Patch Notes 28/01/2022

[anarchypark]

ppl wanna group with good players.
when 1 side getting more and more numbers it's WB and 6man, 3man were forming simultaneously.
it means leaders and friends forming groups which is often around guilds and alliance.
players wait initial action from certain leaders and friends.
until then, they soloing, trolling or simply don't login.

on contrary, ppl don't wanna group with bad players.
when your side have dumb noobs but other side have smart good players that you can check from discord or friend/ignore lists,
it's playing with friends, guild. not xrealming, right?

what we need is more leaders. need to tolerate each other and group to fight back.
for this, system need to force players to stick together. even if it's dumb noobs.
( and for this, need to reduce the penalty of noob play insta wipe. but that's another story. )
there's chance that ppl just refuse and logoff and wait guild/friends.

but when you know players who left wb after 1 wipe are not adding to enemy number, at least it's less demoralize.

[wonshot]

To me it seems to be two very conflicting issues that end up often being adressed as "crossrealming".

Since crossrealming doesnt affect scenarios, pve, and to a little extend Ranked. it is only the campaign that will be affected by a population shift.
So what is a realm lockout directed at exactly? to prevent stalemates like we often see zones not locking during 4hours of EU primetime would be my guess. But on the other side of the coin the "hardcore pvp crowd with acces to both sides" will want to have this option available to them, to take on the outnumbered challenge and persue a targetrich enviroment by swapping realm for their own benefit, but also to provide a fight in the case of a big logout shift in momentum for whatever reason.

There are probably two types of realm-hoppers.
a) The winner joining progression hunters, wether its a casual family dad with 1hour playtime and no voicecom.
b) or if its the content creator with a vibrant discord who will swap realm based on where to get the best chance of a fight (outnumbered or targeting rivals on either realm)
These are the two extremes of realm hopping cases I can think of, and then a bunch of greyarea of reasons inbetween depending on the player and the day.

But ultimately I dont believe with the current systems that the campaign movement can be saved, simply by adjusting the logout timer. Adjusting the realm lockout timer seem to be a coating adjustment to prevent players who got carried by a hardcore group/warband/guild of players on Realm-A during a succesful zonelock or fort attack, to not get farmed by the very same players swapping over and farming their "old realmmates" on Realm-B in the next zone. We saw it with the "anti Rowan" implimentation of 90min lockout from forts about a year ago.

So here we are. With our current lockouts and xrealming being the year old scapegoat. But realisticly there will always be crossrealming because of the situation with this free shard private server. As long as you dont pay a monthly sub, you dont have to pay for a new game key. You can litterally make a new account, and several accounts are allowed. So making one account for your Order characters, and one for your Destro and Vola you can crossrealm. So no matter what the crossrealming lockout will be, some players will have acces to xrealming and the complaints for this scapegoat will never die.. VPN bypassing the lockout, bugs, exploits to reset the timer, you name it..

Instead! I would much rather if the focus was shifted into makeing AAO attractive again as a system to make sure the pvp population is not turning the open zones into PvDoor.
And if casual players are getting farmed by hardcore players and quitting, then methods and mechanics can be implimented or catchup, easier grouping, or eventually when all the handholding options have been exhausted accept that this is a pvp driven game and skill will play a role after a player is done chasing shiney and purely playing to chase the goldbag gravytrain.

Make AAO worth swapping to the underdog realm for hardcore players, and if the focus truely is about keeping the campaign healthy and moving. Then maaybe its time just make the zonelocks and keepsieges actually interesting instead of scripted 3minut oil, 50% doorhealth between each oil, funnel outer, funnel inner, beat on an NPC. Give the Main system of the campaign some attention instead of pushing ranked patches for one year in a row now.
It is too easy to drop the "do the devs even play their own game" but im still gonna risk my neck and openly ask;
Does anyone from the team actually enjoy running boxes or ramming a keep door? If the answer is no- Then its probably very likely that if you dont enjoy this, the players will get bored of it too.
Siegetowers, siegeladders, spreading the action, zergbusting tools, aao improvements, morale per second adjustments to kill the waiting time for a m4 push on a funnel etc etc. Plenty of suggestions over the years ive been on RoR but keepsieges and the zonelocks are still the bread and butter but remain unattaractive to most when you take the gear-carrot away. And the few who actually stay in their geared toons and play this content? Well they get targeted with restrictions like the 90min fort lockout.

Im not for -or against lockouts. Do what you want, but dont blame the uninteresting maingame for people finding their own fun pvping in a pvp game.

[Maltar]

Two different suggestions for lockouts, with a reward idea for going underdog.

Lockout multiplier:
Make the lockout timer higher than today, but put in a multiplier on the rate it decays based on the balance in the rvr lakes over the last 10-15 minutes.
Order zerging, well going destro quickly becomes an option if the numbers are too unbalanced.
Though to really motivate people would probably need to mix with bounty suggestion to get people to actually shift side.

No lockouts but no loot for zerg:
Make a loot lock on players in rvr content if switching to zerging realm as an alternative to lockout timer, with the temptation being bounty if going to underdog realm. That way pve, scenarios and dungeons are not touched by rvr lockouts, but you get the best of both worlds. Incentive to go underdog, and punishment for joining the zerg.

Bounty suggestion:
My second suggestion to add on top of either of those two might be a smidge more controversial, but a "bounty" for changing side, growing the more unbalanced the sides are, but only given out after say 30 minutes of playing after switching to the underdog side. Needs to be big enough to make a casual player want to switch, but a reward for balancing out the numbers. Probably a mixture of renown and a big enough loot bag to rival zerging for the same amount of time.

[nocturnalguest]

Two different suggestions for lockouts, with a reward idea for going underdog.

Lockout multiplier:
Make the lockout timer higher than today, but put in a multiplier on the rate it decays based on the balance in the rvr lakes over the last 10-15 minutes.
Order zerging, well going destro quickly becomes an option if the numbers are too unbalanced.
Though to really motivate people would probably need to mix with bounty suggestion to get people to actually shift side.

No lockouts but no loot for zerg:
Make a loot lock on players in rvr content if switching to zerging realm as an alternative to lockout timer, with the temptation being bounty if going to underdog realm. That way pve, scenarios and dungeons are not touched by rvr lockouts, but you get the best of both worlds. Incentive to go underdog, and punishment for joining the zerg.

Bounty suggestion:
My second suggestion to add on top of either of those two might be a smidge more controversial, but a "bounty" for changing side, growing the more unbalanced the sides are, but only given out after say 30 minutes of playing after switching to the underdog side. Needs to be big enough to make a casual player want to switch, but a reward for balancing out the numbers. Probably a mixture of renown and a big enough loot bag to rival zerging for the same amount of time.

Pretty decent proposals tbf. No loot for zerg especially. Like make PvDoor completely pointless, e.g. personal bonuses are fully disabled if >60 AAO and best possible bag is blue or increase required contribution to be eligible for rolling gold/purple/blue x10. Encourage balancing the pop, discourage stupid "realm priding" and "only playing one side" attitude.
This "i only play order/destro" attitude causes alot of issue, like forum topics popping like crazy with nerf this or that (WE, WH, regen, rampage, you name it) from people who have no actual experience/knowledge on what they claim. Being narrow minded and playing only half of the game is a personal choice of course, but it shouldnt be promoted by system.

[mynban]

I dont think dev team and players are on the same page in terms of what the problem with RvR is. We might not even be on the same book judging by how they think realm lock will solve anything.

Problem is that when given the option people will want to fight alongside the more crowded side purely because of how reward system works. Devs think taking away the option is going to solve that; whereas it will only lead to 2 things;

1. People using 2 different accounts for order/destro toons
2. People who cant bother doing 1 being even less active and playing even less

What needs to happen is addressing the part where people wanting to fight alongside crowded side. Change reward mechanics so that given choice people will want to fight for underpopulated side, then REMOVE all restriction on realm lockouts.

[anarchypark]

there are both cases that xrealm goes underdog making stalemate
and xrealm follows leaders/friends/good players making winner zerg.
it's slight different that xrealm to winner than xrealm to play with friends/guild and it became zerg winner.

have you seen weekend event ran by multiple premade on one side, zero on other?
city rank 5 vs 1 ?
remember when famous pug leaders pop, troll premade go other side to farm them ?
switching to play with friend/guild makes zerg eventually.
spreading out those key players are key.

it's easy to see who's gonna win by checking wb comp. leading skills. or simply number.
this server is full of dodgers and quitters too afraid to die or losing.
healthy battle is not their concern. only easy play.
can't blame them i guess.

i don't think xrealm lock gonna fix everything magically.
just hoping it teaches ppl to play with what's left around you, how to fight back aao.
rekindle faction war.
though this survey gonna be reviewed by those key players who need to be split across faction.
seems chances are slim.

[GamesBond]

though this survey gonna be reviewed by those key players who need to be split across faction.
seems chances are slim.

The survey will not be 'reviewed' by them. The results may be discussed with them without raw data, as a chance for them to present their arguments. They're often the leaders of the campaign anyway, they create content for hundreds of players whether people want to admit it or not, it's how it is. While they're not above other players, their impact should be noticed.

[emiliorv]

The campaign needs an overpopulated side to work (advance). In reality it barely works and we have mostly odd hours cities.

Embrace the fact that one side needs to be stronger (have a numerical advantage)

By design current rvr mechanic don’t enforce the zerg to split and spread to win. It can just blob about happily with max rewards

Secondly you gain more as a player by blobing along a zerg.

The effect of aoo surfers/swappers is hardly noticeable and not a mechanic that has a significant impact

Amazingly we have ppl believe the silver bullet is to restrict players

THIS!!
Blame the game, not the players.

[nonfactor]

the fact that there is a faction lock right now despite having ZERO actual proof right now that x-realming has a negative effect just proves how out of touch the devs are. they are literally caving in to people who whine about xrealming and use it as a scapegoat or boogeyman.

[Evilest]

the fact that there is a faction lock right now despite having ZERO actual proof right now that x-realming has a negative effect just proves how out of touch the devs are. they are literally caving in to people who whine about xrealming and use it as a scapegoat or boogeyman.

Only xrealmers will defend xrealming.