» Wed Mar 19, 2014 5:04 pm The problem most people encounter, myself included, is we are too used to WoW and the dozens of clones which came after it. This is a new game and for once actually different. The old ideology of one man made of iron holding agro and a healer who can single target heal at a tradeoff of 1 mana for 5 hp does not exist in this game. So each group of new players hitting their first real challenging dungeon fails miserably because the Tank believes he can just stand in front of the Boss wailing on it and the trusty healer will keep him alive.
This is not a bad thing, but it does require that we adapt to the new environment. Healers are still very viable and useful, we just do our job a bit differently now. As the “Tanks” learn that blocking and damage avoidance are crucial healing and beating the boss becomes viable. Most players will probably learn this by the time they clear the first dungeon, as only a severely over leveled healer can fix stupid in this game.
I do agree that the newbie starter areas mostly stink, but it truly does get much better afterwards. The first group dungeon you do is more of a learning experience as well, a shocking wake up that this is a different animal than the MMO’s that came before it.
This game offers many things which players have been crying out for, but when it is in our laps it can be intimidating at first. We demanded dynamic battles instead of spamming our skills by hitting 1,2,3,4,5 in order, and they gave that to us but now our old school Tanks are dropping like flies because they actually have to maneuver, dodge and block instead of standing in the bosses face pressing keys.
We wanted dynamic PvP in a real world instead of queued battles which made no sense and awarded points for doing nothing of consequence. They gave us that, but now we are shocked that we must act like real world forces and actually communicate and plan (this will get much better at launch when permanent guilds start organizing strategy). The PvP in this game blows away everything besides DAoC but it requires dropping the WoW senseless arena mentality we have gotten so used to.
And we also asked for a move away from silly cartoony graphics and numbers popping up on screen and they gave us this too. Without using Mods the game is gorgeous (for an MMO) and can be very immersive. Along the lines of pseudo realism they also took emphasis of random killing and give much more rewards to exploring and questing (though I have personally argued against this). We asked for a game that felt like a real fantasy world and not a comic book or cartoon and they delivered it.
If what I have said above does not sound good than perhaps this game is not the one you want. But if you have been crying out that MMO’s need more immersion (less cheesiness), PvP that feels like it has a reason for happening and consequences, and a battle system that involved more than clicking the right number keys in the right order, than this game IS FOR YOU. We have become so disenchanted by the clones of clones we have forgotten how to explore the depths of something new. I do recommend playing this game for anyone who is tired of the issues I mentioned above, and I can’t imagine too many people actually love cheesy cartoon graphics, PvP that matters only for points, and being able watch T.V. while raiding by simply pressing buttons in order.
