98 replies to this topic

[Heimdallr]

Past 2 weeks we have been watching the test WoEs to not only see the interest but also how well they work in this new server. There is still testing we need to perform on the character server to make it as stable as possible so that WoE isn't negatively effected. This final test is why we haven't declared yet the full opening of WoE.

• If everything tests out well then WoE will happen fully this weekend.
• If it does not we will do another test WoE with all castles open, we will announce which of the 2 options are going in on Thursday.

A point of concern that we have seen and has been expressed to us is that the amount of castles and perhaps the size of alliances may be too imbalancing to make for a fun challenge WoE scenario.

If we do another test WoE we will do it as a "Vote" every castle take would be 1 vote. The castles with the fewest votes would be unimplemented, possibly bringing the number of castles per realm or making some realms not have WoE so that more players are focused on specific targets. Also possibly changing the number of players per guild (hard to do now) or limiting number of alliances somehow so it isn't 3/4 of the WoE population in 1 side meaning the other side just quits.

These are very aggressive changes, and they do bring some concerns with them if implemented. If we limit which castles exists we would need to do the "random" WoE box so that any castle has the chance to drop any piece. I'm not against this idea but I do understand it takes away from the idea of "we need to hold THIS" castle instead of just holding whatever castle. Also I am not 100% sure if we can limit the guild size or the alliance size, we've not tried it before.

I do know that if WoE gets too 1 sided it will be necessary for something to happen so that it remains fun and invigorating to do WoE.

[cybernetic]

I would be against making guild size smaller.. but I would be for reducing alliance size.

And I would be against the randomized WoE boxes. I think a better alternative would be to either change up the castles available every quarter, or take out all the sleip forts and then split their drops over other castles.

[Pistola22]

Limiting the amount of forts will only hurt the server population more. Smaller guilds have less opportunities to take an end fort and will be forced to either merge into another guild or quit woe altogether.. the exact opposite of what you're trying to accomplish.

[RonSilver]

im not in to the limited casttle number thing.
i came back to play as i remember the game was...

[Virtuelol]

im not in to the limited casttle number thing.
i came back to play as i remember the game was...

I understand where you're coming from, but the game we knew had a MUCH higher population back then (2x~4x bigger than classic) -- change is needed, server is not going to survive with Insurr and NET being the only guilds with 50+ players on.

Also possibly changing the number of players per guild (hard to do now) or limiting number of alliances somehow so it isn't 3/4 of the WoE population in 1 side meaning the other side just quits.

Capping the amount of players in a guild and disabling alliances is a great idea; it doesn't leave a mark on the server at all, it is something that can be reverted if it doesn't work, so it's something worth trying for sure.

Capping guilds to a lower number (around 36) can be good because currently Valhalla, Valkyrie, Sugar and Faction are nothing compared to the giants Insurr and NET are. It's not their fault of course, but it's simply not healthy for the server as a whole for there to be such a difference in power. Most new players come on Classic because they miss the old WoEs, so they'll be looking to join a competitive WoE guild. Yes some will go to the lower tier guilds, but the majority will apply to Insurr and NET, making the gap between them and the smaller guilds even bigger.

The point here is to recreate the scene from back in 2007 where there used to be (more or less) the same amount of people per guild/alliance side. You can't just expect for such a new server to start off with 5+ guilds that all have 50+ players on. I mean, you could expect it but clearly it's not what the server turned out to be. I feel like it's important to make appropriate changes right now so Insurr and NET don't get far too ahead of the smaller guilds, making any future changes make less of a difference because it would be too late.

Back to the point, recreating the old scene is possible but it requires guilds to be capped because of the proportion of players:guilds on the server. It's as simple as that.

When there's 6 guilds (Insurrection, NET, Valkyrie, Sugar, Faction, Valhalla and perhaps more) with even people online during WoE, WoE actually becomes a challenge because every guild will put up a fight and it'll show who is better. This is something that would be possible right now with such changes.

It's also much easier to form a guild with 3x players. There is no way someone is going to create a guild from scratch at this point in time and succeed to get a 50+ player guild running. And when WoE on Classic looks competitive, more players will join, more guilds will be formed. At that point, it would be possible to raise the guild player cap and work from there to bring back the huge WoE's.

I can go on, but you get the point. It needs to be done for both the bigger and smaller guilds, it only makes sense. What's the point of just dominating because of numbers/attendance? get real here people, if you want the server to last, you want this.

Edited by Virtuelol, 25 September 2012 - 05:44 PM.

[jas8907]

I don't think limiting the number of castles would be all that great-certain castles their own strategic points. I think limiting the amount of realms and putting them on rotation would be a better idea. Like Brit+Pront one day, Payon+Al De on the other (or something like that).

[Hrishi]

I can understand the concerns you have. However, I don't think it would be a good idea to implement random box type god pieces. A very big aspect of WoE is to aim for specific castles based on the pieces each castle drops. Perhaps you could simply close 1 realm each week on a rotation or only have 1 realm open on rotation?

[Heimdallr]

As all of you have realized there are pros and cons to the choices here. We cannot allow the WoE to get one sided as that assures that WoE participation will decline and with it many other game interests. I do expect WoE to pick up when it starts since many don't want to do WoEs that "don't count".

[CAPP]

Sounds like some great decisions were made! I look forward to seeing them implemented. If the number of alliances give you trouble there is always the easier programming aspect of removing the ability to create any at all.

[Xellie]

Just leave it alone Heim! It worked back in the day it'll work now. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Random box thing... really does take away from WoE, honest to god, all you'll do is enforce farming with no offense with random boxes. I happen to like trollololol luina 4, let it be! When I go to an easy castle, I want to have this mindet of "I can hold X but I get lower reward Y although it's easier" or "I might not hold Z but because I can get A from it, it's worth the risk".

As for guild sizes, leave those alone too. I pull a healthy 40 people for WoE atm, I need to max out that 56, well that's just a matter of guild levels.....
Sure, it'd be awesome if NET and insur were smaller.... actually, it won't because they'll just make a second guild and ally themselves. If Sugar, or valk, or faction, or Omega Core etc want help, find another guild, ally up and use this ingame feature. Splitting a big strong guild group up so they have 2 recallers is actually tactically viable and can make them MUCH stronger if executed correctly.

None of this will help.
Same with splitting realms. Am I gonna WoE when luina or valk are the only realms open? Probably not. Not without god item random boxes, but see above!
Changing alliance sizes? Oh pish the whole time I was on Chaos, I don't think I spent more than a couple of months in an alliance that had less than SIX guilds. Players always find a way around these things. It's a waste of energy.

But what will help?

First of all, revamping treasure I think is a good idea. Have the god item parts come from an NPC Daly Quen style. Use the freed up slots in the treasure drop tables for new things. This means bubblegum won't work on god item parts.... GOOD. The NPC can read the castle econ and adjust the rewards based on that to make Econning more appealing.

Make those GDs DAMN GOOD. Not just good. DAMN GOOD. Fix the mechanics, make sure exp IS LOST - make them pvp. Bring back the GD wars of old.
If nobody is levelling down there to kill, I'll kick my own guildies out so they kill eachother. People ENJOY that style of risky levelling. Please, make it good.

There are many many many things I can type many many words about on WoE. But all I can really do is look at my experiences of WoE over the last 8 years or so and explain what I know people reacted to positively and negatively and what those driving forces were that made me and my friends so invested in to the game... and invested enough to make those super alliances. Dramatic and laggy as they may be, people got really involved in that stuff and it's what makes RO - RO.

[cybernetic]

yay xellie

[Kadnya]

Please take all measures you deem necesary without making castles drop random boxes and deleting the point of holding or attacking forts, and removing the point of actually having battles. Guilds fight over specific castles because they need to. Remove the need to fight over castles, and you kinda kill battles in classic woe before even starting ^^;.

. I would like to play preRenewal woe, not a poke-everyone-renewal with classic mechanics. Thank you.

Edited by Kadnya, 25 September 2012 - 06:26 PM.

[Xellie]

note : Please don't impliment REAL WoE this week if all goes well, do it next week so that I have sufficient time to tell people "ya know this is the REAL one now, no more silly tests, please make it" - lack of notice causes a lot of problems in this game like that!

[cybernetic]

Don't forget WoE 2!

Portals </3

[Xellie]

WoE 2 pretrans? rather gouge my eyeballs out with small cactuses dipped in lemon juice.

[Pistola22]

WoE 2 pretrans? rather gouge my eyeballs out with small cactuses dipped in lemon juice.

yeah we wouldn't want a woe setting where organization actually matters.

[Xellie]

That's not it, it's just that pre-trans chars are not strong enough to kill cades, or guardians... or survive guardians for the most part. It was not built with pretrans in mind!

[Amis]

Xellie said it best. I agree with the things to leave alone as well as the things to consider changing.

[Virtuelol]

Sure, it'd be awesome if NET and insur were smaller.... actually, it won't because they'll just make a second guild and ally themselves.

If there is a guild cap and alliances are disabled for the time being, they can't ally themselves. I play in Insurr, I'm not part of one of the smaller guilds. I'd prefer the 2 way guild dominance on Classic to end. I would rather have a competitive server than let the server deteriorate itself.

When I go to an easy castle, I want to have this mindet of "I can hold X but I get lower reward Y although it's easier" or "I might not hold Z but because I can get A from it, it's worth the risk".

Look I know everyone should be able to play the game they wish to play it, but clearly, what it comes down to when people consider playing on Classic for the WoE; they take a look at the WoE scene and how competitive things are. The fact that you want easy castles doesn't contribute to the health of the server, so it doesn't weight much in a thread like this one.

If you want easy castles, become organized and kill unorganized guilds with the same attendance. It's easy if you're good. This is about the War of Emperium, not roaming classes running around breaking emperiums and relogging...

Edited by Virtuelol, 25 September 2012 - 06:56 PM.

[AllyBB]

If possible, you could change the ally feature to be something like... you can only use the alliance feature if the amount of members is = or <28 and limit to only ally 1 other guild. That's half of 56, a full guild. Not perfect but...something along these lines. Numbers/amounts could be adjusted to try to even the playing field (if this is really a huge concern).

[Xellie]

If there is a guild cap and alliances are disabled for the time being, they can't ally themselves. I play in Insurr so it's not like I'm trying to put an end to the 2 way guild dominance classic is having right now. I would rather have a competitive server than let the server deteriorate itself.

You don't need to officially ally to ally. Like I said, I've been part of many alliances bigger than 4 guilds. Simply put you have one guild in one room, one in another. Use them to sandwich. Have one for offense whilst the other sits comfortably at home. It doens't change much. What it DOES do is just enforce the use of more recallers.

Perhaps I'm contributing to that "dominance" because my guild setup is defensive, not offensive, been lazy getting from 44 spaces to 56 and frankly, I refuse to ally atm. But that is of my own choice, not the game management. Sorry if it's a problem for you. There are a lot of other reasons why those two guilds are on top.

I'm not allowed to mention them here I don't wan forum ban!

Look I know everyone should be able to play the game they wish to play it, but clearly, what it comes down to when people consider playing on Classic for the WoE; they take a look at the WoE scene and how competitive things are. The fact that you want easy castles doesn't contribute to the health of the server, so it doesn't weight much in a thread like this one.

If you want easy castles, become organized and kill unorganized guilds with the same attendance. It's easy if you're good. This is about the War of Emperium, not roaming classes running around breaking emperiums and relogging...

Ok, you misread what I'm saying. The castle layouts are not changing. (iirc, heim/oda said they don't have the ability to edit maps inhouse) - what this means is that some are easier to defend than others. Lets use Valk 3 vs Valk 2 for example? The weaker guild will pick Valk 3 because it has the better defensive positions that can be held with less people/items. The stronger guild can hold Valk 2 because they are stronger and they can get a hammer part instead of a bris part.

These are considerations that will be thrown away completely with randomised boxes. We'd have strong guilds like insur holing up in the most defensible castles, whilst the weaker ones get the harder ones to fight over... and WoE becomes lopsided.

You shouldn't be rewarded with GOOD items for picking the easiest castle to precast for 2 hours.

Edited by Xellie, 25 September 2012 - 06:58 PM.

[jas8907]

Yeah I agree with Xellie-the way guild drops are need to be changed. Maybe it would even be a good idea to drop things like multiples of bombs/acids/gems/starsands/etc. Guild dungeons also need to be hella buffed through EXP and/or monster spawns. Everyone knows Geffen GD is pretty damn good, but Payon, Luina, and Valk should be on par with it. Oh, and they need to be PK maps where insurance has no effect.

[Virtuelol]

You don't need to officially ally to ally. Like I said, I've been part of many alliances bigger than 4 guilds. Simply put you have one guild in one room, one in another. Use them to sandwich. Have one for offense whilst the other sits comfortably at home. It doens't change much. What it DOES do is just enforce the use of more recallers.

Yeah people can do that and that's fine in my opinion because they still have to deal with friendly fire. There is a big difference in that though. If 2 guilds are "allied per say", they can do as you say -- defend one room and another room. 1 guild will not be able to stop them (unless they mess up good), however that's fine because 2 guilds should always beat 1 guild.

But now... if those 2 guilds are defending under friendly fire and 2 other guilds decide to "ally per say" -- they will have an advantage, because once they push the defending guild all the way to the emp, the defending guild is at a disavantage because they can't precast over the same CP with their "allied" guild. Things like that make a huge difference.

Friendly fire ally is much less overpowered than the real ally.

Ok, you misread what I'm saying. The castle layouts are not changing. (iirc, heim/oda said they don't have the ability to edit maps inhouse) - what this means is that some are easier to defend than others. Lets use Valk 3 vs Valk 2 for example? The weaker guild will pick Valk 3 because it has the better defensive positions that can be held with less people/items. The stronger guild can hold Valk 2 because they are stronger and they can get a hammer part instead of a bris part.

These are considerations that will be thrown away completely with randomised boxes. We'd have strong guilds like insur holing up in the most defensible castles, whilst the weaker ones get the harder ones to fight over... and WoE becomes lopsided.

You shouldn't be rewarded with GOOD items for picking the easiest castle to precast for 2 hours.

I see what you're saying now and that makes sense. I agree that random boxes are a bad idea, a better idea would be to readjust drops. Let's say 6 castles are open, 2 in alde, 2 in geffen and 2 in pront. Have all god item pieces in those 6 but randomize which drops what so each castle is needed. You shouldn't be able to get everything from one castle of course. Every two months or so, switch up castles. etc

--

Anyway, look, if you're really able to pull off 40+ members during WoE, I'm glad because that's another guild closer to the attendance Insurr/NET is getting, but I just didn't see that sort of attendance lately from your guild and I don't see the other guilds having it either. I don't think this thread would exist if guilds were balanced in numbers, but they aren't lol. I really think it's going to degrade the server to not do anything about it.

As for WoE 1 vs WoE 2... WoE 1 can be just as organized, just youtube videos from other RO servers, private or official... it exists.

Edited by Virtuelol, 25 September 2012 - 07:14 PM.

[Xellie]

Yeah, I know, friendly fire and stuff.
I guess I'm just used to working around it that I don't see it as much of an issue in those settings. I'm talking like 8 v 8 guild alliances etc. we used to do 6 guilds allied 3/3 sometimes and all sorts.

You just can't stop all these people working together. Even if they end up in different castles (insur 1 holds brit 3 insur 2 holds brit 4) they'll find a way! Not that I'm fully against it, but even if you limit them to 2, faction + sugar won't beat insur + anyother.
When you go to zero allies, it'll just hurt / discourage those smaller ones who need to ally because they're not hardcore enough (teehee)

Anyway, look, if you're really able to pull off 40+ members during WoE, I'm glad because that's another guild closer to the attendance Insurr/NET is getting, but I just didn't see that sort of attendance lately from your guild and I don't see the other guilds having it either. I don't think this thread would exist if guilds were balanced in numbers, but they aren't lol. I really think it's going to degrade the server to not do anything about it.

to be fair, we didn't really supply and a few people were like "meh test woe" - this isn't anything that can be judged until WoE starts for real. (lately being the last 2 saturdays?)

Edited by Xellie, 25 September 2012 - 07:22 PM.

[Kuropi]

Just leave all the castles open and don't screw with stuff ~_~ There are people out there that probably want to WoE, without being forced into like, the only 8 castles with all the super powerful guilds/alliances in them. You'll scare these people off and hurt the server population. You might not think there is really a significant number of them, but many of these probably didn't show up for the test WoEs for that very reason. For them, fighting NET, Insur, Sugar, etc. in three castles is a total waste of time because they don't have a chance. Not only that. There are some pure PVM guilds out there right now, and quite a few of those eventually turn to WoE as many of their members max out their levels. Only the really seriously WoE players/guilds are going to be participating right off the bat, most likely, but the % population of the server that gets involved in WoE is probably going to go up over time as more of these people get high enough to compete, and more guilds that didn't used to WoE decide to give it a shot.

The guild I joined in Valk server is an excellent example of this. A tiny pvm guild with like, 15-20 active members, that was just beginning to transition into WoE. Over time, it became one of the major players in WoE for quite some time. But if there had been a limited number of castles to fight over to begin with, there is no way in hell we would've had a chance, being forced to fight against the likes of Smokies, Valk, Disso, Rambo Crew etc. and Immaculate would've died off long before it ever began.

Edited by Kuropi, 25 September 2012 - 07:24 PM.