Do you think Warmasters update improved your game experience ?

[Orimae]

I wanted to make a thread about this, been thinking over it the past few days, finding myself either on Horus getting perma zerged or running like a moron to try beat teleporters... or on Raven...grinding happily but then realising that ina few months..its going to be more of the same...

But Scias, i applaud you, , what you said almost entirely sums up my exact feelings about the new Warmasters update, sounded interesting and exciting..but in practice...serious imbalance...

Originally Posted by Shining-Scias

For me definately not.
The concept sounded interesting, but in practice it ruined a lot of the current game mechanics.


About the beacons :
- What's the point of the CCs if entire zergs are immune to them without any visual feedback for at least 1 minute ?
- What's the point of skill and cooperation when a group having a WM will always have the upper hand on a group having none even if the latter is smarter or outnumbering ?

About the teleports :
- What's the point of organisation if an invading realm can instantly teleport to the least defended fort and so making defenders task impossible even if they make the right choices ?
- What's the point of hunters' tracks if realms mostly go to forts via teleport ?
- Where's the fucking bridges and open field fights now ?

About new invasion rules :
- What's the fucking point of the realm doors if they can be broken in a split second by very few players
- What's the point of the realm guards if they don't attack players breaking realm door behind them ?
- What's the purpose of making gem-less realms forts invulnerable besides reducing the choice of fights ?

About new fort rules :
- What's the point of lvl4 fort upgrade if the flag is still present and doesn't need the GC to be killed to capture it ?
- Why having greatly improved guards damage resistance ? Guards shouldn't be that tough.

About armor enhancements :
- I thought the sacred rule of this f2p game was that premium users can't have an advantage in the gameplay. The premium-only enchants broke this rule (yeah it's maybe not a big deal but still it's a first step...)

About new level cap :
- What's the point for mages besides more spells ? Spell damage doesn't increase with leveling... It increased the imbalance between mages and non-mages classes because other classes got damage improvement.

About XP reward from enemies :
- Insufficient especially for support classes, it's definately not a viable way to get XP compared to the traditional mob-killing
- Bugged with +RLM/-RLM

As others have said, aye we have more war, but its now only a case of who can get the most warmasters and numbers to get the fort..no more awesome open field fights , no more bridge fights, the gate...urg..terrible now the new invasion rules, you dont get a chance to defend your gate properly, the big fights we had at all the gates were epic.

Future for Regnum online? bleak till the things we are ALL saying suck, are fixed in some way...

[HidraA]

Originally Posted by chilko

I am not being ironical.[/B] I would really like to get a grasp on this issue.
Is it a hardcore vs casual thing? Old users vs new users?

thanks,

-Chilko

Can be as you said and old vs new players thing...but only because old player know there was more balanced and more fun in game.Passing from game of skills to RANDOM broken more the fun and bring more frustration for old players.

Warmasters concept it's very cool ,unfortunaly how it was applayed bringe more unbalance and frustrations for players and some realms.That made lots of old players to give up at game because of frustrations of premium/class/realm balance.

About servers activities :
-People played more only to lvl-up to 60 or to become a warmaster.
-Your new marketing and advertise brings new players,that you miss it's make old players that spend lots of time playng the game and wasting lots of $$$ to leave the game.

If there it's one bad point where NGD it's not good then it's BALANCE.Balance in-game or balance old/new players.If you don't know why Regnum has not so many players..it's sample...try to make balance between old/new players your numbers of clients will grown up.You just enter in one circle,bring lots of new player but also lots of old leave....try to keep them all....

But i will suspect soon activities will discrease after they will get full with frustrations,be lvl 60 or be a warmaster.

[lunedor]

For me, WM update is a nice answer for most of "pre-WM" problems

Originally Posted by Shining-Scias

About the beacons :
- What's the point of the CCs if entire zergs are immune to them without any visual feedback for at least 1 minute ?
- What's the point of skill and cooperation when a group having a WM will always have the upper hand on a group having none even if the latter is smarter or outnumbering ?

Zergs are not immune all the time (only a zerg of 10/10 20/20 warmasters ... with perfect coordination could be immune 24/7), and CCS like speed debuffs, ivy, beetles... work perfectly fine.
Note that beacons are the solution for :

- OP barb : no more roar-kick-feint --> CS because of immunity/more HPs/speed buffs
- BoW : dizzy immune
- Knockum online : immunity to the OP CC spells

with WM, you just need to have some more fighting skill (use the right CC at the right time, hold beacon's place before enemies can use them, slow down the zerg until beacon's effects ends...)

About the teleports :
- What's the point of organisation if an invading realm can instantly teleport to the least defended fort and so making defenders task impossible even if they make the right choices ?
- What's the point of hunters' tracks if realms mostly go to forts via teleport ?
- Where's the fucking bridges and open field fights now ?

defender can also teleport instantly to attack the less defended fort, when people rush to break the gate for exemple. Coordination between players (end even realms) is required all the time, not only during "planned" invasions 1 or 2 times per month (at least for syrtis players), like it was before.

Hunters role is more important then ever, to know what is doing the opposite army and tell WMs where to teleport the zerg to defend or attack

About new invasion rules :
- What's the fucking point of the realm doors if they can be broken in a split second by very few players
- What's the point of the realm guards if they don't attack players breaking realm door behind them ?
- What's the purpose of making gem-less realms forts invulnerable besides reducing the choice of fights ?

It seems that the purpose is to have more invasions. As an alternative to PB/samal PP/aggers fights, we can now have every day the same fights than before (including a lot of open field fights) + inner realms fights, street fighting in cities, gem stealing...

It has been explained that fort invulnerability is a solution for the "less populated" realm to concentrate on attacking enemies. I just hope that this advantage will be used as it is one day bye the concerned realm.

About armor enhancements :
- I thought the sacred rule of this f2p game was that premium users can't have an advantage in the gameplay. The premium-only enchants broke this rule (yeah it's maybe not a big deal but still it's a first step...)

I play without any armour enhancement, with WM bow (with the gem of my previous bow), and also with some WM's armour part (BP). All WM pieces are nice items for non premium users (armour parts give the best protection in the game and weapons have decent damage)

About new level cap :
- What's the point for mages besides more spells ? Spell damage doesn't increase with leveling... It increased the imbalance between mages and non-mages classes because other classes got damage improvement.

it allows to have a good build AND WM's tree

Note that today, the most awesome thing in a fight is a lock with +30% speed, 5000 hits, CC immunity and MoD

WM skills make all classes more balanced and useful, and gives also more dynamic fights with HotW. So I don't really understand why so much people are complaining.

[standistortion]

I would love if you can help me explain why all of the statistical data (average playing time, concurrent users, revenue, etc) has increased on all servers and why this poll's result is so negative.

The majority of my feelings are covered clearly in Shining-Scias post, there are just a couple of points i would like to add:
Player numbers in the wz are up, however the majority are players I have never seen before, all higher levels so I'm assuming they are players who have previously quit and are now back to have a look at this update.
I was to busy to play for about a month and came back to an empty clan and had about 30 regular players in my friends list (most not in my clan), only 3 are still playing.
Player numbers in the inner realm are seriously down, its unusual for me to see more than 3 other players while grinding alts at peak times.
There are more players in the wz but there has been a shift from 'to busy grinding to war' to 'to busy doing warmaster quests to attempt invasion'. This is a lot more frustrating than a smaler group of players with the same purpose in mind.

Couple of points to finish:
After seeing so many really great ideas in the suggestions threads, I was hoping for good things from this update. Instead we get some pretty graphics and a bit of linking up of existing code, all of it obviously aimed at increasing revenue. The only new component I can see is the ability to view items in chat which is a great feature.
Premium only armor enhancements. My main point for encouraging new players to try regnum is now gone, I can no longer say 'your not forced to pay money to get an advantage'. That pretty much sums up this whole update.

[HidraA]

I am totaly agree with all things that wrote Scias.

Also there it's main reason that brings frustration of gmeplay:

-Why every warmaster has all skills and not one skill/warmaster by he's class?
(This breacks the identity of one class)Not anymore specialisation for each class.

-Why you made so short the road to be Warmaster?There was tons of ideas about (take each peace of armor from invasions,one specialization/warmaster...etc etc)
..Now when some realms for X reason have plenty of warmsters brings more frustration for other realms/palyers.

-HUE DIFerences between a lvl 50 and 60 ..(but i can understand this ,force ppl to use $$$)wt but imbalance premium /non-premium a lots
This are the main reasons why ppl dislike warmaster update...well maybe are more...but forget them all.

[ice_zero_cool]

Originally Posted by lunedor

it allows to have a good build AND WM's tree

that's just one of the worst things of this all IMO: you don't need to suffer much (if anyways) to get those skills. you can have a real nice setup / your usual setup and even top it off with those new WM spells

[NotScias]

Originally Posted by lunedor

For me, WM update is a nice answer for most of "pre-WM" problems

No. A nice answer to the pre-WM problems would have been to just solve the said problems and fix the sempiternal 3-years old bugs rather than adding a new whole extension bringing its pack of imbalances and bugs on top of the previous ones.

Originally Posted by lunedor

Zergs are not immune all the time (only a zerg of 10/10 20/20 warmasters ... with perfect coordination could be immune 24/7), and CCS like speed debuffs, ivy, beetles... work perfectly fine.

Only speed debuffs, confuse and darkness work 100% thru beacons.

Note that beacons are the solution for :

- OP barb : no more roar-kick-feint --> CS because of immunity/more HPs/speed buffs
- BoW : dizzy immune
- Knockum online : immunity to the OP CC spells

Exactly what I said, this ruins the point of CCs

with WM, you just need to have some more fighting skill (use the right CC at the right time, hold beacon's place before enemies can use them, slow down the zerg until beacon's effects ends...)

Absolutely not. About slow by the way, it can be easily countered with horn, which nullifies most of the slow spells (besides caltrops).
Also how can you know if a zer/player is beaconed or not ? THERE'S NO VISUAL FEEDBACK ! Do you really count to 60 once you meet a beaconed zerg ? How do you know if they are beaconed if you were out of range of them ?
More skill ? Definately not. Since beacons grant immunity to every CC besides slow, you don't have to care to be too close from your enemy, you don't have to avoid dizzies, to dispel self or be dispelled, if the enemy is immune too it means only normal hits and damage matters, is this really meaning skill ? Before you had to tme your CCs carefully on your enemy to disable him and make him unable to beat you, now you just spam normals until death since CCs can't work... Yeah very palpitating.
It also brings up the class imbalance again, because in the matter of normals/damage only marks and barbs have the upper hand (Locks are far behind with their fixed-damage spells), so only them get the benefit from these beaconed battles.

defender can also teleport instantly to attack the less defended fort, when people rush to break the gate for exemple.

When people rush to break the gate, so this means it's already too late. Also the defenders of other forts can still teleport where the realm defenders went.

Hunters role is more important then ever, to know what is doing the opposite army and tell WMs where to teleport the zerg to defend or attack

What ? How can they be accurate and predict which fort will have troubles if enemies can teleport from Samal to 100m away of Herb in an eye blink ?
How can they know where enemies go if tracks go to n enemies from 0 just like this ?
Before they were able to follow and know where enemies were going.
Unless they go to enemies' home and watch them teleport they simply can't (or not fast enough).

It seems that the purpose is to have more invasions. As an alternative to PB/samal PP/aggers fights, we can now have every day the same fights than before (including a lot of open field fights) + inner realms fights, street fighting in cities, gem stealing...

But invasions are flawed and still need many vs few (or rather many WMs vs none/few). The fights in inner realms are more like noob-slaughtering, the fights near nobles are more like farms (did you see how many iggies+WMs are at Syrtis noble during their nightly invasions ?)
Since WMs I have barely seen a bridge fight, 1 or 2 I think. They are amonst the funniest battles in RO but teleports just killed them because now zergs teleport from home fort to enemy fort without taking roads or bridges, so we only fight at forts now, or at aggers market (which is a save farm basically).

It has been explained that fort invulnerability is a solution for the "less populated" realm to concentrate on attacking enemies. I just hope that this advantage will be used as it is one day bye the concerned realm.

Having enemies taking your forts is a good motivation to retake it, regroup there and counter attack. RO always worked like this. Making realms immune make them lazier.

I play without any armour enhancement, with WM bow (with the gem of my previous bow), and also with some WM's armour part (BP). All WM pieces are nice items for non premium users (armour parts give the best protection in the game and weapons have decent damage)

You didn't get the main point.
This game always had a good balance between premium/non premium because premium players couldn't get an advantage in the gameplay/armor/weapons because it was possible to get the same/better via grinding/trading. Now it's possible to increase your armor resistance via premium but not via the free way. Armor resistance affects gameplay...

it allows to have a good build AND WM's tree

No it just reduced the variety of the builds. Now you can have almost whatever you want, no need to make big sacrifices to get one specific spell or tree, no need to think for a good build now.
In my build I have almost every useful mage+lock spell (besides MoD but because I'm not mazochist), I even spent 5 points in vitality absorbsion cause I had too many points, and I still have 390ish discipline points.

WM skills make all classes more balanced and useful, and gives also more dynamic fights with HotW. So I don't really understand why so much people are complaining.

No they are just a bunch of incredibly overpowered spells, that transformed fights to a ridiculously brainless normal/damage contest rather than smart CCs thus favouring the 2 overpowered classes of this game; that reduced the WZ to the 9 forts only and that made invasions much easier for overpopulating realms.

Au plaisir.

[ieti]

Teleports are something strange in terms of medieval game. They ruin more than make good. Please they need to go. Good old taxi aka horn is pretty much enough to travel armies here and there.

CC immune beacon is insanity. It pretty much removes any possibility to win a fight in a smart way. You can play good - no matter enemy is immune to all you got...

The point most of ppl are not happy is that with every change possibility to win, because you have skill and play good is nullified. Playing with brain have to be encouraged, not removed.

[Zas_]

Originally Posted by chilko

hi guys,

i'm intrigued by this poll.

As you may know we have other ways to meassure the results of any given update besides the forum and this kind of polls

I would love if you can help me explain why all of the statistical data (average playing time, concurrent users, revenue, etc) has increased on all servers and why this poll's result is so negative.

I am not being ironical. I would really like to get a grasp on this issue.
Is it a hardcore vs casual thing? Old users vs new users?

thanks,

-Chilko

Hi Chilko,

the main issue with Warmasters update is, while it is a good idea, it doesn't address any of issues that were already there since a long time.

Activity increased mostly due to Zombrex's work: facebook + twitter + blog + new releases + new partners + new level cap ....
Ok, great, more income for you and theorically more fun for us.

Most of the players here are not new to the game, and many are playing since years now, so we can compare.

With 1.0.8 you partly "fixed" warriors vs archers issues, but you destroyed a part of the game dynamics, we (the players) reported on forums about that.

With the "big" balance update, you did a great job, exchanging with us, and released a not-so-final-but-has-to-be-released version, promising further fixes, most changes are great, but you destroyed hunter class, and made barbarians/marksmen OP instead (and more...).

With Warmasters update, you added new stuff (armours/weapons/places/spells), increased level cap to 60, but you forced people to endless grind (the most boring thing in RO), destroyed balance you tried to fix in previous updates, introduced new OP spells. You also made most stuff we had obsolete (Xims bought level 50 items and magnatite weapons).

Overall, how the gameplay improved ?


What i would like to see:
- fix most OLD bugs we reported over and over (see compilation here)
- implement significant interface improvements (see compilation here)
- Fix Invasions (new rules made things worse, especially the weak gate + fort immunity)
- Rework Warmasters spells to not be that OP
- Reduce OPness of marksmen and barbarians
- Give hunters a true role in war
- Coherent content (no more stupid events, how do rabbit's ears hats and soccer clothes fit in this dark heroic fantasy world ?)
- Work on story and universe, this is an (mmo) RPG !!

[Znurre]

Originally Posted by Shining-Scias

...

Extremely well put.