Hidden Gorge feedback from the community

Hello! I am the leader of Revival Wings a Rival Wings community discord for NA, EU and JP Datacenters. Here is some current feedback from the players on our discord! :

Positive

1. The map size of Hidden Gorge is better than Astragalos. You are able to reach towers and the core much easier. Allowing for a more dynamic and faster pace matches.

2. Objectives like the train and mercenary are fun additions to the mode.

Negative

1. The range on cannons are poor for this map - It takes two cannons to defend a single lane. https://imgur.com/a/AFOrhpl Players use a tactic where they hide at a blind spot at middle to land missiles on the core. If it is intended for players to be able to hit the core from there, we need cannons to be able to assist before they enter the area.

2.Gobtank and Goblin Mercenary can be hit by the train and killed - This is bad because it took manpower and time to earn that benefit. Maybe, they can avoid crossing tracks when the train warning lights come on or be invulnerable to train.

Suggestions

1. Lack of effort from players - Implementing a system where people have to do a minimal amount of damage/healing to be rewarded would help the quality of matches.

2. A map icon for the cannons - That way we can know if an alliance member or enemy is currently using one by viewing our map.

3. Assisting new players - As of right now, if you enter rival wings for the first time, it is very overwhelming and confusing unless you go out of your way to research. We could use an in game tutorial for explaining rival wing and PVP basics similar to how Hall of Novice or Stone, Sky, Sea. Having player who have no knowledge on how to use a mech enter one can shift a match to a lost and causes a lot of stress and tension among players in a match.

4. A more detailed map icon for Gobtank - Currently it is 3 dots, a better representation such as a mini gobtank would help player know where it is. https://imgur.com/a/zNNYQru


Most important Suggestions

The hidden gorge instance has not been active for EU players at all since the split between Chaos and Light. Even with our attempts to schedule runs we fail to have enough players on the weekend during prime time to make the duty happen. Some suggestions that have been made are:

1. Adding a Rival Wings daily roulette
2. More community support, upping the relationships between community ran events.
3. Upping the incentive to play after earning the Magitek Avenger Mounts. Such as more experience points or more unique challenge achievements such as destroying the tower a set amount of times.

Thank you for reading! To those who still would like to join, our discord link is https://discord.gg/WYMpfYp ! Currently 3,000+ members. We have guides, mentors, voice/text channels for teaming up, side games and of course our schedule that keeps the mode active :eek:

I didn't know that the Gobtank and Merc could get killed by the train. I pretty much stopped playing after getting the 100 wins because of what you brought up with the cannon range. I have discussed this with friends and other people who have gone into HG. The Blind spots and the fact that the OPP can stand out of the range of the cannon even if they are not in the "blind spot." someone told me it is better that way because it is more balanced if it stays the way it does. I hope they make the QoL changes to HG because I do enjoy playing it. a way better improvement over Astragalos. Hopefully they see your post/thread so they know what to do going forward when they want to improve HG.

The blind spot in the middle where Oppressors can shoot below the base and still damage the core feels like it wasn’t intended. I’m not sure if a daily roulette would change anything or be necessary, but the knowledge gap is what puts off a lot of new players. For a mode with this much objectives and the importance of Mechs it really does need a hall of novice type training area to start crossing this gap, where I believe people begin to enjoy Rival Wings more because they have a better understanding of what’s going on. HG is a MASSIVE step up from Astragalos and I hope the devs figure a way to keep people playing it.

I don't think an additional roulette would change anything. That's a once a day reward that still wont draw in 48 people consistently, it still wont pop and people will continue to not bother. People who could be queuing Rival Wings will still be queuing Frontlines, it's better IMO to just slap Hidden Gorge in the current Frontlines rotation system, and simply rename the roulette to "Daily Challenge: PvP" (can even bring back and slap Feast 8v8 in there, or Training). Hardcore Frontlines fanatics might not like the idea of losing a day of Frontlines, but... Tough? I'd prefer Hidden Gorge to pop more than once every four days too, but this is the only fix I really see working... This game simply doesn't have the PvP population to split over multiple large scale game modes... That's the whole reason we even got a rotation for Frontline maps to begin with...

Another solution, of course, is to just rework Rival Wings to have a smaller scale mode, much like Frontlines has 24 player and 72 player modes. Not sure how viable that is though, with all the mechanics involved in Rival Wings...

I still can't understand why I can get hit by oppressor missiles when I'm in the south merc cave, when the oppressor is above me and I can't even see or target it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sigvarr_Ulfbeard

The blind spot in the middle where Oppressors can shoot below the base and still damage the core feels like it wasn’t intended.

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I thought this was kind of weird when I first saw it but tons of people do it. You can even hit the bottom of the base from near the center and do decent damage. Being able to shoot below the core and still hurt it when normally you can't shoot the core from the valley makes no sense. Maybe it was intended and you are just supposed to use the cannons.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ryphen

I still can't understand why I can get hit by oppressor missiles when I'm in the south merc cave, when the oppressor is above me and I can't even see or target it.

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This is probably related to how you can hit the core from below in the center. The vertical blast radius on the missile is ridiculous.

A roulette would help it pop more regularly, since during prime time on Primal you get 72 man FL matches daily, and rival wings just needs 48. Who knows after the server split though.

A Rival Wings "standings" similar to Frontlines might be interesting and incentive for people to queue. Frontline standings can be quite competitive. Give Rival Wings more longevity rather than the current state of grab my mount and go (or title for some people).

I think they need to reduce the amount of people that is needed to make Rival Wings pop. From 48 to 32. Maximum allowed will remain the same.

Let say that 36 people are queuing for RW. If the majority of those people has been in the queue for 10 minutes or more, let those 32 players with longest queue time into the instance and the remaining people can join in progress.

16 vs 16 at the start.

Reminder: premades can't join matches in progress. So keeping the sides even shouldn't be a problem.