Should 6man vs 6man matter in balance discussions?

[Zxul]

A simple though- in RoR, most of orvr is wbs vs wbs, with the rest being 6man farming soloers/pug, and random pug vs random pug, and with I would guess 20 total players at most actually doing 6man vs 6man, a vast minority of the total players.

As such, when speaking balance- how much and if 6man vs 6man should actually matter?

[peterthepan3]

1) It's a hell of a lot easier to balance upwards than it is downwards;

2) Maybe 1 out of every 10 WBs currently active on the server is a min-maxing competitive one. The vast majority are pug WBs with random assortments of classes and varying degrees of playerskill. How do you balance around this environment without it having an adverse effect on the rest of the game (PvE dungeons, scenarios, 6-man groups);

3) If we are talking about organised play in the game, then the vast majority of it is in 6-man environments. This doesn't mean 6v6 btw, but for every organised WB on the server there are 15 6-man groups.

[Vayra]

No. IMO balance should only consider warband scale. If you balance 6 man, some classes are going to either be useless at that scale (which is bad balancing), or incredibly OP in larger scale due to AOE abilities. To me 6v6 is the same as dueling, an irrelevant side game that is only supported by a small portion of the community. The main game is warband scale, and is what should be balanced around.

[Zxul]

1. No doubt it is much easier to balance, however how much does balancing 6v6 matters, if it has no effect of balancing 99% of actual encounters ingame?
2. Look at abilities as "per solo" base, instead of "per team" base, not including aoe ones- since that, realistically, most of the ingame encounters is "soloers which happen to be teamed".
3. Organized play ingame, though, is realistically pug wbs which are about following leader while spamming specific aoe, and a few aoe morale (that bw one) wbs.
Out of 6man, most are out there to farm pug/soloers, and will move after 1 loss to a different 6man. Which is back to original point- out of total server population, only a selected few players actually do 6v6- how how and if they should matters to a total server balance?

[davispeed]

No. IMO balance should only consider warband scale. If you balance 6 man, some classes are going to either be useless at that scale (which is bad balancing), or incredibly OP in larger scale due to AOE abilities. To me 6v6 is the same as dueling, an irrelevant side game that is only supported by a small portion of the community. The main game is warband scale, and is what should be balanced around.

AMEN to this ^^

[Fallenkezef]

Does the OP understand that the ideal WB is built by putting together 4 6xman teams?

As much as I dislike the 6v6 elitism it is the basic foundation of the game. Balance 6v6 properly and then you balance 24 v 24 by direct result.

[Vayra]

Does the OP understand that the ideal WB is built by putting together 4 6xman teams?

As much as I dislike the 6v6 elitism it is the basic foundation of the game. Balance 6v6 properly and then you balance 24 v 24 by direct result.

No. It doesn't work that way. Abilities scale differently when you increase numbers. To take the simplest example: A class that deals single target damage will still only deal single target damage in a warband. While an AOE class will deal far more damage since they'll have more targets to hit with their AOE. Same with healing. With more groups you get more effective healing, even if aoe heals are limited to group, you can use ST heals and non-group aoe heals to increase effectiveness over what you get at 6 man scale.

By your logic we should balance at 1v1 scale because 6 mans are made up of 6 solo players so if they are balanced the 6 man will be balanced as a result.

[Karast]

1) It's a hell of a lot easier to balance upwards than it is downwards;
2) Maybe 1 out of every 10 WBs currently active on the server is a min-maxing competitive one. The vast majority are pug WBs with random assortments of classes and varying degrees of playerskill. How do you balance around this environment without it having an adverse effect on the rest of the game (PvE dungeons, scenarios, 6-man groups);
3) If we are talking about organised play in the game, then the vast majority of it is in 6-man environments. This doesn't mean 6v6 btw, but for every organised WB on the server there are 15 6-man groups.

The problem with this is things that don't matter in 6v6 are gaming breakingly powerful at WB scale.

Also the argument around 6v6 is not that solid, this game has warbands for a reason, and combat is scaled around those when it comes to AoE caps, zone mechanics, and even PvE like PQ's.

A good portion of the 6v6 has always been hostile to WB play as they see it as "unskilled" while a lot of the WB population has no real interest in 6v6 because that is not what they are playing for. It is not the scale they are interested in. But balance changes made for the 6v6 community have had and will continue to have a directly detrimental impact on the balance and fluidity of WB game play, and vice versa. Balance changes, new abilities for 6v6 don't happen in a vacuum.

If balance changes are made without consideration for multiple aspects of play they will only drive toxicity in the community, and serve to reinforce a "them" versus "us" attitude which is almost entrenched already.

Saying it is difficult is an easy excuse to ignore the issues and to try to find balance between 6v6 and WB play which is not only do able but has been done before.

[peterthepan3]

1. No doubt it is much easier to balance, however how much does balancing 6v6 matters, if it has no effect of balancing 99% of actual encounters ingame?

2. Look at abilities as "per solo" base, instead of "per team" base, not including aoe ones- since that, realistically, most of the ingame encounters is "soloers which happen to be teamed".
3. Organized play ingame, though, is realistically pug wbs which are about following leader while spamming specific aoe, and a few aoe morale (that bw one) wbs.
Out of 6man, most are out there to farm pug/soloers, and will move after 1 loss to a different 6man. Which is back to original point- out of total server population, only a selected few players actually do 6v6- how how and if they should matters to a total server balance?

1. You assume that it has no effect on other aspects of the game, which is incredibly wrong.

2. I don't understand the point you're making here, mate.

3. Simply being in a warband (or a group, for that matter) doesn't equate to organised play. 99% of warbands are a mishmash of random DPS, usually low on heals and tanks, with players not using the correct tactics/no pots/not buffing eachother/etc. How do you even begin to balance around such environments, where consistency is absent?

[Zxul]

Does the OP understand that the ideal WB is built by putting together 4 6xman teams?

As much as I dislike the 6v6 elitism it is the basic foundation of the game. Balance 6v6 properly and then you balance 24 v 24 by direct result.

Not really, it isn't- 6v6 isn't build about aoe spam- wb vs wb is.

How much use moral drain build mara has in 6v6, while it is very useful in wb vs wb?

Not to mention, that again- idea teams is not how 99% of the ingame encounters actually happen.