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Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

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Zxul
Posts: 1359

Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#1 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:41 am

An analysis of observations about the logic behind rvr mechanics in AoR, vs in RoR.

If you look at AoR, specially at its last years, the rvr mechanics were specifically catering to not needing a large scale rvr organization- not even a single wb size in most instances:
-Not needing opposition to get full rewards from zone lock and not having lords to defend keeps, meant that both sides were much more spread between 3 open zones- and smaller population in any single zone compared to RoR meant that it was much more doable to advance the campaign with a small scale, up to and including solo, compared to RoR. Large scale fights still existed, but were usually limited to single zone out of the 3, despite the campaign being advanced in all 3.
-BO renown rewards being based about bot resource carriers reaching resource drop points, and rewarding all players present in zone, meant it was much more advantageous for players to roam the zone looking for fights, compared to RoR mechanic where roaming the zone compared to joining a wb which carries resources means missing on BO renown rewards.
-There were no forts, which requite a large scale organization.
-Cities were pvdoor content optional- those who preferred could join instances with large scale fights, however those who weren't looking for rvr fights- whatever because of wanting free rewards, or cause of not liking large scale rvr- could join empty instances, which did not required any organization.
-Endgame armor came from Skaven instance, which required only small scale fights, and from rvr kills- which could be achieved even solo.
-Related to all of the above- since non of the content required large scale organization, and since it was possible to get all the bis endgame equipment solo or in up to 6man, the most important reward from rvr was renown- compared to RoR where the bottleneck is city and sov.

Now if you compare RoR:
-Most of rewards in rvr zones comes from keep fights- to get the lord renown tick you need keep contribution, to get the bag from zone lock you need zone contribution which is much easier to get in keep fight than roaming the zone, to get access to fort you need once again contribution which is much easier to get in keep fight, to get vanquisher medallions from lock you once again need contribution so once again keep fights. And those require wbs- solo or small scale in mass keep fights are pretty much impossible.
-Forts are invader bottleneck and require being in a wb.
-Cities are sov bottleneck and once again require a wb, and not just that but also preferably at a very least 2/2/2 optimized one.
-Even one of pve possible endgame options- 22 pqs- requires a wb.

The reasons behind it are likely a different motivation of live publishers compared to RoR team- while on live the motivation was to attract and keep paying subscribers- whatever they never joined any organized wbs and preferred getting rewards from pvdoor didn't mattered- in RoR the motivation of the team is to improve the game, and as part of it to prevent the players from finding an overly easy ways to get rewards/from avoiding fighting while still getting rewards.

The problem however is that the way it is implemented in RoR- forcing large scale keep/fort/city fights and requiring organization+ large scale- specifically means that RoR supports much less the small scale, and the options of gaining rewards solo/in small scale- including for players willing to put the effort and not looking for free rewards, however preferring the small scale over large one.

Which in turn brings it to the problem that several classes- sw, wh/we, to a lesser extent magus/engi/ib/am, and many more classes in non-wb meta specs- were intended for solo/small scale and not for wb/large scale rvr play, meaning that RoR forcing large scale organization/rvr makes those classes and specs undesirable.

Which brings the current situation, where those classes/specs are considered underpowered- which isn't possible to change with current RoR mechanic without redesigning those classes/specs for wb meta.

Personal opinion is that while AoR pvdoor situation needed to change, RoR did went too far in orginized rvr direction, without keeping support for smaller scale. Of cause, whatever rvr changes that would and if be added to change that, would need to address the reasons for why currently small scale isn't supported, without hurting large scale.
-For keeps, likely BOs are need to be made matter more, specially during keep fight- so while those that prefer large scale keep fights will fight at keep, those that prefer small scale will fight in zone/at bos, and still get keep contribution. Possibly make BO control affect things like ram dmg/oil CD, to require both attackers and defenders to try and control BOs.
-Same for forts- likely what will be required is to separate fort door and fort BOs fighting, so that both will be required in same time.
- Not sure about cities, but possibly something like 6v6 city instances/pug instances, with for example no chance of winning bags but with large reward for winning side and small reward for losing side to motivate fighting.
Last edited by Zxul on Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Can we play with him, master? He seems so unhappy. Let us help him smile. Please? Or at least let us carve one on his face when he stops screaming."

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Vandoles
Posts: 249

Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#2 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:48 am

I've been on and off playing on RoR since basically the start, recently returned after a very long break, devs if I remember correctly have made it very clear they personally never liked small scale combat and will not work on it. To develop this entire server freely, they clearly represent the core, dedicated audience of the game and solo play caters to the casual in exchange for screwing over the dedicated people slightly.

This used to be an issue (even if masked under other issues - like a certain class' solo specc being talked over and over) since basically the start of RoR and I'm perfectly certain it will never change. At the end of the day, nobody else is going to make an AoR private server, so that's what you get I guess. If this server manages to survive a while longer and one day we can somehow contribute funds, the direction will shift drastically since all the vocal minorities of the world have failed to curb the reality that solo play is fun for most people (since "most" is usually casual players). It's your best hope.

Alternatively you can just limit your ambition to highly coordinated 6v6 being heavily focused on. But that seems basically impossible to balance together with wb vs wb unless you develop an entirely new game...

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Alfa1986
Posts: 542

Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#3 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:43 am

interesting review and analysis of the reasons. although I also think that in the end (on live) the game became too casual, unlike the one that was on release. from here I think some mentality arise in the objective assessment of the situation and categorical attitude as to the base of the players and as to the rewards.
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Toshutkidup
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Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#4 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:19 am

Take it this way from a player that Solo’s for almost 3.5 yrs , has done zero Pve and doesn’t have SoV gear. I’ve been told directly from Devs/GM’s that solo play is a “deviation” from the core gameplay and is never reviewed for balance in any fashion or directly supported. The game is based and balanced around Warband play period and will not change.
First RR90 Slayer working towards the top of the mountain.I still solo, still run riposte.

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Vandoles
Posts: 249

Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#5 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:38 pm

Toshutkidup wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:19 am Take it this way from a player that Solo’s for almost 3.5 yrs , has done zero Pve and doesn’t have SoV gear. I’ve been told directly from Devs/GM’s that solo play is a “deviation” from the core gameplay and is never reviewed for balance in any fashion or directly supported. The game is based and balanced around Warband play period and will not change.
I'll offer my two cents yet again, despite them never working out in the past:

1) War Online was designed to have solo play, entire builds are centered around it. Even entire pairings. SW/SH are so hard to balance partly because a lot of their toolkit is meant to be hybrid between solo/group play. WH/WE are entirely solo play classes. Iirc even odjira was a solo play item that was super influential. WP and DoK non-healers are also strong soloing classes, partly what makes up for their lack of group play. Noticing a pattern here? Problematic to balance classes are likely to either get completely reworked into traditional archetypes or will just never be balanced.

2) Solo play was never an actual issue and RoR has gone so far into promoting WB play, you'll almost never manage to make it an issue short of giving it a 2k% renown boost or sov items dropping off solo kills. There's very little to gain by gimping it beyond personal satisfaction in discriminating what you don't like.

3) It's fun. It just is. Everyone has a story roaming in Praag. Everyone remembers that incredible 1v1. Every greenskin remembers that 1v1 versus a dwarf and so on. Like it or not, some people enjoy it and by just taking it away you'll never be able to compensate with content, because you can't compensate an entire way to play the game by making the other way a little more fun.

For me the sad part about all this is that War seems to be the last oldschool pvp mmo and as a solo/roaming player I'm seeing the death of my playstyle. But what can we do? Basically nothing.

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Akalukz
Posts: 1587

Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#6 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:13 pm

Eventually, they will run out the solo players, they have already run out the competitive 6 man groups. Once the solo players are gone next will be the pugs... then that's it. Because everyone knows premade 6/12/18/24 don't want really fight other 6/12/18/24 premade. Otherwise, they would change the way the scenario querer works.
-= Agony =-

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Alfa1986
Posts: 542

Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#7 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:38 pm

Toshutkidup wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:19 am Take it this way from a player that Solo’s for almost 3.5 yrs , has done zero Pve and doesn’t have SoV gear. I’ve been told directly from Devs/GM’s that solo play is a “deviation” from the core gameplay and is never reviewed for balance in any fashion or directly supported. The game is based and balanced around Warband play period and will not change.
this kind of thinking is pretty pointless.
thus, first of all, you cut off people who simply do not like to play warbands, secondly you cut off people who would like to play for classes that are not adapted to play warbands. and I think this is at least 50% of a hypothetical server.
15th orks on a dead elf's chest
yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

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KissShot
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Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#8 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:36 pm

Although the "rewards" of playing WAR in general are not catered to solo play, anyone and everyone can still go solo if they choose - whether that be in oRVR, city, or otherwise. There are 3 buckets of play imo: solo, small team, large team. Small team is 6 or less for anything in game. Small team with all good players can be fun, impactful, and you can compete with teams twice your size as is demonstrated often by better groups. Solo is more difficult in that regard, but not impossible in oRVR especially after the outer door keep change.

Specifically, now a roamer can impact respawn locations pretty much as soon as an outer door is hit a couple times. Where, before, one would need to wait until inner was tagged to see any real benefit in roaming kills.

As an aside, for better or worse depending on the salt that is gathered at the time of the discussion, <24 man cities have been popping regularly. 12 mans are not uncommon, but that could just be a bug. Many of us prefer smaller sized cities, so I'll give you that for sure.

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Lithenir
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Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#9 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:12 pm

Zxul wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:41 am
-Most of rewards in rvr zones comes from keep fights- to get the lord renown tick you need keep contribution, to get the bag from zone lock you need zone contribution which is much easier to get in keep fight than roaming the zone, to get access to fort you need once again contribution which is much easier to get in keep fight, to get vanquisher medallions from lock you once again need contribution so once again keep fights. And those require wbs- solo or small scale in mass keep fights are pretty much impossible.
While I agree with some things I clearly have a different opinion on this. You don't need a keep contribution you just need zone contribution and you'll get that even with just roaming around killing enemies. In fact I often have larger renown keep reward without ever being on the keep. Once we were just roaming around with a 3-man and suddenly got a fort reservation without contributing much and it wasn't because of low population.

Tom
Posts: 128

Re: Rvr analysis- AoR vs RoR, and problem of solo classes in RoR.

Post#10 » Thu Jul 30, 2020 4:26 pm

Toshutkidup wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:19 am Take it this way from a player that Solo’s for almost 3.5 yrs , has done zero Pve and doesn’t have SoV gear. I’ve been told directly from Devs/GM’s that solo play is a “deviation” from the core gameplay and is never reviewed for balance in any fashion or directly supported. The game is based and balanced around Warband play period and will not change.
Hm, if it were really true that 'balance' is only considered from a large scale perspective then why the **** did they remove Resolute Defense and Cleansing Winds? Both important for small scale to have some control on the field, but I doubt many, if any, blobsters ran it, or even ever considered spending rr there. Unlesssss..ofc.. such abilities were removed to add "balance" in the favor or large scalers. :roll:

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