WBs not getting city pops

[Glorian]

Maybe you should connect with that other guy that is telling if they are on destro online in their unbeaten alliance Warband order should better not queue up.
Don't know, could be connected.

Joke aside, we also tried to go in several times with a 6men or 12men. But there was no pops. Emergency protocol beta says: if the last Minute is hit, everyone breaks the party and solo queue. 80% landed than in the same instance.

[wraithghost]

Whats competitive about how cities work at the moment exactly?

Just asking as someone said that was the reason for the current system.

[Telen]

Just feel happy you actually get to see forts and city. For those of us with jobs that can only play at peak times when the campaign is stalled we just dream of getting invader stuff.

[Opethian]

So instead of balancing population you want an uncontested empty cities for easy loot?

[nat3s]

With respect to your second point, Google James Ohlen and Greg Street stand up, they were the lead designers for WoW and SWTOR. Appreciate these MMOs may not be to your tastes (or mine), but they know game design. They make the point that:

1. You cannot force people into things, they just leave instead.
2. So you design to what players want, cater to all playstyles.

Except, they were designing games to appeal to as many people as possible to make as much money as possible from "causal" players. This project is reviving a niche dead game for its niche audience and has a game design that is deliberately supposed to be different to most MMOs by having competitive PVP at its core.

Competitive pvp im down for, that's why i was in an organised warband sitting in comms waiting for a pop. It's the not getting a pop that's the issue, you can either let all those destro not seeing cities gradually leave over time in the hope you'll "force" some of them over to order, or you can offer the consolation of an empty instance.

With respect to the post above that order solo queues do fill instances, that's actually not how it works currently. It currently takes a warband of 12 or more to open a city instance. You could have 50 order solo queued, but if there is no 12+ man warband, none of those players will see a pop.

[nat3s]

Just feel happy you actually get to see forts and city. For those of us with jobs that can only play at peak times when the campaign is stalled we just dream of getting invader stuff.

Totally sympathetic to that too, i work 9-5 mon-fri so i play EU peak time when there are very few zones locks, forts or cities. My best shot at a city is 6am-8am on a Saturday or Sunday morning when it's late US time and locks are happening regularly.

That's also part of my frustration, you spend all week hoping for a city, you finally get one at stupid o'clock in the morning on your weekend only to not get an instance.

To solve that we need zone locks to still happen with higher pop which for me means:

• Wider doors to reduce the potency of funnels (not by much, it still needs to be competitive).
• Lowered AOE dps cap - High AOE cap favours defenders more than attackers as defenders can rez inside the keep, attackers rez at a GY / WC
• Improve WL / Mara and Engi / Magus pulls so you can actually pull a defender out of rez range to gradually wittle down the number of defenders in the fort/keep.

[nat3s]

So instead of balancing population you want an uncontested empty cities for easy loot?

I'd like both, but you won't balance the pop by "forcing" people to join order due to not getting city pops, they'll leave instead. What you need to cure that is more appealing order classes. Heck make WLs the dominant overlords again so people roll order. I dont care, I just don't want to wait a week for a city and then get **** by the queue!

[Banjomissen]

I fear that if empty instances were to open that more ppl would join Destro (Or Order if they were the dominant force).

I've seen the pop switch 3 - 6% in favor of Destro when the last Fort locks and a city siege start. Seems like there's plenty Destro playing Order but they just want to do sieges on their Destro chars. Nothing wrong with that it just increases the risk of not getting in.

[Nameless]

Emty instances will make dominant side more dominant and ppl will stick with more overpopulated side cos of free loot. Empty instances are travesty. I would prefer some pve instance like tower defense where a wb stop waves of npcs trying to defend their capital. If the side manage to stay alive for 30 min give some bags and royals meds but let them work for it, not just emty instances.

[Opethian]

I respect what you're saying, but you're asking for a dev fix to cure a player choice and I do not think that is fair on Order. I do understand your frustration and irritation at not getting a city. However:

Destruction outnumber Order substantially and have all of the strongest warband classes, the most well-geared players and the most experienced pvp leaders. it wouldn't be fair to have all of these advantages and then have empty city instances where you just get royal crests given to you because there's not enough Order to fight.

As we saw with the recent invader changes, this would very likely lead to adverse player behaviour, where destruction warbands would just wait until all of the order warbands were in and fighting to get clear runs as easy crests.

Legitimately, if destruction players would rather quit than balance the population, then fine, quit the game and the population gets a little more balanced. I'm not being malicious, but try and see this from order's perspective.