Seriously, I've had fun with Notum Wars, but there is something very serious that needs airing (and indeed fixing) and thats buffing in low and mid level PvP (i.e under level 150)
It plain and simple imbalances the game completely and leads to people who were becoming interested in PvP turn off again.
It's so frustrating because you almost had them interested with the good work that did go into NW. However all that work will be for nothing if this isn't fixed very quickly.
In the first few days / weeks people were getting used to the rules and most of the low and mid level fighting was reasonable fun. People who hated the gank fest that was AOs PvP were actually being won over, significantly so.....
...then it started...
Guilds starting organising and the twinkage began, not through items and weapons but through buffs which have no restrictions other then needing the NCU.
If a level 10-75 players gets a level 150+ buff, or worse still a number of them it is truely frightening, make it a team of them and it's unstoppable.
I have seen level 30 players in Towers battles with the Highest Fixer HoT, an essence and a damage shield on. Simply attacking them killed most normal opponents very quickly.
That's just not fun no matter how you twist it, turn it or put spin on it.
Yes at the moment its a legal tactic and I wouldn't expect any less of AOs PvP die-hards then to start using it, but for the good of the game it needs addressing and needs addressing now
At the moment PvP below 150 is simply decided on who has the highest level buffs on, nothing more nothing less. I would suggest that all, or at least some of the following suggestions are at least considered.
- Upon initaiting orbeing the subject of a valid PvP attack all buffs not within 20% of your level are striped out (Thats a purely plucked out the air figure, something would need to be worked out). It would need to work like this so that PvE players simply passing an active LC area on their way to a mission weren't debuffed.
- OE code on buffs that means you cannot receive a buff more then 25% above your level range whilst inside PvP territory
To avoid annoying people who like to twink in PvE these would need to be only impleneted together. People could still twink and PvE with higher buffs
- Fix the team buffing bug (you can still buff team members regardless of level)
- Allow defenders to attack within the QL range of the LC area to attack anyone that enters (The defenders would have to be careful as this could mean they attack higher level players, but it would stop the level range exploiting going in)
Until such time as something is done about buffing, PvP will not attract the percentage of the player base it deserves to. It can be fun, it just needs to be fair first!