rvr, forts, cities

[oldgiant]

I think there's a problem with the game that's getting worse. Judging by what I read on the forum, hear in-game from other players, and see on the mainpage population tracker I'm not the only one who feels that way. There's discussion about problems with citylogging, with forts, with throws (can I use that word? Hard to find mention of it in the rules anywhere, I did look). From my perspective, the quality and quantity of fights to be had in rvr is dropping really fast.

The thing I haven't seen mentioned much since the talk surrounding the "free invaders" period is reward structure in rvr. Who gets what, and how they get it. Players are mostly going to act according to their perceived self-interest. If self-interest puts them in conflict with other players in their faction, there will be conflict. If following self-interest leads to actions that are bad for the game, the game will suffer. It looks like both these things are, increasingly, happening. To sort according to goals:

Vanq or lower-- these players benefit from fights (RR, medals, inf/xp) and zone flips. Rewards are better on a win, but "win" can mean a successful keep defense almost as much as a zone flip.

Invader-- these players really only benefit from forts. Slightly better rewards for winning than losing. Very small benefit for purp/gold bags or for defending a pre-fort zone, but only with full vanq unlocked (looks like vanq-only is implemented now, I was getting the 2 inv on alts but now I don't seem to be).

Sov-- famously, these players only benefit from city. It doesn't matter which city. Better rewards for winning the actual city, but if this victory comes after losing every single zone to get there it doesn't matter at all. Very small benefit from purp/gold bag in rvr.

Looking at the above, some things are clear. First, the "vanq and below" people-- new players and alts, etc-- are good for the game when they follow self-interest. Fights happen, there's population in the lakes. Maybe it's just a fight back and forth between the warcamps in reik or eataine, but there's rvr happening and people for the WE/WH to gank. This set always benefits when their faction wins a fight or a zone.

Second, the invader and sov players often aren't good for the game (at least the rvr part) if they follow self-interest. Both sets want forts, neither set really care which forts. So if order sees Kadrin contested, the inv/sov sets benefit from a loss. Maybe they xrealm and try to take the zone for destro, maybe they try to sabotage the defense actively or in t4/local chat (3rd floor def!) All this creates conflict and bad feeling in the community, and hurts the quality of fights (why is the funnel so empty?) Then if it gets to fort, quite often the invader set wants to win the defense (a royal and another fort soon) and the sov set wants to lose (city). Of course the mentality bleeds into other areas quickly, conflict between members of the same faction and thoughts about which fights aren't worth the trouble or might be beneficial to lose. And you wind up someplace that looks familiar, with mistrust and resentment in chat and rvr lakes increasingly empty as those who come looking for a fight are unhappy with what they find.

Maybe this is an old problem that's been talked to death long ago, I'm one of the people who came here in March (knew about the server years before, but sadly it seemed too empty to be viable the couple times I looked into it). I didn't put this in suggestions, because I'm not offering any solutions here-- just trying to identify a problem. This is the situation I see. I'd love to be wrong.

[Kloaner]

aren't there already enough Topics about this?

[anarchypark]

yea, I had seen 'doomsday' thread for like 4 years. always this time around i think. summer.

everytime it comes with same repertory.
'population drop' 'guy next to me says so' 'my guild quit' 'balance broken' and more.

those lists had never stopped. it's been with server's life time.

forum is mix of quitters, whiners, trolls and bored players.
hardly any value among them.
imagine listening thru those noises.
no surprise good feedbacks get buried.

but team actually listen and fix things.
for more than 4 years patching every weeks.

it's not doomed.
if you're worried, go crush some skulls or get crushed. play the war.

[Pesteavino]

One thing its true, high end sets are really hard to get and play rvr for a guy that only need Royal crests Is useless, put 5 Royal crests on all bags and fort locks, after level 70.

[Yaliskah]

https://www.returnofreckoning.com/armory/character/828
https://www.returnofreckoning.com/armor ... cter/68627
https://www.returnofreckoning.com/armor ... ter/241533

I'm part of the team as i am a player.
All those character have been created since years.
I play like 6-10hours a week, in the ORvR -even i have nothing to "win"-.
As you can see, none of them has a full invader set, i miss tons of fort and city sieges and i'm fine with that (but i can understand frustration).

Thats probably not relevant according we all have different expectations about a game (whatever the game can be), but i play this MMO game to make things and have fun with my group/teammates/friends first. Gear will come when it will come. Have no hurry.

Now about the game, as Anarchypark mentionned, your tempo is not the dev tempo. Things come and change in time. If you don't enjoy the game in its actual state, be patient. Maybe take a break and keep an eye on patchnotes then come back when it will look in a better state for you.

I have no better proposal to make.

[Amdus]

yea, I had seen 'doomsday' thread for like 4 years. always this time around i think. summer.

everytime it comes with same repertory.
'population drop' 'guy next to me says so' 'my guild quit' 'balance broken' and more.

those lists had never stopped. it's been with server's life time.

forum is mix of quitters, whiners, trolls and bored players.
hardly any value among them.
imagine listening thru those noises.
no surprise good feedbacks get buried.

but team actually listen and fix things.
for more than 4 years patching every weeks.

it's not doomed.
if you're worried, go crush some skulls or get crushed. play the war.

And how is this not a problem according to you? Because in my opinion losing 2k players in a month and a half is a clear indicator that something isn't right at all. You can't shield yourself behind the summer excuse given the current situation out there. The majority of people are still at their place most of the time, and many are unemployed meaning they have quite a lot of free time, the only thing that has changed is that they don't invest it here anymore. Considering the amount of threads of complaints I doubt they'll be coming back any time soon.

I don't know what else some people need to acknowledge the underlying issue, I guess we need to hit rock bottom and be 200 players online.

[phononHYPE]

I "benefit" when I kill order. I have zero Sov (okay, I have Warlord), and I enjoy mixing old sets to find new ways to play. I see plenty of high ranged people running around in Conq gear, people I know have Invader. True, with no city on I'm more likely to go farm mats or clear quests from T3 zones (I've completed almost all T1 and T2 quests), but I did that long before Invader/Forts were even a thing. Get out and try something new. And the population is booming now, I don't get where you get this "losing 2k players in a month" is from.

[Shalktonin]

And how is this not a problem according to you? Because in my opinion losing 2k players in a month and a half is a clear indicator that something isn't right at all. You can't shield yourself behind the summer excuse given the current situation out there. The majority of people are still at their place most of the time, and many are unemployed meaning they have quite a lot of free time, the only thing that has changed is that they don't invest it here anymore. Considering the amount of threads of complaints I doubt they'll be coming back any time soon.

I don't know what else some people need to acknowledge the underlying issue, I guess we need to hit rock bottom and be 200 players online.

It isn't a problem because those of us who have been here for years have seen it come and go, your understanding of statistics and numbers is also a little questionable, we still have more players than we did 7 months ago. I don't agree with everything the dev team does, but the game is progressing and that's a good thing.

Honestly this is pretty standard if you look at things like the technology adoption life cycle. It is unfortunate that you seem to only see the negative side of this.

[wargrimnir]

And how is this not a problem according to you? Because in my opinion losing 2k players in a month and a half is a clear indicator that something isn't right at all. You can't shield yourself behind the summer excuse given the current situation out there. The majority of people are still at their place most of the time, and many are unemployed meaning they have quite a lot of free time, the only thing that has changed is that they don't invest it here anymore. Considering the amount of threads of complaints I doubt they'll be coming back any time soon.

I don't know what else some people need to acknowledge the underlying issue, I guess we need to hit rock bottom and be 200 players online.

The timeline is going very much as was expected. Any large spike in player numbers will, over time (about 13 weeks or so), across any platform, result in a drop, and level off. The goal for population spikes isn't to keep everyone, that's impossible. Absolutely impossible, and feel free to prove that wrong. It simply doesn't happen. Major MMO's, action RPG's, anything with a progression system, has the same problem. No one can create content faster than players can consume it. So what happens is the new players come in, consume all the content they can, and end up leaving. This is totally fine and normal. We don't think any less of the people that enjoy the game even if it's for a few weeks.

The goal is NOT to retain every player that visits the server, but to continuously improve the server over time, and make a this game more of a home than a brief vacation. People have their own needs and desires, they have their own breaking points, they have their own specific changes they want to be made. We can't account for everyone, again, that would be impossible. Imagine every conversation had about the state of game feature X, and the dozens of variations that are suggested. We can only meaningfully implement one of those variations, and depending on the amount of dev work that goes into it, we might skip out on dozens of other suggestions that are someone elses need or desire to continue playing. Our time and manpower is limited, and generally is put towards the most efficient path possible that aligns with our own internal goals.

Could we totally revamp RVR and Scenarios? Could we totally revamp Forts and Cities? Could we go through and rebalance every class? Yes. Whether or not each suggestion is a valuable use of our resources however is inevitably scrutinized. These things take a lot of time, and because it's a development server with weekly patching, the playerbase is going to be part of that process. Some things simply take more than a week to implement, and we're willing to have you guys in broken game states when we believe the outcome is worth the effort and potential sacrifice. That's why we call ourselves an Alpha server. The unfinished state of the game is due to the fact we've had to reverse engineer and rebuild everything (aside from the client). We're still going through that process, and maintaining a live service, to the best of our ability.

Having the population spike gave us the opportunity to really push the limits of the game engine, and resulted in some serious improvements to our infrastructure that we otherwise wouldn't have been able to make. That's a huge win for us, and we're grateful. However, retaining even a small percentage of what we had at the peak is a more realistic goal than trying to retain everyone, or drastically changing our principles to accomodate the largest base of players possible which would have significant impact on this old school, relatively hardcore, niche RVR-based MMO.

If your guild is drying up, but you still love the game, pack up your things and join a more active guild. If it's a dealbreaker for you, we will be here if you ever feel like returning.
Patching every week. Rebuilding the game world. Keeping Warhammer Online alive.

[Stophy22]

It’s nice to see the team talking to us. Thanks for your input guys, no sarcasm or anything it’s nice to hear what you have to say because this is my first time seeing it and I’m able to reason things better than making harsh assumptions