[citysiege] Feedback
Posted: Wed May 27, 2020 12:55 am
A little background behind this post and the experiences. I was probably one of the players who were the most excited for a city-siege release on RoR. Now almost 3/3 royal sets later (just for measurement)
I feel like I've gathered enough information to share a blunt and honest pile of feedback for this endgame content. Most of the changes that has been done already by the devs have been solid and in good time, some things still need finetuneing and in general the city-sieges are functioning just fine.
Noteworthy issues that has already been changed & corrected:
- Morale imballance from NPCs and exploits
- Some map/world imballance issues (IC mainly)
- Gear being obtained too quickly
- Early fix to contribution
- Objective control (stage2 lord speed + capping)
- Stage3 Champion selection
- Overall City-rank system
Still pending issues worth highlighting:
- Gates at the palace-gate stage1 and palace gates stage3 being bugged and pbaoe not hitting in the doorways giving the defending Order players an advantage in Altdorf.
- Destro players able to jump and ninja cap Emperors circle BO flag from beneath
- All pull abilities still goes through spawn barriers
Whenever there was a big issue with cities in general the changes came in fast and effectively to give us a good and solid product that is well functioning atm. The concept of the three stages is not really an issue to most players, the objectives work and the gameplay is rather easy to understand and follow for firsttimers.
So how does the citysieges actually play out currently and since release.
We started with a periode of Destro dominance and a permanent burning Altdorf, as a result we saw changes to the city stars and gear-goldbags to stop how fast players were progressing. Good changes!
A few weeks later too much "throwing" was happening and a small carrot for royal crest rewards was added to defending fortresses to stop the massive winrate of fortress attackers and as a result we saw a big increase in fortress defence winrate.
The effective "city loggers" and endgame farmers now understood to play the system and while its not completly back and forth both cities are burning and bouncing between 1-5 stars in a pretty healthy city-per-week rate. The biggest looser of these system are the players who have restrictions on their playtime and the added invader/royal crests were added to help players out who cant play when City-siege is happening, at a very slow rate.
Getting into a city instance:
Going with a system of no empty(pve only) instances for players to farm loot without pvping IS a good idea. But having players sitting in queue fully ready to fight, and not getting a fight is also a big issue. And we probably have already lost a fair ammount of frustrated players on this alone. A perfect system is probably never going to get implimented for fixing this.
A showerthourght idea of a clearly loosing realm inside an instance could do a surrender vote and forfit their bags, at a cost of getting reinforcements inside their instance while the "winning side" are now outnumbered they get more reward bags/ or crests in case they continue winning after being outnumbered when the stages conclude. Just a random idea to try and get more players inside if both sides inside the instance agrees on the fight being unballanced and the forfit + accept vote goes through on both sides.
Citysiege queuing:
Having a "ready check" tool command just like a modified surrender vote to see who is ready to queue would be a very welcome addition for warbandleaders!
Being on the outnumbered realm is a big advantage, no news in that. On Order you can queue whenever and pretty much always get a pop. You can even target who you want to face to some extend and queue dodging IS a thing. Search what guilds from destro are inside an instance already and volla you know if you want to queue or not. Where as destro dont always get inside an instance so they are forced to queue early and just face what they get (yet still win most of their instance).
The debate of if the instances should be premade vs premade, pug vs pug, or how the matchmaking should be is still a hot topic. If we look towards ranked 6v6 pug, we saw how a private server with too many restrictions will mean less matches and people waiting for pops. Once again, hardly any system I can think of or heard suggested so far solves any of the current issues.
Altdorf vs IC:
Order being the funnel-lords and Destro having the displacements are pretty apparent in the layout of the two defending maps. Destro having a last stand in stage1 on a narrow bridge, where as Order get a gateway is pretty typical for the two realms and their strengths. However the bugged gates in Altdorf leading to no pbaoe or frontale abilities hitting through the gate makes this gatehouse a real pain in the ass for destro to push. And where as IC had the punting changed from being a garenteed death into a bungee jump advantage, these doors in altdorf really need to be fixxed to even out the playing field. Same for the double doors in Altdorf stage3 when Order have lost stage2. Same issue since week1.
Order vs Destro winrate:
Ohhhh boy! I was currious and been asking around, some players have been tracking winrates, some class representation, some guilds have played both sides, and some conclusions the community agreed on, and others they didnt... I hope the devs are just aware of this MIGHT be an imballance issue and I hope no idea how you would attempt to fix it, as there for SURE is a playerskill related to this topic. Speaking from personal experience some order players, and crossrealmers, have found ways to win over good destro players. Where as others have failed in the same comp vs comp situations. However the shear volume of onesides total victories for one realm raises the question if dev involvement is needed, and where?
Contribution:
At first I thourght contribution for sure was bugged. If I would do an instance with a 24man premade and everyone doing their assigned roles I would often find myself at the bottom of the contribution roll, simply because of my assignment of sharing my damage on the kills with the other AOE dps-ers. However in instances where I join as a 6man group ish I can out contribute the rest of my pugging realmmates and then the contribution system works. So for one bracket the contribution system works, and for the other it doesnt really. In the end of the day, if the contribution system was completely removed and only the 1-999 RNG roll was kept I fear the will go go out and continue fighting from some lost first-engagement teams would not stay and they would just afk and hope for a good role, where as the persistant players will go out and fight for their contribution atleast despite facing utter defeat. So rewards for those who try, I can support that!
If Royal Weapons are introduced and contribution will be related to obtaining these, I do hope the contribution system will be more "fair" to both brackets though. both the full premade scale bracket but also the pure pug scale.
Stage3 champions:
Champions selected based on performance is probably fair. Giving the leader of an instance a chance to correct them, would be nice. (assign apprentice function from the live game, but modified so warband leader can nominate his players to become champion in stage3? just an idea)
Just because someone is doing AOE DPS doesnt make them more valueable over a singletarget MDPS who is murdering healers one by one. Having the casters champ being selected based on their dmgdone ratio. And mdps based on killing blow would maybe make it more fair for the singletarget careers to enjoy being a Champion instead of only AOE careers.
In some premade vs premade instances the tank champ is unkillable and despite having 4/4 alive vs a 1/4 champ situation a tank tunneling in a corner can mean a wincondition for the losing realm at the 15minut mark when champ roles drop. If this is intented gameplay or not ill leave up to the devs, but it is happening. Quite a lot actually. (Stacking damagetaken buffs/debuffs on champs the longer the stage maybe?)
The early weeks of pure RNG picking between top3 highet renown lead to a series of defeat from my own guild simply because defensive speced engineers would get champ and not be able to carry, so controlling some of the RNG for such powerful tools as stage3 champs is a welcome addition!
Availability and replayability for city:
Players wanting to play, and missing out of city either due to citysieges happening while they are unable to play or unable to get into an instance is probably the biggest issue right now with cities! Suggestions of weekend primetime cities just with Renown rewards and no crests, reinforcements, or whatever else. I hope the community and devs come up with ideas to fix this issue. I can understand from a developer's perspective how they dont want the players to get the gear too fast and lose motivation as theres no further gear to progress towards, but at the same time having players missing out on this endgame content cant be satisfying either? To have made this amazing product and having consumers wanting to enjoy it, but unavailable.
City-balance:
Alot of different players are attending city. Casual, smallman, 6man, warbandplayers, guildies, hardcore, puggies and whatever else. City is for everyone, where I previously was worried for the gamebalance and direction when devs were stuborn in terms of not giving all classes aoe and largescale viability, city meta have proven that everything can pretty much work in city instances. Singletarget classes have a role in the current meta, aoe dps, dps tanks and maybe even a dps healer if you have the right friends to go along with you. The meta is shifting back and forth but also following closely the Live City-siege meta shift from heavy AOE stacking to more of a 50/50 aoe+st situation. Overall I think cities are honestly alright in terms of balance. I have been spawncamped by more organized players, I have been stomping pugs(and reverse), I have had even and super long matches down to the wire with lord-races. Last minut mistakes and painful throws. Four second left ninjacaps. Some fights and stages I've seen lost due to mistakes or misplays, maybe individual, maybe from a bad call. And then the next stage is turned around for a comeback rush! Only to get shattered again in stage3. Citysieges are a rollercoster, at times you lose so badly you never want to go again and other times you are laughing and rolling in shinies. I have kept on coming back time and time again, for the chance of those good close fights and probably will continue doing so for the next long while! The balance of this content is not perfect both realms have clear advantages and disadvantages, some of the issues are playerbased and some could use a slight helping hand from the devs.
So to end this massive wall of text, thanks to the devs for making this content. If you can make something on a private server so good that people are waking up for it in the middle of the night, you are doing something right
I feel like I've gathered enough information to share a blunt and honest pile of feedback for this endgame content. Most of the changes that has been done already by the devs have been solid and in good time, some things still need finetuneing and in general the city-sieges are functioning just fine.
Noteworthy issues that has already been changed & corrected:
- Morale imballance from NPCs and exploits
- Some map/world imballance issues (IC mainly)
- Gear being obtained too quickly
- Early fix to contribution
- Objective control (stage2 lord speed + capping)
- Stage3 Champion selection
- Overall City-rank system
Still pending issues worth highlighting:
- Gates at the palace-gate stage1 and palace gates stage3 being bugged and pbaoe not hitting in the doorways giving the defending Order players an advantage in Altdorf.
- Destro players able to jump and ninja cap Emperors circle BO flag from beneath
- All pull abilities still goes through spawn barriers
Whenever there was a big issue with cities in general the changes came in fast and effectively to give us a good and solid product that is well functioning atm. The concept of the three stages is not really an issue to most players, the objectives work and the gameplay is rather easy to understand and follow for firsttimers.
So how does the citysieges actually play out currently and since release.
We started with a periode of Destro dominance and a permanent burning Altdorf, as a result we saw changes to the city stars and gear-goldbags to stop how fast players were progressing. Good changes!
A few weeks later too much "throwing" was happening and a small carrot for royal crest rewards was added to defending fortresses to stop the massive winrate of fortress attackers and as a result we saw a big increase in fortress defence winrate.
The effective "city loggers" and endgame farmers now understood to play the system and while its not completly back and forth both cities are burning and bouncing between 1-5 stars in a pretty healthy city-per-week rate. The biggest looser of these system are the players who have restrictions on their playtime and the added invader/royal crests were added to help players out who cant play when City-siege is happening, at a very slow rate.
Getting into a city instance:
Going with a system of no empty(pve only) instances for players to farm loot without pvping IS a good idea. But having players sitting in queue fully ready to fight, and not getting a fight is also a big issue. And we probably have already lost a fair ammount of frustrated players on this alone. A perfect system is probably never going to get implimented for fixing this.
A showerthourght idea of a clearly loosing realm inside an instance could do a surrender vote and forfit their bags, at a cost of getting reinforcements inside their instance while the "winning side" are now outnumbered they get more reward bags/ or crests in case they continue winning after being outnumbered when the stages conclude. Just a random idea to try and get more players inside if both sides inside the instance agrees on the fight being unballanced and the forfit + accept vote goes through on both sides.
Citysiege queuing:
Having a "ready check" tool command just like a modified surrender vote to see who is ready to queue would be a very welcome addition for warbandleaders!
Being on the outnumbered realm is a big advantage, no news in that. On Order you can queue whenever and pretty much always get a pop. You can even target who you want to face to some extend and queue dodging IS a thing. Search what guilds from destro are inside an instance already and volla you know if you want to queue or not. Where as destro dont always get inside an instance so they are forced to queue early and just face what they get (yet still win most of their instance).
The debate of if the instances should be premade vs premade, pug vs pug, or how the matchmaking should be is still a hot topic. If we look towards ranked 6v6 pug, we saw how a private server with too many restrictions will mean less matches and people waiting for pops. Once again, hardly any system I can think of or heard suggested so far solves any of the current issues.
Altdorf vs IC:
Order being the funnel-lords and Destro having the displacements are pretty apparent in the layout of the two defending maps. Destro having a last stand in stage1 on a narrow bridge, where as Order get a gateway is pretty typical for the two realms and their strengths. However the bugged gates in Altdorf leading to no pbaoe or frontale abilities hitting through the gate makes this gatehouse a real pain in the ass for destro to push. And where as IC had the punting changed from being a garenteed death into a bungee jump advantage, these doors in altdorf really need to be fixxed to even out the playing field. Same for the double doors in Altdorf stage3 when Order have lost stage2. Same issue since week1.
Order vs Destro winrate:
Ohhhh boy! I was currious and been asking around, some players have been tracking winrates, some class representation, some guilds have played both sides, and some conclusions the community agreed on, and others they didnt... I hope the devs are just aware of this MIGHT be an imballance issue and I hope no idea how you would attempt to fix it, as there for SURE is a playerskill related to this topic. Speaking from personal experience some order players, and crossrealmers, have found ways to win over good destro players. Where as others have failed in the same comp vs comp situations. However the shear volume of onesides total victories for one realm raises the question if dev involvement is needed, and where?
Contribution:
At first I thourght contribution for sure was bugged. If I would do an instance with a 24man premade and everyone doing their assigned roles I would often find myself at the bottom of the contribution roll, simply because of my assignment of sharing my damage on the kills with the other AOE dps-ers. However in instances where I join as a 6man group ish I can out contribute the rest of my pugging realmmates and then the contribution system works. So for one bracket the contribution system works, and for the other it doesnt really. In the end of the day, if the contribution system was completely removed and only the 1-999 RNG roll was kept I fear the will go go out and continue fighting from some lost first-engagement teams would not stay and they would just afk and hope for a good role, where as the persistant players will go out and fight for their contribution atleast despite facing utter defeat. So rewards for those who try, I can support that!
If Royal Weapons are introduced and contribution will be related to obtaining these, I do hope the contribution system will be more "fair" to both brackets though. both the full premade scale bracket but also the pure pug scale.
Stage3 champions:
Champions selected based on performance is probably fair. Giving the leader of an instance a chance to correct them, would be nice. (assign apprentice function from the live game, but modified so warband leader can nominate his players to become champion in stage3? just an idea)
Just because someone is doing AOE DPS doesnt make them more valueable over a singletarget MDPS who is murdering healers one by one. Having the casters champ being selected based on their dmgdone ratio. And mdps based on killing blow would maybe make it more fair for the singletarget careers to enjoy being a Champion instead of only AOE careers.
In some premade vs premade instances the tank champ is unkillable and despite having 4/4 alive vs a 1/4 champ situation a tank tunneling in a corner can mean a wincondition for the losing realm at the 15minut mark when champ roles drop. If this is intented gameplay or not ill leave up to the devs, but it is happening. Quite a lot actually. (Stacking damagetaken buffs/debuffs on champs the longer the stage maybe?)
The early weeks of pure RNG picking between top3 highet renown lead to a series of defeat from my own guild simply because defensive speced engineers would get champ and not be able to carry, so controlling some of the RNG for such powerful tools as stage3 champs is a welcome addition!
Availability and replayability for city:
Players wanting to play, and missing out of city either due to citysieges happening while they are unable to play or unable to get into an instance is probably the biggest issue right now with cities! Suggestions of weekend primetime cities just with Renown rewards and no crests, reinforcements, or whatever else. I hope the community and devs come up with ideas to fix this issue. I can understand from a developer's perspective how they dont want the players to get the gear too fast and lose motivation as theres no further gear to progress towards, but at the same time having players missing out on this endgame content cant be satisfying either? To have made this amazing product and having consumers wanting to enjoy it, but unavailable.
City-balance:
Alot of different players are attending city. Casual, smallman, 6man, warbandplayers, guildies, hardcore, puggies and whatever else. City is for everyone, where I previously was worried for the gamebalance and direction when devs were stuborn in terms of not giving all classes aoe and largescale viability, city meta have proven that everything can pretty much work in city instances. Singletarget classes have a role in the current meta, aoe dps, dps tanks and maybe even a dps healer if you have the right friends to go along with you. The meta is shifting back and forth but also following closely the Live City-siege meta shift from heavy AOE stacking to more of a 50/50 aoe+st situation. Overall I think cities are honestly alright in terms of balance. I have been spawncamped by more organized players, I have been stomping pugs(and reverse), I have had even and super long matches down to the wire with lord-races. Last minut mistakes and painful throws. Four second left ninjacaps. Some fights and stages I've seen lost due to mistakes or misplays, maybe individual, maybe from a bad call. And then the next stage is turned around for a comeback rush! Only to get shattered again in stage3. Citysieges are a rollercoster, at times you lose so badly you never want to go again and other times you are laughing and rolling in shinies. I have kept on coming back time and time again, for the chance of those good close fights and probably will continue doing so for the next long while! The balance of this content is not perfect both realms have clear advantages and disadvantages, some of the issues are playerbased and some could use a slight helping hand from the devs.
So to end this massive wall of text, thanks to the devs for making this content. If you can make something on a private server so good that people are waking up for it in the middle of the night, you are doing something right