Changelog 4th June, 2016

[RyanMakara]

Hey ryan any chance we could get a preview of the new trophies?

Sure thing. I'll take a few pics now and post them here.

Dwarf Flask ====================================== Slayer Ritual Axe



Slayer Trophy ===================================== Slayer Ink Pen

[Mael]

I applaud the new ideas to revolutionise T4. At the moment it is incredibly broken. I've tried getting involved as a Tank, Rdps, and finally a healer in open warbands. As and when I do eventually find some activity, it seldom ends up as a keep siege, and even more rarely as a Zone flip (which to me is the whole reason to do RvR in the 1st place).

Typically there's only 1 full wb of, dare I say it, pugs (myself included), and maybe a few other stragglers in a pick up wb. Whoever is trying to lead normally does a valiant effort, but our open effort are normally never coordinated with any guild/alliance/premade wb's who are content to simply do their own thing and farm medallions. As a result (from Destro perspective) we then eventually come against a fairly well organised Order keep defence who over time annihilate us, and then people start to either quit to do other things or x-realm. The end result being a completely frustrating waste of time. We all know of this kind of scenario, and I'm sure that Order have also experienced it. In the present form, T4 is hopelessly doomed to failure.

I really do hope that the new planned overhaul will insert some much needed energy into T4. I do find myself wondering how it's actually going to work though with real people, rather than a theoretical model with malleable AI people. On Destro, the only "organised" WB's that I've seen thus far are the RU ones and their hanger on's. I've yet to see an english speaking EU guild with a WB presence in T4. I know because whenever I'm in there I check guild tags, in the hope that I can find an organised WB English speaking EU guild (my guys are permanently on hiatus).

I just can't see an "open" wb being able to grasp this new system and work with it. It sounds impressive on paper from a military tactician's standpoint, but how workable in practice will it be? Will it simply then only benefit properly organised super wb's (RU's atm on destro), and leave "open"/pug wb's out in the cold?

It all just sounds a little too complicated and over-thought. I think most people aren't playing this game as a virtual warfare replacement for chess, they're playing it to relax and have fun running around killing things/capping things.

I appreciate & applaud the devs' creativity in coming up with all this, but I also wonder if it's become a little too much of an exercise in displaying cleverness. Sometimes when designing something it's all too easy to reinvent the wheel, and it's sometimes a good idea to remember the old designing adage of "KISS" (Keep It Simply Stupid). I say this as commercial design is a part of my RL and I frequently have to remind myself of this very thing, and reign myself in a bit.


I honestly don't have a better idea, sorry Az. The best however I can offer in the form of constructive idea is not to fall into the trap that happened with T3 prior to T4...
In case it doesn't all work out, keep a backup somewhere of the pristine code (as it is now maybe) pre-changes. Sometimes, even the best of us have to pull the plug on a pet project and admit the new 2.0 version doesn't work at all. If you guys do need to revert with a clear head for whatever reason, give yourselves a head start, and don't leave yourselves the soul destroying job of trying to reverse engineer months of changes...

[Azarael]

What I've proposed has no greater complexity than something like Savage 2 or Unreal Tournament's Onslaught mode. I could understand if I was asking each individual player to put in concentration and actions per second equivalent to top-level StarCraft, but I'm not. The only reason it sounds complex is because the complexity of the existing system is next to nothing. And what do you get in a system that isn't complex and has no real room for tactics or strategy? Animalian horde attacks. Which is what we've got.

A complex system should still be playable by simple players, but not all of its complexity and potential can be used by them. In this case, it would resolve to having main forces, as always, but the organized players are held responsible for the tactical side of things, ensuring that their own main force doesn't get obliterated by war machines.

[bloodi]

What I've proposed has no greater complexity than something like Savage 2 or Unreal Tournament's Onslaught mode. I could understand if I was asking each individual player to put in concentration and actions per second equivalent to top-level StarCraft, but I'm not. The only reason it sounds complex is because the complexity of the existing system is next to nothing.

That doesnt mean its good or people will like it Az, there is a reason why Blizzard success is mostly on picking up a concept and dumbing it down.

Your system may not seem that complex to you but its up to most people to decide, i would completely agree that you better have some kind of backup for the old system, your new system may be fantastic but that is not a reason for success.

If people played complex and deep games, there would be a ton of people playing Virtua Fighter, no one plays Virtua Fighter though.

Or hitting closer to your home, what had more success, a complex fps like Unreal or pieces of garbage like call of duty or battlefield?

[Azarael]

Sigh. I'm well aware that modern games are being dumbed down, and it's because of the masses of nouveau gamers who lazily spew out "But I want / don't want this!" on the dev forums and flock to whichever game reduces the skill cap enough that they can't be dominated by anyone with superior skill than themselves. This is what CoD and Battlefield do, and what Unreal and Quake never did.

If that is what RoR will resolve to, then it will also kill attempts to balance the game, because pressure from that element of the community will be able to override decisions aimed at leveling the playing field and increasing depth/balance. If that were to be demonstrated, it would, of course, violate my primary reason for being a part of this project. I never got into this to appease the common denominator.

I feel more and more sometimes that there's simply no middle ground any more. Either you develop a highly competitive game and go for eSports for your popularity, deliberately forfeiting mass appeal, or you develop you game to be as simple and unskilled as possible so that it is inclusionary even to people who don't want to think or better themselves at it in any way.

[goa]

I was the first to make something that looked like a complaint in this thread. I just noticed how overpowered it was (especially teamed) in the current state (by getting tons of kills with it myself).
I think you are one of the most competent developers running a game, doing everything you do only with the server. Trying out a new way of running T4 is great since there was no perfect solution on live. Even though it looked like I complained I'm in full support of your intended changes, trying to find a better T4.

[Azarael]

I was the first to make something that looked like a complaint in this thread. I just noticed how overpowered it was (especially teamed) in the current state (by getting tons of kills with it myself).
I think you are one of the most competent developers running a game, doing everything you do only with the server. Trying out a new way of running T4 is great since there was no perfect solution on live. Even though it looked like I complained I'm in full support of your intended changes, trying to find a better T4.

You were absolutely right, for the record, hence why I reverted it. None of my posts were directed at you.

[bloodi]

When Carrie dumbed down war and made it fliphammer why did we hemorrhage players at an astounding rate compared to the steady attrition we had prior?

War was hemorraging players since day one, the game didnt die because they dumbed it down, the game died because they didnt give any resources to it and every update was an attempt to grab more cash.

Balance woes were ignored while offering a cap raise for a hefty amount, thats why it died, not because of the dumbing down.

Nice try though.

I feel more and more sometimes that there's simply no middle ground any more. Either you develop a highly competitive game and go for eSports for your popularity, deliberately forfeiting mass appeal, or you develop you game to be as simple and unskilled as possible so that it is inclusionary even to people who don't want to think or better themselves at it in any way.

But you are the one removing the middle ground here, there is a middle ground on the old system, like it or not, pugs going around capping bos and attacking keeps while not using their brain much is the prefered playstyle to a lot and those people is what gives ORvR life, not the smart advanced tacticians.

When you propose a system that its too complex for most of your normal players, you are effectively leaving them out, have you read your advice chats or any open chat? (Rethorical, i know you do), most people have problems understanding simple concepts of their class, they will not understand the new system at all.

"dumb" people need progression at a steady pace, they need to feel involved and they need to feel they are a part of the cog, else they just wont play in it and if they dont play in it, no one will have any fun in orvr, the last days show as much.

And its not a matter of modern gaming or anything like that, its always been like this.

[Azarael]

I'm terribly sorry, but where is the middle ground?

If there were actually a middle ground within large-scale ORvR engagements then I would have no reason to want to change ORvR. Fact is it's zerg and wave attacks.

With the amount of effort that's had to be expended worrying over what to do about the RvR system, I thought this'd have been completely obvious.

[bloodi]

I'm terribly sorry, but where is the middle ground?

If there were actually a middle ground within large-scale ORvR engagements then I would have no reason to want to change ORvR. Fact is it's zerg and wave attacks.

And you have to build on top of those Zergs and wave attacks.

Instead of having such a big problem with them, you have to work them into your system, that is the point.

You dont find them fun, sure, you have good reasons for that but that doesnt mean you have to kill them, let those things happen, let the zergs and wave attacks have their place and the players in them progress and get their rewards, as big or small as you want and try to work out a system that is fun for you while letting them have theirs.

If to have your fun system, you have to gut out the fun for the average joe, your system is no good, because it kills both theirs and yours, you need them to have Orvr, so show that.

Thats why i mention Virtua Fighter or Call of Duty. You want to play Unreal and i find that both worth of praise and refreshing but instead of forcing everyone to play Unreal, try to fit a bit of Unreal in their call of duty, so you have fun and they have fun because without the people who play call of duty, there is no Unreal for you or anyone.