4 problems killing this server

[Rabenfeder]

Hello, I've been back here for a few weeks and would like to express my point of view as a returnee.

I used to just prefer playing Destro, that's still the case today, but I wanted to give order a new chance. The problem here is that I was probably unlucky and never found a connection. Especially when you get to the big ones at level 20, you tend to be spontaneously kicked out of the WB. Of course that's no fun. In PvE you are alone and it is very difficult to progress, which is a shame because you miss out on the beautiful stories. So getting started with Order is no fun and Order has only itself to blame for that.

I've always found connections on the Destro site, where I already have characters with level 40. However, here I notice that my DDs also tend to get thrown out of the groups. The reason is often the same, too bad equipment or wrong class, more than two magus per WB is not possible. Here too, a small character at level 20+ is often thrown out of the WBs because he is too low.

Newcomers and returnees have similar problems on both sides; some of the big players don't want them there and do very little to introduce the newbies to the game.

What I liked in the past was that fights weren't over immediately just because a WB got between two groups of enemies, the characters felt like they could endure more. Today a WH or Mara kill me with two attacks. This may be great for many people, but it will only frustrate a beginner without mega equipment.

What can we do, I'm not a professional when it comes to game mechanics, but more commitment and support for the newbies and less overpower in RvR would be a major factor for me that would make the game better.

[Bergbart]

It's also the extreme gear grind the crest system is half good, the wards are not good just let players skip the gear instead of forcing them into dungeons.
Make Goldbags great again to Invader as soon as you have the rr drops the corresponding part of a tier set. In the Fortress Warlord and in the City Sov, make the salves and potions purchasable for normal tokens not everyone has the money and time to pay the Ah moon prices nor the knowledge of the farm spots.
The Triumphant Ring also for 2000 normal tokens. Nudging people with a carrot into the ranked/dungeon is a nonsense for me, the Aor system was far better for pugs and solos.
Massively increases the crest drop of rr80. On the Life a dead rr100 was easily 25 Soverän Chest there you have to try hard and try to get the one or other kill against rr90/100 Doubleslayer premade despite bad conditions.
And having the chest in a Goldbag was more satisfying than 42 Warcrests.......
You have to keep the Pugs in line if you want more farm goods

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Tiji]

I have been playing a long time, and don't really post a whole lot. But I honestly think how you are all discussing trying to "fix" the perceived problem is all wrong.

Balance should always ebb and flow. The meta will change over time, and should constantly be shifting around as changes are made. We just came off of a shitty 2 years or so without a single balance change, or combat related bug fix and its been bad. Now that things can and are being changed, we are going to see things shift. That is a good thing. Even if it makes you feel weaker using whatever class it is you are playing.

Now for what the REAL issue is in my opinion. Population balance. Right now the biggest issue is that population swings are huge. There are multiple reasons for this, and it isn't class balance at all. RoR rewards "winning" in a HUGE way.

Nerf "winning" and you solve a lot of the issues with RoR. Humping empty zones and PvDoor are SUPER rewarding. RoR shits out Warcrests for taking empty zones and forts. This is encouraging 2 types of behavior: Xrealming, and simply logging off. Players might as well play the side that they are going to make the most progression on (afterall, if the pop is ****, might as well be getting paid to play), or just log out and not play. No reason to play when you are just going to be getting farmed by 5x your numbers (Sorry, I play Late night NA time, its easily 5x).

So how do we fix this? A few things need to change. Reward structure needs to be adjusted for both "winning" and "losing". When 80 people storm a fort and 10 defenders are there, maybe the 10 defenders should have more than 4 white bags to roll on. Maybe they should get more than 10 crests for putting up their "best effort" defense. You know the side with 80 has 3 gold bags, 8 purple, 10 blue, 10 green, 10 white (whatever it is just some random counts), and getting 60-90 crests for the empty fort.

We are just encouraging bad player behavior with the reward structure. And encouraging the zurg to zurg, and not incentivizing players to participate on the outnumbered side. AAO helps, but ultimately doesn't really matter. Renown isn't the limiting factor in progression (At least from my experience, it is always crests. But again, I am late night NA, when Order is a mega blob and Doors are their primary #1 objective).

How how much do we increase awards? How do you balance them? I don't know. Maybe for a fort, the total rewards are based on the total number of participants, not the participants from one faction. Zone capture rewards should be roughly equal between winning and losing. Encourage people to stay and fight.

Give people more options, because right now its:
1. Get farmed, but make a ton of renown for what kills you can manage.
2. Cross Realm and get paid.
3. Log out and come back when things are actually fun.

Wishlist:
1. Remove AAO delay. The 15 minute thing is garbage. (And make AAO significantly increase crests drop).
2. Buff defenders rewards for Zones/ forts.
3. Nerf Empty zone rewards (potential for abuse here, but the only real way to abuse is to just not play. If people are not playing you have other issues) War Torn applies to zone rewards?
4. Add LotD debuff to groups > 1.5 wb in RvR when other side has AAO > 20%.
5. Show exact player counts in RvR lakes/ surface this info to players. (Feel like you are outnumbered? Are you really, or is it just in your head).
6. (the super long shot) Just remove Warcrests and the concept of warcrests altogether. Just let RR determine what gear is available. Keep Crests for consumables, special liniments, pots, etc.

These sorts of things don't magically "fix" the issues. But I think they help make players feel like they are able to make some sort of progress no matter the current faction balance.

Just my $.02

- Ice_Hole of OMG Im Drunk

Great diagnose of incentive problems - completely agree.

Regarding Wishlist:

1. Agreed on AAO increasing crest drops - very important. 15 minute thing is maybe needed to address other issues? Could consider reducing to 5?

2. This would be a good change

3. Yes, PVDoor should be low reward

4. LOTD debuff would be warping - do not agree with this change. I think increasing the rewards for killing when outnumbered is a good start pointing. If there are still issues, can consider more drastic changes.

5. Yeah, Ive definitely noticed some bad interpretations of the numbers gaps - more information would be helpful. Not sure if this is easy to do from a technical functioning of the mod standpoint.

6. Interesting idea - would have to think more about it

I've been playing for 6 months now that I've found the game was online again. Have to agree I usually do 1 of 2 things when I log on. 1. See that there's 140% AAO in a Fort defense on Order and port out once the door is down because it's not worth the time and hassle to defend for 12 crests and 1000 RR, or join our guild WB and farm empty Forts since lately there's rarely any Destro on at NA times(which is not a complaint just a fact that I'm NA).

What I don't understand is why the game hasn't gone back to how AAO was handled on Live servers which I played for a couple years. Maybe my memory is all jacked up but I seem to remember AAO would give stat bonuses to players to help make them stronger due to being outnumbered. I don't understand why this hasn't been done yet, in addition to the RR reward percentages staying the same. It would incentivize people to play when they're outnumbered because it would give smaller WBs the chance to be on even footing against bigger or more WBs and you're still rewarded with playing when you're outnumbered. If I'm misremembering how AAO used to be then it couldn't hurt to add that to the buff anyway.

Also just my $.02, I can agree that the class balancing is something that always changes as MMOs progress through their lives, but seeing Destro repeatedly get classes buffs while they're also the dominating population on the server seems odd to me and a little frustrating. At the same time the EU/NA population differences are something that can't really be helped. I can usually get on towards the end of EU primetime and don't even bother playing anymore because I know it's a waste of my time. However, once our guild gets on and going normal to late night NA time it's usually a stompfest/PVE door from the Order side. So really the only thing I can see to help regulate that is the AAO buff making whatever side is weaker population wise, stronger statistic wise so that they have a chance to take on the larger population side.

[illumius]

Guys, I see a lot of suggestions, but let's deal with the causes, not the symptoms. The main problem of this server is a broken balance in favor of the destruction side. Therefore, the only MMORPG on warhammer has less online than any private WOW server.

Mathematically, the sides are equal at the basic level. The damage base of the main abilities is approximately similar. As far as I can see as a player without access to hidden mechanics. But the gameplay part creates an absolute advantage for the destruction player. There is no accounting for modifiers. There is no accounting for timings. There is no work to fix critical errors that give an advantage

This imbalance has been maintained for two years, but it has entered a critical phase since December 2023. In three months, the side of order failed to capture the Avelorn zone, many were unable to take the third award of the murder night event.

Good players in the face of the XRealm, NGE, and Daydream communities no longer have a chance to lose in the 6vs6 / wb vs wb format. But at the same time, the main part of the destruction community is degraded due to the lack of a challenge in the game. You can actually meet choppa in the bastion, which uses GTDC on the boss

[mekal]

Guys, I see a lot of suggestions, but let's deal with the causes, not the symptoms. The main problem of this server is a broken balance in favor of the destruction side. Therefore, the only MMORPG on warhammer has less online than any private WOW server.

Mathematically, the sides are equal at the basic level. The damage base of the main abilities is approximately similar. As far as I can see as a player without access to hidden mechanics. But the gameplay part creates an absolute advantage for the destruction player. There is no accounting for modifiers. There is no accounting for timings. There is no work to fix critical errors that give an advantage

This imbalance has been maintained for two years, but it has entered a critical phase since December 2023. In three months, the side of order failed to capture the Avelorn zone, many were unable to take the third award of the murder night event.

Good players in the face of the XRealm, NGE, and Daydream communities no longer have a chance to lose in the 6vs6 / wb vs wb format. But at the same time, the main part of the destruction community is degraded due to the lack of a challenge in the game. You can actually meet choppa in the bastion, which uses GTDC on the boss

give examples please on how destro is stronger in team based gameplay

[tromat]

Guys, I see a lot of suggestions, but let's deal with the causes, not the symptoms. The main problem of this server is a broken balance in favor of the destruction side. Therefore, the only MMORPG on warhammer has less online than any private WOW server.

I only play Order and this is simply false. We have White Lions, KOTBS, BW etc, and very strong dmgs/funnels, we are as strong as Destro actually.

[Paxsanarion]

Guys, I see a lot of suggestions, but let's deal with the causes, not the symptoms. The main problem of this server is a broken balance in favor of the destruction side. Therefore, the only MMORPG on warhammer has less online than any private WOW server.

I only play Order and this is simply false. We have White Lions, KOTBS, BW etc, and very strong dmgs/funnels, we are as strong as Destro actually.

Organized war band versus organized war band both sides do well. The issue now is how many organized war bands does each side have destruction tends to have more organized war band than order does in general as many guilds have moved from order to destruction. And as far as pug war band, it’s not even a contest destruction still has pug war band, where order has very few to none generally speaking.


Destruction typically has more numbers than order unless destruction guild decide to log order

[CyunUnderis]

Organized war band versus organized war band both sides do well. The issue now is how many organized war bands does each side have destruction tends to have more organized war band than order does in general as many guilds have moved from order to destruction. And as far as pug war band, it’s not even a contest destruction still has pug war band, where order has very few to none generally speaking.

If you are talking about EU prime, right now it is clearly the opposite. I guess it depends of the day but for the past few weeks, especially since Evil's ban, Order had more organized WBs. And as always, it will shift at some points.

[zulnam]

Nerf "winning" and you solve a lot of the issues with RoR. Humping empty zones and PvDoor are SUPER rewarding. RoR shits out Warcrests for taking empty zones and forts. This is encouraging 2 types of behavior: Xrealming, and simply logging off. Players might as well play the side that they are going to make the most progression on (afterall, if the pop is ****, might as well be getting paid to play), or just log out and not play. No reason to play when you are just going to be getting farmed by 5x your numbers (Sorry, I play Late night NA time, its easily 5x).

So how do we fix this? A few things need to change. Reward structure needs to be adjusted for both "winning" and "losing". When 80 people storm a fort and 10 defenders are there, maybe the 10 defenders should have more than 4 white bags to roll on. Maybe they should get more than 10 crests for putting up their "best effort" defense. You know the side with 80 has 3 gold bags, 8 purple, 10 blue, 10 green, 10 white (whatever it is just some random counts), and getting 60-90 crests for the empty fort.

We are just encouraging bad player behavior with the reward structure. And encouraging the zurg to zurg, and not incentivizing players to participate on the outnumbered side. AAO helps, but ultimately doesn't really matter. Renown isn't the limiting factor in progression (At least from my experience, it is always crests. But again, I am late night NA, when Order is a mega blob and Doors are their primary #1 objective).

This is probably the best level headed opinion i heard so far here regarding trying to solve pop balance and xrealming.

[Paxsanarion]

Organized war band versus organized war band both sides do well. The issue now is how many organized war bands does each side have destruction tends to have more organized war band than order does in general as many guilds have moved from order to destruction. And as far as pug war band, it’s not even a contest destruction still has pug war band, where order has very few to none generally speaking.

If you are talking about EU prime, right now it is clearly the opposite. I guess it depends of the day but for the past few weeks, especially since Evil's ban, Order had more organized WBs. And as always, it will shift at some points.

Yes, I could certainly see that being the case as far as Organized WBs are concerned........I all I know is as a Pug Order only player.......during NA prime and sometimes EU prime player....finding any Pug warbands of note is rare It just seems to me Destro has the majority of guild leaders at the moment regardless of playing status