Should 6man vs 6man matter in balance discussions?

[Lileldys]

There is a reason that elitism from the 6v6 community exists towards warband scale play. The kind of player who is drawn to 6v6 is drawn to anything competitive with what they feel is some depth. Why don't they appear to find it in warband scale play? Lack of coordination or lack of desire to coordinate can't be the answer there, so what is?

Quite simply, people want to play with other like-minded players. If I'm a competitive player, I want to play with other great players. It's easier to find 6 great players than 24 great players.

On the main topic, I disagree with the statement that anything less than 6 shouldn't be considered. People play how they want to play, and you have to cater to those people. Remember, pugs/randoms make up a large percentage of the playerbase, and balancing for the Top 5% of players is a bad idea.
League of Legends found this out about 4 years ago, when they were changing classes based off of competitive matches, and didn't think of the regular players. I think the Champion Azir had a high win rate in comp matches(he's a strong objective taker, a desired trait in competitive) while in the solo queues he was an average win rate(He's not great at getting kills, which matters more in general play). Riot then nerfed Azir multiple times where he achieved a roughly 50% win rate in competitive, but then had a 20-30% win rate in Solo Queue.

I do think there needs to be changes in the smaller than 6 scale, but they shouldn't be the focus.

[Sanao]

Point 2. You balance for the best possible play first. If no, or very few, people are playing to a level beyond PUG, what's the point?

Well, the options (at least, the ones I can see) are:

1. Do not balance.
2. Balance for best possible play, which is relevant to very small % of players.
3. Balance for pug play, which will be relevant to most of the players. Which actually shouldn't be that hard- what is used in pug is mostly aoe (minimizing it to 1-2 skills per class + morals), + rest of class abilities which are used without class synergy. Then, assuming somebody comes with class synergy powerful enough to make a major impact, balance that.

Pretty much that, always found it odd that balance was focused around the smallest playerbase here, but I suppose it's because for how few they are, they are the most vocal bunch. 80% of the playerbase is just casual players looking to log in for some fun, join a random warband and solo play, maybe the odd small pug group. Maybe one day focusing on the majority of the playerbase will be a thing #nostalgia

Then you aren't making changes based around trying to make an objectively balanced game. Disregard for a second whatever style of play you prefer.

If you're going to make changes based around our perception of what most people take part in, then you're going to be making changes based around an area that is prone to overlooking mechanics of the game that interlink with one another. You're balancing around results that are made up of incomplete tests.

Does making changes as a result of conclusions drawn from more thorough testing not seem like a better way to approach things? This isn't about solo players vs PuGs vs 6mans vs Warbands, it's about a fundamental design philosophy.

Arguing for balance changes to be made based on an area of game play that doesn't utilize all of the tools available (even if that isn't every tool the game has to offer) doesn't seem logical if you're striving to create an objectively balanced game. No matter how popular that area of game play may be.

[roadkillrobin]

Warbands and 6mans arn't build the same way. It has simularites in terms of basic structures were dps needs to be guarded and healing and dmg mitigrations primarly comes from within the group. However when it comes to cover grounds of debuffs and dps output you build the entire warband as an entire unit that work in unison rather then 4x individual 6man groups.
(A role that only exist in warband scale is the utlility dps class, a role you can't have in 6 man coz you lose way to much dps output. Magnet Engie/Magus, Healdebuff Zealot/Runie/DoK, Morale pump/debuff AM)

When playing in warband scale a bunch of skills gets pushed way down the priority of use coz they simple doesn't have the same vallue when fighting 20+ people as they do when fighting 12 or less. Same thing goes for scenarios and 6v6 were a bunch of AoE skills doesn't get used coz they simple deal to little dmg to be able to kill anything unless you have atleast 5 other AoE dpsers.

When it comes to ballancing skill trees there should be one MAstery focused on RVR gameplay, one for Scenario and one for alternative role/PVE/soloing. And optimally you should be able to mix these trees to get 2 RVR builds, 2 small scale builds and 1 solo/pve build. I'm pretty certain thats how the skill trees were originally desiged.

But when it comes to a situation where a RVR skills interfares with the system and starts being utilized in Scenarios and 6man and all possible sollutions would be leading to nerfs in RVR, then i think RVR should triumph small scale, since it's a larger chunk of the game. But thats just my opinion.

[Vayra]

There is a reason that elitism from the 6v6 community exists towards warband scale play. The kind of player who is drawn to 6v6 is drawn to anything competitive with what they feel is some depth. Why don't they appear to find it in warband scale play? Lack of coordination or lack of desire to coordinate can't be the answer there, so what is?

Population, in order to have a serious warband scale competitive scene, there has to be enough people for multiple focused, coordinated warbands in each faction that are active enough to generate consistent fights. There simply aren't enough people for that. On live up until the rr100 patch my server had 5+ guilds on each faction that regularly ran coordinated guild or alliance warbands that generated a good, competitive scene with healthy rivalries between guids on the same faction and across factions.

There is also the fact that even if you can get enough people, it's just easier to organize 6v6 fights since you can get them in more SC's, they can be set up in locked zones or in more secluded areas of open zones. While warbands are primarily restricted to the lakes, and typically fight to lock zones and seek out good fights in the pursuit of that overarching goal.

As for the player drawn to 6v6, they were drawn to 6v6 even when there was viable high level competition at the warband scale, and displayed the same elitism on the live servers as they do now.

[soliticks]

It is just more practical to balance classes based on 6 man synergy. As someone pointed out earlier, the ideal warband is comprised of 4 solid 6 man compositions. At its very core, you could even make the argument that the game is balanced around guard.

If you were to balance classes around warbands, every dps class would be aoe damage/debuff focused. For obvious reasons, forcing such a spec on people would cripple them in other aspects of the game. Balancing around 6 man teams would not hurt any style of play in the game, including Warbands.

But at the end of the day, there is a difference between what people say and what people truly think. Although the default criteria of balance revolves around teamplay, the most common catalyst I’ve seen for balance proposals is the same: a loss in 1 v 1.

[gebajger]

detaunt nerf was based on 6v6?
AM M1 bubble was nerfed based on 6v6?
Disrupt buff?

Im confused

Rioz

[peterthepan3]

Point 2. You balance for the best possible play first. If no, or very few, people are playing to a level beyond PUG, what's the point?

Well, the options (at least, the ones I can see) are:

1. Do not balance.
2. Balance for best possible play, which is relevant to very small % of players.
3. Balance for pug play, which will be relevant to most of the players. Which actually shouldn't be that hard- what is used in pug is mostly aoe (minimizing it to 1-2 skills per class + morals), + rest of class abilities which are used without class synergy. Then, assuming somebody comes with class synergy powerful enough to make a major impact, balance that.

Pretty much that, always found it odd that balance was focused around the smallest playerbase here, but I suppose it's because for how few they are, they are the most vocal bunch. 80% of the playerbase is just casual players looking to log in for some fun, join a random warband and solo play, maybe the odd small pug group. Maybe one day focusing on the majority of the playerbase will be a thing #nostalgia

The game already facilitates to pug play muuuuuuuch more than live WAR ever did: a pug sc (!!!), an incredibly easy means of acquiring gear in RvR. There aren't many serious groups playing the game anymore (serious = not interested in farming pugs, like the majority of premades still present are), so pugging RoR has never been easier.

How much more pandering is needed? Genuinely intrigued. I pug'd my Engineer from rr35 to 50 in a week or so, easy genesis and subjugator, easy conq medals, easy dominator via pug sc....it's very, very easy.

[adamthelc]

You cant really balance RvR. All you can do is help things that are underperforming and tone down things that are too strong.

The randomness and lack of balance are what make it different and define it. Why bother spending a lot of resources attempting to balance something that can end up being a 6 v 30? You cant balance something where a solution to losing can be to bring more people than your opponent.

[Ramasee]

Here is pretty much the only reason you balance considering the highest level of play:

If you balance for the average player, you will create things that when exploited become OP. This is because the average player does not sit down, do the math, talk it out with their mates, and find the bast way to murder the enemy. Then those "5%" of players will do it, and wipe the floor by exploiting what was missed.

The inverse and what the balance forums idea is:

Balance for the highest level of play, much less things can be exploited. Yeah lesser players will miss somethings that their classes are capable of and be less effective, but they can always improve and it doesn't create and unbalanced game.

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As for warbands, I find it dissatisfying that there are classes that are considered an actual liability to bring to warband (and it has truth to it). I want all classes to have at least 1 mastery path that is useful in warbands; doesn't have to become new meta, but at least enough to keep thoughts such as "Why is this WH in our warband, wish we had a real warband dps?" from being the truth. (I also want each class to have a build that makes it at least somewhat viabe in small content)

This would be my ultimate end goal in balance. However, there are many classes I don't have at r40/rr40 to start the proposals plus I'm sure people who play those classes would have more interesting ideas.

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Feel free to correct me here if I'm wrong, but it has always been my standpoint that because optimal warband scale play marginalizes so many of the abilities each class has, balancing for it first, rather than second, is a poor idea. Look at how much Morale is driving the discussion and how classically limited compositions for warbands have been, to the extent that implementing racial morale tactics was infeasible because of double Knight double BW double WP.

There is a reason that elitism from the 6v6 community exists towards warband scale play. The kind of player who is drawn to 6v6 is drawn to anything competitive with what they feel is some depth. Why don't they appear to find it in warband scale play? Lack of coordination or lack of desire to coordinate can't be the answer there, so what is?

You are correct that warband marginalizes many abilities. Some classes don't have hardly any abilities that are useful for warband environments, and access to certain morales reduce viability more. Morale issue becomes more prominent with the recently reverted rates. I'd say rather than balancing small scale or large scale first and second, that you would do them concurrently making sure that warband changes don't bleed into 6v6 too much.

[Fallenkezef]

Balancing rvr is like carrying water from a well to the house with your bare hands.

How do you balance it? It's too random and fluid. Do you balance for NA times when it's a handful of WBs? Do you balance for EU prime time when it's a mindless zerg?

Do we give every dps class a mindless aoe? Because st is pretty much useless in wb v wb clashes.

Better to balance individual classes on the 6 v6 as that is more realistic and doable. It's a more controlled enviroment that allows every class to be effective.