Plane of War - Failure or diamond in the rough

Good post. Nothing wrong with the zone imo, but the fact that it's so rough and requires a decently traditional group to progress can be a barrier to many and that's understandable, especially with the RvR and cof being such easy mode in all aspects.

This zone would have been better received if it were during a full expansion, not 3 zones with 2 instance hubs and (maybe, hopefully) more coming. If SOE is going to funnel everyone to current content, would be smart for them to deliver a reasonable amount of it....

Pow is just another aug-camping zone now for the most part. There are other good rewards there tho, i remember replacing a rof t1 raid range on an alt the other day while helping a guildie camp an aug.

not all content is for all types of players, but this was a special zone it should of been tuned to let everyone enjoy it.

Everyone has the opportunity to enjoy the zone, their personality will dictate if they do or not.

I like the concept of Plane of War, Tower of Rot and other challenging areas and respect, heck even applaud that they are in game for those who demand that level of play. However, I find it difficult to participate in them. As others pointed out, they require a bit of time and organization but if the real life schedule governing the day to day dictates that you have to digest EQ in blocks of an hour or less most of the time, than those zones are passed by. The fact that SoE attempts to be accommodating to multiple play styles is a check in the box in their favor. Otherwise, many players would have abandoned EQ quite a while ago in favor of whatever they can pick up and put down with ease.

Say what you want about HA's, but if you only have an hour or two to spare at most, they fill that niche quite well.

If all content is useable by 100% of the population, what in your option makes the group player want to change to a raid player? If all content can be effectivly steamrolled by 2, what makes people want to interact?

You say your "leaving due [to] being disenfranchised" well what would interest you? harder content? clearly not because POWar IS harder content, granted the wall may be to much for people to scale, or want to try to scale.

Plane of War is one of the best zones I have sen in a long time. I go there every chance I get.

Saying 90% of the population can not enter it, or that it is for raiders only and you can't use mercs (even tank mercs) is just being silly.

Ive used a tank merc multiple times camping the judicator.

The zone is fine, the exp not so much. WTB way more exp.

I would argue the zone is most enjoyable to people that have stopped watching their exp bar move, mainly because it doesn't anymore

I would also imagine that this is a significant portion of EQ's population (though not as high as a couple of years ago as Axxius was saying)

I love the challenge of Plane of War, and I am a magician- one of those supposed "banned" classes in this zone LOL. I do enjoy the time sinks of the zone, and the progression in it. I just wish more players on my server want to invest the time and energy in doing it...

I think that's a large part of the problem. For the people who still watch the exp bar, the zone provides little else than a chance to bang your head against a wall trying to progress. If the zone at least gave "hotzone exp" more people would be in there banging away. Therefore more groups would form and more success would be had progressing in there.

I've avoided it for this very reason. If a pre-made group invited me in - I'd go in a heartbeat.
But so try to molo, then duo, then trio, the trash content while trying to build a good group - not unless the exp is a lot better.
-Rat

They would perhaps, if they at least got some exp for all the effort required.
-R

I just want to clarify that the friends that I enjoy PoWar with on a weekly basis are ex-raiders and non-raiders, and my wife and I are currently in group gear except for my extended range mask from ToV.

PoWar is thus extremely difficult for us...and we revel in the challenges.

Happily, when my friends are not available, and I end up PUGing in PoWar with raiders, it's not the snooze-fest a mission/HA would be.

I'm not opposed to better exp in PoWar, but I also don't see it as a problem that people who have not finished fine tuning their characters are not ready to start there.

It's fun, however even in raiding guilds most people can't be bothered with it. I'd wager not a single top-tier guild has farmed 54 circle 4's, just the people who care about min/max will. It was fun, it was challenging...I 1 grouped all but 1 boss and had a blast. But none of us needed the gear, most of it rotted due to no one else being able to get to where we were & the raids still broken. I will look back on all the fun and good times in the zone and my only thought it 'it'd sure be nice if the raid functioned as intended' there are still basic functionality issues (priests anyone?) with the raid mechanics.

On top of that it's stayed broken this entire time and now tower of lag is out and isn't much better. It's winnable if you don't mind the intense lag in the culmination of the event, but most people can't be bothered to screwdriver themselves for the first t2 raid win.

When he spawns you use the Mercs too? It's just silly being told to use Mercs.

For what, the awesome exp.? The rare drops? No one is going there just for that.

Yes, I have used a tank merc to tank the judi multiple times. It takes a real healer and a slower. Crazy. I know. We couldn't sit back and mindless let a pet tank it with no real threat of ever dying because the pet owner was fortunate enough to loot 1 item before hand. We also didn't have a raid geared tank either. Just crazy that we were able to get anything done!

If you need xp, go sit through a mindless DH HA grind.
If you want to work towards top of the line clickies and augs you can't currently find anywhere else, go to PoWar.

People complain that the content is only geared to raiders or some super elite part of the population...but when its pointed out you can use mercs..you call it "silly"?

Apparently if it's not 3 boxable by 3 Int casters using pet tanks and 3 Mercs, it's inaccessible to 90% of EQ.....

37% of all people's favorite color is blue, too. (Look, I can make vague gross generalizations, also!).

In all seriousness chase content is good, just not when it's half of the content the whole community gets in an 8 month window.

You started the whole silly thing. I'm using your words.

So apparently tank Mercs are viable options in PoWar. I don't believe it, anyone beside the raid contingent of these forums care to concur?