Guild preparing for war.
Group-based content is endgame (for most)
For most people with any MMORPG, group-based content - especially once you’re approaching endgame - seems to be always the most enjoyable.
You’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story. You’ve maxed your characters. You’re content with your main character’s gear and attributes which you’ve grinded for weeks or months. You now look for something new to do, and in TOS group content like joining a guild and participating in guild activities like having war with other guilds and hunting world bosses becomes fresh content for you.
Right now, there really is nothing else to do besides those two things (and individual player preferences like RPing, socializing, etc.) once you’ve reached “endgame”. IMC has also announced of their plans for implementing another group-based content - territory wars - which hopefully would be a better replacement to the defunct GvG.
Since the videos I see on Youtube doesn’t show much in terms of scale, I’m just imagining how fun Territory Wars would be with a nearly capped channel and players running around - organized parties, commanding GMs, skill combos, etc.
Before we continue, I’d just like to let everyone know what my machine’s specs are for reference:
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
i5 4460 @ 3.20 GHz
8 GB DDR3
2 GB GTX 960
SSD
Updated drivers
Depending on where you live, that might be considered either en entry-level build. It’s not the best specs to play TOS with, but it’s definitely more than enough to play other better-optimized games like Diablo 3, Path of Exile, BDO, Overwatch, DotA 2, etc.
My CPU and GPU temps rarely goes beyond 60 degrees celsius at full load so I’m confident it’s not an overheating problem. Do correct me if I’m missing anything.
Bad optimization makes for an unenjoyable endgame gameplay
When a lot of things like dungeon NPCs got moved to Klaipeda, ch1 really started lagging in terms of both FPS and ping (I get desynced every now and then too!) when there’s more than 70+ players in the channel. I got used to it eventually since I can simply just switched to another channel.
Then comes the shining demon lords update for world bosses which hyped a lot of bored players who have approached endgame. Unlike the Klaipeda scenario, you unfortunately cannot switch channels here since bosses don’t switch with you. At around 40+ players, gameplay “stabilizes” at around 5-10 FPS. It’s bad but manageable. You do get to experience desyncs and at rare times crashes.
At one time our guild had a GvG practice which I thought was really fun. We have a pretty sizeable guild with 60+ active members and oftentimes have ~40 online at the same time. We did a 20v20 friendly battle (other members had to temporarily join our alt-guild) and while there were some notable FPS drops once every met in the middle of the battlegrounds and dropped their spells, I considered it fairly playable in TOS standards (15-20+ FPS).
Last night, we engaged in an arranged war with another equally large guild. With 70-80+ players on a single channel, the FPS have been erratically dipping so hard especially when everyone starts showing up on my screen. Desyncs become more frequent too but still “manageable”.
What really frustrated me were the crashes. While with desyncs you can still at least chat and let others know you have to relog, crashes don’t let you. Suddenly, the images I once had for territory wars became more like a dream than a nearing reality.
Readying my heart to be broken hahaha good gesture from them nonetheless.