Question for the devs I would really like to see the answer to

[tonewho]

Good afternoon fellow warhammer gamers and most especially the dev team that keep this wonderful game running. Thank you very very much for all your efforts.

I have recently had some time off work and been able to spend a fair bit longer on the game than I would usually have time to and I wonder if the devs are aware of the following things that happen every day that you play:

1. Major big guilds doing organised cross realm swaps which ruin normal players efforts at taking a zone and getting bag rewards when they have often been fighting hours in a zone
2. Cross realming Players who purposely take rams to destroy them so one side is unable to be able to attack a zone
3. Cross realming Players who spawn rams and attack keeps when they have set up opposing side warbands to farm the attacking players (this is often apparent which it is because no cannons are taken... )
4. The big guilds who cross realm with such apparent impunity from any action by the development team mean that all the other players can do is then cross realm or otherwise they get no reward for the zone,
which makes the problem even worse as every player then swaps over.
5. Warhammer is at its best when there is someone to fight on equal numbers. Letting big guilds have free rein to adjust the population balance is just going to make the game constantly less fun to play.

This would never have happened on live, the accounts would have been banned. If you want this game to flourish and be enjoyed as intended I hope you will take some serious action to resolve these issues.

It has become so blatant that it is mentioned openly in region and t4 chat.

I look forward to your replies and hope that a solution can be found.

Most of all, everyone take care and keep safe.

[Detangler]

1. This isn't against ToS. The downside of only a single server.
2. This is against ToS. Report him and he goes to Ban City
3. Hard to prove this one on intent. Sometimes people just want to mess with other side. Maybe draw em away from your main target. Also you can get a new ram in 10 minutes.
4. This isn't against ToS. You still get bag rewards from losing a zone.
5. Even numbers = stalemate. Learn to pick off stragglers. Plenty of renown to be had hunting the johnnycomelately to the siege party with AAO bonuses.

[Stophy22]

A lot of players, such as yourself, tend to think that Xrealming is the bane of the server when it actually makes it healthy. Big guilds will change sides to make the most of battles in a zone, typically to chase what is called AAO. (Against All Odds- Percentage increase of renown to your side if you are facing larger numbers). So typically if destro is 60% and Order is 40% you often see destro players swap to order characters to chase some fights.

Now the crazy thing is while this act of x realming gets blames a lot for issues or bad things, it actually preserves the servers health, because if people were locked to one side they would do one of two things:

-Get super geared and dominate (causing the other side who is less geared or less dominant to remain oppressed)
-Quit, from boredom (causing the population to decline)

Xrealming ends up being positive and is why you only see ratios as bad as 60-40 rather than 70-30. I think the few players that xrealm to overpopulated sides are low in numbers and often are either new, solo, or without a group.

Now while all of this is said and done when you play a game like warhammer that has sides as a choice when you make your character, you'd expect it to mean something, so I can understand why players very first "impactful" choice on the server is typically the one for blame, as I wish there was impact in my choice to mainly play destro, instead "realm-pride" just ends up being a meme since the poor design for loot distribution makes it so you're an absolute fool for pursuing anything other than the objective that leads to better gear. And with a team too small to output consistent changes you have long lapses of content that is pretty repayable but in order to spice things up people often see whats on the other classes and thats where xrealming comes into play

[Naelar]

A lot of players, such as yourself, tend to think that Xrealming is the bane of the server when it actually makes it healthy. Big guilds will change sides to make the most of battles in a zone, typically to chase what is called AAO. (Against All Odds- Percentage increase of renown to your side if you are facing larger numbers). So typically if destro is 60% and Order is 40% you often see destro players swap to order characters to chase some fights.

Except most of them aren't chasing AAO or swapping to the less populated side. They're trying to get to a city to get gear, and taking the path of least resistance.

[Stophy22]

A lot of players, such as yourself, tend to think that Xrealming is the bane of the server when it actually makes it healthy. Big guilds will change sides to make the most of battles in a zone, typically to chase what is called AAO. (Against All Odds- Percentage increase of renown to your side if you are facing larger numbers). So typically if destro is 60% and Order is 40% you often see destro players swap to order characters to chase some fights.

Except most of them aren't chasing AAO or swapping to the less populated side. They're trying to get to a city to get gear, and taking the path of least resistance.

I've never been apart of a guild that does this intentially and I've been around on the server for some time. NA prime can be zergy and probably the time of most imbalance in factions (typically order pushes to a city within this time) This is typically due to the EU prime being such large numbers they can't push zones and it just stalemates no matter how well one side plays.

Do you know any guilds that specifically do this? Any guild I've been apart of (or witnessed) usually sees the pop and decides to go to the side that will offer the best fight. Usually choosing to defend **** rather than get an easy city. Typically why we don't see more 1-2star cities and why more 3-5star cities happen.

Typically if everyone played to get cities like you say, I think a lot of players would be happier but I don't see this happening really ever.

[zulnam]

In the last Q&A Max Hayman (who owes me a Lamborghini) has stated that xrealming is in their sights and they will address it sometime in the future; what this means is anybody's guess.

Like with everything else in this game, there are two sides. You will find those arguing against xrealming, and those arguing for it. I imagine there's a good chance that even in the dev team opinions are split.

Who knows, maybe we'll get two servers. Maybe full xrealm block. Maybe full xrealm support. Nothing is certain except this: someone will complain about it.

[Naelar]

A lot of players, such as yourself, tend to think that Xrealming is the bane of the server when it actually makes it healthy. Big guilds will change sides to make the most of battles in a zone, typically to chase what is called AAO. (Against All Odds- Percentage increase of renown to your side if you are facing larger numbers). So typically if destro is 60% and Order is 40% you often see destro players swap to order characters to chase some fights.

Except most of them aren't chasing AAO or swapping to the less populated side. They're trying to get to a city to get gear, and taking the path of least resistance.

I've never been apart of a guild that does this intentially and I've been around on the server for some time. NA prime can be zergy and probably the time of most imbalance in factions (typically order pushes to a city within this time) This is typically due to the EU prime being such large numbers they can't push zones and it just stalemates no matter how well one side plays.

Do you know any guilds that specifically do this? Any guild I've been apart of (or witnessed) usually sees the pop and decides to go to the side that will offer the best fight. Usually choosing to defend **** rather than get an easy city. Typically why we don't see more 1-2star cities and why more 3-5star cities happen.

Typically if everyone played to get cities like you say, I think a lot of players would be happier but I don't see this happening really ever.

I do not know of any specific guilds that do that. What i am going by is what I see. I am a NA player. I see the pop go from (roughly) 50/50 when I log on. The first time destro fails at a siege, the change begins. I have watched the order % climb to as high as 60%, helping them push IC. When they are on the last fort, the % starts to slide. By the time city pops, it will be about 53% destro. Draw your own conclusions.

I'm not trying to sway people to my point of view. I'm saying, log on at that time and see it for yourself.

[Stophy22]

In the last Q&A Max Hayman (who owes me a Lamborghini) has stated that xrealming is in their sights and they will address it sometime in the future; what this means is anybody's guess.

Like with everything else in this game, there are two sides. You will find those arguing against xrealming, and those arguing for it. I imagine there's a good chance that even in the dev team opinions are split.

Who knows, maybe we'll get two servers. Maybe full xrealm block. Maybe full xrealm support. Nothing is certain except this: someone will complain about it.

would be interesting to see what they do, never expected anything to happen to it

[tonewho]

Firstly thank you to everyone who has replied on this so far.

My own views so far are this:

1. This isn't against ToS. The downside of only a single server.
2. This is against ToS. Report him and he goes to Ban City
3. Hard to prove this one on intent. Sometimes people just want to mess with other side. Maybe draw em away from your main target. Also you can get a new ram in 10 minutes.
4. This isn't against ToS. You still get bag rewards from losing a zone.
5. Even numbers = stalemate. Learn to pick off stragglers. Plenty of renown to be had hunting the johnnycomelately to the siege party with AAO bonuses.

Maybe the easiest way is to reassess if the ToS need to be updated to take mass crossrealming into account.

A lot of players, such as yourself, tend to think that Xrealming is the bane of the server when it actually makes it healthy. Big guilds will change sides to make the most of battles in a zone, typically to chase what is called AAO. (Against All Odds- Percentage increase of renown to your side if you are facing larger numbers). So typically if destro is 60% and Order is 40% you often see destro players swap to order characters to chase some fights.

The problem is inherently down to the issues of choice and fairness for ALL players, not just the guild leaders or alliance leaders who are acting on the interests of their guild members. The pop doesnt swing in the favour of easier to get renown from AAO - it swings to the point that the original side is hunted down and ganked outside their warcamp and would be unable to manage to kill a player to get any AAO related renown.

If you watch for a few hours you will see the orchestrated "planned to fail and make players switch sides" seiges where on the attacking side no one takes cannons, no mdps goes inside or can get inside because posterns are already camped and players are waiting on the walls to shoot down the ram before everyone has arrived.

Its the same if it reaches the lord attack and their is a massive pop swing - usually on the end zone which gives special bag rewards - warband leaders who initialised the seige say all on lord, dont bother with bottom defence or allow the players to go outside the keep to get ganked and taken out of the equation, then from there is no pop for the other side when 2 minutes later 3 warbands run up the stairs and wipe everyone.

And every time the warband leaders suddenly disappear and leave the warband before it happens.

These are all methods used to manage pop and change the pop figures from one side to another so a guild or alliance can have its members benefit.

This may not be happening on NA as much but it definately is happening on EU times.

In the last Q&A Max Hayman (who owes me a Lamborghini) has stated that xrealming is in their sights and they will address it sometime in the future; what this means is anybody's guess.

Fingers crossed on this - I hope my post will raise awareness of what is happening and help them make the appropriate decision that is best for the game.

[TreefAM]

What "effort" are you even talking about lmao
You mean afking in front of an empty keep hoping that nobody gets there in time to farm you?

A couple of days ago the warband I was with changed sides 3times in a single day.
We started as order since order had 60+ aao in the most populated zone (emp t3)
We were the only organized warband on order side while destro was running 2 organized pugs.
After farming them for a couple of hours and stopping their siege effort destro started leaving the lakes and order numbers shot up with more organized groups showing up (some guys 12man and Tsuburn started forming up about at that moment)
We switched to destro and started fighting the order wbs across Avelorn and TM.
After fighting a couple of hours, getting a jump on some of the wbs in the open and flanking the order siege zerg twice with 40% aao, order started to leave the lakes and destro zerged started to fire up.
And thats when we switched back to order for a few more hours.

How is this not healthy for the game, if you want to take zones, make a warband, organize yourself and push. We do it for the fights, not the bags or zone flips or city pushes, the fights.

But I guess it's easier for you zerglings just to afk farm empty zones and then cry the moment something rolls over you.