Solution for the anti-merc crowd: opt out with penalties

[Meina]

So if a system improves play for the vast majority of players at the expense of a definite minority, the people who support this system are being self-centered?

Here's a good one: what happens to the game as a whole if a bunch of players quit because of queue times? Trion nets less money. They reinvest less in the game. The entire experience suffers - including yours.

How can people be so incredibly short/near-sighted? Your accusation of selfishness should have crashed the forums under the sheer weight of its irony.

I'm curious about this "vast majority" as well.

From what I remember, based on conversations in these forums, long queue times only effected specific factions on specific clusters. As far as I could tell, long queues were not a factor on my cluster before the introduction of the merc system. I'd also say, quite confidently, that they were not a factor on other clusters as well.

Add in the fact that we also had a serious server / cluster consolidation at the same time the merc system was introduced and I can't say for a fact that the merc system accomplished as much as everyone claims it did. The server / cluster merger could have accomplished the same thing all by itself, for all we know.

I also agree with Starsong. The players themselves had a viable solution in either rerolling to the other faction or playing already established toons of the other faction that they might have.

If it turned out that that was too much effort for the "vast majority" of the player base, Trion could have introduced a system that allowed you to change factions, either for free or for a fee. This has worked quite well in at least one other game out there and I don't see why it wouldn't have worked here.

And, finally, if one faction is so overwhelmingly outnumbered by the other, why do I find myself being merced 40 to 50% of the time. If the numbers were as skewed as everyone claims, I'd either be getting merced for more often (if I was a member of the overpopulated faction) or far less often (if I was part of the outnumbered faction). Hovering right around half the time tells me that my faction is roughly even with the other faction, meaning there really isn't that huge a disparity between the faction populations on my cluster.

[Starsong]

I think by vast majority, they are refering to the vast majority of unksilled zergling Defiants that were getting roflstomped in WFs and stopped queing cause they lost so much.

[Aguni]

I'm curious about this "vast majority" as well.

From what I remember, based on conversations in these forums, long queue times only effected specific factions on specific clusters. As far as I could tell, long queues were not a factor on my cluster before the introduction of the merc system. I'd also say, quite confidently, that they were not a factor on other clusters as well.

From what I had read, there was only one cluster in which the defiant population did not vastly outnumber the guardian population..

Add in the fact that we also had a serious server / cluster consolidation at the same time the merc system was introduced and I can't say for a fact that the merc system accomplished as much as everyone claims it did. The server / cluster merger could have accomplished the same thing all by itself, for all we know.

Not sure I entirely agree to that theory.

Before the the shuffle I saw low quee times, once briarcliff and a few others were shuffled in before the merc queue times, my queue times did increase by around five minutes.
To an average of an 8 minute wait.

So this would mean that perhaps their original intent was to shuffle them and try to even out the population ratios.
When that did not work and queue times remained long, they implemented the mercenary system.

I also agree with Starsong. The players themselves had a viable solution in either rerolling to the other faction or playing already established toons of the other faction that they might have.

That's an unreasonable request Meina.

There is no way of making everyone re-roll so that ratios are exactly the same.
Let alone that would mean leaving all progress on the previous toon. Something I am loathe to do considering how long it took to hit r8.

And, finally, if one faction is so overwhelmingly outnumbered by the other, why do I find myself being merced 40 to 50% of the time. If the numbers were as skewed as everyone claims, I'd either be getting merced for more often (if I was a member of the overpopulated faction) or far less often (if I was part of the outnumbered faction). Hovering right around half the time tells me that my faction is roughly even with the other faction, meaning there really isn't that huge a disparity between the faction populations on my cluster.

I believe the system first searches for people of the original faction before mercing you. Hence why you aren't merced constantly.
I find myself getting merced more often though.

75% myself and I am on the faeblight/briarcliff cluster.

[Meina]

From what I had read, there was only one cluster in which the defiant population did not vastly outnumber the guardian population..

I remember it a little differently. On some clusters, Defiant were overpopulated. In others it was Guardians. On my cluster (keenblade et al) it seemed fairly even.

But, seeing as most of this is anecdotal, I won't belabor the issue.

Not sure I entirely agree to that theory.

Before the the shuffle I saw low quee times, once briarcliff and a few others were shuffled in before the merc queue times, my queue times did increase by around five minutes.
To an average of an 8 minute wait.

So this would mean that perhaps their original intent was to shuffle them and try to even out the population ratios.
When that did not work and queue times remained long, they implemented the mercenary system.

I disagree.

The mercenary system was introduced relatively quickly after the shuffle, which means that it was either ready to go or was very close to it when the shuffle happened. This probably means that, seeing as they already had a 'fix' on the way, they didn't really pay a lot of attention to population differences.

That's an unreasonable request Meina.

There is no way of making everyone re-roll so that ratios are exactly the same.
Let alone that would mean leaving all progress on the previous toon. Something I am loathe to do considering how long it took to hit r8.

Hence the second part of my suggestion...
"If it turned out that that was too much effort for the "vast majority" of the player base, Trion could have introduced a system that allowed you to change factions, either for free or for a fee. This has worked quite well in at least one other game out there and I don't see why it wouldn't have worked here."

I believe the system first searches for people of the original faction before mercing you. Hence why you aren't merced constantly.
I find myself getting merced more often though.

75% myself and I am on the faeblight/briarcliff cluster.

The question is; "If I, a Guardian, am outnumbered by such a large margin, why am I being merced almost half the time I queue for a WF?".

There also seems to be the same amount of mercing being done to the Defiants on my cluster as well. If both factions are being merced roughly half the time, this would mean, to me at least, that the two factions are roughly even in population.

If there were 5 times the Defiants as there are Guardians on my cluster, I should be assigned merc status about 20% percent of the time. If there were twice as many, I should only be merced 1/3 of the time. Somehow the numbers just don't jibe for me.

[Aguni]

I remember it a little differently. On some clusters, Defiant were overpopulated. In others it was Guardians. On my cluster (keenblade et al) it seemed fairly even.

But, seeing as most of this is anecdotal, I won't belabor the issue.

Agreed, that data is in Trion's hands.

I disagree.

The mercenary system was introduced relatively quickly after the shuffle, which means that it was either ready to go or was very close to it when the shuffle happened. This probably means that, seeing as they already had a 'fix' on the way, they didn't really pay a lot of attention to population differences.

I think they had the option for it ready on hand for after the shuffle.
If I recall correctly, they had stated they were monitoring the issue and implemented the change due to the long queue times they stated people were suffering.

Again, not entirely sure though.

Hence the second part of my suggestion...
"If it turned out that that was too much effort for the "vast majority" of the player base, Trion could have introduced a system that allowed you to change factions, either for free or for a fee. This has worked quite well in at least one other game out there and I don't see why it wouldn't have worked here."

Not sure, but I believe WoW attempted something similar and received a negative response.
Don't recall the history unfortunately.

The question is; "If I, a Guardian, am outnumbered by such a large margin, why am I being merced almost half the time I queue for a WF?".

There also seems to be the same amount of mercing being done to the Defiants on my cluster as well. If both factions are being merced roughly half the time, this would mean, to me at least, that the two factions are roughly even in population.

If there were 5 times the Defiants as there are Guardians on my cluster, I should be assigned merc status about 20% percent of the time. If there were twice as many, I should only be merced 1/3 of the time. Somehow the numbers just don't jibe for me.

Not entirely sure how the system works Meina,a nd I doubt Trion is willing to explain either.
As I said, for myself I am very often merced, and this was back when my queue times hit 8 minute + after the shuffle.

Really do wish we had some data.

[Meina]

Agreed, that data is in Trion's hands.

Ayup

I think they had the option for it ready on hand for after the shuffle.
If I recall correctly, they had stated they were monitoring the issue and implemented the change due to the long queue times they stated people were suffering.

Again, not entirely sure though.

Again, IIRC, they announced the merc system (but hadn't implemented it yet) before they shiffled servers.

Not sure, but I believe WoW attempted something similar and received a negative response.
Don't recall the history unfortunately.

It originally met with some resistance, much as any change will. But after the initial "I have to pay for this!?!" outcry, people did in fact start using the service. In fact, there were entire guilds switching factions to capitalize on shorter queue times.

By the time I left the game, which was about this time last year, the number of complaints about long queue times had dropped off quite a bit.

On a side note: One of the prime arguments against a red vs blue system, like we have here now, is that there is no downside to choosing one faction over the other, thus almost ensuring that there will always be lopsided faction populations.

In general, in this game, Defiants are seen as the PvP faction (or so it seems). The only reason to roll up a Guardian, in a PvP sense, would have been to avoid longer queue times. Now that the need to look for shorter queue times has been removed, there is no reason to roll Guardian over Defiant.

This leaves us with 2 options...

The WoW system, which has a built in faction balancing system.

Or the Rift system, which does not have a balancing system but completely bypasses faction balance as an issue.

I, personally, would have preferred the WoW system, but that's just me.

Well, there is a third option as well, which would be to completely ignore the problem. That, obviously, would not have been a very good idea.

Not entirely sure how the system works Meina,a nd I doubt Trion is willing to explain either.
As I said, for myself I am very often merced, and this was back when my queue times hit 8 minute + after the shuffle.

Really do wish we had some data.

Agree here too.

Seeing as Trion is unlikely to release any of that data, though, all I can do is base my claims on what I personally experience, which I admit is purely anecdotal.

[handerhank]

Where is your data to back your "facts" of the vast majority supporting the merc system? You have no data to prove that, in fact, I say the vast majority do NOT back the merc system. No one in my guild likes the merc system. So I say my statement is more easily supported than yours, cause I have asked and gotten answers from paying customers, not assumptions like you have. Who is to say the merc system hasn't cost them more paying customers than not having it would?

For starters: they wouldn't implement the system if it wasn't going to benefit the majority of players. Faction imbalances were absolutely out of control on most servers, and there was no way of telling where or when serious population disparities would arise given the fluid movement of players across clusters. You could easily end up with sudden leaps of 20-30 min in queues depending on player migration. It doesn't take a genuis to realize that this issue was impacting the majority - necessarily - because population imbalance is where the queue jumps were coming from in the first place.

Again if you are Defiant and do not like long que times, reroll or play your already leveled Guardian instead of your Defiant.

Complete nonsense. I should reroll to a different faction, potentially without my friends, and sacrifice all of the progress I've made on my main, just so I can actually participate in pvp more frequently than once every half hour? Instead of you maybe ending up on the opposing side every once in a while in warfronts with no lasting impact on the actual gameworld and its factions? Yeah, that's commensurate. Do you generally remove warts with a shotgun?

Most pvpers I know have a 50 Guardian and a 50 Defiant, so fix the population imbalance yourself, instead of expecting a game company to do it for you.

Just to confirm your position here: if I've invested hundreds upon hundreds of hours into my character, with zero prior knowledge of the queue situation, only to run into 20-30 min qeues, that's somehow my failure and not indicative of a serious issue with overall game design? And if the devs implement basically the only realistic solution to this issue in order to cut my queue times by 75% or more, essentially *enabling* pvp for the character I've spent months building, that is somehow me getting what I want as a whiny entitled brat who expects the game company to do everything for me?

I find it utterly hilarious that people would hold an arbitrary distinction from character creation over a fully functional pvp experience for everyone. Believe me, we know it was better for you guardians when you had instant queues and always played on the same side. Unfortunately, it was miserable for everyone else - and everyone else ended up being the clear majority. Now your play experience is made slightly suboptimal in order for the game as a whole to function. The rational response would be something along the lines of, "I don't like it, but I see why they had to do it and recognize that it's best for the sustained health of this game I enjoy playing."

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people aren't rational, though.

[Ajax1114]

I don't need any data from Trion to make the probabilistic assumption that because Trion did not revert or modify the mercenary system shortly after its implementation due to complaining, there was not a vast majority who took issue with it.

I can safely assume the above because I've seen plenty of situations where Trion has reverted a change due to a Tidal Wave of complaints.

[Aguni]

Do you generally remove warts with a shotgun?

******* it I don't know why but I started laughing when I read this part of your post.

[Meina]

The big issue is that they didn't fix the heart of the problem, which was faction imbalance. Instead, they cured the symptoms of the disease, while leaving the disease intact.

One thing I'll give Blizzard credit for is that they stuck to their guns in regards to keeping the factions separate. Instead of taking the easy way out and removing faction relevance, they took steps to fix the actual heart of the problem.

Trion is also making more work for themselves. With WoW's system, the player base does the work when it comes to balancing factions. By providing a way to change factions, they've taken care of the whole problem with one change to the system based on the voluntary actions of it's customers.

Trion, on the other hand, has taken control out of the players' hands. They've also made things more difficult for themselves. Now, whenever they want to add any form of PvP, including world PvP which everyone is screaming for, they need to build in a way to allow for faction imbalances.

And, disregarding faction imbalance the way they are, there is a very real potential for the numbers to get even further out of whack. As I said in a previous post, it seems that Defiant is the faction of choice for most PvPers. As a result, most of the players who are focused on PvP will, and do, tend to roll Defiant. Now that they've removed the one upside to rolling Guardian in a game play sense, which was shorter queue times, there's no real reason to stick with a Guardian toon if you're a PvP'er. The obvious outcome to this would be that PvP servers can become greatly skewed in favor of Defiants, even more so than they are now.

So, with the potential of one faction outnumbering the other by a very large margin (even larger than we've ween in the past), every addition to the PvP system has to be modified to allow for that disparity.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the prime reasons why we have had to wait for them to add any 'meaningful' world PvP. Huge faction imbalances removes any option of World PvP having any meaningful faction based rewards or repercussions.

[Meina]

I don't need any data from Trion to make the probabilistic assumption that because Trion did not revert or modify the mercenary system shortly after its implementation due to complaining, there was not a vast majority who took issue with it.

I can safely assume the above because I've seen plenty of situations where Trion has reverted a change due to a Tidal Wave of complaints.

They've also chosen to keep twinking in the game, which seems to be a huge issue for a large number of people.

At this point, you can't base Trion's actions on any sort of majority / minority claims. It has more to do with what Trion wants to do than anything else. And, at this point, it seems Trion has gotten it into their heads that instant queues will solve just about any PvP problem that arises, regardless of the cost those instant queues impose.

[Starsong]

For starters: they wouldn't implement the system if it wasn't going to benefit the majority of players. Faction imbalances were absolutely out of control on most servers, and there was no way of telling where or when serious population disparities would arise given the fluid movement of players across clusters. You could easily end up with sudden leaps of 20-30 min in queues depending on player migration. It doesn't take a genuis to realize that this issue was impacting the majority - necessarily - because population imbalance is where the queue jumps were coming from in the first place.



Complete nonsense. I should reroll to a different faction, potentially without my friends, and sacrifice all of the progress I've made on my main, just so I can actually participate in pvp more frequently than once every half hour? Instead of you maybe ending up on the opposing side every once in a while in warfronts with no lasting impact on the actual gameworld and its factions? Yeah, that's commensurate. Do you generally remove warts with a shotgun?



Just to confirm your position here: if I've invested hundreds upon hundreds of hours into my character, with zero prior knowledge of the queue situation, only to run into 20-30 min qeues, that's somehow my failure and not indicative of a serious issue with overall game design? And if the devs implement basically the only realistic solution to this issue in order to cut my queue times by 75% or more, essentially *enabling* pvp for the character I've spent months building, that is somehow me getting what I want as a whiny entitled brat who expects the game company to do everything for me?

I find it utterly hilarious that people would hold an arbitrary distinction from character creation over a fully functional pvp experience for everyone. Believe me, we know it was better for you guardians when you had instant queues and always played on the same side. Unfortunately, it was miserable for everyone else - and everyone else ended up being the clear majority. Now your play experience is made slightly suboptimal in order for the game as a whole to function. The rational response would be something along the lines of, "I don't like it, but I see why they had to do it and recognize that it's best for the sustained health of this game I enjoy playing."

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people aren't rational, though.

I find it utterly hillarious you created a toon in this game without realizing Defiants were outbalancing Guardians. You must be pretty oblivious to anything, since it was established far before launch that about 75% of the population was going to be Defiant. That makes you pretty slow on the uptake. Your "rational" arguments are far from being that. My play experience is based on being GUARDIAN killing DEFIANTS not helping Defiants. My play experience IS being affected regardless if you want to admit or like it.

So you and every other zergling Defiants excuse is so you don't have to be misreable, we do? Wrong answer pal and far from "rational". Merc system is not what is best for the sustained health of the game. Even more and more Guardians stop playing and stop pvping becuase of the merc system making the faction imbalance even greater rather than helping it. Also, why do Guardians end up on the Defiant side so much since we are so outnumbered in population? Merc system isn't about balance, it is about fast quing only. This is NOT an FPS, you want supper fast instanced pvp without factions, take it some where else, this game is obviously not for you. After all, we are playing a FACTION based game.

I don't need any data from Trion to make the probabilistic assumption that because Trion did not revert or modify the mercenary system shortly after its implementation due to complaining, there was not a vast majority who took issue with it.

I can safely assume the above because I've seen plenty of situations where Trion has reverted a change due to a Tidal Wave of complaints.

No, there is no proof the system was put in place because the majority of the population needed it, wanted it or still want it. That is just yet another assumption.

[Rymer]

OP: Or players could just quit playing Rift and go play something else. Which they've been doing. Most of the "vocal minority" posters on these topics have quit Rift and gone on to other games (Sykk, Cinnamontoast, etc.). (Personally, I'm not pvping, and still have about three months left on my one year subscription.)

As has been posted, this is a dead horse issue since TW has made it clear that they're not going to compromise. Warfront sabotage and underplaying is part of the consequence. Players quitting is the other part.

Well, I found a solution that should make all you pro merc trolls very happy.... I've switched games to one where they honor the factions being different and don't have twinks in with regular players in wfs. Very simple really, and I'm sure TW will be thrilled as well to have my money go to one of the many competitors..

And I won't be around here either anymore.. so have a great time all.

Thanks for your posts in the past Cinnamon. And good luck with the new game

[Ajax1114]

They've also chosen to keep twinking in the game, which seems to be a huge issue for a large number of people.

At this point, you can't base Trion's actions on any sort of majority / minority claims. It has more to do with what Trion wants to do than anything else. And, at this point, it seems Trion has gotten it into their heads that instant queues will solve just about any PvP problem that arises, regardless of the cost those instant queues impose.

"Seems to be a huge issue for a large number of people"? To you maybe it does. If you look at all the twink threads, maybe it does. But I guess you aren't paying attention to all the people in those twink threads who are explaining why it's a good thing and how it's helped give them reason to keep playing Rift.

No, there is no proof the system was put in place because the majority of the population needed it, wanted it or still want it. That is just yet another assumption.

Um.. I never said I had proof of anything. I even described it as an assumption. Did you actually read what you quoted?

[lycosis]

...

Or instead of such a complicated multi-case queue system just have a check box that says,

[x] Willing to be a mercenary - 50% favour/prestige gains while playing as a mercenary.

That way there is a positive benefit for participating in Trion's attempts at speeding queues up and a significant bonus to the vast majority of players who prefer the merc system and don't care about what side they are on. For a bunch of hardcore pvpers I find it strange that a lot of you care about the completely insignifcant RPz of warfronts.