Observations from a new player
Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2017 12:21 pm
I’ve been playing this server for a little over 3 months now and here are a few areas of improvement according to my observations. Please take this with a grain of salt as it is only my opinion and I know the GMs have a lot on their plates as is and I do appreciate the efforts that are put in, not to mention the fact that we can play this game that we loved. Think of this as my dream game improvement list.
1) RVR
a) I remember the old days where capturing the BOs and the keeps was enough to flip a zone and to be honest, I preferred that system (Sure it led to BO humping in empty zones, but I still believe this could be prevented with keeps not being able to be taken unless there are x number of defenders in the zone or something along those lines.). The reason is that the system as is seems hard to grasp for beginners and even intermediate players. For instance there are technicalities like the level of the keep and its effects that are not explained in any tutorial in game, to my knowledge anyways, and going through the forums looking for gold nuggets is not everyone’s favorite activity. I believe this has the effect of ppl not wanting to lead warbands due to their lack of understanding of the game mechanics, which in turn, makes pugging complicated and does not contribute to the lake population.
b) BO timers: I spend too much time waiting at BOs. My life is short, and I want to fight, not stand there in case someone comes to the BO, which doesn’t happen enough. I think we should just remove any sort of timer over 30 secs. If they are there to defend, good, but if not, let us move on and keep things mobile.
c) Contributions for resources: I know resources are necessary to get the ball going, but it leads to clicking contests (some even using macros) and it just doesn’t feel right that some random dude out of party comes and takes off with resources while an entire wb is dedicated to capturing said BOs and don’t have any contribution from the leech. One solution would be to have contributions triggering only if within an open wb, and contribution gets distributed to every single person in the wb that is in the rvr zone at the moment of the drop.
d) Team play encouragement: Seems like you have a zerg on one side, and a few elitist 6 men farming aao from the tail of the wbs, not inviting soloers, unless it fits their agenda of capturing the keep once they feel they have enough contribution to get all the bags for themselves. One way around that would be to improve renown gain and contribution increasingly for each full party you have in a wb. Just throwing numbers here, but if you are in a party, you get ¼ contribution, if you are in a wb with 1 full party you get ¼ as well (to prevent exploits of ppl opening closed wbs), if you are in a wb with 2 fulls parties you get full contribution and renown, 3 parties gets 1 1/2 , 4 parties gets 2x contribution and renown gain. Something along those lines would probably encourage players to gather numbers and force ppl to play together rather than having 2342342 different guilds doing their own thing.
e) Merging: I believe all arguments have been named here with the current event. Some ppl hate it, I love it. Merge tier 1 and 2 going back and forth, merge tier 3 and 4 as well, but implement a way to get another zone open when one sided zerging occurs. To me this game has always been about mass battles although I do feel that zerging gets out of hand with only one zone open, and there is less strategy involved when you don’t have the numbers to fight back. In my perfect world, a zone could not permit players to be flagged for rvr in the lake when the population gets too one-sided. For instance, a difference of more than 12 players puts you in a queue until the other side matches your numbers, more or less. This would mean that you could have 3 warbands on each side in a zone, sure, but if one side gets more than x players, another zone opens and/or players are put in a queue. Since we have no way to prevent cross realming with different accounts to control population, I believe this could help. Ppl would be faced with a choice; wait, change zone or change sides to balance population and keep the game interesting.
These are my RVR observations and ideas and I have no clue what can and can’t be done, but I am just throwing ideas according to my personal taste here.
There are other areas I wish to address but I feel like playing a bit and will come back to finish up.
1) RVR
a) I remember the old days where capturing the BOs and the keeps was enough to flip a zone and to be honest, I preferred that system (Sure it led to BO humping in empty zones, but I still believe this could be prevented with keeps not being able to be taken unless there are x number of defenders in the zone or something along those lines.). The reason is that the system as is seems hard to grasp for beginners and even intermediate players. For instance there are technicalities like the level of the keep and its effects that are not explained in any tutorial in game, to my knowledge anyways, and going through the forums looking for gold nuggets is not everyone’s favorite activity. I believe this has the effect of ppl not wanting to lead warbands due to their lack of understanding of the game mechanics, which in turn, makes pugging complicated and does not contribute to the lake population.
b) BO timers: I spend too much time waiting at BOs. My life is short, and I want to fight, not stand there in case someone comes to the BO, which doesn’t happen enough. I think we should just remove any sort of timer over 30 secs. If they are there to defend, good, but if not, let us move on and keep things mobile.
c) Contributions for resources: I know resources are necessary to get the ball going, but it leads to clicking contests (some even using macros) and it just doesn’t feel right that some random dude out of party comes and takes off with resources while an entire wb is dedicated to capturing said BOs and don’t have any contribution from the leech. One solution would be to have contributions triggering only if within an open wb, and contribution gets distributed to every single person in the wb that is in the rvr zone at the moment of the drop.
d) Team play encouragement: Seems like you have a zerg on one side, and a few elitist 6 men farming aao from the tail of the wbs, not inviting soloers, unless it fits their agenda of capturing the keep once they feel they have enough contribution to get all the bags for themselves. One way around that would be to improve renown gain and contribution increasingly for each full party you have in a wb. Just throwing numbers here, but if you are in a party, you get ¼ contribution, if you are in a wb with 1 full party you get ¼ as well (to prevent exploits of ppl opening closed wbs), if you are in a wb with 2 fulls parties you get full contribution and renown, 3 parties gets 1 1/2 , 4 parties gets 2x contribution and renown gain. Something along those lines would probably encourage players to gather numbers and force ppl to play together rather than having 2342342 different guilds doing their own thing.
e) Merging: I believe all arguments have been named here with the current event. Some ppl hate it, I love it. Merge tier 1 and 2 going back and forth, merge tier 3 and 4 as well, but implement a way to get another zone open when one sided zerging occurs. To me this game has always been about mass battles although I do feel that zerging gets out of hand with only one zone open, and there is less strategy involved when you don’t have the numbers to fight back. In my perfect world, a zone could not permit players to be flagged for rvr in the lake when the population gets too one-sided. For instance, a difference of more than 12 players puts you in a queue until the other side matches your numbers, more or less. This would mean that you could have 3 warbands on each side in a zone, sure, but if one side gets more than x players, another zone opens and/or players are put in a queue. Since we have no way to prevent cross realming with different accounts to control population, I believe this could help. Ppl would be faced with a choice; wait, change zone or change sides to balance population and keep the game interesting.
These are my RVR observations and ideas and I have no clue what can and can’t be done, but I am just throwing ideas according to my personal taste here.
There are other areas I wish to address but I feel like playing a bit and will come back to finish up.