Replica jewels.... Clarification please.

[Talladego]

I think the better path would have been to keep rewards exclusive to Ranked and gradually introduce slightly improved rewards every season while keeping them in line with existing PVE/RVR gear powerwise. And perhaps even opening ranked queues at a much lower level. That would have given players who enjoy the game mode a separate path to progress their toons.

Now however when Triumphant/Victorious rewards have been made available to anyone those sets should of course be aligned with the existing sets both in power and in cost.

[needforsneed]

Dev was salty they were exclusive to ranked and set them to 9999 non-ranked to force them into the non-ranked realm of availability, then quit the team shortly after so they never moved again.

They're essentially a ranked reward. If you want them, get people to play ranked and earn the ranked currency. Or we might end up discontinuing ranked for lack of interest and retire all the rewards.

You can just tell people it was me. Serves us all better if there's transparency with the decision.
One of the best decisions I've ever made was making that ring nonexclusive. There's no reason to hide my name from that decision.

Exclusive non-cosmetic rewards to a competitive mode that no one plays and exists to be gamed by an elite few doesn't serve anyone but those who gamed it.
The population isn't ever going to be high enough to sustain ranked. I'd recommend closing the mode and keeping in the .challenge command (without rewards) that allows you to challenge another team, so that the mode serves its existing purpose without being able to be gamed.

Thanks for killing my gamemode because you couldn't hack it past 0 mmr. Enough people were playing it to have 3 or 4 games ongoing at a time but eventually it fizzles out each season. Why that is would be another topic of its own. Ror is designed around grinding gear and if everything was including rr80 was free, few people would be playing it. I don't enjoy box running, shitty siege, forts, or keep takes. Can we remove that? **** you for killing the only fun thing left about ROR.

[geraldtarrant]

They're essentially a ranked reward. If you want them, get people to play ranked and earn the ranked currency. Or we might end up discontinuing ranked for lack of interest and retire all the rewards.

Sov is City reward and Invader is Fort reward, following your line of thinking.
Should they be removed if not bought by original Sov/Invader currency?
At what point game mode is tagged as lack of interest ? Becouse to some degree same can be said about cities after currency unification. From xx pops, even in random times only like x citty pops during scheduled time.

[wargrimnir]

Why remove a game mode just because it's enjoyed by 'an elite few'? A lot of the elite few keep this server going when the population recently reached low points, and run many of the organized warbands, inviting pugs when trying to fill. I don't see the point in removing ranked simply because at the moment it's not active, though there are still pops that happen. Once the gear was attained yeah it was always going to die down- there should be some sort of incentive related to it or have a monthly ranked event to get it running again. I agree with the decision to make it accessible to players who never want to play ranked, no issue there really. I would also have no issue if it remained only accessible to ranked, as I would've eventually started to queue to attain the gear.
I think I queued for ranked handful of times but I don't have a BiS character and didn't want to be a detriment to my team being targeted and killed over and over, plus 6v6 just isn't that appealing to me.
I don't thnk removing another game mode & purpose for BiS players to play the game is good for the server.

I'll preface this as my own random thoughts and not explicitly representative of the team. Clearly I've had internal conversations that have reflected parts of this, but there's also where we ended up, so eh.

Having a game mode designed for the elite few to consolidate even more power has been a constant criticism from the rest of the playerbase. My considerations for design never ever take into account how much alleged altruistic work a subset of players take, particularly when they stand to gain the most from the result of changes aimed at them. It is dangerous to assume the people who benefit the most are also the ones who provide the most value to the community. Perhaps I have a unique perspective as a GM to not lend a shred of trust or faith in the goodness of others, quite so blindly. These are similar reasons we abandoned a public balance forum discussion, and went instead with internal members of the team and trusted community members in the Realm Champ program.

Ranked being inactive is not a reason to remove it, I made recommendations to continue the experiment in a direction that would be more inclusive and to attract a wider playerbase, while still retaining the core concept of prestige and competition. That was the whole point of ranked in the first place. Gear sets came in much later. The argument was that this tier of scenario play deserved a higher tier of gear and that scenario gear was not keeping up with RvR gear when it came to power scaling, which it was never designed for in the first place. Scenarios are literally a mini-game, as the meme goes, and while they're exceptionally accessible and fun™, they're not the core of the game. Dungeons and RvR are the core of the game, the evidence is apparent for anyone looking at it critically.

Statted gear is a bad incentive every step of the way, particularly when it's designed to be significantly better than other gear at its item level. I didn't design the gear, someone may have asked me to review a draft, it was exceptionally disinterested at the time for shoving more power scaling into what I considered a flawed game mode. It worked to prop up the population, as implementing heavily optimized gear will do, but in the long run the flaws in the system were made apparent as the mode has regressed to its current state. People saw gear at the end of the tunnel and treated it like a grind, because you didn't have to actually be ranked to acquire or wear any of it. What's the point of calling it a ranked mode, if it's just a 6v6 deathmatch that you can grind for BIS? You can see now how that caused a knock-on effect right? The more people treating it like a grind meant more people not treating it like a serious high-skill cap mode, leading to more people complaining about the quality of matches, the accusations of throwing and colluding, the poor random RR60 players that accidentally saw the dreaded "Ranked" words in his scenario pop causing 5v6 matches to start. A lot of player behavior issues needed to be patched, but the core driving motivation of Ranked wasn't the prestige or challenge, it was the gear grind.

Players who "never want to play ranked" are not a factor for consideration in my mind. Clearly that sort of game mode isn't intended for them. That doesn't entirely invalidate their concern about being "forced" to play the mode, but it's more important to not rip away achievements from people who put in an effort to earn them. If a game mode has gear you want, and you don't want to play the game mode, then your option is to sit there and mald, or provide suggestions and feedback that move the game mode to a state that you find acceptable with the understanding that your suggestions might simply not be compatible with the design of the mode, at which point revert to option a.

The last completed solo ranked match was on August 23rd, it ended 50 to 0. It was 10 members of the same guild. Nearly a month without a single pop is a dead mode. This is after they made it cross-faction to try and give it one last gimmick to support the population that no longer existed. Now the only thing left is the reminder that some BIS gear is stuck behind a paywall that no one wants to pay. Sad really, we could do better.

[wargrimnir]

They're essentially a ranked reward. If you want them, get people to play ranked and earn the ranked currency. Or we might end up discontinuing ranked for lack of interest and retire all the rewards.

Sov is City reward and Invader is Fort reward, following your line of thinking.
Should they be removed if not bought by original Sov/Invader currency?
At what point game mode is tagged as lack of interest ? Becouse to some degree same can be said about cities after currency unification. From xx pops, even in random times only like x citty pops during scheduled time.

I would argue that forts and cities are core aspects of the RvR campaign inclusive to all players at R40, not a mini-game restricted to a minimal gearset of top tier players. Also, yes, I argued during the currency conversion to keep a separation of Fort and City currency. Having access to BIS gear without any importance on the game modes designed to acquire it I thought was... lacking. A bit. To be very nice about how I word it.

[Stimpz]

I didn't know there was so much controversy around the ring.
I thought it was just meant to be part of the move to the single currency.

I think it's a pity that ranked didn't work.
While I've never been keen on this game mode myself, my first thought when ranked was introduced was that a lot of people would enjoy it.
Also I didn't mind that there was some gear I couldn't achieve if I don't play that mode. That's how life works.

BUT

After the unified currency got introduced, I start playing again after a year of a break.
And oh boy, how much fun I had. Really.
The freedom of playing how you want and what you want is something even big MMOs can still learn from.
When I'm recommending this game to people, the single currency is my biggest argument as to why it's so much fun.
Wargrimnir is absolutely right. There should be rewards for a highly competitive game mode but only in form of cosmetics, mounts or titles and so on.
But saying you didn't do anything to earn the ring for 9999 WC is right in terms of didn't do anything competitive to get it, but what I do is having fun to get it.
I already have everything except of a few Warlord items and still have fun playing because there is this ring with his high cost.
It is not good enough to grind for my life of it, but still good enough to be happy about every Warcrest I earn for it.

Removing those items would be no apocalyptic event of cruel unfairness, but a bit sad for people who like to play the game for what it is and get rewarded for their time investment rather than their skillcap.
Which is a nice thing too.

[lemao]

The last completed solo ranked match was on August 23rd, it ended 50 to 0. It was 10 members of the same guild. Nearly a month without a single pop is a dead mode. This is after they made it cross-faction to try and give it one last gimmick to support the population that no longer existed. Now the only thing left is the reminder that some BIS gear is stuck behind a paywall that no one wants to pay. Sad really, we could do better.

Maybe activating a new season would help with people queueing again ? You dont get any rewards ( just the weekly) from them at he moment.
I doubt we would see many more people queuing but it would be a start. People need to have a carrot after all.

[Sinisterror]

They're essentially a ranked reward. If you want them, get people to play ranked and earn the ranked currency. Or we might end up discontinuing ranked for lack of interest and retire all the rewards.

Sov is City reward and Invader is Fort reward, following your line of thinking.
Should they be removed if not bought by original Sov/Invader currency?
At what point game mode is tagged as lack of interest ? Becouse to some degree same can be said about cities after currency unification. From xx pops, even in random times only like x citty pops during scheduled time.

I would argue that forts and cities are core aspects of the RvR campaign inclusive to all players at R40, not a mini-game restricted to a minimal gearset of top tier players. Also, yes, I argued during the currency conversion to keep a separation of Fort and City currency. Having access to BIS gear without any importance on the game modes designed to acquire it I thought was... lacking. A bit. To be very nice about how I word it.

Unified currency is good thing BUT game modes like Fort/City should give actual setgear pieces from goldbags. Purple bags should give wpns that have procs. If you are attacking city gold bags would give Offensive Sovereign/Warlord. During city siege rr70+ have a chance to drop bop sove/warlord boots/gloves. Purple bag's should give unique wpns with procs. Same thing when defending but you would get Defensive Sove/Warlord from goldbags and purple bags would give wpns with defense oriented procs.

Same with Forts, bop invader gloves/boots dropping from rr60+ and purple bags giving cloak or wpns with procs, and these would be only places to get these Items. Apply same logic to keeps, if attacking vanquisher if defending Oppressor. Purple bags giving Subjugators. And reduce the aoe cap back to 9. At least then more skill is needed when comparing to 24 ae cap, can kite with wb's again and 6-12 people have a chance to wipe 24+ with good play. May require Morale changes with better CC again. Not 9 sec ae stagger but 5-6sec would give enough time to kill few key targets if you are not spamming aoe and breaking that stagger.

I want to believe!

[wargrimnir]

Unified currency is good thing BUT game modes like Fort/City should give actual setgear pieces from goldbags. Purple bags should give wpns that have procs. If you are attacking city gold bags would give Offensive Sovereign/Warlord. During city siege rr70+ have a chance to drop bop sove/warlord boots/gloves. Purple bag's should give unique wpns with procs. Same thing when defending but you would get Defensive Sove/Warlord from goldbags and purple bags would give wpns with defense oriented procs.

Same with Forts,

• bop invader gloves/boots dropping from rr60+
• and purple bags giving cloak or wpns with procs
• and these would be only places to get these Items
• Apply same logic to keeps, if attacking vanquisher if defending Oppressor
• Purple bags giving Subjugators
• And reduce the aoe cap back to 9

. At least then more skill is needed when comparing to 24 ae cap, can kite with wb's again and 6-12 people have a chance to wipe 24+ with good play. May require Morale changes with better CC again. Not 9 sec ae stagger but 5-6sec would give enough time to kill few key targets if you are not spamming aoe and breaking that stagger.

I want to believe!

If you're just going to list every piece of feedback you could imagine, could you at least toss it in bulletpoints next time?

[Sinisterror]

Unified currency is good thing BUT game modes like Fort/City should give actual setgear pieces from goldbags. Purple bags should give wpns that have procs. If you are attacking city gold bags would give Offensive Sovereign/Warlord. During city siege rr70+ have a chance to drop bop sove/warlord boots/gloves. Purple bag's should give unique wpns with procs. Same thing when defending but you would get Defensive Sove/Warlord from goldbags and purple bags would give wpns with defense oriented procs.

Same with Forts,

• bop invader gloves/boots dropping from rr60+
• and purple bags giving cloak or wpns with procs
• and these would be only places to get these Items
• Apply same logic to keeps, if attacking vanquisher if defending Oppressor
• Purple bags giving Subjugators
• And reduce the aoe cap back to 9

. At least then more skill is needed when comparing to 24 ae cap, can kite with wb's again and 6-12 people have a chance to wipe 24+ with good play. May require Morale changes with better CC again. Not 9 sec ae stagger but 5-6sec would give enough time to kill few key targets if you are not spamming aoe and breaking that stagger.

I want to believe!

If you're just going to list every piece of feedback you could imagine, could you at least toss it in bulletpoints next time?

I do have an problem not being clear enough in text form that is true, i will try bulletpoints next time=)