Permanent lockouts

[Jaycub]

Against my own judgement I'd like to open a thread to continue discussing a matter brought up in a locked thread,

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18307

And hopefully we won't be flaming each other and shitposting to the point where the mods have to lock the thread.


Permanent lockouts, meaning that players will only be allowed to play one side at all, and will have to delete characters and reroll completely to play another side. Right now are seemingly being seriously considered by the team atm, and it would be nice to see a community discussion on the matter as a discussion such as this is easily one of the most important changes that might be made by the team.

I personally can't find the will to login and play until this question is answered, either way it doesn't matter to me but I'd personally like to know whether or not I should bother with focusing on both sides or figuring out which side I should play on in the event that permanent lockouts become a thing.

So what do you think about permanent lockouts, and how they might benefit if at all the server?

[Reesh]

It WILL benefit server as a whole, but only and only, when the overall player balance in terms of numbers on order and destro side will be achieved.

My biggest concern is, that after implementing this change, server would become a destruction zerg festival. You'd ask me, why?
From my observations, when every new HUGE content pack is released, server is flooded with destro side.
That is bringing a point, that on RoR we've got more players maining toons on that side, then they are on order. Also, destro has many more competitive and casual, most important, active guilds then order has.
So.. If you would push players to choose permanently, what side and toons they want to only play, the above might happen.
Order has more player base most of the time when the new content had been achieved on their destro counterparts.

There's also another aspect in which it will hurt a server - alpha testing. There won't be a possibility to freerly hop onto another side to playtest things that might be a concern for someone, before implementing new balance changes.

Don't get me wrong, I would love the full lockout, but it has to be done wisely, as it will be the biggest step for this server since implementing T2.

[peterthepan3]

I think it's a good idea to promote realm loyalty, but I don't think a flat-out realm lockout would be the best way of solving this. From an elitist blabla 6man peterpan PoV, people swap realms to face more challenges: for example, if group x and z are both playing on destro, group x may go to Order to get some decent fights and avoid pug farming. I think a flat-out realm lockout would mean that guilds would have to first decide which side they wish to affiliate with, so as to ensure there is some competitive play - as opposed to all the top guilds going on one side, and leaving side X at a huge disadvantage/very little competition.

[Reesh]

I think it's a good idea to promote realm loyalty, but I don't think a flat-out realm lockout would be the best way of solving this. From an elitist blabla 6man peterpan PoV, people swap realms to face more challenges: for example, if group x and z are both playing on destro, group x may go to Order to get some decent fights and avoid pug farming. I think a flat-out realm lockout would mean that guilds would have to first decide which side they wish to affiliate with, so as to ensure there is some competitive play - as opposed to all the top guilds going on one side, and leaving side X at a huge disadvantage/very little competition.

Please mate, with all due respect, lets leave the 6v6 out of it, just... Please!

"For the realm!" Catchphrase suits it best.

I bet, that you will still have decent opposition after full lockout mode, or even I would say, better then it is now.. As you will be facing players totally commited to one side and not another. That equals better gear, more experience with fighting their dedicated classes, etc, etc. Even those that aren't on 6v6 radar right now might get into it and become highly entertaining to fight on.

This game is all about RvR campaign, 6v6, 12v12, are a side quests and always will be. Let's treat it that way, please.

[peterthepan3]

I think it's a good idea to promote realm loyalty, but I don't think a flat-out realm lockout would be the best way of solving this. From an elitist blabla 6man peterpan PoV, people swap realms to face more challenges: for example, if group x and z are both playing on destro, group x may go to Order to get some decent fights and avoid pug farming. I think a flat-out realm lockout would mean that guilds would have to first decide which side they wish to affiliate with, so as to ensure there is some competitive play - as opposed to all the top guilds going on one side, and leaving side X at a huge disadvantage/very little competition.

Please mate, with all due respect, lets leave the 6v6 out of it, just... Please!

"For the realm!" Catchphrase suits it best.

I bet, that you will still have decent opposition after full lockout mode, or even I would say, better then it is now.. As you will be facing players totally commited to one side and not another. That equals better gear, more experience with fighting their dedicated classes, etc, etc. Even those that aren't on 6v6 radar right now might get into it and become highly entertaining to fight on.

This game is all about RvR campaign, 6v6, 12v12, are a side quests and always will be. Let's treat it that way, please.

I wasn't speaking from the perspective of a 6v6 player; I was speaking from the perspective of someone who seeks competitive gameplay, in whatever guise that is. If the vast majority of decent opposition is playing on one side then the gameplay will suffer as a result, which is why if such measures are to be taken (I am not completely opposed to a full lockout, tbh) guilds should discuss what side they'll be playing on. Having said that, though, most guilds do have a side they're particularly 'loyal' to, so this probably won't be an issue

I do empathise with your point on players probably being more dedicated if they have only one side to fight for.

[kweedko]

Realm Lockouts it's total bullshit and didn't solve anything. Locking to play OP classes and removeing them form game, till rework, will benefit server better than this nonsens.

[Taxen0]

I like the 7 day lockout after you change side suggestion that someone wrote

[Genisaurus]

I wasn't speaking from the perspective of a 6v6 player; I was speaking from the perspective of someone who seeks competitive gameplay, in whatever guise that is. If the vast majority of decent opposition is playing on one side then the gameplay will suffer as a result, which is why if such measures are to be taken (I am not completely opposed to a full lockout, tbh) guilds should discuss what side they'll be playing on. Having said that, though, most guilds do have a side they're particularly 'loyal' to, so this probably won't be an issue

I do empathise with your point on players probably being more dedicated if they have only one side to fight for.

There's a time for realm-switching for competitive gameplay, and there's a time to let a hard-earned victory actually be earned. I remember a problem that was had on live, wherein geared players had no interest in letting the RvR campaign progress to the city, where they would be locked out of RvR fights and scenarios would pop less. Once one faction got close to the city, members of the winning faction would jump ship to the opposition to stop the final caps from happening.

These players would undoubtedly argue that the cities, with all of their flaws, were not competitive, and that they were only switching sides for a better fight. Kind of like how people pick sides between calling RvR or scenarios noncompetitive for one reason or another. But as time goes on and more players get their last few pieces of gear, the number of people with no interest in content that requires effort from the many to reward a few will increase, and more people will be jumping ship for the sake of "preserving good fights." At the end of the day, no side should have to fight against both their enemy and a fraction of their own realm.

Of course, I understand that a losing faction is just as likely to log off, when presented with no viable alternatives to fight back. You'll be left with a scenario where all the hard fighting is done in Praag/TM/DW, and once the fight moves to any of the end zones, it'll get easier as one side gives up. People will use this as an argument that the winning team doesn't "deserve" a campaign win for not having to work hard for it, while their fingers hover over the "exit game" button.

I don't think a healthy RvR system can exist without realm locks. On the other hand, a realm lock in a 2-faction game requires that one faction be content to lose 50% of the time, and that doesn't describe much of WAR's or ROR's playerbase. So I'll be damned if I have a solution*, I just wanted to put some thoughts in.

[roadkillrobin]

Psoted this in a previus thread. Think it's a pretty solid lockout mechanic without actually locking people out.

Spoiler:

I don't think a week lockout is a sustaineble sollution. I actually think its more damaging then anything. Understanding the reason to why people Xrealming is key here. Im no expert in human behaviour but there are two main reason why people Xrealm. 1: Players who wants easy rewards 2: Players who gets bored when their side is dominating heavily and perfer fighting over Zerging. One of these types of Xrealmers(2) is actually equalizing the RVR and does something that makes the game a better experience for both realms while the other type of Xrealmer is just trying to leech (1) rewards. The chance that both these types of Xrealmers will just stop playing if they can't change realm is really really high. So my proposal is: If a player changes realm they will log in with a debuff that makes bag and loot rolls automaticly roll 1 and renown gain reduced to 1% for the first hour. 2 and 2% for the second hour etz. 100 hours later the debuff is cleared. This way Xrealmer 2 can uitilize AAO to reduce the renown debuff without stealing loot they didn't inherently work for but its also an incentive to stick to your mains while the Xrealmer 1 is just punished.

[saupreusse]

Suggestion: Maybe it could work to make side switching possible everytime a city fight was going on. This way, everytime the campaign resets, you could switch to the other side and play there for as long as a city is taken again.