Aoe Cap feedback after playing with it

[Aethilmar]

Spoiler:

Thanks Bombling for your high quality post

I would like to suggest for the next test iteration:
- No AOE cap
- 2-3x INCREASED AoE Area (could be tied to a 15p tactic in AOE tree)

This will, in theory, let small groups/warbands deal disproportionate damage to much greater numbers. This should kill any benefits to zerging.
And lead to a meta of ST parties chasing AoE parties and warbands chasing ST parties.

So have no downside on PvE, but would certainly change dynamics in sieges.
Would be bad in cities as it would likely be AoE spam, but I'm sure that a solution could be found to that.

I'm curious why you think the math of having larger AOEs benefits smaller groups. Seems like it should go in the opposite direction which is uncapped AOE plus smaller AOE areas. Larger AOEs rewards sloppy play where smaller AOEs would allow a tight group to annihilate anything in an confined space and then move on to the next space with the obvious counter being to spread out a bit.

Either way the unlimited cap AOE removes the uncertainty of what you are and are not going to hit even if in my particular scenario what you are hitting is smaller.

Yes it could be more sloppy, especially on equal engagements.

But the idea is, if your organized 6/12/24 man can flank the zerg, they can now kill way beyond their size, thanks to the extended reach and no cap.
This would make the zerg a renown ball rather than a death ball.
The smaller AoE area is just another form of lower target cap (which I think we agree benefits the zerg most of the time).

Another option is adding zerg killer specific abilities, that scales their damage per target hit, but are bad outside hitting +36 targets.

Personally did not have a problem with the current meta (neither the meta change), but don't see how the current change does what it meant to.

I'm still not convinced but honestly that is neither here nor there. I think a big army should, all other things being equal, should defeat a small army.

I also think the rules should be simple (hence why I agree on no AOE cap) because it is easy to understand for players and easier for the dev team to reason about when it comes to balance. If you are in a particular area and three abilities X, Y and Z are in that area then you will get take damage from X, Y and Z not you will take damage if you happen to be under some opaque number.

The question of zerg busting is functionally unsolvable as you can always bring a bigger blob that will overwhelm some force of a given size. If the devs really care about it (and they clearly don't because have clearly stated mass battles are their thing here and they reward the results of those mass battles) then they need to provide campaign/scenario mechanics and rewards that encourage the zerg to separate. That is a different discussion except, as noted, it makes worrying about zerg busting via combat mechanics pointless.

[illumius]

I must say right away that I do not agree with the criticism of the author of the first post and I think that the limit of 9 goals is a wonderful solution, but it takes a few more steps.

1) It is necessary to remove / reduce the protection against moral damage.
2) Return the damage burst to the side of order, or significantly weaken buffs and debuffs to the side of destruction
3) Continue to work on balance and bring more archetypes back into the game, the same engineer/magus magnet. The more different live builds there are, the more people will come to the project.
4) Add an altar of divine mercy to the keeps, which can only be activated if there is a serious imbalance of the sides and for a good price
5) Reduce rewards for fights in lakes, increase them near BOs and keeps

Changes in the balance will inevitably lead to a change in the behavior of the warband leaders. There were significantly more tactics and combinations used on live servers than there are now.

Indirectly, the aspect ratio will also be affected by the new mechanism for selecting players for the scenes, which will separate the primeids and the pug. This will lead to an increase in the number of players on the server, which means fresh blood and fresh tactics

[Rotgut]

I'm still not convinced but honestly that is neither here nor there. I think a big army should, all other things being equal, should defeat a small army.

I also think the rules should be simple (hence why I agree on no AOE cap) because it is easy to understand for players and easier for the dev team to reason about when it comes to balance. If you are in a particular area and three abilities X, Y and Z are in that area then you will get take damage from X, Y and Z not you will take damage if you happen to be under some opaque number.

The question of zerg busting is functionally unsolvable as you can always bring a bigger blob that will overwhelm some force of a given size. If the devs really care about it (and they clearly don't because have clearly stated mass battles are their thing here and they reward the results of those mass battles) then they need to provide campaign/scenario mechanics and rewards that encourage the zerg to separate. That is a different discussion except, as noted, it makes worrying about zerg busting via combat mechanics pointless.

My argument against "bigger army should always win" is that the outcome of balancing with that philosophy is "blob more" and "kite more", which players will do if its the only option, and that leads to less fights and less fun.

24 AoE cap allowed org WBs to take on bigger numbers in a regular fight that didn't involve "kiting out and turn". And looking for outnumbered fights was something my WB would consistently do, since in a WBvWB the pug WB has no chance against a Discord WB, we would look for those fights cuz its more fun for us while simultaneously giving them a chance - it wasn't out of the kindness of my holy heart, its just cuz we could get more kills that way and the risk of losing, which could happen, is actually fun. Now the only fight i can give them is a "kite and turn" fight which is just annoying for pugs to fight, and eventually they'll just not take fights like that and everybody is bored and annoyed.

[vanbuinen77]

The new aoe cap is good.

Keep the new meta.

[Tisaya]

More tanks, healers and some sandwiching is what allow 'organized' wb's to take on pugs, not high AOE caps. People are talking like if a bigger zerg won't also have more AOE. They will and they do. With 24 cap any fight turns into an AOE death ball, sucking any fun out of the game.

[Incertname]

Why can't we have aoe dmg abilities be capped at 9, and have challenge and morals be 24?

[Jajcek12]

My 50c TLDR enjoy- maybe it will help anyone.

Autor of topic requires information rather then opinions but i will smuggle some of my opinions.

The proposed solution are intended to ballance lake organisation toward competative/organised gameplay.
Subconsciously ballance of game in some players mind point towards organised groups/warbands, and its reasonable from competetive player perspective, who logs into loosing side join organised warband and doing hes job.Presumption that numbers shouldn't be main variable in fights(ect ect.) But you know - good 60% or even more of the server population are just zerg surfers who dont care bout any ballancing stuff or competative parts of it- they want to shoot from safety hiding behind the numbers and dont want to give tools to the outnumbered side aka organised warbands.

9 target Htl in rdps meta ? ??? ?(assume its for tank and 2 DD in party*8 tanks in 24 player warband)
It would be realy good to know how HtL works(from technical perspective), is it “duplicates” targets or each “hit” will hit target who wasn't hited to not overuse it. Anyways moste of the tanks roleplaying pseudo dps in 2H specs so who cares, everyone will absorb all rdps dmg.
9 target Oil ? In 9 target world, make more sence for fights inside keep that need resolve in more then only moraledrop. Those fights inside keep can be very dramatic and cinematic- but close possibility to defend keeps on high Aao where proper Oil drop could make big diferrence. But gives opportunity to push campain on even AAO and take keeps by dedication, and not burned everyone under oil. (even aao on this server almost never exist so)
From semi/org warband leader.
From my observation 9 target cap makes fights longer. Fight is longer, and more susceptible towards players who join midfight, who can resolve fight into differend outcome, give time to flank, reposition, use proper CC and escalate/snowball fight into resolve.
For sure with 9target cap the overall dmg is less then it was beffore, its easier to be in place where player dont take dmg.. But concentrated(burst) dmg is more then was before in compere to healing output that must protect damaged player(aoe out of party healing getting more random on 9 target). So its easier to escalate outnumbered fights only by bursting random zerg dmg that could be outhealed in 24target heal cap. In contrary organised warband cannot face easly higher numbers of opponents because they will hit only 9 not 24 and make less presure and less opportunity to snowball fight with coordinated dmg.(it doesnt make zergs play better, but organised warbands lose opportunity to face multiple opponents numbers. Hiding mistakes behind numbers is more profitable then it was before, and organised warbands who face zergs must be better then before, at everything .)
Distracting Bellows must be placed very precisly or it will be wasted, deffensive abbilities are susceptible for misplacement. So players must be very good and precise not just spam it randomly. So if something must be apply precisely, its just better to add more numbers of players to prevent mistake- simple.
Is 9target cap help with zergbusting? - Maybe-I don't believe in it much. At the moment it justify random zerging, because opportunity to resolve fight into win with random CC and unrestricted movement is very high- and there is no zergbusting tool for that.
Players playstyle should change and then evaluate it, not having same playstyle as before and expect same resaults. Are those resaults and analisis will be fitting into reality of this game? - dont know- maybe changes are required.
Is it harder for organised warbands to face zergs? Yes. Its easier to be floded because there will be alvays some group that not taking risk(becasue lack of 15 targets more) walk into backline freely without CC or taking any dmg, and org wb will take 24target hit all the time. Zerg just need to press "W" and win fight. Lack of aoe dmg doesnt screan organised wb as it was before and , aoe presure doesnt help in reposition that much.
Opinin on playstyle and tactic.
From my point of view frontline should go wide as much as possible(taking profit from challanging/Htl,AoEdmg as wide as possible-> differend targets ect), forcing to spread opponents aoe burst into smaller chunks possible and wasting AoE radius,, then have one strong single target group who will snowball and escalate fight, but is it tactic to fight vs zergs efficiently? Is it effective in all places and positions? Definitely no. From my observation dmg overkill at the moment is not profitable from tactical point of view., its waste time and resaurces that could be used otherwasy,and easy to prevent.( not like channel drop is bad- dont get me wrong) Who cares if we overkill those 4 even 6 frontliners if our backline colapse because of zerg float, and frontline is in one place, not controling flanks. Those heavy DMG concentration tactic puts warband into bad starting position, and it can be not that optimal in 9 target meta.
In my opinion requires organised warbands to play more solo because some randoms will brake your CC that would protect your vital tactical moves. So yes - it requires more organisation and effort from organaised warband(who want to play relatively solo) -much more effort, and in the end it place them towards solo play in lakes vs multiple opponents. Summing up- organised warbands should be better then it was before, and zerging will be even more justify and tempting for everyone.
From pugleader pov- it was good change until its one pug vs one pug- so almost never. Full time noob blob vs 3pug partys in random setup will win anyways. Fight is longer so players have opportunity to learn in slower pace, and players can make difference in fights by doing their arhetype role and not taking 24cap dmg into face, beginer players can be more precise in their gameplay. Is the ballance should be pointing towards pugs unorganised blobs?- dont think so ,but i dont need to solve that problem.

What types of target cap ware historically implemented into the game and with what effects ? Do anyone have any other data or info ?

[Fenris78]

1. Keep the 24 target cap, or make is 15-18.

2. Make all damaging AoE (except Morale Skills) working like this :
- for each target you will add 0.1 to damage multiplier, i.e. hitting 6 target will only deal 60% of damage, while hitting 15-18 will deal 150-180% of base damage.
(Numbers to be adjusted of course, but you see the idea)

Since in the game, with pretty much every aoe reduced to 20-30 ft, you realistically cannot hit more than 9-12 people at once due to collision and globally moving targets, pretty much every AoE should hit for their nominal damage as soon you reach the "optimal" target count.

Benefits :
With this system you make ST abilities shine in small scale while allowing small groups to fight against bigger groups, since warbands could only do optimal AoE damage against other comparably sized groups, wich in return will make AoE far less important against small men/solo players.

Less aoe stacking, less zerging, more small group or 12-men playing, more tactical builds, no one-button brainless aoe spam...

I remember AoE cannons working this way, and it's actually pretty efficient against big zergs trying to farm warcamps, or large forces sieging.

Possible drawbacks :
Having to scale AoE healing in a similar way, with probably different multipliers, to avoid a constant overhealing, especially for some AoE abilities like Martyr's Blessing or DoK equivalent, Energy of Vaul etc.



Should this system not to be considered for test, to see what will it shake, meta-wise and balance-wise ?

[Lion1986]

The new aoe cap is good.

Keep the new meta.

Agreedo. no more brainless aoe 2 button spam. No more suicide meme BW/sorc spec (unless you love to make enemy farm rr) and now RVR requires actual positioning and approach.

[wonshot]

Can some people elaborate abit deeper than just "good" please give examples of why, what you have seen and experienced during the test. And not just labled your personal views about the meta as proof.

The test was made with the reasoning that this should help smaller forces deal with bigger forces, are people seeing and experiencing this, and if so, hows does the 9aoe cap help in these cases. The aoe dmg, aoe mitigation, aoe healing.

Giving feedback and saying its "good" with no examples is very hard to use for anything, same for calling any builds or fights "meme". Use words and examples to describe what has changed and dont just talk in interwebz terms.

To counter the latest comment, I dont disagree there is way more focus on having a good strong fighting formation now with tanks soaking up front and you cant run in as a MA on a dps and let tanks catch up to you now. but at the same time Tanks are soaking, meaning Challenges will get lost faster as tanks take dmg and are less impatcful and it makes the AOE cap seem to small as a solo warband your tanks&challenges will just get soaked and then mitigation is the same for the 8 frontline players on both sides of a warband vs warband clash in orvr, but challenges reaching far to the backlines are no longer a thing so bigger numbers have less mittigation reaching them and more zergsurfers get more unmitigated uptime. Hence making it harder for smallernumbers to fight against bigger, going against the intention of the test.