Death of Sartok

News

Well its official Sartok is breathing out its last death rattle, and in all of this it really doesn't matter to SOE or seemingly the Dev team. As I'm fairly sure that none of the Dev's bother to read any of the issues on the Sartok Form I am posting this here.

This is not a flame post or anything like that. Its simply stating a series of facts. What follows is a list of why Sartok (and in a larger scope Vanguard) is failing.

No class balance. This is even the case through PVE. Class A is way over powered while class B is nearly worthless half of the time. There has been very little if any real action taken to actually make all of the classes equally viable. This happens through Attempting to make a class better fit its role (or the role its viewed in) and going way beyond what is needed.

Total neglect of some classes and giving WAY to much to other classes. This ranges from under development to what can only be seen as blatantly over powering some classes. My favorite class to point out in the OP category would be Druids. They lacked sustained damage so they were given much much more when all that was needed was to make a few changes in the cost of their spells and give them a bit more variety in damage type. With O'kel's, Tranquility and Tree Form they can avoid massive amounts of damage and then recall (while in tree form) escaping PVP then log out and back in to clear all their cool downs and do it all over again.

I have a level 36 druid that was created only to prove one fact. That a level 36 druid can easily kill a level 50 with one macro and a second button. A level 50+ druid that can add in another ability at that point can instantly kill any class with no risk to themselves at any point.

/minion attack /cast Ire /cast Deadly Swarm /cast Wild Growth wait 2 seconds /cast Starfall = dead level 50. When you get fire seeds its just one more line in the main macro and you instantly kill anyone that isn't fully invulnerable Not to mention that Call lightning breaks the 20% cap.

Of all the OP classes Druids are one of the single most glaring reason why PVP failed. The day they boosted them up 40 people made one and destroyed the majority of the server along with it. On the other side of that list are several classes that were once viable in PVP that are no longer worth much at all. The way the 20% cap nerfs any ability that has both a DD and a dot component has made several classes nearly worthless Such as a Sorc. While Fire Pummel was WAY OP its now not even worth casting. Flame Spear and Char are the same. Their buffs that should reflect, block or cancel a spell do not work in PVP (and seemingly in PVE either) So their 3 good weapons in PVP do nothing and their buffs do nothing just as well.

On the other side of that you have group PVP which amounts to /assist /cast ... yup that's it. Well unless its a druid which consists of macro trank send pets till trank wares off tree form send pets recall camp get your cool downs back repeat.

Resists have almost no value against another player.

Its better to have as few HP as possible in PVP so your heal spells make it almost impossible to kill some healers. As most abilities are 20% capped if you have 4K hp one instant will put you back up to full health and your opponent has just blown 90% of what they can throw at you (Except Druids).

Broken abilities, Some classes breaking 20% cap (Life Taps Call Lightning). Pets being on a 20% cap yet hitting for 600+ X4 pets. OP classes. DD's with DoT components not working. Some classes having several damage dealing abilities not on GCD while other classes have no Damage dealing abilities that are not on GCD. Rift Ways, Release to Alter, Being able to send pets to attack players 500M + away and through walls etc. Locking players into PVP with pets at alters to prevent them from leaving. /targetauto working on anyone flying in a chunk. Being able to target a player flying and cast Lev on them with bards anywhere in the chunk. Rapid fire leveling bypassing 90% of the content in the game.

All of these and more have resulted in hundreds of canceled accounts. Dozens of guilds leaving. 2 PVP servers and several PVE servers closing down or merging.

And all of this could have been prevented. Every last issue could have been resolved.

My real question is this: Is there any real reason to continue playing Vanguard when there are so many games out now that offer as much with out all the issues? Why continue playing a game where group content (VT 50+ area) wipes out raids while other area's require trial after trial with massive grinds to get something that isn't even really as good for many classes as the content in APW offers? Why make leveling to 50 take a week and then have little content actually available for those players when slower leveling would have given the Dev team much more time to work out so many balance and progression issues? Is SOE that willing to throw away a 30 Million dollar investment?

I Left the game for several months after being in a nasty car wreck to find the server I play on on deaths door. My guild-mates have all either server transferred and then quit or flat out quit, and no more than a hand full of players left. I love the base idea behind Vanguard. I love the world that has been created. Its truly amazing, But the combat system is beyond out of control. The level progression has lost any meaning when you can double XP and add quest XP to that in huge chunks at a time going through no more than 6-8 chunks out of the dozens that are out there.

Before rifts people would explore and find new area's and new content. After the rift system its level move to next rift level move to next rift. Travel has no meaning with that kind of system in game. PVP has no meaning with that kind of system in game. But the biggest loss is how much of the games content will never be seen by new players flying from chunk A to B to C via the rift system.

See you in game where all three of the remaining members of Torrent the best and most successful raiding guild on Sartok wait hoping that this game will live up to its potential.