The real State of the Realm -endgame discussion
Posted: Sat May 30, 2020 11:30 am
I would like to point out I wrote half an hour on this post then I got signed off the forums and lost everything when hitting Submit. Can we increase the time for the automatic sign-off please? Thank you! Now I have to rebuild the whole thing from scratch, it's a pain when there's no ALT+S. Imma try to keep it shorter, but I had such a nice post. Now I'm raging IRL.
Here I am again with some critiques but also some suggestions!
I am but a new player on this server - a month or a bit over a month. 13days 2hours played (got to almost 80 RR). I am a Destro player as I played Order on retail servers, there are some differences from the retail server for some classes, but I know the classes on Order side so I had to try Destro side too.
This will be related mainly to the endgame currency, Invader and Royal Crests in particular, and how it affects the overall RVR in my opinion.
Invader is awarded from: Fortress attack/defense -6 if u win, 4 if u lose; Gold/Purple bag from RVR (1 in each after vanquisher full set), maybe some quests (not sure if that's just for Conqueror tho). Edit: defending (pushing back) last zones before a Fortress once you get Vanquisher title.
Royal crests are awarded from: City sieges -4 if u win, 1 if u lose; Gold/Purple bag from RVR (1 in each after invader full set).
It seems to me that every invader++ player logs in only for the city siege. This benefits no-one. RVR is fought only by low geared players (with a few exceptions ofc) so it takes ages to get to the city. Endgame geared (vanquisher+) aren't motivated enough to take part in the RVR. So they queue for PVE or Scenarios, instead of actually pushing for a city.
Main hindrances:
1) Lack of ways to obtain currency.
2) Xrealming
3) Chat sabotage
4) Player availability.
1) I would like to suggest implementing a drop from kill policy as well. Some thresholds can be set: you have to be a certain RR level, u must kill a certain RR player, u have to have X achievment. Even 0.2% drop rate would motivate high geared players toward joining the RVR. This would also reward my PUG killing ThunderCatz or Tsunami premade groups. "Yeah but this promotes zerging". Well, it promotes it on both sides and second, the zerg is already happening anyway and it takes forever to get some currency with only 2 cities / 24 h, if we're lucky. This way even players who miss the cities for various reasons can still work towards their progress. Not having to login at random times when cities happen. People have lives, and these are pixels so I don't understand why this would pose a problem. I would like to see full warbands in full sovereign clashing in the fields of battle. Now that's worthy of a Twitch Stream, not watching walls in front of a keep or killing lowbies with your full sov group.
Another option would be to increase the amount of currency gained in Bags. (From 1 to 3)
Another option would be to reward the lock of a zone with some currency. (Even 1 is welcomed)
Another option would be to add Oppressors to the loot table as well, as a low chance too, so we can progress in parallel and get those pesky Scenario farmers in the ORVR. "Yeah but then no scenario queue" - Incorrect, scenarios are objectives based small instances, u can always jump in whenever u feel like it. Or even add a 0.2% drop in Scenarios for Invader and Crests - imagine mixing them together. It would be really rewarding then to play each PVP part of the game.
Hell, you can even do weekend events: Hunt members of X guild or X class or in X zone for extra rewards. Or an instant GM monitored event (5-15 mins duration): Hunt down Secrets and get his mane! PROTIP: he is in CW. (it's just a joke/example, no need to ban me)
Please bear in mind, this isn't LineAge 2 or other games where if u get killed u lose pieces from your inventory or gear.
2) Xrealming - I am willing to bet this is related to the currency as well. The grass always seems greener on the other side. Destro looks weak? Sure, let me change to the opposing faction for some fast and easy rewards. Swapping sides so often in an opposing faction environment results only in players playing against themselves. I know we're all ALTOHOLICS, but being able to swap so often ruins the experience for every1. Everything gets dragged on forever. I would suggest an increase in the lockdown to 3 hours. This would make you decide which side you wanna play on and at the same time impact the RVR in a good way - zones would get locked down within a timespan of 3 hours. Nowadays, we siege for 1 hour, we wipe, why wait 10 minutes for a new ram when u can jump on the other toon on the opposing faction and just get free currency? THere's a reason all the retail games don't allow creating characters on opposing factions AND on the same server, especially in RVR games. 3 hours is not so much, but it would mean a lot in the overall grand scheme of things. Maybe it's time to decide which character you're gonna play on.
3) Chat sabotage - by this I mean all the people calling for throws via sarcastic /t4 spamming of "destro pride" "yeah, let's not get a city EU time, let the US have it", etc. It's not saying "throw" ad literam, people whispered me you could get banned. But this toxic stuff is hard to swallow. I don't know if people are acting the same way on Order side, but IMO, this is a result of low currency availability. Ppl willing to sell their side, or poison other people's minds for some pixels. I want to believe we're better than that as a human race, not just greedy over pixels. I am sure that if improvements are implemented on the end game currency side of things, this chat toxicity will disappear.
4) Player availability - Not everyone is available for cities running @ 5 AM. Improving the currency availability will motivate players to enter other areas of the game besides camp cities or play on their alts and/or other faction. Having currency drop from other various tasks would also allow casual players to progress faster instead of swapping factions or rerolling a class out of the boredom of farming currency. Nowadays people are used with games like WoW where u get handed everything on a golden platter, so the City farm might kill their enthusiasm.
There were some other ideas that flew out of my head as I lost everything from my previous post, but this was the topic mainly. Currency and how it affects the endgame flow.
I am working in Risk Management and Fraud Prevention, and I had not the opportunity to work for a gaming company yet in order to better understand the ropes and ladders, but the patters are patters and math is math. My gaming experience is rather varied, and I'm a hardcore PVPer with some SC:BW, CS 1.4, Quake3, War3, WoW live tournaments under my belt (the only times I had to wake up early for gaming, and not for some city siege), some Glad titles in WoW and other results.
I would like to end this by giving a very big THANK YOU to all the Devs, GMs and all the other people involved in this wonderful project! You guys did way better than EA and other legit gaming companies, and I hope you keep doing the good stuff for years to come, maybe even find a way to get some monetary rewards for yourselves too as I would gladly chip in! And we, the players, sure know you guys deserve it!
Here I am again with some critiques but also some suggestions!
I am but a new player on this server - a month or a bit over a month. 13days 2hours played (got to almost 80 RR). I am a Destro player as I played Order on retail servers, there are some differences from the retail server for some classes, but I know the classes on Order side so I had to try Destro side too.
This will be related mainly to the endgame currency, Invader and Royal Crests in particular, and how it affects the overall RVR in my opinion.
Invader is awarded from: Fortress attack/defense -6 if u win, 4 if u lose; Gold/Purple bag from RVR (1 in each after vanquisher full set), maybe some quests (not sure if that's just for Conqueror tho). Edit: defending (pushing back) last zones before a Fortress once you get Vanquisher title.
Royal crests are awarded from: City sieges -4 if u win, 1 if u lose; Gold/Purple bag from RVR (1 in each after invader full set).
It seems to me that every invader++ player logs in only for the city siege. This benefits no-one. RVR is fought only by low geared players (with a few exceptions ofc) so it takes ages to get to the city. Endgame geared (vanquisher+) aren't motivated enough to take part in the RVR. So they queue for PVE or Scenarios, instead of actually pushing for a city.
Main hindrances:
1) Lack of ways to obtain currency.
2) Xrealming
3) Chat sabotage
4) Player availability.
1) I would like to suggest implementing a drop from kill policy as well. Some thresholds can be set: you have to be a certain RR level, u must kill a certain RR player, u have to have X achievment. Even 0.2% drop rate would motivate high geared players toward joining the RVR. This would also reward my PUG killing ThunderCatz or Tsunami premade groups. "Yeah but this promotes zerging". Well, it promotes it on both sides and second, the zerg is already happening anyway and it takes forever to get some currency with only 2 cities / 24 h, if we're lucky. This way even players who miss the cities for various reasons can still work towards their progress. Not having to login at random times when cities happen. People have lives, and these are pixels so I don't understand why this would pose a problem. I would like to see full warbands in full sovereign clashing in the fields of battle. Now that's worthy of a Twitch Stream, not watching walls in front of a keep or killing lowbies with your full sov group.
Another option would be to increase the amount of currency gained in Bags. (From 1 to 3)
Another option would be to reward the lock of a zone with some currency. (Even 1 is welcomed)
Another option would be to add Oppressors to the loot table as well, as a low chance too, so we can progress in parallel and get those pesky Scenario farmers in the ORVR. "Yeah but then no scenario queue" - Incorrect, scenarios are objectives based small instances, u can always jump in whenever u feel like it. Or even add a 0.2% drop in Scenarios for Invader and Crests - imagine mixing them together. It would be really rewarding then to play each PVP part of the game.
Hell, you can even do weekend events: Hunt members of X guild or X class or in X zone for extra rewards. Or an instant GM monitored event (5-15 mins duration): Hunt down Secrets and get his mane! PROTIP: he is in CW. (it's just a joke/example, no need to ban me)
Please bear in mind, this isn't LineAge 2 or other games where if u get killed u lose pieces from your inventory or gear.
2) Xrealming - I am willing to bet this is related to the currency as well. The grass always seems greener on the other side. Destro looks weak? Sure, let me change to the opposing faction for some fast and easy rewards. Swapping sides so often in an opposing faction environment results only in players playing against themselves. I know we're all ALTOHOLICS, but being able to swap so often ruins the experience for every1. Everything gets dragged on forever. I would suggest an increase in the lockdown to 3 hours. This would make you decide which side you wanna play on and at the same time impact the RVR in a good way - zones would get locked down within a timespan of 3 hours. Nowadays, we siege for 1 hour, we wipe, why wait 10 minutes for a new ram when u can jump on the other toon on the opposing faction and just get free currency? THere's a reason all the retail games don't allow creating characters on opposing factions AND on the same server, especially in RVR games. 3 hours is not so much, but it would mean a lot in the overall grand scheme of things. Maybe it's time to decide which character you're gonna play on.
3) Chat sabotage - by this I mean all the people calling for throws via sarcastic /t4 spamming of "destro pride" "yeah, let's not get a city EU time, let the US have it", etc. It's not saying "throw" ad literam, people whispered me you could get banned. But this toxic stuff is hard to swallow. I don't know if people are acting the same way on Order side, but IMO, this is a result of low currency availability. Ppl willing to sell their side, or poison other people's minds for some pixels. I want to believe we're better than that as a human race, not just greedy over pixels. I am sure that if improvements are implemented on the end game currency side of things, this chat toxicity will disappear.
4) Player availability - Not everyone is available for cities running @ 5 AM. Improving the currency availability will motivate players to enter other areas of the game besides camp cities or play on their alts and/or other faction. Having currency drop from other various tasks would also allow casual players to progress faster instead of swapping factions or rerolling a class out of the boredom of farming currency. Nowadays people are used with games like WoW where u get handed everything on a golden platter, so the City farm might kill their enthusiasm.
There were some other ideas that flew out of my head as I lost everything from my previous post, but this was the topic mainly. Currency and how it affects the endgame flow.
I am working in Risk Management and Fraud Prevention, and I had not the opportunity to work for a gaming company yet in order to better understand the ropes and ladders, but the patters are patters and math is math. My gaming experience is rather varied, and I'm a hardcore PVPer with some SC:BW, CS 1.4, Quake3, War3, WoW live tournaments under my belt (the only times I had to wake up early for gaming, and not for some city siege), some Glad titles in WoW and other results.
I would like to end this by giving a very big THANK YOU to all the Devs, GMs and all the other people involved in this wonderful project! You guys did way better than EA and other legit gaming companies, and I hope you keep doing the good stuff for years to come, maybe even find a way to get some monetary rewards for yourselves too as I would gladly chip in! And we, the players, sure know you guys deserve it!