Few Suggestions - DISCUSS ONLY!

[LadyIntegra666]

Yea, but it's also fair to say they have a point in that there was no feasible way they could have gotten them without just joining a big-name guild. Idk about you, but I like to PvP on fair ground and to PvP for the sake of PvP'ing when it's all in good fun. It's why I camped the coliseum so much and participated in so many lower-level PvP tourneys. Same reason I just didn't care when the game started getting P2W.

I understand I'm only an anecdote, but If you recall NW got a lot of bez and quite a few rulers and a bunch of FD's. Since I was quitting I actually gave my bez (yes, even I managed to get them - I was largely a nonfactor by choice and by wallet) to my former guild commander who moved with me to NW because he was gonna stick around for a few months more. But the fact it took people to carry me to get them emphasizes the above point. We're all here early on and progressing. Think of what that means to the guy who joins the game a year into its release. Big disadvantage there. I care enough and recognize the significance of growing and culturing a community to have a good time, and we can't do that with exclusion. R:BF was an experiment, and it was largely the community that did the most damage to its own success before YNK/PLW did. Profits were dropping fast even before epics/upgrades and the insane power creep that followed. And the PvE content was pretty solid for its time to keep people at least engaged enough early-on.

As far as titles go, I really don't care. I play this game, like any game, for fun. I'm not going to grind titles I don't want to get. If I stop having fun, I do something that's more fun, and if I feel a reason to leave, I quit and that's that. Why else would I have prioritized the forums? They were more fun than the majority of R:BF and people can't P2W or sit behind pixels when PvP'ing on the boards Frankly, if it were my decision, I'd just remove titles altogether -I even dislike the UI clutter. But I recognize how unlikely and contrarian this notion is.

You don't have to join a big-name guild, you can make one. The PVP on fair ground is based on everyone having the same items, gear etc that you can get in game not from P2W stuff. So you got a problem right there. With new server we are all going to be equal, or should be equal and once the pvp starts ofc some guilds are going to get advantage. But what's wrong with that if they deserve it. Why not get a boss drops as a reward. I don't see what's the problem there.

Stratus got his boss drops from RMT, regardless whether you want to admit it or not. I don't think of people as a nonfactors if they come and join the pvp, nvm their gear, it's for the fun, esp if you aren't toxic. Pretty sure the guild members carry each other so you were no different. I don't think there is nothing wrong with person who just joins the game and has no boss drops, there should be some accs that he can obtain in game through other ways so he can lvl and engage in some sort of pvp, but he shouldn't have the best drop in the game right away.

Ok maybe you aren't competitive but many other players are, so don't be so subjective and try to think outside the box. I'm not a fan of titles as well, I'd prefer talis that you can just get from smaller bosses like there used to be in r5.

[soulholder]

You don't have to join a big-name guild, you can make one. The PVP on fair ground is based on everyone having the same items, gear etc that you can get in game not from P2W stuff. So you got a problem right there. With new server we are all going to be equal, or should be equal and once the pvp starts ofc some guilds are going to get advantage. But what's wrong with that if they deserve it. Why not get a boss drops as a reward. I don't see what's the problem there.

Stratus got his boss drops from RMT, regardless whether you want to admit it or not. I don't think of people as a nonfactors if they come and join the pvp, nvm their gear, it's for the fun, esp if you aren't toxic. Pretty sure the guild members carry each other so you were no different. I don't think there is nothing wrong with person who just joins the game and has no boss drops, there should be some accs that he can obtain in game through other ways so he can lvl and engage in some sort of pvp, but he shouldn't have the best drop in the game right away.

Ok maybe you aren't competitive but many other players are, so don't be so subjective and try to think outside the box. I'm not a fan of titles as well, I'd prefer talis that you can just get from smaller bosses like there used to be in r5.

I attempted to do so, actually. Fact is, people don't want to join a small guild which has an uncertain future when they could just join the big name and get in the queue for gear. Face it: when you're fighting against someone who has Bez/rulers and you have 41's, you're in a whole other tier. Compare the average player to the top-end and you know there's a huge difference. You can't open that gap without getting on fair ground to begin with. That's what's not sustainable. Realistically, for the bulk majority of the playerbase, it's too far out of reach. It used to be you were RPK'ed for spots if you weren't in a big-dog guild, or you'd get KOS'ed by another guild when trying to grind in a good spot without protection. And people leveling aren't going to be fully-geared into endgame, especially so if they're new. Moreso now than even before since the delvling cap on armor is -6, whereas the tiers were much more blurred before. The difference between a level 100 and a level 91 will be massive.

I looked into Stratus' account when people were making the claims - I really did. I'm still very close with two of the other high-ranks from that guild (I actually found them while playing GW2 by sheer happenstance), and they also know nothing about it. I couldn't find anything definitive or more sketchy than a majority of what people on the top end were doing day-to-day. It wouldn't be fair to make a ban on speculation alone when basically the entire game at the endgame scene had similar activity on their accounts. To ban one would only be justified by banning everyone, and we were way too swamped with bigger concerns (the duping issue, mostly) to try and launch a major deep-penetration investigation which would have involved me and PlW staff going undercover just to nab one potential rule-breaker. In cases of RMT, the sellers are equally unlikely to talk about it as the buyers, because they know they'll be busted and out of money-earning as well.

But that's still what I'm trying to argue: NW, legitimately or not, got to where it did because of those drops. Without them, none of us would have had anything. That's just how it is.

And I'm also not disregarding some kind of barrier of entry to acquire BiS gear, either. That's why I proposed instances content or quests or whatever it may be to get them. Even if progress is very slow, it doesn't matter so long as any player feels like it's achievable. The prior system denied people this ability, and the rewards were massive. You know damned well the difference between 51's and a bez/ruler. The difference of having the ability to even sell TSB winnings or a bez/ruler/FD to fund IM purchases like 7's and so on from having maxed already. Contemplate the amount of money needed to maintain a fully-endgame character, all of the consumables and scrolls and so on, for the PvP. Some guildmembers of mine were pushing hundreds of dollars a month to cling onto viability. That's insane and unsustainable for a business involved in competitive play and you know it. A gap like FD (solo-achievable, high-end/near-BiS) to Bez (BiS) achieved from a competitive part of the game wouldn't be something I'm super-opposed to intrinsically. But why even go there, though? Why not just make everyone go through that solo/achievable endeavor, and end up even at the end? Because fair is competitive. A competitive environment flourishes only when the player at the end of the day can be certain he won because he simply played better than his opponent on some level. Competitive players look for games with lower barriers of entry because they'd rather just compete. Contrary to what you think, I'm quite competitive. It's why I moved to GW2 and played competitively (although never enough to go pro, and also why I longer do; their balance department is actually just potentially dumber than Playwith's), which had no gear at all in its PvP scene, and ended up yet again in the high echelons of players and am seen to this day by a substantial portion of the community as having been one of the best players of my build/kit in the game and still one of the masters of what's easily-definable as an underpowered kit. When you don't need to worry about the stat barriers, things ramp up a lot more, and get a lot more people involved. And more people involved is always a good thing; more people to compete against but to also get to know and enjoy being part of the community with.

And that's the thing: I'm really not being subjective, here. You look at every piece of market info on the western MMO/multiplayer market, and low-barrier-of-entry PvP with a high-skillcap is the name of the game on how to make money. The more accessible endgame can potentially be, the more successful games and their respective communities are. It's why soccer/football are so successful on such a huge scale, and why so many of its professionals were once dirt poor - it pretty much just takes a ball, which isn't hard to get, and a lot of dedication, time, and practice in order to get really good. Of course only a fraction of the population can ever get to the professional level, but that's just the nature of professional anything. But the fact that people can and do without much obstruction from within the game itself (unlike say, Golf, requiring a set of clubs which are fitted and expensive and basically requires professional instruction to avoid injury/awful performance) is what makes it let the best of the best shine.

At the end of the day, this isn't out of a preconceived notion that I feel I'm entitled to be the best - I'm definitely being out-leveled by a large number of players right now and have not at all done much to make myself competitive here - but rather that I still want to see this game/Playwith succeed because of a mix of nostalgia and a sense of obligation to repay back what was offered to me while keeping in touch with some old faces and helping them enjoy things more.

TL;DR, I think you're confusing the prospect of some struggles for BiS equipment versus being semi-viable. Drops encouraged an exclusive environment for gear way better than normally-achievable and self-perpetuated winning. There's no reason to bring that back to a scale even close to what we had in R:BF.

@Me being "offended" it wasn't that at all, but how you basically suggested that SA being geared out wouldn't or shouldn't inherently be opposed, and how it contradicts what you stated above. So I simply asked, on what basis is such opinion valid? It contradicts your initial mentioning and points to a hole in your argument.

For HK's, everyone's entitled to their opinions, but they largely did destroy the PvE community. It really just bolstered guild groups which already had the friends. Again, I think there's a sense of disconnect from the reality of the "average"/new player, here. If there was nobody ever talking in a game, just bots running around leveling up, and you lacked any guild or player group, would you really stay invested? I certainly wouldn't, and having kept a close eye on new players/revenue sources in the game, I can assure you, most people don't, either. Long-term, it hurts everyone. And like you said, why is it a bad thing for people to work and grind for their levels? Spend the time to find a community that will let you AFK-level and leech if you lack the time to do it yourself, just like how you defend the acquisition of BiS gear.

Which is why if we all started at L100 in BiS gear with infinite possibles/no murder mode, the PvP would probably be pretty damned competitive as PvP itself. But that doesn't bring in revenue without making things either subscription-based (not happening for an old game since it can't be marketed) or P2W (also not a good idea). So Playwith needs to profit on the leveling process and a bit on the endgame maintenance in an ideal situation.

[sunny245]

I attempted to do so, actually. Fact is, people don't want to join a small guild which has an uncertain future when they could just join the big name and get in the queue for gear. Face it: when you're fighting against someone who has Bez/rulers and you have 41's, you're in a whole other tier. Compare the average player to the top-end and you know there's a huge difference. You can't open that gap without getting on fair ground to begin with. That's what's not sustainable. Realistically, for the bulk majority of the playerbase, it's too far out of reach. It used to be you were RPK'ed for spots if you weren't in a big-dog guild, or you'd get KOS'ed by another guild when trying to grind in a good spot without protection. And people leveling aren't going to be fully-geared into endgame, especially so if they're new. Moreso now than even before since the delvling cap on armor is -6, whereas the tiers were much more blurred before. The difference between a level 100 and a level 91 will be massive.

I looked into Stratus' account when people were making the claims - I really did. I'm still very close with two of the other high-ranks from that guild (I actually found them while playing GW2 by sheer happenstance), and they also know nothing about it. I couldn't find anything definitive or more sketchy than a majority of what people on the top end were doing day-to-day. It wouldn't be fair to make a ban on speculation alone when basically the entire game at the endgame scene had similar activity on their accounts. To ban one would only be justified by banning everyone, and we were way too swamped with bigger concerns (the duping issue, mostly) to try and launch a major deep-penetration investigation which would have involved me and PlW staff going undercover just to nab one potential rule-breaker. In cases of RMT, the sellers are equally unlikely to talk about it as the buyers, because they know they'll be busted and out of money-earning as well.

But that's still what I'm trying to argue: NW, legitimately or not, got to where it did because of those drops. Without them, none of us would have had anything. That's just how it is.

And I'm also not disregarding some kind of barrier of entry to acquire BiS gear, either. That's why I proposed instances content or quests or whatever it may be to get them. Even if progress is very slow, it doesn't matter so long as any player feels like it's achievable. The prior system denied people this ability, and the rewards were massive. You know damned well the difference between 51's and a bez/ruler. The difference of having the ability to even sell TSB winnings or a bez/ruler/FD to fund IM purchases like 7's and so on from having maxed already. Contemplate the amount of money needed to maintain a fully-endgame character, all of the consumables and scrolls and so on, for the PvP. Some guildmembers of mine were pushing hundreds of dollars a month to cling onto viability. That's insane and unsustainable for a business involved in competitive play and you know it. A gap like FD (solo-achievable, high-end/near-BiS) to Bez (BiS) achieved from a competitive part of the game wouldn't be something I'm super-opposed to intrinsically. But why even go there, though? Why not just make everyone go through that solo/achievable endeavor, and end up even at the end? Because fair is competitive. A competitive environment flourishes only when the player at the end of the day can be certain he won because he simply played better than his opponent on some level. Competitive players look for games with lower barriers of entry because they'd rather just compete. Contrary to what you think, I'm quite competitive. It's why I moved to GW2 and played competitively (although never enough to go pro, and also why I longer do; their balance department is actually just potentially dumber than Playwith's), which had no gear at all in its PvP scene, and ended up yet again in the high echelons of players and am seen to this day by a substantial portion of the community as having been one of the best players of my build/kit in the game and still one of the masters of what's easily-definable as an underpowered kit. When you don't need to worry about the stat barriers, things ramp up a lot more, and get a lot more people involved. And more people involved is always a good thing; more people to compete against but to also get to know and enjoy being part of the community with.

And that's the thing: I'm really not being subjective, here. You look at every piece of market info on the western MMO/multiplayer market, and low-barrier-of-entry PvP with a high-skillcap is the name of the game on how to make money. The more accessible endgame can potentially be, the more successful games and their respective communities are. It's why soccer/football are so successful on such a huge scale, and why so many of its professionals were once dirt poor - it pretty much just takes a ball, which isn't hard to get, and a lot of dedication, time, and practice in order to get really good. Of course only a fraction of the population can ever get to the professional level, but that's just the nature of professional anything. But the fact that people can and do without much obstruction from within the game itself (unlike say, Golf, requiring a set of clubs which are fitted and expensive and basically requires professional instruction to avoid injury/awful performance) is what makes it let the best of the best shine.

At the end of the day, this isn't out of a preconceived notion that I feel I'm entitled to be the best - I'm definitely being out-leveled by a large number of players right now and have not at all done much to make myself competitive here - but rather that I still want to see this game/Playwith succeed because of a mix of nostalgia and a sense of obligation to repay back what was offered to me while keeping in touch with some old faces and helping them enjoy things more.

TL;DR, I think you're confusing the prospect of some struggles for BiS equipment versus being semi-viable. Drops encouraged an exclusive environment for gear way better than normally-achievable and self-perpetuated winning. There's no reason to bring that back to a scale even close to what we had in R:BF.

@Me being "offended" it wasn't that at all, but how you basically suggested that SA being geared out wouldn't or shouldn't inherently be opposed, and how it contradicts what you stated above. So I simply asked, on what basis is such opinion valid? It contradicts your initial mentioning and points to a hole in your argument.

For HK's, everyone's entitled to their opinions, but they largely did destroy the PvE community. It really just bolstered guild groups which already had the friends. Again, I think there's a sense of disconnect from the reality of the "average"/new player, here. If there was nobody ever talking in a game, just bots running around leveling up, and you lacked any guild or player group, would you really stay invested? I certainly wouldn't, and having kept a close eye on new players/revenue sources in the game, I can assure you, most people don't, either. Long-term, it hurts everyone. And like you said, why is it a bad thing for people to work and grind for their levels? Spend the time to find a community that will let you AFK-level and leech if you lack the time to do it yourself, just like how you defend the acquisition of BiS gear.

Which is why if we all started at L100 in BiS gear with infinite possibles/no murder mode, the PvP would probably be pretty damned competitive as PvP itself. But that doesn't bring in revenue without making things either subscription-based (not happening for an old game since it can't be marketed) or P2W (also not a good idea). So Playwith needs to profit on the leveling process and a bit on the endgame maintenance in an ideal situation.