Current take on "zerg busting" on RoR

[Skullgrin]

Pretty much my point. Good leaders = good tactics. I've been in WBs that have done amazing against 60-80 aao, but once the leaders leave our side just melts away. I'm a terrible leader and terrible player, but good with tactics and communication.
At least that's what me mum tells me.

PS- Thargrimm, I hate you so much.

Sometimes just changing your definition of success helps too. I spent most of last night just scouting out the order warbands location and reporting on it in regional chat - and then acting as bait to pull them into our warbands traps. I think they finally caught on after the third of fourth time it happened, they sure didn't hesitate to use overwhelming force when I got caught after finding them camping one of the tunnels in the Marshes of Madness. In the end though I had a good time stalking them, and managed to get a few kills too.

Oh, and hate's strong word - please elaborate on why you hate me. Use examples, with annotations if necessary.

[Aethilmar]

Well, my $0.02 as a primarily Order player:

I think warband on warband fights are in a pretty good spot in general with mostly even numbers. Generally speaking you don't die instantly and there is room for tactics and maneuvers.

As noted, the problem comes when one side significantly outnumbers the other. You can put up a good fight until about 60% aao then you just get crushed by numbers every time (with the occasional good ambush to make you a little feel better).

The problem is not so much with the characters but the motivation for fighting when outnumbered. Let's say you have 60% AAO and your outnumbered WB finally catches the enemy offguard and crushes 2-3 groups on a BO. Yay! You won.

But now what? If you try to hold your "gain" you will be destroyed by reinforcements. You have to run to avoid a wipe and even if you stay you do almost nothing to help your realm slow down the enemy advance other than maybe destroying their will to fight (but unlikely at that AAO level).

Bottom line is the current game mechanics reward blobbing the enemy until they quit then pushing the keep.

The game needs to reintroduce rewards for hit-and-run tactics so that even if you lose, you at least get the feel of a win. And, yes, I know that will also introduce problems but you have to pick your poison. For instance, I personally miss the days when flag caps were on a timer. A common tactic was to feint hard at one end of the zone to draw forces then hit and hold the other one. Sure, your WB got wiped but you actually won something (a delay in the zone cap) for your effort.

There are other examples, but this wall of text has gotten too big already.

TL;DR Warband fights are fine, special power advantages when outnumbered feel cheap and the gameplay motivations for fighting when outnumbered are what is lacking.

[mogt]

but many players forgot many important things, what is the rvr? not just killing wb vs wb, no the important thing is, try to hold bos and attack the enemy keep, for locking this zone, but if i read the last posts, i see just fight against the enemy wb in a area, but rvr is more as just killing wb in a area and doing hit and run tatcic, if the palyers want do that, they can go to t1, where you dont need the head. but in t2-t3, it is important for the fortress in the future, for locking the zones for one side, and not i repeat, killing wbs at a position on the map, and nobody attack the enemy keep,.

the rvr are very multifaceted and not the one thing, what many players see, oh killing just the other wbs, and they forget the bo, and dont attack the keep, because many players think, why we attack the keep, if we get many rr and medals for killing the enemy, and that is sadly, the players do the easiest way for their egoistic, and that destro the game, not the devs, the playersbase with this "easy going mode", that is the problem.

[Shooshpanzerer]

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.

0x1000 is still 0, that's the main problem for underdog trying to fight the zerg. Only ones who'll benefit from it greatly is gankers. Nyn have mostly spelled it, perhaps AoE cap also tied to AoO?

[lefze]

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.

0x1000 is still 0, that's the main problem for underdog trying to fight the zerg. Only ones who'll benefit from it greatly is gankers. Nyn have mostly spelled it, perhaps AoE cap also tied to AoO?

Not really, just don't join the pug warband and it's all good. Get your own party and just assist the warbands ("leech") and the loot will come extremely easily if you have even a half decent party. On the other hand if you join the pug warband on a dps for example, you are most likely going to AFK a lot more than makes sense, lack the crucial support a dps needs, avoid perfectly good fights, start out in horrible positions and split your loot from kills in 6 for next to no return, assuming again you are at least half decent.

[Shooshpanzerer]

Tl:dr Don't PuG.

I'm not talking about myself here. How many ogranised guilds are here - we're on hiatus, not sure you field something. And most of players won't bother lvling meta, fielding proper WBs etc. And that's a fact and here to stay. And without PuGs it's empty zones and PvD.

[lefze]

Tl:dr Don't PuG.

I'm not talking about myself here. How many ogranised guilds are here - we're on hiatus, not sure you field something. And most of players won't bother lvling meta, fielding proper WBs etc. And that's a fact and here to stay. And without PuGs it's empty zones and PvD.

You pretty much described exactly why you should not join a pug warband. Not saying people should find a premade warband either, those are mostly a thing of the past. Simply a 3-6 man will do, much more profitable than relying on horrible setups and the support and decisionmaking of a pug warband.

And yes, you can even bomb just fine in a 6 man granted there is some meatshield in the zone. Not being a part of the warbands in the zone lets you move between fights and stay active even between the 15 min AFK sessions the current warbands randomly take for no reason. It also lets you pick your fights and angles much better, as in you don't get wrecked when the warband snakes past the zerg on MS to regroup by stairs only to get split and eaten alive, or sandwiched with no way to escape. It also lets you flank, and in many cases a good party in the back of a couple of pug warbands can tip a fight completely. A warband flanking on the other hand in most cases results in the main fight being over because of lack of numbers and slowness of warbands before the flank even hits, resulting in a massive fail.

You can play much more freely and effectively, even without taking into account that your party is way more likely to be playing competitive setups and specs if you take your time to get to know which players to take and which players to kick.

[Glorian]

Usually the current WBs do a 5 min afk session at every full hour to get a new beer and bring the old to the toilet.

And as Lefze said, running a six man behind a meatshield warband is pure fun. Jump in, kill some healers, don't care for lord, zone and joy if you got aao for even better purple numbers.

We do that on the Sniper Squad.
But when you want to do some real work like getting a zonelock you need a guild or alliance warband. Because then you know not half the warband will leave after 3 whipes.

This is RvR. Your warband will get whiped, regardless of how hardcore you are. Even Phalanx got down several times in an evening in the past. Well most of the time they were in front of Order wc and get surrounded by 3 other warbands.

But it is super tedious to run a pug warband with everchanging numbers.

So if you want to bust the Zerg, join an active RvR Guild.

[Sedok]

After reading thru this thread all I see are complaints that the game systems need to be tweaked or abilities need to be buffed/nerfed, however to my mind the real problem is that of the tactics being used to counter being outnumbered.

I find it highly ironic that a solo player is telling warband players that they just need to "get good". There's a big difference between theory and application. You can aggrandize the effectiveness of "ambushes" and "baiting", but until you put them into practice and see what actually happens, they're just a hypothetical. I'm glad you read the The Art of War, but I suggest you get more warband play and leadership under your belt before espousing conclusions about it.

The OP specifically asked about "zerg busting", which at a minimum is 24 vs. 48, and when you look at the math of that, you quickly realize that unless the 24man is highly organized and the 48man is a pure pug blob, you won't be able to kill enough opponents quickly enough before they recover from the initial shock of your charge/jump. And that's assuming open field, we're not even getting into the separate discussion of keeps, where the defending realm is expected to face the full might of the aggressor in single area. Its a easy thing to say, "just take a BO to split them", but when an opposing realm can just send 6 guys to take it back because the defenders simply don't have enough people to provide an adequate distraction, you're just talking out your ass. There is a threshold for when it becomes impossible for a defending realm to stop the aggressor until they loose momentum because of attrition.

I would love for nothing more than the ferocious, competitive warband play from Vaul's Anvil to come back, to have tens of guilds on both sides fighting tooth and nail for blood and glory every weekend, but the under-the-hood changes made here on RoR simply do not allow for it.

[Acidic]

to me aao and zerging are not directly connected, just because there are more players in a zone does not mean they are all blobbing together. Typically Destro war bands do their own thing till forced to blob, guess similar on order side

So what any anti blob thing should be connected to player density. Ie 20+ players within 50 yards gives you a debuff if in open areas. BO probably number double numbers and keep probably three times.
Debuff similar to diminishing supplies and scaling with numbers.

Remember similar from Aza times but can’t exactly remember the details of how that worked.