Question on Game Design & Outcome of an Uneven Battle

[Vaul]

With the current game design - what would the expected outcome be of a fight be two equally geared/skilled sides but where one side was outnumbered, say 12 vs 24?

One has to assume the 24 would win but how many kills would the 12 get before they all died? 6? 4? And what should this be to make fights engaging and rewarding for both sides? I stress again that this would be the outcome of the fight *by design*.

[peterthepan3]

4/6 if equal-skilled.

[Genisaurus]

Some people are going to take this thread as a criticism of the current state of the game. And there's a lot to criticize there, but some people also assume the current state of the game is a reflection of what we (the devs) want, which is a bunch of silly bullshit. This presents another question - are you referring to the state of the game, right now, if I open my launcher and click "Connect"? Or do you mean the state of the game, philosophically, with the current devs?

Because frankly, I don't think many of us care about the former. We know it's broken, we know the risk/reward ratios are out of whack all over the place, we know some classes give far more strength to the 12-man side than others would. We alternate between pitching new designs internally, and trying to fix the game to a point where any other design at all could be implemented.

Anyway, all that aside. All things being equal, in a straight up fight with no special circumstances, the 24 man should win every time. The problem is, there is never an equal, straight up fight with no special circumstances. There are group compositions and terrain and target selection, and all these other things. But we're abstracting the hell out of this. So let's make some more assumptions:

Let's assume that it takes 4 people to focus down a single target in 2 seconds. We also assume that this number includes healers healing on both sides, and that perhaps only 2 of those attackers are DPS, and the other two players combined have the power output of a single DPS. Then it's just a math equation. Unfortunately, I don't remember enough about algebra to derive that equation right now, so I'm going to work it out by hand.

Code: Select all

 T   S-12  S-24 
---  ----  ----
 0    12    24
 2     6    21 
 4     1    20

At T=0, both sides are at full strength. By T=2, the 24-man has focused down 6 players on in the 12-man, and lost 3 of its own. By T=4, the survivors of the 12-man group have managed to get 1 (and a half) more kills, but the survivors of the 24-man have focused down another 5. From there, it's a wash.

So the 24-man gets rewards for killing 12 players, and the 12-man gets rewards for killing 4. Obviously, if it takes more people to focus down a single target, or less, the situation changes. And again, this is ignoring so many other factors that it's approximately useless.

So, you're asking

what should this be to make fights engaging and rewarding for both sides

And I will say, simply, that it shouldn't be engaging or rewarding for both sides. You should always strive to avoid fights you cannot win, and shouldn't be incentivized to charge headfirst into a force that literally outnumbers you 2:1. Moreover, the act of simply fighting should not be inherently engaging or rewarding in the absence of an end-goal. If the only goal is renown and currency, then of course the incentive is going to be to get as many kills as possible, and so the general playstyle is going to be to form giant warbands that can outnumber a foe, have a lower chance of being outnumbered, and each individual player has a lower chance of dying. Less risk-averse players might stick to smaller groups that can coordinate better and pick off isolated targets, at the risk of being completely wiped out if they get too close to the larger group. This is roughly what we have today.

But when you're fighting over several days over several weeks to accomplish a goal, like preventing or encouraging a city raid, then there can be many more incentives to split up, to accomplish smaller goals or hold objectives long enough to deny them from the enemy a little longer. This is more the direction we're (going to be) going. I've rambled enough. If I haven't answered your question, it's probably because the question is too abstract to get a meaningful answer.

[Sizer]

So one group has 24, the other has 12, and both are EQUAL in terms of gear/spec/class makeup/organization/skill level, fighting on even ground outside of a keep and where neither side sees the other first? The 12 will get 0 kills. That doesnt mean its bad design, or that somehow that should change - the 12 has plenty of other ways to fight 24, be it morale pushing from a keep, or splitting up and capping multiple bos at once, or waiting to push with keep lords (which really need to scale with aao), or whatever.

But as Genisaurus said the question is a lot more abstract than that. The goal of the game is not to just see purple numbers, if that happened there would be nothing but scenarios - and if anything renown from kills should go down, so groups that avoid rvr just to pick off 1 person at a time in aao arent rewarded better than people defending keeps (this actually kind of already happens, but its not enough). You want the 12 to be actively participating in rvr, not just getting a few kills at the wc to make the renown worth staying online (il admit this is mostly what I do on this server, but it gets boring).

At the same time the game isnt designed so every fight is 100% even. There should be times when one faction is winning, and pushing to city, or you would never leave martyrs square, which is seriously boring. So that generally means one side is outnumbering the other, and thats not a bad thing. This is why im always against suggestions to add a third faction, or to add in npcs, or a stat bonus on aao, or some method of artificially forcing every fight to be 1-1 odds. Thats not how the game should work.

Maybe there will be times where it is even, and one side is so organized they still push to city, and great, the game design lets them do that as is, but its not common enough for the entire design philosophy to be based around. If anything kills rvr, its stalemates, which sounds odd, but its true. And while the game doesnt need means of artificially breaking stalemates just like it doesnt need means of making fights even, it also should not punish a faction for breaking a stalemate with bigger numbers - again its great if one faction pushes with even numbers due to organization/skill, but its not that common, and if you want rvr to move out of praag, 9 times out of 10 its going to be due to numbers.

The tricky part is balancing the rewards as well as the fun. FIghts are going to be 12v24 (or more likely 120v240, I hope), but if the 120 side gets nothing, they will log off or go to low tiers or whatever - not everyone stays on for the fun, they need rewards now. Similarly, if instead of 2-1 odds, its 10-1 odds, the "zerg" side needs rewards now, as not everyone stays on for the fun of the campaign, and if empty zones give 0 renown, they will also log off (see NA primetime).

On the other hand, it cant be all rewards, especially for the defenders - if you get steamrolled with 4-1 odds at a keep, you might still get enough renown to make it worth it, but its no fun. Siege/oil and keep npc's (again, ideally ones that scale) will help this - they shouldnt let defenders win when outnumbered 4-1, but they should make the fight last longer than 10 seconds. For attackers, its not as bad, as people have more fun when winning, but again, stronger keep npc's could at least keep people from falling asleep, even if it is pve. Thats more a question for another thread, but just noting it as a previously mentioned way to keep fights engaging for both sides, there are probably better ideas out there to address this.

Anyway, giving immediate rewards seems contradictory to the game not being all about purple numbers, but thats the balancing act, both sides need enough rewards to stay online, but also with significant rewards at the end of a campaign - there needs to be the campaign as "end game", but not everyone can play for 4 hours until you hit city just to get something. Mythic handled handled this poorly at launch, and a little better as time went on and we got aao and keep defense bonuses (its even better here now that defenses give bags, which is awesome). So its really not that bad as is, with the exception of cities, but that will have to wait.

Seems off topic but im just mentioning all that so people might understand how the game design works in my opinion (and I assume the devs opinion, or they would have mentioned wanting to add a 3rd faction, or having aao give a stat bonus). The game will not be even. 12 will not get kills vs 24, nor will the game handicap the 24 so the fight becomes even. But the 12 should be able to put up good fight at keeps/forts/cities, and even if they lose and get pushed to city, both sides should get rewarded for it while having fun. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but this server seems to be getting there (or a lot closer than mythic ever got)

tldr, I wouldnt worry about it, even or not fights in t4 are going to be fun.

[DirkDaring]

Never underestimate the value of using tactics, and terrain to your advantage , many times on live we defeated zergs 3 times or more our numbers, the largest was wiping over 142 on our Guild keep in Thunder mountain, with just one Alliance warband twice in a row lol.

Sadly not many lately use tactics, most just zerg the map and then seem confused when the defenders do something other than try and turtle the lord room .

[FreddyNoNose]

With the current game design - what would the expected outcome be of a fight be two equally geared/skilled sides but where one side was outnumbered, say 12 vs 24?

One has to assume the 24 would win but how many kills would the 12 get before they all died? 6? 4? And what should this be to make fights engaging and rewarding for both sides? I stress again that this would be the outcome of the fight *by design*.

If you are serious about this and not slamming the game design, here is a book for you; http://www.amazon.com/Fleet-Tactics-Pra ... 0870215582

Warning, it will use math to solve your problem.

[Tesq]

Orvr have NOT FIX fight , the position is all; you can fight a moment 12 vs 24 and being 36 vs 24 after some seconds of inc, anyway i've saw 3 party win vs 1wb or more
but never 2 if you want a straight exemple.
Where 2 party and the wb are guild stuff and not pug partys of course.
I also saw wb push trough more wbs, i also saw wbs push that way and die with pride by charge in enemy wc.

[Vaul]

Guess I was curious more than anything about how the combat mechanics play out in a fight between uneven numbers (which is ofc the mainstay is RvR), and what the likely success is for the underdog in any situation (I like to think it's more than 0!). And this would be the current game, as is right now. Did not see how asking would sound critical or anything. I am not, love it all.

Appreciate the comprehensive answers Geni & Sizer. You make interesting points and I can't wait to see what ideas the RoR staff have on the drawing board for RvR.