A Story From the Glory Days.

llama
llama Posts: 21 Arc User
GCBkoRC.jpg

Will start off with: Conqueror.

Now we know the premise, for those of you who remember. I already posted this on Reddit but doesn't seem to be going anywhere productive. For those of you who remember us, how are you doing!?

For those of you who have no idea, allow me to explain if you even care. So a bunch of us came over from PW-MY into the PWI Beta which led into PWI. We ended up forming the best guild in the game at the time. We got world first TW win and world first to taking the entire map. We can add a bunch of other achievements to that list. We are talking 10+ years ago now, it has been so long. A few of us got together and decided it would be cool to catch up, but not play again. We're all unanimously done with the game save a couple of us (Lushess).

PWI fostered one of the most dynamic communities with some of the best politics of any MMO RPG I have ever played. It was thanks to the PVP design that allowed that to happen. A lot of people complained about the RPK, but that same RPK pushed people together into powerful Guilds which led to some epic open world battles and incredible TW triple defenses.

Conqueror never lost a TW on our way to taking the whole map where we shortly after disbanded to give the server a Map reset.

So get to the point damn it! So, the purpose here was to try to find some more people we couldn't get in touch with. If you want to catch up and get a significant overdose of nostalgia, drop me a message here and I will get you a discord invite.

Otherwise, go easy on me it's been a while. :)

Comments

  • dekciw
    dekciw Posts: 954 Arc User
    >:)
    ZzXVdr5.png
  • aradriel
    aradriel Posts: 73 Arc User
    What server was this out of curiosity? I didn't start until 2010 on Raging Tides so not familiar with the faction. Nice screenshot though, I miss TW from that era.
    Raging Tides/Tideswell
    Arandelle | Cleric
    Aradriela | Wizard
    Not-so-perfect world'er since Jan. 2010.
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    aradriel wrote: »
    What server was this out of curiosity? I didn't start until 2010 on Raging Tides so not familiar with the faction. Nice screenshot though, I miss TW from that era.

    Lost City. I quit shortly before 2010 - not long after the anniversary packs and we disbanded to reset the map. (I was never a fan of that, Daikoku was too nice :P)
  • heerohex#3018
    heerohex#3018 Posts: 4,795 Community Moderator
    That the first update logo. And before sin n psy.

    I dont remember the faction but I was playing on HT server. In the years I've only seen a handful of full server maps been taken. I believe now this could be to a larger tw map and in turn lower player numbers.

    I miss the old days, but I don't think we will see it again like it was. Tho I'm sure some things will come bk.

    Thanks for posting, was intresting to see.
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    heero200 wrote: »
    That the first update logo. And before sin n psy.

    I dont remember the faction but I was playing on HT server. In the years I've only seen a handful of full server maps been taken. I believe now this could be to a larger tw map and in turn lower player numbers.

    I miss the old days, but I don't think we will see it again like it was. Tho I'm sure some things will come bk.

    Thanks for posting, was intresting to see.

    Yep, this was on Lost City. :| I may actually play some if the server it got merged in to wasn't PVE. That, to me, guts the entire game play experience. I know that isn't what a lot of people are interested in but it is disappointing for me.
  • dingo488
    dingo488 Posts: 936 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    Aaaah, the glory days. When TWs started 3 minutes apart and took 5 minutes to finish. All the geared barbs would flock to the same faction and basically have a monopoly on catpullers and treat TW like a PvE instance and just walk straight to the crystal and AFK. They would then use their ability to PvE through a TW to also monopolize IG/White Tea since they were limited to only 1 or 2 cities.

    Back then TW pay was a very relevant chunk of cash so when all the PvErs heard u can PvE TW in 5 minutes and make a bunch of money they all applied to join aswell, creating this massive bandwagon faction that would just insta-finish every TW. This caused all the PvPers to just quit bothering with TW. So now all the factions attacking this big faction were filled with the people whose application got rejected every month because their gear wasn't good enough to join.

    Because this narrative wasn't very appealing to them they started making up stories about how special and glorious these factions were, but in reality every single server had a faction like this that basically killed TW on their server. On Sanctuary it was Nefarious, funny enough they also had the color red.

    Probably the second worst period for mass PvP in the history of PWI, definitely no glory days. I think its only beaten by PWI right now, where entire servers flock into 1 faction with the noble objective of nuking a dragon and then pretend its PvP.

    If we're talking glory days I would definitely prefer the period where we had 3 hours TWs every single weekend for a year straight. Not this 5-minute TW shjtfest.
  • dekciw
    dekciw Posts: 954 Arc User
    dingo488 wrote: »
    Aaaah, the glory days. When TWs started 3 minutes apart and took 5 minutes to finish. All the geared barbs would flock to the same faction and basically have a monopoly on catpullers and treat TW like a PvE instance and just walk straight to the crystal and AFK. They would then use their ability to PvE through a TW to also monopolize IG/White Tea since they were limited to only 1 or 2 cities.

    Back then TW pay was a very relevant chunk of cash so when all the PvErs heard u can PvE TW in 5 minutes and make a bunch of money they all applied to join aswell, creating this massive bandwagon faction that would just insta-finish every TW. This caused all the PvPers to just quit bothering with TW. So now all the factions attacking this big faction were filled with the people whose application got rejected every month because their gear wasn't good enough to join.

    Because this narrative wasn't very appealing to them they started making up stories about how special and glorious these factions were, but in reality every single server had a faction like this that basically killed TW on their server. On Sanctuary it was Nefarious, funny enough they also had the color red.

    Probably the second worst period for mass PvP in the history of PWI, definitely no glory days. I think its only beaten by PWI right now, where entire servers flock into 1 faction with the noble objective of nuking a dragon and then pretend its PvP.

    Maybe cause you were on a PVE server. Definitely not an accurate description of LostCity.
    dingo488 wrote: »
    If we're talking glory days I would definitely prefer the period where we had 3 hours TWs every single weekend for a year straight.

    That's more like it. That and mass pvp/ganking for grinding spots.



    ZzXVdr5.png
  • dingo488
    dingo488 Posts: 936 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    dekciw wrote: »
    Maybe cause you were on a PVE server. Definitely not an accurate description of LostCity.

    I've played on a PvP server aswell. The only notable difference is that on PvP servers people, way higher level/gear that are actually buffed and prepared to PvP, will attack others that are not prepared at all and then feel happy about it. Aside from that the two are pretty much identical. PvP servers aren't filled with all these super competitive warriors that never back down from a challenge, most people still prefer having it easy and farming 5 minute TWs is definitely on the menu.

  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    dingo488 wrote: »
    dekciw wrote: »
    Maybe cause you were on a PVE server. Definitely not an accurate description of LostCity.

    I've played on a PvP server aswell. The only notable difference is that on PvP servers people, way higher level/gear that are actually buffed and prepared to PvP, will attack others that are not prepared at all and then feel happy about it. Aside from that the two are pretty much identical. PvP servers aren't filled with all these super competitive warriors that never back down from a challenge, most people still prefer having it easy and farming 5 minute TWs is definitely on the menu.

    Not sure how your server was but we didn't do that on Lost City. The TWs were always 80 v 80 and were epic and hard fought, most of the time. I know in CQ it was always a challenge because we would have 3 defenses at once going and we would have to pull off insane defenses and try to win as quicky as possible. I'm sorry your server was so dull, but Lost City TW was epic.
  • cosmosia1989
    cosmosia1989 Posts: 165 Arc User
    The game is not a bit different than it was during these times. Same cashers, same powercreep, heck it was even worse back then..if more ppl had warsoul weapons while the majority was walking around in TT90 Armour, no def charm meta, no autopot...you could literally kick ppl out of their lives in an instant. Today, even vs the most broken mofos you can still survive one or 2 hits. Yes, the average gear level is way higher than it was back then and insanely overgeared ppl are not that few anymore.

    The only reason why we do not have those one-faction-dominates-everything-scenarios anymore is due to the PvE aspect of xTW and TW (as of late not anymore in TW) and I think that is pretty good. Any aspect that benefits ppl to just bundle together the strongest of the strong is just plain BS. Heck mass pvp is just plain BS, like it always was. It's always imbalanced. You can always predict the outcome before the battle even starts if there is no PvE aspect or strategy you can use (and dear god, there is no strat needed for anything).

    The true glorious days were directly after the primal update, when 1v1 was the most balanced between all classes. No one could 1,2,3-Kill on equal gears, anyone had to put in a little bit of effort to win. Beautiful. Even now tho, 1v1 is still far more balanced than Mass pvp ever was. Just saying :D
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    The game is not a bit different than it was during these times. Same cashers, same powercreep, heck it was even worse back then..if more ppl had warsoul weapons while the majority was walking around in TT90 Armour, no def charm meta, no autopot...you could literally kick ppl out of their lives in an instant. Today, even vs the most broken mofos you can still survive one or 2 hits. Yes, the average gear level is way higher than it was back then and insanely overgeared ppl are not that few anymore.

    The only reason why we do not have those one-faction-dominates-everything-scenarios anymore is due to the PvE aspect of xTW and TW (as of late not anymore in TW) and I think that is pretty good. Any aspect that benefits ppl to just bundle together the strongest of the strong is just plain BS. Heck mass pvp is just plain BS, like it always was. It's always imbalanced. You can always predict the outcome before the battle even starts if there is no PvE aspect or strategy you can use (and dear god, there is no strat needed for anything).

    The true glorious days were directly after the primal update, when 1v1 was the most balanced between all classes. No one could 1,2,3-Kill on equal gears, anyone had to put in a little bit of effort to win. Beautiful. Even now tho, 1v1 is still far more balanced than Mass pvp ever was. Just saying :D

    Warsoul didn't exist at the time of this screen shot. The game was more balanced back then.
  • mysticblue#1834
    mysticblue#1834 Posts: 92 Arc User
    llama wrote: »
    The game is not a bit different than it was during these times. Same cashers, same powercreep, heck it was even worse back then..if more ppl had warsoul weapons while the majority was walking around in TT90 Armour, no def charm meta, no autopot...you could literally kick ppl out of their lives in an instant. Today, even vs the most broken mofos you can still survive one or 2 hits. Yes, the average gear level is way higher than it was back then and insanely overgeared ppl are not that few anymore.

    The only reason why we do not have those one-faction-dominates-everything-scenarios anymore is due to the PvE aspect of xTW and TW (as of late not anymore in TW) and I think that is pretty good. Any aspect that benefits ppl to just bundle together the strongest of the strong is just plain BS. Heck mass pvp is just plain BS, like it always was. It's always imbalanced. You can always predict the outcome before the battle even starts if there is no PvE aspect or strategy you can use (and dear god, there is no strat needed for anything).

    The true glorious days were directly after the primal update, when 1v1 was the most balanced between all classes. No one could 1,2,3-Kill on equal gears, anyone had to put in a little bit of effort to win. Beautiful. Even now tho, 1v1 is still far more balanced than Mass pvp ever was. Just saying :D

    Warsoul didn't exist at the time of this screen shot. The game was more balanced back then.

    Lol R.I.P
  • cosmosia1989
    cosmosia1989 Posts: 165 Arc User
    llama wrote: »
    The game is not a bit different than it was during these times. Same cashers, same powercreep, heck it was even worse back then..if more ppl had warsoul weapons while the majority was walking around in TT90 Armour, no def charm meta, no autopot...you could literally kick ppl out of their lives in an instant. Today, even vs the most broken mofos you can still survive one or 2 hits. Yes, the average gear level is way higher than it was back then and insanely overgeared ppl are not that few anymore.

    The only reason why we do not have those one-faction-dominates-everything-scenarios anymore is due to the PvE aspect of xTW and TW (as of late not anymore in TW) and I think that is pretty good. Any aspect that benefits ppl to just bundle together the strongest of the strong is just plain BS. Heck mass pvp is just plain BS, like it always was. It's always imbalanced. You can always predict the outcome before the battle even starts if there is no PvE aspect or strategy you can use (and dear god, there is no strat needed for anything).

    The true glorious days were directly after the primal update, when 1v1 was the most balanced between all classes. No one could 1,2,3-Kill on equal gears, anyone had to put in a little bit of effort to win. Beautiful. Even now tho, 1v1 is still far more balanced than Mass pvp ever was. Just saying :D

    Warsoul didn't exist at the time of this screen shot. The game was more balanced back then.

    Warsoul always existed, just nearly no one had it. The true few killers had R8 and no, the game, esp close to vanilla before genies were released and closely after was the most broken it has ever been. It didnt show as much cause finding skilled ppl was even harder than it is atm, mostly due to how thin Information was actually spread back then.

    Only class that required skill back then was a BM with Stun to Stun locks, anything else is/was just as easy as it is now or even easier. Balance however...not so much, not at all. If ppl had the knowledge they have now...damn xD many ppl were just oblivious. Wizards and barbs have been completely broken post-genie.
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    llama wrote: »
    The game is not a bit different than it was during these times. Same cashers, same powercreep, heck it was even worse back then..if more ppl had warsoul weapons while the majority was walking around in TT90 Armour, no def charm meta, no autopot...you could literally kick ppl out of their lives in an instant. Today, even vs the most broken mofos you can still survive one or 2 hits. Yes, the average gear level is way higher than it was back then and insanely overgeared ppl are not that few anymore.

    The only reason why we do not have those one-faction-dominates-everything-scenarios anymore is due to the PvE aspect of xTW and TW (as of late not anymore in TW) and I think that is pretty good. Any aspect that benefits ppl to just bundle together the strongest of the strong is just plain BS. Heck mass pvp is just plain BS, like it always was. It's always imbalanced. You can always predict the outcome before the battle even starts if there is no PvE aspect or strategy you can use (and dear god, there is no strat needed for anything).

    The true glorious days were directly after the primal update, when 1v1 was the most balanced between all classes. No one could 1,2,3-Kill on equal gears, anyone had to put in a little bit of effort to win. Beautiful. Even now tho, 1v1 is still far more balanced than Mass pvp ever was. Just saying :D

    Warsoul didn't exist at the time of this screen shot. The game was more balanced back then.

    Warsoul always existed, just nearly no one had it. The true few killers had R8 and no, the game, esp close to vanilla before genies were released and closely after was the most broken it has ever been. It didnt show as much cause finding skilled ppl was even harder than it is atm, mostly due to how thin Information was actually spread back then.

    Only class that required skill back then was a BM with Stun to Stun locks, anything else is/was just as easy as it is now or even easier. Balance however...not so much, not at all. If ppl had the knowledge they have now...damn xD many ppl were just oblivious. Wizards and barbs have been completely broken post-genie.

    Eh, they must have called it something else. When I stopped playing there was R8 but it wasn't an enormous advantage. I could still kill r8 players no problem with my HH100 weapon, that took forever to farm. I don't remember war soul at all, though I do know it's part of the current game. I am about 99% sure it was not in game at the time I played.
  • madonna89
    madonna89 Posts: 40 Arc User
    The discussion shouldnt be about the game beeing imbalanced or whatnot, but about the PLAYERS.

    ~ 10 years ago , people would play games, for the sake of playing a game. PvP for the sake of having some fun in PvP

    Nowadays : ppl expect games to be *worth it*. In the sense that every move ingame has to be towards some arbitrary goal, or
    reward.....
    No reward --> its not worth participating....

    so dont blame the game , but blame the ppl playing it :)

    Just take a look at things like : daily login rewards , event rewards , DAILIES (<-- this one really iches me)

    my 2 cents
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    madonna89 wrote: »
    The discussion shouldnt be about the game beeing imbalanced or whatnot, but about the PLAYERS.

    ~ 10 years ago , people would play games, for the sake of playing a game. PvP for the sake of having some fun in PvP

    Nowadays : ppl expect games to be *worth it*. In the sense that every move ingame has to be towards some arbitrary goal, or
    reward.....
    No reward --> its not worth participating....

    so dont blame the game , but blame the ppl playing it :)

    Just take a look at things like : daily login rewards , event rewards , DAILIES (<-- this one really iches me)

    my 2 cents

    Yep, that was the goal behind the post. I don't mind debating but some people are salty I called it the glory days. A lot of the people were not around when the game was designed as a game. It was balanced to give people who put the effort in the advantage with some help from the cash shop. After the 1 year anniversary they flipped that on its head where you could just throw money at the game to progress.

    Which is where it lost me and many many others.
  • mysticblue#1834
    mysticblue#1834 Posts: 92 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    llama wrote: »
    madonna89 wrote: »
    The discussion shouldnt be about the game beeing imbalanced or whatnot, but about the PLAYERS.

    ~ 10 years ago , people would play games, for the sake of playing a game. PvP for the sake of having some fun in PvP

    Nowadays : ppl expect games to be *worth it*. In the sense that every move ingame has to be towards some arbitrary goal, or
    reward.....
    No reward --> its not worth participating....

    so dont blame the game , but blame the ppl playing it :)

    Just take a look at things like : daily login rewards , event rewards , DAILIES (<-- this one really iches me)

    my 2 cents

    Yep, that was the goal behind the post. I don't mind debating but some people are salty I called it the glory days. A lot of the people were not around when the game was designed as a game. It was balanced to give people who put the effort in the advantage with some help from the cash shop. After the 1 year anniversary they flipped that on its head where you could just throw money at the game to progress.

    Which is where it lost me and many many others.

    Totally agreed even though I haven't been in PWI since the old era I am atleast aware of how badly the gold price has fluctuated which is enough evidence to proof the state in which the ingame economy is and as a consequence the situation of the existing players.

    And anybody stating that the game is still in balance should atleast mention the minimal assumptions they are taking before saying so.(even the PVE was overwhelming for G16s before the NF rework)
    Post edited by mysticblue#1834 on
  • cosmosia1989
    cosmosia1989 Posts: 165 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    llama wrote: »
    madonna89 wrote: »
    The discussion shouldnt be about the game beeing imbalanced or whatnot, but about the PLAYERS.

    ~ 10 years ago , people would play games, for the sake of playing a game. PvP for the sake of having some fun in PvP

    Nowadays : ppl expect games to be *worth it*. In the sense that every move ingame has to be towards some arbitrary goal, or
    reward.....
    No reward --> its not worth participating....

    so dont blame the game , but blame the ppl playing it :)

    Just take a look at things like : daily login rewards , event rewards , DAILIES (<-- this one really iches me)

    my 2 cents

    Yep, that was the goal behind the post. I don't mind debating but some people are salty I called it the glory days. A lot of the people were not around when the game was designed as a game. It was balanced to give people who put the effort in the advantage with some help from the cash shop. After the 1 year anniversary they flipped that on its head where you could just throw money at the game to progress.

    Which is where it lost me and many many others.

    Totally agreed even though I haven't been in PWI since the old era I am atleast aware of how badly the gold price has fluctuated which is enough evidence to proof the state in which the ingame economy is and as a consequence the situation of the existing players.

    And anybody stating that the game is still in balance should atleast mention the minimal assumptions they are taking before saying so.(even the PVE was overwhelming for G16s before the NF rework)

    I've been there and I seriously only truly felt bad for the ppl that just got their r8 weapons done and BOOM! Anni packs and Rep sales came along and all that INSANE effort was null and void. In all honesty tho..giving more ppl access to r8 was pretty damn good. All of a sudden much more ppl could actually compete for minimal cost..until more and more ppl got r9 and welp, until that was the case it was pretty fun actually.

    There are no minimal assumption when talking about balance. IF I were to explain in detail why the game was not balanced then and that it even is more balanced now..taking into account average gear, cash-levels, playerskill, classes, skillchanges and all of that...I could write a friggin book about that. I can say this much however: Before Primal and before Def-Passives, any Class, even with minimal Debuffs, could insta-off other classes that did not have any self-buff to protect themselves and/or were purged. That is because we did not have that additional 80% def buff and all def was capped to 100%. After primal this was bumbed up to 180%, just as if you had a perma 80% def buff. Back then, a wizards...spark (genie) + Undine with no def passives meant that ANYTHING would die from the fire-combo. Literally anything. Same goes for Barbs/BMs. Devour/Glacial Spike + Mire also amounted to above 100% of gear value and thus reduced the def close enough to 0 to literally wipe ppl away with a single hit afterwards. Even Archer with Eagleon + Mire/Shock could lay some serious waste to non-def selfbuffed ppl.

    Even before genie...man ppls def was already low-af...just the basic debuffs already have been like you HF'ed a target or worse. Debuffs have been way, WAY too powerful..added on top the lack of decent def charms (tho I would still prefer if you would have to use them manually..that would overburden many, I know, still anything that requires more skill is preferable). Hence why the game was massively imbalanced on release, completely broken after genie until primal and only was slightly balanced after packs/r8 sale after the primal update because the gear-gap between players was the lowest of all times and the new mechanics allowed for better counterplay/forced ppl to use more elaborate combos to win on equal gears.

    In contrast to the current state of the game...it has gotten worse, the gear difference is even WAY worse then it has ever been BUT if you compare the games current mechanics from each class to each class assuming absolute equal gear..there is a form of balance there. Not even nearly as balanced as it was post-primal but still far, far better than it was pre-primal. Only very few classes can 1,2,3 all other classes easily, all of them have strengths and weaknesses (cept psys, they are pure rng and completely useless mechanic-wise, if it wasn't for Soul of Silence NO ONE would play this class anymore, tho that would maybe be alluring to play due to increased challenge) and are better vs certain classes and helpless vs others..but no class dominated. Post-genie...great wizards were god damn nearly unstopable, with barbs being a close second. You didnt even need any high skill-ceiling to make things work, nope, not at all. Now, if you are an offensively built barb/bm and know exactly what you are doing..you are also nearly unstopable. However, if you are garbage..you will not be able to do much even then. At least lack of skill if punished way more severely then it was back then..and for me thats a plus :D

    AS for the players themselves...they did not change much. it's gotten less and only the most die-hard remain now, that might be true, but the typical human mentallity to always wanting to win at all costs is still there...ppl still bundle together in the most broken way possible...the only downside is..there are not many ppl left to dominate, which is funny and hence why ppl continue to leave the game and/or are unable to bundle together after all, at least not as much as it was during the time the TW-Map-Picture was taken. If you form a faction of the 80 strongest ppl on either of the servers now...you will be completely uncontestet by anything. There are not even enough other ppl left so that they would pose a threat even in 4x way TWs, which yes, is sad but can't help it. Doesn't change the fact that so many ppl still cash/farm the living jesus out of their lives to be able to get a 1-up on others by gearing up like crazy to be able to dominate on a smaller scale. This is something you have in Every god damn free to play game in existence. Ppl like that are the driving force. Without them, the whole business model would collapse.

    Still, imho PWI has the most enjoyable PvP out of all MMORPGs right now, if you focus on specific elements like 1v1 and work on actively balancing out fights by gear, buffs, etc. ...That is something you can't do in most other games and for that I will always appreciate PWI (as long as it exists). How can you tell if something is balanced? If both players have the same amount of killing pressure, defensive means and counters available to survive, outplay and to land a kill on the enemy. Like if you fight a BM as an archer that can literally OS you every 6-10 seconds with a minimal combo whilst you can hit the BM for maybe 10% of his total HP at a time or need such a setup for a combo that is so long, that all counter-skills will 100% be ready again for the BM..welp, that is definitively imbalanced AF. There is an easy fix to that. Allow buffs for the archer, so that the archer is not Oneshot anymore and let the BM maybe take off some gear and preferably not use magic marrow at all (which allows for significant kill pressure on the archer side, whilst still easily be defendable by just Heart of Steel (genie skill)). This will force both Archer and BM to pay attention while not being afraid to just get insta-nuked and also forces BOTH of them to plan their combos ahead of time with enemy-saves in mind to land a kill.

    This is balance...if only Devs could stay true to those simple guidelines...but it seems no game has achieved this yet. Obviously not, since it is not about skill, it's about earning money. Even in FPS or even worse LoL and other games like that..there is no true balance unless you have mirror-matches which is gg.

    Tl;dr: It is fact that those have not been the glory days, they came a bit later. Balance wasn't a thing neither then nor now. Balance is something no Game will achieve as long as they long to earn money. Players mentallity will also never change because humans do not change. True balance can only be worked out by the players and requires a game that allows for specific stat-manipulation, like PWI does, hence why PWI is still a great game for custom-PvP. Didn't mention this above but Mass-PvP IS/WAS AND WILL ALWAYS be a massive fustercluck of RNG-BS that is not worth anyones time that wants true competitive gameplay in any MMO on the market that requires skill. Cept of you play Chess. Chess is truly the best game there is because the better player will win 100% of the time <3

    PS: One of the major problem with humans is that most of them assume anything has to be easy, clear-cut, black or white and that there is no effort needed to achieve anything. That will always bug me. If you want to be a decent living being you should consider ANYTHING you do and any interaction with everything in life and make use of what makes humans so "special". We are able to think, carve our own way..and look at us..mere monkeys with the illusion of being able to actually think. Much like that matrix, just on a much deeper psychological level yet tremendously similar.
  • mysticblue#1834
    mysticblue#1834 Posts: 92 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    There goes the argument obviously 'equal gear'.(which half the population has the other half does not as of now)
    Infact even that's not correct a lot of R9 with mediocre shards too get one shot so it should be a 60/40 (no hate against better geared players just stating my point)

    Back then whatever skill changes took place or what not you say it relays this and this dmg. Atleast I believe HP charms used to exist so you could atleast tick once in a PK battle (for wizards or BM or whatever) and counter back.(as skills do have CDs) and also skills do miss for BMs/archers if not for casters so you are talking extremes again.
    Also you mentioned genie+spark+undine for wizards which is a nice combo but I do believe you can't have the other guy just standing around doing nothing
    they could either use a debuff puri apo/faith or for casters could use a puri weap they and all in all the guy could just kite or insta tele and stunlock/paralyze (for classes with CC skills)the wiz for the duration of undine (assuming undine works as a debuff since I haven't played wizards and if doesn't the person just has to kite )
    As for BMs/barbs. Seekers can easily ss qpq(if it did exist back then) it back but assuming other classes they could do the same as mentioned as both seem to work on debuffs which amplify dmg.

    All those combos obviously are in the same category as fortify+ss+blur+qpq type scenario but you need enough space and time to pull them off and decent dmg amplifying combos always have cons (CD being the most common one) which don't allow them to be used repeatedly in quick succession. (so no they could not be game breakers even back then)

    Most of the PVP events are PK like inside so besides dual one can't just oneshot K.O anyone irrespective of the class even back during those days atleast others would agree. (with similiar gear and stats obviously which was far easier to obtain back then)

    Also most of the players atleast from what I have heard have stated that not R9 but specifically R9S3 is what caused the imbalance against other gear sets. (perhaps due to the 100+bonus on class relevant stats)

    Also most of the f2p R9 players acquired their R9 back in the days when gold costs didn't shoot the roof and nirvana G16 was pretty new which did sell well and also a number of other ports were available for farming(which are sadly getting reduced as each patch passes by..now one can't even finish their pseudo end game gear that is G16 because the crafting options got revoked so the game balance ia certainly a little off..)
    The CN patches keep bringing more CS exclusive items which honestly are never so so important but that's understood since they are running their business.(I humbly pray they stop bringing anymore trash but I guess it won't ever happen the Paramount genie is the only useful thing which they brought in a long time)

    I will stop ranting here and stop commenting on this thread any further..
    Post edited by mysticblue#1834 on
  • datsang
    datsang Posts: 163 Arc User

    This is balance...if only Devs could stay true to those simple guidelines...but it seems no game has achieved this yet. Obviously not, since it is not about skill, it's about earning money. Even in FPS or even worse LoL and other games like that..there is no true balance unless you have mirror-matches which is gg.

    Tl;dr: It is fact that those have not been the glory days, they came a bit later. Balance wasn't a thing neither then nor now. Balance is something no Game will achieve as long as they long to earn money. Players mentallity will also never change because humans do not change. True balance can only be worked out by the players and requires a game that allows for specific stat-manipulation, like PWI does, hence why PWI is still a great game for custom-PvP. Didn't mention this above but Mass-PvP IS/WAS AND WILL ALWAYS be a massive fustercluck of RNG-BS that is not worth anyones time that wants true competitive gameplay in any MMO on the market that requires skill. Cept of you play Chess. Chess is truly the best game there is because the better player will win 100% of the time <3

    While earning money is part of it, I doubt its the main reason for games struggling with balance. There are so many different skill levels of players, varying levels of knowledge and the decision, what skill level do you set your balance around? Perfect example currently is WoW`s MDI, the comps are all the same, from map to map, due certain classes just being overtuned for it. The problem is, if you nerf them cause of the MDI level balance issues, your average player will feel gutted with it as they have no means to reach the level of gameplay in which those nerfs were needed. And that is, imo, the biggest problem in balancing games.

    As for LoL, it has probably the best balance out there of all the games I`ve seen played. Obviously nothing is perfect but the balance there goes more than skin deep. I`m sure its a decision they made to balance the game around teamplay, not 1vs1s. As such for somebody who adores 1vs1s and whatnots, it might seem imbalanced. But in truth the team has so many decisions on where to put in the bans, who to priority pick for and what matsch ups to take. You will have favorable match ups on some lanes, unfavorable on some.

    The problem with mass pvp balance is, there is no way to balance it properly from players side. Even if you wanted to balance it, the amount of effort required to balance 10v10 is just stupid. And you would do it trough playing different rounds and balancing afterwards, not trough theorycraft as there really isnt a person who is capable of doing it in this game properly. This is result of too many variables in this game.

    I dont understand why ppl look for competitive PvP experience in MMORPGs in the first place. To me they are pretty poorly designed for it due, to me least personally, being bout other things than skill match ups in PvP scene. This is because MMORPGs are bout progression in some way or another, which makes PvP balance pretty damn impossible even if the ppl were on similar skill levels, which they are not.
  • cosmosia1989
    cosmosia1989 Posts: 165 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    @datsang Yes, but I mainly prefer 1v1 in PWI because you can actually customize it. Especially the part that you mentioned it needs custom tuning depending on which player fights which player, in 1v1 this is exactly what we can do. We can finetune gear/skills/talk to each other to find the perfect balance. Also, I will give this to LoL in a way that they are taking very good care of their game and the feedback from the community, actively balancing the game as much as they possibly can. Yes, but even then, it is not as balanced as I could potentially balance 1v1s in PWI. Ofc, in PWI you need another player that also accepts those nerfs and need to have the playerskill to either be able to play with those nerfs at all or adjust and get less nerfs in the beginning but will accept higher nerfs as he progresses and understands the potential of his class. This is something I did with many ppl multiple times. It works, but not everyone is compatible, hence why I always cringe when some PK-Flamers feel great about owning ppl..when I can tell with just a glance that they won due to the situation being massively turned towards their favor. In my eyes, a victory like that is no victory at all. If a fight is 100% easy win anyways then there is no reason to fight imho.

    @mysticblue Here is the thing: No offense, but you are doing the same mistake as many, if not all humans, tend to do. You even admitted in your post that you don't play wizard for example, yet you still assume that it might not have been as bad back in the day. Hence, let me ask you: Why? If you don't know the class, why do you make assumptions? Yes, with genies and Spark you could also use Soul of Fire to block an incoming fire-combo from a wizard. However, esp back in the day with no autopotion, you barely even had 2 def charm ticks to worry about. If your enemy was not top notch and used the def charm at the perfect timing they would either instantly die or die anyways because getting hit on 0 def hurts, even with 50% damage reduction (which was the max for a long time on def charms). There are ways to completely bypass def charms anyways, you can have perfect timing all you want, if the wizard uses Spark (which ticks a def charm on its own as well) just before a fire-skill hits the enemy then the spark skill will tick the potential def charm and the fire skill will go through 100% with no way to use the def charm manually and esp not in an auto-potion. This combo is not hard at all to pull off, heck you dont even have to switch any gear for it. Doing a full fortify SS combo on a seeker is even harder. Something similar works for seeker, too, if you use Blade of Supreme heat just before using Ion Spike/main Damage skill. Like if you start with heartseeker into SS/Fortify/QPQ and use Blade of Supreme heat right after and before Ion Spike then your Ion Spike will already deal full damage, assuming your enemy had full 2 ticks on his def charm left when you used Heartseeker. Overall, please do not assume things. I do not assume anything I wrote here. I know. I tested it, played all classes, know all skills, all Cooldowns, all everything from everything in this game xD If I would have to assume, I would not write anything at all.

    Details like that make a whole world of difference and I for one want games to be balanced around the best players. More than being rewarded for gameplay, people that truly invest time and research to figure out how everything works..well those should be rewarded and only few of them actually enjoy ripping apart noobies. If you put in so much effort you want to challenge yourself eventually, anything else is just boring. As for nerfing other aspects/PvE/Mass-PvP and such..that can also be done..why not give less experienced ppl a few tries at a lower difficulty or make it scalable. DEVs are just lazy. They could cater to all types of players in nearly all aspects of a game and adjust rewards accordingly..but welp, thats additional work hence you will hardly see this type of implementation. Sadly.
  • datsang
    datsang Posts: 163 Arc User
    edited April 2019

    Details like that make a whole world of difference and I for one want games to be balanced around the best players. More than being rewarded for gameplay, people that truly invest time and research to figure out how everything works..well those should be rewarded and only few of them actually enjoy ripping apart noobies. If you put in so much effort you want to challenge yourself eventually, anything else is just boring. As for nerfing other aspects/PvE/Mass-PvP and such..that can also be done..why not give less experienced ppl a few tries at a lower difficulty or make it scalable. DEVs are just lazy. They could cater to all types of players in nearly all aspects of a game and adjust rewards accordingly..but welp, thats additional work hence you will hardly see this type of implementation. Sadly.

    Well the problem with balancing game around best players is you are gonna lose money, players, etc. There is a lot more to lose from ignoring the feedback of "casuals" than there is to lose from ignoring the feedback from "tryhards" due the sheer difference in numbers.

    And what you are describing with easier modes is exactly what lot of games do already. WoW, FF14, even PWI with different modes for fsp for example. The problem stems from ppl wanting the best rewards while either lacking the gear/skill to finish the runs in reasonable timeframe. This results in elitism on the part of ppl who can do the runs efficiently - They dont want deadweight on their runs and its way easier to pass a run with geared ppl who are bad than ppl who dont even have good gear. Short of having positive reputation over your skill, there really isnt a reason for ppl to take risk with you. Then again there is a guy on ET, who spends regularly 1h forming FSP squad for being both blocked by others and being picky, you`d think they would rather do bad run in 30mins over spending 1h on WC alone but what do I know.
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    Remember when this thread wasn't about game balance?

    I do.
  • csquared5
    csquared5 Posts: 150 Arc User
    edited April 2019
    On every single server, there was always one faction that got all the momentum and became an unstoppable force. On Dreamweaver (turned Tideswell) it was Calamity. It was only when the game got a bit older and more people caught up to the same gear levels that real rival factions finally arose. As somebody else pointed out, the TW pay back then was significant, and created a huge financial incentive to be in the biggest faction, so most of the well geared PvE-type players ended up there, and became much more well-geared as a result, and thus nobody was able to stop them. Unlike China PWI never had the massive player populations where you could have many many factions all fielding 80 players each. So yeah, these were no glory days, they were kinda lame. Things became more interesting on occasion when rival factions would rise up, but sadly all too many of the PvE-type players (doesn't matter if the server is 'pvp' or 'pve', these types of players are all the same, they want low-challenge high-reward content) just kept sticking to their one powerhouse faction, telling themselves its because the 'people there are so lovely' (bullsheet, its cuz you just get the most benefit from being there lol), and so TW was usually a non-competitive instance. The fact that your little band of people did it first is notable but not particularly special in light of the fact that the same story played out on many servers, just at differing speeds.

    The TW instance has been improved a lot I think. TWs 1 minute apart, not being able to nuke towers, strong debuffs from the towers, and higher HP on the crystal have all had positive benefits on the fairness of TW. The only sad part is that (a) there isn't really enough player population to populate a lot of TWs to 80 anymore; (b) if it did occur it'd be a bit laggy, and (c) **** stormbringers! a blight on this pestilence for an eternity. Unless they are in my faction, then <3<3<3. But yeah, I wouldn't be sorry if sbs were removed from game just saying.

    Kappa
    »Go back to sleep...« PWI Youtube Channel




  • frosty91
    frosty91 Posts: 1 Arc User
    I remember the good old days with Conqueror, RageQuit, Bloodlust and GuardianZ. Oh how i miss it
  • llama
    llama Posts: 21 Arc User
    csquared5 wrote: »
    On every single server, there was always one faction that got all the momentum and became an unstoppable force. On Dreamweaver (turned Tideswell) it was Calamity. It was only when the game got a bit older and more people caught up to the same gear levels that real rival factions finally arose. As somebody else pointed out, the TW pay back then was significant, and created a huge financial incentive to be in the biggest faction, so most of the well geared PvE-type players ended up there, and became much more well-geared as a result, and thus nobody was able to stop them. Unlike China PWI never had the massive player populations where you could have many many factions all fielding 80 players each. So yeah, these were no glory days, they were kinda lame. Things became more interesting on occasion when rival factions would rise up, but sadly all too many of the PvE-type players (doesn't matter if the server is 'pvp' or 'pve', these types of players are all the same, they want low-challenge high-reward content) just kept sticking to their one powerhouse faction, telling themselves its because the 'people there are so lovely' (bullsheet, its cuz you just get the most benefit from being there lol), and so TW was usually a non-competitive instance. The fact that your little band of people did it first is notable but not particularly special in light of the fact that the same story played out on many servers, just at differing speeds.

    The TW instance has been improved a lot I think. TWs 1 minute apart, not being able to nuke towers, strong debuffs from the towers, and higher HP on the crystal have all had positive benefits on the fairness of TW. The only sad part is that (a) there isn't really enough player population to populate a lot of TWs to 80 anymore; (b) if it did occur it'd be a bit laggy, and (c) **** stormbringers! a blight on this pestilence for an eternity. Unless they are in my faction, then <3<3<3. But yeah, I wouldn't be sorry if sbs were removed from game just saying.

    Kappa

    Sound kind of salty. Lost City was booming, we had consistent fully manned TWs from both sides.
  • wettstyle
    wettstyle Posts: 236 Arc User
    Mystic Ozzy? scott? Marcus? is that you :)