Return of Reckoning’s Soul is Sucked Dry

[dwarfsalad]

Return of Reckoning used to have a pulse. Open RvR was the lifeblood – joining a warband, tearing through zones, and building up to that glorious city push for Sovereign or Warlord gear. It was fun at level 16, running with a crew, smashing keeps, feeling the chaos. But by the time you’re grinding toward endgame? It’s the same goddamn thing every time – brainlessly following a warband leader across the same maps, doing the same fights, with no city payoff to make it worth a damn. The devs ripped out the soul with Warcrests, and it’s a travesty.

Why bother with a city push when you can just farm Warcrests in open RvR and buy the best gear? No stakes, no climax, just endless warband zerging from level 16 to 40 like a hamster on a wheel. It starts out a blast, but by the end, it’s pure pain – a soul-sucking slog with nothing to look forward to. The whole point of WAR was that city siege, the moment where all the RvR grind paid off. Now? Warcrests let you skip it entirely. Just grind with the pack, cash in, and grab your gear without ever setting foot in Altdorf or the Inevitable City. What a joke.

And the kicker? The devs poured all this work into “new” city areas – cloned, uninspired knockoffs of the main cities – and no one even goes there! Why would they? There’s no need to push a city when Warcrests hand you the rewards for free. It’s amazing how they built this whole system, wasted all that effort, and made it completely useless. RvR’s a ghost town with no purpose, just a mindless warband conga line. The soul of this game was in the struggle, the buildup, the realm pride of a city fight. Now it’s a hollow grindfest where the endgame’s a vendor trip.

Devs, make cities matter again. Give us a reason to care beyond chasing a warband leader’s ass for Warcrests. Who else is fed up with this?

[Akalukz]

make active zones, the entire area as RvR, and make a realm have to take each sides PVE wcs and keeps to flip, leave npcs, pqs etc.

[Nameless]

Orvr is still quite active and at better place thanks to latest changes to renown gain, bags drops, contribution and so on. But it become stale so some changes are welcomed to the campaign.

The problem is that all the changes to scens ruined that gamemode and ppl esp pug players doesnt queu at all since even when lose you got decent gain at orvr while scens is **** show with barriers, prems facing pugs, no safe spots and so on. So scens need urgent changes that dont goes in favour of small 6 man community

[toffikx]

Hard disagree.

Unified crest system let’s you play the game the way you want to play it. Wheter solo, in small groups or warbands.

City still gives good rewards 100-400+ crests with bags. All for around 1 hour of play. Pretty good if you ask me. And the current iteration of it, scheduled every couple of days, is way better than you having to play the zone for hours upon hours, progressing nonthing and missing city, because it happens later in the night.

The soul of the game imo is the same as it always has been, it’s the fights you find in scenarios and open rvr. Warbands will always be a thing, and blobing is not the result of wheter a city is scheduled or not, but because of the mechanics and rewards within a zone.
That said, as someone that played intensively for the last 2 months, there definetly are blobs, but also plenty of smaller and spread out fights.

[emiliorv]

Locking endgame gear behind 1 unique content is not good for mostly playerbase...when cities came out, usually happened really late night (EU) forcing ppl to make really weird things to get their royal crests (staying up until really late, using city alarms, and who knows wtf things)...

ROR playerbase are aged enough to back to these "teen gamers rituals"...

Cities should give a good reward, and ppl should go to cities if they WANT TO...not forced to.

[Blkfiredrag]

to play the zone for hours upon hours, progressing nonthing and missing city, because it happens later in the night.

^ This is NA Experience for City and LOTD. And the cases where City time is somewhat manageable, in the last 5 attempts I was only able to get into 1. Mix of solo que/6/12man.

[bw10]

i had more fun with my phone going off at 5am to quene for a city than current shitshow

[Nelly74]

I pretty much agree that the game has lost some of its soul over time, and in my opinion, that's mainly due to how ridiculously easy it is to get a RR 80+ fully geared character just by sticking to the first WB that roams around while spamming a single button. (I’ve lost count of how many White Lions spam AoEs at my Sorcerer in duels -_-).

For me, there’s clearly a lack of stakes and even a minimal challenge. I also think some rewards, especially during a capital siege, should be more than just simple crests to make it more appealing for those who are already fully geared. (Fashionhammer iz real!!)

I also believe that forts shouldn't be so easy to take and should depend on multiple factors, not just breaking down two doors after reaching two stars. That way, everyone could feel like their contribution matters, from solo roamers to full warbands. (Stronger NPC defenders, siege weapons for defenders, the ability to buy fort upgrades like reinforced gates or even hire "champion mercenaries" that could be strategically sent against attackers, etc. Of course, this should be balanced based on the number of attackers/defenders to make it fully or partially available.)

RoR is still a solid game and fun is definitely there, even if there are things to be said about balancing. But I think adding a bit more depth and stakes in one form or another could make it way more engaging.

[Akalukz]

I pretty much agree that the game has lost some of its soul over time, and in my opinion, that's mainly due to how ridiculously easy it is to get a RR 80+ fully geared character just by sticking to the first WB that roams around while spamming a single button. (I’ve lost count of how many White Lions spam AoEs at my Sorcerer in duels -_-).

For me, there’s clearly a lack of stakes and even a minimal challenge. I also think some rewards, especially during a capital siege, should be more than just simple crests to make it more appealing for those who are already fully geared. (Fashionhammer iz real!!)

I also believe that forts shouldn't be so easy to take and should depend on multiple factors, not just breaking down two doors after reaching two stars. That way, everyone could feel like their contribution matters, from solo roamers to full warbands. (Stronger NPC defenders, siege weapons for defenders, the ability to buy fort upgrades like reinforced gates or even hire "champion mercenaries" that could be strategically sent against attackers, etc. Of course, this should be balanced based on the number of attackers/defenders to make it fully or partially available.)

RoR is still a solid game and fun is definitely there, even if there are things to be said about balancing. But I think adding a bit more depth and stakes in one form or another could make it way more engaging.

To a degree this is because some AoE is stronger than the single target.

[Illuminati]

I pretty much agree that the game has lost some of its soul over time, and in my opinion, that's mainly due to how ridiculously easy it is to get a RR 80+ fully geared character just by sticking to the first WB that roams around while spamming a single button. (I’ve lost count of how many White Lions spam AoEs at my Sorcerer in duels -_-).

For me, there’s clearly a lack of stakes and even a minimal challenge. I also think some rewards, especially during a capital siege, should be more than just simple crests to make it more appealing for those who are already fully geared. (Fashionhammer iz real!!)

I also believe that forts shouldn't be so easy to take and should depend on multiple factors, not just breaking down two doors after reaching two stars. That way, everyone could feel like their contribution matters, from solo roamers to full warbands. (Stronger NPC defenders, siege weapons for defenders, the ability to buy fort upgrades like reinforced gates or even hire "champion mercenaries" that could be strategically sent against attackers, etc. Of course, this should be balanced based on the number of attackers/defenders to make it fully or partially available.)

RoR is still a solid game and fun is definitely there, even if there are things to be said about balancing. But I think adding a bit more depth and stakes in one form or another could make it way more engaging.

To a degree this is because some AoE is stronger than the single target.

Exactly.

AoE = sorta mindless
ST = requires thought

Was was of the big shocks when I returned is how the city works now. I do like the Warcrest system though - but something in terms of the campaign feels off. I have no ideas though since on early live we had to progress zones, pqs, win SCs to get to a Capital City. Which seems insane now.

What would be cool is take remove AAO and somehow implement relics that provide the RR bonuses, etc. so we can have some purpose. Some DAoC stuff.