From the first fight we know it's over.

[Wam]

Where is the fun ?
First of all, I want to tell you that you have had a super work for 6 years.

However, we must react quickly to what is happening in capital. The game loses all its interest with monumental differences between the wb.

What do you think the players say when for the 10x they are crushed or they crush their opponent? where's the fun?

Well, one idea is to make pugs vs pugs and premades vs premades (premade quque with increased loot). If premades don’t get a pop in a while, they get sorted into the pug quque.

That’s what i was thinking atleast. But i think the devs have other ideas. And that’s fine.

I can understand why you feeling it’s no fun. Facing a pug heavy grp in a ”normal scenario” as premade isnt fun and vice versa. And cities are basically like a 1 hour long scenario so.

I mean, in a game that favours grouping up and where balance is made around groups fighting groups, but where you can also play solo, these problems will always emerge.

It would be cool with more fair/balanced instances, but as long as premades will face pugs, it will be uneven. So yeah...

unfortunately we do not have the utopia of massive population to mix things up (look at the problems of ranked sc, and see how that will translate to ranked cities but worse)

Its a powder keg of mixed ingredients, we all need each other

pugs do not cry so much about premades when they are the ones breaking sieges and forts and pushing campaign ...

[cynicprophet]

Buff shadow warriors until montague win some cities,ty.

[wonshot]

Premade vs pug. organized vs unorganized. Gear vs fights. Experiene vs inexperience. Harcore vs semihardcore.

There will be stomps, and there will be a hierarchy in terms of who is the most scary team to face in your instance.
On Order side we have the luxary of pretty much getting instant pops whenever you queue, however everyone is screaming in lfg for the same few classes so building and filling takes quite a while longer than destro who seem to be ready as to queue as soon as the city opens up. Some dodgeing for sure is involved, for one or the other reasons.

Speaking from a premade guild perspective nothing is more exciting to load into a city and instantly open the scoreboard to see who you get. No matter if it will be someone higher "ranked" than you or a pugsetup. The excitement is probably the same as I imagine a ranked player will have when they get a queue pop and cant wait to see what lineups will be on both teams, and piloted by who.
If players wanted to fight the same old lineup and players in offzones they could, it is getting arranged and it does happen but it also becomes boring as you start learning eachothers playstyles too much imho and the magic is lost.

The focus from different teams/guilds/premades might also be very different from week to week. Are people hungry for a fight because they have only gotten easy instances, or have they been stomped lately and now feel they are falling behind on the gear advantage race (mmo factor). Having the endgame fights mixed with gated content to obtain the best equipment will bring different mindsets to the same table, and clashes of approach will happen.

Motivation and out of game morale is a thing for "middle of the pack" premades or pug teams. Having the random factor of not knowing who you will face spice things up the way i see it. Not having faced one team for weeks and finding an instance vs them is fun in terms of tracking your own and their progression, see if their approach or comp have changed over the last while.
Yes more often than not are the fights onesides, its a stomp for either side. But the instances where you get a sweet comback, steal a stage where you shouldnt, or the fighting is really danm close make this content worth coming back to again and again to get the next close fun fight

This is an MMO and if people chose to play it as a singleplayer game by pugging and putting in less effort, that is unfortuneatly just on them (ive done it myself and downscaled my expectations of winning by doing so)
The contribution system is already leaning fairly somewhat towards rewarding a pug-mentality of giving a carrot for coming out after a defeat to get bags when getting stomped. Instead of one wipe, and everyone have random roll for bags. Atleast you get to fight for your contribution, even when you feel like you cant win. That is pretty pug friendly the way i see it, instead of winners take it all.

[Anjanolian]

only

9 players from TUP, 5 Phalanx from same alliance
rest random pugs but with 2-2-2 setup.

I remember that;
How 6 man - Phalanx - are enough to destroy whole wb and
and Amazing one WE - TUP - had the highest kill rate on the zone several times with his tank and healer

[Wam]

Premade vs pug. organized vs unorganized. Gear vs fights. Experiene vs inexperience. Harcore vs semihardcore.

There will be stomps, and there will be a hierarchy in terms of who is the most scary team to face in your instance.
On Order side we have the luxary of pretty much getting instant pops whenever you queue, however everyone is screaming in lfg for the same few classes so building and filling takes quite a while longer than destro who seem to be ready as to queue as soon as the city opens up. Some dodgeing for sure is involved, for one or the other reasons.

Speaking from a premade guild perspective nothing is more exciting to load into a city and instantly open the scoreboard to see who you get. No matter if it will be someone higher "ranked" than you or a pugsetup. The excitement is probably the same as I imagine a ranked player will have when they get a queue pop and cant wait to see what lineups will be on both teams, and piloted by who.
If players wanted to fight the same old lineup and players in offzones they could, it is getting arranged and it does happen but it also becomes boring as you start learning eachothers playstyles too much imho and the magic is lost.

The focus from different teams/guilds/premades might also be very different from week to week. Are people hungry for a fight because they have only gotten easy instances, or have they been stomped lately and now feel they are falling behind on the gear advantage race (mmo factor). Having the endgame fights mixed with gated content to obtain the best equipment will bring different mindsets to the same table, and clashes of approach will happen.

Motivation and out of game morale is a thing for "middle of the pack" premades or pug teams. Having the random factor of not knowing who you will face spice things up the way i see it. Not having faced one team for weeks and finding an instance vs them is fun in terms of tracking your own and their progression, see if their approach or comp have changed over the last while.
Yes more often than not are the fights onesides, its a stomp for either side. But the instances where you get a sweet comback, steal a stage where you shouldnt, or the fighting is really danm close make this content worth coming back to again and again to get the next close fun fight

This is an MMO and if people chose to play it as a singleplayer game by pugging and putting in less effort, that is unfortuneatly just on them (ive done it myself and downscaled my expectations of winning by doing so)
The contribution system is already leaning fairly somewhat towards rewarding a pug-mentality of giving a carrot for coming out after a defeat to get bags when getting stomped. Instead of one wipe, and everyone have random roll for bags. Atleast you get to fight for your contribution, even when you feel like you cant win. That is pretty pug friendly the way i see it, instead of winners take it all.

can you imagine how much more toxic it would be if it was winner take all? lol, people was already super salty the first few weeks of cities, and even more at forts.

Same when dont take A setup (there is big difference) i know there is a bigger chance to lose, and don't complain other side is OP as a result. Just is how it is, people need to work on their alts at some point I expect to lose in smaller groups, but sometimes it can be more fun and rewarding (bag RNG) depending how serious you take it despite losing.

[chookette]

I feel like we've pretty consistently encouraged grouping up when developing new content. There's really only the single pug scenario that's intended to be solo, and that changes once a month.

Any expectations that we turn the highest end of the campaign into some solo experience was horribly doomed from the start.

thanks for your return. We know that the technical side will always be a difficulty but when we put aside the condescending messages of "gentlemen I know everything", we can see that this divisive subject interests. Ideas that can improve content without putting a lot of energy into it exist.

For example, check box before registering the group to make it ultra competitive for full roster etc ... this would allow optimized groups to have a real fun challenge and avoid the frustration of pick ups.

[lyncher12]

i dont know who this tupperware is but how did this topic reach 9 pages already

[Wam]

i dont know who this tupperware is but how did this topic reach 9 pages already

people frustrated about system, look to blame someone , blame premades because gaming habits are changed and want instant gratification and reward... older system of acquiring over time blows peoples minds because it is hard to do when cities happen at the off peak hours most the time. (even if dev's made the system a bit more friendly with medals in bags)

People zerg their way to city, meet even numbers and maybe more organised force, then blame people for being organised... and ruin their potential pug farming

TL:DR people just like to complain

[Acidic]

People zerg their way to city, meet even numbers and maybe more organised force, then blame people for being organised... and ruin their potential pug farming

Made me smile

[blasras]

TL:DR people just like to complain

I don't think that's fair friend, the game allows you to progress solo up that point, not everyone wants to commit to a group of people and meet their expectations, they just want to play a game online and have fun without any ties attached. I'm not saying you're supposed to reward people for being incompetent/unprepared or laid back, but they're at least a bit entitled to express their feelings. If the game wasn't clear from the begining about progression being dependant on groups at some point, it's expected to meet frustration when you no longer can enjoy the game's progression the way you been doing it for hundreds of hours already.

There's no easy solution, and all mmos have some way to gate end game rewards to keep their population active (with very few exceptions where the progression is just cosmetic). Personally I've already experienced a similar situation in plenty of mmos, and when I no longer enjoy the content I move on and play something else, because I know it will remain the same wether I like it or not. Thankfully this is a project where devs have been open to suggestions, and we actually have the posibility to make a difference for the better of this already small community, as long as they land within a realistic approach and they won't harm their original vision of the experience.

The items are just the carrot on a stick, giving away all the gear for free to pugs won't solve anything long term, and letting organized WB's faceroll unorganized pugs won't make them keep playing longer after they're bored of getting SoV on all their alts. The objective is to actually have fun engagements where both sides enjoy playing and the rewards are meaningful enough to have a competitive scene, not just login for some stupid medal at random intervals for 3 months and then quit or do it all over again. But sadly we have to work with what we have, it might not be possible to keep everyone satisfied, but we can hear/read each other and try to see how much can be done instead of ignoring them and assuming "people just like to complain".