in many ways made the fetishism of Tier Sets even worse in WaR than it was in WoW.

I think what needs to be fixed is the way the ward system works, the nature of RvR has been significantly improved by the introduction of influence rewards but there is still room for improvement in discouraging keep trading.

anyways your posts are always a good read even if i don’t agree with every one of them. Hope by the time you get your engi to t4 Mythic have found solutions which encourage lots of lovely RvR and less grinding & keep swapping
Note: I think you’ve also given me a idea for a midweek blog post :)try and pop by on Wednesday and give me a little feedback

You’re right — the drop rates are godawful and if something does drop, more often than not, it’s something no one in your group needs. I figure if they’re going to have these artificial restrictions to progressing through the dungeon/gear ranks, they need to at least throw us a bone.

Either reduce/remove the lockouts, or fix up the drops and don’t let the bosses drop useless loot (or bug out repeatedly, which has been happening often of late.) It’d be nice to at least get something *someone* could use if they’re going to make the drops all BoP.

Lets face it, it isn’t fun to go into a dungeon and get nothing when you have party members who need something from every boss.

The other thing raising my blood pressure is the “double drops.” It is outrageous for a boss to drop two of the same item! How often will that be a benefit.