I really don't wanna get nuked for going off-topic but I'll do this anyways because past two replies are already off-topic anyways, but before I do that; Slight update to my vote if this is allowed.
I'm going to take back my vote on option 1 and go for option 3 because I'm not too fond of losing a WoE by sacrificing trans WoE, and due to the lack of flexibility of the changes suggested by this thread. I've expressed my issues and opinions with keeping Retro instead of a second trans WoE in the previous posts. This time, my vote prioritizes more on fun for players who can compete in WoE rather than the agreeable logic behind having reduced number of castles.
Maybe I'll be vote back on number 1 if Retro is the sacrifice, or if Retro gets changed into a more fun mode.
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Lack of competition in WoE is, in my opinion, due to a mix of things than just undesirable reward. But for now, yep, I'll say it and agree with what Sheam said: undesirable reward.
At the end of the day, the PVP people who dominate a castle are going to get rewards in chests and guild dungeon, and where/how are they able to utilize these rewards? Going to non-PVP environments.
The rewards from WoE does not cater to the people who actually WoEs at all. Sure, you get god items which is like the ultimate thing in all of heRO, but you're going to be sad once you realize it's not usable in PVP/GVG environments.
But there's balance issues to that as well. WoE is a one-hit fest experience for anyone who isn't ultra-geared. It gets worse with God Items enabled there. So what can you do? Rebalancing your available classes/stats/gears after years of being untouched to accommodate god items is something actual game developers may do.
Moving god items acquisition away from PVP is another quick and easy answer. But maybe someone else who spends more than half a second thinking (unlike me) can propose a better plan.
Edit: Someone raised a point in Discord where god items are perfectly acceptable in high-population servers ranging above thousands, just because a guild can never get too many god items, and they'll still be outnumbered that god items hardly matters. >1k WoE is honestly a different breed of WoE compared to a <30 man WoE. One person with god item can really have an impact against guilds in heRO due to low attendances.
Quote:The value of end-game items on a server will potentially decay over time.
This is something I hope developers on heRO don't rely on. With how much RNG and way too much tedium needed to hunt these 'end-game' gears, it will take years and maybe more population drops before newer players are able to enjoy a dying PVP scene.
And that's another huge problem with PVP here. PVP is an end-game 'privilege' here and growth for PVP usually only starts very, very late in gameplay where you'll most likely have multiple characters by then. A lot of cards like being able to survive single Asura/AD or being able to block Freeze or being able to resist 30% more Demi-human damage are all locked behind 0.03%, or a high price for any newer players out there.
Now think of every other possible cards that's needed and that's more 0.03% RNGs to farm. WoE in a server with low drop rates as its only way to grow as a PVP player is going to have a huge entry barrier. Or you can farm BG gears either by hoping people agree to dice or you can be a team burden repeatedly before being able to contribute with the BG gear you want. Either way, both are never pleasant experiences for new players.
From what I've seen from the past few years of WoE participation, we're losing more players quicker than gaining new players and I say it is the result of all these towering entry barriers combined into a single mess of a GVG event that mostly rewards PVM players.
Sure we get small outbursts of participants every now and then, but it's still the same number of guilds and rarely ever any new guilds that are able to make an impact when joining the fray. I can't really see any new guild being able to penetrate into the WoE scene here without years of intense, monotonous farming. Infinity Circuit managed to survive months of doing this before finally quitting. They had great numbers but most of them still get ignored or one-shot by bigger guilds cause their presence and gears posed very little threat.
There was a suggestion, with examples, of a better integration of PVM growth into PVP growth in the past, but there wasn't really much that went into that discussion. I feel that heRO really needs this if we are not going to simply lower that entry barrier (which I don't ever see happening due to how stiff this server is to nostalgic values), but it will also take more effort than simple adjusting numbers.
Quote:End Game is about forcing teamplay by using items outside of end-game to earn exclusive end-game items.
Not entirely true, because most of our good WoE cards are not just stuck behind 0.03%, but also on low-level monsters or weak but rare ones, both of which are completely solo-able. If you meant only gears, then it's still not entirely true because there's also V4P gears, hatter gears and gears from solo farming.
But this also actually enhances the point expressed by your post-analysis. There's just too much shit to farm for over long periods of time to be not be completely worthless in PVP, which is a huge conflict in getting more people to participate in WoE.
