Fun is decreasing - lets discuss

[BloodnTears]

There is absolutely lower morale/fun on the server directly caused by the updates over the last 5 years.

[Rewarc]

I said it before, I say it again. Guard needs to be nerfed, certain defensive buffs should not stack, the block/parry/dodge/disrupt cap should be lowered, Distracting Bellow, Challenge, Detaunt should be limited and the insane stats you achieve by just having sov/mix bis should be adjusted. Wounds needs a cap like everything else (around 900 wounds), Liniments give to much.

Range aoe abilities got nerfed years ago for example Rain of Fire, Pits of Shade, Napalm, Phosphorous Shells all these skills can only stack once at a time on a funnel position aka if you have more than 1 person using the skill, you dont do damage unless you full specc'ed into the tree, I been saying this for 3 years now, this needs to be addressed. Engi has two of those in one single talent tree aka they not even default aoe abilities like Rain of Fire..

Warcamps need a change for example by having people spawn in their keeps and not in the Warcamp. The Warcamp should be a place to gather but not a place to fight from. Its a part of the zone but should not be a part of the fight. We also need more way to get people into the keeps for a keep defense but obviously all with limits. Speaking of limits, RvR should be more like forts and zones should be limited imo to draw out the playerbase into different zones. Maybe even have a wb limit in certain zones to spice it up (no idea if thats even possible).

Lot of classes need work and love, they feel stale after getting changed, lost their indentity over time and never really got updated unlike some other classes which are constantly adjusted and changed.

Last but not least the biggest issue is communication. It's been pretty rough to even have a conversation with anyone in charge. We have things that got changed based on feedback of a handful of people and the big stuff everyone else is complaining about gets neglected or worked on but never changed in a meaningful way despite really good community ideas.

[CountTalabecland]

There is absolutely lower morale/fun on the server directly caused by the updates over the last 5 years.

This right here.

I spent 6+ year playing a class and then one day it went poof in a rework and has just been left in a broken state. Can't say its been much fun.

I hope the devs read the ratio on this post and change course. They have a grand 12% approval rating to date.

[Lion1986]

I said it before, I say it again. Guard needs to be nerfed, certain defensive buffs should not stack, the block/parry/dodge/disrupt cap should be lowered, Distracting Bellow, Challenge, Detaunt should be limited and the insane stats you achieve by just having sov/mix bis should be adjusted. Wounds needs a cap like everything else (around 900 wounds), Liniments give to much.

Range aoe abilities got nerfed years ago for example Rain of Fire, Pits of Shade, Napalm, Phosphorous Shells all these skills can only stack once at a time on a funnel position aka if you have more than 1 person using the skill, you dont do damage unless you full specc'ed into the tree, I been saying this for 3 years now, this needs to be addressed. Engi has two of those in one single talent tree aka they not even default aoe abilities like Rain of Fire..

Warcamps need a change for example by having people spawn in their keeps and not in the Warcamp. The Warcamp should be a place to gather but not a place to fight from. Its a part of the zone but should not be a part of the fight. We also need more way to get people into the keeps for a keep defense but obviously all with limits. Speaking of limits, RvR should be more like forts and zones should be limited imo to draw out the playerbase into different zones. Maybe even have a wb limit in certain zones to spice it up (no idea if thats even possible).

Lot of classes need work and love, they feel stale after getting changed, lost their indentity over time and never really got updated unlike some other classes which are constantly adjusted and changed.

Last but not least the biggest issue is communication. It's been pretty rough to even have a conversation with anyone in charge. We have things that got changed based on feedback of a handful of people and the big stuff everyone else is complaining about gets neglected or worked on but never changed in a meaningful way despite really good community ideas.

I totally support this

[Magusar]

After reading the last few pages, aside from the obvious things like "blobbing," "my class was nerfed" "lack of motivation to play/learn to play/breed and play with fish," etc., I didn't see a couple of things that could actually impact how I experience the gameplay. Or rather, I did see them, but they were either inchoate, touched upon briefly, or didn't fully develop. I'll give it a try:

1. Increasing the complexity of classes, while skill levels generally declined.
The reworks we've seen are mostly aimed at depth and increasing the complexity of certain aspects. Yes, there are some fails, but they're not as numerous as it might seem at first glance. Personally, I welcome such things, but frankly, a very large number of people in today's RoR do not. For years, the game has been undergoing a metamorphosis from the "big effort = big reward" ratio to a reward-based one, meaning little effort = big reward. I won't go into too much detail – I've seen many posts about this issue before. Most took the easy way out (you know which one), which, coupled with a lot of time, led to a decline (a significant decline) in overall skill on the server. Against this backdrop, team balance is considering parameters like "depth," "difficulty," "synergy," and how to make classes more versatile (it doesn't always work, but it's a good idea). There's one caveat: this only works for people with above-average game knowledge - hello. In our case, "my class has stopped working for me, what are you doing? I can't run into a crowd and use my AoE skill anymore. Stop the planet, I'm leaving."

2. Shifting from individual skill predisposition to party/build skill.
The first part obviously concerns party content, the second is more about solo-friendly regen/defense and abusive mechanics like "heal and damage simultaneously," "lots of instant damage - lots of powerfull saves," and "non-physical damage with defense/regen."
Party content: In the AoR model, balance was built directly around class skills—their actions and counteractions. Party interaction also received a fair amount of attention, but less so. About 60% to 40%. So, in AoR, individual skill, most often damage dealer, was the deciding factor. The tank's role was to guard "to prevent one-shots," destroy enemy positions with CC (offensive or defensive), and, if things were really bad, press saves. Heals—it's all clear here: hold your position, heal, and if things are bad, save. That is, the importance of defense/offense from the outside for achieving a positive result was clearly less.
Throughout its existence, RoR has been moving toward the importance of teammates. The influence of tanks has grown especially (I'm talking primarily about small-scale), and now killing requires not only the primary damage dealer's work, but also the support's contribution, which should be no less, if not greater. The "greater contribution" from supports is clearly bad – killing is primarily the responsibility of the damage dealer, after all. There are exceptions, but they are few (for example, SH – a super-independent DPS in this regard).Simply talk, its about more cooperate and synergy. Otherwise, I don't see any particular problems for myself – it's just a different perspective. But I think RoR has started to overdo it in this regard. It feels like the ratio has shifted from 20% to 80%, which, sorry, but looks a bit strange already - knowing when to stop is good.
Solo - just regen/def poison.

3. 1.5 GCD.
Everything is clear here. The game has become much slower, less dynamic. The time to react and make decisions became noticeably longer, which also impacted overall skill, and some classes became "clanky" as many like talk. Personally, I stopped playing my BW at that point; it lost its momentum, and even people with their monitors off had enough time to "react and think", despite the class being barely even mid-range for a small-scale. Now it's not just mediocrity, but sluggish mediocrity. Excellent.
Yes, GCD management has improved, but everything else has declined again, and in my opinion, the "gains" (except for ability stability) aren't worth the "losses."

4. Nerf and overnerf policy.
For any changes not related to currency, the developers opt for nerfs, even where they shouldn't. And where they should, they overnerf. This applies to all aspects of the game – gear, crafting (what about the ingredient drop rate for professions and the crit chance for potions? Did anyone ask for this?), classes (for example, the Slayer/Choppa from the last ranked season – a nerf was needed, but what they ended up doing exceeded all expectations), fun mechanics (about eight months ago, various people came to my voice to play, whining about how "fun not allowed"). This also applies to the nerf to Rune of Battle for RP – in my opinion, it was enough to ban this skill on invisible characters and be done with it.
It also seems like there's a lack of unity in the team – some want to achieve balance, others want a "shake meta," others want their favorite class to be the best, and still others want PVE.

Personally, I didn't vote because, for me personally, the fun fluctuates between "okay," "a little not okay," and "became a little better than okay," but overall it doesn't change much.

[arEntropic]

Fun in this game is a thing to discuss indeed.
I would talk from a perspective of several years veteran, not about new player's experience.

Fun for a veteran in RoR comes from few things:
- community and friends you can hang out with playing together;
- competetive aspect of the game;
- guild fights and confrontation - this is truly a "guild wars" game;
- personal skill expression and improvement - game is centered around PvP;
- working on your account: pull of available BiSed out characters, amount of goods you have;
- build and gear theorecrafting, composition of classes and synergy theorecrafting, driving the meta forward.

Talking about them one by one:
1) Community have been narrowing dramaticly fast last couple of years, barely any old guys keep playing still, all for various reasons, and reasons we all know very well. Some have left because of personal drama, but most - because of unpopular changes and problems which the game had, remaining unsolved for too long. Now it is already a snowball effect, the less old people play, the less motivation their friends have to keep it going, only few really stubborn individuals remain.

2) Competetive RoR is fully dead by now. 6v6 game mode is deleted, city is shifting towards PvE and barely even pops this days. Players are not given any motivation to play competetive and work on their performance, and instead of giving players this motivation and bringing reasonable rewards for playing competetive game mods, devs tend to just remove them.

3) Almost every big RvR guild, that were fighting each other in lakes every evening few years back, is now a ghost town. None of them wants to put any effort into gameplay or preparation, they find any possible excuse to avoid a fight they can lose, and only take a fight they know they will win. Players don't have motivation to keep the guilds going, or to create the new once - they should be given this motivation, or the game will die. It could be already too late even - the online have drastically dropped.

4) Game is shifting towards more teamplay oriented, classes are becoming more complex with new changes, there is a lot of room for personal improvement for a player still - and this is damn fun still about this game. But it lacks the rewards for improving your performanse - RvR is the most rewarding game mode currently, and PvDoor is the best source of crests and renown for your character - this is just terrible. Making teamplay important is good - but then you don't really want to play with players below your level, this kind of kills the ladder for new guys to grow. So less people grow, less people play well, less people to fight against. Not the main reason why this happens - but can be one of them.

5) Game still brings a lot of fun from leveling alts and grinding for goods, new cosmetics are regulary arriving - this is well designed. Hitting lvl 40 is painful though, because you have to grind through all the pve dunguons to get the wards and viable gear for PvP and save crests for BiS. Maybe it would be better if you had a way to get low lvl PvP gear easier (mentor system maybe? rewards for having a mentor, bringing you sets for free up to invader? could be good, would also help new players). You should be able to just play PvP and gear up in PvP, not losing your opportunity to gear up to BiS fast. Leave PvE to PvE enjoyers, don't force PvP players into it.

6) Theorecrafting in this game is very fun - well made also. New changes - new tasks for smart kids around. Although, is it that nessesary to change all the gear to some formula? Don't think community wanted this or asked for this, feels like an unnessesary change just for the sake of changing. Now we'll have to rework all the BiS lists, grind all the BiSed out toons again to new best thing - doesn't sound like something playerbase would be happy with. Balance changes are good, new classes playing is good, although not sure about this incoming range patch - dps on range classes is very high now, and we're moving towards range meta, that can be very-very cancerous to play with all the kiting and oneshots.

Conclusion - PvP game with this low population is much less fun, although mechanically game is still great and enjoyable. It needs some more love from devs, and totally it needs fresh view on the rewards for playing it.

[Adapa]

What I have never really witnessed in any mmo, since I started playing these games, is that people actually exit the game via task manager just to not get a death.

Is the killboard responsible for such behavior? Killboard could also be named "dps board" because for who is best heal or guard whatever doesnt exist?

For a game that old , why do we exactly need a killboard?
and to those who disconnect instead taking a death with dignity in this game, what kind of mentality is that, to exit a game....


the other thing is the toxicity in pve sometimes, how rude people can be ....

and of course the main reason the fun goes down is that someone always starts to blob. blobbing takes away so much but yea.. people are people ...

I think t2 and t3 should be a zone for player until lvl 39, and t4 from lvl 40. but thats just me

[nocturnalguest]

After reading the last few pages, aside from the obvious things like "blobbing," "my class was nerfed" "lack of motivation to play/learn to play/breed and play with fish," etc., I didn't see a couple of things that could actually impact how I experience the gameplay. Or rather, I did see them, but they were either inchoate, touched upon briefly, or didn't fully develop. I'll give it a try:

1. Increasing the complexity of classes, while skill levels generally declined.
The reworks we've seen are mostly aimed at depth and increasing the complexity of certain aspects. Yes, there are some fails, but they're not as numerous as it might seem at first glance. Personally, I welcome such things, but frankly, a very large number of people in today's RoR do not. For years, the game has been undergoing a metamorphosis from the "big effort = big reward" ratio to a reward-based one, meaning little effort = big reward. I won't go into too much detail – I've seen many posts about this issue before. Most took the easy way out (you know which one), which, coupled with a lot of time, led to a decline (a significant decline) in overall skill on the server. Against this backdrop, team balance is considering parameters like "depth," "difficulty," "synergy," and how to make classes more versatile (it doesn't always work, but it's a good idea). There's one caveat: this only works for people with above-average game knowledge - hello. In our case, "my class has stopped working for me, what are you doing? I can't run into a crowd and use my AoE skill anymore. Stop the planet, I'm leaving."

2. Shifting from individual skill predisposition to party/build skill.
The first part obviously concerns party content, the second is more about solo-friendly regen/defense and abusive mechanics like "heal and damage simultaneously," "lots of instant damage - lots of powerfull saves," and "non-physical damage with defense/regen."
Party content: In the AoR model, balance was built directly around class skills—their actions and counteractions. Party interaction also received a fair amount of attention, but less so. About 60% to 40%. So, in AoR, individual skill, most often damage dealer, was the deciding factor. The tank's role was to guard "to prevent one-shots," destroy enemy positions with CC (offensive or defensive), and, if things were really bad, press saves. Heals—it's all clear here: hold your position, heal, and if things are bad, save. That is, the importance of defense/offense from the outside for achieving a positive result was clearly less.
Throughout its existence, RoR has been moving toward the importance of teammates. The influence of tanks has grown especially (I'm talking primarily about small-scale), and now killing requires not only the primary damage dealer's work, but also the support's contribution, which should be no less, if not greater. The "greater contribution" from supports is clearly bad – killing is primarily the responsibility of the damage dealer, after all. There are exceptions, but they are few (for example, SH – a super-independent DPS in this regard).Simply talk, its about more cooperate and synergy. Otherwise, I don't see any particular problems for myself – it's just a different perspective. But I think RoR has started to overdo it in this regard. It feels like the ratio has shifted from 20% to 80%, which, sorry, but looks a bit strange already - knowing when to stop is good.
Solo - just regen/def poison.

3. 1.5 GCD.
Everything is clear here. The game has become much slower, less dynamic. The time to react and make decisions became noticeably longer, which also impacted overall skill, and some classes became "clanky" as many like talk. Personally, I stopped playing my BW at that point; it lost its momentum, and even people with their monitors off had enough time to "react and think", despite the class being barely even mid-range for a small-scale. Now it's not just mediocrity, but sluggish mediocrity. Excellent.
Yes, GCD management has improved, but everything else has declined again, and in my opinion, the "gains" (except for ability stability) aren't worth the "losses."

4. Nerf and overnerf policy.
For any changes not related to currency, the developers opt for nerfs, even where they shouldn't. And where they should, they overnerf. This applies to all aspects of the game – gear, crafting (what about the ingredient drop rate for professions and the crit chance for potions? Did anyone ask for this?), classes (for example, the Slayer/Choppa from the last ranked season – a nerf was needed, but what they ended up doing exceeded all expectations), fun mechanics (about eight months ago, various people came to my voice to play, whining about how "fun not allowed"). This also applies to the nerf to Rune of Battle for RP – in my opinion, it was enough to ban this skill on invisible characters and be done with it.
It also seems like there's a lack of unity in the team – some want to achieve balance, others want a "shake meta," others want their favorite class to be the best, and still others want PVE.

Personally, I didn't vote because, for me personally, the fun fluctuates between "okay," "a little not okay," and "became a little better than okay," but overall it doesn't change much.

This one is truly amazingly worded and thought-out. Great job!

[M0rw47h]

What I have never really witnessed in any mmo, since I started playing these games, is that people actually exit the game via task manager just to not get a death.

Is the killboard responsible for such behavior? Killboard could also be named "dps board" because for who is best heal or guard whatever doesnt exist?

For a game that old , why do we exactly need a killboard?
and to those who disconnect instead taking a death with dignity in this game, what kind of mentality is that, to exit a game....


the other thing is the toxicity in pve sometimes, how rude people can be ....

and of course the main reason the fun goes down is that someone always starts to blob. blobbing takes away so much but yea.. people are people ...

I think t2 and t3 should be a zone for player until lvl 39, and t4 from lvl 40. but thats just me

If you got hit, even for 1 dmg, you get death on killboard.
Alt+F4 is way of avoiding wounds debuff as those 20 silvers stack to insane amounts of gold over years. It's like reverse gold farming. I recommend that.

[ventiiLatte]

New players, seems less folk joining. What's happening to bring in new players? Literally the lifeblood of any game if we don't grow we die.

TL:DR; of the new player experience:

Get to 16.
Get auto-kicked out of WBs for being 16.
Decide to quit.

Y'all see the problem?