Split PvP Rewards into Mode-Specific Tokens to Reduce “Blob vs Blob” and Revive Variety

[Endari]

Everything you described is PvP so why would I need to do a mode of PvP I don't like to get PvP gear? People blob because the game is built for it, the "influential guilds/people" want it and its brain dead easy. Your "fix" is just gatekeeping.

[krumhur]

Regarding “forcing” people to do content: they’re not being forced; they’re being rewarded with exclusive gear.

Motivating people to do something for rewards/gear is something that already happens in the game.
If you want Bloodlord or Lost Valley weapons, you do the dungeons.
If you want level 200 talisman boxes to craft talismans, you do PQs, or you join a level 40 guild to buy them with guild coins, or you do the SC event.
If you don’t like RvR and only like PvE, you’re forced to do RvR, and vice versa.
If you want the LotD gear, you do LotD.
And so on...

For example, I absolutely hate doing PvE, yet I’m going to have to run some dungeons like Lost Valley to get the weapons. That will mean more players doing Lost Valley, making it easier for groups to form for people who actually enjoy that content. And who knows—maybe I’ll even end up liking it in the end.

In other words, exclusive rewards already exist today. And it’s precisely those exclusive rewards that bring extra people into that kind of content, in addition to the people for whom it’s their favorite content.

Sorry but your logic is contradictory: according to you, your solution is not about forcing people, but about motivating them. On the other hand, instead , you too realise that you are forced into LV to get the LV weapons (in fact you say you "may" end up liking it, but maybe you won't, which is the definition of being forced to do something you don't enjoy).

Incentives are one thing, locking some rewards behind specific activity is another, there is no way around this simple logic.

Also, if you look at other successful MMOs (= long lasting MMOs), currency creep is something that's usually avoided to the point where sooner or later older MMOs end up reducing the number of currencies for the sake of simplicity which is a positive thing by itself: you suggest splitting one currency in like 7 or 8 different ones, that's the total opposite of simplifying the game.

That said, the point you raise, about finding a way to reduce blobbing, that's worth discussing for the sake of the game's health.

From a different point of view, this problem is the same as many others discussed on the forum (e.g. defensive builds being more and more dominant in the solo scene): people always take the path of least resistance when given the chance, in this case getting renown and crests with the least possible personal effort, by simply tagging along a wb.

And as always the best solution is about building incentives to promote different behaviours, not force people into activities they don't enjoy: it's a game we are talking about, if it's not fun then it's worthless and pointless to play it.

Why not increase the rewards (renown and crests) from the activities you mentioned? Or, as an alternative, add other, additional, rewards on top of the existing ones? Cosmetic items for example, in which case the idea of an additional currency could come in handy, to let people buy armour/weapon (maybe only skins, with no stats) from the various dungeons, without running them, or dyes, stuff that doesn't impact the normal character growth or the economy.

[Aethilmar]

There is a lot of rose-colored glasses stuff going on with this proposal but let me address the campaign progression one specifically.

Extra suggestion: Make city sieges trigger from campaign progress again

If city sieges didn’t happen at pre-set hours and instead triggered when a realm captured two forts, we’d bring back that “campaign feeling” that was really fun. RvR would become more active because both realms would be pushing harder to reach city.

I'm pretty sure you were around for when forts and cities were based on campaign progression. What happened was unending fighting during EU time periods and NA would then clean up the forts and city. This happened because keep takes were the only way for zone progression. After lots of experimentation we have the theme-park system to mitigate the issues caused by keep only takes.

Now, could campaign progression still work? Sure. But the devs would have to bring back a version of the original system which was each zone eventually capped due to one side or another having more positive zone activity as opposed to just keep takes. And since the devs have a desire to always force some kind of fight at all times they won't allow anything that could be seen as "PVE"-ing a zone even if that is what effectively happens much of the time anyway.