Make WoE more of a battle.

[Namine]

Let's wait for people to "gear" in town for 60 minutes to do a thanatos tower run that probably took less than 60 minutes. Then, let's promise to do a cross-guild stone buckler hunt, then ditch your allies' party cause you must now return to town immediately for the urgent business to chat with a girl who just logged on now.

How dare them leave and start a new guild!

<><><>


With that said, time and time again heRO flipped back and forth on number of castles and tried to adjust rewards. If that didn't work for almost a decade, what makes you think that trying the same thing only with some number fudging is going to work in boosting WoE competition? It's like... you're trying to go around a wall, so you decided to ram your head first against it to smash your way through. It failed. Let's keep ramming our heads against the wall for 9 more years!


*Pure speculation* Competitive players join together and collect under the same banner just because that guild has all the people of the same mentality. There are little to no players who have/share the mentality of wanting to topple the top dogs and enjoy the success to work their way up, so there's no one to challenge the established guild(s).

If anything, the fact that heRO is old and RO is old is what hurts WoE the most. RO is an old game. Most of the new kids who got time haven't heard of something so old and ancient. Most of the kids who grew up around the time when RO is at its prime are now in post-secondary or got a job, so they can't afford the time to grind and dedication to WoE timeslot anymore. Server is old too, so people are afraid of catch up against a whooping almost-a-decade worth of items some players got/inherited. What can GMs/any policies really do to battle against stuff like that? None that I can think of myself...

Like really, how motivated are you to try to tackle the top dogs if you have to camp Ghostring every day at its specificed sparce spawn locations against all the other players to try to get its card, and you're against an empire of people who spammed the left mouse button continuously for their multiple copies?


Changing castles/rewards are so "been there, done that"... I'm really not sure if GMs can do anything to change WoE through policies alone, or at least nobody thought of anything better yet in all these years, including myself.


PS: Proto linked me here and told me to read this thread!
Take that bias as you see fit.

[Adrillf]

To address your topics specifically, I'll make sure I quote them for better access.

You indirectly supported my point actually. lol If the "FINALLY EXCITEMENT" comes when two to three guilds are all in one castle, why not just reduce it and start WoE out like that. Why should we have to wait, and "thin ourselves out" to get excitement between what? 9 people? Since YOU said theoretically there'd be 2 - 3 people in each of these castles. Isn't a clash of 20 - 30 people much more fun that 9? Dno about you but I'd have to say yes on that one.

Yes 2-3 guilds in one castle = fun, but that is under the assumption that people will always WoE, that no matter what happens that people will show up. That for no rewards at all people will WoE. If that was true that there was a steady and constant supply of WoE players no matter the environment it was set, yes your answer would work, and I agree with it. If people did not care about rewards and always showed up, then pushing it to one castle would be the easiest way to get the most action, the best WoE's.

However, I'm arguing that people are motivated by rewards. If they don't get a reward, they don't try as hard. If they don't get a reward for long enough then they stop trying. By reducing the castles to fewer less people become involved and more massive guilds are created and WoE becomes less of a fight, and more of a sit.

To point this out, I'd like to show you Alde. It's one castle, and one major guild in force. There are people out there that would like to be involved in non-trans WoE, but there is no reward for their effort. They think non-trans WoE can be fun, and they may have even had good experiences with it in the past, but to receive nothing from it, the war becomes pointless, and so the one guild just sits there.

By opening up all castles the rewards increase, there's a bigger incentive for people to be involved, and then more things happen.

I also think it's a bit late in the game to seriously expect guilds like DoE/Behe/4SRS/KoJ to actually split themselves up into little 2 - 3 person guilds, again following YOUR logic and YOUR calculations. I don't think that after months/years of working together someone would literally just take 2 friends and be like, sup bro let's go get us some Wools and Odin's. Yes splits happen, trios or duos are kinda rare, just sayin.

I understand that you would think that guilds wouldn't break up, and there will be core people that will stay together through thick and thin. I do find it interesting that you put 4srs in that list considering that they did exactly what I've been referring to, but that's a different topic. The groups do not have to be 3 people strong, what I said before was an average. Since math isn't scary to you, you should know what that means. There is quite a lot of wiggle room outside of those core groups. There will be people breaking off, and to assume that one group of 20 people won't break apart is assuming that your social skills are a lot better than most MMO players. The server might prove me wrong and there won't be any splinters, but considering who we are, I'm not thinking we're walking away from this unscathed if it was to happen.

As for veteran players breaking out and doing things, I'm not saying that everyone should. I keep repeating this because it keeps being misinterpreted. If you want to sit with your 6 friends and defend, go for it. There is room for it with all of the castles open. If you like defending so much, what is there to loose from castles being open? It's less people at your door step that you have to worry about. If you consider a good WoE people running into your precast and you standing there pressing 3 buttons over and over again, that can still happen with all of the castles open.

Funny how you expect them to fix it so quickly but then again I dont expect it to happen since that would be god knows how much work for them and I don't think a handful of people is really a big enough base to make such a large change.

Actually on the coding side of it, making all of the castle open would be really easy. The game was originally coded for all castles to be open, so it'd be as easy as restoring the coding that was there. Nothing new would have to be done except for possibly updating the wiki to say that all castles are open.

I don't expect this to be implemented tomorrow, I just want to address it and give it the time that it deserves. It's a better answer in my mind than reducing castles down. It's something we've never tried, and I think it deserves an honest look.

Not to mention with how many nameless parties there are, I find your argument of there being such a "deprived/inflated market for them" kind of laughable.

As for the comments about inflated market, I could care less about the market, I'm just telling you what the server is complaining about, and typically it's the cost of items on @at. You and I might not care or interact with @at, but there are people on this server that do, and by opening up castles, those people that care would get lower prices, and I'm trying to show how this would affect more than just the WoE players on the server.

Please, if you wanna keep talking about zenny sinks and throwing around tons of calculations, imo by all means make a new thread and suggest more zenny sinks lol. We're trying to talk of how to make WoE "more of a battle" not how to "better fix the economy through WoE". You tend to drown out your points by trying to touch on "all these other wondrous things that your plans include for us".

The zenny sink stuff was there just because I was bored. I even started it out saying I was bored and was trying to find something to put me to sleep. I even suggested that you skip over it. It was more to show people another aspect of what would come from my idea. What would come from your idea? More of the same of what we have? More people having the exact same argument that has been happening for ever on this server? Would anything change for the better?

Not to mention, hey if people got out of nameless once in a while they might end up at a place like Odins Temple and drop some OBs, what a crazy idea. Much better to just wait for good ol' treasure chest god to drop 'em.

I enjoy how you make the same comment that everyone makes about nameless/brainless or whatever other insults you'd like to throw around, about how it's over used. Yet again, point for the self motivation. It's used because it's easy and it works. It's easy to gear for, easy to run, and it gets you the levels that you want. Why go someplace hard and work hard when you can just do nameless?
With that same mentality more people would join WoE because it becomes easier with open castles. People don't want to join WoE right now because there's such a steep equipment and learning curve to it that it's not worth it. Open up the castles and people would become interested in it because it wouldn't be so threatening.

I also at no point said there was a problem with large guilds monopolizing multiple castles, but I gave you a specific scenario which you didn't answer or respond to at all, and instead just copy and pasted your own scenario and went on and on about how it will "fix all". I am trying to tell you clearly "large guilds will not sent small parties out to defend said castles" they "most likely, following example" wait for last 5 min, send a handful of sinxs out to just mass break whatever they can, and end with what they can. They won't make the effort to defend it.

Assuming that large guilds will just send out sinxs to break things down at the last minute, that means that at last minute they're undefended. The last 10 minutes is when you push the big guild if that's what they're doing. They can send out 6 sinx's to take out as many castles as they want, that's 6 less people in their defense. Did that address your situation enough?

Like I said in my first post, it sounds like you wanna change WoE from a competitive event into a, let's get some pals, hug an emp, and roll around in the treasure room type deal. Fine, if that's what you prefer then that's fine, but as I said don't try to call it a war of emperium since you changing a guild event into a trio-ish event in which "everyone wins". Guess everyone will take that wrong since as a DoE memeber I'm automatically labeled an elitist, but don't see how taking the competitive nature out of a "competitive event" fixes 1 thing.

Your assumption that I want to make WoE a bit more friendly is right.
WoE, on this server, for new players, is inaccessible.
You either join one of the major guilds and follow their rules or you loose.
If you don't like that, your only option is to start your own guild, but you're most likely going to loose for the first year without fail if you do that.
You want WoE to be more challenging by squishing everyone in the same area.
I want WoE to be more challenging by letting more people in and letting the war be as small as 4v4 in one castle.
You say that you want competition, but we all know that right now, it's not happening. I think that if you were to reduce the castles down to one, it would happen even less. Again, people do not compete just for the sake of competing, they want something to gain from it. You don't keep on running track and field if you know that you're always going to come in last place.

And the obvious elitist/veteran/jaded response to this is 'fine, then quit, WoE-ing if you suck'. But there's the problem, people are doing just that. People realize that they're not up to the veteran/elitist/jaded level so they just give up, and we're becoming a smaller and smaller number of people that want to WoE.

By removing castles, less people are involved and WoE becomes even more intimidating and people quit, which is what we don't want.??
By adding castles, WoE becomes less intimidating and more people will start to join, which is what we want.

Namine- I agree with what you say when you say,

If anything, the fact that heRO is old and RO is old is what hurts WoE the most. RO is an old game. Most of the new kids who got time haven't heard of something so old and ancient. Most of the kids who grew up around the time when RO is at its prime are now in post-secondary or got a job, so they can't afford the time to grind and dedication to WoE timeslot anymore. Server is old too, so people are afraid of catch up against a whooping almost-a-decade worth of items some players got/inherited. What can GMs/any policies really do to battle against stuff like that? None that I can think of myself...

Like really, how motivated are you to try to tackle the top dogs if you have to camp Ghostring every day at its specificed sparce spawn locations against all the other players to try to get its card, and you're against an empire of people who spammed the left mouse button continuously for their multiple copies?

The server has always done castles this way, and this is the way it's always been, so let's try something new. Let's allow there to be places for new people to join. 3-4 castles has always been the answer, and we're still ramming our head against that same wall. Let's try a more radical approach and go for 20. It opens up for new gaming possibility that have never happened, and it allows for something new to happen on something that is a decade old.

As for anything said or done about 4srs.
As stated before, I don't know the details, and I'm okay with that. Most of the action happened while my computer was broken, so I'm not invested in it. I'm just using them a lot because they are the most recent example of a guild breaking apart. There is nothing personal there, and no hard feelings felt from me. It's just in a discussion about guilds breaking up and the potential for that, they work as a very strong example that it can and does happen.

[Eldakar]

I can't speak for *Every large guild* but I can speak for DoE and typically before WoE we make sure we have a linker, and a breaker, and all the other necessities and ask people if they can play *what's needed* as opposed to ending up with let's say seven clowns, four gypsies, and no hwiz or Sinx.

I never get to choose the char i realy want to play. I want to play support class and stuck on a killer...

Me 20 min before woe : Oh we seem to miss a second HW for the woe, il play it!!
Youri : HELL NO, YOU PLAY SINX.
Me : But theres hanzo already on sinx!
Nevera : Pff hanzo suck he doesn't count.
Youri: Its true.
Me: FINE IL SINX.

True Story.

[Deviluke]

To start, my point was never to drop to 1 castle. When I joined WoE there was Prontera which typically had high eco and was defended, and Payon which had little or no eco. People actually defended Prontera and others actually rushed. DoE experienced more than a few Behe and KoJ combined rushes into the emp room. Typically people fought for the eco and then at the last minute someone would go to secure Payon cuz they couldn't take Prontera from the defending guild whether it was Behe or DoE. KoJ was still fairly new at the time so trying to say "well 2 castles didn't work since KoJ didn't stand a chance" well, that could easily be said because they were a new guild. They have pretty decent numbers now, and from what I hear more class variety and basic gears, so it would be fun to see how the KoJ now would have faired in that situation compared to what KoJ was at the time.

I do think that having one castle would be too extreme and would probably end up like Alde and RetWoE did, but I think 20 is too much of an extreme in another direction, we don't even have a big enough community for that imo, and like I said expecting the larger guilds to break up into tiny groups for "personal gain" is kind of silly. I never said splits and breaks "never happen" I don't doubt there might be one or two breaks but I highly doubt we'd see all the large guilds break into smaller guilds just cuz they want some basic castle loots.

I'm also not saying that people should find running into a dead end fulfilling and something to want to do, but that's what competition is. You go, get rolled, then improve/increase numbers and try again. You don't fail an exam and sit there telling the exam that if it was easier you'd have passed it until it agrees to become easier and then you suddenly get higher marks, you go home, study/improve yourself and try to do better on the next one.

But as also was stated the number of castles isn't really the core of the problem, I have said it before that I truly believe it's the morale of the community towards WoE which is the downfall in all of this. "Typically" people are always fast to blame DoE and say that if we removed god items and everything else, WoE would be more fun, if DoE split its vets among other guilds, WoE would be more fun, if DoE did x, y, z WoE would be more fun. And a decent percent of the time, the people who are complaining the most barely have basic gears like fb/marc/thara and they're already complaining how impossible WoE is.

WoE to my definition is a competitive event. In which people work to gear themselves, work to build numbers, work to make strategies, and then go and compete against other weaker and/or stronger guilds. So in essence to dumb it down, just because taking the same people, with the same gears, and dying repeatedly doesn't get you a castle, is kind of silly. I say dumb down because as I also said in first post, if 3 castles and 3 guilds is already turtle-ville, then adding even more won't fix anything.

I also said in my post, not to negate "everyone else in the guild" which you keep doing lol. Yes, one guild sends out sinxs to randomly break things with 0 intent on defending anything, but that doesn't mean that the lokis/performers, hwiz, crea, champs, and everything else magically vanish/thin out for 0 reason.

TLDR; If you get rolled in WoE, stop blaming the people who rolled you for being "too strong/OP", there not being enough castles, or whatever. Get up, dust yourself off, re-evaluate and try again. Kinda like this guy; Click Me Please. He didn't yell at the thing to stop pwning him, he got up and danced it off, and probably found some shoes that won't fly off so easily should it ever happen again, just sayin.

[Merellis]

Wouldn't a better idea be to find a way to reduce the need to turtle the Emperium? The only reason it gets turtled is because you can't tell when a SinX/Stalker might sneak past so it makes more sense to stay there, plus the Flag Warp brings you to one area anyway.

So lets see what we can do to make it more fun to leave the Emperium.

Lets add some barriers/objectives for the Attacking Guilds to do before they can go further into the castle. Maybe an impassable barrier that has two, lets just call them, Guardian Stones powering it at the beginning of the castle, maybe even split them up so the attacking team has to push for one, and then the other.

And before you say "Then wouldn't the guild simply precast the entrance?" add some stronger Sword Guardians then WoE has currently to protect it, ones that can be affected by Soul Linker monster skills so that you really only need a good Linker to defend that one area.

Add in more flag warps that go to these areas as well so that you can leave a small team behind, or even that single Soul Linker to hop around and check on these Guardian Stones and be able to say when people are attacking.

Add in a few more barriers but make it different, make these ones target-able by skills and the like and allow skills to hit over the barriers so that the defending guild has to really attack from two different sides to defend each one. Put more flags for defending these as well.

And to make it more interesting, add in a mechanic to repair these Guardian Stones, that only the Guild Leader can do, after a countdown when they're destroyed so that the Guild Leader can't just infinitely repair them each time. Hell, make it cost items and need some menu navigation to make it harder to keep up.

Now before you say "Wouldn't the Guild Leader just repair the other barriers too" lets make it more interesting, only the Guardian Stones can be repaired, the other ones can only be made again when the castle changes owners. So even if the attacking Guild gets obliterated before taking the Emp, they can still feel glad if they managed to take any defenses down beyond the Guardian Stone barrier.

Maybe we could make these changes and call it a Second Edition of WoE?

EDIT: I am mistaken, any guild member can fix the Guardian Stones and the time limit before you can fix them ranges from 5-8 minutes on various sites.

The reasoning for leaving the emp room is simple, no one is going to get to the emp until they pass the Guardian Stones, and the three Barricades after that.

Seeing as how the Barricades can't be remade until the castle is taken by another guild, why on earth would you keep people sitting in the emp when they could be trying to push people out of the castle or pushing another castle to either take it, or make them leave?

[ChaosPrince]

lol @KoJ getting more serious
FYI: I'm one of those players who have worked my way up to challenge the top dogs... I'm not there yet, but steadily moving up.

[Adrillf]

To start, my point was never to drop to 1 castle. When I joined WoE there was Prontera which typically had high eco and was defended, and Payon which had little or no eco. People actually defended Prontera and others actually rushed. DoE experienced more than a few Behe and KoJ combined rushes into the emp room. Typically people fought for the eco and then at the last minute someone would go to secure Payon cuz they couldn't take Prontera from the defending guild whether it was Behe or DoE. KoJ was still fairly new at the time so trying to say "well 2 castles didn't work since KoJ didn't stand a chance" well, that could easily be said because they were a new guild. They have pretty decent numbers now, and from what I hear more class variety and basic gears, so it would be fun to see how the KoJ now would have faired in that situation compared to what KoJ was at the time.

Before I say address this, I need to get this one out there. KoJ- you're an awesome guild. You guys always keep trying and are really quite tenacious when push comes to shove.

However, go back to where I list out who was online when we were fighting during WoE. Note some very simple things, like who has trans classes and who doesn't. KoJ has a lot of non-trans, so they're not going to be as much of a challenge. There's no cart term, edp, AD, or fast charge asura, and you're thinking they're going to stand a chance against DoE in defense mode? Yes, they do have a few members that are trans and are in their 90's, but when the core of the guild is non-trans, they're not exactly a threat to a guild of 20+ people who are all trans, all 99/70, and all defending one warp portal.

Also on that topic- that time period worked because there was a balance between the guilds. Behe was able to kill DoE with work, DoE was able to kill Behe, and KoJ occasionally did something (Sorry KoJ, I really do like you, but the time period mentioned wasn't exactly your strongest showing). You want to recreate that right now when Behe can't pull a full party of 12 people together? When 4srs can't pull a full party of 12 people together? When KoJ can't pull a full party of trans characters together? That time period was the way it was because we all could get 20+ people online every WoE, and currently we can't do that because people don't want to be there. There's no motivation for them to join or be involved, so it turns even more into bashing our heads against the wall.

I'm also not saying that people should find running into a dead end fulfilling and something to want to do, but that's what competition is. You go, get rolled, then improve/increase numbers and try again. You don't fail an exam and sit there telling the exam that if it was easier you'd have passed it until it agrees to become easier and then you suddenly get higher marks, you go home, study/improve yourself and try to do better on the next one.

I don't enjoy the comparision of WoE as a test. That means that there is a level that you can just study up to and suddenly win. I much rather have this as a race where you're competing against other people, like track and field where you're training and practicing to beat the person in the lane next to you.

Yes, competition does work that way. Competition does mean that some times things won't work out for you, you dust yourself off and try again. But, most people will give up if the 'dust yourself off and try again' portion of competition is all that they do. If they never achieve victory, if there's no chance of winning any time soon, and there's no reward for even trying, no one is going to want to keep trying.

Right now WoE is like a track and field event where there's only rewards for 1-3 place and there happens to be 4 Olympic track stars racing. Sure, you can join in on another lane, but good luck trying to beat out that person in the next lane to you who just set the world record a few meets ago. It's a competition, but a futile one with no rewards and nothing to show progress. The largest form of progression for a new person in this setting is, "This WoE I was able to use some pots because I didn't die in one hit to everything that touched me", and what sort of reward is that? Good job, you geared up well enough to eat through 300 pots, just to get the same result as when you didn't use any.

I truly believe it's the morale of the community towards WoE which is the downfall in all of this.

Which is what I'm trying to address with my solution. People hate WoE right now. People are demoralized with it and don't want to touch it, so let's give them a place that will give them a positive experience with WoE. Not WoE-light (aka BG) but an actual WoE setting where they can have fun, and participate in a real WoE environment without bashing their heads against the wall every time they play.

By expanding they get a positive experience. By condensing down, WoE becomes even more elitist and less inviting.

WoE to my definition is a competitive event. In which people work to gear themselves, work to build numbers, work to make strategies, and then go and compete against other weaker and/or stronger guilds

And that would happen in a larger WoE setting. People would become involved that don't typically WoE. They would have to work on gearing and becoming stronger to compete with others. YOU might not have to gear and strategize, but that's why it's called top tier, or end game, gear. By opening up castles new people to the WoE scene will be able to do just what you consider the core of WoE, which is what I think is important.

I also said in my post, not to negate "everyone else in the guild" which you keep doing lol. Yes, one guild sends out sinxs to randomly break things with 0 intent on defending anything, but that doesn't mean that the lokis/performers, hwiz, crea, champs, and everything else magically vanish/thin out for 0 reason.

I never said that the guild would be reduced down to 0 just by sending out some people to break. I did say that the defense would be weaker by whatever amount of people sent out to play in other castles. You might still be able to pull a full, top tier defense, with the people left in the castle, but no matter how you cut it whoever is missing is one less person that an offensive force has to kill to make their way to the emp. The defense is not non-existant, it's just weaker, and sometimes weaker is all someone needs to break in and do something.

If you get rolled in WoE, stop blaming the people who rolled you for being "too strong/OP", there not being enough castles, or whatever. Get up, dust yourself off, re-evaluate and try again.

For how long?
How long should a new member to the server keep brushing it off?
Sooner or later it's going to become, 'this sucks, I give up'.
Yes, there should be some sense of challenge and hardship, but without the possibility of maybe getting what you're actually trying for, or even getting close to it, people will give up.
Change spots with the newbie for just a second. You're new to the server and don't want to join a pre-established guild. You spend a month leveling your character and you think you're pretty awesome because you have some basic, basic, gears that you farmed all by yourself. You decide that now that you are lvl 90-ish non-trans that you should give WoE a shot. You walk into the main castle and can't make it past the entrance. You go to the sub-castles, and you can possibly make it to the pre-emp, but no matter what, no matter where you are, you die in one shot. Everyone seems to be super powerful and way beyond your level.

For a casual gamer, they're going to stop right there, turn around, and never come back because of how inaccessible it is.

Trans WoE is holly and shall not be messed with, but try that scenario out one of these days with non-trans WoE. Start a new account, don't join a pre-established non-trans guild, and see if you can get anywhere close to the emp. If you're not that way, camp the portal to the pre-emp and see if you can kill anyone that walks through. There's going to be no, 'I almost killed them' but there is going to be a lot of, 'well that was pointless to even try'.

I think 20 is too much of an extreme in another direction, we don't even have a big enough community for that imo

It might be true that 20 is too much, but what about 15 or 10? Do we have a large enough server for 10 to be open and allow new people to experience WoE in a positive light? I'm pushing for more castleS, not just one castle more, but multiple. Hopefully through all of my posts it's been shown that more castles would mean more action, more people involved because of accessibility to a less frustrating WoE, less turtling (don't get your panties in a bunch, I said less, it'll still be there, but it'll be less), and could help the server in ways outside of just WoE (zenny sink, market stability, ect).

I'll ask it again because it's yet to be answered; what good would reducing castles do for the server? What PR spin could Pandora & co. possibly put on that to bring people in?

Merellis- WoE 2.0
I agree 2.0 would be fun to have, but my fears for that follow much of my fear of how normal WoE has been treated with this server. If it was to be implemented, most likely there would only be two WoE 2.0 castles open, and they wouldn't be open at the same time as normal WoE because that's just crazy talk. After the sufficient amount of complaining and arguing about WoE 2.0 times, it would get started, and then WoE 2.0 would become normal WoE with different rules. The same veteran players would set up camp and play it, and the same veteran players would complain that there was no activity, and the same veteran players would scare off any new blood the server might be able to bring in by advertising that we now have 2.0. We would still be stuck in the exact same situation that we have now, just with different rules at a different time of the week.

[Deviluke]

I am not sure if people took what I said as a hit against KoJ because that's not what I intended. I was simply comparing what KoJ was like then (when it was what? barely a month or two old) compared to what KoJ is like now. It was supposed to be pointing out how much they've improved, not bashin them or something.

As for what you said about KoJ's lack of trans characters, and the lack of numbers in other guilds, I think that is kind of silly to point out. You're basing all of your theories on this over 1 record off the Control Panel on a WoE day. It hasn't been even a month since 4SRS split off (as far as I know, I might be time trippin) and KoJ was dealing with internal problems that Sunday (which I would not like to derail this tread with that, nor should this be seen as shit talk against them). So to base these "plans for the future" on just one single Sunday WoE attendance is foolish. I've seen at least 12 if not more on for 4SRS more than once, and I remember when KoJ had so many clowns and gypsies people were complaining of a "tarot precast". Not to mention I have seen LKs, Sinx's, Stalkers, Paladins, and many other trans classes show up for WoE in KoJ quite recently. Simply put, there have been highs and lows, so I don't see the point in focusing on a single Sunday and saying it supports your theory of needing more castles.

Your solution doesn't address the need for more competition. Yeah sure, more castles means more people in WoE, that doesn't necessarily mean competition. Anyone can walk into a castle and given enough time break an emp, but then what? You keep talking about all these new people joining on because of all these new castles that they might be able to take, but that doesn't solve anything or make for more competition. You get some under geared people sitting in an emp like "Damn bro we're cool, we just got a castle" and then boom, 1 decently geared sinx can probably wipe them out. That's not competition for anyone. Please do not try to tell me that they will have some oh so magnificent clash of the titans in which these under geared people, who are supposedly according to you are there to "benefit from castle drops" (such as Odin's and Wools) will be able to compete and battle the over geared, players from more established WoE guilds. It just won't happen.

If we open these castles we'll get maybe 1 new guild IF Elixir decides they want to take a castle and can probably do a half formed defense, but as it stands it seems that the people from Elixir who do WoE are already dispersed through the established guilds. I chose to not count Soul Harvest in this since I'm not even sure what they are considered anymore. I know that a few weeks ago they were being advertised as a new WoE/PVM guild but I have yet to see anyone from that guild come to WoE other than Goetz who ran to emp a few times for 2 - 3 WoEs. Considering all of this, all I see coming from this would be a bunch of people with PvM gears, or no gears at all, wandering into castles, spending a long time trying to break an emp, only to get sliced like paper the minute a more serious WoE player comes along. That's not really an introduction to WoE, or a positive experience, it's just having an open door policy. lol

You talk to me like I was never a newbie on this server lol. I didn't come to this server with tons of friends, I didn't join DoE from the jump, I didn't even play RO before joining heRO. I was a lvl 98 Priestess, rushing Payon against Behe with FoH, KoJ, and a guild I lead named Celestial Eclipse. lol I didn't even have a proper build or anything more than a WoE which I thought was badass for 10 MDEF lol. I know what it's like to be on both sides, I never rage quit or got tired of rushing and dying, it was fun being the underdog and seeing people get even a bit closer to the Emp than last rush. Please don't try to be like "well then why are you in DoE if it's so fun and not KoJ?", because the answer for that is simple. When AFK died, CE died shortly after, and then FoH collapsed. Hanzo who was in CE at the time asked me to come be a town linker for RObots/DoE and then I slowly got pushed into DoE before KoJ came around. I didn't just one day wake up like I'm tired of getting rolled, lemme go join a high tier guild. So don't tell me to "try and put myself in that scenario" cuz I was, as a lvl 98 Priestess and a lvl 85 HP. lol

As for what "spin" the GMs should be able to put on WoE to entice people to come, there doesn't really need to be one imo. As was said this is an old game, people who once loved this game are moving on, and there really I think is no reason that there would be a sudden "surge" into the WoE population with more castles. The "high tier" guilds who participate in WoE participate just for that, a war of Emperium. If we dropped to 2 castles then at least we'd have more concentrated action. 3 guilds would rush the defending guild in the main eco castle, then odd men out could rush the other castle in the end. lol You keep wanting to say that this wouldn't work because people cant get the numbers but you're 3 guilds between yourselves. If each guild had even 5 - 8, that's 15 - 24 people against 25. You have the ability to rush all at once if you guys aren't so busy PvPing each other outside the emp. Why not let one guild rush to eat traps and then let the other two or one rush behind? If too many people die, why not Ecall before traps go back up and double rush? There's many things that can be done if you work together as a "guild" and not just focus on what one person alone can or cannot do.

There is not one way that you can convince me that opening more castles so people can just waltz in, break, and be like ^__________^ would fix anything. If people wanna have a war, then we should have a war. If you want to turn this into a new event entirely which basically amounts to a battle of "who has the most sinxs, and who can break faster" then by all means do that, but don't consider that "any" kind of competition or a "war".

Having more castles would just be an easier way for social players to pat themselves on the back because they can now waltz in and break an Emp. I still am not sure why this server seems to have a mindset to gear *everything* to social players. It's a social server sure, there should be a decent amount of things to cater to these players, but the people who play for WoE/PvP shouldn't be forgotten. When a GM announces a PvP event people complain for poring smash instead, (yes that happened a while ago, a month or two iirc), people complain if players start popping/spamming BG keys saying it happening so often is ruining their parties, people complain WoE is too hard on social players and that opening more castles up would fix WoE, it won't it will change the event entirely. I don't see PvP/WoE players complaining for pvp events everytime a poring smash is made, or complaining about what cute hats come out. So tell me then, what is the huge problem here in leaving WoE for the players who want to compete if that's what they're there for?

[Adrillf]

So the question comes down to; why try to accommodate other people?

My answer, yet again, is that this server is dying. The server is slowly growing smaller and smaller, less and less active.

If we keep on with the path that we're going down and have always done, we're going to keep on getting the same results, the same complaints, and the server is going to keep on dying.

I'm thinking about a way for the GM's to advertise and bring people in. I'm thinking about a way for us to get fresh blood into the server. I'm trying to make new players want to join HeRO.

If I was only focusing on the current WoE players, and willing to watch this old server of an old game just dwindle away to nothing I would say keep things the same. If I was only focusing on the 50-ish people that show up for WoE in a week, I might even side with you. However, I'm thinking about anyone searching RMS for a new server to join, and what can bring them in.

As for your story about joining, changing guilds, and what not. That's good for you that you endured. That's good for you that you managed to fight against all of the odds to make it where you're at right now, but you're mentality is not the same as every other person out there and it would be foolish to say that everyone needs to become like you.

Yet again, you put up a very vague term out there. You say, [quote]If people wanna have a war, then we should have a war.[/qupte] What does that mean, to have a war? Previously you said that WoE meant to you some sort of trial and error with challenges and growth. How does more castles stop that? Is that even happening for the majority of players in the current WoE setting? (I'd vote no for this one, the majority of the players have their gears, have their set up, and aren't aiming to change it)

Could you possibly consider that the definition of what 'war' could change? That your idea of what makes a war no longer is a viable way to run a war of emperium? Think about real life, war in the 1800's and their definition of what makes a war is laughable compared to war in the 1900's or even war in the new millennium. Could it be that your war, and the desire to have a WoE like the old days, is just no longer possible?

Attached to that thought is that everyone will just run sinx's and it'll be the war of sinx's. Yes, because nothing can stop a sinx. Nothing. And people wanting to possibly hold their castle have no hopes in ever stopping one sinx from getting in. Anyone playing a WS, champ, or creator should just put their hopes away right now because they have no chance to ever to damage against one sinx. Yeah. . . I'm not buying that a typical sinx (not one that has mini-boss and mvp cards) is so uber that a small group of people can't damage them.

As for the problem about taking one WoE and trying to look at the members who were online during that, as compared to what? I can't log onto KoJ and DoE's guilds and get a full guild roster. The CP has changed. You use to be able to do that (which was fun) but you can't any more, so that's what I have to work with. If you would like to put together the next roll call on Wednesday, that'd be nice.

There is no problem for leaving WoE as WoE for only WoE players, if you want that number of WoE players to keep on decreasing leaving you less and less people to have WoE with. There's enough top tier players out there to keep about two groups of nine or ten people constantly killing each other week in and out, but just realize that it'll be boring and everything that people are complaining about now, just even more so. I just want to see new people doing new things

You want the same old because that's what you've always known and what you like.
I want something new because the old solution has never produced results.

[mahawirasd]

@1st Ellie comment:
no guarantees on any of that happening, BUT consider this: if you break your big guild into small raiding parties, how many castles will you be able to hold efficiently? As i said in my previous comment, a big guild will probably be able to hold 4-5 of the 20. Furthermore, when you break into smaller parties, the OTHER big guild will focus on the castle that they want to concentrate to get a specific god item ingredient, leaving your split guild unable to contest them for said ingredient. And what happens when you recall your smaller parties to defend your "main" castle (the one with the god ingredient you want)? Some noob sinx will come in and swipe that castle off of you... Then the "big guilds" can tell their "elitist thugs" to go on their sinXes and wipe the floor with those noobs but this will again break the guild's focus which allows for the other big guild to siege those prized castles... and so on and so forth... basically, if they try to hold too many, they really risk getting steamrolled by the other big guild. In the meantime, all the other noobs can have a blast trying to swipe the other castles that the big guilds seem to not put interest in. WOE announcements FTW!

TL/DR: IF the big guilds don't split, they probably can't effectively hold more than 5 castles at a time. When they do try, they'll get steamrolled by the other big guild. Therefore, the "uninteresting" castles will oft times be up for grabs for the peasants looking for a good time.

@2nd Ellie comment:
just say that after 2 months (IF we are indeed reverting to woe as it is now because there was no increase to player participation) that we are keeping the 2/3 castles with the most eco. IF there are 20 100 eco castles, then we have either successfully cemented the stranglehold of a big guild or we have successfully spurred the creation of 5-6 new "strong" guilds. Personally i feel that the latter is more probable than the former.

@deviluke:
the main reason i +1 the notion of opening ALL 20 rather than just adding 1 castle is because opening 1 castle will AT MOST split 2/3 guilds into 4/5 orr (like teh old days when we had 3 castles open) have one big guild split into two big parties holding two castles, the other big guild holds payon and try to siege pront every now and then, and the 3rd guild either try to sneak-steal payon or geffen depending on which one is less-guarded. Then at the last 10 minutes, each big guild recalls to focus on a castle and the biggest gets pront, the 2nd goes for payon, and the 3rd tries to oust whoever is holding geffen.
Opening 20 will allow for much much MUCH more permutations of the above power struggle.

Let's say big bad guild A has 76/76 in their ranks. There are 20 castles with un-randomized chests. Which castle(s) will they focus on?
How will you split your parties?
20 parties with 3/4 ppl per party for each castle?
10 parties with 7/8 ppl for 10 castles?
7 parties with 10/11 ppl for 7 castles?
or 6 parties of 12 with the remaining 4 go as sinXs and get 4 castles?
or perhaps 7 parties with 10 with the remaining 6 go as sinXs to 7 other castles?

In the meantime, what would the other big bad guild B be doing?
I wonder which castles they would focus on
I wonder how they will split their squads to thwart big bad guild A?

(copy paste the aforementioned paragraph about possible squad-splitting permutations)

The main point is: 20 open castles will overload guilds, woe participants, as well as the rest of the player base with options.
Should i join the big guild and get my war funds, some equips, etc. or should i hold one of the "lesser" castles and farm up some god item ingredients for myself?

And yes, people ARE reward-driven. Be it "fun", "camaraderie", "mvp-parties", "item-lending", "levelling-help", "you're-not-the-boss-of-me-i'll-go-make-my-own-guild", "hey-i'm-a-social-player-but-with-20-castles-i-can-prolly-try-to-swipe-a-castle-hmm" or simply "meh-i-wanna-be-an-emp-breaking-hw-so-i-can-defend-my-own-castle-solo-rather-than-be-a-boring-sinX-time-and-time-again". The number of possible permutations grow exponentially with every castle you open. And the big guilds focusing on 1 or 2 main eco castles mean that the casual players can go swipe the other ones... Hell, even if a big guild sends out 10 sinXes to hold 10 castles, the rest of the server will still have 8 to fight over...

The main idea here is to entice others to join woe. Give them a taste for blood, let them have their fun. Once they get sick and tired of wools and odins, they'll probably start amassing numbers and go for them god-item-ingredients-bearing-castles. Then the cycle starts again, because as these guys gang up, they leave those 3rd rate castle up for grabs by other newbies...

Hell, other guilds from other servers might be interested to move if they heard that in HeRO the woe is not monopolized by 2 big bad unshakable guilds...

again, i personally have nothing to gain from woe changes (except if perchance a woe time change ever comes), but all these ideas are about luring NEW people in. Sure it's kinda pandering and pampering, but if we truly feel that we need new blood, the question is: why not?


W

PS: if you want the old folks to have bigger, funner battles and you guys really are NOT reward-driven, then prove it by splintering your big guilds into X different guilds with a decent power-share of 6-12 ppl each and have a free-for-all melee in those 2 castles and see where that goes. If you guys are such buddy-buddies who could care less about rewards, surely you'll still have fun splitting into X different guilds without fostering animosity? WOE is all for the fun battles, no?
So if what you want is to farm god item ingredients effectively, then by all means let it stay the way it is. But don't say that you are not reward-driven, and don't ever complain again about lack of new blood or lackluster battles.