A suggestion:

Keep Scenarios Open during Seige and Lock Down or implement cross server scenarios

Make LoTD open for both sides when a city is in the Lock Down stage.  At least then there will be some action to be had. 

Make alternate entrances for the City Dungeons when the City is locked down.

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Akalukz wrote:

A suggestion:

 

Keep Scenarios Open during Seige and Lock Down or implement cross server scenarios

 

Make LoTD open for both sides when a city is in the Lock Down stage.  At least then there will be some action to be had. 

 

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This isn't as easy as it seems.

On Iron Rock .. Order can hardly field one full instance while destro has many going.  If you open scenarios/lotd, there might not be any Order at all!  Then the city just becomes a 2 hour afk wait for gear.  

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Zippy123 wrote:
Good to hear. Maybe just let the SC's keep running as normal even during a siege, I would just remove the SC's from contributing to Victory Points and cross server them. They really are completely separate from what is happening on the ORvR front anyways.

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As there is no kudos button for individual posts, I will just highlight this instead to show my support.

edit:

So as this post actually is on-topic, a concern of mine, if not the concern of mine, is that there seems to be 2 diametrically-opposed gameplay mechanics in WAR:  Either both sides or even, ---OR--- you get gear.  If both sides are equally populated and skilled, then the oRvR lakes will be at a "standstill", and the most one side can hope for is a few dropped crests, whereas during a 1-sided stompfest, 1 side gets lots of gear (which is a necessity for this game... sadly, IMO, but nonetheless, it is) for essentially playing against no one.

Improved keep rewards was a nice touch to offset this somewhat, but that only helps when both sides ARE on; it does little to convince a side that isn't bothering to oppose to actually start to.

While this isn't directly about city sieges (although the basic concept behind it could be applied to a city siege) I believe that everything leading up to the pinacle of content is just as responsible. City sieges were supposed to be a bit more rare specifically because when both sides actively participated in the RvR campaign, proper defense would be employed and zones wouldn't be locked so quickly. Unfortunately with the condition the campaign is in, quite a large number of people have become disinterested by sheer numbers. I have some suggestions to help both disperse the population to a more reasonable level and hopefully control the speed at which the RvR campaign moves.

1) Give depth to keep sieges.
Keeps are the star player in RvR. They dominate the landscape and are the epitome of medieval warfare. By knowing some terminology and the general objectives in a traditional castle siege, we can both make the fight more authentic and more enticing.

There exists in every tier 3+ keep certain elements: A causeway, a gatehouse, an outer wall, a courtyard, an interior, and a lords room. Traditionally, each of these positions held a specific strategic value and would each be fought for inch-by-inch. Why not then make each a smaller objective in and of itself?

To begin the siege of a keep, the attackers first sieze the causeway, guarded only by a few roaming patrols and any enemy players who choose to be in the area. Once the area has been captured, the siege begins. At this point, all other strategic points unlock and become viable targets. There is an 8-10 second capture time followed by a 30 second warning, should they leave it unassailed, the point flips control.

There is a number of different effects each of the points can have; for instance control of the gatehouse/balcony can allow control of the oil and the ability to repair the keep doors, the courtyard can have barracks that spawn the NPC guards, etc etc. Control all points at the same time and the keep is yours. As an inscentive for defense to fight off their attackers, holding all capture points and retaking the causeway solidifies their hold over the keep and renders it unassailable for an hour.

2) Add more battlefield objectives.
Large scale fights are fun once in a while, but if its all you do then it's easy to become jaded on some truly epic battles. With only 4 battlefield objectives per zone, and each located in the narrow RvR lake, sheer force of numbers is the only way to pose any sort of threat when locking a zone.

When it comes to locking a zone, the fight should be nothing less than a full-blown land war. Each zone needs to have dozens of smaller strategic points scattered throughout the area. These points need not even be guarded by NPCs, or have a lockout timer. This way, a number of small groups traveling light from point to point capturing land can effectively fight and disperse the zerg into much more managable chunks. Voila, smaller strategic battles not based solely on numbers.

3) Make PQs in both PvE areas RvR competitive, and treat them as objectives.
There already exists a number of public quests that can be completed either by order or destruction, each having much the same objectives. However, by opening up the entire map to both sides instead of each side getting their own rail-shooter of questing zones and PQs, many things happen:

• We as players have much more content to experience and can either assist our own campaign or thwart our enemies.
• The map becomes more diverse and less linear.
• The game starts living up to their slogan of "War is everywhere."
• Player contact increases as we have competition to fight against while questing.
• And most importantly, the zerg is further dispersed across the map as zone control is being fought for in the PvE areas as well.

For this to have full effect, each PQ functions much like a battlefield objective. Completing the PQ flips the area into your control. However, your opponent may then go and complete the PQ under their victory conditions to flip it to their control. Control of a PQ adds victory points to your victory point pool in much the same way as battlefield objectives.

Please take this under due consideration, the game cannot handle even more band-aid fixes to glaring problems. We need to fix the underlying problems to properly heal the game.

In your internal discussions about RvR, please also include discussions about scenarios, which are one of the major way players gain Renown. Due to the absolute lack of any RvR from T1-T3, more players are racing to level 28 and jumping into the T4 scenarios. Even a difference of a few lower level 28s can have a major impact on winning or losing a scenario, which in turn can change if a zone flips or not. 

Several suggestions have been thrown out on how to improve scenarios, including:

1. Enforce the level brackets for each tier. So level 1-11 players will always go into the T1 scenarios, 12-21 go into T2, 22-31 go to T3, and 32-40 go to T4 (see next point for a change to this, though). 

2. Add a new set of T5 scenario for only level 40+ players. As everyone has stated, the power difference between a level 39 player and a level 40 RR 80 player are night and day.

3. Anywhere in the world the player queues for a scenario they will always be placed into the correct queue based upon their level.

4. Only allow RR 40+ players to roll on royal crests.

I haven't really touched on the distribution of archtypes within a scenario as this is a whole separate topic, but it is also an issue.

Glad to hear you guys are working out the kinks in the Tier 4 RvR design.

I was wondering how the bug-smashing is going.  I haven't heard much about it in a while, and there are a huge amount of "polish" bugs in the game ("1201", the entire Carrion Nest PQ in LotD, keybindings, -chanceToBeCrit display, memory leak, animations at a distance, many many many more).

I was also wondering how the 3rd-Party-Program blocking is going, or if it is.  3rd-party-program users are fairly common and the educated can easily tell the difference between using them and using skill.  With the unlimited free trials, I can see those users running absolutely rampant in Tier 1 because losing their account wouldn't cost them any money.

Thanks for any info.

To address one thing

• Cross Server Scenarios: Yes this is an idea we have discussed, and we would like to do it, however it's not feasible to expect it in the immediate or even near future. There is a significant amount of engineering involved with something like this and it will take a similarily significant amount of time to accomplish it. 

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Kladiest wrote:

... 

I was also wondering how the 3rd-Party-Program blocking is going, or if it is.  3rd-party-program users are fairly common and the educated can easily tell the difference between using them and using skill.  With the unlimited free trials, I can see those users running absolutely rampant in Tier 1 because losing their account wouldn't cost them any money.

 

Thanks for any info.

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We actually have a Dev Diary going up this week talking a little bit about our approach to "h4x0rz".

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Andy wrote: 

We actually have a Dev Diary going up this week talking a little bit about our approach to "h4x0rz".

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I am greatly looking forward to it - thanks!

Thank you andy for the response.  There are some future suggestion threads going around about the instances and revamping that have some very good ideas.

I know you guys are as busy as hell and in a million different directions, but if you do get a chance, check them out some of them are starting to get really indepth and have mature construction.

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Andy wrote:

Player concerns over RvR are being heard loud and clear. We understand that while there have been many improvments to the RvR experience, specifically in Tier 4, there is still room for further work.

 

Some of the areas that we are currently focusing on internally are:

 

• The City Siege experience: We acknowledge that there are areas of frustration within the city siege experience. We understand that some players start to lose interest after the first hour of stage one.We also understand the current feeling that some players have about stage 2, which contributes to the next area of concern.
• Frustration over cities deranking: These frustrations have been communicated to the development team and are being taken into consideration.
• Lack of options: We acknowledge there are some players who do not want to participate in the city siege. These concerns are being communicated and the dev team is aware of these sentiments.
• Repeated City Sieges: We are aware of the current rate at which Cities are being sieged. While expected after the 1.3.2 removal of Fortresses from the campaign, it is none the less more frequent than we would like. Please stay tuned for more information regarding the underdog system soon, which will help to mitigate the frequency at which Cities are being sieged.

So these are just some of the things we're currently taking into consideration right now. The Community team is currently working with the Developers to bring you information about how we're approaching these situations as soon as possible, so please keep your eyes on the Herald and the Official Forums for more information.

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So when IC on DC was on farm for 6 month's and we never saw a City above rank 1 for 3 month's or more it was alright then but not now? At Least now they have a option to do the city dungeons unlike our options were then

I think everybody need's to stop QQing most server's were on farm status by order for month's and now they can't take a dose of there own medicine

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Igotchoo wrote:

 

So when IC on DC was on farm for 6 month's and we never saw a City above rank 1 for 3 month's or more it was alright then but not now? At Least now they have a option to do the city dungeons unlike our options were then

 

 

I think everybody need's to stop QQing most server's were on farm status by order for month's and now they can't take a dose of there own medicine

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Do you know how many players were lost from DC during that time period?

Dark Crag used to be the premiere server and the highest populated one as well.

City Sieges happening because of being outnumbered and being lockout of cities=people quitting.

People are already unsubbing now until something is done about the frequency of City Sieges.

This game can't take another exodus just because the opposing side wants "revenge", revenge is what will kill Dark Crag.

Think about the big picture for once.

I'm going to sound pretty smug in this post because I don't think my opinion will be considered beyond "another bias players stupid idea who doesn't understand the situation with their unreasonable demands."

Here's the deal, the end game sucks and has for a long time. The only reason people will give positive feedback about cities is because they either have not experienced it enough, or believe negative feedback is pointless so they try to counter it with BS. Everybody has had "that one time when the fights were balanced it was fun" moment but it's too rare and not many people are buying "potential" after 1 year.

Despite any claims, the only problem with cities right now is the fact that there is nothing that makes anybody want to give a crap about PvP in the city. Attackers don't raid cities because they "want to stick it to the enemy," they raid cities because they want their gear. Defenders don't defend cities because "they want to defend their realm pride," they defend it because they don't want 6 more hours of that crap if captured.

That's the reality folks, all the good ideas get shut down to the great "it's complicated and won't be implemented in the near future therefore we can't afford to spend time developing it now either" response.

Here's what won't work;

-Keep scenarios open (yeah it will keep me in the game but it doesn't help your cities) [Let alone a lot of people dislike scenarios despite my love for them]

-Make VPs harder to get based on some win/lose equation (so cities are a little more rare, doesn't make them good yet)

-Underdog system (harder for winning side to raid again or extra rewards for defenders, who cares it doesn't make the city concept good still)

My concern, you guys aren't currently working or will be working on anything to significantly change the city mechanic to make the end game interesting. I don't care about damage control as much as I care about innovation, give me something I can work with, some information worth a discussion at least.

How many people have experienced this conversation?

Guy 1: "hey buddy still playing WAR?"

Guy 2: "yeah"

Guy 1: "they change the end game yet?"

Guy 2: "nah stage 2 and king encounters are the same still"

Guy 1: "oh yeah are they buggy still"

Guy 2: "yeah"

Guy 1: "god I can't wait for Diablo 3 or WAR 40k"

Guy 2: "WAR is still cool...when scenarios pop and off group doesn't suck"

You know what would be nice but won't probably happen? A little idea I like to call the "Champion Defenders" concept.

Situation: You log online, your realm is in the city, you can't get into a warband or instance worth your time but you still want to defend your city. You click your previously greyed out scenario button and you see;

Champion Defenders

1 v 1

6 v 6 (premade only)

You think to yourself "hey this is great, I may not have a double warband or warband but I can still do something!" You win a whole bunch of 1 v 1, some guildies eventually log on and you do some 6 v 6 and win those, then suddenly the city is over and successfully defended.

As you are walking through Altdorf war quarters you see two statues with signs on them, you click the sign on the one statue and it says "such n such champion player defeated x many foes bravely on their own." You click on the other statue sign and it says "such n such champion guild defeated x many guilds bravely on their own." You walk away thinking "wow what a great feature and it probably updates every city defense!"

(Not going to express my ideas on the core city concept because it would change the city way too much, but at least the Champion Defender idea is something sort of reasonable for the "options" part.)

Conclusion

I don't know what you Mythic guys will do; you give some focus areas for feedback but without any parameters. Are you looking for ideas to patch job the city or are you fishing for concepts for a longer term fix? I don't know, others don't know, you'll probably say "hey for both" then not reply and many are forced to assume the worst calming hoping for the best while reviewing other up coming games just incase.

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Arwing wrote:

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Igotchoo wrote:

 

So when IC on DC was on farm for 6 month's and we never saw a City above rank 1 for 3 month's or more it was alright then but not now? At Least now they have a option to do the city dungeons unlike our options were then

 

 

I think everybody need's to stop QQing most server's were on farm status by order for month's and now they can't take a dose of there own medicine

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Do you know how many players were lost from DC during that time period?

 

Dark Crag used to be the premiere server and the highest populated one as well.

 

City Sieges happening because of being outnumbered and being lockout of cities=people quitting.

 

People are already unsubbing now until something is done about the frequency of City Sieges.

 

This game can't take another exodus just because the opposing side wants "revenge", revenge is what will kill Dark Crag.

 

Think about the big picture for once.

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I do see the Big picture and i agree with you to a certain extent BUT..........

I didn't see you voicing these exact same concerns when it was you guy's on top and the penalties for a rank 1 City were more severe. And you got all your gear because of it.

All we every heard was QQ more, Organize, Deal with it, Get used to it, It's not gonna stop

And don't start in with we had to take fort's blah blah. You guy's too fort's with 10 people defending because Destro got sick of defending fort over and over again 10 times a day when you can take them in 10 min with 10 defender's. I can't count the number of times i defended one alone. And this happened for 6+ month's of a 1 star IC

I didn't ask for fort's to be removed from the game I actually enjoyed them. and it isn't like we can't take them now....... but it got to the point that the only time we would even see order was when it was a fort because you didn't defend fort's

 My point is we asked for all the changes for Month's and Month's and it's funny that now thing's are gonna change when we can finally get our gear. And have a chance to kill your King at least once. You had 6+ month's to farm your warlord and our King for gear. and all this QQing is only after 2 week's of being able to do stage to after it was broken.

What they need to implement is a way for people to be able to farm there gear without the 6 hr (18 for us back in the day) lockout's and without Sc's for those that don't wanna do the city for 2 hrs (And yes I think if the other side cap's the zones it is still right to lock the city for the 2 hr's) And for us on DC they need to allow full Xfer's off the server so t1-t3 is an option. It is a dead server with a low/low pop all the time and no new people coming because trial account's and stuff don't give the option to go DC even though it is the last Open RvR server. I know most of us don't even care about the rule set anymore and are very willing to go to a care bear server.... I mean a Core server

I wish you all could implement something like Lord of the Rings Online has in their monster play area such as the "Troll/Ranger" system. Basically in LOTRO if a certain number of keeps were held by the enemy you could spend points to play as a Troll for like an hour. The troll was basically like a Hero level mob here in WAR. Depending on how bad you were losing you could have up to 2 trolls in the zone at a time. For the good guy side they could have up to like 3 rangers which were also hero level but they needed a bit more finesse to be effective.

In warhammer it would be neat for the underdog side to be able to spend perhaps token or ordinance or something in order to be able to play something like perhaps a demon (Bloodthirster/Lord of Change) on the destruction side and perhaps a steamtank or Ogre on the order side. There are a lot of possibilities really and I think it would add another layer of immersion to PvP. That system was a great addition to LOTRO and I think something like it could be a great addition to WAR.

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Arwing wrote:

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Igotchoo wrote:

 

So when IC on DC was on farm for 6 month's and we never saw a City above rank 1 for 3 month's or more it was alright then but not now? At Least now they have a option to do the city dungeons unlike our options were then

 

 

I think everybody need's to stop QQing most server's were on farm status by order for month's and now they can't take a dose of there own medicine

---

Do you know how many players were lost from DC during that time period?

 

Dark Crag used to be the premiere server and the highest populated one as well.

 

City Sieges happening because of being outnumbered and being lockout of cities=people quitting.

 

People are already unsubbing now until something is done about the frequency of City Sieges.

 

This game can't take another exodus just because the opposing side wants "revenge", revenge is what will kill Dark Crag.

 

Think about the big picture for once.

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I notice you are wearing several pieces of Sovereign gear.  Tell me: back when you are racking up the gear, were you here on the boards as well, singing the same tune?