Weekly Poll Analysis: RvR and Land of the Dead

[Anglakhel]

On Monday, July 6th, the WAR Community Poll asked "What type of impact has Land of the Dead had on RvR on your server?" Possible choices for the poll included: Very Positive, Positive, Neutral, Negative, and Very Negative. WAR community members were able to vote on the Poll on both Warhammer Alliance and WAR Vault.

This week, an amazing 849 people responded to the poll (Vault 265, WA 584). This is by far the largest response we've had on a poll topic in several months. You'd have to go back to our poll in early April on WAR Customer Service Satisfaction to find more people taking the time to respond to the poll.

Voting on both WAR Vault and Warhammer Alliance followed the exact same order on both sites with community members voting that the impact of Land of the Dead was "Very Negative" being the most popular choice and "Very Positive" being the least popular choice. All in all, 383 people, a staggering 45%, voted that the impact of LotD was "Very Negative" for RvR (Vault 103, WA 280). "Negative" came in second place with nearly 30% of the vote, or 253 total votes (Vault 82, WA 171). In third place with 13% was "Neutral" which earned 110 votes (Vault 41, WA 69). Forth place went to "Positive" with 79 votes, for just over 9% (Vault 28, WA 51). Last place fell to "Very Positive" which received 24 total votes for less than 3% of the total vote (Vault 11, WA 13).

Looking at the numbers we see a very clear and unmistakeable trend. 75% of respondents voted that Land of the Dead had a "Negative" or "Very Negative" impact on RvR. Only 12% of respondents voted for "Positive" or "Very Positive". In fact there were more total votes for a "Neutral" impact than there were for "Positive" and "Very Positive" combined (110 Neutral vs 103 Positive + Very Positive).

Community response to the poll question was quite spirited, drawing out both critics and defenders of Land of the Dead. There were a number of posters that identified the Land of the Dead as the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of their enjoyment of WAR. WAR Soldier shinden's response was fairly typical of some of these posts:

Originally Posted by shinden

I've quit over it.

RvR destroyed in one stroke.

The human tendency to find the path of least resistance caters to LoTD. Unfortunately LoTD doesn't have any type of PvP a majority of the time.

This has been terrible for WAR which was well on it's way to recovery.

Other posters were enjoying the PvE content in Land of the Dead, but felt that the impact upon RvR was still negative. WAR Soldier Haymakers of Vortex had this to say:

Originally Posted by Haymakers

Speaking for myself and my server i can say a few things about the effect LotD has on Vortex. Ive been in LotD quite a bit since its been out and i have not seen but a few destruction in the zone. The RvR in the zone flat out sucks. Ive done the tombs, the PQ's, even the Vulture Lord Lair= it was all fun for a bit. I feel as though the new zone takes away from Orvr.... and on Vortex (low populated server) it is getting soooo hard to get renown.

The 2 biggest things that have upset me about this new zone is:
1)PvE gear better/as good as Warlord gear.-- very disappointed
2)Less Orvr skirmishes/ SCENARIOS!!!!

The best RvR i can get now is taking a BO or Keep, and trying to lock a zone.... just to hope to see a couple of destruction.

Im not a "nay sayer" im just calling it as i see it.
i vote negative~

One concern that was echoed across a number of posters was touched upon by Haymakers, that being the power of new PvE items. A number of members of the community brought up concerns about having to do PvE content to get powerful items from the Land of the Dead in order to stay competitive in RvR.

WAR Lord Rer had this to say:

Originally Posted by Rer

A few notes:

• PvE Gear that is ludicrously better than RvR Gear (ie the talismans) displeases me... a lot.
• LotD distracts from the main campaign, resulting in large amounts of RvE and waiting. Though this may not always be the case, it is largely what occurs.
• All of that said, the important thing to consider with this poll is that most of the players who enjoy LotD probably won't bother coming here and voting because they are are too busy enjoying themselves with LotD. (Just saying)

Interestingly, in our earlier Community Poll on what players were most anticipating about the Land of the Dead, new Wargear and the Token System ranked first in that poll. Now, it seems this gear is causing concern amongst some members of the community in that it seems entirely rewarded based upon PvE accomplishments. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

WAR Lord Rer brings up an interesting point that other posters touched upon. Specifically, some respondents to the thread complained that the polls seem overly negative, or wished not to vote so as not to give any legitimacy to the polls when the results were expected to be negative.

WAR Lord Zeathy picked up this idea when he quoted Rer's comment about those that are happy with the Land of the Dead not taking the time to vote in the poll:

Originally Posted by Zeathy

I agree with this. I am enjoying the new content and I don't think it has hurt rvr too terribly. Maybe some changes would make others happy but I am enjoying it, even having had some interesting rvr because of it.

Still, I will not vote on the poll. I stopped doing so about eight polls ago. It is pointless. The nay sayers will use polls as examples of their own when the polls themselves have no point because of who is voting. Like you said, those who enjoy the game usually do not take part in nay saying rituals.

This is interesting in that some posters immediately took up a defensive stance when the question asked was neutral and there was an equal balance in how the possible responses were structured. Very Positive/Positive/Neutral/Negative/Very Negative. One could argue that those that are dissatisfied with the game are more likely to espouse negative opinions, but one could also argue that those that are happy with the game are more likely to continue to take advantage of fan and forum sites for WAR.

Still, the issue created some interesting discussion within the thread.

A number of posters expressed that they felt the Land of the Dead has improved RvR by adding needed consequences to zone locks. The risk of losing the Land of the Dead made each battle more meaningful. Additionally, some of these posters also expressed that Land of the Dead was helping to break up some of the zerg warfare that many community members have complained about. WAR Soldier Norzin combines both of these ideas in the following way:

Originally Posted by Norzin

There are plenty of people on my server who are whining about LOTD ruining the game, but it's only made it a lot better, on Ironclaw at least.

Zone locks actually have a purpose now. Yeah, you are supposed to lock zones to siege the city, but it's never going to happen for us. Sometimes Destro reach Altdorf but I don't think either side has ever made it past stage 1. It's boring as hell.

Now, people are out locking zones day in, day out, and actually fighting over it. For the first few days it was just an RVE grind but now Destro are back out and fighting. We had one epic skirmish in Eataine that lasted more than an hour all in the one fight, it was awesome.

I am 1000x more motivated to participate in ORVR having the optional reward of hitting up LOTD afterwards if I feel like it. Furthermore, guild party VS Destro party skirmishes in LOTD > Zerg VS Zerg ORVR.

In the end, there were a lot of strong opinions expressed discussing both positive and negative aspects of the Land of the Dead. Many people were seemingly confused about how the Land of the Dead was marketed and were expecting a far stronger RvR emphasis for the new zone. Still, a number of posters offered constructive input on the Land of the Dead.

I'll close with a post from WAR Soldier radishlaw:

Originally Posted by radishlaw

From my experience it has actually improved the game in way. People have the choice when the flipped - they can stay for RvR, or go to LotD. For my server, both sides finally understands that you don't really have to go to LotD everytime it opens, and nice fun RvR ensues. For T4 campaign, LotD is an additional, short term goal. This gives an incentive to defend and to attack. So it my opinion LotD has a positive effect on RvR.

LotD itself is not actually a RvR zone as we know it. This part of reputation is wrong. LotD, in my opinion, is a place for small unit fights. I had a blast logging in my knight with a WP, team up and fighting. Because one death and I'm out, there is a thrill to the experience, you have to judge whether you can take those people on or not, and you have to plan for escape.

LotD need a few more improvements. One, the realm when control flipped to the other side should be able to respawn as long as the warcamp stands, or given a number of "respawn tokens" that can be earned by killing enemy players in LotD. This is to prolong the fight in LotD to an acceptable time, instead of being a 30minute affair. Second, even the "invaded" realm should be able to invade other instances. This gives a reason for the other realm to stay instead of logging off/leaving LotD. As it stands, once the control is flipped, the new controlling realm has nothing to fear once they enter the instances, which is contrary to the goal of having RvR possible all the time.

[A thing about the poll: while I believe everyone should be able to share their opinion, it would be nice if everyone who voted can give at least a few sentences of reason for their choice, and state how long they have played since LotD, if any. The difference between the poll results and posted replies is quite large, there must be some kind of reason to it.]

We would love to hear your opinions on the Land of the Dead RvR Poll and on the Weekly Poll Analysis. Take a few minutes to tell us what you think of the poll. Is there bias in the polls? Have your opinions on the Land of the Dead changed over the last week? Do you have constructive feedback to improve the Land of the Dead?

Take a few minutes and share your thoughts with the community.

[Rer]

Alright, servers are down so I figure now is the best time to write up a quick post on LotD.

I think we've already established that I'm not a huge fan of LotD. Once again, I'll use bullet points: (Trying to avoid beating the dead horse here)

• PvE gear should never be better than gear gained through renown in this game. I think that's fairly straight forward and understandable. The long hours put into beating each others faces off shouldn't be undermined by some new shinies that you can get from NPCs.
• The "Sweet RvR" that takes place in LotD doesn't last very long. For those that like smaller battles, they may find enjoyment here after most of the players have died off.

However, I will say that I would now change my vote from Negative to Neutral considering most of Destruction and Order now stays out of LotD for the most part. RvR has really been awesome the past few days (and with the server merges I'm expecting it to be huge today).

The big thing with LotD, as discovered by Ziss, is population. If your server has the population to enjoy LotD and continue the RvR campaign, then LotD has no negative effect. I think that is why so many players were unhappy with LotD, because so many servers had too low of populations to sustain the campaign.

Finally, I continue to believe that the polls are somewhat biased towards negativity. However, in this case I would still say that even if every player had been included in this poll, the outcome would have remained negative.

[Adamn]

Well. I can't really say that i'm surprised by these results.

Thanks for putting it all in black and white for everyone to see, Perhaps Mythic might take a look at it, and realise that what this game didn't need, was more broken content. Grats again Mythic.

I would rather have traded in LoTD, for something like... Maybe a 20% increase in client performance during a keep fight. I think that's a realistic expectation after 9 months.

Thanks again and I hope the right people see this information.

[WarAtoned]

The excitement this game generated from the very beginning was about RvR. The sad truth is, in that regard, Mythic over-promised and underdelivered. It became evident very quickly there were stability issues with large fights. That has improved to a certain extent, but the game still doesn't deliver the massive RvR (hundreds vs hundreds) as was described. Between that, and the ability to RvE/PvE and get all the benefits of RvR, the game just hasn't lived up to it's namesake. IMO LotD is just another band-aid that doesn't address the core problems in this game.

[Bryc3]

Originally Posted by WarAtoned

The excitement this game generated from the very beginning was about RvR. The sad truth is, in that regard, Mythic over-promised and underdelivered. It became evident very quickly there were stability issues with large fights. That has improved to a certain extent, but the game still doesn't deliver the massive RvR (hundreds vs hundreds) as was described. Between that, and the ability to RvE/PvE and get all the benefits of RvR, the game just hasn't lived up to it's namesake. IMO LotD is just another band-aid that doesn't address the core problems in this game.

Thanks for summing up basically what I was about to post.

It's really sucks imo. Whenever one side gets it, they go jump in the sandbox while the other realm RVE's.. Boring.

[Zodan]

Yeah ridiculous gear from pve is just stupid... No way to fix this now so I'll just go elsewhere, fun game but killed by lotd - I hate PVE but if I can't compete without doing it what's the point of playing?

[Heavenfall]

Regarding the "only doomsayers post" argument, has that been the case in previous polls? Where options were available to say your opinion regarding something ie. positive/negative, did negative always win?

[tmiz1337]

Personally I Hope they add some of the better rvr qualities of lotd to all the t4 rvr zones. And then get rid of all the pve safe areas in the main campaign. Leave the pve in those side areas no one ever go to and most do not know exist. IMO they need to get rid of the BO's. The current design for the t4 zones are so linear it screams ZERG me. Should be more open (not just spread bo's apart rofl) like lotd, which allows awesome as hell skirmishes.


Basically I hope that mythic is using lotd to test the waters and see what works so they can impliment it into the rest of the game. Especially city sieges,(add the other cities too!) get rid of forts and turn city sieges into a smaller more compact lotd with the city dungeons being tomb of the vulture lord. lol, so much to think about and so many awesome options. And I'm to tired to spill out all my ideas so I'll just stop now.

[WeRT]

77,92% - are negative
11.82% - don't care

sums = almost 90%players have LotD in azz!
Gz Mythic.
We can't wait to see your new awesome ideas & plans!!
Doomsday post as always have no right imo!1111eleven

[Shakrah]

Originally Posted by Zodan

Yeah ridiculous gear from pve is just stupid... No way to fix this now so I'll just go elsewhere, fun game but killed by lotd - I hate PVE but if I can't compete without doing it what's the point of playing?

Well, the "funny" thing is that the test servers highlighted the PvE gear issues, but was not only disregarded, but seen by Mythic as a sales/reward argument for LotD.
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=298844

That simple fact highlights that they have little/no understanding of PvP/RvR.

[Whoitz]

Hey everyone,

That was an awesome little analysis...

Now, I hope I'm not gonna start a flame war with this but here goes.

IMHO the majority of players in WAR are sooks. Nobody seems to remember that this game is relatively new. It hasn't been out as long as WoW, it doesn't have the backing of a gazillion dollar a year company like Blizzard, and it doesn't have the same player base to support Mythic dumping bazillions of dollars into development.

LotD isn't that bad, its Mythics first try at an interesting expansion for the game we all play. Cut them some slack. Given time to implement improvements (also now that Bioware is running the show maybe some more funds?) and LotD might get a crap load better. If the nay sayers actually spent more time there they might find that elusive RvR element that their looking for. (Invading instances, Skirmish, etc) My guild usually spends the half hour lock time hunting down and destroying all the Order players in the Zone. Camp their bodies and wait for their healers to come try and rez them. It's awesome!!! LotD can be a real release from the constant tug of war in the RvR lakes, and on my server (IronClaw) PvP is rockin right now because of it.

Lets face it, the majority of MMO players are people who have played MMO's before, and if were being completely honest most of us probably came from WoW, so these pole responses only typify the kind of responses that I at least saw coming.

Ie; Nay sayers complaining about a game that is still in it's infantile stages, and not as polished as WoW...

GG

[Clangeddin]

While there are some things that I don't like about land of the dead. (the way it's locked and the poor design of purge instances), I find it ridiculous to blame on it the negative impact on the original campaign.

Let's face it, the high end original campaign just plain sucks.

Keeps are poorly designed.
Fortresses are a pain in the .
City invasions are a joke.
Lack of small scale pvp environment.

It's no wonder that as soon that LoTd locks people fly to it, before that therewas nothing else do to except the occasional instance here and there (but with long lockout timers).

Just greatly IMPROVE the original campaign, and I'm sure that the negativity of the LotD impact will be much less severe.
Of course LotD itself could use some tweaks, but it's nothing compared to what the original campaign needs.

[Alariele]

Originally Posted by Shakrah

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...d.php?t=298844

That simple fact highlights that they have little/no understanding of PvP/RvR.

They should do an analysis based on that thread. Sums up my thoughts on LOTD.

[Staggerleee]

I will say I am not surprised by the poll results however for the record I also did not vote in them.

Few opinions of my own:

1) RVR was negatively impacted. I play on Iron Rock which is arguably the closest balanced server for population and overall RVR, prior to LOTD. In that prior period both sides pushed forts every other day but neither side had gotten into a city in ~ 2 months. oRVR was daily with multiple warbands in each zone. Scenarios popped every 5-10 minutes.
2) Post LOTD there was very little oRVR in the first week. Destro got into Altdorf because order was too busy farming gear in LOTD and basically didn't care that the city was getting ransacked. Scenarios hardly ever popped.
3) Current state is that LOTD flips every hour (more than the devs designed apparently)because both sides have gotten smart about how to take zones and work timers so when it flips you already have 1 or both timers counting down for an hour. Scenarios pop more frequently now but not to the rate prior to LOTD, RVE is rampant, no one pushes forts really so the side that is in LOTD doesn't relaly care about trying to stop the other side because they know they'll just get access back an hour after its taken. Not much orvr other than trying to get a zone to flip and since scenarios don't do it quickly due to less frequent pops. more time is spent on PQ's now, PVE instead of RVR

The main reason for this I believe is that the whole Darkness Falls ruleset that Mythic has tried to emulate does not entirely work in a 2 faction game. It worked well in DAOC (5 year veteran of DAOC) because no matter who had DF control there was always a 3rd side to fight in oRVR. That mechanic does not translate to a 2 faction game and was not a smart way to implement it being that WAR has only 2 factions.

I do not know the ultimate answer but I would have liked to have seen LOTD be constantly open to both sides and PQ wins and zone RP's in LOTD giving 1 side enough "points" to get into the tombs or the Vulture lord lair. Then you would have to RVR to get the overpowered new gear at least and there would be constant fighting RVR disputes. And BTW, why no LOTD specific sceanrio maps to help flips, that was miss IMO.

A few comments on gear. I hate to compare WAR to DAOC but TOA killed DAOC with OP gear and quite honestly Mythic has ripped tons of content and gear options straight from TOA and Master Levels, so unfortunately Mythic has brought the comparison on themselves. Some of the pocket items I have seen are near godlike and I fear the same slide in player base will be seen in WAR as was seen after TOA and Master Levels got put in.

[Talc]

Originally Posted by Whoitz

IMHO the majority of players in WAR are sooks. Nobody seems to remember that this game is relatively new. It hasn't been out as long as WoW, it doesn't have the backing of a gazillion dollar a year company like Blizzard, and it doesn't have the same player base to support Mythic dumping bazillions of dollars into development.

Your post is full of inaccuracies, and only shows your lack of understanding Mythic's structure as a company.

Mythic does have a "gazillion" dollar a year company backing it. It's called EA. Have you ever heard of them?