Patch Notes 23/06/2022

[Everdin]

Spoiler:

As someone who has personally brought people to the game and they've quit due to having to play twinked out premades. I love this change. It's not a surprise to anyone that the new player exprerience is rough. It doesnt help if some lvl 16 is just getting 3 shot.

Think the ultimate compromise is if people using an exp scroll could only play with other players using it.

Overall love every change in this patch keep up the good work!

Thats not work like that...

1) 16 lvl from Yours example still will be one shooted by premade. Shorter by one group but it will be replaced by another.

2) This 16 lvl if somehow reach 40 will be farmed even harder by sov premades because wont be able to achieve good renown rank as fresh 40.

3) number of new players is not enough te keep mid tier activity. With veterans we have already problems with queues etc. If they leave mid tiers it will be completely dead.

THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO SEPARATE PREMADES AND SOLO/DUO QUEUE IN ALL TIERS,
ESPECIALLY IN EVENT SCENARIOS

talks about to low numbers in ques... want to split ques, good one!

Spoiler:

but in most of mmos we have some catch up mechanism, regular new patches with gear to progress etc. so its not so obvious to compare very old gearing model with other mmos

and full premades cannot farm pugs in some kind of scenarios/battlegrounds etc

Catch up mechanism is usually paid for. We don't have one here, but possible enhancement to low tier rewards could diminish the gap you're worried about. We also do not have frequent new gear releases here, but if we did, you should consider that the current Sov players (who've been Sov for over 2 years) would have increased the gear gap even more - since it affects both sides. You don't expect Sov players to not progress while others catch up to them.

Premades cannot farm pugs regularly because you have a much larger pool of players. Whereas here, in T2, you will definitely be farmed until the moment these T2/T3 campers call it a day or hit lvl 40.

Game if the scroll change is staying could you consider either turning off Rested XP or giving the option to turn it off? Cause if you have alot of alts and they get shelved for various reasons you come back to them and just blaze though levels too fast.

good point, better would be to add rested renown!

[Magusar]

Many of new players never come to t4, cuz their raped almost from the start.

I still don't see who is being helped here?
Actually you will have a lot more people being undergeared/leveled for t4.

For the newcomers, obviously. But its not enough for it, but step (expedient or not, idk). How told me one of my friends in this game, which tried to lure into the game his own wife (new player): "This game is very unfriendly for ppl, who try to come and play it at first time if it compare with WoW (She outed to WoW). No smooth entry to the game-no good tutorials, UI, alteranitve for pvp to progression you char, no friends in game (u need friends if,better than people like you in general) etc.."
Farm for MMORPG is normal, but not when u are exp players farming ppl in months on tiers, which designed to introduce people to the game and prepare them for the main content, without drawback, while frustrated by those who can farm them.

T4 already has the biggest population, do we need even more meat to grind?

Ofcourse! More ppl for the fight!

[Everdin]

City & Forts contribution

Tweaked healer's contribution a bit to be more fair across archetypes.

may we get some informations here? reduced, because healers are much to overpresent? increased so healing out of party is more then an act of kindness?

[Sinisterror]

I always use scroll after lvl 30+ and never farmed low levels with premades in 16-39 Sc's and removing scroll is a bad idea. For crafting, people who want to learn pvp in 16-39 (sc pops dies) and want to have close to Vanquisher RR. All legit reasons to use scroll. 24 aoe cap makes it impossible to do anything in RvR when you are new players, scs are "safe" space for practice and that practice is needed!

Besides renown gain now vs 2 yrs ago is ABYSMAL. Start Giving +15 talismans and 16-39 lvl RR increase potions. Heal pots/Ap pots/Armour pots etc all these things should be easy and smooth to get when you are 16-39 and from kill quests etc.

It's time to drop lvl requirement of Deva/Duelist set to R20 RR20 and same for Annihilator/Mercenary R30 RR30. Conqueror/Red Eye should start R35 RR35 and last piece (chest) is R40 RR40. Oh and grp heal should be lvl 16 i mean srsly...

Then drop Vanq/Opp requirements to 45-50 and there can be new set RR 55-62 or something like that.

[malmar]

Would it be possible to restrict premades per sc? Allow 1 premate to join, only if 1 is ready on another side? Premade vs premade is not always a fair fight, but might be closer to fair.

[bradbury111]

Good riddance removing that scroll, was never used by new players and only used by veteran players for obvious reasons.

And also good thing devs officially acknowledge discords premade farming scenarios. Hope going to address this thing more.

[Everdin]

I'm courious how much you all will choke on your words if devs "address this thing more". ;D

[Sulorie]

I still don't see who is being helped here?
Actually you will have a lot more people being undergeared/leveled for t4.

For the newcomers, obviously. But its not enough for it, but step (expedient or not, idk). How told me one of my friends in this game, which tried to lure into the game his own wife (new player): "This game is very unfriendly for ppl, who try to come and play it at first time if it compare with WoW (She outed to WoW). No smooth entry to the game-no good tutorials, UI, alteranitve for pvp to progression you char, no friends in game (u need friends if,better than people like you in general) etc.."

How those newcomers are being helped?

- less incentives to wear gear appropriate for your rank, due to more frequent levelups

- less incentives to use crafting items, especially talismans, because more frequent gear swaps, if you try to keep your gear relevant

- no incentives to do any pve, if you want to mitigate the powergap the moment you become rank 40

- no incentives to learn crafting professions below rank 40, which involve mob farming

- more difficult start in t4, due to being undergeared/ranked

- no change on perceived powergaps in midtier sc, as those happen on a per match basis

- if one premade leaves midtier, another one follows, so overall no positive effect on less organized players

- even if new players get told how to progress properly, to have a good start in t4, they have no chance now, unless huge shifts in gear requirements and acquisition happen, which in itself would be unnecessary

- during the live time of the server the xp gain rates for sc were increased, which makes it even worse with the removal of scroll


----------------
The only people, who are less affected, are experienced players and people with premades.
Basically no effect on midtier players and an even heavier blow on any new player fresh in t4. Well done.

[wachlarz]

I still don't see who is being helped here?
Actually you will have a lot more people being undergeared/leveled for t4.

For the newcomers, obviously. But its not enough for it, but step (expedient or not, idk). How told me one of my friends in this game, which tried to lure into the game his own wife (new player): "This game is very unfriendly for ppl, who try to come and play it at first time if it compare with WoW (She outed to WoW). No smooth entry to the game-no good tutorials, UI, alteranitve for pvp to progression you char, no friends in game (u need friends if,better than people like you in general) etc.."

How those newcomers are being helped?

- less incentives to wear gear appropriate for your rank, due to more frequent levelups

- less incentives to use crafting items, especially talismans, because more frequent gear swaps, if you try to keep your gear relevant

- no incentives to do any pve, if you want to mitigate the powergap the moment you become rank 40

- no incentives to learn crafting professions below rank 40, which involve mob farming

- more difficult start in t4, due to being undergeared/ranked

- no change on perceived powergaps in midtier sc, as those happen on a per match basis

- if one premade leaves midtier, another one follows, so overall no positive effect on less organized players

- even if new players get told how to progress properly, to have a good start in t4, they have no chance now, unless huge shifts in gear requirements and acquisition happen, which in itself would be unnecessary

- during the live time of the server the xp gain rates for sc were increased, which makes it even worse with the removal of scroll


----------------
The only people, who are less affected, are experienced players and people with premades.
Basically no effect on midtier players and an even heavier blow on any new player fresh in t4. Well done.

Reduce all xp gain from All source by 80%.

[zulnam]

Frankly, was expecting a bit more backlash for the scroll removal. But it seems to be okish, so that's fine.

I think it's great that the team is trying to focus on bringing in new players, but I believe trying to do it via in-game will be a very large task that can ultimately prove fruitless.

I would argue a much better way of doing this would be to have a playlist of 5-10 minute videos, officially endorsed by the RoR team, and that are regularly being updated (in case something changes). These would cover everything, from movement, to gearing, abilities, talents and morales, as well as perhaps more advanced topics like addons, grouping, playing support roles and warband combat.

These videos should be the first thing a user sees when they reach this website's homepage; either as an iframe or a button sending the user to the. youtube playlist (something like "Learn how to play here!").

Then, the initial tutorial pop-up when creating a new character (the one that teaches you how to move, lol) should just be text saying "HEY. THERE'S A SET OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS THAT TEACHES YOU HOW TO PLAY THE GAMES. THEY'RE SHORT AND GOT EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO PLAY THE GAME LIKE A CHAMP! CHECK OUT [youtube link] OR SEARCH '"ROR OFFICIAL TUTORIAL" ON YOUTUBE". or something like that.

I would argue the website also needs a facelift, but not sure if you want to dedicate the time for it. You could build a new dev team specifically for the website, that would be the easiest way, while also meaning the game dev team can focus on making this game even greater.

Lastly, someone would have to think about the early experience of a fresh rank 40 character. I get that you took out scrolls since they were mostly used by veterans to fantasy-power their way through T2/3, but i would argue the grind post-40 for a new character is way, WAY worse than anything a twinked out RR 38 with xp scrolls could throw at you.

At rank 40, with no bolster, you will get stomped by every group or player running invader or sov. so, a lot of people.

With xp scrolls out i would consider extending the bolster (or some version of it) until further down the line. Either an arbitrary RR reached, or a ward unlock (vanq/sentinel is often considered minimum entry point to play with the big boys and girls).