Diversify the endgame

[dako178]

Hi,

I'm somewhat of a new player. I'm a fan of the Warhammer Fantasy frenchise and tried many games from that IP. I'm playing this game for 2-3 months. That being said, I'm not a fan of RvR. I like all the rest of this game especially SCs. To my detriment I found out that once you hit lvl 40, you can't do much except RvR. By that I mean, you can ONLY play RvR! SCs will never pop! This is not a good approach if you want the game to thrive, increase the playerbase and have a decent retention. I'm kind of forced to leave the game, cause I don't see a point in playing. RvR is not enjoyable because it's a skilless, unbalanced clusterf...

I know that making new Raids is pretty much impossible without an actual company funding it. The devs still managed to create new PvE instances tho, which is awesome. I think the devs are doing a really gd job keeping the game alive. By diversifying the endgame the game would grow more imo. The devs should at least thnk about it. Increasing the importance of SC at endgame is way less difficult.

A couple of things the devs could do for players at endgame (or generally):

1. Increase the amount of RR and crests players get from SC.
2. Create daily quests like "Play 10 SCs", "Win 10 SC", "Kill 5 of (classtype) in SCs" etc. with a reward of a gd amount of RR exp and crests

Those are just 2 examples that could help and which are not hard to implement. This would increase the amount of players that play SC at endgame (and generally). Which would diversify the endgame and keep many players that enjoy SCs because there are many ppl that don't like RvR.

I hope you take this a bit into account going into the future.

Thanks for your work devs!

[Narfii]

Dailies are a good idea. The ones in the lake for scouting suuuuuck. Just need more things to do in the lakes than farm rr/crests.

Would love keeps to have more depth.

Also think this is a good argument for ARENA!

[kpihuss]

RvR used to be a lot of fun. There was campaign progression with an actual purpose — city sieges after cap 2 forts— and people were highly motivated to win the campaign. There was also a strategic reason to fight across many different zones, trying to split the enemy forces in order to apply pressure and win the campaign.

Scenarios also started much faster, and there was gear that you could only obtain through scenarios. This diversified the game because many people played scenarios just for the gear, which made the scenario population much higher than it is now.

Unfortunately, since the War Crest unification system and the disappearance of motivation in both RvR and scenarios, endgame content now basically comes down to making a bigger blob than your opponent and killing everything you can. So, sadly, the game’s endgame now boils down to playing RvR and blobbing as much as possible.

Siege and win a map? Why, when I’m going to get more War Crests and Renown by blobbing in an endless, meaningless mess?

There are still a few of us left who hope this changes soon.

[dako178]

RvR used to be a lot of fun. There was campaign progression with an actual purpose — city sieges after cap 2 forts— and people were highly motivated to win the campaign. There was also a strategic reason to fight across many different zones, trying to split the enemy forces in order to apply pressure and win the campaign.

Scenarios also started much faster, and there was gear that you could only obtain through scenarios. This diversified the game because many people played scenarios just for the gear, which made the scenario population much higher than it is now.

Unfortunately, since the War Crest unification system and the disappearance of motivation in both RvR and scenarios, endgame content now basically comes down to making a bigger blob than your opponent and killing everything you can. So, sadly, the game’s endgame now boils down to playing RvR and blobbing as much as possible.

Siege and win a map? Why, when I’m going to get more War Crests and Renown by blobbing in an endless, meaningless mess?

There are still a few of us left who hope this changes soon.

We need to be louder. Antiblobbers UNITE!!!

[krumhur]

RvR used to be a lot of fun. There was campaign progression with an actual purpose — city sieges after cap 2 forts— and people were highly motivated to win the campaign. There was also a strategic reason to fight across many different zones, trying to split the enemy forces in order to apply pressure and win the campaign.

Scenarios also started much faster, and there was gear that you could only obtain through scenarios. This diversified the game because many people played scenarios just for the gear, which made the scenario population much higher than it is now.

Unfortunately, since the War Crest unification system and the disappearance of motivation in both RvR and scenarios, endgame content now basically comes down to making a bigger blob than your opponent and killing everything you can. So, sadly, the game’s endgame now boils down to playing RvR and blobbing as much as possible.

Siege and win a map? Why, when I’m going to get more War Crests and Renown by blobbing in an endless, meaningless mess?

There are still a few of us left who hope this changes soon.

Change won't come by itself.

Solving the current situation requires leaving the path of least resistance which at the moment is blobbing: that's the path most players take because, as you said, it's the easiest way to get crests.

If there was a easier way to get crests, you could rest assured that people would surely follow the new path, but since there is not, people will keep on blobbing, unless the few who don't like blobbing actively do something. Or unless we wait and hope for a solution from the devs, for a problem which sooner or later will come back.

I think there are solutions, nothing extraordinary or revolutionary, but you need a bit of imagination. Unless, again, you want to rely on the devs.

[kpihuss]

RvR used to be a lot of fun. There was campaign progression with an actual purpose — city sieges after cap 2 forts— and people were highly motivated to win the campaign. There was also a strategic reason to fight across many different zones, trying to split the enemy forces in order to apply pressure and win the campaign.

Scenarios also started much faster, and there was gear that you could only obtain through scenarios. This diversified the game because many people played scenarios just for the gear, which made the scenario population much higher than it is now.

Unfortunately, since the War Crest unification system and the disappearance of motivation in both RvR and scenarios, endgame content now basically comes down to making a bigger blob than your opponent and killing everything you can. So, sadly, the game’s endgame now boils down to playing RvR and blobbing as much as possible.

Siege and win a map? Why, when I’m going to get more War Crests and Renown by blobbing in an endless, meaningless mess?

There are still a few of us left who hope this changes soon.

Change won't come by itself.

Solving the current situation requires leaving the path of least resistance which at the moment is blobbing: that's the path most players take because, as you said, it's the easiest way to get crests.

If there was a easier way to get crests, you could rest assured that people would surely follow the new path, but since there is not, people will keep on blobbing, unless the few who don't like blobbing actively do something. Or unless we wait and hope for a solution from the devs, for a problem which sooner or later will come back.

I think there are solutions, nothing extraordinary or revolutionary, but you need a bit of imagination. Unless, again, you want to rely on the devs.

The problem is that, even though I do not like blobbing, if there is only one open RvR zone with population and the enemy side blobs so hard that they leave you no option for WB vs WB fights, or any kind of balanced fights, there is absolutely nothing you can do.

Then people can say, “Well, change zone,” and you do that... and you spend 30 minutes in an empty zone with no opponents, because there is not even anyone on the other realm trying to take advantage of 400% AAO. You rank the zone up to 2 stars and pull a ram, even knowing that the server has 55% population from the opposing realm. For what? As soon as you deploy the ram, that whole blob will move to your map and wipe you without any difficulty. Then the blob fight simply moves to that zone, while the other two zones remain empty... so you are back to square one.

Without a campaign, there is no motivation to win zones; and with the unified currency system, and no exclusive rewards tied to specific content, there is no motivation for 90% of players to do anything other than blob.

It is clear that content-exclusive rewards work. How many people do PvE even though they do not enjoy it — myself included — just to unlock gear or weapons? That is clear proof that, while some people genuinely enjoy a certain type of content and will happily do it, there is also a large percentage of players who will only do it for the rewards.

And it is also clear that, for the whole system to work, both types of players need to participate in that content, even if only to ensure there are enough numbers for it to function properly.

[eigner93]

This suggestion has been raised couple times before. They could introduce different kind of daily objectives and quests or progression system for different playstyles like solo, 6 man, scenarios encouraging these aspects of the game aswell instead of BLOBBLOB and enjoy your crests.

[krumhur]

RvR used to be a lot of fun. There was campaign progression with an actual purpose — city sieges after cap 2 forts— and people were highly motivated to win the campaign. There was also a strategic reason to fight across many different zones, trying to split the enemy forces in order to apply pressure and win the campaign.

Scenarios also started much faster, and there was gear that you could only obtain through scenarios. This diversified the game because many people played scenarios just for the gear, which made the scenario population much higher than it is now.

Unfortunately, since the War Crest unification system and the disappearance of motivation in both RvR and scenarios, endgame content now basically comes down to making a bigger blob than your opponent and killing everything you can. So, sadly, the game’s endgame now boils down to playing RvR and blobbing as much as possible.

Siege and win a map? Why, when I’m going to get more War Crests and Renown by blobbing in an endless, meaningless mess?

There are still a few of us left who hope this changes soon.

Change won't come by itself.

Solving the current situation requires leaving the path of least resistance which at the moment is blobbing: that's the path most players take because, as you said, it's the easiest way to get crests.

If there was a easier way to get crests, you could rest assured that people would surely follow the new path, but since there is not, people will keep on blobbing, unless the few who don't like blobbing actively do something. Or unless we wait and hope for a solution from the devs, for a problem which sooner or later will come back.

I think there are solutions, nothing extraordinary or revolutionary, but you need a bit of imagination. Unless, again, you want to rely on the devs.

The problem is that, even though I do not like blobbing, if there is only one open RvR zone with population and the enemy side blobs so hard that they leave you no option for WB vs WB fights, or any kind of balanced fights, there is absolutely nothing you can do.

Then people can say, “Well, change zone,” and you do that... and you spend 30 minutes in an empty zone with no opponents, because there is not even anyone on the other realm trying to take advantage of 400% AAO. You rank the zone up to 2 stars and pull a ram, even knowing that the server has 55% population from the opposing realm. For what? As soon as you deploy the ram, that whole blob will move to your map and wipe you without any difficulty. Then the blob fight simply moves to that zone, while the other two zones remain empty... so you are back to square one.

Without a campaign, there is no motivation to win zones; and with the unified currency system, and no exclusive rewards tied to specific content, there is no motivation for 90% of players to do anything other than blob.

It is clear that content-exclusive rewards work. How many people do PvE even though they do not enjoy it — myself included — just to unlock gear or weapons? That is clear proof that, while some people genuinely enjoy a certain type of content and will happily do it, there is also a large percentage of players who will only do it for the rewards.

And it is also clear that, for the whole system to work, both types of players need to participate in that content, even if only to ensure there are enough numbers for it to function properly.

I agree with you on description of the issue, I don't agree with you on the solution.

Content-exclusive rewards doesn't work, your very post shows that as a solution it makes people unhappy by forcing them to do things they don't want.
This is a game, it's meant to be fun, if content-exclusive rewards detract from that fun then it's not working.

Besides, what kind of content do you want to incentivise that will reduce the blobbing?
If you put dailies for sieging keeps, people will still blob to get those keeps.

One last thing: I see people on both sides complaining about the current situation, especially warband leaders, yet nobody is doing anything to solve it. Everyone is waiting for devs to find the correct solution, as always, but this is not a gamebreaking bug, it's a behaviour issue, and players can certainly do something to fix it.
Just to make it clear: people complain that the blobbing situation is out of hand, yet when the blob attacks a keep they are ready to support the siege.
Also, you say that if you were to change map you would find an empty one (and I agree with you 100%): what if all anti-blobbing warband leaders swapped map instead, leaving the blob to play PvDoor on some map while the rest of us go PvPing on some other place?

This is a very small server, it's a closed community, reputation is a thing here: reputable warband leaders know each other very well, just like PUG leaders are known etc.
It would take maybe a couple of hours to sit down in discord and agree on some common rules to help the situation and reduce the blobbing.
Yet we are here, waiting months for the devs to give us a solution which, I'm sure, will only be temporary: after a bit people will find the new path of least resistance, the best and easiest way to get crests, and we'll be back at the start.

One more thing: this is not a personal attack nor a critic to you Kpihuss, far from it. I appreciate the input you give with your posts and the way you convey your ideas. I'm just trying to adopt a different point of view and give a different input, for a problem which is making the game less fun for us all.