What happen to PWI November 2016? (return player here)

andrew97xs

Okay i got some serious question to ask.
1) what happen to PWI my last log in was when they remove FC as a farming level meaning you no longer earn high exp., That was my last log in, i think it was last year.

2.)what happen to the servers? way back 2013-14 it has 4 or 5 both US west and east and today November 2016 it only has 1?

3) why the population seems high decrease?

4). Any idea where are the people? did they quit? or anyone can tell me what really happen to PW?
this use to be fun and today seems to be dead.

andrew97xs

sorry very terrible english

fairymaster1

1) i thought hypers in frost was removed a few years ago like in 2013.
2) servers merged
3) don't understand the question
4) if they are not here, they are somewhere

andrew97xs

3 question was the population seems to be dropped few players are active i mean very few people are now playing

shopcheese

Servers merged, there are now 4 servers. (2x west US, 1x east US, 1x EU) This enabled the ability to do cross-server events, such as xNW and xTW. However, xNW is disabled again (might be back in the future)

agol12

servers merged, what (back then) seemed to be a good idea.

but after a 2nd look, its kinda 2 different timezones in 1 server (EU that is) with NA people getting shafted in every single event

andrew97xs

i think this game is trying to survive cause only few ppl are active

kalystconquerer#0876

1) Hypers in FC have been shut off a long time ago - the time frame (2013) sounds correct.
2) Servers have merged - if you remember what your server was, you can figure out though process of elimination which server you now belong to
3) There was a higher population in the past, but due to people's real life obligations and other things people have come and gone. I myself have lost alot of friends off live due to them graduating college and starting jobs. When I started playing I was pretty young and had alot of time to mess around online, so take that as you will.
4) I think I just get on at weird times because I see more people in the early morning my time than mid day - though to be fair I think there are EU players I run into and mid day is when many people on the West Coast are at work. It depends on the circles you run in.

I think for me at least, when I started playing I came on with a group of friends which made it alot more enjoyable. I did eventually make friends with other people outside of my IRL friends, but it really helped to have buddies to go on with after school to play. Now, my schedules all whack along with everyone who I used to know that plays.

laiwaisan

LOL Its active just different time zones you might be SOL if your on a server that isn't in your time zone after the merge my west coast time zone with merge had different effect to many on freaking lag use to be in west arc now its in primal and some citys i felt Lag for the first time in lost very active grrrrr

greenfire312

I think if you look at the population of any given server (or hell, just west district), you'll see why we needed the server merges. I went on hiatus in 2014, came back in late 2015 after the merge, and Etherblade seemed to have just as many people as Heaven's Tear used to before the merge.

So yes, population is declining. And there are probably a hundred different reasons for that. My two cents, as always, puts the bulk of the blame squarely on power creep and the resulting imbalance to PVP... which the devs have repeatedly shown they have no interest in addressing.

There have been some improvements made, one of them the disabling of FF hypering (which, while controversial, was nonetheless necessary), and some of the new content since Archosaur studios came back is actually fun and well-designed. But more than likely we'll keep having a population bleed for some time now, because we simply don't seem to get many newbies anymore. Between the power creep and the fact that they basically murdered the old lowgame, I can't see how any new person can look at PWI and find it straightforward and enjoyable. I can't speak for others, but I can no longer recommend this game to my offline friends, and I haven't since 2014 when most of the lowgame changes happened.

laiwaisan

haters keep hating if anything got worst lag spikes where i use to not get them im on etherblade

glassguitar

IMO the reason for population bleed is power creep, period. The graphics, while dated, are still very nice. The combat and the relationship between classes is still very nice. However, unless you are a no lifer or willing to put dramatic amounts of RL money into the game, it's nearly impossible to truly reach "Endgame." For me personally, I love to "finish" a character and move on to an alt. When you can't even finish one level of power creep before the next one is released, and can't effectively participate in PvP, TW and other endgame activities because big spenders are able to swipe a card, or use hordes of saved coin to instantly max out, it really takes the fun out of it.

To be constructive, let me for comparison, refer to STO (also managed by PWE.)

A brand new character can be created and in less than two months reach the point of having all reputations finished, being fully geared, and having enough spec points to compete with anyone. (All without spending one cent of RL money, yet generating in come for PWE because of trading dilithium for zen in the player to player exchange) There is still a TON of things to do for fun at that point, such as kit out alternate ships and work on finishing more specializations, OR, roll an alt.

PWI, the power creep is seemingly endless and pay wall locked due to things like high level orbs being crazy expensive. Forget maxing more than one class.

For me personally, I still love to actually play PWI, but I don't because my will to grind is gone, due to endless power creep moving the bar faster than I can chase it.

greenfire312

glassguitar wrote: »

For me personally, I still love to actually play PWI, but I don't because my will to grind is gone, due to endless power creep moving the bar faster than I can chase it.

This is why I personally have a bunch of alts; leveling them and giving them different gear, learning new classes etc. is far superior to even attempting to gear for PVP in my opinion.

And really, power creep doesn't need to invalidate everything before it. The problem PWI's always had is that you can pay-to-win enough to completely invalidate skill differences. No, it's not impossible to beat a R9S3 with a g16 (or so I've heard), but the former has to really suck and probably have low refines as well (which most R9s don't). Once they threw R9 and 10* dragon orbs into the boutique, that was pretty much it for PVP balance.

glassguitar

greenfire312 wrote: »

glassguitar wrote: »

For me personally, I still love to actually play PWI, but I don't because my will to grind is gone, due to endless power creep moving the bar faster than I can chase it.

This is why I personally have a bunch of alts; leveling them and giving them different gear, learning new classes etc. is far superior to even attempting to gear for PVP in my opinion.

And really, power creep doesn't need to invalidate everything before it. The problem PWI's always had is that you can pay-to-win enough to completely invalidate skill differences. No, it's not impossible to beat a R9S3 with a g16 (or so I've heard), but the former has to really suck and probably have low refines as well (which most R9s don't). Once they threw R9 and 10* dragon orbs into the boutique, that was pretty much it for PVP balance.

Indeed. The problem for me and a lot of my former playing friends, is that we care more about PvP than PvE, so unbalancing PvP was a death sentence for the game. TO be clear, even if I won the lottery and was able to run about with a full rrr9r +12 full deity character, it would not be fun when the players I fought against weren't capable of competing. PWI should consider disabling gear bonuses in PvP similar to what BnS does in their arena. If PvP went back to being pure skill I would play the heck out of PWI.