Care about realm numbers - Horus

[Warthog]

I really really wish people would stop complaining about realm inbalance and start complaining about the actuall problem. You can say what you want about NGD not addressing realm inbalance but to me they have done all they can within realm of semi fairness with the XP and gold bonus to underpopulated realms. The only step they could possibly take to make sure there is realm balance would be to physically choose for everyone what realm they played in. And in this I don't just mean new players, I mean one day your account with 3 lvl 50's can magically be changed to another realm because that past week that was the least populated realm. I guarantee you if they did this you would see the population of this game plummet over-night.....but hey...realms would be balanced with maybe 50 in each one total, and 45 of them under lvl 10.

Now that being said, there will always be farming in this game, because people always have the choice of which realm to go to, so there will never be balanced numbers throughout the day on all sides. At the moment on Horus this is such a big issue for ONE reason only. The reason being there are hours and hours during the day in all realms where a force of not even 10 willing and mid to high level characters can be formed into a war party. So, if one realm manages to get a decent army, it pretty much guarantees they will be "farming" somewhere. This is the bad farming on Horus at the moment, 5-12 people trying to retake a fort vs 25 or more people defending. This type of farming is demoralizing as without pretty much a miracle the smaller force does not even get to kill ONE of the enemies in each engagement.

There also is a fun type of farming (imagine that). I will use an example of Syrtis trying to retake a fort from Ignis on Friday night. The fort was lvl 3 then 4 basically the whole fight. Ignis did have more players and were using the fort protection. Syrtis could easily have just said screw it and went off to do something else. We didn't though, you know why...because it was actually fun. How could dying more and over and over be fun you might ask? It was fun because we actually managed to have a decent amount of people online (20+ I would guess, never had an actuall track) and willing to fight. So while we had a really really hard time, we still were managing to get kills in each engagement. An not just the lucky random one kill, consitantly good amounts of kills. So yes, many times those dead would get back to the fort from there save at samal before we could even manage to break Herbred door, it stilll was fun.

What's my point in all this? Same point I made earlier in this thread...NGD needs to address the fact that as a server Horus is severly underpopulated. If they could actively promote it more or find a willing partner such as Gamigo to promote it for them then the fact that there is realm inbalance will become less and less of an issue. If at any given time every realm could field at least 20 decent leveled people for a fight, it can make even being farmed a fun thing. It is up to those involved in the fight thought to realize the situation and make it fun. Again with my example, if people didn't see killing some as a fact that we were doing well with less people even though it did take ALOT of time to get the actuall fort back, it would not have been fun. So NGD, please please try to promote Horus and grow the population. Horus players, please please stop bitching about realm inbalance...if you really feel the need to bitch....bitch to NGD that they are not doing enough to promote the growth of the server. Give us more people and we can all make even farm fights into fun fights for both sides instead of what it is now where the small group (5-12) has not even a shot in hell of expecting to kill a good part of the enemy...let alone take a fort back.

[Bladnoch]

I think it's just up to the people to change this. If you want a better balance, then take it into your own hands and swap realms (looking at you Syrtis). If you don't try and rebalance things yourselves, then the game won't advance and invasions won't succeed as well as they do on Ra.
So to summarise, it's our fault, not NGD's. They've done all they can, with the exception of advertising (which they can't afford) or doing something radical to lose keen players (which they can't afford). So sort your own problems out - choose the underdog realm and help it. God, get your group of friends to do it. Heck, move your entire clan, whatever makes this game more interesting for EVERYONE.

[Yttrium]

Originally Posted by Bladnoch

So to summarise, it's our fault, not NGD's. They've done all they can ... So sort your own problems out - choose the underdog realm and help it. God, get your group of friends to do it.

I disagree with this. Considering the amount of time it takes to level up, it's unreasonable to ask people to switch realms to fix realm balance. Add to that money spent, time spent getting to know realm-mates, etc. and it seems very unreasonable to put this burden on players.

[Bladnoch]

Originally Posted by cugel

I disagree with this. Considering the amount of time it takes to level up, it's unreasonable to ask people to switch realms to fix realm balance. Add to that money spent, time spent getting to know realm-mates, etc. and it seems very unreasonable to put this burden on players.

Indeed, I see your point. I would like to see the grinding curve lessened, or quests in the top end to counter the current curve.

But the people on level 40-50 characters usually have more than one character, and if they are a hard core player, that other character will be high levelled too. If you can do it more than once in the green realm, you can do it more once in the blue realm, where ironically it's easier to level midway than any other realm.

Money does not have to be spent, we know this. While it's pressed upon, this community as a whole (including me) are stubborn towards premium buying to level - while a great amount do it, I'd expect they would rather have that levelling ease for free (which loops back to my first paragraph).

The burden has already been over us all for the past 6 or so months, Alsius for more than a year. We can either all continue with this burden together, or some greens lessen the burden for the good of the game. I know this sounds like shit, really I do...but I can't think of a better way which could benefit everyone.

Out of interest, what do you suggest NGD to do?

[veluchami]

Originally Posted by Warthog

I really really wish people would stop complaining about realm inbalance and start complaining about the actuall problem. You can say what you want about NGD not addressing realm inbalance but to me they have done all they can within realm of semi fairness with the XP and gold bonus to underpopulated realms. The only step they could possibly take to make sure there is realm balance would be to physically choose for everyone what realm they played in. And in this I don't just mean new players, I mean one day your account with 3 lvl 50's can magically be changed to another realm because that past week that was the least populated realm. I guarantee you if they did this you would see the population of this game plummet over-night.....but hey...realms would be balanced with maybe 50 in each one total, and 45 of them under lvl 10.

Now that being said, there will always be farming in this game, because people always have the choice of which realm to go to, so there will never be balanced numbers throughout the day on all sides. At the moment on Horus this is such a big issue for ONE reason only. The reason being there are hours and hours during the day in all realms where a force of not even 10 willing and mid to high level characters can be formed into a war party. So, if one realm manages to get a decent army, it pretty much guarantees they will be "farming" somewhere. This is the bad farming on Horus at the moment, 5-12 people trying to retake a fort vs 25 or more people defending. This type of farming is demoralizing as without pretty much a miracle the smaller force does not even get to kill ONE of the enemies in each engagement.

There also is a fun type of farming (imagine that). I will use an example of Syrtis trying to retake a fort from Ignis on Friday night. The fort was lvl 3 then 4 basically the whole fight. Ignis did have more players and were using the fort protection. Syrtis could easily have just said screw it and went off to do something else. We didn't though, you know why...because it was actually fun. How could dying more and over and over be fun you might ask? It was fun because we actually managed to have a decent amount of people online (20+ I would guess, never had an actuall track) and willing to fight. So while we had a really really hard time, we still were managing to get kills in each engagement. An not just the lucky random one kill, consitantly good amounts of kills. So yes, many times those dead would get back to the fort from there save at samal before we could even manage to break Herbred door, it stilll was fun.

What's my point in all this? Same point I made earlier in this thread...NGD needs to address the fact that as a server Horus is severly underpopulated. If they could actively promote it more or find a willing partner such as Gamigo to promote it for them then the fact that there is realm inbalance will become less and less of an issue. If at any given time every realm could field at least 20 decent leveled people for a fight, it can make even being farmed a fun thing. It is up to those involved in the fight thought to realize the situation and make it fun. Again with my example, if people didn't see killing some as a fact that we were doing well with less people even though it did take ALOT of time to get the actuall fort back, it would not have been fun. So NGD, please please try to promote Horus and grow the population. Horus players, please please stop bitching about realm inbalance...if you really feel the need to bitch....bitch to NGD that they are not doing enough to promote the growth of the server. Give us more people and we can all make even farm fights into fun fights for both sides instead of what it is now where the small group (5-12) has not even a shot in hell of expecting to kill a good part of the enemy...let alone take a fort back.

Appreciate your sincere argument. But you have absolutely no idea how ignis 'farming' as you term it is different from syrtis farming. Take that friday night for example,

1) you hit us with 6 terrors every time. We barely had 2. We almost had equal numbers.
2) The reason why the 'farming' lasted was you guys dont know how to take a fort with equal numbers. I dont blame you, you have never been in such a situation. You never reached the door, instead just tried to score rps by terroring the wall.
3) You guys kept getting reinforcements to make up for ppl you lost. From our side, we kept losing people till you guys took it over.
4) The fact that you can score atleast some kills made you fight. This has to do with the fact, syrtis has more rangers and rangers just run when faced with imminent defeat. Dont blame them here either. Its not the same with syrtis farming, you get massacred if you come anywhere in the range of the zerg.
5) You wont be talking like this if you experience what you experienced on Friday, everyday. No rational person would.
I am frigging amazed how syrtis has a simple solution to a problem for any solution, enemies or bosses. Just throw more players at it. Just keep sending more players until you choke the enemy. Brilliant ! Just a rant, not blaming anyone again...

But I really dont blame Syrtis or NGD much. Wait, maybe the nerfed areas did much harm to underpop realms more than they did good. I dont even want to go into how-ngd-fucked-up-balance issue. Honestly I dont know what the solution for this problem is. Being 'green' is the fad these days. one solution is to change the entire story line and all the races in syrtis. But thats not gonna happen. But just that this is annoying as hell.

[Yttrium]

Originally Posted by Bladnoch

Out of interest, what do you suggest NGD to do?

I've made a few suggestions to give combat bonuses to players in the warzones of underpopulated realms. There is an example a few posts above in this thread.

The only reasonable objection I've heard is that it would mess up small fights. e.g. Ignis gets double health and mana because Syrtis has double the players online. A lone Ignis barb fighting a lone Syrtis barb would have an unnecessary advantage. To this objection, I say it's worth creating this temporary imbalance in order to fix the balance at larger battles. As long as the barb is aware that Ignis has a combat bonus, this isn't much different from him stumbling upon two Ignis barbs.

To make this less radical, I might only base the bonus on enemies that cross into another realm's warzone. You would only get the bonus in your home territory -- and only when there are at least double the amount of enemies there. Depending on how fast the server re-calculated the player numbers, this could be self-correcting -- your bonus would vanish as soon as you sent half the zerg back over the river.

On the other hand, it might make more sense to not limit it to home territory and base it on total players in the warzone. This would also give underpopulated realms a more even chance to capture enemy forts and invade -- without bringing a zerg or going for empty forts.

Either way, this would help break the cycle of people quitting because they have no chance, then making the imbalance worse. I agree that the long-term solution is more population in general, but without a short-term way to keep the game fun for underpopulated realms, they will continue to bleed players.

[Warthog]

Veluchami, my point was not to talk about strategies of why it took as so long and why it didn't. So you can stand on your high horse of how much Syrtis players suck and all play stupid (which is basically what you have always said in many posts on here), that is fine with me.

On to the real meaning of my first post. You can deny all you want what happened on a almostly daily basis last summer, but I was there when Syrtis was almost nightly severly outnumbered and "farmed"...same as happens now to Ignis at a different point of the day. It sucks, it makes you not want to play....I never denied this. My point was simple, with more numbers on the server as a whole...the fights can be more fun, even for the under-manned army. Yes, realm imbalance is a issue, a real issue....but IMO the bigger issue is server population. So with such small populations, in all realms (yes, I even see Syrtis as underpopulated...not against the other realms on the server, but against what even the smallest realm on a full server can have) there is not much chance for fun. There is usually only one option...you go to whichever fort is being contested at that time and either farm or be farmed or you grind or you chat. The rest of the warzone tends to be completely dead, maybe you can find 2-3 grinders somewhere...but only if your lucky. And to be honest, even if NGD made all realms have exactly the same numbers and exactly the same leveled people there would still always be farming at forts.


You can generalize all you want that Syrtis thinks every thing is about numbers. I and many other know for a fact it is NOT about numbers. I have helped to kill bosses with small groups before. I have held forts with less people then those attacking before for long periods of time. It is not complicated and does not take a super brain to accomplish. My solution for this though does involve numbers, because the more numbers you can have at a fight the more chance there is that you can take out a good number of the enemies to then make it a more even fight. Also with more numbers there will be people who can defend reinforcements from coming across bridges. I am not saying a better populated server is the end all solution, but it is a start.

[bois]

What is the problem with realm numbers and the apparent imbalances?

This is my take:
Firatly We should stop using the terms under populated and over populated now. I would replace it with the term ' non-proportionately balanced'.

I say this because I totally agree that the entire server is under populated and that fact is exposed by the relative War Zone imbalances during certain time Zones. 5 or 6 vs 25 is not uncommon no matter what Realm you play, depending on the time zone you play in. But is it even this simplistic? There are times where Ignis is facing the zerg at peak hours and cannot muster sufficient numbers to make a sporting contest of it. I say this guardedly but I will suggest that Ignis does have the numbers. They just refuse to come to take part. Some may be angry for me saying this but the truth is my shield. I usually log on at a peak time and I usually log to a character that is in a known grinding spot. It is not uncommon for me to find several high level players grinding there while the fort/ castle is under new management. Are we really underpopulated or is our army fragmented?

Again, I must say that the old Ignis is not the new Ignis. Tactically we are not as adept as we once were. We are not intimately aware of each other's strengths/ weaknesses ,setup styles as we once were. That is our hindrance these days.

I address the Syrtis zerg now. The syrtis zerg in an of itself is not the problem in my view. Neither are the players motivations. It is merely as symptom of another problem that exists in Horus and made more evident by its low population.
The fact is that there is nothing much to do when you hit the high 40's and 50.
Okay, typical day: Kill the super boss , or kill the dragon. Lurk about for grinders to kill, then take a fort or castle. If no response then put the opposing realm gate in danger. Alternatively you grind. That is the sum total of it. Some people suggest that Syrtis dance at CS and Alsius grind or have beach dance parties. I have never seen this so I cannot comment on this. Bottom line is that Syrtis with its population, aside for the potential to invade, has very few options but to zerg or grind. Some may argue that some can take other forts and such but, taking a lesser fort will just result in you rotting there, waiting.... If Alsius or Ignis was in the same position as Syrtis now there is a possibility of the same thing happening.

Besides the obvious need for promotion of the server and boost the active player numbers, NGD would have to consider the following:

1. A more challenging but balanced fort / castle design for better battles. added to this is a decent reward based system to encourage players to come out.( NGD has stated this is in the works)
2. Much less grinding options in-realm for lvl 40+ players. NGD needs to encourage the REAL populations to be exposed to war conditions.
3. New mid lvl bosses and other objectives in the war zone to spread the populations around and coax the formation of smaller mercenary type skirmishes around the world.
4. Along with new objectives there must be different rewards that can benefit or affect the realms as a whole. Players who grind must be affected and are encouraged to take part to recover or gain bonuses that affect their grinding efforts in a positive way.

Bottom line : Regnum Online is a fairly one dimensional game at the moment and realm imbalances just bring this to the fore of the minds of the community. I would ask all that enjoy the game to analyse this and see for themselves if this apparent imbalance is not just a symptom of much deeper root causes.

Best Regards
Artec

[Groark]

Very well put Artec!

I agree with everything you say except the part where you want to encourage grinding in wz. Many grinders will remain in the inner zone because they are tired of being killed (mostly by hunters) while grinding in the wz.

But for the rest of your comment:

[Gabburtjuh]

well, the frends problem can only be solved to change with them, so maybe there could be that u could transfer a char from syrtis to alsius/ignis. only thing u need to to is reset ur appearance.