Shattered Kingdoms

Yes, but again, we're talking about basically the BEST stuff you can expect to get, in terms of EQ.

It's not like it took you 10 hours to find some cloth armor with mediocre innates and try to enchant it (which would have been true once upon a time). Energy armor, jewelry that's as good as it gets without being scripted, wands/staves that are so sought after they get hoarded for months at a time, etc.

Like...it's not hard to get EQ.

It's only hard to get EQ when people who have it, have no reason to show up to PVP and risk it.

Like, if the best "reason to PVP" somebody has is "oh it won't be /as bad/ trying to re-equip...".....

They're still not going to show up.

We're never going to agree on this and that's fine. What we can agree on is the player counts dipping means something needs to change.

*It's completely unneeded to start your take off calling everyone elses take whining, if your points don't stand on their own that isn't going to help* - Algorab

CRS is terrible, everyone...I'm sure even including yourself has stated this. It's not balanced at all, whoever has the better players/more numbers will just grief the other side and make it LESS likely they'll want to PK. Take cabal powers away from someone and you expect them to want to attempt to PK you without them? Very unlikely.

Winning side takes Relic. Losing side becomes even more inactive. Losing side eventually logs enough people on at night while no one is on and takes the relic back. Next day winning side takes said relic back. Losing side rage quits. Game becomes less enjoyable because now there is no conflict at all. Don't see how you expect to see more numbers resulting from CRS being returned.

And scripted players only die in those 3v1 gangbangs you're crying about. Very very rarely will you ever see a player with a bunch of scripted gear die to someone that doesn't have it unless it's like a rogue with true sight backstabbing a sorceror or something similar. In the past it happened because tribunal players had 24/7 access to spells like prayer, lighten load, aid, etc that give a HUGE advantage in PvP and only said players in scripted gear have now (You).

You can't run around with full buffs 24/7 that other players have 0 access to and 40 x2 strong heal potions and get upset when people do not stick around to fight you 1v1 when there is a 0% chance they will beat you. It's common sense really.

You're comparing someone getting FS'd and going and recovering the things they lost to someone getting full looted by another player. It's not even in the same ballpark. Takes far more time to recover from a loot from a player to be back on PAR with gear you had previously.

He also had help from some of the most knowledgable players currently playing the game, your average player doesn't get that help especially when not on the same side as said players. Arandir also has the advantage of being a sorc and being able to locate, identify, gate, and enchant his own things.

*If we're resorting to name-calling, we've already failed to make the point intended.* - Algorab

The underlying issue, I agree, is that people don’t feel the need to PvP.
The only reason CRS coming back would be good, is because there is incentive to defend your relic, even if it is a 1v5 defense.
So the PvP arena would greatly benefit from some sort of way to incentivize It, other than “I’ll come try to gangbang you and get your lewt.”
That is why I still believe the Battle for Grahme was the last highlight of PvP. Talk about coordinated logins and relic snatches each week. Whatever. Everyone had a reason to come to the field and PvP. And there were 3 (4?) fights that were at least 7v7.
We need to find a way to make PK feel necessary.

People are complaining because people with scripted loot are too strong?
That is what the scripted loot is there for! To give you the edge. So what if Karron has the best possible merc build in the game. He knows what he’s doing and has logged hundreds of hours to get where he is. If you all prepared as much as he does, then you might have an added advantage in the fight. If you took Karrons loot and gave it to some other merc, but left him his vials, herbs, buffs, etc, he would still prepare better and probably still whoop some [REDACTED]. That is why he’s a vet. Because he has made the mistakes and now knows how to do things right.

Oh shucks. Someone has all the strong vials? So the [.] what! Go buy a boat load of weak vials and brew double heals into them until you can contest. Azoreth brewed more violet vials into double heals than i want to recall. So you’re gaining 15% per quaff instead of 20%? We’ll use that 15 to kill Karron and take all his strong vials. It’s how the game works.

And now to bring up the kid gloves again. I think that a lot of these people won’t risk PK because they don’t know how to Pk. And the recovery time for failure/learning is mind-numbing. People need time to drive these conflicts forward and need to gain their confidence for PK. I believe the best way to do this is to make Happy-Hour PK work like duel kill. You die. Your things are kept. You get rez’d at the adventurers guild. (Or judge, or stones, or cabal hq)
We need some PK with smaller consequence. And if the noobs land a couple kills, they’d probably be willing to PK outside of happy hour, when you’re actually placing your loot as a bet.
I might not be the best Pk’r in SK. But I learned the most when the Guardians and Legions were at war. Brisbald & co vs Chronis & co. We PK’d damn near every day. And because it was a “consumable only” kind of war, we were fighting often.

I’ve also added the idea of “Tribunal/territory Warfare”
Where you take over different towns and villages in each country. Kill the boss, populate the area. It’s like CRS but for tribunals. Could be the incentive we need. But that’s a lot of coding.

Happy-hour PK and creating some coded way to determine win/loss would save the PvP arena in SK.

You can only brew double heals with strong or better vials. Lorain also had about 20 weak double heal vials from before the changes to brew.

You also don't need to get empty strong vials to get double heals. Lorain routinely used powerful/ strong vials that already had a spell in it like water breathing and turn them into triple spell vials of double heal and whatever the other spell that was in it. You have to be imaginative with brewing.

There is also the art of attrition. Fight your opponent and watch them use vials and buy them before they get them back. Finally you can always use single weak vials, since that is still better than nothing.

Lighten load is the only one and the weakest of the spells I mentioned in terms of combat proficiency. I'm also not bitching about you having scripted gear etc. My only point is that YOU cannot [REDACTED] about people not wanting to fight you in a 1v1 when you have said scripted gear because it clearly makes it an uneven fight.

I'm also not a noob and know how to get most of the scripted gear in the game and I've led trips to nearly every area in the game at one point or another and have been working on relearning it all again recently because I quit playing for 3+ years.

Can't brew double heal with weak vials. So yes, it does give you a huge advantage to hoard all of the strong vials. Quaffing single heals vs someone quaffing doubles...you'll never win that fight especially when said people have the advantages already mentioned above.

Not true. Not all weak vials are equal.

Vials are a small portion of this thread though.
Do you have any thoughts on how to incentivize PvP?