Population per side cap

[cultofthepossessed]

I get that we have a small community, and people switch sides to keep the game going, and also keep it engaging. However, when you have a 70/30 population split, with one side continuously getting stomped into the mud, it makes people not want to play. Losing is one thing, getting continuously overrun, and stomped flat is not even remotely fun.
Take this weekend, for example. So far there have been at least 7 pushes to IC, because there are not enough Destruction players for it to even be close to a fair fight. Setting a(roughly) 8-15% population cap could at least keep it closer to balanced, and much less frustrating. By the 15%, I mean once one side reaches that mark over the other, lock that realm to more players, so that both sides have a fighting chance. If this problem isn't resolved, I see a severe population drop coming, and while this game is free, and I know you guys keep it going because you love it, it won't be much of a game with a player-base smaller than what it currently is.

[Silodin]

There are bad ideas and then there's this one.

[Sulorie]

If you play on underdog side, you should appreciate the aao bonus.
If you are on zerg side, be the change you want to happen and swap sides.

[zij83]

I get that we have a small community, and people switch sides to keep the game going, and also keep it engaging. However, when you have a 70/30 population split, with one side continuously getting stomped into the mud, it makes people not want to play. Losing is one thing, getting continuously overrun, and stomped flat is not even remotely fun.
Take this weekend, for example. So far there have been at least 7 pushes to IC, because there are not enough Destruction players for it to even be close to a fair fight. Setting a(roughly) 8-15% population cap could at least keep it closer to balanced, and much less frustrating. By the 15%, I mean once one side reaches that mark over the other, lock that realm to more players, so that both sides have a fighting chance. If this problem isn't resolved, I see a severe population drop coming, and while this game is free, and I know you guys keep it going because you love it, it won't be much of a game with a player-base smaller than what it currently is.

While population can be a problem when defending or attacking keeps, the population in forts is usually capped on both sides unless there are dual forts happening. The real issue is not population so much as destro morale being extremely low due to the power imbalance between destro and order. Over a series of patches the last few months order has slowly been gaining an advantage and the cumulation of that is starting to show. Order will tell you that the game is balanced because "destro always wins cities" but lately destro has been losing cities quite a bit. This is because order has figured out slayerballs will win against anything you throw at them. Some will call this reply garbage because there is no "hard evidence" but we aren't allowed access to export the combat log, so how can I get hard evidence. The most recent evidence I can present is GTDC getting nerfed by becoming defendable, while Rampage didn't get touched. I have friends that are leaving destro and rolling order en masse, and if something isn't done this game is going to become Peacehammer since there wont be any destro around to war with.

[Naelar]

If you play on underdog side, you should appreciate the aao bonus.
If you are on zerg side, be the change you want to happen and swap sides.

It's only a zerg when one side does it. When the other side does it, it's 'working together' and realm pride'.

[Kylashandra]

" I get that we have a small community "
People keep bringing this as an excuse to the current zerg state of the game. The fact is we never had this many people on any given live server (except maybe for the last ones post merges). On my former server, a good battle would involve about 5 warbands plus the roaming parties, which was at most equivalent to 150 person on a given zone and that was fine ! Most RvR zones are not made for 600 people, which results in a full blocus most of the time, with no chances for the people willing to play a slightly different role in RvR (ganking, roaming parties).

The main thing preventing an underdog side to prevail is the zerg style of the game :
- No more buff stacking = no opportunity for well crafted parties to put up a fight against a more numerous side.
- AoEs hiting 24 people instead of the original 9 = unsoakable stacking damage as soon as a certain treshold is attained.
- Sov gear overwhelmingly superior to the previous sets which renders low levels and RRs mostly useless on the battlefield.

Solutions :
- Bring back lower tiers : we have more than enough in T4 to keep the game entertaining, and the low levels are just cannon fodder in the current state of the game. They would enjoy Rvr way more if they were fighting people of their own levels up to the T4.
- Bring back buff stacking so that a good group of people using the correct synergies can actually put up a good fight against unorganized zerg.
- Bring back AoEs to what they initially were : max 9 targets, no PBAoE stacking, GTCD range back to its live level (it was basically very low range, and was only useful to bring back a fleing enemy into melee range).

[Gurf]

Yesterday Des pushed back a few zones when I was on, they had the population twice throughout the day when I was playing. The issue is that at certain times of the day Order has 2-3 organised warbands on working together , they can properly block keeps when attacking and syncronise across zones, Des seem to have big numbers but half of them are gank groups who jump off the top of keeps as soon as Order push, or teams of Shammy running around the lakes focusing on their own kills or camping Order warcamp instead of helping campaign.

[AxelF]

" I get that we have a small community "
People keep bringing this as an excuse to the current zerg state of the game. The fact is we never had this many people on any given live server (except maybe for the last ones post merges). On my former server, a good battle would involve about 5 warbands plus the roaming parties, which was at most equivalent to 150 person on a given zone and that was fine ! Most RvR zones are not made for 600 people, which results in a full blocus most of the time, with no chances for the people willing to play a slightly different role in RvR (ganking, roaming parties).

The main thing preventing an underdog side to prevail is the zerg style of the game :
- No more buff stacking = no opportunity for well crafted parties to put up a fight against a more numerous side.
- AoEs hiting 24 people instead of the original 9 = unsoakable stacking damage as soon as a certain treshold is attained.
- Sov gear overwhelmingly superior to the previous sets which renders low levels and RRs mostly useless on the battlefield.

Solutions :
- Bring back lower tiers : we have more than enough in T4 to keep the game entertaining, and the low levels are just cannon fodder in the current state of the game. They would enjoy Rvr way more if they were fighting people of their own levels up to the T4.
- Bring back buff stacking so that a good group of people using the correct synergies can actually put up a good fight against unorganized zerg.
- Bring back AoEs to what they initially were : max 9 targets, no PBAoE stacking, GTCD range back to its live level (it was basically very low range, and was only useful to bring back a fleing enemy into melee range).

The issue with separating lower tier is not that it takes numbers out of the T4 zones, it's that there's not enough people in T2/3 to make it viable. Plus as has been shown repeatedly, a properly geared low level player with bolster (who knows how to play their class...) can be more than a match for 40s.

I'm also curious how you think reducing the AoE cap will benefit smaller groups fighting the zerg. The AoE cap was increased specifically to aid smaller groups fighting bigger numbers, and to try and discourage zerging. If you're a 12 man fighting a WB with an AoE cap of 9, that whole WB can stack and meat grinder you down, and two thirds of the WB will be taking zero damage. If you have 2 WBs together all blobbed with an AoE cap of 9, only one fifth of them are in any danger of taking damage.

[Kylashandra]

Live never had a massive population in T2 / T3 either, but it was enough most of the time for some fun. Given the fact that T2/3 SCs are not dead (quite the opposite in fact, you almost never wait for one), it means you have at least 12 to 24 people on each side at any time in the day, which is enough for some RvR action too.

About your statement that bolster on a well geared lowbie is enough, it vastly depends on the class. A lowbie healer in top gear for his level can indeed be efficient in T4, a dps on the other side, won't reach even with bolster a decent score in his main DPS stat, which means mass disrupt / parry or just plain low damage.

Lastly, the max AoE targets of 24 does indeed help small teams but even more zerg blobs as it can stack endlessly so it counters the purpose as a small team wont be able to soak in the aggregated damage (also thanks to the non stacking of buffs as i stated above). The point is that with max target of 9 some small teams on live were doing well against full WBs (check Defiance roaming videos on youtube for instance), while that limitation was preventing a full stacking of AoEs with large groups of people.

[oaliaen]

Everybody zergs and everybody complains about it...