19W - 66L T4 Destro toon

[Kaelang]

Haha the only thing I can do to improve my win rate is to join up w/ my geared guild mates and form a premade to feast on other pugs.

I'm not the best player, but my healing isn't going to suddenly be amazing. It is what it is. I prehot my team, protect, group heal, cleanse, hot. So on and so on. I can improve sure, but my heals are only going to get better and keep the team up with improved gear for both myself and my team.

Dev team knows it's jacked, hopefully the changes on the horizon help. Going to be hard with such a limited amount of players. I think the base of the issue is gear difference, RR difference.

The sov players earned their gear, I get it, it's just not balanced sov vs conq. I don't think it's possible for rr60's to defeat rr 80's. You have to get farmed until you get sov gear yourself, but not many people are going to want to go through that grind and it's one of the reasons I made this post.

Old players are pushing new players out.

I like this game, but not sure if I can go like this from 66rr to sov. Game loses fun when we sit in spawn 8/10 SC's. It's not just me. I sat in that spawn with my whole team during that 19-66 spurt.

I'm going to hop into this thread on this specific post.

What you have explained here is the very nature of MMORPG's as a genre. Now, I appreciate that there is a gear gap and disparity that can only be somewhat covered by skill, at a certain point gear will outrank skill, but only in a solo environment. I'd bet a coordinated 6 man could run in vanq and squash an unorganised full sov group.

That being said - it doesn't address your points.

However, with respect to your feedback, there is a higher likelihood of the skills of players increasing, than us balancing gear around sub-optimal players. We want people to learn their class, learn their roles and learn how to coordinate, to lesser that gear discrepancy and start to perform well, so I wouldn't expect the changes we're looking at to directly impact that.

What I can say is on the horizon is very much in relation to how scenarios queue work. It's early days and is still being discussed so there's no information that I'd be comfortable sharing yet, but it was effectively teased at in the patch notes. We have some ideas to help 'balance' the scenarios, but please don't expect balancing of anything other than how the system functions. Gear will remain as is and skill will always play a large impact.

Also: You said "it's just not balanced sov vs conq. I don't think it's possible for rr60's to defeat rr 80's". This is incorrect. See above.

[bittrio]

Haha the only thing I can do to improve my win rate is to join up w/ my geared guild mates and form a premade to feast on other pugs.

I'm not the best player, but my healing isn't going to suddenly be amazing. It is what it is. I prehot my team, protect, group heal, cleanse, hot. So on and so on. I can improve sure, but my heals are only going to get better and keep the team up with improved gear for both myself and my team.

Dev team knows it's jacked, hopefully the changes on the horizon help. Going to be hard with such a limited amount of players. I think the base of the issue is gear difference, RR difference.

The sov players earned their gear, I get it, it's just not balanced sov vs conq. I don't think it's possible for rr60's to defeat rr 80's. You have to get farmed until you get sov gear yourself, but not many people are going to want to go through that grind and it's one of the reasons I made this post.

Old players are pushing new players out.

I like this game, but not sure if I can go like this from 66rr to sov. Game loses fun when we sit in spawn 8/10 SC's. It's not just me. I sat in that spawn with my whole team during that 19-66 spurt.

I'm going to hop into this thread on this specific post.

What you have explained here is the very nature of MMORPG's as a genre. Now, I appreciate that there is a gear gap and disparity that can only be somewhat covered by skill, at a certain point gear will outrank skill, but only in a solo environment. I'd bet a coordinated 6 man could run in vanq and squash an unorganised full sov group.

That being said - it doesn't address your points.

However, with respect to your feedback, there is a higher likelihood of the skills of players increasing, than us balancing gear around sub-optimal players. We want people to learn their class, learn their roles and learn how to coordinate, to lesser that gear discrepancy and start to perform well, so I wouldn't expect the changes we're looking at to directly impact that.

What I can say is on the horizon is very much in relation to how scenarios queue work. It's early days and is still being discussed so there's no information that I'd be comfortable sharing yet, but it was effectively teased at in the patch notes. We have some ideas to help 'balance' the scenarios, but please don't expect balancing of anything other than how the system functions. Gear will remain as is and skill will always play a large impact.

Also: You said "it's just not balanced sov vs conq. I don't think it's possible for rr60's to defeat rr 80's". This is incorrect. See above.

Thanks for your reply.

I'll take that bet. Let's do it and stream it on twitch / put it on youtube.

6 man vanq vs 6 man sov.

If it is possible, I would learn a lot by watching highly skilled vanq players squash lesser skilled sov players. It would also provide somewhat of a blueprint for newer players to learn how to overcome gear gaps in the game.

[lumpi33]

I'd bet a coordinated 6 man could run in vanq and squash an unorganised full sov group.

I get your point and you are not wrong BUT that's not how new players or casuals are playing the game. Most of them start with classes like SW, they play bad, in bad gear, bad builds, mostly solo or in pug groups. They don't even know how to build a coordinated 6 man. Even if the game offers all the options they need like grouping, bolster, easy to get armor sets or crafting, they just cannot utilize it. It takes years to get a clue and most people are not willing to be farmed for ages until they actually know how it works and can have some fun.

The game has to support the new players and casuals as good as possible. For example to make sure that they are getting into SC groups with tanks and healers by forming a competitive setup for them (take the solo ranked interface, form 6mans with at least 1 tank and 1 healer, done) or at least make both sides somehow even good or bad. The game has to make sure that they are not be thrown at veteran premades where they have literally 0 chance of winning. For example by offering random/pug SCs. We finally have the solo discordant now which was a good step in the right direction but there is still no group forming and the event SC is still not playable with that game mode. Why punish these pug players that are mostly new and casual players?

If the game is not able to keep new/casual people playing then they wont stick around long enough to turn into good players or veterans one day. The veterans on the other hand might get bored and leave as well.

It's a bit of a death spiral. When the percentage of veteran players is too high and the percentage of new/casual players is too low then the new/casual player minority doesn't have enough people of their level to fight. All they are facing is veteran premades then. And Im telling you, it's brutal. When you enter a busy orvr zone as casual without group or pug group then it doesn't take long until the first 24man premade shows up and stomps you into the ground. Then you respawn and try again and the roaming premade shows up again and rolls over you again and again. How long is a new player gonna tolerate this before quitting? Same in normal SCs.

We are in the situation that there are too many veterans and not enough new blood. There is just not enough motivation or fun for new players to keep fighting these premades. They liked t1 where everything was easy, random and fun and they hate the moment they have to enter big orvr. The game has to provide that t1 like experience in form of discordant, etc in the higher tiers. It has too. You can't force them to build groups. They wont.

That's one thing and the other thing is class balance. Some classes are weak/overperforming since years now without any changes. The class balance has to change from time to time or all the veterans gonna roll the most overpowered class and setup they can find, making it even harder for everybody else. See melee stacking aoe meta with slayer/wl/mara/choppa. Everybody that is rolling a class that doesnt fit into this meta is basically screwed. After spending tons of hours leveling up your toon you find out that it is not performing. Roll a new one? nah, screw that. Uninstall. Is what they probably gonna do.

tldr: It's not just a git gud thing. The game has to support new players as good as possible and make it fun for them to play. Without them the population can only go into one direction: down.

There are things that can be done. Add event SC to discordant next. Shake up the meta with the ability rework. I think we are moving in the right direction atm - hopefully.

Cheers.

[Ashoris]

I'd bet a coordinated 6 man could run in vanq and squash an unorganised full sov group.

I get your point and you are not wrong BUT that's not how new players or casuals are playing the game. Most of them start with classes like SW, they play bad, in bad gear, bad builds, mostly solo or in pug groups. They don't even know how to build a coordinated 6 man. Even if the game offers all the options they need like grouping, bolster, easy to get armor sets or crafting, they just cannot utilize it. It takes years to get a clue and most people are not willing to be farmed for ages until they actually know how it works and can have some fun.

Do you know how many Veterans we have who are giving bad examples/advice ... This game is full of veterans and everyone knows best and when something goes wrong its always premades/Equip/classbalance/ or cheater's ...

This game will not change because the majority of the community thinks they have figured it out and have 0 interest in improving - we have a huge amount of veteran players who totally lack teamplay but happily blaming everything else for their losses.
Every new Player with a certain understanding of PvP who does not join solo but with 1-3 Friends can have a blast on this Server. Alone is a complete other story but that is on us veterans.

[lumpi33]

I'd bet a coordinated 6 man could run in vanq and squash an unorganised full sov group.

I get your point and you are not wrong BUT that's not how new players or casuals are playing the game. Most of them start with classes like SW, they play bad, in bad gear, bad builds, mostly solo or in pug groups. They don't even know how to build a coordinated 6 man. Even if the game offers all the options they need like grouping, bolster, easy to get armor sets or crafting, they just cannot utilize it. It takes years to get a clue and most people are not willing to be farmed for ages until they actually know how it works and can have some fun.

Do you know how many Veterans we have who are giving bad examples/advice ... This game is full of veterans and everyone knows best and when something goes wrong its always premades/Equip/classbalance/ or cheater's ...

This game will not change because the majority of the community thinks they have figured it out and have 0 interest in improving - we have a huge amount of veteran players who totally lack teamplay but happily blaming everything else for their losses.
Every new Player with a certain understanding of PvP who does not join solo but with 1-3 Friends can have a blast on this Server. Alone is a complete other story but that is on us veterans.

Trying to force them into a certain playstyle is the wrong way to do it. Offering them the content they are looking for is the right way. If they want to mess around solo and are not willing to improve then let them. Give them content where they can still have fun.

MMORPGs have always been that way. There are always people of different skill level and with different preferences. Some like 1:1, others small scale, others 6:6, others warband fights. A good game has room for all. And it's important to have that in order to keep them playing and let them enjoy the game.

ORVR is a lot more fun when you have a mix of everything. Sadly, it's been less and less that way. There are more and more premade meta warbands roaming, killing everything in sight, pushing all these 1:1, pug, casuals into the warcamp and out of the game.

You gotta ask what can be done to counter that instead of forcing them to become a premade player as well and do the same. It's not gonna work. 100% not.

The game could counter that, but it doesn't. It's actually the opposite. Some premades have become so strong that you basically cannot kill them without having an even level premade. It wasn't that extreme a couple of years go. Why? No balance changes. All premades with meta classes, top gear, meta setup and stupidly overpowered melee aoe stacking.

How to counter? Well, nerf that melee aoe stacking first. Bring up classes or playstyles that are underperforming. For example you do literally 0 damage if you channel on a spot when somebody else is already channeling the same spot with the same spell and still get the long cool down. It's a kind of broken mechanic and is of course super bad to counter melee blobs that don't have that issue. All the pulling from choppas and maras is another thing that is just horrible and people complain about it on a daily basis. Nobody wants to get sucked into the middle of the enemies and die in seconds. It's bad design. Especially when it's mostly one side doing it. No other ability has that impact. Having that pulls on the mostly played meta premade classes makes it even worse.

Or nerf that def/regen meta. There is a ton of stuff to avoid damage but almost none to counter that. For example why is there a cheap disrupt/dodge renown ability but no disrupt/dodge pierce renown ability? Regen WEs/WHs is another thing that shouldn't exist and take away the fun for newcomers trying to fight them.

And there are other things that are killing the fun and could be easily fixed. Like the uneven numbers in lotd where destro almost always have more players and is stomping order. Or the pve lockouts that are just a time sink and make no sense at all. Let people do the pve content however they like. It would only help to close the gear gap for newer/casual players.

It's not always the players fault. A lot of things could be changed/fixed in no time to improve the fun. I've just mentioned a few.

[Cyrylius]

I'm very on board with an idea of making the game more approachable for new players, BUT I also feel like trying to look at the issue through the premade pov got lost somewhere in this thread. And the issue with premades is, with all the defensive tools fights between premades are even more predictable than fights between pugs. For a random group of, say, 6 players, if they queue scenarios into a better group over and over again they will experience even worse loss streak than those happening in discordant queue. And they will be almost guaranteed to get the same opponent next match for the same result. You can see this in action in ranked scene, where there are two groups of players that just win against anyone else, and then the groups below them are similarly different in capabilities. Queueing solo is not only avoiding the effort of finding a group, it also means partially avoiding the effort of improving as score usually depends mostly on random variables. I'm wholly on board with restricting discordant queue to actually new players, but even assuming there's enough of them to generate steady pops you'll see the same uneven matches and people having skill and gear dramatically superior to others. Balance is complex enough in RoR that with our playerbase there's no way of generating evenly matched SCs for everyone, and personal skill is relevant enough that even with equal gear and compositions matches will end up being one sided most of the time.

[Gurzuk]

Well since I have similar feelings I can't stand replying it.

First, I know that feel. Bet most of RoR players do.
More over I have noticed this situations swings here and there in long perspective. Like if we speak about several month duration it gets better or worst. So it leads me to the conclusion it is mostly population who determines win rate of realm. More experienced ppl get bored and decide go other side - u gonna feel it. More new players join particular side - u gonna feel it too. Sure there are daily fluctuations depending on some people logging in/off and xrealming. But the overall picture is imho like one I described.

Second, bolstering post 40 is not an answer. I did though about it, but came to this conclusion. Why? Because a)it makes gear progression irrelevant. Why even bother farming sov or higher rr if u are bolsterd? b) this wont fix skill or coordination gap.

Third, I agree with someone who told, that sometimes when u play with people u agree they deserve to loose.

Forth, It is low population issue as well, as with low ppl pull in sc u will likely get same strong ppl versus same weak one.

Summing up all above I want to conclude that: It is population issue, both quantity and quality.

• First in current state of the game is not changing over time in terms of affecting ur success rate. But having bigger population overall on server, would just let u have more different matches. So that would be the best yet the hardest solution

• Second is oscillating, depending when u play. So it is mostly about how lucky u are to log with some skilled players

I usually prefer to solo roam or roam in small scales. Doing SCs just to get crest\rr faster, but if it is not my day, I go do smth else, like a dungeon or rvr if possible.