Runes of Magic US / AU

Quoted from "AngelIsrafel;472324"

But you do bring up something i hadn't thought of, that being taking space in siege. Where, you know, every guild has about the same chance of getting a shot in siege and if these people manage to get 5 guilds into siege at a time, well they are clearly doing something that others aren't.

Quoted from "mnkmurphy885;472853"

All the suggestions in this thread are interesting, but I'm not sure they would a) ever be implemented by Rune/Froggy (mine included) or b) really get to the heart of the problem. It's a complex issue.

This game, unlike a p2p game like WoW, allows the monied and/or highly motivated to mod their gear in a way that creates a vast difference between people of the same toon level. That's really the biggest issue. And it won't ever go away, no matter what we ask for, because it's an integral part of the game.

If you have either the money or the time (and the luck), you can reach RoM God-Mode. This was done intentionally. We can't ask people to stop spending money (their own or someone else's) to reach that level of geared-ness. So we have to expect that some level of unfairness will always exist, as long as gear is taken into consideration in PvP.

Now, the shadow/farming guild issue is a big one. It is, I think, a separate issue from mercs. We don't often take mercs in Noto anymore, mostly because we hit the 50 cap often enough that I don't like to risk people being unable to play. But, that said, people merc for a lot of reasons, and they aren't all evil. In our early days, we accepted mercs all the time, usually from guilds that weren't able to get signed up, and that was a great way to meet new people, to learn new strategies and to form relationships with other guilds. Some of our best merges came to be because of mercs. These people merced because they wanted to play and couldn't because of sign-up issues, not because they were jonesing for badges.

I have posted myself more than once about the difficulties of getting the guild signed up for siege... I can't be sure obviously, but I believe this is due mostly to people using a macro/addon/something that spams the server with a zillion key clicks per second. That should be outlawed. But, that said- I understand why some of them do it. Signing up is incredibly difficult sometimes. I myself was doing fine signing us up manually for almost a year- then something changed and I failed like 6 days in a row. I considered going the macro route- I found one. Luckily, my inability to write a successful macro meant that I never once got it to work and I just dumped the whole idea, which was great because I didn't want to be part of creating that vicious circle. But I still had to do something, and what I do is pass guild lead to a guildy in the pacific time zone and have them sign us up manually. This usually works.

But the signup issue is still more complex than that, and fraught with peril. The biggest problem of all is that only 50 guilds can sign up. That we can't fix, only Frogster can, and that requires them putting more servers and resources into Siege War. And I run the risk of losing the guild every time I pass lead to someone else for signup. What if I trust the wrong person, and they get banned during the 5 minutes they are lead? Obviously I try and pick people I know and trust, but still, it's a risk and it's one I would rather not take. But I have to do something, because my own connection issues don't allow me to sign us up successfully.

Siege War has a massive effect on a guild's health, progress and growth. I understand why some guilds choose to go the shadow route. I abhor it, and I choose not to participate in shadowing, and I think I have good reasons for doing so, but I have been criticized for it. When your guild reaches their maximum point ceiling, it can be uncomfortable. As you rise through the ranks, you win more than you lose. Your guildies get used to this. When you hit a certain number of points, you stop winning more, and start losing more often, and this can cause guild morale to drop.

At this point, you have a choice. The guild leader can choose to shadow, swap everyone into an alt guild, sign up the main guild just for the purpose of losing, lather rinse repeat til the desired lower score is reached and then start the winning climb again. Or, you can compete at your real level. This has it's own rewards, but they aren't badges. Instead, you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone and try and learn new strategies, new ways to fight the better-geared. You have to learn to lose graciously. And often, you learn the strategies of the guild you fight every other night, because you get matched with the same people a lot, which can be a great thing (thank you EvilEmpires) if they are also choosing not to shadow. But it can be hard on people, losing and tying and losing and tying over and over for a week til you can start winning again. We've been lucky in that the bracket we are currently in has few shadow guilds in it. No one wants to be in the 2.5-3k bracket except the few of us that are in there for real lol.

Shadowing hurts everyone, and it starts a vicious cycle, not unlike the server-signup macro cycle. The more people have to go up against shadow guilds the more likely they are to want to do it themselves. But it's destructive to guild identity. It's dishonorable. I don't want to risk my guild's cohesion. But I also want my people to be able to play- so on nights we don't get in for whatever reason, I let them merc if they want to. And I do occasionally accept a merc, for the same reason.

People wanting to play every night =/= people farming badges. For that reason I would prefer to see a solution that would be flexible enough to allow that. My perfect fix would go something like this:

A) Guilds should be level 9+ to be eligible for Siege War signups. This would eliminate a lot of shadowing by itself. Even a +7 restriction would help. This would also improve the signup issues a lot.

B) Enough servers/resources should be allotted to allow 100 guilds per night to sign up. This would ameliorate a lot of signup issues too.

C) A debuff should be created that would prevent people who just joined a guild from getting SW reward packages. About 48/72 hours would be a good number. That would make shadowing and/or mercing for badges less appealing, while still allowing those addicted to SW to get their fix.

You could still exploit with that system, but it would ease some of the pain.

And as tl;dr as this is, I didn't even bring up the whole "disadvantaged server" issues that Palenque, Indigo and in some cases, Grimdal suffer from.

Bottom line- despite the umpty-billion issues SW has, it's the only reason some people play RoM. It's insanely fun, even when you have no chance at all of winning some nights, so we do it anyway. Frogster/Runewaker- you really came up with something great; something so great that people are willing to put up with permanent beta, crashes galore, a matching system that leaves a lot to be desired, an impossible signup system and last of all, exploitable holes you can drive a Mack truck through and yet we can't stop playing it...

Fandreith
GL, Notorious, Palenque

Quoted from "Kalvan;473310"

If it's a third-party program that runs alongside the RoM client and intervenes, then it's a violation of the EUALA and ToS. If you get caught, you get to carry the weight.

On an aside, I'm 99% successful in signing my guild up for siege by using the old-fashioned way for signups--spam-clicking on the Register button like a mad man. No macros, just my competent right index finger and faithful Logitech Trackman Wheel trackball.

Quoted from "Kalvan;473620"

What I do know and am certain of is that only one person can sign a guild up for siege, per guild.

If you're caught using a third-party program to do this, you get a vacation--it's a clear violation of the EUALA. I would think that if you're caught multi-clienting (more than one client running on a single machine) and using a macro to sign up for siege on each of those clients, you get a vacation. That's a gray area in which I am not qualified to make a judgment.

Quoted from "vfwiffo;473689"

I would look at it as a form of exploit. Here is Wiki page defining practice as "An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or design flaw by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game designers".

For example, the definition is fairly clearly applicable to castle breaches. Castle is designed to be a sovereign territory of one guild until gates are down, but due to design flaws, can be entered in a variety of ways, none of them intended. Thus any attempt to do so is an exploit.

By the same token, game's intended behavior is not to let people switch guilds for the siege, by prohibiting the practice around siege time. Due to design flaw of not having long enough period of prohibition, that behavior can be bypassed, and bypassing it is an exploit.

I'd also make a point that the game intends guilds to be evenly matched, and since alt guilds deliberately alter their score to circumvent the matching system, that is also an exploit. This method pretty cleanly matches the exploit mentioned on Wiki page: "[Game X] had an exploit in player versus player ... whereby a player would intentionally lose level by dying in order to compete against lower-level players while wielding higher-level items and skills". The same technique is used by alt guilds on regular basis, except on team level instead of individual one.

Quoted from "Sadz202;474819"

From the problems above, I can say one of root of the problem is limited siege spots. Personally I advocate for guild spot auction system using guild ore/herb/wood that is completely player control: you place a bet, someone else over take you, you place more bet etc. Resource will be gone from the guild if you got into siege, keep it for next auction if not.
1. Low level guild will be more careful as to siege or build.
2. High level guild will buy resources than farm on their own - help spreading the gold a little.
3. Middle level guild will just continue farm ruins mini game for more resources.