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The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

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Amdus
Posts: 115

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#51 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:22 am

Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:48 am
I haven't addressed your or OPs delusional posts, nor do I intend to.

You haven't adressed our posts and you attempt to derail the topic simply because you have no arguments against our statements, simple as.

Rapzel wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 5:49 pm So please leave me out of your industrial straw man manufacturing.
If you want to be left out of a discussion, step down by yourself or as you have previously stated simply don't participate if you think we are delusional. But don't complain when you make weak points and we dismantle them. Your statements are exactly what's wrong with this server as a whole, losing more players than gaining new ones has never benefited any MMO where you need actual people in order to enjoy all the content. But you'd be happy playing an empty server as long as you can play with your other 39 elitists in a 20vs20 exciting RvR campaign.

I suppose this will also come as a delusion to you, but let me tell you that considering the time to kill being so high, and allowing the player to make many mistakes without consequences isn't exactly an indicator of a game where you need skill, quite the opposite, is the indicator of a very accesible game where you rely on OTHERS and gear, and RR to win. You have the latter, but we're losing the first at a worriesome rate.

Shield behind calling others delusional, the new world scapegoat or the casual bullshit. At the end of the day time will always tell who was right, and so far it doesn't seem that the mentality that you and others are trying to enforce works, quite the opposite as I have said, and many others have said: we're losing more players than we are getting new ones, NA hours are an xrealming city push fest, Ranked is dead, the balance in small scale is non existant, the balance between factions benefits order more than destro (Changelogs exists, Career builder exists), along with all the points made by OP have succesfully drived away 400 players in the blink of an eye and I see fewer day by day. For how long this will be sustainable is an answer we don't have but I see many indicators that I have seen before, and since I like this game I'd rather not see the server die.

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Rapzel
Posts: 390

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#52 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am

Amdus wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:22 am
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:48 am
I haven't addressed your or OPs delusional posts, nor do I intend to.

You haven't adressed our posts and you attempt to derail the topic simply because you have no arguments against our statements, simple as.

Rapzel wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 5:49 pm So please leave me out of your industrial straw man manufacturing.
If you want to be left out of a discussion, step down by yourself or as you have previously stated simply don't participate if you think we are delusional. But don't complain when you make weak points and we dismantle them. Your statements are exactly what's wrong with this server as a whole, losing more players than gaining new ones has never benefited any MMO where you need actual people in order to enjoy all the content. But you'd be happy playing an empty server as long as you can play with your other 39 elitists in a 20vs20 exciting RvR campaign.

I suppose this will also come as a delusion to you, but let me tell you that considering the time to kill being so high, and allowing the player to make many mistakes without consequences isn't exactly an indicator of a game where you need skill, quite the opposite, is the indicator of a very accesible game where you rely on OTHERS and gear, and RR to win. You have the latter, but we're losing the first at a worriesome rate.

Shield behind calling others delusional, the new world scapegoat or the casual bullshit. At the end of the day time will always tell who was right, and so far it doesn't seem that the mentality that you and others are trying to enforce works, quite the opposite as I have said, and many others have said: we're losing more players than we are getting new ones, NA hours are an xrealming city push fest, Ranked is dead, the balance in small scale is non existant, the balance between factions benefits order more than destro (Changelogs exists, Career builder exists), along with all the points made by OP have succesfully drived away 400 players in the blink of an eye and I see fewer day by day. For how long this will be sustainable is an answer we don't have but I see many indicators that I have seen before, and since I like this game I'd rather not see the server die.
I answer two posts that are flawed, one addressing gear creep, the other one asking why there's no incentive to group up.

I don't belong to this magical 20vs20 community, I don't spend my time in this game pushing campaign. But trying to deny that all campaign progression that is made are made by either
1. Zerg surfing
2. Premade WBs such as FMJ
Is delusional

You can try and defend the casual player as much as you want, the problem is still that the majority of casual players are nothing but renown piñatas for any organised group and have no impact on the outcome of the campaign. They can't even be seen as a "bump I the road".

Ranked is almost dead, sure, but it's more alive today than it was a month or so ago, since we have premade 6vs6 games going on once or twice a week (usually late night EU) why is that?
Solo queue got destroyed by griefing players, running in with their solo 1vs1 builds, AoE glass cannon builds, DPS KotBS/Chosen, 1050 willpower healers and so on, yet according to your opinion these people should be premiered because of the fact that they just exist.

But what do I expect from you and OP, one of you think sorc burst and DPS is the worst I the game, the other one thinks BG is the worst tank in the game.

Caduceus
Posts: 653

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#53 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:47 am

Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am
But what do I expect from you and OP, one of you think sorc burst and DPS is the worst I the game, the other one thinks BG is the worst tank in the game.

Eesh... You're accusing people of strawmanning so what is this supposed to be then? :roll:
"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving." - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz

Rapzel
Posts: 390

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#54 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:51 am

BeautfulToad wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:01 am
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:01 am
Is there though?

The renown nerf hit premade WBs hard in ORvR.
A premade warband will nearly always get more renown, more contrib, more bag rolls and more xp than a pug. The only way a premade doesn't get more rewards is if it performs as poorly (or as well) as a pug. They wipe less, they wipe the other side more, and they can win more sieges and cities.

Saying the rewards difference should be more unequal is wrong in my view. We should be rewarding the grind, and people getting involved in large-scale pvp.
Yes, but that's the progression being faster as a premade, not the rewards being different.

Rapzel
Posts: 390

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#55 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:56 am

Caduceus wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:47 am
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am
But what do I expect from you and OP, one of you think sorc burst and DPS is the worst I the game, the other one thinks BG is the worst tank in the game.

Eesh... You're accusing people of strawmanning so what is this supposed to be then? :roll:
Ad hominem. At least learn your fallacies

Caduceus
Posts: 653

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#56 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:59 am

Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:56 am
Ad hominem. At least learn your fallacies

No. You're misrepresenting my position, which is a strawman.

What are you trying to achieve with this behavior?
"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream; that's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor... and surviving." - Colonel Walter E. Kurtz

Rapzel
Posts: 390

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#57 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:25 pm

Caduceus wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:59 am
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:56 am
Ad hominem. At least learn your fallacies

No. You're misrepresenting my position, which is a strawman.

What are you trying to achieve with this behavior?
I have said nothing about your "position" and I have not addressed your "view" on anything, what I have done is point out that XP-scrolls is not the reason some people "stomp" in mid tier scs, and that gear is not the major factor when it comes to winning that people make it out to be.
I have also made it quite clear that I have no idea why people would play in a premade guild WB each and every night since there's no unique rewards for actually playing in a 24 man, compared to e.g. running around in a 6 man in ORvR (which albeit anecdotal seems to yield faster progression than WB play) or solo (which imo yields slower medallion progression but more XP and renown for kills).

User avatar
Amdus
Posts: 115

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#58 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:40 pm

Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am
I answer two posts that are flawed, one addressing gear creep, the other one asking why there's no incentive to group up.

I don't belong to this magical 20vs20 community, I don't spend my time in this game pushing campaign. But trying to deny that all campaign progression that is made are made by either
1. Zerg surfing
2. Premade WBs such as FMJ
Is delusional
You are openly stating that whoever doesn't fit your perception of gameplay is unnecessary to the server, and not only you have previously said that but now in this post you keep supporting it while elaborating it further:
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am You can try and defend the casual player as much as you want, the problem is still that the majority of casual players are nothing but renown piñatas for any organised group and have no impact on the outcome of the campaign. They can't even be seen as a "bump I the road".
They are renown pinatas sure, but they are the reason that "organized" wb's are farming them, thus providing a constant influx of losers so you can progress in your "organized" wb's. New players are also necessary for guilds to have a steady supply of players, or you think it's a coincidence that 80% of the guilds are 1 or 2 man guilds? Very strong organization. You're right about the big guilds though, because they have the numbers to xrealm at convenience and succesfully manipulate the playerbase into believing those number shifts during NA time are organic.

TL;DR: New and by default CASUAL players are the life source of any MMO.
No new players=Dead game.
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am Ranked is almost dead, sure, but it's more alive today than it was a month or so ago, since we have premade 6vs6 games going on once or twice a week (usually late night EU) why is that?
Solo queue got destroyed by griefing players, running in with their solo 1vs1 builds, AoE glass cannon builds, DPS KotBS/Chosen, 1050 willpower healers and so on, yet according to your opinion these people should be premiered because of the fact that they just exist.
There is no "almost dead". It is completely dead. The only ranked matches that happen are borderline wintrading that occurs through discord, something that again could very easily deliver a few bans if we were to post screenshots of what's going on in discord.

Solo queue got destroyed by the unwillingness of balancing the game in terms of 1vs1, something that every succesful MMO has done but for some reason is not happening here. Nobody in their right mind unless we're talking about those discord ranked "meetings" is willing to queue ranked. Because nobody in their right mind wants to solo queue and end up in a match that lasts for 10 minutes and absolutely nothing dies. Then you make the math to estimate how many ranked matches you need to buy the gear, you compare the gear to sovereign/wl and the answer is really obvious. It's a waste of time that will only give you a headache from spinning the camera around and an endless amount of frustration realizing that whatever class you play except a few are useless. As an example choppa is the most extreme case of the useless melee classes and every ranged class performing extremely poorly aswell. So why queue if you are under that class category? Then add up the other reasons. It's very obvious why ranked is dead and it's very obvious why you have to resort to "meetings" on discord to farm the ranked gear: The alienation of solo and pug players.


I don't know from where you draw the conclusion that I want gear to be rewarded just for the simple reason of existing, I'm saying the exact opposite. That in this game you get rewarded for that, and what is truly delusional is to believe that competition exists or that this is a high skillcap game. There is a huge, massive market of MMO's of all sorts. You have the mostly P2W asian MMO's and you have the classic wow-wannabe killer archetype. Within those categories there are the private servers of those games aswell. Any of those games, especially the wow-wannabe archetypes offer a competitive enviroment where you truly need to be good in order to obtain gear. In example in wow arenas not only you need points, but you also need the required rating in order to purchase items. This is on the level of obtaining wrathful gear back in the wotlk just by doing battlegrounds, absolutely bollocks! What is the point of having a ranked mechanic if the gear is being handed just by participation? Do you understand my point or not yet?

And why this system doesn't work? Because there aren't enough players to keep a steady ranked queue. And why there aren't enough players? Because they are being alienated and we lose more players than we gain new ones. What is the solution here? Well, that's what we are trying to figure out. We do know however, that the model that you are defending with such zealotry doesn't work.
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am But what do I expect from you and OP, one of you think sorc burst and DPS is the worst I the game, the other one thinks BG is the worst tank in the game.
I don't see how our oppinions on past topics are of any relevance to this discussion. If anything it would fit under the initial premise that the bunch of destro nerfs that we had in the past year have not been of any benefit to maintain those classes competitive. In the case of BG I will say that we have appeared maybe twice in the changelog in the past two years, but the worst nerfs have already been handed so nothing would surprise me anymore. I just do like the rest, I roll a chosen. Have you noticed the high number of chosens? I wonder if it's because is the only viable tank on destro side atm, but what do I know? I merely point out what I see, or in some cases I provide math and numbers to back up my claims, however they are dismissed by forum heroes that use anecdotes as an argument. I wonder if this could also be the reason of finding ourselves in this situation, who knows.

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BeautfulToad
Posts: 631

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#59 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:25 pm

Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am
the problem is still that the majority of casual players are nothing but renown piñatas for any organised group
RvR has two elements; numbers and organisation. You need numbers to win. You need organisation to help you win.

The biggest issue with organised premades is that they retreat and quit when stuff happens they don't like, almost immediately. Pugs tend to accept losing, and will be the inner keep with 200% AAO, long after the premades are in bed. The French (order) and Russian (when destro) seem to be exceptions to this. They always seem to be there right till the end even when massively outnumbered when they do RvR.

"Zerging" is considered a problem by certain premade groups that don't like being wiped.

Zerging is a perfectly legitimate tactic, and useful if you outnumber the enemy. It can still be exploited by the other side with organisation.

Rapzel
Posts: 390

Re: The alienation of solo/pug/casual players and it's unintended side-effects

Post#60 » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:28 pm

Amdus wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:40 pm
You are openly stating that whoever doesn't fit your perception of gameplay is unnecessary to the server, and not only you have previously said that but now in this post you keep supporting it while elaborating it further:
Rapzel wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:40 am You can try and defend the casual player as much as you want, the problem is still that the majority of casual players are nothing but renown piñatas for any organised group and have no impact on the outcome of the campaign. They can't even be seen as a "bump I the road".
They are renown pinatas sure, but they are the reason that "organized" wb's are farming them, thus providing a constant influx of losers so you can progress in your "organized" wb's. New players are also necessary for guilds to have a steady supply of players, or you think it's a coincidence that 80% of the guilds are 1 or 2 man guilds? Very strong organization. You're right about the big guilds though, because they have the numbers to xrealm at convenience and succesfully manipulate the playerbase into believing those number shifts during NA time are organic.

TL;DR: New and by default CASUAL players are the life source of any MMO.
No new players=Dead game.
Okay, have I stated that there is no need for new players anywhere or that people that "don't play like me a unneccesary", have I quoted you or anyone out and said that the game will be perfect when there's only 2 people playing? Since you're sure of my "agenda" later on please provide proof.

that is not what my post is about as I have stated several times before, I have not begged the devs to remove casuals or anything like that, I have simply stated that I do not understand why people who play in 24 man premades do it. I do not play in 24 man premades.
Amdus wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:40 pm There is no "almost dead". It is completely dead. The only ranked matches that happen are borderline wintrading that occurs through discord, something that again could very easily deliver a few bans if we were to post screenshots of what's going on in discord.

Solo queue got destroyed by the unwillingness of balancing the game in terms of 1vs1, something that every succesful MMO has done but for some reason is not happening here. Nobody in their right mind unless we're talking about those discord ranked "meetings" is willing to queue ranked. Because nobody in their right mind wants to solo queue and end up in a match that lasts for 10 minutes and absolutely nothing dies. Then you make the math to estimate how many ranked matches you need to buy the gear, you compare the gear to sovereign/wl and the answer is really obvious. It's a waste of time that will only give you a headache from spinning the camera around and an endless amount of frustration realizing that whatever class you play except a few are useless. As an example choppa is the most extreme case of the useless melee classes and every ranged class performing extremely poorly aswell. So why queue if you are under that class category? Then add up the other reasons. It's very obvious why ranked is dead and it's very obvious why you have to resort to "meetings" on discord to farm the ranked gear: The alienation of solo and pug players.
1vs1? What are you even talking about? When did any competitive mmorpg balance around 1vs1 fights?
WoW (which is the most successful MMORPG ever) AWC is based on 1vs1 fights? Name one game where PvP is based on 1vs1 or even remotely balanced.

Uh, 6vs6 community was based on setting up fights and queueing against each other before ranked was introduced, there was a reason Caledor/Temple of Isha was only available to 6 man groups for several years, currently it solves the issue with griefing players. Was the 6vs6 fights in locked zones (doesn't reward renown or medallions) also win trading to you? Because that was done by the 6vs6 community as well, and if you are a part of that I guess you are well aware of all the fights that happened in between the WCs in CW.

Also where do I mention TTK?

Ranged squig herder.

Amdus wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:40 pm I don't know from where you draw the conclusion that I want gear to be rewarded just for the simple reason of existing, I'm saying the exact opposite. That in this game you get rewarded for that, and what is truly delusional is to believe that competition exists or that this is a high skillcap game. There is a huge, massive market of MMO's of all sorts. You have the mostly P2W asian MMO's and you have the classic wow-wannabe killer archetype. Within those categories there are the private servers of those games aswell. Any of those games, especially the wow-wannabe archetypes offer a competitive enviroment where you truly need to be good in order to obtain gear. In example in wow arenas not only you need points, but you also need the required rating in order to purchase items. This is on the level of obtaining wrathful gear back in the wotlk just by doing battlegrounds, absolutely bollocks! What is the point of having a ranked mechanic if the gear is being handed just by participation? Do you understand my point or not yet?

And why this system doesn't work? Because there aren't enough players to keep a steady ranked queue. And why there aren't enough players? Because they are being alienated and we lose more players than we gain new ones. What is the solution here? Well, that's what we are trying to figure out. We do know however, that the model that you are defending with such zealotry doesn't work.
First of all I have not defended any current system, 2nd I have still not addressed your previous posts and I still do not intend to do so.
Amdus wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 2:41 pm I've seen 3 wow servers die out in the past 5 years, servers that went from 3k players to 1k then to 500 then to 200 and then to 40. That highlighted that those 40 were the "elitists" while the other 2960 where the casuals. Now, do you think any MMO is playable with 40 elitists? or are MMO's playable when you have a huge amount of "casuals" that bring the randomness and the surprise factor while the "elitists" farm them and climb the gear ladder thanks to them?
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