Realm imbalance and player trends

[Miraculix]

Originally Posted by Gideon_Slack

Maybe NGD could move to time-based repairs. I have played online games where you have to eat every so often, or die; so repairs on a ticker would not be unusual.

If repairs were time-based, and people didn't have to worry about the state of their equipment, they might take a chance and try more activities.

This is a great suggestion. I'd love to see that happen.

[makarios68]

Originally Posted by Gideon_Slack

Have repairs become a drag on player activity?

I wonder if repairs become an "excuse" for people to avoid the activities they might not like as much as others. For example: do I really want to help kill the dragon if I have to pay 50k gp or use a repair hammer? Or: do I really want to wreck my weapon on a fort door when there is just guards inside?

With regards to killing the dragon, this is exactly the case for myself and several players i know.

I stay well clear of it, as the rewards are far too little, and the costs far too high. Hell, once i spent an hour and 20 mins fighting the dragon, only to die just before he fell. I got nothing: not even XP - for 80 minutes of work!

With regards to fighting in the WZ, i know of high profile players talking about having to leave the game because of lack of gold from arrows and repair costs.

[Vroek]

RO is quite extreme for players that dont use any premium items at all.
I know i couldn’t do it, i feel sorry for they who cant even get the basic comfort of no fatigue and free repairs (if needed).

Then again 'high profile' players that think 125 ximerin is too much for a full inventory repair. (125 ximerin < 0.16 euro)
It will not cost much to sustain a character or level up without fatigue.
Im sorry but i think alot of players are really cheap.

The high cost comes with leveling with XP-boosters only, which even then is not very much looking at the cost over a period of 6-12 months.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that is not going to play over a longer period of time.

I also think the relocation of mobs was bad, it killed large part of the WZ which now only host low level mobs.
At least make it so player over lvl 40 have to try their wings and after 45 it shouldnt be a single mob in inner realm to level on.
Is it strange that people think leveling is boring and start to whine, what unexpected can happen inside the walls?

Realm balance is tougher, increasing the XP and loot bonus even further.
On hours its really bad, because of general boredom that comes along with the over all low population. All realms been the smallest from time to time, and everyone is getting bored and frustrated.
On RA balance is much better, You will see some insanely large zergs and a lot of large gank squads but at least everyone can enjoy themselves here. edit: most of the time...

[UmarilsStillHere]

Time for me to have another crack at this

My story

When I first started to play regnum I played a Hunter, the only reason I stayed past lvl 12 is because superdaveninja found me in Fisgeal and invited me to Inq. I even went to anpus grad, I would not have known about Wz and proberly wouldent have returned to the game if not for this, I continued to play with a RL freind but by lvl 25 I was getting bored, there was simply nothing to do but grind (arena= getting owned over and over by lvl 50 barbs yay) So this boredom combined with a bug were my armour "changed" as I moved caused me to leave.

I plottered around a few other MMO's even went back to Runescape for 2-3 months.

Around easter I had a new PC and "something" im not sure what drew me back here, so I downloaded the game again and started playing, ofc most of INQ were shocked to see me, hunter still sucked so (stupidly) I made a knight, over the next 4 months I had a lot of fun, but also spent a halla lot of time in "trance" mode (were hours melted into each other in the long boreing slur that is, grinding) lvl 43, everything seemed to be going ok other than my lvling dieing on the floor)

Tada Horus is born 'great' finally I can get away from the "holas" even if I hardly had a problem with them to start with, lala I became one of the first 10 people onto Horus and had a good time grinding to lvl 16, but then remembered the slur of knight lvling, and made a conju.

This wasnt so bad, I loved not resting, but here I am not, lvl 43 and its starting to drag, ONE whole pixle of XP per 2 Kills, Horus, sucks on Ra I didnt like Forts because it was too laggy, And in my recent returns to Ra I noticed that in "peak" hours its immpossible to Hunt, I went to ignis with a freind he died in a 2-2 and on my way to meet up with him I find (and killed) no less than 5 mid lvl 30 players (not at once ofc) thats insanity, Ra is overcrouded.

Id love to continue to lvl my characters, but cant find the time or the willpower, besides my conju is FINE at 43 theres only one or 2 minor changes I would make to my support build If I was lvl 50, so I see even less point.

I have never used premium.

Balance,

The game is balanced for RVR as such there will never be balance, How is it that the marksman the most "overpowered" class lost to my knight and I still had half Hp? How is it that the conju a "balancedish" class can justify slapping on 50 defence buffs and running in circles as his lvl5(for some reason) Golem clobbers me (may have been something fishy here he summoned it and I killed it within 30 sec yet he instantly summoned another?)

The classes are made to work TOGETHER so 2 classes going one on one is never going to be "fair"

leveling

Anything I say here has been said so to sum up

Takes to long
XP sucks
Gold is okish, but sucks fro knights
Takes to long to get to the "interesting" part of Wz
Nothing to do at lower lvls (arena sort of but that just shows the "unbalance" more than anything)

Thats my opinion for now.

[Malik2]

Many people, I think, can relate to your story Paul.

Mine is similar: being in the Inq. and reading Valorious freak out on realm chat help keep me intersted until I hit the WZ with my conj and later with a marksman at around lvl 28.

Many of Horus' ills can be lessened with more players. It is refreshing to take a break from Horus and go to Ra and have instant action. Hell, most of the time all you have to do is take a few steps toward any bridge and you are in the thick of it.

Much of the boredom and frustration with realm imbalance, and there will pretty much always be realm imbalance based on the way RO is set up, will be lessed with more total players. If Horus has 500 players logged in as opposed to 100, these conversations would be different. There will always be complaints about aspects of the game like experiance rates, gold, etc. I don't necessarily expect NGD to do everything the players want in those areas. But, the core problem on Horus is population, and with that continued underpopulation not of only one or two realms but of all three...the main thrust of the game: RvR and PvP conflict is undermined.

So, in my opinion NGD needs to find new players, english speakers, and lots of them. There will always be attrition, people leave for a myriad of reasons, but like runescape and WoW and the others, they are replaced by as many or more than left. My sense is that Horus has been gaining new players at the same amout the server is losing or is losing more than it is gaining.

[-Edge-]

So maybe the more important thing is keeping new players? Because I agree with what Malik said, the server just gains new people, but at the same time they lose that same amount. By the way, from my experience, there are no real fort wars on Horus, forts are too easy to capture now anyway, but more importantly, there is no reason to capture them, especially when no one comes to fight back, everyone has just become lazy, but its not their fault, theres no chance, then because of that they get camped, or jumped while leveling, because the enemy has nothing better to do.

Really can we see what is going on here at the moment? Grinding is just, no, I can't describe it, it just has no sense. You make a level, only to do 1-4 quests that supply you with enough exp to get 1/6th of the way to your next level. Its so stupid because you fight the same thing over and over, and for a long time too, I talk to people and they just say like the original poster, they grind their way up, spending months time doing this, only to get screwed in the end for whatever reason.

Grinding, I don't even like that term, I mean leveling, just needs to be fun, exp should be recieved from guards and players, end of the story, just try and give me a reason not to say that.

Mobs need their loot redone, dragon rewards for instance are ha-ha-ha-larious, and there needs to be a point to fight and earn something off it the same time.

What if there was a rampage bonus or something? A real thirst for blood, the more mobs you kill the more exp you get,

Really I would love to make a new char, but Im forced not to because its fun sure up until around level 20, then you get less and less quests which eventually totally disapear in the 40's, and it starts to take a toll on you... oh leveling today again, on the same thing. Theres nothing achieved from higher levels anyway besides more points for skills and stats go up.

But its strange because exp grows in a wierd way each level, where it might go 4k tnl, then 8k, then out of nowhere 20k, next thing you know 100k, it dosen't go the way it should. If you look at the graphs that have been done in the past like the ones Katie did you see how the path is irregular. And its not like that with stats, thats another thing I don't really like, the range from lvl 45-50 is like lvl 1-45 all over again, thats insane, and my stats only grow slightly, whereas they should be irregualr if the exp is irregular.

[Znurre]

What I want to defend is Regnums unique RvR.
I think it is ofcourse important to get new players and most of all to keep them playing - but the game should not be too mainstream, to me that would be devastating.

Instead, I think the key is to come up with something unique that blends into the RvR parts of the game and enhance it.
An example:

Dragons. They should not be normal bosses like in any other game, but instead they should live in the mountains where players can't reach them and roam the warzone and inner realm regulary. Invade cities, change the outcome of battles in WZ, etc.

Perhaps this idea with the dragons could also be used to manipulate realm balance.
When a dragon decides to take a flight "he will check" what realm currently is very underbalanced in a fortwar and go there to assist them.
When there is no action in the warzone at all, he would insead invade the cities to keep people busy all the time

Something similar could be done for the superbosses, but I guess NGD already got some general idea about how they should work.

PS. Edge, your idea with a premium item that increase the durability of the armor is great.

Originally Posted by Vroek

It will not cost much to sustain a character or level up without fatigue.
Im sorry but i think alot of players are really cheap.

Until i had to level a marks with new economy, i thought the same - especially while leveling in WZ with a "war setup".

I use 2 repair hammers a day, just for the bow. In order to make 43 to 44, i used around 22k arrows, thing i can't get with xym. 1 arrow = 11 gold. 22k arrows = 242k. Repairing a bow with gold is 32k/repair. Without boosters, i needed 4 days to do it : 242k + 64*4 = 498k gold. Income is 600k-ish, according to the amount of gold i've atm. So i almost lose gold and i'm leveling in WZ, so initiation arrows are no way

I can say that repair hammer is nice for warriors, because weapons and armor usually become worn at the same speed, while the hammer will just be useful for the bow as marks, and won't pay arrows.

The high cost comes with leveling with XP-boosters only, which even then is not very much looking at the cost over a period of 6-12 months.

Well, i know a knight in Alsius who leveled the f... hard way and have 1M at 50. I'm sure you know who he is, and how much time it took to him to be 50. On the other hand, my knight over boosted before 45 has 4.8M - thanks to the nice aquas knights we have in inner. Nice example of realm imbalance ^^

I also think the relocation of mobs was bad, it killed large part of the WZ which now only host low level mobs.
At least make it so player over lvl 40 have to try their wings and after 45 it shouldnt be a single mob in inner realm to level on.

Totally agree, the difference between 45 and 50 is not that much, and for those who arrived after mob relocation, some places like menirah surroundings were the place to NOT go while hunting because we had 10+ people in beach leveling on aquas leets, all 45+. I imagine how meni beach would look like with current population and old mob location... easily 40+ at rush hour if you compare with inner realm beach !

When gigo says Ignis is like China, believe me he's right on this, if you kick the 45+ of inner, we would be easily the twice we're currently on fort wars and leveling areas. Meleketi beach is your #1 XP ranking dream !

WZ was also quite safe from hunting parties because wars in forts were almost permanent, the boring thing in RO atm, is that we lost the "instant action" thingy - hence now all you have to do is hunting, and killing levelers is fun 5 minutes, no more, especially levelers in WZ nowadays are mid 3x, low 4x. Well this last point is personal - but i'm not the only one thinking this way.

If you're more than 45+ and want to level in WZ, now you're camped camped and camped. And enemies comes by groups from 5 to 20 ! Swamps, shaanarid, orc camp, between PN and PN2, everywhere... and good luck to find some leveling mates if you're from Ignis or Syrtis. I even tried to level in Alsius peninsule - same there, not enough goats to kill the greens camping them (and local population is quite hostile too ^^).

Peninsules from Alsius and Ignis suck anyway as mage/archer, no market at kilometers and heavy loots ! Ignis lacks an interesting alternative for meni area at lvl 40-45, etc etc.

Really atm, PvE is the most imba thing between realms, and people complaining about Ignis lvl 40+ leveling should go in Alsius...

[Malik2]

I agree with the comments of both Edge and Znurre.

Retaining new players can be tricky. We were fairly good at it in the White Company, but with any on line game there will be attrition, massive attrition, for a multitude of reasons.

The trick is to have a marketing plan in place to increase your overall player census. I have no idea what NGD is going to market to english speakers, this could be because I am simply not active in those areas of the interent where they are messaging, or it could be a general lack of focused marketing in general, I'll leave that for others to ponder.

For my part, the game itself is solid. It has some good and bad areas like the others. But, in my experiance it is simply one of the best mmorpgs available.

[_dracus_]

Originally Posted by Malik2

For my part, the game itself is solid. It has some good and bad areas like the others. But, in my experiance it is simply one of the best mmorpgs available.

For me it's the total opposite, only the community is solid. Game is buged, and has really nothing to offer in PvE. Glad I got 2 lvl 50s and few 40s to play with in WZ till they reach 0 gold. There is so much bugs that I don't even post them when I found them now, because we don't get feedback about that from NGD.