Lockout system is a failure and some people takes advantage of it
Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2026 5:35 pm
The new faction lockout system is terrible and easily susceptible to abuse.
As it currently stands, the lockout system only leads to the sieges going from being an enjoyable part of the game to being a farming trap that, masked under the excuse of "good fights" or "balancing the population", benefits only the xrealmers who maliciously abuse the absence of lockout time, that is, "some guild" and those close to them, totally harming those who play a single faction. One thing is the respectable xrealm in which during a zone dispute some players change factions to level the numbers and another is a mean, abusive and malicious xrealm made with the intention of compromising one side when they are part of it and then leaving it in an unfavorable situation and farm them.
Several days ago "some guild" encouraged through the region chat to summon a ram in Caledor while they were playing in the order. As the ram arrived at the door of the destruction keep, "some guild" xrealmed to destro and along with them, a bunch of other characters logged into the destruction, suddenly turning the AAO around and putting us outnumbered in less than 5 minutes. Of course the siege failed, and that dirty and malicious xrealming left us suspicious of how convenient and sudden the population change had been and we kept our eyes open.
Just yesterday they fooled us for the second time, this time in Praag. Having 40% red AAO, "some guild" supported on chat summoning a ram while playing in the order. In the destruction there was absolutely no organized guild, only an open warband with 14 members. This time, as the order ram arrived at the destruction keep and without the outside door having yet fallen, suddenly the AAO had changed, and now we were outnumbered by 20%, and we began to become suspicious. Suddenly, as the interior door fell, "some guild" appeared logged into the destruction, along with other organized warbands, and much more destruction that "coincidentally" decided to log in at that moment and that as the siege ended, "coincidentally" logged out... The siege failed and in less than 2 minutes, "some guild" was back in order and forming a warband.
When this malicious xrealming takes place and is pointed out by the region chat, its acolytes respond with "do you prefer an empty keep?", as surely some enlightened person is going to respond here. To them I say:
- No, I leave that to the destruction that only sieges with a minimum of 80% AAO and making sure to have all the entrances to the keep well guarded so that no one enters. But when one besieges, the first step, logically, is to have more numbers than the enemy. You don't siege in order to get the AAO changing drastically due to malicious use of the lockout system by a group of people and all their friends and suddenly being outnumbered.
Asked about it, "some guild" members only respond by excusing in "We are only here because of the good fights and the kills", which further reinforces the argument that these people take advantage of the system. The penalty doesn't matter to them at all, they are already fully equipped in both factions and are only concerned about the killboard, so this system is perfect for them since they don't care about RR or warcrests.
According to these two occasions that we have noticed and kept an eye on them:
- They are playing in order until there is a little AAO% and they incite or support the siege via chat.
- Once the siege is on, they xrealm the destruction and appear along with many other players who were not there moments before, so suddenly you are besieging in numerical inferiority.
- They have enemies to kill along with the destruction that was already connected and now they can attack an enemy that is outnumbered, at the mercy of a couple of oils and a keep lord.
- They make a slaughter and inflate their killboard.
So, if the lockout system does not change, it only leaves us one option: Siege as destruction does, when the AAO is 80% or higher, so that perhaps, counting on "some guild"'s Xrealm and their acolytes, we still have the sufficient numerical superiority to be successful in the siege, since in a game with such a small population, the malicious xrealm of a guild and the sudden appearance of its friends creates an instantaneous and brutal imbalance.
Every time "some guild" encourages a siege, we will not support it as we will not be fooled a third time, and by chat we will let it be known that besieging with "some guild" in order will only bring a sudden and massive xrealm in favor of destruction (even more so when the siege leads to a strong one) and we will try to discourage carrying out the siege until the AAO is exaggeratedly favorable to us or these people are on the other faction.
If the developers really intend for the game not to die, a solution should be found (among them, re-implementing the 90 minutes of faction lockout, or even increasing them) so that such abusive and mean practices do not continue to be carried out and even less so by players who have been here for years.
It is sad to see that a well-intentioned attempt by developers to give us the freedom to keep the population balanced is taken by some to transform it into a tool with which to abuse the system and ruin the gaming experience for the rest of the players.
Since in this post I haven't mentioned any name, and just pointed out a serious issue with the server faction lockout status, I hope this time this post doesn't get censored by being deleted.
As it currently stands, the lockout system only leads to the sieges going from being an enjoyable part of the game to being a farming trap that, masked under the excuse of "good fights" or "balancing the population", benefits only the xrealmers who maliciously abuse the absence of lockout time, that is, "some guild" and those close to them, totally harming those who play a single faction. One thing is the respectable xrealm in which during a zone dispute some players change factions to level the numbers and another is a mean, abusive and malicious xrealm made with the intention of compromising one side when they are part of it and then leaving it in an unfavorable situation and farm them.
Several days ago "some guild" encouraged through the region chat to summon a ram in Caledor while they were playing in the order. As the ram arrived at the door of the destruction keep, "some guild" xrealmed to destro and along with them, a bunch of other characters logged into the destruction, suddenly turning the AAO around and putting us outnumbered in less than 5 minutes. Of course the siege failed, and that dirty and malicious xrealming left us suspicious of how convenient and sudden the population change had been and we kept our eyes open.
Just yesterday they fooled us for the second time, this time in Praag. Having 40% red AAO, "some guild" supported on chat summoning a ram while playing in the order. In the destruction there was absolutely no organized guild, only an open warband with 14 members. This time, as the order ram arrived at the destruction keep and without the outside door having yet fallen, suddenly the AAO had changed, and now we were outnumbered by 20%, and we began to become suspicious. Suddenly, as the interior door fell, "some guild" appeared logged into the destruction, along with other organized warbands, and much more destruction that "coincidentally" decided to log in at that moment and that as the siege ended, "coincidentally" logged out... The siege failed and in less than 2 minutes, "some guild" was back in order and forming a warband.
When this malicious xrealming takes place and is pointed out by the region chat, its acolytes respond with "do you prefer an empty keep?", as surely some enlightened person is going to respond here. To them I say:
- No, I leave that to the destruction that only sieges with a minimum of 80% AAO and making sure to have all the entrances to the keep well guarded so that no one enters. But when one besieges, the first step, logically, is to have more numbers than the enemy. You don't siege in order to get the AAO changing drastically due to malicious use of the lockout system by a group of people and all their friends and suddenly being outnumbered.
Asked about it, "some guild" members only respond by excusing in "We are only here because of the good fights and the kills", which further reinforces the argument that these people take advantage of the system. The penalty doesn't matter to them at all, they are already fully equipped in both factions and are only concerned about the killboard, so this system is perfect for them since they don't care about RR or warcrests.
According to these two occasions that we have noticed and kept an eye on them:
- They are playing in order until there is a little AAO% and they incite or support the siege via chat.
- Once the siege is on, they xrealm the destruction and appear along with many other players who were not there moments before, so suddenly you are besieging in numerical inferiority.
- They have enemies to kill along with the destruction that was already connected and now they can attack an enemy that is outnumbered, at the mercy of a couple of oils and a keep lord.
- They make a slaughter and inflate their killboard.
So, if the lockout system does not change, it only leaves us one option: Siege as destruction does, when the AAO is 80% or higher, so that perhaps, counting on "some guild"'s Xrealm and their acolytes, we still have the sufficient numerical superiority to be successful in the siege, since in a game with such a small population, the malicious xrealm of a guild and the sudden appearance of its friends creates an instantaneous and brutal imbalance.
Every time "some guild" encourages a siege, we will not support it as we will not be fooled a third time, and by chat we will let it be known that besieging with "some guild" in order will only bring a sudden and massive xrealm in favor of destruction (even more so when the siege leads to a strong one) and we will try to discourage carrying out the siege until the AAO is exaggeratedly favorable to us or these people are on the other faction.
If the developers really intend for the game not to die, a solution should be found (among them, re-implementing the 90 minutes of faction lockout, or even increasing them) so that such abusive and mean practices do not continue to be carried out and even less so by players who have been here for years.
It is sad to see that a well-intentioned attempt by developers to give us the freedom to keep the population balanced is taken by some to transform it into a tool with which to abuse the system and ruin the gaming experience for the rest of the players.
Since in this post I haven't mentioned any name, and just pointed out a serious issue with the server faction lockout status, I hope this time this post doesn't get censored by being deleted.
my wrong, I apologize