Having been active since a bit before ToL came out, I have to say I don't think I have seen siege more dead than it is right now. As I have said before, that's probably just a game wide issue, but... we're still dealing with it.
Now I think that making changes to gain new players is pointless, it just won't work. People either are ok with open pvp or they aren't, period. That's the only thing that substantially matters IMO, and changing it so that there was pvp safety or limitations on item loss, would be the two things I think you cannot change and maintain the siege concept.
That said, I wonder if now wouldn't be a good time to examine what changes could be made not to help get new players but to improve the quality of life for those of us who do play here and want to play here. I feel like many of the "added challenge" elements were good 16 years ago, but after the years of bleed over development warping the shard we now need HELP rather than hindrances. So maybe we could at least cut down some of those artificial barriers. I think we had this conversation earlier in the year, seems like a fine time to revisit it.
To me, there are two glaringly obvious changes that should be made.
1) Remove 3x hireling vendor fees. This one is the biggest no brainer. The smaller the pop gets, the longer stuff sits on vendors, the worse this becomes. I see 0 upside to keeping it. I feel like it should have been done away with a lonnnng time ago. Anything that makes it easier to stock vendors is a good change.
2) Remove the 3x npc vendor cost. There are several big reason I would make this change... the most obvious is gems. When you can't insure your suit you are going to have to replace it regularly, especially if you pvp. Gems being so gd expensive really makes this a lot more painful than it should be. Then you have things like lobster traps, cooking ingredient. The only people this potentially hurts are those who sell these items, a very rare breed.
Then you have another more potentially damaging change...
1) Second character slot. We all have 100 soul stones. Damage has been done. Would be nice, but not a game changer. I feel with specialization in gear if you want to do anything serious like pvp or higher end pvm you have to make your own stuff, so you pretty much must have at least imbuing. We all know you can't really sell imbued stuff of services very efficiently.
Then some changes I think are good, and not that harmful at all, but would require dev time so they will never ever occur.
1) Increase drop rate on everything functional, i.e. not deco. Artifacts, Blackthorn items, marties, rare resource drops (gems, fungus etc) whatever. This stuff was designed to be not only basically permanat once you get it, but also for a lot more people to grinding after it. If we could spend a long day/weekend/week in blackthorns, or a boss runs to get an item rather than potential months then maybe an actual market could develop for these items, and replacing them wouldn't be so costly that people might run them unblessed.
2) A item slot machine paid for with silver points. You could pick armor, weapon, or jewelry. You get a random item from Major magic-Legendary artifact, all will be antiques. Pvpers need good gear, pvpers shouldn't have to pvm or rely on pvmers to gear. This wouldn't be a complete gearing system obviously because of the randomness and antiques, but it could help, and it would encourage participating in VvV.
As I say nothing that requires any substantial dev time will get done, so instead, along those same lines:
1) Siege wide Fel bonuses, both double resources and the +1000 luck bonus.
Again just to make it a little easier to keep things rolling, simple change (I imagine).
I think what the shard really needs is a full (even if small or even if a regular small portion) of dev time to actually examine how the game works here, and how the conceptual issues are actually working and find creative new methods to deal with the very real issues we have. Dreaming I know, but there it is.
I know we have probably covered all this ground before, but any thoughts or additional suggestions?
Now I think that making changes to gain new players is pointless, it just won't work. People either are ok with open pvp or they aren't, period. That's the only thing that substantially matters IMO, and changing it so that there was pvp safety or limitations on item loss, would be the two things I think you cannot change and maintain the siege concept.
That said, I wonder if now wouldn't be a good time to examine what changes could be made not to help get new players but to improve the quality of life for those of us who do play here and want to play here. I feel like many of the "added challenge" elements were good 16 years ago, but after the years of bleed over development warping the shard we now need HELP rather than hindrances. So maybe we could at least cut down some of those artificial barriers. I think we had this conversation earlier in the year, seems like a fine time to revisit it.
To me, there are two glaringly obvious changes that should be made.
1) Remove 3x hireling vendor fees. This one is the biggest no brainer. The smaller the pop gets, the longer stuff sits on vendors, the worse this becomes. I see 0 upside to keeping it. I feel like it should have been done away with a lonnnng time ago. Anything that makes it easier to stock vendors is a good change.
2) Remove the 3x npc vendor cost. There are several big reason I would make this change... the most obvious is gems. When you can't insure your suit you are going to have to replace it regularly, especially if you pvp. Gems being so gd expensive really makes this a lot more painful than it should be. Then you have things like lobster traps, cooking ingredient. The only people this potentially hurts are those who sell these items, a very rare breed.
Then you have another more potentially damaging change...
1) Second character slot. We all have 100 soul stones. Damage has been done. Would be nice, but not a game changer. I feel with specialization in gear if you want to do anything serious like pvp or higher end pvm you have to make your own stuff, so you pretty much must have at least imbuing. We all know you can't really sell imbued stuff of services very efficiently.
Then some changes I think are good, and not that harmful at all, but would require dev time so they will never ever occur.
1) Increase drop rate on everything functional, i.e. not deco. Artifacts, Blackthorn items, marties, rare resource drops (gems, fungus etc) whatever. This stuff was designed to be not only basically permanat once you get it, but also for a lot more people to grinding after it. If we could spend a long day/weekend/week in blackthorns, or a boss runs to get an item rather than potential months then maybe an actual market could develop for these items, and replacing them wouldn't be so costly that people might run them unblessed.
2) A item slot machine paid for with silver points. You could pick armor, weapon, or jewelry. You get a random item from Major magic-Legendary artifact, all will be antiques. Pvpers need good gear, pvpers shouldn't have to pvm or rely on pvmers to gear. This wouldn't be a complete gearing system obviously because of the randomness and antiques, but it could help, and it would encourage participating in VvV.
As I say nothing that requires any substantial dev time will get done, so instead, along those same lines:
1) Siege wide Fel bonuses, both double resources and the +1000 luck bonus.
Again just to make it a little easier to keep things rolling, simple change (I imagine).
I think what the shard really needs is a full (even if small or even if a regular small portion) of dev time to actually examine how the game works here, and how the conceptual issues are actually working and find creative new methods to deal with the very real issues we have. Dreaming I know, but there it is.
I know we have probably covered all this ground before, but any thoughts or additional suggestions?
