Im Done

[Levy9]

I encourage people to just vote with their feet. If you like it, go and play it. If you don't, don't.

Right. People voted with their feet when they all came to PvP for the Garo rewards. Things went from no queue pops outside of prime time to 5 minute queue pops all day everyday for at least a month. People are forgetting that PvP participation was also in the gutter for lengthy periods during 3.0. Garo actually changed that...massively. No bot explosion either. That came with the 4.0 XP.

I don't understand why you think sub paying MMO PvPers should just play for fun without competing for anything or earning anything unique to PvP. We can't even grind rank and climb the ladder in 4.2. What popular PvP game has that expectation for it's players? I think I'll make one last post in the 4.2 feedback thread specifying what I'm getting at.

[Zojha]

Right. People voted with their feet when they all came to PvP for the Garo rewards.

And they would have done the same with Lord of Verminion if SE had put the same rewards into Lord of Verminion instead, because the content was irrelevant - what mattered were the rewards.

What does that have to do with PvP as such? That's just normal incentive behavior. If you pay people enough, they'll even lick a turd in front of a camera - Trash TV already proved as much. That doesn't make the turd appetizing, though, that just means you offered a good bribe. And every time you ask for more bribes, you admit that what you're promoting is, well... not appetizing.

As for popular PvP games... it's funny that you even mention rank and ladders in that context, because the vast majority of players in a given PvP game doesn't even care about ranked. Feel free to compare the active player count in league of legends vs the amount of people in the rank statistics. Last I checked it was like 10% with very generous rounding.
Most people play for the heck of it. Aside from a newbie that just wants a particular champion badly, I never had anyone even mention rewards in LoL. It's taken for granted you come for the game, not for the shiny. It wasn't a topic in SMITE either. I don't think that if I went into SC2 and asked why people still play the game, they'd answer:"Because of the portraits" either. The entire WC3 custom game scene flourished without rewards - You only got icons from matched regular games. In most PvP games, playing for rewards instead of for the game is an alien concept.

And it's not even that PvP here had no rewards - You can get endgame gear with it, you can get various currencies to convert into crafted mats/leveling gear/other currencies/quest tokens/whatever with it, it has a whole bunch of exclusive titles and ever so often, they add a new set or mount to it - I'm not even counting ranked stuff because lol 100 people per data center. Since recently, you can also level with it. That's not "nothing". That's a bunch. A whole bunch. And if that bunch doesn't suffice, frankly, the issue is the gameplay, not the rewards.

And you know what? Most of the people I know - Me included - Rather play other, less rewarding games than bother with this game's PvP at this point.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

Right. People voted with their feet when they all came to PvP for the Garo rewards. Things went from no queue pops outside of prime time to 5 minute queue pops all day everyday for at least a month. People are forgetting that PvP participation was also in the gutter for lengthy periods during 3.0. Garo actually changed that...massively. No bot explosion either. That came with the 4.0 XP.

I need to correct this now, and every time it's said:

Garo did NOT improve queues. Sure, it was the first in game event that was PvP-oriented (as per the Garo creator's wishes), but that event launched right beside the overhaul of Wolf Mark rewards and reward costs (a huge improvement in itself. Instead of a body piece costing 12,800 marks or so, they now only cost 4000), and more importantly, Frontline Freelancer - the GC restriction removal the community asked and begged for for 3 years. Nobody asked for Garo; it was nice to have, but that pales in comparison to a feature the community wanted so badly, and even said would improve queues, and that's exactly what it did.

[Akor]

snip

Queue times on FL did improved upon of freelancer, but over all shorting queue times was thanks to the garo event and not bc of the freelancer which bring botters in the FL thx to garo event. Now with 4.0 queue times dint change bc of the XP reward. Reward system was more like QoL too which was good to botters bc it was easier get items to desync/exchange them for seals.

[Levy9]

I need to correct this now, and every time it's said:

Garo did NOT improve queues...more importantly, Frontline Freelancer - the GC restriction removal the community asked and begged for for 3 years.

Well, now you are speaking from the perspective of someone who only does Frontlines. You didn't consider The Feast at all and how the Garo event effected the mode, independent of Frontlines Freelancer. I only played Frontlines a few times during the Garo event. I spammed The Feast.

How did Frontlines Freelancer shorten my Feast queues down to 5-10 minute queues all day for a month? My Frontlines queues were actually a bit longer than my Feast queues during Garo, which is partly why I spammed Feast. Garo definitely brought players to PvP and The Feast alone debunks the Freelancer theory. Garo brought in more players across the board.

[ThirdChild_ZKI]

How did Frontlines Freelancer shorten my Feast queues down to 5-10 minute queues all day for a month? My Frontlines queues were actually a bit longer than my Feast queues during Garo, which is partly why I spammed Feast. Garo definitely brought players to PvP and The Feast alone debunks the Freelancer theory. Garo brought in more players across the board.

If that's truly the case, why are there posts here still complaining about the Feast being dead? I mean, the Garo event is still going, and there's just SO many new players now thanks to 4.0, our lord and savior. . .

I mean, we can shoot for nitpicking, and you would be right in saying the event got more people to queue for the Feast (because one particular reward overall required the Feast only). With that however, I'd love to point out the crap logic sponsored by SE that the chat ban was the reason more people participated. Now I don't believe that anymore than anyone else with a working sense of logic, but it's worth noting. Still, I remember being asked quite frequently if custom matches counted, or if 8v8 counted, among other questions, yet rarely saw those asking in the Feast, and I too played pretty heavily then.

Do you like the Feast? If so, that's good. I once did too. Part of me still does, but now it feels like seeing an ex you remember having some good times with, but then they changed, or perhaps have/had a particularly awful habit that was just a dealbreaker for you. Let's however shoot for the realistic talking point that Garo did as much for PvP as Rival Wings did. Gave people a little something to grind for, then drop like a bad habit yet again once they got it.