Realm Royale has been out for more than a week now on the Nintendo Switch and more and more people are discovering the joys of the class-based, battle royale game. With different skills, mounts, and the ability to craft your own weapons, runes, potions, and more, Realm Royale has certainly brightened up the BR-scene on the hybrid console.
I had the great opportunity of interviewing who I consider one of the best Realm Royale players out there and he goes by the name of Baggins. He has been playing ever since the game came out and has been streaming, entertaining, and teaching people about Realm Royale.
Here is my interview with him:
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For those who do not know you, please tell us who you are.
I’m a Realm Royale partner and official community streamer. I’m a partnered Twitch streamer (twitch.tv/baggins_tv) and I make YouTube content on Realm such as guides, challenges and epic crown royales (youtube.com/c/bagginstv). I’ve been playing Realm since day 1 – before even the closed alpha over a year ago – back when it was still a game mode in Paladins, and haven’t put the game down since! I was part of the official stream team (right up until they stopped the Realm channels *sad face*) but I’m still under contract and often talk with the Heroic Leap guys to discuss the game from the players’ point of view to help guide development, but what’s said during those talks is strictly under NDA!
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How do you feel now that Realm Royale is on the Nintendo Switch?
Hopeful. It’s a great game, and the original console launch saw it garner ridiculously high players numbers for such a new game – it beat Fortnite to its claim for most downloaded game in January on PS4 (despite only being out here for the last week!). Things have become a little stagnant lately, so I’m hoping that the switch release will rekindle the fire and we’ll start seeing player activity back on the rise.
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Realm Royale on Switch runs on a very consistent 30FPS; do you think this will affect gun fights when going up against other players from other platforms?
I myself have played Realm on my Switch (the day it launched, of course!) both on stream and then just on my couch for fun, and I found it surprisingly well optimised. It felt no different to when I play on my Xbox, actually! As a PC player through and through, I played awfully on both consoles, but that was down to my lack of controller skill and difference in aiming techniques etc. I didn’t notice any notable timing difference in shots, or that my opponent had an advantage because of FPS – poke fights felt balanced, and when I died, it was usually because I came across a veteran player. I was often out-skilled, but not out-platformed. So if anything, I’d say the fact that the Switch is currently forced into crossplay with no option to play on Switch-only servers is a much bigger issue than the power of the console!
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What are some “pro” tips or techniques you can give our readers when playing:
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As an Assassin
If you’re looking for the most new-player-friendly class, my bet would be on assassin. A majority of their specialist weapons are kind of ‘point, shoot, win’ (for example, the shedder) so it’s a good class to play while you’re still learning the mechanics of the game. The sniper is one of the best long-range weapons in the game, so find yourself a ‘reload rune’ and maybe a ‘weapon damage rune’ or ‘headshot rune’ and learn the map – high ground and cover are important no matter your class or stage of the circle, and the sniper forces you to learn the best points on the map for elevation and keeping hidden.
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As a Hunter
Hunter is possibly the strongest class in the game, but she’s also one of the trickiest. If you’re up for a grind, practise and a challenge, then learn her longbow! Longbow is arguably the most rewarding weapon in the whole game. However, it’s for sure one of the, if not THE, hardest weapon to master – in fact, some players opt to deal over a thousand points of damage over 5 seconds with, for example, a bolt staff, instead of over a thousand in one split-second shot of the long bow – just because the bow is such a precise and skill-demanding weapon. Being good with a longbow will see you victorious in a lot of situations, but it’s definitely not point-and-shoot-GG-EZclap!
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As a Mage
If you’re looking for a defensive character, such as one with the best healing abilities and escape tactics, then Mage is your girl. She’s been through the mill a bit these past couple of patches, and her weapons are currently the biggest talking point in the game (is stone staff now one of the worst weapons when it used to be one of the best? Bolt staff or ice staff new meta?) but her evasive playstyle and ‘poke’ play are second to none. With the right build for example, such as ice block ability and ghost walk movement ability, you can literally go from one damage-immune ability to another and back again, all while regenerating health and taking shots at the enemy in between. It won’t kill them quickly, and mage fights are often longer and drawn out, as she spends more time evading than attacking, but you can rest assured the enemy isn’t lowering your health bar anytime soon!
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As a Warrior
Warrior is the most console-friendly class, mostly because of his sword, which is much less aim-intensive than the other weapons, but it does have its drawbacks – mostly, of course, it only deals damage if you’re literally on top on the enemy. The trick with sword warrior is to play to his strengths – for example, if you’ve got a sword and you’re trying to kill an enemy with a slug rifle in an open plain, you’re gonna have a bad time. Imagine, the slug-wielder is happily blasting your health bar, using movement abilities to keep a distance, and you haven’t got a single point of damage in yet because you need to close the gap before you can even hit them! However, turn that situation around – close quarter combat, such as in buildings and forges, is where the sword outshines every other weapon. Back to Slug-Rifle-Sally, who now has no room to move away, and is trying desperately to aim at an erratic target like a leaping or charging warrior, is missing shot after shot, while you and your sword have her cornered and eliminated in 3 swipes. The trick to console warrior and using the sword is keeping to confined spaces, and using the element of surprise.
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With Realm Royale supporting Crossplay between PC, Xbox, and Switch players, how do you think this will affect the game? Do you think it will help reduce the number of bots in each game?
As the game currently stands, there are enough concurrent players to have bot-less lobbies already. However, Heroic Leap didn’t put bots in just to make up the numbers. Bots are a player retention tool – they help ease new players into the game and close the skill gap between new and veteran players, as well as allow for more casual players to still enjoy the game, even if they don’t play enough to become as skilled as many of the top players. Bots are, effectively, the Dev team’s solution to the impracticality of match-making systems in BR games. They have capped the number of real players in each lobby, and continue to do so, even though there already enough players to fill lobbies without stupidly long queue times, so it’s definitely not a matter of ‘not enough players so fill the games with bots’. So with that said, as the number of players grows, we are more likely to see the addition of new game modes – such as a return of Deathmatch and smaller, bot-less lobbies – but I don’t foresee Heroic Leap removing bots from the main game mode any time soon.
Now that you’ve received a few expert tips from Baggins himself, go on to the Realm, shoot some chickens, and get that number one spot!
I’d like to thank Baggins and Gamge for this incredible interview. Make sure to catch them on Twitch or on YouTube if you want to learn more about the game.
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