Current take on "zerg busting" on RoR

[DirkDaring]

a lot of players dont really use any sort of tactics when fighting the zerg.

Granted this is not live , but for the most part keep defense is very similar, most people run to the 3rd floor and try and hold out and defend 3rd , which some times works, but most of the time you just die anyway.

Many times on live my dest guild on Badlands before the server merge when we all ended up on Badlands, would wipe 140+ order zergs on our guild keep with just 1 wb of 24 players.

we never ran to 3rd floor, and tried to defend, instead we used position, and collision to our advantage, to wipe the zerg .

the maps, terrain, etc are set up for using tactics, but rarely does anyone use them.

[roadkillrobin]

Just a question ( nothing planned and answers wont have the value of a decision )
Would it change anything if AAO gains were increased ? For exemple for a 100% AAO renown gain and medal droprate and contribution would be ×3 or x4 or x5 ? Dunno if i'm clear.

No, I don't think it would change much in terms of battlefield precesnce since It's impossible for a pug warband to kill anything if they are outnumbered so the extra reward wouldn't really attract the people that really needs to stick around to build a force when it's to dire. It's a carrot for the losing side's organized players to stick around, but it's a minority and will not change the outcome of the war itself.

You also got to ask yourself, shouldn't numbers count for something aswell? If one realm just have strictly better warband and community leaders that gets people to log in aswell as recruiting players for their side and have better realm comunication and realm morale overall, arn't they waranted more battlefield power in terms of numbers by doing so? Asking for combat mechanics that increase in
power based on how bad your realms pressence in a open world game is just greifing imo.
I don't think that more numbers shouldn automaticly reward a win either. But there has to be a very sane limit on that aswell. A 6man shouldn't be able to take down a 24man face to face, or even in the flank in any way. The limit should be around 65-75% of the enemy force were you still would be having a fighting chance. But not less really.

[Ramasee]

Just a question ( nothing planned and answers wont have the value of a decision )
Would it change anything if AAO gains were increased ? For exemple for a 100% AAO renown gain and medal droprate and contribution would be ×3 or x4 or x5 ? Dunno if i'm clear.

I agree with roadkillrobin, AAO mostly keeps organized guilds from logging out and instead continue to fight for rewards since they are capable of getting a fair amount of kills for their effort. Times that I have joined the PuG warbands, significant AAO demoralizes the PuGs and causes them to play scenarios, go do pve, or simply log out after a handful of wipes.

[Luuca]

In essence, the Game is saying, "To take a zone, you need a warband. You need to survive the defenses breach and kill a lord who hits hard."

The player base is saying, "Warbands are zergs when I am not in a Warband and there should be a viable counter to being outnumbered 3:1."

In a world of magic and elves and orcs, anything is possible, but being outnumbered is usually a sure sign you will be defeated. Any game mechanic that you can adjust or create to make the smaller force equal to the larger force, in terms of odds of winning, simply punishes the larger group for doing exactly what the Game has asked it to do: Form a Warband to take a keep.

The game never said, "Form a 6-man and defend a zone from capture." The players came up with that out of necessity or pride, or just server pop.

The argument that "Warbands are Zergs and I do not Zerg. So I choose to 6-man in ORvR" is false because warbands are only zergs when you are not in a warband. You choose to play in small groups and therefore you choose to play while outnumbered and have no legitimate argument against it.

If you join a PuG warband and can't field enough players to fill out 24, and face a WB of 24 with 16, the odds are still a lot better.

There is no Zerg. The Zerg is the creation of players choosing to play in a way that may be more fun or rewarding for them (on occasion) but is not the way ORvR was intended to be played.

the ORvR 6-man groups spawned from the LIVE days when BIS gear was around, RR80 and LotD Crit items etc were in-game. It was not uncommon for a 6-man so geared to wipe pug warbands. Well, Ladies, this is not LIVE. Far, far from it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKYznAQxy2U&t=9s

Nothing should be done to help the 6-mans beat the Warbands. nothing. They choose it.

Nothing should be done to help the 1 warband beat the oppositions 2 warbands. Bad luck, bad timing, etc. Sh!t happens.

If you choose to play in a 6-man in ORvR, you should not complain when 24 players kill you. Just like the 4-man you kill with your 6-man should not complain.

All of that said, and all things being equal numbers wise, the game is in a good state. Just don't order a small pizza and then complain it has less toppings than the XL Pizza.

my ¢2

[Greenbeast]

Just a question ( nothing planned and answers wont have the value of a decision )
Would it change anything if AAO gains were increased ? For exemple for a 100% AAO renown gain and medal droprate and contribution would be ×3 or x4 or x5 ? Dunno if i'm clear.

I dont think it will do any good.
Yesterday we were fighting order in emp t3. Order had 40% aao. They did not gave us fights for ~1h. All what they did was siting at gates between FL and order wc near keep and keep funnel farming. So if you increas passive gains from aao it will promote same kind of behavior. Why to use map, fight for bo's do something if you can just sit in tavern's/keep doors and farm enemy forever?
You must some how increase rewards for taking/fighting near bo's to promote people to roam more. Im keep repeating this in every thread I guess but BO's system in this game is very bad. Only way to do something with zerging is to make multiple objective needed to do something with keep. Like hold 3 bo's to get ram damage or keep 3 bo's to increas damage you do to ram etc. Same happening on more balanced days like wendesdays when CNTK, NRM, P/P, DnD and everyone stackup and run huge zergs because way of campaign progression is 100% linear. But I guess you know all that allready

[wonshot]

unFix morals to old live 36 per sec gain from current 9 moral per sec.

Tie AAO to give boost to moral gains, AAO/2= extra moral gain per second. (at 20 aao, +10ms, at 100 aao, +50 ms... 400 aao, +200 ms gain rate)

Increase AoE cap from 9 to 15/18. Test it, alpha server you know?

Reverse the disrupt change patch, you can still stack HTL to build massive anti magic counter in oRvR + healer disrupt from willpower.

Change Choppa AoE pull from using Str to using Ballistic so that Dodge can counter it. It's currently absurdly good in wrecking apart order warbands as not all classes have the Parry needed to counter it. Mara pull is based on Int, with HTL boosting Disrupt and helping counter it, same with Magus/Engi pulls being countered by HTL in warband scale fighting.

Revert Flashfire back to 5 sec ICD + instacast compared to current 3s ICD and -50% cast time reduction, in actual fights you don't get to cast anything with AOE dmg causing set back every few milliseconds so that a 1.5sec cast might become 3-5 sec long attempt to shoot something before you drop dead or it just gets interrupted by a squig charging by.


These all could help make it easier for a smaller organized warband to fight against larger enemy zerg, many other good ideas also in this thread.
However the fundamental question remains, does a smaller side even deserve a chance to fight when properly outnumbered, or in terms of fair gameplay should they be able to fight back and even cause severe grievances to the larger attacking side? Because with current state of affairs, its pretty much guaranteed bigger zerg victory.

While I personally agree with many of these suggestions, I also think this is very Order biased. But I still agree with them as a fellow combustion-freak

I see some very interesting points in this debate, some I agree with, and some I disagree with. I myself got enlightend from the point of view from the pug warband side, when outnumbered and when outnumbering. and that is not something I do much of myself (pugging) so gave me a little perspective.

From the organized guild wb vs zerg point of view, it just seems like there is little to no room for fighting 3+ warbands, no matter how creative you try to be, if they chose to hold hands and be organized together, and as I said respect for their efforts but Ive always hated situations with no counterplay.

I dont personally do 6man, or care for that plasystyle but admire others who put time and practice into having a solid core group.

[Yaliskah]

Only way to do something with zerging is to make multiple objective needed to do something with keep. Like hold 3 bo's to get ram damage or keep 3 bo's to increas damage you do to ram etc.

Afaik, if you take à look on ORvR rework blueprint it was planned. Seems to be technically too complicated to do. Maybe later.

[Darks63]

Yali how limited are in redesigning the orvr zones anyway? Like could you if you wanted have 3 keeps per zone?

[Nameless]

On live pre rr100 period to have a.chance vs zerg u needed tanks and healers with full sov that provide anti cc and anti crit for whole 20 sec + odjira. So your group can realisticly make a space between you and the zerg while doing hit and run. Atm at ror u lack all of these so no way to bypass chain slowing and inevitable death.

Post rr100 the gear difference between lowbies and bis chars were so big that u just melted half of the zerg. Noone want to see that again but sov times were pretty good and u still neede some skills and coordination to do hit&run tactic properly

[Yaliskah]

Yali how limited are in redesigning the orvr zones anyway? Like could you if you wanted have 3 keeps per zone?

It would be a freakin amount of work to make it well integrated but it is technically possible even we havent atm all perfect tools to do this. Now question would be " how to introduce it nicely in a general mechanic ?" Leading to more and more work.