What I am going to suggest isn't going to be popular...but it has to be said!

[WaaaghBoy88]

Hi, I am making this post, because I feel it's going to be vital to the game's life-span as a whole. Here's my argument:

Recently, I played fully from start to finish almost the entirety of the Anniversary Event week, and I'll be damned honest: It was the first time, in a long time, I saw the game have any real life breathed into its lungs. The population surged since the past 6 months, and that only proves to me that many people like me, feel the same way, especially with the current population imbalance; the lack of consistently fair fights, as the majority of ORVR has been a constant blobbing slog, or genuinely 1-sided in terms of character versus character capability, leads to an inability to proper rank up and progress on your character. It forces you to be reliant on being a proverbial sponge, so unless you are the winning side, you will never receive anything remotely satisfying in terms of renown-gain. Unless you farm Scenarios, and not everyone wants to do that.

In order to truly give people the initiative to keep trudging onwards through the mire of boredom, you need to give them more satisfying rewards. By that, I feel that based on current statistics and current measurements of player-frequency for activity, in order to maintain a steady population count and give people what one can only say is "a strong sip of courage", is that the RR-gain-boosts and War Crest-gain-boosts that were applied to the game temporarily should be either made a permanent change to the game, or perhaps a weekly "on/off" prefix. Because what we have now isn't sufficient. Not even close.

The current renown-rank drip-feeding, and crest rewarding is unfulfilling. Frankly it's unreasonable. Many people have lives and responsibilities, which directly impacts their availability for play, thus forcing you to expect droughts of balanced RVR action. If any action at all. I didn't even finish a single renown rank level up today, which is more than frustrating. Especially as I am sitting at my desk for 8+ a day with nothing to show for it. During the event, the renown gain was more than worth it, it actually made the game WORTH playing if you were losing. Without it, it feels harrowing. And I am phrasing that in a very gentle manner.

The standard RR-rate is unrealistic at best without using Fleeting Renown Boost Potions, and miserable at worse. War Crests are less of an issue, but I have seen many players complain of their frustration of being unable to properly earn them as they are forced to sit in the back as they wait for a single player to be able to defeat amidst a horde of others, all wanting the same thing. The war-crest boost was very positively received.

I ask that the devs take into account of what I have stated, and reconsider how things currently are. Thanks for reading my post

[dekadd]

Actually, EU prime is unplayable! Blob from each side, when we found a nice fight one WB come help or come destroy us, so bb nice fight!

The RR/CREST boost was good because farming in a small scale feel fun and rewarding! When we found some good fight it's rewarding.

From the end of the event we starting to play less. Stoping earlier, don't found "fun" in a zone full of wb, a spawn farm.
Each of our friends leave the game before reach RR60. They spam sc until 40, come 2/3 night in orvr and flee this game.

[Hazmy]

Thank you for your feedback!

From what I gather from your post, it seems that the current state of RvR itself is making the experience less enjoyable for you, rather than the progression system. Would that be correct? If the content feels like a slog and is unfun, then it's the content that would need adjustment, not necessarily the rewards or progression speed.

It's important to treat the cause, not the symptom. Events such as an anniversary will always naturally be more popular.

[Panel]

The elephant in the corner that noone ever mentions is Orders numbers - zerging almost 24/7, day after day, week after week, month in month out for nearly 3 years now. When 80% of the server pop decides to play order 90% of the time then you get what we have now ie a farce not a game - 112 vs 8 fort is not a sign of a healthy, competitive fun game. Really need some new machanic to curb Orders numbers so we can have our game back instead of the borefest its become. I started with 8 rl friends and family years ago - all have left due to Orders unrestrained numbers over the last year - if the population imbalance doesnt naturally
even itself out or dev intervention do something to faciltate it then I too am gone which would be a bloody shame cos the game is magnificent when numbers are close - nothing comes close.

[Morradin]

Once the RR and crest boost become the normal gain, in 6 months, someone will start talking about more RR and crest boost.

Sadly, what has the player numbers going down is the near constant Order dominance.

Also, do not forget, that the game is only now getting a sense of balance. Most likely will not see this balance done till some time late this year, or maybe next year. Devs only recently started working on healers, tanks are mostly done, and dps has not been touched yet.

All of that said;
YES, there should be more double or 50% RR boost. Maybe expand the weekend scenario RR boost to cover ORvR too? Maybe once a month, on a weekend, also do double crest drops.

[Dackjanielz]

One of the main issues is that the game constantly punishes the loser while rewarding the winners.

There is absolutely zero incentive to be on the losing side in any situation, RVR, keep fights, SCs - If you're on the losing side you might aswell be playing a different game entirely because despite you putting in 110% effort to try and turn the situation around you get nothing but a spaff of dust in your face.

How it should be is that in all these PVP situations is BOTH sides are rewarded for partaking but the winners get a bonus.

[Pinkywinky]

The elephant in the corner that noone ever mentions is Orders numbers - zerging almost 24/7, day after day, week after week, month in month out for nearly 3 years now. When 80% of the server pop decides to play order 90% of the time then you get what we have now ie a farce not a game - 112 vs 8 fort is not a sign of a healthy, competitive fun game. Really need some new machanic to curb Orders numbers so we can have our game back instead of the borefest its become. I started with 8 rl friends and family years ago - all have left due to Orders unrestrained numbers over the last year - if the population imbalance doesnt naturally
even itself out or dev intervention do something to faciltate it then I too am gone which would be a bloody shame cos the game is magnificent when numbers are close - nothing comes close.

Just get both sides with an equal balance would help, both equal, both sides tanks should be the same, both sides should be equal on rdps and mdps, having one side with better aoe was always going to make the game unbalanced.

Next fix the xreamlers, you have guilds which think that it is okay for them to control which side locks a zone. Easy fix just bring in a rvr debuff on them like a quieter on sc’s and link accounts. Stop them from going into the lakes. Let them do pve and sc’s but stick an RvR quitter debuff and port them back to the WC for an hour.

[rom85]

I agree with your overall analysis, I have been on this server since almost the beginning.
I have HL characters in both factions. Player behavior began to change with the arrival of Killboard.
Which in my opinion has nothing to do in WAR. Since then, players no longer want to have the same fun, too afraid of dying and having a bad ratio!
Which gave a lot of comfort to only playing in WB Blob in order to limit the number of deaths! Whereas before the arrival of this tool there were more fights in small groups almost everywhere on the map and above all death did not matter!
The fact that death has no importance gives it freedom to the player, he will not be afraid to take turns and rush into combat to defend his faction.
Regarding balancing! I mounted a RR80 shaman, it does more damage than my 84 magus! this is not normal.
Likewise I have a squig, it has too many tools to escape, silence, disarm etc... I'm not talking about the dps of my shadow warrior. We should review the shaman and archmage classes, limit their dps and tools. basically they are healers!!!!!! not dps.
Conversely, hybrid healers like the warrior priest have no tools to defend themselves against a shaman or a squig!
Finally, I think that for some time this magnificent game has lost its original soul. I am aware that balancing is very complicated.
There will always be those who are dissatisfied. Thank you for your overall work. I hope you can revitalize this game.

[shoelessHN]

Wait until you find out that a bunch of the 8X and 9X chars running around ranked up with 75k renown forts and when they hit lvl40 they didnt have to go into sc in their conq vs sov.

[bw10]

you can 1-81 (youll be bis 10k ring included around that time if you play smart) in 3 months if you have some general knowledge how the game works and how to farm crests/rr efficently (and play every day). how fast you people want to get to bis? 3 weeks?

learn your class, play well, identify WB leaders running semi-org/org groups. ask them to join and play to your best. youll be bis in no time