Why Does WAR Discourage Alts?

If you have spent any time reading this blog, it is immediately obvious that I'm an incorrigible altaholic. So far, six months out, I've only managed to level a  single Rank 40. My Ironbreaker Stahlrek. In that same time frame, I have now have a 27 Slayer, 25 SW, 24 WH, 18 Engi, 32 Blorc, 23 Blackguard and more alts in the 8-15 range. I'm sure you see the problem. Recently, I've given some thought to rolling up a Swordmaster as well. So I rolled one up, got him to 8 or so, and now he's parked in Altdorf. Why? Because I don't know if I can commit to leveling him through T2 and T3 again. Having one tank at max rank has taught me that leveling up a tank can be an arduous process. Now I know that doing scenarios while questing is the fastest way to level. However, my server sc pops are busiest at night. So I play my Slayer at night, so I can maintain my RR. This means because I can't take advantage of scenarios for my SM, because my Slayer needs the renown as well. Which forces my alt SM to do mostly PvE, in the mornings when the server is pretty dead. And I gotta tell you, I've done T2 PvE over five times, I don't want to do it again. 

You know, I really wish WAR would allow me to "gift" some levels to my lowbie alts. Say, once you reach Rank 40, you can give one alt of yours a certain amount of ranks, depending on the tier. If the character is in Tier 2, you can give 5 ranks, Tier 3 you can give 3, etc. Each alt can only be gifted ranks once. WAR already has the Collar of Servitude/Rod of Service items that allow you to bring a lower ranked player up to within two ranks of your level. Why not allow players who already have a rank 40 to do the same? 

The thing is, WAR rewards the player who plays one character exclusively. Your most played character will have the best gear, highest RR, most unlocks, etc. Your alts, especially ones that you don't play often will be significantly less progressed than your main. In addition, the sheer amount of time needed to get to T3 or higher is pretty intense. If you have limited playtime like me, you often don't want to mess around on alts because you feel that the time is better spent leveling your "main" character. Also many careers don't quite come into their own until later levels, usually around 21-24. For example, my Shadow Warrior didn't quite click with me until I got to rank 18 and picked up the Split Arrows tactic, and later at 21 acquiring the Shadow Sting ability made a huge difference to my enjoyment of the class. There are some really interesting builds i want to try out with my SM, but I don't know if I have the time to level him up to an appropriate level. 

Now before you say that I'm looking for an easy way out, this is not the case. I just want to get to a point where I can really get a feel for the class. I'm not asking to be magically 40, just for a quicker way to get to 20-22. I've already leveled multiple characters through that level range, including another tank. It's not like Mythic doesn't already have the Bolster mechanic in place. I also don't really see a downside to providing this convenience. It's not as if it skews the population or anything like that. Don't get me wrong, I'm aware the leveling curve is nowhere near as grueling as it was after launch. Mythic did a great job making the grind to 40 less arduous, no doubt. 

I guess I'm just frustrated that there are so many classes I want to play, with not enough hours in the day. Mythic may not purposely try to discourage playing alts, but it certainly feels that way to me when I get excited about a class, roll one up to around 10 or so, then park them because I simply don't have the time to level an alt effectively alongside my main.

Multiple Characters with Limited Playtime.

I'm nearing 20 on my Slayer, having just hit 18 this morning. I feel sort of bad, since I haven't been playing my Shadow Warrior lately, being caught up in the Slayer mania. Usually about this time, I start to feel an itch to play an alt. Of course, this is also strongly influenced by the talk in the forums I am a regular poster on. Recently, the topic has shifted to Chosen, and how badass they are. So now, I'm itching to play a Chosen again. This cycle has already occurred several times, and each time I end up rolling another alt. This accounts for my Witch Hunter, White Lion, Shadow Warrior, Knob, and Warrior Priest. Yes, I know I have a problem. On destro, I had this happen to a much lesser extent. I only seriously tried out a Black Orc, Chosen, Blackguard and Marauder. I also quit playing characters because of weird, niggling complaints that really mess with me mentally. For example, I quit my Chosen because I didn't like the way his shield or two-hand sword clipped through his armor. Also, some of the graphical effects turned me off with how "bright" they were. Ravage, for example.

Anyway...I'm rambling again. Back to the erstwhile topic. I really want to rank up both my SW and my Slayer, but I have less time to play. I like to play my Slayer during prime time in the evenings, since the most ORvR goes on around this time. Also, scenario pops are much quicker. So it's a lot easier to get RvR in between quests. I really want to rank my Slayer up as quickly as possible, so I can play more with my guild at T4. But I also don't want my SW to fall by the wayside. From an efficiency standpoint, whichever I play, I need to play at night. I  enjoy the change of pace from melee to ranged. At the same time, I can't help but feel that I'm not getting the full experience until I hit at least rank 26 or so, when more Mastery abilities are available to me. Sometimes I wish I could skip leveling, if only so I can start trying out all those theroryhammered career builds on wardb. Alas, this can not be the case. First, I have no interested in powerleveling, and second, WAR is a game that really rewards investment in a single character. It's no accident that the character you play most ends up with the most tome unlocks, titles, gear and gold. 

I guess I'm just overanalyzing this. I should just shut up, play what I feel like, and have fun with the game. It's the min-maxer in me talking. I guess its because I have less time to play that I want to make the most efficient use of my playtime. This post has rambled enough, so I guess I'll cut it short for now. If you are still reading this, I thank you.

The end is in sight, Rank 40 this week?

I just hit Rank 38 last night on my Ironbreaker, somewhere in Dwarf Chapter 19. I'm finally feeling closer to the end of the leveling road. I hope to hit 40 this week. I'm pretty stoked, even though I really don't have any cool new abilities coming up, aside from a few tactics and the default rank 4 Morale. Oh yeah, I do get my movement barb at 40. 

On my Black Orc though, I did get to Rank 31 and I'm preparing to start questing my way through Tier 4, but I will admit to a bit of burnout. Leveling tanks can be a very tedious process, especially in PvE. I'm considering speccing into Da Boss Mastery for the WAAAAGH! AoE ability so that I can start AoE grinding. However one of the main abilities for AoE grinding is not attained until Rank 35. So I may do some theoryhammering about the spec until I feel ready for it. 

This does touch onto a sore subject for me, the leveling curve. I'm coming to the conclusion that the leveling curve in WAR is tuned too slow in Tier 4. Now, I do recall that Mythic just buffed the xp curve from 20-33 if I remember correctly, so maybe I need to just power through those levels on the Blorc. Also I may not be completely objective on this subject. The deal is that I can only play nights and I try to play at least 2-3 characters every night, so when the leveling curve slows down I perceive it to be worse than it actually is since I make less progress in my allotted time. However I'm sure that if I actually sat down and computed the xp gained per hour while accounting for the increased xp needed per level, I would find out that I'm still making decent progress.  

Other than that, leveling multiple characters is a daunting undertaking. The game really tries to reward you for investing a lot of time into a particular character. Acquiring gear, trophies, leveling professions and raising renown ranks all come into play with a single character. Also in a strange way, the banking and bag system is a factor. I'm always having problems juggling bag and bank space, especially if the character is a crafter. I've had to take close to half an hour to reorganize my bags. Granted this doesn't happen often, but the bag and bank stuff can be irritating. 

My goal is to level three characters. A tank, a melee dps and a ranged dps. The tank is coming along nicely, my Shadow Warrior is in the middle of T2 at the moment, and of course the Slayer will be my third. I'm just worried that I'll still be leveling characters when the Tomb Kings are released, heh. In any case I'll be toughing it out in the coming weeks and with any luck I'll be hitting 40 for the very first time this week.

Edit: Oh yeah, finally picked a name for the Slayer, I'll post it next time, gotta reserve it first.

Alting Around... Again.

So, yeah. Being the easily swayed weakling that I am, after I read a discussion on the forums I frequent about Shadow Warriors, I just had to roll one up. I hit Rank 11 last night, and I also maxed out my RvR Influence for the T1 Empire vs, Chaos pairing. So now I'm running around New Emskrank looking for fights and just messing around til I hit 12 and have to move on to the next tier. 

I gotta say, I'm enjoying the Shadow Warrior a lot! I had rolled one up shortly after release, but shelved him at Rank 3 because the career didn't grab me right away. I didn't realize how much of a difference getting all my stances would make on my fun factor. Skirmish stance, which is the mid-range mobile dps tree, is simply so much fun to play. It feels great being able to run around whilst firing off bow attacks. Once I got Spiral-Fletched Arrows and Takedown, the career just got so fun to play. I know that my melee stance, Assault, is considered the best stance to be in, but I still like the mobility I get from Skirmish.

Another amazing thing is the versatility of the career. In a single engagement, I can select say a Witch Elf from range and begin dpsing with my bow in Scout stance. As they get closer, I switch into Skirmish and snare and DoT, then kite a bit. When they close to melee I can swap into Assault stance which buffs my Armor and  Strength, and bring them down with very respectable melee dps. I love having the potential to switch roles in an instant, which sometimes confuses my targets. Today I started picking off a Witch Elf from range, she started to run, so I chased her down in Skirmish, DoT-ing and dpsing. She ran behind some cover to break my line of sight, but I guess she didn't expect me to flip into Assault and run her down, where I cut her down in melee. I guess that move confused the other Destro players around her, because she got no heals, and I was able to make my escape. I guess they didn't expect an archer to move in and finish the job at close range. Now I'm aware the situation I've described is pretty much an ideal situation, but still, it's pretty cool when it happens.

Perusing the forums reveals that veteran SW players do have several issues with the class, but the general feeling is that the career needs some tweaks, but is doing quite well otherwise. Also, the more experienced players agree that the career is in very good shape, but I'll reserve judgement until I have several more ranks under my belt.

SOME DAYS LATER...

Well, I am very close to 14 now, and have some more observations about the career. I still enjoy the Shadow Warrior, but I've come across my first issues. One is just a graphical issue, when I equip my helm it changes my selected hair into a "default" hairstyle that's the same for every SW of the same gender. Only the original color is retained. Not a big deal really, as I like my selected hair and don't mind turning the helm graphic off.

I've also gotten a chance to play some Mourkain's Temple. Overall, I enjoy it on my SW. I'm much squishier than I've ever been before, and it's a very different mindset to play as a ranged damage dealer as opposed to tanking or melee dpsing. I like finding good vantage points for sniping, and killing or harassing squishies and healers. Once the focus fire finds me though, I'm dead meat. Still, it's a great change of pace, and a great feeling to take down that Witch Elf who just popped out behind the healing line. 

PvE-wise, my Shadow Warrior is competent, if a bit repetitive. Of course, I'm still low in Tier 2, and don't have access yet to many of my abilities. I'm spending lots of time in Assault Stance, basically DoT-ing and pulling from range until the mob closes and then finishing it off in melee. I try to kite a bit, but I think Skirmish could use a bit more range, and it seems that it's quicker to just pull, then melee.

I'll continue to try and level this guy, who I have named Zanshin, after the Japanese martial arts term referring to a certain mental state. I hope that I can somehow find time to level all my other characters before the Slayer/Choppa is implemented. Still, we shall see where I stand on the Shadow Warrior some ranks from now.

An Altoholic's Lament, and other Stories.

As I've said before, I'm an admitted altoholic. I have played and leveled eleven separate characters, spread over two servers and both factions. Currently, I've settled on my Black Orc and Ironbreaker, and I play a Black Guard as well, though not as often. However, I seem do be having the hardest time picking on an Order DPS career. On that note, I've leveled a Witch Hunter to 24, an Engineer to 19 and a White Lion to 11.

I constantly bounce around forums, reading up on the different careers and getting excited about them. But this also leaves me swapping characters very often, I'll get amped up and play one career for a while, then get excited about another one and shelve my current character. It also doesn't help that the Order DPS characters are widely believed to suffer from several issues. Now I say "widely believed", this is just opinion, and is only supported by feedback from players and the forums. Sometimes I agree with the perceived issues, sometimes not. My problems are as follows:

Engineer:

- Most viable tree is the AoE tree, Grenadier. Unfortunately, this tree does not really fit my playstyle, but is considered the best overall. It has a few issues, but has fewer problems than Rifleman or Tinkerer. Rifleman, the single-target tree, was recently buffed, but still has several bugs. This is the tree I would have played, but it has some issues with abilities not working properly, as well as abilities taking longer to cast than they should. And the Tinkerer tree getting Electromagnet nerfed pretty much killed it. Add to this the problem with landmines not deploying properly, turret issues and others. I still like the Engineer, but he needs several fixes to make him live up to his real potential.

White Lion:

- The WL is actually in pretty good shape, the main complaint is that the lion's survivability is very low, and if the lion dies the WL loses a lot of utility. Some players get around this by not using the lion at all and slotting the Loner tactic to supplement their damage. While this is a viable workaround, I feel that the lion needs to either be buffed, or have it's stats scale with it's masters' stats. Another issue is the apparent uselessness of several tactics, as well as certain tactics simply not working properly. Also, they are poncy elves.

Witch Hunter:

-The WH, while widely viewed as inferior to their mirror, the Witch Elf, is really not as gimped as many players believe. All three Mastery trees are considered viable, and each does well in their respective roles. The major complaint is that the WE Kiss system is viewed as being superior to the WH's Blessed Bullet system. This assertion is definitely arguable, with players on both sides coming up with figures that support either system as being "better". So for now, I'm going  to defer to my belief that equivalent complaints are a sign of good balance. The itemization for WH's could definitely use some tweaks. Where a Witch Elf only has to stack Strength as a primary stat, Witch Hunters have to get both Strength and Ballistic Skill, as STR determines the effectiveness of their melee attacks and some Executions, while BS affects their pistol Executions. Now WH's have a naturally high BS value to compensate, but I can't help but wonder if instead Mythic could implement a system where a portion of their STR value was added to their Ballistics. This is similar to how Shadow Warriors in Assault Stance have their Ballistics from items also count towards their STR. Something like that would simplify gearing for the WH, as well as be a minor buff overall.

Slayer/Choppa: 

These guys are actually a really big reason I have trouble sticking to a DPS alt. You see, in the back of my mind the knowledge that these careers are going to be announced and re-implemented soon is putting a serious damper on my desire to get really into one of my current alts. I'm holding back, mentally at least, until I can see just what the new careers will be and how they'll work. Even though I have my own theories about them, nothing is set in stone until they are introduced. Only then will I be able to impartially gauge all the careers and finally figure out what I want to go with. And maybe not even then, heh. 

Hopefully, it won't be too long until the announcement. I really just wish they'd hurry it up and give us some news that we can theoryhammer about. Honestly, sometimes I feel that I enjoy theorizing about careers, mastery builds and abilities more than actually playing the game? But I guess it's because WAR so fully engages my imagination that I enjoy playing it so much.