[RvR] Encourage Team Play and Zone Locks

[ragafury]

you can always play every game "drop in, drop out".

results in other mmos: trash gear
results in "truly" competive games with MMR: woodbracket (CS example: silver, nova, guardian)

but you can't balance around that.
you need to balance around the goldstandard.
why?

less sucessfull players will copycat sucessfull players.
if you are balancing around the woodbracket, gameplay on the top will get exploited.


What pugs want from this game:

- click a button and play (SC Q, or open group tool for RvR)
- not getting ownd (that's why pug sc is so popular among other reasons and why xrealming, zerging is)
- shiniez (that's why there were so many QQ conq grind too hard threads appeared in spring and nerf punty dragon plx)
- low hanging fruits (see screenshot, getting carried like a bagpack by a leader, getting preferbly carried by an organized force
on top)
- avoid huge time comittments (like gunbad)

nothing wrong about that imo.
as I said, pugs never change.
though, you don't have to incentive pug play.

imo the new lootsystem, rvr system and mercy timers to some degree did incentive it, while gunbad is a huge timeinvestment with mediocre gear at best. bit odd design.

[Fallenkezef]

Play the game how I do or youre playing it wrong seems to be the tldr of this thread.

No.

This ^^

[Hargrim]

All I see about guild importance is 'give guilds bonus X'. Well, it would make them more or less mandatory, but would it change anything? Puggers gonna pug.

Puggers gonna pug because current puggers can get vast majority of endgame rewards by just doing 15-30mins of daily pugging session. You no longer need to grind KV for 4-10 hours to get a gold bag, now you need to play 5-10 min in one zone on one char, and that is enough to enter the mysterious lottery contest. Then you hop on next alt, do 5-10 mins of pugging, get enough contri to join the lottery and then hop next alt. Eventually you have created enough lottery tickets, that the expected average gain is above of a single white bag. Quality matters less, quantity spam is where you can expect greatest yields when it comes to endgame rewards such as the infamous WhiteBags and 5th missing Genesis piece and that one Subju weapon that you have never seen.

Anyway, puggers would probably be encouraged to join various casual/semi-puggerish guilds, provided those guilds made their puglifestyle more rewarding, and provided that the endgame rewards would be truly hard to obtain without proper guildplay.

Maybe "guild banners coming in 2 weeks" could also aid in PvE somehow (less chance to be crit from mobs? more outgoing dmg to non-players? making some future dungeons challenging for people with banners, but nightmarish for those without)

And maybe this is just fantasy, but I can dream of server somehow recognizing top guilds on both sides one way or another, and allowing these champions of their realm unique buffs, say slightly increased AoE target limits, something like up to 15 targets for top 5 guilds of that realm and up to 12 for next top 5 guilds. (or 18 to top 10, 15 to next 10 best, and 12 to next 10 best - in total 30 guilds each side having better AoE) Meaning, organized warband gameplay would actually reward the guild itself, and allow the guild to reach new higher potential. Not sure how realistic, but one can dream.
(something that might actually make huge fort fights where 300 people shoot at 300 people tolerable, and current target limits most likely result in stalemates)

You play this game (RoR) long time, before current bag system we had a system that required organized play - 6mans and solo WH/WEs were almost the only people with access to endgame RvR gear. Why is your memory so short and spotted with with blanks?

[Hargrim]

I was thinking more about changing the rvr lakes themselves. By that I mean the bos. There has to be more incentives to capture and hold them. Currently they only rank up your keep, until you can get a ram and siege. That's it, the entire depth of the system.

How about this. Bos give a map-wide buff to the realm that holds it. E.g. armoury in praag, when a realm holds it they get a small buff to their armour, or perhaps they get a small buff to their offensive stats. Graveyard may give you an hp buff etc. You can make race specific buffs for racial pairings, making the maps even more unique. Which in turn can make people plan their strategies. There are so many possibilities, I just don't know what devs are capable of atm.

It's a bonus and it's 'fun' but what exactly does it change in big picture of the RvR? Somebody has to hold the BO and I'm sure that won't be the epix guidz and 6manz.

[mikfez]

Play the game how I do or youre playing it wrong seems to be the tldr of this thread.

No.

^^

Rather than changing the game to suit the guilds - how about the guilds making themselves more attractive to join?

[Aurandilaz]

You play this game (RoR) long time, before current bag system we had a system that required organized play - 6mans and solo WH/WEs were almost the only people with access to endgame RvR gear. Why is your memory so short and spotted with with blanks?

Well I can say I have my own subjective bias. Played in semi-casual WBs and occasional 6man, won bags when our team effort was good, and as a result the game rewarded us with bags. Then switched to less-casual WB, played in ways that gave even greater contribution when you played right, won even more bags. It was nice knowing that playing right and doing large contribution, would very much guarantee good bags for a good effort. Back when you fought 6 hours in KV, you most likely won a bag through sheer determination to contribute to keep contributing. Or when you played with guild warband, fought against 100 AAO during primetime, lost a keep but prevented a zone lock through organized gameplay where a single good warband was able to deny massive numbers their lock by strategic gameplay and as result rack a massive contri, resulting in proper loot.
Again, I can say I have my own subjective bias, but these days fighting for 4 hours to deny enemy a lock, you get white bag. Kill 1500 enemies with your warband - a white bag.
Maybe it is better for the average pug that they can achieve endgame gear with relative ease, but for someone who was willing to play on organized level to get best chance of acquiring endgame loot, its somewhat demotivating to give your absolute best to deny enemy their victory, only to keep walking away with white bags. Now I know its a system in progress and you are doing everything to make the game better, and I appreciate every Dev who keeps providing this game for us.

But honestly, something just feels wrong when you are top killer in zone after zone, and as result you keep ending with White Bags.

[Telen]

I may not play as much lately but when Im in an open warband they are always talking spreading over bos calling incs pushing the realm war. When I get a little 3/6 man gank group not even trying to hold a bo just hunting for kills. What am I doing for the realm exactly? Im not interacting. Im not doing anything for the realm war. Im not calling positions or spotting incs.

Should this type of play be outlawed because it doesnt play the game properly? Its clearly not following the realm objectives. Careful what you wish for because the pugs generally play to the main objectives of the realm war far more than the little cliques just as they did on live.

[Hargrim]

@Aurandilaz
So you are top killer and each time you get a white bag?

[peterthepan3]

Play the game how I do or youre playing it wrong seems to be the tldr of this thread.

No.

This ^^

Make the game even easier than it already is, give me access to everything for minimal effort and facilitate to my solocentric play is what I'm getting from it, tbh.

So what if it were 6mans/'elitists'/organised wb getting conq? What's wrong with putting in work and getting rewarded for it? Mindboggling. People who put in work and go above and beyond the performances of others should be encouraged to keep doing so; it is up to the rest of the playerbase to follow suit, if they wish to achieve and acquire bis gear at a similar rate. This isn't to say that the average joe should be exempt from getting bis gear; rather, they should be encouraged to try and emulate the top players/guilds/groups/wbs, as opposed to simply logging in, pissing about a bit, and getting everything on a silver plate.

The alternative is every one and their grandmother being able to get BIS gear simply for logging in. There is very little reason to bother anymore. As sad as it sounds, pug play nets you the same rewards as premade play, yet this seems to be a nonissue for most people, and any mention of this is met with the monotonous & overly predictable 'elitist/you just want more' responses. As Aura said, one can now simply log on and durp around for 10-15 minutes and net a top bag, while the top killers/people actively pushing the zone flips don't (yes yes I know rng has a role, but it is a regular occurrence); one can queue pug sc nonstop and dominate them with a good duo, netting the same/if not more emblems p/hour than a premade does.

I would have thought that being able to join a guild, make new friends, play with eachother on a regular basis, and achieve results that you wouldn't if you were unguilded (which should be the case), would serve as more than enough incentive to join one? Lots of antisocial people, it seems

[Telen]

Pugs are getting gear. You know where this will lead. Communism.