Closing the power gap between players without ruining integrity of the game

[Kir]

I wanted to make a thread in which some intelligent and like-minded people could post ideas on how to close the power gap between the top end clans and more casual players and make arctic fun again. I am a RISE player, and in my clan we play this game for the pk wars. Unfortunately this game at the moment seems so top heavy that after day 2 of the wipe, the game lost all its competitive edge. There was absolutely no way that any clan could contend with RISE or make it interesting in any way. It is spammed on these boards that people "quit because of pk", but really most people quit because they CAN'T pk. Hear me out here: If Rise pks Neutralclan, Neutralclan doesn't quit because we pked them, they quit because there is no way they could possibly retaliate against such a superiorly equiped\spelled\legended clan. And on the other end, people in my clan usually quit because of LACK of Pk. We started out with about 35 real players, were down to about 20 after week 3, and 12 after week 6. All quit because of boredom. No clans to fight in pk. If we attack anybody we get guilt tripped because they are so easily blown out of the water. People may think this is the way we want the game but it is not. We want enemies worth killing who make us nervous and get excited about fighting. We want 3-4 other big clans to give us a fight until the very last day of the wipe.

     Now, what i noticed from this wipe: the first two days of this wipe were very close and contested between the two most powerful clans, CORE and RISE, however Rise ended up winning the last in a series of battles on day 2 of the wipe which basically won us the wipe. Why? because we were able to legend first and then pop all the gear in the game. Our enemies were easily able to get to lvl 30 without a problem, but it was basically impossible for them to legend with us on the mud in force.  This brings me to idea #1:

Remove legend. Yes i know everybody loves legend characters so hear me out: Remove legend, allow all skills, abilities, bonuses that legend offers to everybody who reaches level 30. Ranks would only be for stuff you want to buy, ie +dam, spell saves, iceshield, whatever. This would HUGELY close the player gap. Most casuals dont want to grind shit out, they just want to log, play and have fun, however everything worth doing in this game now basically requires being legend. So lets remove the legend! Also think of all the classes that are absolutely worthless pre-legend: shamans, druids, thieves, black robes, red robes, scouts. To be elite with these classes you basically have to grind for a month then spend countless hours at training bullshit skills to superb that you will never use again. Why not remove all that grinding and make them fun to play from the jump?

Idea #2: Change load rate for eq to 100% and increase spell loads significantly. Why? hear me out:
Example: EvilTim decayed his night-blue dragonscale armor from verminaard this wipe. Rise spammed the mob 15 times or so to get the item to load. What clan could have spammed verminaard 15 times in a row to pop the armor? Nobody but Rise. So what is some casual clan supposed to do when they lose their best shiny item and now they have to spam a super hard zone 15 times in order to repop it? Quit. Thats what they are going to do. This low load% of eq thing was designed to make it so zones are always loading equipment but in reality it just prevents people from having good eq who cant afford the time to spam the zone 10-15 times a day. And spells? the chaos books were a good idea for sure. But i have over 15 days of playtime this wipe and I have never seen one load yet. The super hardcore crazy players in my clan have popped them and i think out of all of Rise in 300 days of combined playtime the best spell we saw load was fireshield\vit shield\lightning shield. So maybe those load rates should be upped a bit? Same thing with the World Boss mobs IMO, i have only killed 2 myself in that many days playtime. Don't get me wrong, world bosses are awesome but most people quit or will never be powerful or lucky enough to be able to kill one.

Idea #3: New content!!!!
How many people in this game spent months or years exploring the new dargo and bloodshoal? Many of us! But there is barely ever any new content in this game even though there seems to be 10-20 people always willing to get on creation. Look at all the zones that are terribly outdated or useless that are currently in this game. My go-to is thordbardin. That zone, if you read the books should be absolutely amazing! 7-8 dwarven clans all vying for the crown to rule a vast city over an intricate mountain of tunnels, mines, and mazes. Imo zones like thordbardin would be perfect for large re-vamp projects. There are many volunteers to help create, lets get some new content in shall we???

[octan]

Good points.

[Vasagh]

The main reason is you have/started with too many people in your clan and you play too much/too hardcore compared to the majority of the players / clans.

The reality is most players aren't hardcore players or even like to participate in pk to the same degree and no matter your suggested changes it won't really change the pk balance as it is now. Only players can do that, as it has always been so.

Although I'm not against reducing the legend grind, there are many players who haven't even managed to legend a single character even though they have been playing for 20 years. There is a large imbalance in power/knowledge between those who play hardcore and those that don't.

[blackmagus]

You don't have to change the end game content of the game to have a more competitive playing field, you just need to self-moderate.

Think you're too tough? Bring less people to make it more of a challenge.

Have too good of a set? Bring some shop gear and rely on your skills.

Tired of not having any competition? Stop the win at all costs strategy and give your potential challengers time to gear up.

Bored? Quit

[Jorake]

Re: Blackmagus - They did peace CORE a couple/few times, 2weeks, 1 month, etc. That helped to get people playing again but regardless it was just moot. Bringing less to a fight isn't the answer either. 8man limits, if you have 8, it would be a dick move to say "Ok you you and you sit this one out" So that will never happen.

One of the points that was hit on(hardcore players). I already spend at least 2-3 hours a day on here depending on the workload. 4kids, full time job that I'm constantly oncall 24/7 for. RISE will dominate for wipes to come if they dont disband to some extent. Not saying htat is the answer but its the truth. No one can compete with your playtime. And even if I could compete with it, i wouldn't. That would burn me out so fast. I honestly don't know what the answer here is. Having a nopk mud isn't the answer. Having a nopkflag based on certain criteria being met isn't the answer.

 8man group limits. If a group of people have enough for 3 entire groups, maybe they should think about breaking off into two clans. That goes for everyone though, not just RISE. Would force new leaders to emerge, and of those; they would start teaching their "#2 in command" some stuff. More exploring, more gear distribution. That is about the best spitball answer I have. To which, i understand that if you have a group of pals who have grouepd forever and like each other etc it would be a rough change and maybe not worth it to some. Or any

""Remove legend. Yes i know everybody loves legend characters so hear me out: Remove legend, allow all skills, abilities, bonuses that legend offers to everybody who reaches level 30. Ranks would only be for stuff you want to buy, ie +dam, spell saves, iceshield, whatever. This would HUGELY close the player gap. Most casuals dont want to grind shit out, they just want to log, play and have fun, however everything worth doing in this game now basically requires being legend. So lets remove the legend! Also think of all the classes that are absolutely worthless pre-legend: shamans, druids, thieves, black robes, red robes, scouts. To be elite with these classes you basically have to grind for a month then spend countless hours at training bullshit skills to superb that you will never use again. Why not remove all that grinding and make them fun to play from the jump?""

I really like this idea though. I would change it a bit however. Maybe don't focus so much on superbing all skills. But there should be a rank requirement still. Getting to rank 20 should still be the standard for legending. Just remove the skills/spells requirement. Make it rank 20 only. I also dont think the "legend ranks" should be automatically in place. I would still have people buy those ranks. And a requirement for those ranks could be that you have to superb the skill its used for.

You then run into the trash tether bombing thing though.. So idk about that part. Tether should be removed anyhow.

[Jorake]

Also, what happened to the old pks man. Mages break the game when spelled up. Why even go into a fight with geared chars if you can poof 8 mages and stun someone into oblivion. I guess that if there is even a 20% chance that you would lose a fight the smart play is to bring mages.

Some of my favorite fights were 5-6 vs 5-6 mans. Maybe theres a druid in there. But mostly meat and potatoes(tanks/cures). And this is also something thats gone with the times. Arranged pk! I remember bsp fighting rgb and having several arranged fights. "Meet up here" Whoever got there first got to prep first etc.

[jrrestad]

 - Legendary skills at level 30 would be cool, scrap the skill requirement.
 - Current legendary ranks being available only at certain ranks would still force you to achieve a high enough rank


Not being able to play because of a War is rough these days, but not because the game is so unbalanced.  I think it is mostly the mentality of the typical mudder these days.

Making certain zones no-pk, or limited # of people per room (such as skullcap) would still allow clans to zone during wartime. 


As always, I am for increasing the load rate/capacity of any item. 

[kmark101]

The real problem is that at the beginning of the wipe, you legend way too fast and easy if you are the first to do stuff.
If you win a single battle and you grab your opponent's gear, those 3-4 days afterwards decide that you wil legend first and your opponent has no chance after that.

It's simple as that, you don't need to remove legend, just calculate rank point gains the other way: at the beginning of the wipe they worth 0 and as the wipe folds out, mobs will worth more and more rank points. This way every clan will be balanced and no legend will break anything.

[blackmagus]

The continuing theme of the thread is "force us to place nice with one another or be fair when we aren't."

Perhaps that mentality, combined with the truth that overly aggressive clans destroys the integrity of the game makes it apparent PK should be an option or flag and not the choice of your assailant.

[Gnua]

Our enemies were easily able to get to lvl 30 without a problem, but it was basically impossible for them to legend with us on the mud in force.

Agree completely about the legendary power gap, but i think the stun power gap is even more of an issue.

'only' about 4 weeks of peace was needed to deal with the legendary power gap.  But during the 4 weeks of on and off peace when pretty much everyone in core managed to get at least one legendary character, rise managed to get 4 (or more?) endgame mages.  The stun-gap pretty much ended any hope of competition. Last wipe when core ran the mud uncontested, it could only do cyan about once a week (friday or saturday night).  I dont know how many cyan runs rise did to get their endgame mages but i'm guessing core would need at least 3 months of peace (with one cyan run a week) before it could even compete in the end-game mage department.

[Episte]

Rematch sometime 1v1.  I will find a wild troll doll and rub its tummy next time.

[Hoss]

1v1 at the sun

[Zozen]

Warp to 0

[Kir]

The continuing theme of the thread is "force us to place nice with one another or be fair when we aren't."

Perhaps that mentality, combined with the truth that overly aggressive clans destroys the integrity of the game makes it apparent PK should be an option or flag and not the choice of your assailant.

I really cant comprehend where this "overly aggressive clan" stuff is coming from...the only clan we really attacked this wipe was core. KA, danes, russians, wild remnants were all left alone. So I really dont know where you are getting the idea that we are being "too  aggressive" from. Oh and we also gave Core peace on multiple occasions so they could zone and try to catch-up, something that really in my mind shouldn't need to happen. So lets come up with ideas to make this pk mud have more fun pk for everybody and stop blaming Rise for being on top. If you read my original post, I WANT this game to be more competitive. If Rise decided to wipe the mud clean, we could do it easily, every day for the rest of the wipe. I dont WANT this to be the case, I think clan politics and diplomacy would actually mean something if we had anything to fear from the smaller clans, but with the way the game is now, we absolutely dont, and we could destroy everybody all the time and the reason we dont is because of the goodness in our hearts which is horrible because we want to be the bad guys.

[Jorake]

Any thoughts on my post Kir?