New portal lock changes are bad, prove me wrong.

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    • New portal lock changes are bad, prove me wrong.

      As a player since betas, I can't express how truly disappointed I am that these new portal changes actually went live despite numerous veterans expressing concerns. I waited to give it a shot with an open mind but I can truly say that these portal lock changes are terrible for the game.

      I get the reasoning behind it - you want people to live in the zones they own and make it harder to travel elsewhere but all you've done really is restrict content in the end by deciding who you can play with based on where people live. It also SEEMS like a good idea with F2P coming in giving room for new guilds to establish themselves in a royal city/blackzone, but once the numbers fade and we hit another saddle point players will realize how awful this portal lock system truly is. This system would make sense if the blackzone wasn't linear and/or there's more than a few t8 zones, but that's not how the current map layout is.

      Not only does this change give massive benefit to the dominant Mercia guilds, but it actively stifles competition in an already drought ridden gvg scene. I realize the new season hasn't started yet, but I highly doubt any massive change happens that topples the current status quo in Mercia. If a small Anglian based guild wants to do a t8 random dungeon, do you honestly expect them to run two continents for twenty minutes before they can even attempt to?

      The real issues that the game has is in the gvg scene, not portal locks. It truly baffles me that this change went forward, especially considering that there's a proposal of a new map layout. It doesn't make sense with the current map, yet it was pushed forward anyways. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but give it time - most veterans that aren't already living in Mercia will come to see that this is a bad change overall. Who knows, maybe the plan was to do it for a season knowing it's bad and then change the map to fix it but if that's the case I might just have to sit this one out as I'm sure SBI can do without my sub with all the fresh meat from F2P.

    • Eternalhaze wrote:

      As a player since betas, I can't express how truly disappointed I am that these new portal changes actually went live despite numerous veterans expressing concerns. I waited to give it a shot with an open mind but I can truly say that these portal lock changes are terrible for the game.
      Well, Im disappointed too but not entirely surprised. Remember when they decided to go with Caerleon as the main city and sole access to the BZ? There were pages of posts telling them why this was a bad idea and what the consequences would be, and giving good constructive feedback. but guess what ... they ignored it all and went ahead anyway. Now they've finally realised the mistake they are trying to frantically make amends but unfortunately its not that easy to undo. The current system is just a clumsy half assed attempt to backtrack.

      @Korn And while we are talking about the map, we were told that the beauty of the new map was that it could be expanded or reduced quite easily to match the playerbase size. Is this still an option? Are you considering the map size with the influx of new F2P players?
      Midgard
      T8 Fibre, Ore, Hide, Wood & Stone Gatherer
      T8 Gathering Gear Crafter
      T8 Bags & Capes Crafter

    • Maybe this will all feel better once we have stable markets in other royal cities, but the current state of the game as a cumbrian is unplayable.

      Buying 1 set and running to western parts of cumbria takes forever. If you have any time check around high tier Cumbria zones, pretty much all of them are barren AF. These places normally have 50-100 people constantly living on the land.

      I just hope the markets normalize before the new season.

    • ArtsArts wrote:

      Maybe this will all feel better once we have stable markets in other royal cities, but the current state of the game as a cumbrian is unplayable.

      Buying 1 set and running to western parts of cumbria takes forever. If you have any time check around high tier Cumbria zones, pretty much all of them are barren AF. These places normally have 50-100 people constantly living on the land.

      I just hope the markets normalize before the new season.
      At about 0700 UTC last night we had a group go DME/BA/Flesh/BM/BB for about an hour just begging for a fight checking every dungeon we found and pinging guards, we only got like three kills on solos. Relatively low population time zone, but even so you usually get at least one fight. Nevermind the fact that it was the most populated day the game has had for a LONG while.

    • Eternalhaze wrote:

      I get the reasoning behind it - you want people to live in the zones they own and make it harder to travel elsewhere but all you've done really is restrict content in the end by deciding who you can play with based on where people live.
      Well, that is how it was when we had seaports. Also there are "hideouts" on the roadmap - meaning people can and will live anywhere they want. At least that is the intention

      Eternalhaze wrote:

      This system would make sense if the blackzone wasn't linear and/or there's more than a few t8 zones, but that's not how the current map layout is.
      Yes, and the current map will change in next major patch. Its on the roadmap. They probably just could not have done it all in 1 patch (esp with the F2P coming) and decided to do it sooner rather then later. T8 (and later t9) will be closer to the center of the new BZ map - i.e the more dangerous part of BZ. And this middle area called "Avalon".

      Midgard wrote:

      The current system is just a clumsy half assed attempt to backtrack.
      But at least they've realized their mistake and are backtracking. That should be some good news. Also Korn mentioned that more trading (player contracts) can be implemented once the final map changes take place, which will make all cities more important, more balanced and more alive with players.

      Eternalhaze wrote:

      At about 0700 UTC last night we had a group go DME/BA/Flesh/BM/BB for about an hour just begging for a fight checking every dungeon we found and pinging guards, we only got like three kills on solos. Relatively low population time zone, but even so you usually get at least one fight. Nevermind the fact that it was the most populated day the game has had for a LONG while.
      Yeah, but yesterday was also the day when nobody really wanted to "risk" anything and do any crazy activity. I for one was on for about 2-3 hrs but I never even went to BZ, I just chilled in town, did a little quick PVP in RZ, did Arenas and laughed at the markets going crazy.

      I check, and most of my RDG group didnt want to do it due to lag - most ppl just solo gathered, did arenas, or small scale RZ PVP. So I think your experience reflects exactly how the majority of the population felt - not taking any risks during laggy and unstable server performance. Majority did not want to go to BZ - and this is exactly what you saw...

      I say give it a week and then things will liven up.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Captainrussia ().

    • Yibrahimovic wrote:

      will the new map layout arrive before the 30days of island-exchange run out?.. I mean.. you know
      the new layout has already been posted in the Albion Online Roadmap & Vision Update

      It has the new portal changes already shown there, so you should already know whats coming - and you can move your island accordingly at any time

    • Guilds get many season points by mage raiding, in fact some guilds last season got into the top brackets without any territories. Doesn't this mean that it's in neighboring alliances best interest to remain at war? and similarly, for neighboring alliances to launch on eachother's terries? Since it's uneconomic to go long distance to raid mages and have to trek back...

    • Old port system was actualy better than this. As it also had BZ cities in which you can be based off.

      Right now if you have bad reputation you are locked to Carleon and Mercia only.

      Also the current Royal City balance is just stupid.

      Basicaly Fort Sterling is no brainer the best Town to be based in.

      As it has access to all resource types and Cumbria which is far superior if you want to go to either mercia/anglia or cumbria.

      All other towns are basicaly Anglia Towns.

      In the port version you still had to walk from Town to the port.

    • Midgard wrote:

      GeoffreiCharny wrote:

      I think your all idiots... They've said this is the first change, the new map is coming and clearly the cities will be optimised for it.
      coming in Q4 of this year. April is the start of Q2. We have therefore 6-9 months of this shit show.
      Exactly.

      The point is why go with new portal locks before the new map? It doesn't make any sense with a linear blackzone map layout which is what we currently have. We have to deal with this moronic change for the better part of a year, it's not as simple as saying "oh it'll be better once new map comes" when it affects every aspect of the end game content.

    • Eternalhaze wrote:

      Midgard wrote:

      GeoffreiCharny wrote:

      I think your all idiots... They've said this is the first change, the new map is coming and clearly the cities will be optimised for it.
      coming in Q4 of this year. April is the start of Q2. We have therefore 6-9 months of this shit show.
      Exactly.
      The point is why go with new portal locks before the new map? It doesn't make any sense with a linear blackzone map layout which is what we currently have. We have to deal with this moronic change for the better part of a year, it's not as simple as saying "oh it'll be better once new map comes" when it affects every aspect of the end game content.

      The goal behind the centralized Caerleon change back in the day was to make all parts of the Outlands easily accessible. The clear downside of this - one of the most criticized points of the game - was that this leads to royal cities losing relevance and to high degrees of power projection for single large alliances.

      With the announced map rework, we intend to change this. However, from past experience (in particular, Beta 2, where had a very large spread out map without fast travel options) we know that there is a trade-off between "accessibility" and "locality" (i.e. how much location matters in the game). It's easily possible to go to far in one direction (centralized Caerleon structure) or the other (Beta 2 map). We want to make sure that reworked Outland map is a success, so we must be able to assess how much a more local map design impacts the game. The current portal changes make the game world more local and allow us to assess the effects resulting from that, based on our own data and based on player feedback. Right now, it's definitely too early to tell, but a couple of weeks down the road, in particular after the next invasion day, we'll be able to make first assessment and will revise / adapt our strategy going forward based on that.