Why Tier 1 PvP works well, part one: scenarios

Let’s face it: WAR’s Tier 1 is a lot of fun, the vast majority of the time. In contrast, Tier 4 can oftentimes be the complete polar opposite.

Tier 4 is in equal parts, challenging, frustrating, exasperating… and sometimes, exhilarating. In my experience, the fun level gets toned down and the adrenaline rush goes up once you near the end-game, but the negatives start to even out — perhaps not outweigh —  the positives, the closer you get to that magic, epic Tier 4 open RvR that Mythic wants you to participate in so much.

So, let’s get down to brass tacks. Why is Tier 1 so popular? And what could Tier 4 learn from Tier 1 to make it a little less of a struggle and a little more fun?

Since I just ranked out of Tier 1 with my Engineer (now rank 13 and change, although WARDB hasn’t updated my profile yet) last night, I thought this’d probably be a good time to discuss what it does well and what it doesn’t. There are probably a number of points I didn’t think of that are helping or hindering matters here, but I figured I’d cover several positive points and a few negatives for each side of the RvR equation and see how things balance out.

I’m also going to split this post into two parts, since after I finished it, I realized it was getting a little long. Be sure to check back tomorrow for my breakdown of the Tier 1 RvR lakes!

Tier 1 scenarios

The good:

1. More population, less choice of scenarios = improved accessibility
   The combination of ease of access (you can roll a new character and be in a scenario in seconds), the small number of scenarios (three, which is the same as Tier 2 but half the number in Tier 3 and much less than the total count of possible scenarios in Tier 4), and overall population makes getting into scenarios much quicker. Getting in quicker means that you can login to your Tier 1 character and be fighting quickly without waiting long, at most hours of the day/night. This ease of accessibility makes it highly appealing to players such as myself, who like to be able to just jump in and fight when they need a break from reality, and aren’t particular concerned with advancing their higher-level characters at all times.
2. Abilities are fewer and less-powerful
   Quite obviously, players have fewer options available to them in terms of abilities in Tier 1. At best, they’ll have one morale ability and one career tactic to use on top of their core abilities. This also means that there’s no high-end mastery abilities floating around, and less game-breaking morale abilities. Not to mention that most characters’ armor, defenses, and resists will be so low as to be almost negligible. That means there’s a whole lot of killing — and conversely a whole lot of dying — going on in Tier 1 scenarios, which helps players with a feeling of accomplishment, assuming they’re on the winning side. That said, the turnover between scenarios is so quick, that even if you lose a couple in a row, it’s not really all that noticeable. And if all else fails, Tier 1 characters are almost disposable: you can always reroll a new character and get back to where you were quite quickly, not having lost too much ground.
3. Lack of crowd control
   This is probably the most important thing about Tier 1: less crowd control. You don’t get knocked back, knocked down, stunned, disabled, disarmed, and rooted to death every step you take. It’s a major problem in Tier 4, and it’s refreshing to be able to focus on playing and doing your character’s job on the battlefield without being unable to access your abilities, or move, on a regular basis. This is something that was a significant issue in Dark Age of Camelot’s endgame, as well (remember those AoE mezzes and stuns?), and although Mythic has done a better job with it in WAR, it’s still problematic and a sore spot for most players. Tier 1 provides players with a bit of a breather on the crowd control front, which is a nice break from its ever-present threat in Tier 4.
4. Better terrain and gameplay design
   One could easily argue that more time was spent designing the terrain in the Tier 1 scenarios than in Tier 4. All three Tier 1 scenarios are quite distinct in layout, have differing objectives, and offer good spots for both ranged and melee classes to position themselves advantageously for maximum damage and effect. The objectives are also quite straightforward and easily accessible to newer players, unlike some of the scenarios in later tiers (which explains the preponderance of Mourkain Temple, Tor Anroc, Serpent’s Passage, and often Caledor Woods pops.) The only gripe I would have here is that Khaine’s Embrace is probably the easiest scenario to “abuse” with a good pre-made group; if you can time things properly, you can lock down both control points continually while getting pardoned at the Altar of Khaine, and pretty much win the scenario with very little effort. The other plus here is that the scenarios in T1 provide better XP-per-level than you get in any later tier, meaning it’s the most viable tier to actually play the game as intended and level up via PvP/RvR.
5. Less gear imbalance
   This one’s pretty straightforward as well; players aren’t geared out the wazoo in epics and end-game sets at this level, so from my perspective, skill and teamwork is more likely to be victorious over a well-geared team in the Tier 1 scenarios. Although WAR isn’t really as gear-centric in the PvP realm as other MMOs out there, it’s still an important factor in the end-game. In the case of Tier 1, you can most often take gear out of the equation completely.

The not-so-good:

1. Healer godmode
   This is a bit of a problem that I’ve experienced from both sides, having played a Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine completely through Tier 1, and having fought against numerous other healing archetypes. In T1, healers are quite dominant if they’re towards the end of the tier level-wise (it’s not as noticeable if they’re still being bolstered up to rank 8.) Melee healers, in particular, become impossibly hard to kill without a couple of well-geared RDPS beating on them from range. Fortunately, the melee healer dominance doesn’t really last past Tier 2 (well, for those of you who don’t have melee healer mains…), so the imbalance is only really noticed early on, and is a little deceiving. Zealots, Runepriests, Shamans and Archmages are equally hard to kill in a 1v1 in the early going, although in group warfare they become much bigger targets and tend to get focused down quite quickly.
2. Class population imbalance
   Something you’ll commonly see in Order T1 is a wall of Destruction tanks charging you. Since there’s little crowd control in this tier, as I mentioned earlier, the majority of lightly-armored characters (aside from melee healers, again) don’t last long in this kind of showdown, without having their own tanks to put up a shield wall for them. The imbalance is obviously due to a lot of people testing out more of a variety of classes, and the FOTM classes will be commonplace. For instance, I was in Nordenwatch last night with my Engineer (heh, speaking of FOTM…) and noticed four Shadow Warriors in the same 12-man scenario. Tell me how often you see that in Tier 4. :)
3. Spawn point camping
   To be honest, spawn camping happens in all tiers, but it happens pretty regularly in Tier 1. It’s obnoxious, but in T1’s defense, I’d argue that it can be countered a little easier via flanking maneuvers and multiple points of entry. This is something that was probably most noticeable in the Reikland Factory scenario that was live during the Heavy Metal live event in late 2008, and something I miss seeing in Tier 4. It isn’t quite as possible to break a solid spawn camp in the later tiers, where most of the traffic exiting the starting spawns is funneled to the first objectives a lot more (although it would probably help if spawn point guards were more consistently aggro across each tier’s scenarios.) All three of the Tier 1 scenarios offer multiple entry points to the action that generally allow you to get around a camped spawn without too much trouble. The problem is that most people are too thick to figure this out. :p

Tomorrow, I’ll take a shot at discussing Tier 1 open RvR, specifically focussing on the Empire Tier 1 RvR lake, New Emskrank. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your feedback and any comments you may have on what makes Tier 1 so much more fun than Tier 4. Better yet, if you have an opposing viewpoint, I’m all ears. :)