@2cat:
well, the idea behind choosing a group of people as well as a select champion to fight the sides' battle(s) for them is not new - it's been done since the time of ancient armies to avoid massive casualties on both sides whenever possible. This notion is slightly easier to adapt to ToH than WoE because WoE guilds have the ability to gather recruits by offering perks and benefits whereas the dark/light allegiance has no active way to recruit anyone - people just sign up any way they want to. Light got their invisible wings which some people supposedly like for non-intrusiveness and certain "strategies" while Dark supposedly has cookies (i never got any!!)
I started out light when dark was the hip way to go, and i never complained about toh mass pvp because i never count on those 10 points to get my wings - took me almost a year to get my wings as a light monk back then. Nowadays i just do ToH for the fun of it and i am somewhat more inclined now to use more consumables in ToH than i did then - i'm not complaining about losing, i get my tickets just fine nowadays, it's just that if i dc right after using an edp and cloaking before hitting anyone, i kinda want more rounds to make up for that dc. If i end up burning even more EDPs to dcs, then so be it - but i'd rather chance 7 edps rather than just 2 knowing that the chances i will dc 2 times in a row is 25% while the chances i will DC 7 times in a row is significantly lower (not gonna do math permutations this early in the day, but it is definitely lower). I demand satisfaction!
@bodom:
that is exactly why things should change for mass pvp. So that people know it's not just some free-points event or some lolololollolletsshootatourownpeopleandscrewaroundfortworoundstrololololol event. It's a trial, and a trial is not just about bringing over 9000 cannon fodder, a trial should be about skill, strategy, preparation AND rationing - for aeons wars have been lost and won on rations.
I do agree that perhaps 7 rounds is extreme, but that is why it is a best of 7 (meaning you need 4 victories) - that way you have the option to ration out your pots and strategies to wear your opponents out to strike back on the 4th round, thus forcing both sides to strategize more carefully and thus allowing for more permutations on the flow of battle in each round.
That way people will enjoy and respect the mass battle portion as a meaningful part of the event and actually show up for it.
I do realize that perhaps going from 2/3 to 4/7 rounds is a bit much, but for this change to work without adversely penalizing the side who brought more people i don't think proposing schemes such as Mass-Group-1v1 would have been fair.
So maybe we can do this: Mass-Mass-Group-Group-1v1. Do note that this means that the amount of effort needed from "whoever-has-more-people-but-less-skill-side" is increased quite dramatically because now they have to win 50% of the "skill-required-group-stage" rather than just 33%. I do like this option, but i initially feared proposing that option because i feel such a huge change should be eased into.
Anyway, the other reason why "group" is important is to finally acknowledge the importance of wizards rather than adversely penalizing them (team-kill) because RO can only account for a 12 man group - which hopefully means that in the future there will be more incentive for wizards to join and a realization by the participants that ToH is no longer a "trololol let's just go as a sniper and win easy wings" event.
W