Dowster

Not a specific reward but a related suggestion. Would there be any possibility of having two different leagues. One with xp loss per defeat and one without (as it currently is) with different rewards for each?

 

So people have the option of no PvP - opt out, soft PvP - normal league, or full PvP. With better rewards for higher risk

I would like to mention one of the things FS has always had right is the PM and Guild chat system. The current global chat is a nice addition, but compared to most online games, the FS global is still more than the sum total of the communication methods that the game has - 5-10 lines of floating chat that flash up over the HUD and disappear forever within minutes, and not much more in guild coms or private messages.

There have been many occasions when I've been all out of stam and thing to do in FS but have kept it open and tabbed back and forth to it while playing another game in order to converse with a fellow fallen sworder who is also playing the other. So I suppose for me, what's most important is the communication, because that's what this game supports better than any other.

As I don't really see any reason to chose an online game over an offline one unless you actually want to interact with other people. This would be the part where I say that competitive pvp is the best way of interacting and making new friends aside from the act of messaging itself. As long as all is done in the interests and manner of good sport

As for most people playing the first 10-15 minutes and the never coming back. It's something that happens in any and all games online - especially as time moves on and the choice gets ever greater. If you were to stand in a starting realm on any of the big open world/sandbox games. In any given hour you would probably see over 100 people appear, run around for 10 minutes, then vanish never to be seen again. Likely they spent more time selecting hairstyles and eye make up, than actually playing the game..

Grab people, talk to them and try to keep their attention long enough to scratch the surface of the depth that FS has - efficient use of buff combos alone is a multifaceted affair. Even then probably more than half will leave after a short while spent trying to find which guild will make it easiest for them to breeze through the game without any challenge. But the good ones should stay. I hope

It would be nice to make Ruby next year with a more balanced distribution of the workload, especially as 25k was the original personal requirement for this event, there was no need for it to have been lowered in the first place.

25k kills is possible from about 7-8k stam, and has been so for the past 3 years. Especially for those who have previously completed the quest arc. Those who have not can put more stam into kills on the next year.

The top reward chests are more useful for people with high max stam. Someone with a 3k max levelling 3 times a week will probably see little difference between using a crystal chest or a ruby chest on their 5 minute hunts. It doesn't need to be easy for everyone to get top rewards right away, especially with crystal still so attainable.

My humble opinions.

 

Ladder hits should not be bountyable, you're inviting PvP by opting in and responding to it by using a system that is supposed to be there as a method of dealing with unwanted PvP attention

 

Bounties should not expire, at least not unless they have been up for a silly amount of time like 10 days+ the main thing that put me off bounty hunting was getting abuse from people after clearing them with 10 stams because they were counting on their bounty being left to expire. It seems a fairly pointless system if posted players can get on and off the board with no loss, especially when that seems to have become the most commonly expected outcome.

 

Counter bounties do often serve a purpose, particularly as a bounty is the best oppertunity to take levels from someone, and if a whole guild or group of people jump on a bounty they may need to be smacked back. I can however see the appeal of implementing some method of standard bounty hunting as a kind of low risk enterprise - since most other aspects have optional low risk versions now. So perhaps a good compromise would be that a bounty hunter could not be counter bountied unless they hit with more than 10 stam. So someone clearing with 10 x 10 would not be counterable, but any hit above 10 stam would make a counter bounty possible.

Most people choose to play MM online games because the gaming experience is enhanced when you're playing and interacting with other real people. If I take the time to think about those I talk to regularly on FS and would consider as friends, I would be hard pushed to find more than a handful that I got to know through things other than PvP or buff selling/buying. The PvP system is now somewhat watered down from it's original form, and allows people - if they so chose - to play through the game almost as if they are playing a single player offline game. So the backbone of keeping the MM feel here is the need to find and communicate with other people when you have a requirement for buffs.

 

We still have an active community here, but in terms of numbers we're more the size of a small town, rather than a city of millions, and im sure your average small town folk wouldn't appreciate visiting their local shops just to get served by a robot, and miss out on the obligatory small talk.