RVR weekly event feedback

[Nolofinwe]

My two cents:

It is a good idea but I think it can be further optimized so xrealmers do not spoil the fun.

The most needed change would be to change the fort requirement from successful capture/defense to participation.

After that, you can at least double the Fort, BO capture and kill count requirements.

[sharpblader]

Spoiler:

If all your suggestions are implemented:

1. I selected my character and now am stuck to it for 48 hours and so are all the other players who logged in at the same time. This will not fix population imbalance at all instead this will encourage people to join the winning side more than ever. Nobody wants to be locked out to the losing side for 48 hours. It will also encourage players and guilds to actively discuss and coordinate which side they and their friends will be playing. The statement you underlined and bold will no longer be conjecture but unashamedly a reality.

2. Can't log in to the over populated side? What if a player only plays one faction? Combined with the above rule, they will be unable to play the game till another player, after their 48 hour lockout timer finishes, decides to switch to the losing side and get stuck there for 48 hours. Not many would do that and even if they did they will communicate with their friends and guild first so slots will again be limited. Hence, there's a possibility that an average player playing only one faction will never be able to play the game.

So in conclusion, your suggestions would result in a guaranteed destruction of the game that you claim to care about.

1. This is just step one. I'm aware the situation you describe i.e the majority choosing to play destro this may be the case. This would then make it be clear to devs that there is a major population imbalance issue and it's getting worse as Ive been saying for 1 year. Or if the majority choose to just follow the zerg, then the devs need to confront this issue which has been highlighted by stage 1 being implemented. Stage 1 would provide data what the core problems are with the game.

2.Those players will be able to log in and keep playing by creating a toon on the underdog faction to help rebalance the game in terms of numbers which will take sometime to catch up but its a long term fix not a magic quickfix. As soon as the lead faction goes down to 58% they will be able to log in with their mains. Over time numbers will realign and people will be free to play any toon they wish. This would be a short term heroic sacrifice by people who truly care about the game ands want to see non zerg faceroll balanced ish pvp with reasonable numbers on each side 51 to 59%, not 65% vs 35% all day long, then 35% vs 65% all evening all . It would be The Glorious Burden.

Conclusion: i would feel bad for any person that has always played destro and is loyal to destro, what we really want is the xrealmers and those who always switch or choose the zerg side to be inhibited/restricted or penalised, but as we all know many of them would simply or do play 2 accounts so it remains a difficult situation to counter, there's a hardcore minority who will do ANYTHING for self gain at the detriment to either faction or the game itself. Some decent regular players may be hurt in the short term so we can iron out those who seek to exploit the game for self gain at all times which is becoming more and more on a daily basis. And remember the Community HAS voted TWICE already to restrict X Realmers so despite their protestations of virtue heroism and popularity they really are not wanted and that's been made clear by the majority twice now. So it would be only logical action is taken on this.

The only other alternative is to continue as we are and the game will end up being all on one faction all day, then maybe a switch and all logging on the other faction which would turn the game into a joke.

Im aware you may think some of my suggestions extreme but everything else tried so far has has FAILED, so we are now entering End Game. We cannot ignore the danger, we must conquer it.
If you have other ideas please submit them all ideas should be considered to stop what's happening and the direction population imbalance is going. You've prolly got 20 ideas better than mine so let's hear them.

Another solution someone had in chat today was that if you play both factions on your account, if the game is balanced pop wise, you can play all your toons at any time but if one faction is at 59% or higher then at Log in Screen you only can play for the time being the lower numbers faction until the game population reaches 55% then a message appears and you could if you so wish swap to your other faction. Not my idea. someone else's but it's interestng,


The Mel.

I'm going to make a safe assumption and ask if you only play Order.

If you do, then please be mindful that it is easy to call for sacrifice when you're not the one who has to make it.

In the past it has happened that order has farmed destro non-stop during the most popular hours.

Now, in case the tables turn and in the time zone you play, Order starts to dominate, would you and the Order guilds that "ethically" refuse to play Destro be willing to role a toon on Destro? I don't think so. At the end of the day it's a game where you're supposed to have fun. You cannot expect anyone to play what they do not like. Hence making a decision to rely on this system to maintain population balance is highly risky due to it's instability.

No numbers will realign over time to a situation you want. Why? Because zergs will keep happening. You need to understand the core problem of one sided zerging. Why does it happen? I've shared this before multiple times and in my opinion, it has nothing to do with class balance (nor is their a conspiracy by top guilds). The bottom line reason is the current reward system.

RoR's system that rewards the player for doing content is heavily weighted towards the winner. Most games award the winner 3x while the loser gets 1x. In RoR however, the winner will get 6x while loser will get 1x, arguably even lesser maybe even 0x. I'm not saying the winner should be rewarded less they deserve it, but what I'm saying is that it should not be as punishing as it is for the loser.

Second is the mindset of the modern gamer. Whenever anyone comes to a new game, generally they try it out casually. That's why almost everyone has a great experience in T1. It's nice and simple. The moment they leave it they get pitted against experienced players and if they don't commit to organizing themselves or joining a RvR guild they stand to make little to no progress for the time they put in. Classic games forget that time investment is an important aspect of the modern gamer. Especially with so many other titles out there, to be hooked to yours you need to make them feel their time is being valued. I personally don't agree because my mentality is that of the grinder but it is a sad reality today. Hence no new blood comes in to challenge or balance the status quo. So you end up with the same grinders that chase after quick rewards.

Ill give you my personal example. When I started playing I used to only do pug SCs. Once I wasted an entire weekend getting steamrolled and getting peanut emblems. Then when I saw the cost of the SC weapon I quit. I literally laughed, alt f4 and uninstalled. This is coming from someone who grinded PvP ranks in WoW for 3-4 months.

Lastly, how rewarding and fun is a proper 24v24 fight between two equally skilled and composed warbands? Before War Crests, people were highly incentivised to que dodge in cities, the highest reward content, for if you compare the rewards earned by those who won fighting against a properly organized enemy set up and those who won by steam rolling the enemy team, they were virtually the same, the only difference is that the steamrollers did it in less than half the time and without much effort. The organized WB victors only get pride and recognition. And where in this game is that displayed? Nowhere. There are no guilds listed as the top city performers.

The truth is that equally skilled and composed 24v24 fights without an ulterior objective will almost always result in a draw. Just look at top city guilds fighting each other in cities. Almost all wins are ultimately decided by a Lord race. It's not fun when you can't annihilate your opponent.

So to conclude, the game -

1. Incentivises zerging through the prevalent reward system

2. Causes balanced team fights to be comparatively unrewarding for the extra effort

3. Has elements that can easily dismay or scare away the modern squishy gamer.

So yeah my suggestions will be inclined towards these core issues (without losing players to lack of content), and NOT restricting the players' freedom of choice which will surely make them quit.

[Meliannia]

I really enjoyed reading the post above.
Great stuff, heartfelt, detailed, and informative

tho i would point out that the Order zerg u speak of was NA west coast order stomping destro for weeks on end

GMT CET Order did not benefit one iota from this as all the zones, keeps, forts and cities occured 2.30am til 4.30am our time so we were ASLEEP

Before the game got dumbed down to easy kiddy mode and royal crests and shards were thrown at anyone and everyone like there was no tomorrow, you could only get royals in cities (as God intended), and once I played 13 days over 100 HOURS game play without ONE city in my GMT CET time zone, 13 DAYS without 1 royal crest or even a chance of a royal crest coz GMT CET Order didnt have the numbers or strength to beat CET GMT Destro, no one did, But when the CET GMT Drstri went to bed, then yes you are right, it was a free for all for NA Order and royal crest party time.

Ive made this point over 15 times before and still need to make it almost on a daily basis as NA Destro seem to have no concept that there is a game going on while they sleep and this game is the total opposite to the game they describe in their many posts about numbers imbalance, CET GMT Order have been outnumbered by armies of VERY high ranked organised top guild destro all day every day for 3 YEARS, this is also one of the main reasons West coast Order domination didnt start til 2.30am our time, coz Order couldnt jack til the CET GMT Destro hordes went to bed, then it was party time for NA Order. and poor NA destro had to endure all night long what CET GMT Order had to endure all day long our time.