Devs: NA primetime RVR Needs your Help!

[Renork]

if thats the case why do people bother getting stalker gear? why dont people just use only enchalon/martial till they get deva?

With the way the current i.e the old system pre bracket changes that came with rr100

pve gear from dungons will be viable alternatives between rvr set grinds

also skip t3? people will want to skip t1-2 but not t3 when the game and classes start to get fun

Stalker gear is easy to get and you can salvage. It just requires you to get quests and take out an easy boss that spawns every 30ish mins. Maybe T3 won't be dead once T4 hits, maybe it will. How's T2 right now?

Not too bad, the lord for t2 hits way too hard though. 21 s/s tanks will get 2-3 shot + defender hitting you = not taking a defended keep.

[jmcusmc81]

The chest for taking keep gave you medallions and rewards on top of the tick you would get for flipping a zone was more then enough to keep people in the lakes from what I remember. Wouldn't that be incentive enough since it was already part of the game?

[mursie]

This game doesn't play like an alpha at all, it just a formality tbh fam :^) It's just so you know that bad things can happen like losing items, or wipes etc...

And I seriously doubt if the cap was raised to something like 80 many people would be getting anywhere close for a very long time.

raising the cap will render future t3 dungon pve gear obsolete, this was the devs reason, this is why the cap wont be raised

The gear will become obsolete real quick either way. I'm not about to grind for that gear. Even in the future, I predict people will just skip T3.

Stalker has a place currently because it can be a part of people's end game gear at the moment. With that said, I agree with Euan, if the goal is to keep rr down so as to make pve content still usable, then don't expect T4 for a long long long time. Otherwise, the pve gear that is released with pve content will infact be completely obsolete instantly.

[mursie]

The chest for taking keep gave you medallions and rewards on top of the tick you would get for flipping a zone was more then enough to keep people in the lakes from what I remember. Wouldn't that be incentive enough since it was already part of the game?

Theoretically yes - but live did not have flips nearly as often as RoR does - which means implementing chests would dilute devastator gear extremely quickly.

The Gears/Gifts of War quest is a great idea - why not tie an rvr component to it as well (i.e. take a keep).

It will get rvr going. Honestly - I don't see the downside here.

[Abolition]

I would love to see the re-introduction of keep loot bags. In addition to your medallions for capturing the keep, you also had the chance to win a bag of varying rewards to choose from.

However, I'm sure there's a reason for them not being in the game. Perhaps the "contribution" formula or the number of loot bags awarded per keep is borked?

[Midwifery]

One thing I definitely can say in regards to NA prime time (and maybe some NA WAR veterans also remember this) is that on EA's NA servers t2 rvr was regularly a ghost town and t3 rvr was nearly non-existant (and in both sc pops were exceedingly rare) right up until the last of the server merges and even then it was a lot of rve happening in t2/t3 because everyone was either f2p in t1 or they only played in t4. At least on this server one can find t2 and t3 rvr action at SOME point most evenings and sc pops are healthy. I definitely don't miss the days of having to pve my way through t3, go to t4 at the earliest possible level, and then have to play catch up with my renown when I got there.

Remember when there were statues in the cities for the top rvr players each week? I'd like to see that come back, or in lieu of that some sort of server-wide leader board could be a fun way to inspire people to get in the mix - who doesn't like fame and public recognition?

[Pixie126]

I would love to see the loot bags put back in. There always needs to be something given for defending a keep. It was a lot easier when there was only 1 ramp to the lord room. When they added the second one it got damned difficult. Particularly when there was smaller numbers. My husband likes to tell me about the time when he (archmage) held defense on the Covenant of Flame with 2 other friends (an inronbreaker and witch hunter) and 1 stranger (can't remember class). Ironbreaker and Hold the Line for the win. They did this for over 20 minutes. 2 ways up, then adding in picklock and bypass made it almost impossible to mount a defense. Sorry, rant over... Thank god it's Friday and I can get out and see some live music....

[Blorckever]

Begin to reward a win def on keep and maybe we are gonna to come defend keep .

[Sizer]

Going to hijack mursies thread to bring this up again as I feel its pretty important. Not trying to be critical of the devs, who do a great job, and sure, its their server, so in the end its their call, but getting almost 0 rewards from an empty keep is a bad idea for keeping population up. And I spend most of my time on the side with aao, so I hate getting freerenown from empty objectives as much as anyone.

The server is going to be dead at some hours of the day in low tiers no matter what. The big thing is to get one side rolling after that, because when the next region logs on (talking mostly about NA players logging on, could happen other times) one side has to actually get out into the lakes first in order to start a fight. And people arent going stick around to do that for a measly 400 renown a tick.

Sure if there are defenders it will be worth taking them (everyone loves those 90k xp ticks from defended keeps), and thats the ideal situation (ie what happens in t3 on weekends, at least during primetime), but in the off hours people wont wait for that, they will log on and go "oh taking empty keeps? well that renown sucks, might as well log off". Whereas the defenders will go "oh only 8 destro in the zone? well its not worth making an organized defense since theres barely anyone to kill, might as well log off" (the latter literally just happened tonight, hence why im posting). No one wants to admit they do it, but a huge portion of the game plays to chase the carrot at the end of the stick (and they did on the live servers as well), even if that carrot is big juicy aao kills (i know thats what i do), and if its not there when they log on they will log off 5 minutes later.

I know the counter-arguments is "but people will just crossrealm to the zerging side and no one will fight anyway!", and my response to that is yes, they will. So what? Besides the fact that they already do that now (but with much smaller numbers and they often just for bos), is that really so bad? At least it gives a healthy population to one side so when people who do want to defend will have plenty of action, and if no one defends, is it so bad for people to get some xp/renown (not 90k per keep, but a decent amount) from empty zones? And there are ways to get ppl to defend - keep defense ticks or bag rolls will help but a lot of the time aao is enough (I have some screenshots of getting 40k+ xp per kill at keeps in a duo, aware that much is probably a bug, but even still it will still be around 10k, so worth it), but you need decent aao to make it worth it, and that doesnt happen every night.

If there were even 30-40 people taking keeps every night, I know 10+ people who will come back to the game just to defend zones for the fun of it, and thats just people I happen to know who havent come back yet simply because its slow. And that could easily inspire pugs to defend with us, which could in turn inspire more people to attack, since the incentives would get better and better the more people you get on. Again, def ticks and bags would help, but i think people will still do it for fun, simply based on how many people used to do it on live during the last year just for fun even though they were already rr100. If the zones were dead those premades would log off and play another game, but if there were warbands taking keeps to fight, theyd stay on, and eventually the other sides premades would see the action and log on too, and so on and so forth (NA population in the last months on live was actually pretty good, at least way more than we have here)

All of this assumes there are enough people who would play if it wasnt so slow/unrewarding, as well as there being enough people who like to defend so both sides increase in numbers, not just the zerging one (which seems to be what people fear, and i cant prove it wont happen, but i dont think it will). I could be totally wrong and there could be plenty of other reasons for the slow pop, like something as simple as not enough people knowing about the server, and if thats all it is then no, ticks for undefended keeps will not help, but I doubt thats the case as I know at least 3 groups worth of people that came back and quit just because it was slow (again, cant prove it, but im sure it would happen if pop was high). If i'm right then it could easily be as simple as providing that incentive to the "zerging" side to get the ball rolling and NA pop growing (yes I totally rhymed there, get over it).

Just my 2 cents. Again, not trying to criticize the devs, its all a work in progress (you guys are awesome btw), and besides this debate happened all the time on the old forums, and no one was ever really sure on the best method. But its worth a try (yes we had keep ticks before and pop wasnt that high, but it was higher than it is now, and we have t3 + more stable servers which should get more people to play, but it isnt). MAYBE during christmas break ppl will play enough to get the population growing and it will finally stick, but if that doesnt happen I dont think NA pop will recover anytime soon, and when t4 comes eventually it will just get worse.



Also, since i dont think i mentioned it above, medallions should NOT drop from empty keeps. I didnt think they should even drop from keeps at all, but at least a defended on takes some effort. So i disagree with mursie on that part, otherwise I think hes right that we need some incentive to get people going, but it shouldnt be a gear incentive, only renown + xp.

[Vigfuss]

Recently I logged in during NA evenings to heal a few SCs, and it seemed quite relaxed and casual. I noticed one Order premade in SCs but nothing happening anywhere in ORVR. I think a boost in population would help a lot, it should result in a couple more premades to start some competition.

Our guild had a small group playing NA late night, but that hasn't happened for a while. For now we're playing during EU prime time.