now that i have finally a rank 40 character in Warhammer Online (WAR) it might be a good idea to comment on the so-called “endgame” that is an important part of a mmorpg. leveling and getting to the max level (rank) is actually quite fun in WAR and does not feel like an excessive grindfest compared to other games. i found that the most effective way to get xp is to do everything the game has to offer: quests, scenarios, PQs (public quests) and open RvR. i never found myself in the situation that i was out of quests and didn’t gain enough xp from scenarios or open RvR so that i had to go and grind some mobs. additionally i did not rush to max level but tried to enjoy the ride and explore the game world. however, eventually you will get to rank 40 and then “endgame” begins.
so what is in fact endgame in WAR, a game that focuses on RvR (PvP)? the ultimate goal is to invade the other realm’s capital city, toss the righteous owners out and kill their king for glory and phantastic loot. sounds fun in theory, doesn’t it? something different than the usual endgame PvE dungeon crawls! that raises the question on how do you invade the other realm’s capital city? by “locking” zones (no time limit) and capturing two fortresses within 12 hours. let me elaborate: imagine a map from north to south with The Inevitable City (Chaos capital) in the north and Altdorf (Empire capital) in the south. in between to have the zones (areas) Chaos Wastes (by default Destruction controlled), Praag (by default contested) and Reikland (by default Order controlled). the first step towards Altdorf would be to lock down Praag. you do that by capturing all keeps and battle objectives (BOs) in Praag, killing enemy players, winning Praag scenarios and doing PQs until you have accumulated 100 victory points (VPs). once Praag is locked the war moves on to Reikland where you repeat the process. after that its fortress siege time: you have an hour to invade the fortress Reikwald and kill the lord there. if successful, you need to repeat the zone lock and fortress siege procedure in another pairing (either Greenskins vs. Dwarves or Dark Elves vs. High Elves) within 12 hours and then you get a shot at Altdorf.
unfortunately, i can’t comment on how invading Altdorf (or The Inevitable City) works since i have never experienced it so far. the reason is that fortress sieges are currently impossible to complete successfully because of bad design (forcing 200 players up a small ramp) and server instability (the server usually crashes several times). i do play on the most populated server in EU (Karak Eight Peaks) and if a fortress is under attack you have like 300-400 player crammed into a very small space. the server lag is terrible, my insta casts take up to 5 seconds and spells with cast time up to 20 seconds before they fire. sooner or later the server crashes and while it does reset the fortress (both doors are back up) the timer does not reset and hence make killing the fortress lord impossible. in the current state i seriously doubt i will see the enemy’s capital city anytime soon. so much for the proclaimed “different” endgame in WAR.
however, there are other “endgame” parts in WAR. one being getting to renown rank (RvR rank) 80. this is nothing but an endless grind! with diminished returns for player kills in place, the only way to get decent renown is to take BOs (1000 renown) or keeps (around 1100 renown). this results in “renown trains” that do not bother to fight players but just take BOs and keeps and then leave for another pairing to do the same there. usually nobody really bothers to defend keeps or BOs since there is no reward for it but rather prefers “keep trading”: leaving an attacked keep behind to attack an enemy controlled keep at the same time. this is boring because taking an undefended keep is nothing else than PvE in the form of breaking two doors and killing the keep lord NPC.
speaking of PvE there are three endgame dungeons (instances) in WAR where you can get good gear that is on the same level than gear from fortress sieges and city invasions. since fort sieges and invasions are currently impossible quite a lot of players focus on doing the City Dungeons and Lost Vale at the moment. here’s another problem: all endgame instances are for 6 players only. however, there are 11 classes per realm and the bosses in those instances drop random loot. so your chance to get items for the classes in your group are rather slim. this is just downright silly and annoying. why not have the bosses drop tokens that can be exchanged for armor items of the respective classes? what makes matters worse is the 3 day lockout (6 days for Lost Vale) once you have killed bosses in those instances. the city dungeons can be cleared in 1 to 1.5 hours each which makes the 3 day lockout even more ridiculous.
last but not least there are still scenarios to keep you entertained if you are sick of keep trading and actually want to fight some players. however, scenarios at endgame level are not really fun. there is too much crowd control and too high resistances involved. as a caster i often see on my screen: “You are silenced. You are disabled. You are dead.” before i can even cast a single spell. for whatever ludicrous reason there are no diminished returns for crowd control effects (silence, knockdown) in place. the same goes for resistance caps. players can easily farm resistance gear and boost their resistances (spiritual, corporeal, elemental) to mitigate up to 90% of the incoming magical damage. a simple example: one of my spells can crit for around 2700 on rank 40 mobs. the very same spell crits for around 250 on a rank 40 tank. the base damage of the spell is around 550. while i do agree that resistance should mitigate magical damage to some degree i don’t agree with the amount of mitigation. there should be a cap on resistances like in every other mmorpg. no wonder a lot of people roll low level alts because there is little or no crowd control and no resistances in lower tiers.
i love the warhammer universe and the lore, i like the concept of RvR being the center of the game and i still believe the game has a huge potential but there are quite a few flaws and issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible. when people say that WoW wasn’t perfect in the first few months they usually forget that WoW did not have any serious competition back then and in fact could afford to mature over time. newer mmorpgs cannot afford that luxury because players do not put up with messed up things anymore.