Roads are dead. Black zones are dead. SBI chooses to expand Royal Continent.

    • Roads are dead. Black zones are dead. SBI chooses to expand Royal Continent.

      The game has had an influx of players, but yet the best possible PvP areas - the Roads and Black Zones, are empty half of the time. This is because the vast majority of players never leave the Royal Continent, despite the obvious benefits that come with the Roads or Black Zones content.

      And SBI has decided, instead of increasing Black Zone or Roads rewards/access, to just simply expand the Royal Continent instead - adding like more Blue and Yellow zones.

      It feels as if SBI wants this game to be completely segregated instead of making the game have a tiered system of progression using the balance of Risk vs. Reward to entice players to seek more dangerous areas as they advance.

      Honestly, my guild thought we could live 100% in the roads when they first came out. However, there simply isn't enough content out there for us, and while the content that does exist out there is fun, it's too far and few between.

      This is due to having too many Roads zones, and also too many Black Zones. So the only answer is to increase access. This can be solved with the Roads in my opinion, but there needs to be more portals. Every Hideout zone in the Roads has 3 possible Portal openings, but more often than not, only 1 Portal is available. For a guild seeking content, this could ruin an entire day by keeping them shut off from good zones.

      So my proposal: All 3 Portals in Hideouts Zones in the Roads are active at all times - more connections = more opportunities = more content.

      Also, to encourage players to leave the Royals and enter the Black Zones - create transports missions similar to faction transports to and from the Rests. More Incentives encourage more risk taking, which in turn creates more content for everyone.

      Because right now, people's options are either getting zerged down in the BZ's during ZvZ CTA's, or wandering around for hours looking for people in the Roads, or worse having to resort to conditional or faction flag lame ass pvp in the Royals.
      Gamer Dad. Old enough to know better, much too young to care.

    • No matter what you do, you will never convince the player base that doesn't want to engage in full loot PVP to engage in full loot PVP. Not everybody wants to spend every second they play constantly watching for ganking groups, it becomes exhausting to deal with when all you want to do is hit rocks or heretics for a few hours. They shouldn't change the rewards and still make Black Zone content the best rewards, but they definitely should expand the Royal Continent for those that don't want to travel or don't want to deal with every single other player being KOS. Right now Royals are hilariously overpopulated and SBI realizes this and it's a healthy addition for those players.

    • Georg51 wrote:

      The game has had an influx of players, but yet the best possible PvP areas - the Roads and Black Zones, are empty half of the time. This is because the vast majority of players never leave the Royal Continent, despite the obvious benefits that come with the Roads or Black Zones content.

      And SBI has decided, instead of increasing Black Zone or Roads rewards/access, to just simply expand the Royal Continent instead - adding like more Blue and Yellow zones.

      It feels as if SBI wants this game to be completely segregated instead of making the game have a tiered system of progression using the balance of Risk vs. Reward to entice players to seek more dangerous areas as they advance.

      Honestly, my guild thought we could live 100% in the roads when they first came out. However, there simply isn't enough content out there for us, and while the content that does exist out there is fun, it's too far and few between.

      This is due to having too many Roads zones, and also too many Black Zones. So the only answer is to increase access. This can be solved with the Roads in my opinion, but there needs to be more portals. Every Hideout zone in the Roads has 3 possible Portal openings, but more often than not, only 1 Portal is available. For a guild seeking content, this could ruin an entire day by keeping them shut off from good zones.

      So my proposal: All 3 Portals in Hideouts Zones in the Roads are active at all times - more connections = more opportunities = more content.

      Also, to encourage players to leave the Royals and enter the Black Zones - create transports missions similar to faction transports to and from the Rests. More Incentives encourage more risk taking, which in turn creates more content for everyone.

      Because right now, people's options are either getting zerged down in the BZ's during ZvZ CTA's, or wandering around for hours looking for people in the Roads, or worse having to resort to conditional or faction flag lame ass pvp in the Royals.
      Do you think about thing before you post? The roads were created to bring black zone content to smaller guilds and alliances who arent competitive or powerful enough to go toe to toe with the Arches and Armors of the game. What you are proposeing would throw all of that away. It would be an unmitigated catastrophe. If you cant find pvp content in the roads and black zones as they are now, you arent looking, like at all.

    • We look plenty bud. You can run across the black zones during non CTA hours and more than half the zones you can cross without seeing a single other player.
      Same can be said about the roads.

      Theres simply too many black zones and mists zones, and mot enough players in them.

      Increasing access and rewards feels like the only answer. Static objectives is good too, like the mob camps in the roads - they need more stuff like that in the black zones. Points of contest that encourage content.
      Gamer Dad. Old enough to know better, much too young to care.

    • Piraterer wrote:

      Wtf roads are dead? We always get good fights 7 vs 7 or hideout fights. Your totally in the wrong guild if you think roads are dead.
      We spend an average of an hour or two every day between decent content fights in the roads. Most of the time is spent running around finding mostly solo players or naked scouts.

      How often would you say you get these fights?
      Gamer Dad. Old enough to know better, much too young to care.

    • Georg51 wrote:

      more than half the zones you can cross without seeing a single other player.
      thats because i dont want you to see me... because open world pvp is all based on n+1 getting seen by anyone its 50/50 if they want to kill you and if they do 90% of the time they are in a group of n+5 thus players minimize their time in BZ or roads only doing anything while it is worth the risk.

      because of resource scarcity it is often only worth it for me to gather a zone 1 time per day other times there are too few resources for me to waste my time running in circles. thus you have a 25 minute window per day to see me in a zone at all, otherwise im in city or hideout or at CTA

    • Georg51 wrote:

      the Roads and Black Zones, are empty half of the time
      This is called "Social Distancing". I think I don't need to remind you why it happens.

      Georg51 wrote:

      This is because the vast majority of players never leave the Royal Continent, despite the obvious benefits that come with the Roads or Black Zones content.
      This is the choice of the players.

      Georg51 wrote:

      balance of Risk vs. Reward
      How about reducing the risk instead? I think you won't agree. Similarly, increasing reward won't change those who don't go to BZ, because that's just not their play style.

    • blappo wrote:

      Georg51 wrote:

      more than half the zones you can cross without seeing a single other player.
      thats because i dont want you to see me... because open world pvp is all based on n+1 getting seen by anyone its 50/50 if they want to kill you and if they do 90% of the time they are in a group of n+5 thus players minimize their time in BZ or roads only doing anything while it is worth the risk.
      because of resource scarcity it is often only worth it for me to gather a zone 1 time per day other times there are too few resources for me to waste my time running in circles. thus you have a 25 minute window per day to see me in a zone at all, otherwise im in city or hideout or at CTA
      Exactly, makes me laugh when people say they spent 4 hours gathering t8 stuff....because you either had 10 guards or you made it up, resources are so scarce now its basically a server maintenance and gather quick for up to an hour and try and get back or just dont bother.
      [i][u][b]"Best not type too much I may get in trouble"[/b][/u][/i]

    • Black zone is not dead. if there was less maps in blackzone and roads then gatherors cant gather. if blackzones and roads are as packed as royal with average of 10 players per map instead of 1 or 0 aka dead maps then noone will be able to do the chests / group dungs open world cause every 10 mins you will have contact.
      i say currently blackzone and roads has the perfect balance of players for blackzone /roads gathering to be profitable and worth the risk going out and getting full stacks in resources instead of getting 1 tick after 1 tick of resources like in the royals.

      noone want to get ganked in the over world
      you always want to be the one ganking
      Check out My new Albion Online Expansion idea 4 thread:
      https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/143592-Albion-Online-Expansion-Idea-4/

    • The_Support_God wrote:

      Black zone is not dead. if there was less maps in blackzone and roads then gatherors cant gather. if blackzones and roads are as packed as royal with average of 10 players per map instead of 1 or 0 aka dead maps then noone will be able to do the chests / group dungs open world cause every 10 mins you will have contact.
      i say currently blackzone and roads has the perfect balance of players for blackzone /roads gathering to be profitable and worth the risk going out and getting full stacks in resources instead of getting 1 tick after 1 tick of resources like in the royals.

      noone want to get ganked in the over world
      you always want to be the one ganking
      I levelled to t8 in blue and yellow zones, love it. get 21 t4 a full node and 15-20 t5 a full node, plus fishing as well 4x fish. I know the trade in bz and roads is more nodes, more enchanted, but i think they should give a base 5% more fame per tier of area.
      [i][u][b]"Best not type too much I may get in trouble"[/b][/u][/i]

    • Mindless 10v1 ganking has been slowly killing the BZ for awhile now. Until they solve this by putting mechanics in to heavily discourage this behavior you will always have a large portion of the playerbase that avoids the risk. Looks like instead SBI is just going to increase the Royal size for these players. I do agree though additional incentives need to be added to BZ to balance the risk.

      Queen made the BZ out of whack because the zergs get the best content in game at extreme low risk while all others play that content at massively increased risk simply because they don't want to become a zerg slave. Prior to Queen all players had a few decent BZ high tier zones right outside portals but Queen killed that drasticly diminishing how often these players now ventured out.

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

    • I agree about Royal continent expand. You cant force people to Go Black or roads, they wont Go and Will Just leave the game. SBI need to see the best way to keep the game alive and health.

      What i wish in this game is all the gear and inventory have a high chance to trash. PvP Fame is enough for PvP fights.

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

    • Corrupted dungeons and HCEs are going to kill the game if they haven't already. No incentive to do open world content when you have no risk (hce) or basically no risk (corrupteds) easy to access content that has rewards far and above anything else you could get even from doing a blackzone hellgate. I don't think expanding royals really matters in comparison to the way corrupteds has completely warped the game's economy.

    • Imblitzkrieg wrote:

      Corrupted dungeons and HCEs are going to kill the game if they haven't already. No incentive to do open world content when you have no risk (hce) or basically no risk (corrupteds) easy to access content that has rewards far and above anything else you could get even from doing a blackzone hellgate. I don't think expanding royals really matters in comparison to the way corrupteds has completely warped the game's economy.
      well in general corrupted is a good idea

      But the super low risk profile in relation to the super fame and drops..is the issue

      Corrupted has zero objective..than not to die primary and second to kill the enemy

      But u have nothing to win to defend.. there is 5 crystals, and you just need 3

      That crys "avoid me and run to the other crystal"

      On top, if I am in fast farm rat gear I have one intrude out of 10 dungeons..

      So ..very poor game design in my eyes leading to the issue u describe..

    • Corrupted has driven a ton of PvP activity and are absolutely needed since this is literally the only solo PvP activity that exists. It has also been proven 10x over now that people were wanting this non zerg content. Now they just need to keep tweaking it to make shard breaking less simplistic and they will be in a good balance place. People that focus on Corrupted and 2s gates don't do much OW zerg shit anyway so if that content was gone they just would move on to another game.