Map vote change

[Mr_Awesome]

Some good points being made, I hope Devs are taking notice.

don't get your hopes up  ;D Dev's see everything.

[Hande]

Dev's see everything.

Oh no, You leaked it out!

[clickeverywhere]

@Handef, adding a map vote change would not make 95% of the maps unplayed. I know you say this for purposes of exaggeration, but I want to point out that there are actually plenty of maps that are now possible with the most recent map changes. To list a few that aren't Swadian Town: King's Reach, Swadian Keep, Offshore, Swadian Castle. Of course, for public Rag runs, if you join at wave 1 you can expect to be spending two to four hours on the server depending on the quality of the team. Being in a four hour run on a map that should take only take two hours is not fun. That might be part of the reason why players don't stay for more than one map. Now that I think about it, it might also be why players dislike it when anyone joins at wave 16 on a Ragnarok run. It's a huge time investment that wave 16 joiners skip, and they get the same chance for a drop from Odin.

For me, it has often occurred that I've gone through a complete run without a single good material dropping for me, so that definitely does not help to keep me playing. This will hopefully be addressed by the upcoming change to drop mechanic so I'll be waiting until then.

[Leberkass]

I know this does not suit to the topic pretty well, but I wanted to say sth about the idea of the lootsystem. Some guys are unhappy with the random lootchance for everyone even if he joins at wave 16 and loots a legendary and most players are seriously pissed and do not wanna play public runs because of such guys and their luck(I know I should not complain about luck )
Then some houselss guys are missing those runs and it is hard to find a good team to beat Odin etc, but I am sure if there is a lootsystem where it may for example increase the droprate how long you have been on the server and count the kills and deaths and so on
So people which are joining later may have a smaller lootchance and the guys playing from the beginning are not so annoyed because they have a higher lootchance.
This is just an idea which does not suit that good to the topic.
Greets Tarrod

[madjsoh]

let me know if im taking this off track cid but the intention of your thread was to get people actually playing ragnarok and hard mode again. at the moment all that is played is normal mode which was far from the case two patches ago. whether people like it or not i believe that the that the lack of runs happening stems not from loots alone (or lack off) but also the the recent crusade the devs have taken against kitting. i remember the days of old when one man on a first defence server of ragnarok could start an entire run. whether the team had high tech gear or not didn't matter because they knew that on first defence it was all about player skill and less about material wealth. then oddly after a small team completed odin successfully the map was nerfed...BIG TIME. sure 3 men should not be able to beat odin. but it happened and they did not gltich etc to obtain that achievement. i believe and feel free to disagree etc but it feels like the devs weren't happy that someone had reached the level where they had become so good at something that they had successfully beaten odin with a method of their own...and we all paid for it. you cannot deny the decrease in public runs on hard and rag modes since the nerf of first defence and i believe that in order to bring back a large portion of the player base (who played to kite and test their own skills rather than sit behind a shield wall aimlessly clicking a button for 2-4 hours). if first defence or a map that allowed kitting to a degree was reincorporated into the rotation i would bet my ass that runs would increase and many players would return to test their skills. a team should not be forced to play commando shield wall with slashers if they do not want to...it's a game people want to play a role that they enjoy not one that is forced in order to be successful. if you agree or disagree send me a pm why or why not and i may make a thread about it...sorry cid if this is a bit off track but i feel it is relevant to you plea regarding more public runs on harder difficulties.

[The Cid]

let me know if im taking this off track cid but the intention of your thread was to get people actually playing ragnarok and hard mode again. at the moment all that is played is normal mode which was far from the case two patches ago. whether people like it or not i believe that the that the lack of runs happening stems not from loots alone (or lack off) but also the the recent crusade the devs have taken against kitting. i remember the days of old when one man on a first defence server of ragnarok could start an entire run. whether the team had high tech gear or not didn't matter because they knew that on first defence it was all about player skill and less about material wealth. then oddly after a small team completed odin successfully the map was nerfed...BIG TIME. sure 3 men should not be able to beat odin. but it happened and they did not gltich etc to obtain that achievement. i believe and feel free to disagree etc but it feels like the devs weren't happy that someone had reached the level where they had become so good at something that they had successfully beaten odin with a method of their own...and we all paid for it. you cannot deny the decrease in public runs on hard and rag modes since the nerf of first defence and i believe that in order to bring back a large portion of the player base (who played to kite and test their own skills rather than sit behind a shield wall aimlessly clicking a button for 2-4 hours). if first defence or a map that allowed kitting to a degree was reincorporated into the rotation i would bet my ass that runs would increase and many players would return to test their skills. a team should not be forced to play commando shield wall with slashers if they do not want to...it's a game people want to play a role that they enjoy not one that is forced in order to be successful. if you agree or disagree send me a pm why or why not and i may make a thread about it...sorry cid if this is a bit off track but i feel it is relevant to you plea regarding more public runs on harder difficulties.

I think the anti kiting stance the devs take only helps destroy the mod, but ha ho thats life.  Sometimes the servers are very quiet so a player has no choice other than kiting.  What harm does it do to the mod to have a few kiting maps?  I loved handes retreat when first released, had some great runs kiting with 3-4 players, same on first defense had great runs on that map too, imo kiting offers something different to the mod which the Devs fail to see? 

Also the time factor of playing Ragnarok would greatly be reduced if a lot of ranged bots were removed, not only would this speed things up, it would also make playing commando less boring imo.  And do ranged units make it harder?  Its not hard for a skilled player to wipe a whole ranged wave solo is it?

[oposum]

i believe and feel free to disagree etc but it feels like the devs weren't happy that someone had reached the level where they had become so good at something that they had successfully beaten odin with a method of their own...

Kiting isn't really skillful. It is literally running the same path every wave, turning around, shooting/throwing and running the same path again. Kiting is ridiculously easy since bots are braindead and all of them are slower than you. When you get a map in which you can do full circles and test it a few times to learn how to get bots following you in proper pattern, you can solo anything.

I think the anti kiting stance the devs take only helps destroy the mod, but ha ho thats life.  Sometimes the servers are very quiet so a player has no choice other than kiting.  What harm does it do to the mod to have a few kiting maps?  I loved handes retreat when first released, had some great runs kiting with 3-4 players, same on first defense had great runs on that map too, imo kiting offers something different to the mod which the Devs fail to see? 

Skill required to kite properly is about the same level of slashing in shieldwall (quite low), rewards are far greater and once you get a kiting map rag/hard servers won't be played on any other map.

Also the time factor of playing Ragnarok would greatly be reduced if a lot of ranged bots were removed, not only would this speed things up, it would also make playing commando less boring imo.  And do ranged units make it harder?  Its not hard for a skilled player to wipe a whole ranged wave solo is it?

True, pub ragnarok runs take ages to finish, mainly because of insane numbers of superstrong ranged units. Ranged units would make things harder if they could actually fire on players, instead on all maps which are played on hard/rag, ranged bots get stuck somewhere and wait patiently to get slaughtered by people peek-shooting. Currently they do not increase difficulty, only time needed to finish the map.

[madjsoh]

Kiting isn't really skillful. It is literally running the same path every wave, turning around, shooting/throwing and running the same path again. Kiting is ridiculously easy since bots are braindead and all of them are slower than you. When you get a map in which you can do full circles and test it a few times to learn how to get bots following you in proper pattern, you can solo anything.

kiting requires far more skill than slashing...above normal mode at least. I think you would have a hard time finding someone skilled enough kiting past followers let alone tricksters on ragnarok mode because, no, the bots are not all slower than you and you have to use your environment to slow them down so it is not following a predetermined path until the wave is complete. to be put short you cannot solo "anything" and it is almost impossible to kite past loke/thor/odin on your own...unless you use gltiches.

Skill required to kite properly is about the same level of slashing in shieldwall (quite low), rewards are far greater and once you get a kiting map rag/hard servers won't be played on any other map.

the devs have confirmed that rewards are not greater haven't they? and to put bluntly...people only play a number of maps these days anyway (granted the new map update was a step in the right direction in terms of maps all being complete able but people don't want to wait long periods of time for the nords to reach the cades. it is quicker to flip to swadian town than sit through a run on FUS or swadian temple where the nords spawns are separated and far away. the recommended amount of time spent sitting at a computer is 2 hours some maps take 4 hours plus to complete so... do the devs want to deteriorate our health? I think so!!!!!!

[Carolus Rex]

DIE FOR NEW MAP NOOB!

[Bolt]

Talking about how time consuming hard and ragnarok are i was thinking about lowering the number of waves to 16 on each game mode. That would decrease time you need to complete run by more than just 20%, especially on ragnarok where toming before thor and odin can take up to 20 minutes on public servers. Even on hard it's not uncommon to see a run lasting more than 1,5 hour. It's more obvious on maps where bots get stuck often (swadian keep) or spawn is located far from cading spot (fus). Considering NI isn't a grand strategy game, but an action rpg i think runs shoulnd't last more than 1 hour. More often than not when rag or hard run ends most of players just leave because 2 h is just too much to do it all over again. Compare it to normal runs which even on public server  and with semi-competent team can be finished in under 30 minutes.

My idea is to split NI into 4 modes of difficulty, every with just 16 waves:
1. easy with nerfed prince as the end boss (all levels)
2. normal with ragnar, with skirmishers, repeaters and ballistas waves taken out (level 32+)
3. hard with thor, starting with mobs from hard, ending with mobs from ragnarok (level 39+)
4. ragnarok with odin and toughest mobs (level 50+)