Concerns regarding recent directions RoR is taking

[Phantasm]

OP argues against AAO being showed pretty much. And reason for that is some people scared to go in the lakes cause of numbers disparity.. Well a lot of people aren't scared and using this info to log on underdog, so now what? Also without it being showed you will have to enter every lake yourself just to check it, probably locking yourself in the process. How does that fix anything again? People who scared playing during aao wont play it anyway. Your proposal will only increase amount of frustration and force more people to leave game for good.

AAO is another topic, which in my opinions could better serve its purpose if was a local buff, not zone wide, similar to LOTD diminishing rations. That could disable its informative aspect and still be huge useful bonus to underdog local population.

Main purpose of this topic is to make people less worried about general population disparity, encourage to log side they want to log, then side they "should".
And pick fights with own information, strategic in mind and overall instinct, then pure numbers showed on a global addon.

[Evilspinnre]

Eliminate deaths from killboard

Add in a monthly challenge and reward top 10 guilds on both sides who get most number of RvR kills with crests you can use on any char. Has to be kills only as current RvR reward just drives the pvdoor game.

So biggest guilds get bonuses? Nah, make city drop account shared crests. People that think the killboard is driving player behaviour are grasping at straws. There are RvR guilds there with 6:1 kda that spawn rams without aao to push a fight, and guild with less then 2:1 kda that refuse to ram at 60% aao

[Garamore]

Is that another dig? A day cant go by when you dont do it.....

[Phantasm]

People that think the killboard is driving player behaviour are grasping at straws. There are RvR guilds there with 6:1 kda that spawn rams without aao to push a fight, and guild with less then 2:1 kda that refuse to ram at 60% aao

Not every guild has luxury being in top guilds discord alliance and gather best players of server in one Warband supported with /5 members to do what they want in RvR. Most rely on getting randoms into guilds, teaching them, gearing up, let them make mistakes of wrong specs and gears. Players and Guild/Warband leaders take their actions according to what SOR/players count shows.

• Should we spawn ram? Nah, there is no AAO

• Should we siege in other zone? Why, others will see on SOR warband movement and will just farm us at gates

• Look there is AAO and their keep is 2 stars, we must get to keep and afk till siege starts

• Look, its 0-9 vs 0-9 in other zone, no point going there we should stick to zerg

That transparency of everything you may want to do is killing RvR and player count. We log, we wanna play and we see on SOR 10-24 vs 100-200, common sense tells us that we will be farmed, so there are options:

• a: stay and try form anything

• b: relog to dominated side and get a taste of guaranteed win

• c: do pve, craft, scs or

• d: log off.

We may only wonder what most people choose, but as evidence we see population goes down and down for a long period of time, so my guess is eventually people choose d.

[diedrake]

Or with odds like that, get in a small premade with discord and go hunting in aao. Avoid the roaming wbs, kill the solos because not all players are in the wbs.

Also, you'd get farmed even w/o SoR with those numbers and then do option D as well. At least with SoR, players know what's ahead of them...

[Andamarine]

That transparency of everything you may want to do is killing RvR and player count. We log, we wanna play and we see on SOR 10-24 vs 100-200, common sense tells us that we will be farmed...

Some groups of players not having fun in RvR is what is killing RvR and player count. And solution of problem should be ruleset that offer them the fun which means some reasonable alternative gameplay with heavy AAO.

Intel tools at least offer underdog players to choose their alternative fun in the game like scenarios, pve or craft or chatting with friends in game. Maybe they are not in lakes but they are still in the game.Taking away intel tools and making them just getting farmed while wastly outnumbered will make them leave the game permanenly in just weeks.

It is pretty clear that getting intel manualy from WH/WE will surely go to benefit of more populated realm. If 1 realm has 100+ in the zone, they can have 10 ppl in stealth and covered all important places in the lake , but realm with 20 ppl will be almost blind and thus farmed even more.

In may be happy change for 1-2 weeks for the dominating realm with more kills and rr in short term but it will damage server population mid/long term and making underdog gameplay even more difficult and game more unbalanced.

I experienced something similar in EvE online in 2019, where local chat as main intel tool was taken away from game by Devs. There was 25-30 percent drop of active player base in 2 weeks. The drop in player base was so huge that they reverted the change back after 5-6 weeks but only small part of players returned back. It led to permanent loss of 15-20 percent of playerbase anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

[Aethilmar]

The OP is well-intentioned but is trying to social engineer people away from risk aversion and that isn't going to happen. As noted by Andamarine it will likely have the opposite effect and just make them log at the first sign of trouble because .. drum roll ... they are risk adverse.

Also as mentioned by Andamarine the side with more numbers will always have the initiative and better scouting capabilities because they have more warm bodies. This is just a fact that you will be making the underdog side even more blind, more likely to walk into ambushes and more likely to go do something else.

If you want people (even risk adverse ones) to go out and fight against overwhelming odds then you need to give them proper incentives to do so. AAO is one such incentive but it can be hard, even for a top-end gank group or warband, to collect renown above 40% AAO.

Meanwhile there are no counter-play mechanics for those that actually care about the campaign status (which is still a large number of folks based on complaints I see in both Order and Destro chats). Yet there is no meaningful counter-mechanic to zone captures. There are, literally, no points for second place and that just feels bad.

So, you want people to fight, make them feel good about getting stomped. Give them a reason. A point system. A counter mechanic that can bugger the zerging side for some period of time (hello rezzable keep lord) ... something.

[Belanoite]

What game needs is serious rebalance between classes. Choppas with gtdc broken as marauder's pulls. Stealth classes and sh with many scapes, wls needing rework, sorcs and bws forgotten by devs for years, and so many other needful changes. Sor is the last item to be changed. However, I agree with changes in killboard.

[Shalanor]

Yesterday:
Come online, SoR Chaoswaste:
Order 24-99
Destro: 100-199

Order had 2-3WB. Destro camped the spawn with 2-3. And launched a ram(with wb i guess. Never saw it). And had a patrol on the way to the Keep. And a campingwb infront of backdoor. And yes the skilled destrocampers was: SPALTA!
Lay infront of a steamroller is not exactly what i want to do that the Spaltatrain can cheer themself up for being a blob..... Gz.

Fix Spalta. Give Slayer and Spalta maybe 20-50% of the dmg to their grp members. Maybe this boring blobtrain then will end..... And don't forget the magic Jedipull.

[Andamarine]

log at the first sign of trouble because .. drum roll ... they are risk adverse.

All PvP games are risks vs. rewards in some way and this formula is in every mind of every player. People will take risks if there is a reward for it and vice versa.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that the right balance of "rewards vs risk" system is one of the most difficult thing in every PvP game.And if Devs make mistakes here and make disbalances ppl will make use of it for their profit. You can see here on the forum every week new threads about xrealming for free bags...but the same goes for emty keeps/forts. I still don't get why there is PvP reward for pure PvE experience in empty Forts/keeps with 200+AAO for enemy. For such risks you should get War Tokens only and it should count to Weekly PvE, not PvP, like Dungeons.