critical state on Horus & of the game @ NGD

[Angelwinged_Devil]

let me first say that this is from observations on the horus server, I play there each day, I don't on ra or any of the other servers so I don't know if it's the same

Before the halloween event there was a fair amount of action on the server, unfortunately this is not the case anymore.

When the halloween event came, people that I have not seen for months came to play the halloween event and get silly masks.

HOWEVER after the halloween event, I start seeing less people that I know in the war zone, what I am basically trying to say here is less activity.

I believe there's something that triggered this which collided with this factor. And it's all these factors COMBINED.

The Trigger
Basically what triggered this in the halloween event is that people were awarded something for fighting, something actual in game, it was not much, just a silly hat that even takes 80% of your health away when the halloween event was over.

When the halloween event was over there was nothing in game that actually gave a specific reward, there was rps but people realized that this was actually just a number, it didn't even give a hat or anything. And suddenly there was nothing rewarding, not even the fun.

Items
One of the first things I'm going to address is Items, Superitems that gives a player an advantage over another player, too much, and with the right setup you don't need that much skill anymore because your character is too powerful.

It was made even more worse because powers/skills got nerfed which awarded those with better items and not those who used their skills and experience to fight with. I believe this path will continue until NGD realizes that tehre is no other way than to do something about their items

making them available to everyone will just result in new players who reach a high level, getting owned pretty badly by not only a skilled player but a skilled player with good gear. That's why they need a nerf and skills being more powerful so that the people who use their skills correctly get the basic upper hand.

This games core value is still RvR and going away from it with items is like destroying your own artwork by... (use your imagination here, mine is too dirty)

I'm going to mention one example which will take me further to my next point.

cast speed items and sultars terror, instacasting sultars terror results in a massive sultar chain, just having one person in each realm with instasultar is really enough, the others can just accumulate their own sultar and army a can erradicate army b (worse with a high spell focus)

Sultars terror
it's really too easy to cast and erradicate an army because of a few reasons
1 cast speed items
2 range 0
3 cooldown not applied when canceled
4 it's accumulative

reason 1: mentioned before, results in instaterrors from (reason 2) beyond range 30, the only class who can counter this are marksmen who knows how to stop a sultars terror with a burst of wind on high range, I can think of one who deliberately dizzies me, but that's before I start casting sultars terror, however it's most likely people who play a warlock class who knows when to dizzy so they can cancel a spellcast.

reason 2: but because meteor is range 30 (fixed) it cannot reach if someone casts from out of range, however the bigger reason is instasultars which even makes it hard for people with instacastgear themselves to get a cancelling sultar in.

Reason 3: now even if I should get a cancelling cast in it doesn't matter, when the dizzy is over he can have one more try which means a sultarchain is enevitable, I know I can do my sultar chain after cancelling their sultar which is basically what I do, but that doesn't really help as it's the other side that gets chained.

now on to the next reason

Fort wars

The above example was mostly to describe open field battles outside a fort, however that's not how most fort wars go, mostly people hide inside fort unless they really outnumber the opposing force, fort is upgraded and extremly hard to take, it results in a big areaspam at the doorgate.

And let's face it, it's boring just poking each other with a 3 minute interval. Even for the attacking realm. It's redundant, repetitive and there isn't much diversion in scenarios, in other words BORING, and you need to really zerg the opposing force because mostly each player to his own does what he wants to do, mostly it's casual playing (for relaxing, cutting off, stressing of) and people does not read the chat.

Now you have to get through
*Iron door
*Guard captain

Each of these are extremly hard to get through, basically I think it's more fun when the door is down and we get a fight with the guard captain, but mostly if there's enough for the iron door the guard captain and opposing force gets zerged too

Support made harder

Support conjurers have it harder, they have been nerfed, confuse being one reason, it encourages more to hide in the fort than fighting at the field. Basically if the conjurers does not want to go out because they can get confused everyone will have to be there too.

Support conjurers will need to be a bit more effective and have more self defense, BUT! There should be some kind of counter (this is hard) so that they will not go warjuring instead because it's more attractive.

Cremation

so let's say people DOES fight outside, just until the people from the save gets a sultarchain in that makes the attacking realm get their tail between their legs and flee into the fort, there are a few bodies outside, they get cremated, it is NOT fun to get cremated, basically it sucks, big time, now you are back at the save

Hunter ganks

so you want to get back to the fort and do some fighting again, however!

BAM you get gangbanged by a couple of hunters and their big toltars and you are once again, back at the save wondering why you even bothered

Levelling
I won't even mention this factor, most of us know it, most will agree, levelling is one massive grind of boredom with repetitive hunterganks, and until NGD decides to implement one of the many suggestions in the suggestion forum that people have suggested or add their own with appropriate premium scrolls so they can have some food, it'll be the biggest cause for bad player retention for this game.

Bugs

On top of this, bugs will be putting salts in our wounds, things like:
*spawning at the alter with 0 hp
*position bugs
(can't think of more at this point but I'll edit and add if anything comes up, I'm tired)

low framerate/lag

poor performance on the game does not make it more attractive either

Solution, the new engine?
Is the new engine the solution to this game? NO, but according to ngd the new engine should make it easier for them to fix the above things and add a better framerate(important).
But pretty graphics is not going to make up for bad gameplay, and this cannot be excused

which would you watch more than the other, a good old movie or a mediocre new movie with wild destruction effects (popular atm because of all the new gaphical eyecandy)?

Why is this a big problem
Not only because of the time, money and maintenance spent in one server by NGD, the players etc.
But because if the player retention curve is falling on a pretty active server how could it ever rise on possible new servers and partner companies?

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conclusion/reference
*Items needs adjustment
*sultars terror needs range 30, nonaccumulative knockdown, and cooldown needs to be added on nonbuffs
*Hunters need a revamp to fit more into an rvr role than being assasins and just an annoyance for other players
*Forts need to be modified
*cremation needs to be altered
*small bugs that appear often fixed
*better framerate/ping
*support conjurers uppened in effectiveness, maybe in self defense but in a way that does not make warjurers more attractive.

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This is basically what I think is wrong, I have probably left something out that I'll add if I remember it or if someone reminds me of it.

DO NOT REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING TEXT, SEND ME A PM IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT IT IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO

Please do not start accusing other realms or players to avoid flames, ALL REALMS DO IT so there's no reason to point fingers, let's have a discussion for the good of the game

and just because if I don't mention it some people who has nothing better to do is gonna bite my ass about it.

this is MY opinion, I am NOT from ngd, this is not an official or definitive truth

please don't reply to post accusing persons or realms, I'll give green karma to whoever ignores an accusation (no internal deals about accusing each other just to get green karma please >_> just ask for it in pm)

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edit: added support conjurer
edit: added consideration for other servers

[mr_scsi]

Originally Posted by Angelwinged_Devil

It was made even more worse because powers/skills got nerfed

Not enough IMHO.
I think archers should be able to move and shoot, but with severe accuracy penalty, they also need drastic dmg reduction.

Originally Posted by Angelwinged_Devil

cast speed items and sultars terror, instacasting sultars terror results in a massive sultar chain, just having one person in each realm with instasultar is really enough, the others can just accumulate their own sultar and army a can erradicate army b (worse with a high spell focus)

Sultars terror
it's really too easy to cast and erradicate an army because of a few reasons
1 cast speed items
2 range 0
3 cooldown not applied when canceled
4 it's accumulative

Why does everyone whine about sultar? I personally find it inadequate.
It doesn't do much dmg, it has a high resist rate AND its the only real attach that a warlock has.

'locks dont have much in the way of hp, they die very easily and have crap for armor. so lets take away the only thing that has teeth? WTF?

Originally Posted by Angelwinged_Devil

reason 1: mentioned before, results in instaterrors from (reason 2) beyond range 30, the only class who can counter this are marksmen who knows how to stop a sultars terror with a burst of wind on high range, I can think of one who deliberately dizzies me, but that's before I start casting sultars terror, however it's most likely people who play a warlock class who knows when to dizzy so they can cancel a spellcast.

I'd love to have an instaterror. Where can I get one?
When I start the cast process, I get gang raped by the enemy and can only cast 1 for every 3-4 attempts. I guess they just fear me and I'm a high profile target? Again, I think your a bit off base to blame terrors for the lack of fort successes/player participation.

Originally Posted by Angelwinged_Devil

Cremation

so let's say people DOES fight outside, just until the people from the save gets a sultarchain in that makes the attacking realm get their tail between their legs and flee into the fort, there are a few bodies outside, they get cremated, it is NOT fun to get cremated, basically it sucks, big time, now you are back at the save

So do I have this right? I spent a goodly amount of time and effort running my short legged lock from the save back to the fort, die, repeat.
I run across a dead enemy, one that we have worked hard to kill, but we should let him get ressed just so you can keep up your numbers and have your fun? NOT. Im sending his ass back to the save, that's how the game should be played, you don't wanna get cremated? don't die.

Originally Posted by Angelwinged_Devil

Hunter ganks

so you want to get back to the fort and do some fighting again, however!

BAM you get gangbanged by a couple of hunters and their big toltars and you are once again, back at the save wondering why you even bothered

I agree with you 110% on this one. It sux, bigtime.
But in a 'war' situation, its good tactics to cut off reinforcements.
They are just doing what they should be doing.

[Angelwinged_Devil]

Originally Posted by mr_scsi

Not enough IMHO.
I think archers should be able to move and shoot, but with severe accuracy penalty, they also need drastic dmg reduction.

to kite again?
I don't know if I agree on damage reduction

Why does everyone whine about sultar? I personally find it inadequate.
It doesn't do much dmg, it has a high resist rate AND its the only real attach that a warlock has.

I don't know if spells have a different kind of fail rate as anyone else but sometimes there'll be a lot of resists in row yes, it does actually do quite a bit of damage, but it's hard to see because of pylons

I know about locks, I have one level 50 on both ra and horus

'locks dont have much in the way of hp, they die very easily and have crap for armor. so lets take away the only thing that has teeth? WTF?

it has been like this before, it's not a nerf, it's a moderation, how will the suggestion in any way make the spell not worth having?

I'd love to have an instaterror. Where can I get one?
When I start the cast process, I get gang raped by the enemy and can only cast 1 for every 3-4 attempts. I guess they just fear me and I'm a high profile target? Again, I think your a bit off base to blame terrors for the lack of fort successes/player participation.

get some cool cast speed gear, just ask plunder

I don't only blame terrors, As it says it's all the things combined, more people seem to be levelling a lock (or is it just me?)

So do I have this right? I spent a goodly amount of time and effort running my short legged lock from the save back to the fort, die, repeat.
I run across a dead enemy, one that we have worked hard to kill, but we should let him get ressed just so you can keep up your numbers and have your fun? NOT. Im sending his ass back to the save, that's how the game should be played, you don't wanna get cremated? don't die.

if the things above gets fixed it'lll be more fun for the both parts as you will be having more fight, usually if you can kill someone from the fort who's pushing you back to the save they will have a harder time doing it again if they lose men, so in reality you do not need cremation, if you kill someone AT the fort it could be at a tactical advantage to disable resurrection on him for x amount of seconds, it would make the skill more balanced and keep the fun up for the player who died.

I agree with you 110% on this one. It sux, bigtime.
But in a 'war' situation, its good tactics to cut off reinforcements.
They are just doing what they should be doing.

it was once done by a group who camped the bridge, you could see them coming, but getting ganked out of the blue with no chance to defend oyurslef is simply not fun

[Bladnoch]

Id give you green karma but I must spread some more round first. All the same, youve pinned many problems on the head, especially the lack of interest in fort wars. The lack of interest in levelling leads to this - plus all my past experiences in the wz have been good, but ive only had a few which have been well worth the wait. PvP needs some sort of useless reward other than RP really. Like certain clothes you can wear on top of your armour maybe. I dunno. Something worth fighting for which doesnt give the upper hand.

[Angelwinged_Devil]

Originally Posted by Bladnoch

Id give you green karma but I must spread some more round first. All the same, youve pinned many problems on the head, especially the lack of interest in fort wars. The lack of interest in levelling leads to this - plus all my past experiences in the wz have been good, but ive only had a few which have been well worth the wait. PvP needs some sort of useless reward other than RP really. Like certain clothes you can wear on top of your armour maybe. I dunno. Something worth fighting for which doesnt give the upper hand.

I just think it needs to be fun really , ever had one battle where you died and thought "wow that was a rush, really fun" These are getting more rare :/

[Pizdzius]

Originally Posted by Angelwinged_Devil

I just think it needs to be fun really , ever had one battle where you died and thought "wow that was a rush, really fun" These are getting more rare :/

I think I have those every time I hunt with my friends. I mean, no matter the battle, even. With my friends it's always fun, but yeah sometimes we have some epic moments. I can't say it's boring unless everyone runs away. But then again, I don't play on Horus

[DemonMonger]

I would like to see some open field battle grounds...

Like a warzone without walls between forts... if you hold the grounds long enough you get a few patrol guards there.

Example:

team - alsius: (occupy syritis bridge) 5:mins = 2 alsius guards spawn at bridge + road block at bridge

team - ignis (occupy stone henge) 5 mins = small fort is created in the location <wooden fort> - cannot be created within 200m of a real fortress


this type of occupation of enemy lands and setup of actual camps will be nice... <camps should only apply when a full party or 15+ people of the same realm occupy an area for extended time>

When these camps are defeated the forts crumble and the winning team gets bonus rps and a chance of finding an item left in the camp 1/10

[Angelwinged_Devil]

Originally Posted by DemonMonger

I would like to see some open field battle grounds...

Like a warzone without walls between forts... if you hold the grounds long enough you get a few patrol guards there.

Example:

team - alsius: (occupy syritis bridge) 5:mins = 2 alsius guards spawn at bridge + road block at bridge

team - ignis (occupy stone henge) 5 mins = small fort is created in the location <wooden fort> - cannot be created within 200m of a real fortress


this type of occupation of enemy lands and setup of actual camps will be nice... <camps should only apply when a full party or 15+ people of the same realm occupy an area for extended time>

When these camps are defeated the forts crumble and the winning team gets bonus rps and a chance of finding an item left in the camp 1/10

dude get your ass out of here, and into the suggestion forum

[Razvan87]

we need real rewards from pvp ,normal exp from pvp and items rewards from pvp points.This way all people will fight to the death because they get something...

-Normal exp from pvp /rvr
-Gold and items for castle win battles
-Items that you can get with rp points


PS: Items are not to powerful ,they a re just very hard to find

[Saltor]

Originally Posted by DemonMonger

I would like to see some open field battle grounds...

Like a warzone without walls between forts... if you hold the grounds long enough you get a few patrol guards there.

Example:

team - alsius: (occupy syritis bridge) 5:mins = 2 alsius guards spawn at bridge + road block at bridge

team - ignis (occupy stone henge) 5 mins = small fort is created in the location <wooden fort> - cannot be created within 200m of a real fortress


this type of occupation of enemy lands and setup of actual camps will be nice... <camps should only apply when a full party or 15+ people of the same realm occupy an area for extended time>

When these camps are defeated the forts crumble and the winning team gets bonus rps and a chance of finding an item left in the camp 1/10

Pretty good idea.

As it stands now, there are two reasons to take a fort:
As preparation for an Invasion - a relatively rare occurrence.
To make people come to you and donate RP - happens constantly on Horus.

As a barbarian, I get more RP roaming with a hunter than I do in a fort battle. Hell, I get more RP chatting at Aggersborg save than I do at fort battles!

NGD should look at the WZ and determine what would encourage the behavior they're looking for, if it's just lemming-like behavior from PvP junkies then nothing need change. If they want to see more group efforts and more tactics/strategy, then some major changes will have to be done.

Here are a few more ideas along the same lines:
Allow full parties (8 people) to create small stockades in the WZ for gold.
Allow forts to be upgraded to level 3 by continuous occupation (1 hr per level).
Offer banners that can be seen by ALL realms, as a challenge to other players.

None of this is a cure, but most of these ideas would make the WZ a much more interesting place.