Plane of War - Failure or diamond in the rough

I personally love this zone. It's a nice reprieve from the face roll quests we've had for ages,
Cheap tricks and gimmicks don't work here. It's brass tactics and a big punch that win the day here.

I have three amazing items from Plane of War currently, and I'm Hunting for two more. Sometimes my hunting trips get delayed due to a "off night" or if people feel like doing other things.

But the reason I love this zone, more then any other, is the fact that skill is once again mandatory.
You can't just take a "rookie" in here and expect success. You need players who understand their class. Players who do research and homework and actually appreciate the little tiny details that can turn a rough battle into a complete success.

Playing in Plane of War reminds me of playing Everquest with my Dad, back in Planes of Power.
Sitting right beside him, listening intently to Teamspeak as the group went over the strategy of how we planned on breaking into our camp area,
We had one simple task. Break into the room and space the red pawn timers far enough to maintain the camp.
Seemed simple on paper, but our DPS was too low. We needed more power.

Looking around I spotted a dark blue mob. Casted charm on it. Now we where rolling!
Corpses littered the ground as we tried to pop the named we where after.
It was difficult. Took many risks, and almost wiped a few times. But at the end of it all..
I walked away with a new pair of boots.

Just because content is more difficult, doesn't make it a flop. Sure you might find more players in Dead Hills then Plane of War but, when you think of it, these players have two completely seperate goals in mind.

When I go to Plane of War, I'm chasing an item that is unsurpassed by anything else in group content, a primary weapon augment, fit for some serious DPS. Maybe I'm after a Circle of Mana clicky, or a nice secondary AC aug for my tank friends.

I expect it to be difficult. I expect to giggle uncontrollably as my Paladin friend gets smashed in the face by an ogre and falls flat on his face.
I expect to be smashed in the face myself. Much to the mirth of my friends.

You might only see 15 - 20 people there. But I bet they are having a lot of fun

Players asked for raids for 18 - 24 players, rather than mess with the raiders traditional raids, they created the Plane of War for those who asked for smaller raid content.

This isn't something the raid guilds asked for, this was something a lot of the lower guilds/casuals asked for.

And you did. Thank you for the zone. This (crappy) screenshot of the first kill of The Grandmaster summarizes why I love the zone so much. It was soooo worth the journey.

Oooooooo show and tell! We figured it was special enough to pose for a picture!



I find it interesting you didn't clear the whole board.

I like the level of mobs and how they are, but what I do hate is the level of flagging there is.
And because of that, I will not play there.

I see a Magician pet. How is that possible in a zone where pet classes are useless?????

To be fair, he died a lot.

Why would we?

The pet or the mage?

wouldn't it be both? because doesnt the pet die when the mage dies?

Yes but the pet can die without killing the mage.

Though there has been bugs in the past where the pet doesn't die, he just goes feral and attacks players.

really? I thought they were linked, when one dies the other dies a more horiffic death.

I thought the player base as a whole aggreed to never discuss that again though?


All jokes and fun aside, the zone could use more exp, and more 'content' per flaged area that is 'single groupable' (read: Moloable) that your casuals can do. IE put two 'named' in the first area that drop ~2.5k HME gear that is balaced for all classes ot use. Doing that should stop the complaining naysayers as it gives them something to go for just by zoneing in. I state 2.5k because that is about the power level of current gear for lv 100s in my mind.

I agree. I think it's fine as it is.
My only comment was that the exp outta come up as an incentive for peeps to "get a little something while struggling with it".
-R

It's a gimmick zone and that is what it was intended to be. It hit its mark and it will soon fade out of existance for most players. I don't see the problem with it other than the stupid game changes they made just for one gimmick zone.

A challenge zone is great. Somewhere to go where you can't just hit a few macro then go afk watching tv or surfing the net.

What get me mad and worried at the same time is the fact that to do it in PoWar you had to disable class abilities to do it. There are tons of ways you could have made PoWar as hard as it is without having to resort to disabling classes. And the only reason I have seen giving was "we felt this was a good way to go"(not exact words). If we had been giving a list of reasons as to why you felt it was the way to go that be one thing but none where or have been giving.

No reason. Just interesting how different people approach things.

So awesome. And you know what else is spot on? PoWar getting mentioned near the top of the reasons friends are logging in less or saying they might be back later. (I said its One reason)

You made a play ground for raiders when they already have raids. This response is almost (best I remember it) spot on of the response we got when UF came out and a dev said we wanted hard we got it. Then to watch the population plummet and you guys back peddling, down tuning it.

I'm sure you see the numbers so you know better than I do but I can't see subscribers increasing since the release of this.

I love the zone. I'll go there in groups, because many people in my guild are very skilled and enjoy the content, or I'll go there with my box group and pop some judis. Nothing like 3 boxing a judicator in a race against mana and time. Fun as heck. I'm on test server where most people haven't done a lot of the flagging, so I'm kinda at a standstill and I might never get to fight the grandmaster.

Underfoot was a great expansion except for two factors. First it followed the fail that SoD was, erasing everything the game was up to that point by being so easy that everyone regardless of playtime, skill or desire was suddenly funneled into whatever was current pretty much exclusively. And the stupid that total gear resets brought by negating older raid gear. Killing any real use of old content making low or mid tiered guilds quit raiding entirely or stick to a tiny amount they could win that had actual upgrades over group gear. Second they were way to slow to retune the first 3 entry raids. Fippy, Beast and PG were all overtuned for entry raids especially because of my first point and how all raid guilds essentially were suddenly forced to raid UF exclusively because anything prior held little to no value anymore.

It was that way, because throwback to PoP. Maybe you weren't around or don't remember that era, but mage pets weren't tanking anything in the Planes. My beastlord's pet was a speedbump (no different than shaman wolf or druid bear), necro pets were a DoT, and magician pets were something that could survive 2-3 rounds.

Most classes had their modern niceties removed to simulate the game, circa 2003. Aggro is terrible to manage (oh was THAT true!), too. An overpull could be deadly with mob's strikethrough and high DPS output, plus there are less tools available to use in that zone.

A lot of my class utility as a monk is rendered useless in War. Many of my class defining abilities (pulling) don't function at all in the zone. Difference is, I'm happy to play the game where the only trick up my sleeve is feign death and struggle with aggro over tanks spamming their abilities, because I miss that era of the game. Some players enjoy the many twists and turns the game has taken since PoP, but there's no need to come in and cry foul.