the deve wipe?

[WITCHCRAFT]

Why not do what blizzard does with the Diablo series? There's a current ladder/season where everyone starts fresh with nothing, it lasts about 6 months. At the end, your season characters become non-season. You can start fresh for the next season, or keep playing your old guys with all the gear and xp. Everyone could have their current characters start of expired/non season, and at the end of the season all the new characters join them and can play together.

If this is the plan, I'd tweak XP/looms a little bit for current ladder season. Not too much, but enough for people to get a "full" set of matching armor and their favorite weapon loomed by the end of the season. Maybe even just make the first few generations of retirement give 3 heirlooms instead of 1 so you can get your most needed items set up sooner.

[Taser]

Ooh thats a cool idea too. With ladder chars participating in strat or only ones able to get looms?

Interdasting.

[Sauce]

Dividing an already low population is a bad idea. What does everyone want:

New players/peasants.

You don't need to nerf classes. You don't need to hand out levels and give 50lp's for incentive. You don't need to wipe everyone's work. You need to change the nature of the game. Make being/defending a peasant a highly rewarding group game play mechanic. This is what knights even did during the feudal age, defend the peasants so they can make them money!

Everyone loves DTV? Now DTV is practically on every server with more depth. People will make a peasant just to experience the love and fun.

[Grumbs]

Seems like a really strange idea personally. If it works then go for it, but it seems like if you want people to play you just have to make the game fun to play. I think a wipe will just be a temporary novelty that isn't really going to change the core of what makes people play the game. It might make people play for a bit because its new, but what is going to make them keep playing with a wiped server compared to playing now without a wipe? And we will have a more split community?

Go ahead and try whatever though, it doesn't make make much difference to me any more. I'd just rather you put some effort into the core of the gameplay rather than spend effort on wipes. Tweak up polestabs, add new gear, add ladders etc. What keeps people coming back usually is active development and fun gameplay and the sense that the devs are on the community's side rather than fighting against them

[Sauce]

The wipe is a temporary band aid (that might not even help at all) on a bigger issue.

[Kadeth]

I think a wipe will just be a temporary novelty that isn't really going to change the core of what makes people play the game.

The core of what makes cRPG great is still there, and always been; customisation options compared to native, with its basic character progression system and its huge amount of items. IMO, understanding why the m0d is dead requires talking to people that are interested in it but don't play it, which is something I've done extensively, and in my experience the comments are always the same. Mostly "can't be fucked grinding to get to on par with the regular players", and the odd complaint about the turn rate nerf or other mechanics issues. We all know very well that it doesn't take too long to level up to a point where you can be competitive, but a lot of Warband players don't, and have written off cRPG because they want a more level playing field. When most of us here started playing, we had the luxury of not getting dumpstered by ultra high level players with fully loomed gear. It's not a great first impression when you play current cRPG, but if wiped, the impression this mod gives to the entire Mount and Blade community changes completely, and I think there's real potential to attract a decent amount of players before bannerlord destroys cRPG totally.

Prof, you always have the best intentions, and you will without doubt go down in cRPG history as the kindest deve of all time. But I can't help but feel like this is a huge mistake. Not only does it split the existing players, but it will be confusing for potential new and returning players too. Which of the two separate communities should they want to join? Personally I wouldn't play on either, but I'd probably go full Leshma 16 hour days if it was wiped. This is unfortunately one of those situations where you can't make everyone happy. I had already accepted that the mod wouldn't be wiped, as much as it sucks. You're going to have to approach this head-on if you want this issue to go away, by either announcing that the database will NEVER be totally wiped, or that a trial wipe will occur. It's the only way the wipe debates will cease, people will accept your decision and move on.

Peasant wars... goals... an even playing field.... a clean slate for all.... players returning from all over the world !!! ...... a distant dream? or is there hope?

[Leesin]

Just wipe and kill the mod already

[Torben]

+1 for well phrased topic headline

[Mr.K.]

The core of what makes cRPG great is still there, and always been; customisation options compared to native, with its basic character progression system and its huge amount of items. IMO, understanding why the m0d is dead requires talking to people that are interested in it but don't play it, which is something I've done extensively, and in my experience the comments are always the same. Mostly "can't be fucked grinding to get to on par with the regular players", and the odd complaint about the turn rate nerf or other mechanics issues. We all know very well that it doesn't take too long to level up to a point where you can be competitive, but a lot of Warband players don't, and have written off cRPG because they want a more level playing field. When most of us here started playing, we had the luxury of not getting dumpstered by ultra high level players with fully loomed gear. It's not a great first impression when you play current cRPG, but if wiped, the impression this mod gives to the entire Mount and Blade community changes completely, and I think there's real potential to attract a decent amount of players before bannerlord destroys cRPG totally.

This is exactly my view of it currently as well. I've been against the wipe for a longest time, but I've changed my mind lately because of a couple of things. When everyone has loomed gear, the looms don't even matter anyway. I haven't played without +3 gear since forever and our armory isn't very impressive compared to some others... Same with levels. My lvl33 characters hardly have an edge anyway so why care about a wipe?

Imo the best course of action would be full wipe with some changes to some mechanics that you can then use to advertise the new and improved cRPG. As with all advertising, the change doesn't have to be big (or even really a change), just something you can bring up and hype the product. Change the turn rate nerf slightly for example. Same goes with Strategus which is still by far the biggest selling point of crpg. Start hyping in advance this changed Strategus with limited length rounds and new interesting mechanics and people will be interested. The crpg community itself is too small now to bring much change but the interest is clearly still there and crpg can still fill that void.

[Leshma]

If it works then go for it, but it seems like if you want people to play you just have to make the game fun to play.

^This.

I mean, Warband is always fun to play but cRPG leveling and item mechanics are being atrocious. No way anyone sane would put himself through that ordeal one more time for the sake of the gameplay.

[Oberyn]

Leshma I just want to be serious with you for once. Kill yourself.

[Paul]

And thus decimate the tax paying population of Serbia? Nah. Think of the parasites!

[Panos_Tournament]

IMO, before wiping some things must be done.

1. An interesting map rotation, bring back all the native maps, and just add 15-20 more of the custom ones.
2. Decrease the player slots on EU1, I do not know if this will make the server to perform better or not, but the current server is shit.
3. All players should begin at level 30, fuck the endless grinding.
4. Make special classes very expensive, if anyone wants to play as a lancer, or as a crossbowman, he should pay more upkeep.
For example, horses prices should begin from 20k AT LEAST.
5. Remove any restrictions and penalties regarding Respecs, just add an X amount of gold for a respec.
6. Ive said it before, ONCE A WEEK, EVERYONE SHOULD GET A FREE HEIRLOOM EXCHANGE. We have tons of armours, why restrict different gamestyles? Cant you see that restrictions are forcing people away from the mod?
7. Rework the stats of all the classes, they are fucked up.

[Leshma]

Getting to level 30 was never an issue. What lies beyond is problematic. Old system was easier on leveling but item prices were high. You could get high enough level for retirement as gen1 in very short time while being part of the XP blob. With high gen bonus you could level crazy fast. It basically rewarded players for being regular players but didn't force them to be addicts like current system does.

Anyway, mod leveling mechanics need serious overhaul. It is stuck in old era with vanilla WoW and Everquest nonsense where you grind like madman. These days players are impatient, you need to shorten time to reward in all aspects of the game. Twenty hours to retirement must become five hours tops and even that is generous.

No one is crazy enough to level again unless you change the leveling to be much, much more casual and rewarding.

XP multiplier must die, it is by far the worst cRPG mechanic ever.

Edit: Main reason why servers are dead or semi dead is that most of you, the playerbase, are now grown up men while you were teens when you started playing. You don't have more than ten hours per week to invest in cRPG and game should respect that and be changed to enable you to enjoy playing for those few hours per week.

[zottlmarsch]

Wouldn't splitting servers be overall detrimental to the population that wants to play on decently populated servers?

Yes.