CRPG is indeed dying.

[Joker86]

Anyway, these sentiments [exp, grind, low levels] have been lingering around the forums and changes are coming to low level and new players. Sadly, Enver had nothing to do with them.

And what about the retarded upkeep and multiplier systems? And the fucked up battle mode?

[The_Bloody_Nine]

And what about the retarded upkeep and multiplier systems? And the fucked up battle mode?

goddammit you still don't give up and realise there are people that like battle mode as it is? I even liked it more without the flags spawning every time.

[Molly]

Joker said it's fucked up so it is fucked up. Nothing we can do about it. Even when we like it

[Herezy92]

goddammit you still don't give up and realise there are people that like battle mode as it is? I even liked it more without the flags spawning every time.

Flags are just good against HA/HX.
No more good old Hero-time from some players.

[Joker86]

Of course that's only my opinion guys. Don't take it too dramatic. If the majority thinks that Battle is fine, then okay. I just think the battle mode with the round based team deathmatch objective is heavily crippling infantry in their gameplay, because they struggle more than other classes to "hunt and flee", but it's exactly those skills which make you either effective in Battle mode or not. It's the reason why the ranged and mounted classes have been so overnerfed that they are barely fun any more, and STILL they are massively annoying to infantry.

But I guess you all know the old story by now. I know that the current cRPG "works", but I think it could do much better. That's all.

[Grumbs]

The skillset and versatility of classes is something that can be fixed without making battle have more structured objectives. Cav players are both cav and melee classes..that dilutes the requirement of pure melee. When a cav player is dehorsed he isn't much different to a pure melee character, and when he's on his horse he is a more valuable player than a pure melee.

Ranged players are both ranged and melee..that again dilutes the requirement for pure melee. Until you get into melee range, ranged obviously have a clear advantage since they can deal damage and melee cannot. When you get into melee range then there isn't a similar clear advantage for melee in a similar way that ranged has against melee at a distance

Fix those imbalances and we won't need to gut battle and make it have clear, linear objectives

[Angantyr]

I've been seeing plenty of fresh faces in NA_1 and many of them seem to think the mod is fun, and well-suited for them. Just last night there were 90 people on battle and 50 in siege. Siege has been recently a fucking ghost-town, and although I really dislike the game-mode, it was pleasing to see it populated. It's really neat to see players I've never heard of mid-way up on the scoreboard, dressing in gear that looks good and appearing to have a good time.

I don't know about EU, since I've not been on at times that force me to play in EU lately. It almost seems as though people mistake the "lol mod ded cRPG sux but im addicted" pseudo-meme as genuine sentiment. I'm sure there are players that actually hate every moment of cRPG, and that's a bit sad to me. Why the fuck would you spend so much time on something you genuinely hate?

I have much the same experience as you.

This is what the servers looked like yesterday around dinner time here (GMT+1):

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Joker86]

The skillset and versatility of classes is something that can be fixed without making battle have more structured objectives. Cav players are both cav and melee classes..that dilutes the requirement of pure melee. When a cav player is dehorsed he isn't much different to a pure melee character, and when he's on his horse he is a more valuable player than a pure melee.

Ranged players are both ranged and melee..that again dilutes the requirement for pure melee. Until you get into melee range, ranged obviously have a clear advantage since they can deal damage and melee cannot. When you get into melee range then there isn't a similar clear advantage for melee in a similar way that ranged has against melee at a distance

Fix those imbalances and we won't need to gut battle and make it have clear, linear objectives

All that is true, but you can not change that without changing the classes substantially, like having to pick one of three classes in the beginning, and let's say for example if you pick ranged you can't equip melee weapons or raise your athletics, and when you pick cav and you get dehorsed you can't block any more or something like that. Changes of this caliber would be needed to grant infantry the same advantage in their domain (melee) as the other classes have in their own resort against infantry. You get what I mean? In the end, if we don't want to invent a completely abstract game for the sake of balance, we have to deal with what the middle ages left us as a base. And yes, middle ages didn't revolve around balance exactly.

[Sandersson Jankins]

I have much the same experience as you.

This is what the servers looked like yesterday around dinner time here (GMT+1):

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

For me, I was just more amazed that our siege mode was populated at all. I know EU has had more problems with high-level ranged players, and perhaps ranged in general, but goddamn our siege server was populated when in months past its been absolutely abandoned.

Iunno man, it seems as though people seem to have a nerd-crusade about things they likely won't change without lucid and detailed suggestions on how to fix it. Identifying perceived problems is easy; making solutions is very difficult.

[Grumbs]

All that is true, but you can not change that without changing the classes substantially, like having to pick one of three classes in the beginning, and let's say for example if you pick ranged you can't equip melee weapons or raise your athletics, and when you pick cav and you get dehorsed you can't block any more or something like that. Changes of this caliber would be needed to grant infantry the same advantage in their domain (melee) as the other classes have in their own resort against infantry. You get what I mean? In the end, if we don't want to invent a completely abstract game for the sake of balance, we have to deal with what the middle ages left us as a base. And yes, middle ages didn't revolve around balance exactly.

We do have some things we can tweak though that ensure pure melee have a clear advantage similar to what ranged and cav have in their role.

We have ways to make cav vulnerable when they are dehorsed. ATM cav players are protected by their horse because of the anti team wound mechanic that was introduced some time ago. You can't really harm a cav player if he is dehorsed and is near his horse before he gets up. That could be tweaked. Anti cav weapons aren't as good as they used to be, in fact shorter weapons are more effective than pikes/longspears. Even a 1 hander can be better because it deals damage so fast and does good damage. Length is meaningless if they don't deal damage fast enough when we're concerned with fast moving things, and if the damage is too low to dehorse

Damage types and armour - We have cut, pierce and blunt and yet all of them are very similar and ranged have access to both cut and pierce. Ranged could be impacted more when wearing armour with the way it affects their WPF. Heavier armour could be more effective against ranged melee weapons

We have the slot system - if ranged had to use 0 slot weapons you could tweak 0 slots as much as you like to balance them in melee. Weapon weight is a great way to balance - lighter weapons have a much harder time blocking than heavy ones

The more time ranged spend reloading, the more time melee have to play to their strengths - pushing in large numbers. Again something that can be tweaked

Xbows have no real skill point sink and they can be used with low WPF. Skill points in general can be used to tweak the classes - the more points you have to put into cav or PD the fewer points you can put into melee skills

I'm sure if there was an interest in tweaking the role of ranged and cav that could be done without changing a popular game mode. Theres also stuff like ranged ammo amounts, how easy it is to hit targets etc

[RedShield]

I'd like to see a reduction in the grind from 1-31 so new and casual players don't have such a laborious journey in catching up.  This will help marginalize the power curve, help new players to maintain interest because they'll be able to see better progress more quickly, and make skill more of the determining factor.

I think the key to games like this one where PvP and Progression are heavily focused, you don't want the player (especially new players) to feel like they're hitting brick walls that prevent them from feeling like they're competitive since that's pretty bad for retaining new players.  Otherwise, the concepts behind the current systems are interesting, unique, and fun but they're implementation is extremely prohibitive where new players are concerned.

In the end, Grind is fine when it's also tempered with a design that creates a larger and more competitive player community. 

[Joker86]

We do have some things we can tweak though that ensure pure melee have a clear advantage similar to what ranged and cav have in their role.

We have ways to make cav vulnerable when they are dehorsed. ATM cav players are protected by their horse because of the anti team wound mechanic that was introduced some time ago. You can't really harm a cav player if he is dehorsed and is near his horse before he gets up. That could be tweaked. Anti cav weapons aren't as good as they used to be, in fact shorter weapons are more effective than pikes/longspears. Even a 1 hander can be better because it deals damage so fast and does good damage. Length is meaningless if they don't deal damage fast enough when we're concerned with fast moving things, and if the damage is too low to dehorse

Damage types and armour - We have cut, pierce and blunt and yet all of them are very similar and ranged have access to both cut and pierce. Ranged could be impacted more when wearing armour with the way it affects their WPF. Heavier armour could be more effective against ranged melee weapons

We have the slot system - if ranged had to use 0 slot weapons you could tweak 0 slots as much as you like to balance them in melee. Weapon weight is a great way to balance - lighter weapons have a much harder time blocking than heavy ones

The more time ranged spend reloading, the more time melee have to play to their strengths - pushing in large numbers. Again something that can be tweaked

Xbows have no real skill point sink and they can be used with low WPF. Skill points in general can be used to tweak the classes - the more points you have to put into cav or PD the fewer points you can put into melee skills

I'm sure if there was an interest in tweaking the role of ranged and cav that could be done without changing a popular game mode. Theres also stuff like ranged ammo amounts, how easy it is to hit targets etc

All those changes are basically only balance tweaks, and I think after all the nerfs cav and archers have gone through, it should be clear that changing the balance won't fix the biggest problem infantry has on the battlefield: they have to reach their enemy on foot in order to kill him. And sadly enough, killing the enemy is actually required to win. So you need to "catch" your enemy in order to win, while two thirds of the enemies actually either run away all the time (cav) or keep you under fire constantly (ranged) or sometimes do even both (HA/HX). And once you reached him the fight is actually basing on interaction (attacking + blocking), where the enemy has to make a mistake in order to allow you to kill him, whereas shooting or lance backstabbing only require the relatively common mistake of being unaware, but there is no "interaction" at all. This is where the frustration come from, the constant feeling that you are not acting, but reacting, and although you are the one who is actually chasing, you are the prey, while the others are the hunter. It's the fact that most of the time an enemy has more or less to "agree" that the infantryman can attack him, unless it's the end of the round or a special occurance kicks in.

You can never "balance" the fact that an infantryman can not pick his targets the same way archers or cav can. It's the very basic gameplay of that class which is the problem, not the strength or weakness in particular aspects. Only a fundamental change in the game can remove the passiveness of that class. And there will never be a solution which shifts how well or bad an infantryman can attack the other classes or can be attacked by them. Which means any game mode basing solely on killing the enemies won't work for infantry. That's more or less a physical law, you can't break it. Infantry has a) slow speed and b) low attack range, so you can be awkward as much as you like, you won't be able to change that fact.

[Phew]

If someone is a competent native player, they can start cRPG, skip the fun, join a clan, borrow some looms from armory and be near the top the scoreboard within the first 10 minutes of their cRPG career. I don't see how that's "too grindy".

The only problem is that no new players actually know about this route. The newbies all start at level 1 and spam chat "how do I buy weapons?". The website (or even the mod itself) needs an auto-tutorial for new players. Point them toward Peasants United, explain Skip the Fun, etc.

[Molly]

That's why I answer only the very basic first 3 questions on the server and then tell them to check the Beginner's section in the forum.
Tho, there is a lot of explanation by now on the website - people are just too lazy to actually read it.

[Herezy92]

[...]The only problem is that no new players actually know about this route. (STF route)
The newbies all start at level 1 and spam chat "how do I buy weapons?". The website (or even the mod itself) needs an auto-tutorial for new players.[...]

We clearly need to find a way to force all new players to watch a micro video tutorials(1-2mins), explaining the ultra basics and where can they have more infos.

Edit: If a "way" is found, i could help for the tutorial.