Zarden
With NH travel no longer being free for those of us with high race fames depriving Rangers of that benefit, there truly does need to be something to make Rangerhood worth the grind. Sure, I have heard some argue that Rangers are overpowered because they have all of the "benefits" of Neutral along with (limited) access to teleportation to PR/250 zones, a benefit some feel should not be allowed to those that do not choose sides in the battle between Ma'Duk and Jena, but I feel that we should take this chance to break the binary paradigm and have Hominists (Rangers and Marauders) not only be given equal benefits, but maybe a bit more to compensate for the longer fame grind.About the fame : if you are from any faction but ranger, that's not a big change for you, it will just be a few days longer for new players to reach their citizenship. Which they don't really need anyway, it doesn't keep them from joining a guild or getting access to any game content.
For Rangers, this mean that to reach 30 in every fame so you can become a "ranger aspirant" you will have to do HUNDREDS of missions. That's days of playing, especially for a low level player. Today it already take at least two week to a new player to raise their Kami and Karavan fame; raising Fyros, Matis, Tryker and Zoraï fame could be done in parallel through the New Horizon. Now these new players will need 6 weeks to do that, and an extra 6 weeks to reach 50 in fame for prime roots magnetic path.
That's no game content; that's boring grinding that will just keep new players away from Ranger faction. Should I close my guild now?
I saw that you plan to increase the fame given by missions. Please keep in mind all the fame grinding that new rangers have to do at a time where they have lot of skills to grind and many more interesting things to learn. It should not take 3 month to become a ranger...
Zarden
For many of us, that boils down to about 2 days per run. Maybe we can get a full run in if we do NOTHING else. As for PvP... well, that's not really a Ranger thing. Ask Moniq about Rangers and PvP ;)Second thing, the faction points. Their main use for me and my guildies is to buy sap cristals...
Before this patch, as a ranger, I already got only 1/4 of the faction points a citizen of any nation can get. Like many rangers and mara players I made a citizen alt to do this for me because I don't need x4 boring grinding to get the cristals that I need.
To get these faction points, I use the florist occupation.... This take 10-15mn depending how full the New Horizon was. That used to give 7200 faction points that can be converted in approximately 700 Q500 sap cristals.
Now well... this is not an option anymore... The only options that are left for me are PvP to get PvP points that I can trade for crystals, but I will need more people to get involved in PvP for that to work. Second option are these time consuming packer missions that will just give me a few hundreds of faction point and that I can only do every 5 hours...
Now, I'm sure that those who don't have to work 45+ hours a week just to live indoors might not see the problem, but those of us who come to Atys to get away from the grind inherent in being an adult don't have the time or inclination to deal with that. Ryzom is a game, not a job. If Ryzom becomes a job, people will leave and find a game that is more game-like. The server population is rather small already. Is reducing server population further the desired goal here?
Zarden
Well, folks wanted more PvP; maybe they should've been more specific. Also, they should've accounted for server population and how it is not a constant throughout the day. Of course, that all assumes people will make alts instead of assuming it's too much bother. If nothing is done, people will just create alts from the opposite faction and chain kill them to get PvP points that they can trade for cristals...
Zarden
Like many, I've always done occupations for points, overseer crafting missions for dappers (they pay better than occupations), and MOBA/FPS games (which do PvP better) in the rare case I want PvP. In fact, one of the reason I chose Ranger was specifically because PvP is not as mandatory as it has practically become due to this patch. I came here to do the sandbox RPG thing, and was disappointed to find that my style of RP is not considered valid. And now this patch makes Ryzom a poor-homin's MOBA? I have to agree that one way to counter that would be to restore NH's point-gain if for no reason other than to allow Rangers a way to get points without spending more time than we have or breaking lore.What I would recommand to solve this is either to make cristals available in a regular shop... or to enable players to craft them like it was possible few years ago. Maybe with a dapper counterpart? Best option would still be that the New Horizon give dappers and faction points, but no fame if that's really the path you want to follow...
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The real tragedy here is that what I've heard from pre-Merge players on servers other than Aniro indicates that Ryzom has always had a huge divide that must be bridged in order for a unified server (Atys) to prosper. But it appears that Ryzom has chosen to become Aniro v2.0 instead of a unified server. That may not be (and likely was not) the intent, but perception matters, and any misperception requires damage control. It's a difficult balancing act, and I don't envy those that have to tread the fine path between the opposing sides, but I feel I would be dishonest if I did not say that I have heard from a few players who feel they have been run off from these forums that this patch is borderline offensive in it's lack of balance and apparent preferential treatment. While some (myself included) are willing to give some benefit of a doubt, not all are as tolerant and those who are still have limits that this patch has come dangerously close to.
One does not need to be malicious to do damage, and I fear that this patch has caused more damage than just the normal discontent that is inherent in any change and the elephant in the room will trample us all if this is not handled delicately.
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Do not assume that you speak for all just because you are the loudest voice; there are many who disagree that simply have no desire to waste words on you.