WAAAGH… RIP.

[wonshot]

... Staying in a blob should completely eliminate the possibility of a lock zone...

I feel like this was the biggest takeawy in this topic so far.
And a couple of the underlying issues beneath this sentence, would be that a procentage of the undefined blob doesnt care about the zonelock any more for a multitude of reasons:
a) objective play is arguably less fun than pressing buttons against a player
b) it is easier to look out for yourselves and your chosen sieze, than the rest of the realm. Which might come at different levels of frustration
c) we have had BiS sove gear mainly since 2020 so less reason to care about zonebags for more and more of the community as the years go by since then.
d) following a crown, or your own group/warband following someone else is the entrylevel of play. But too little systems, incentives or footage are teaching the newer waves of newcomers any other way. The 2026 gameplay have for direct or indirect reasons been made the year of the pug. More and more of the older organized guild warbands are quitting as per LMN's reasoning post the effort in management to run a guild, is not worth the action you can get on the server any more. Year after year do new nostalgic players come in, and they copy and learn from how the game is being played by those already playing.

Im not sure if its too late or not, the Ginie is out of the bottle. We have made it easy with Unified crest, play whatever content you prefer to get your gear and progression, and here have a crown to follow so you dont need to make choices & mistakes yourself.
How can we realisticly go back to a campaign where guilds and alliances would need to hold meetings about overcoming a population disadvantage, to figure out strategies about pre-made oil defences, and turning a momentum situation from enemy realm winning LOTD several weeks in a row. Can this even be done, after we have leaned so heavily into keeping the server population healthy but at the cost of lowering the quality so much(?)

Staying in a blob shouldnt be an objectively wincondtion, as we some weeks see it in LOTD. If one realm blobs middle, they often loses the outskirts and need to spread out and cleanup afterwards. Prime example of why RvR BOs are the main system to be improved on to address the blobbing situation. But here we are, screaming about the same issue that RoR has ignored and not adressed for 5+ years.

But the truth is, that if BOs and systems were implimented to spread the action and population out then players would be more required to stand on their own. To learn, to improve and to fight harder and put in more effort. Either the RoR team holds their protective hand over us and dont allow the players to deal with this realisation, or we the players are not loud enough showing that we want the blob gone and are ready to face the consequenses (having to win our own 24v24 fights on a BO)

[Tushi]

Some of the best players right now run almost exclusively small man, they are able to destabilize massive numbers and come up with creative strategies. But sure, let's just cry about how it used to be better.

Just remove BO 11 tactic in middle tree to someting "add 25% of disrupt to party" rather than movespeed buff, convert gobbo tactic to add move speed into "give 700 absorb once in 10 sec" and you will see how they become to garbage. Current state - desto has an opportunity to kile as hell and desto has a "skilled patrty", kite party can kill only guys who "tricked and go to PvE" in attemt to kill them, somehow it has to be balanced with WL, but now... wb WL has no pull and with same time destro can pounce in form of WE... So... Skill you are reference to - one side has great opportunity to kite and they find targets thats take a bite... But it's one sided and skilled players just ignore such enemies, they can't kill you in a face to face in a clunch, just don't follow them. If thats a skill play - give it to both sides...

Gobbo run away tactic has already been neutered to the point of uselessness. Noone runs it.

The server in general has been gradually dumbed down and classes homogenised due to the constant whining of players and it has suffered for it imo. Now you can't buy anything interesting with renown, just some boring stat boosts, any unique tactic seems to eventually be nerfed into the ground, to the point where tactics are primarily just more generic stat buffs. Talismans are just stat buffs. Most set effect bonuses have been nerfed to the point it's far better to run mix and match sets purely for more stats (outside a few rare cases).
Proc weapons have been nerfed relative to pure stat weapons. Pocket items are just tiny, basically insignificant stat buffs.

[Culexus]

... Staying in a blob should completely eliminate the possibility of a lock zone...

I feel like this was the biggest takeawy in this topic so far.
And a couple of the underlying issues beneath this sentence, would be that a procentage of the undefined blob doesnt care about the zonelock any more for a multitude of reasons:
a) objective play is arguably less fun than pressing buttons against a player
b) it is easier to look out for yourselves and your chosen sieze, than the rest of the realm. Which might come at different levels of frustration
c) we have had BiS sove gear mainly since 2020 so less reason to care about zonebags for more and more of the community as the years go by since then.
d) following a crown, or your own group/warband following someone else is the entrylevel of play. But too little systems, incentives or footage are teaching the newer waves of newcomers any other way. The 2026 gameplay have for direct or indirect reasons been made the year of the pug. More and more of the older organized guild warbands are quitting as per LMN's reasoning post the effort in management to run a guild, is not worth the action you can get on the server any more. Year after year do new nostalgic players come in, and they copy and learn from how the game is being played by those already playing.

Im not sure if its too late or not, the Ginie is out of the bottle. We have made it easy with Unified crest, play whatever content you prefer to get your gear and progression, and here have a crown to follow so you dont need to make choices & mistakes yourself.
How can we realisticly go back to a campaign where guilds and alliances would need to hold meetings about overcoming a population disadvantage, to figure out strategies about pre-made oil defences, and turning a momentum situation from enemy realm winning LOTD several weeks in a row. Can this even be done, after we have leaned so heavily into keeping the server population healthy but at the cost of lowering the quality so much(?)

Staying in a blob shouldnt be an objectively wincondtion, as we some weeks see it in LOTD. If one realm blobs middle, they often loses the outskirts and need to spread out and cleanup afterwards. Prime example of why RvR BOs are the main system to be improved on to address the blobbing situation. But here we are, screaming about the same issue that RoR has ignored and not adressed for 5+ years.

But the truth is, that if BOs and systems were implimented to spread the action and population out then players would be more required to stand on their own. To learn, to improve and to fight harder and put in more effort. Either the RoR team holds their protective hand over us and dont allow the players to deal with this realisation, or we the players are not loud enough showing that we want the blob gone and are ready to face the consequenses (having to win our own 24v24 fights on a BO)

As always, you make good points. However, no matter how much it may be needed, I don't believe that mechanic changes will fix the root cause of the problem.

Take these two scenarios:

A) We have a full RvR mechanic overhaul implementing whatever system you believe will result in the best RvR experience exactly how you envision it. The community remains exactly as it is now.

B) The community completely changes. We get an influx of competent guild/WB leaders, and the players flock to join them and get organised. Guild groups become the primary way in which players interact with RvR. With coordinated voice-comms and tight WB gameplay becoming the normal way to play rather than an outlier. The Mechanics of RvR stay exactly as they are now.

Everyone knows which of those two options would result in the best RvR.

The state of RvR runs far deeper than mechanical changes, and is rooted in (imo) the degradation of coordinated group play rather than mechanics. Yes, RvR does need mechanic changes with BOs and the campaign to become meaningful. But even with those changes, RvR will remain a sandbox where the players make the content. They could remove keeps and make BOs the be-all and end-all of a zone lock, but if the player base continues with the same mindset they have now, it won't make a difference to the state of RvR or the community.

Rather than rattle on, as we've all repeated the same thing a hundred times on this forum, I'll be that guy and quote myself from another thread. My thoughts on this haven't changed.

Spoiler:

100% agree with everything said about scenarios. The rework can’t come soon enough.

Honestly though, I think even with a rework, things won’t change much. The mentality of how players approach MMOs has changed significantly since 2008, with the grouping and community aspects of MMOs being replaced by players seeking a more casual solo experience where they can play the game as the main character without having to put any effort into working with others. This is seen every weekend in the weekend sc event, where players will suggest every change under the sun to fix scenarios, with the only thing that's never on the table for consideration being them joining a group.

There were plenty of terrible players on live with this mentality as well, and they would herd together into blobs for protection and easy kills just as they do now. The difference is that there was a thriving MMO community on live, and while the lakes were full of blobbing pugs, there were also loads of guild warbands roaming at the same time, taking on the blob and looking for fights against other guild warbands. How many guilds in RoR can field a full guild warband? Are there any?

This I think is the biggest issue. Without a community of active guilds, there is nothing to pull new players from the 'main character' mindset of modern gaming, to the old school MMO community mindset this game needs to work and be experienced at its best. Without the guilds to create the community, we're left with nothing but the giant pugblob hellscape we have now.

Don't get me wrong, there are still some great guild leaders out there running warbands, but as they have to rely on /5 to fill them, they never know who they're gonna get. The best thing about guild warbands is that you have a community of players who know each other. Players know the warband leader is knowledgeable, so they will listen and follow, and the warband leader knows they can trust the members of the warband to follow instructions and do their jobs, so they can lead without having to babysit. The community then comes within the guild, as you improve by fighting together week after week, develop friendships, and form rivalries against other guilds. Players have forgotten what MMOs are all about, especially sandbox MMOs like RoR: the community. Mechanic changes can only do so much if every new player thinks they are the main character of the game and they shouldn't have to work with others. Mechanics bring players to the game, but it's communities that keep them logging in.

There are mechanic issues such as the scenario rework that can help of course. There are also other issues, like a player can get to BiS without ever having to press an ability due to warcrests, or the fact that killboard drove a bunch of veteran players insane, thinking everyone on the server has their k/d ratio set as their homepage. But honestly, even if all these are addressed by the dev team, if there isn't an organic change within the playerbase that brings the old MMO mentality back to the game, I don't think it will make much of a difference.

[wonshot]

Take these two scenarios:

I dont think thats an unreasonable way to line it up.

As for the playerbase and the way us players play the game. I will answer this question, with an other one:
When was the last time an above average succesful warband guild played for the campaign? and could impact zonelocks and fortresses.

My answer would be FMJ back when Fortress wins mattered tieing it into City pushes.
Since then, most succesful guilds are those who can dominate the killing in the lakes, and prevent the other side from even thinking about pulling a ram while they remain online as a deterance.

If it really has been 5 years since we had an rvr campaign guild, that, to me speaks volume. If we still lable this as a campaign driven rvr game.
In the latest week, crossrealming and players AAO-policing logging to the underpopulated realm seem to be a bigger issue for the playerbase than them themselves not fighting harder to win the zones. Again the overall purpose of the game is just gone.
Which right now divides the players between who wants to still attempt to play the hollow version of the Campaign as we have it, and those that just dont bother and instead play the core foundation of a good game, that has lost its main purpose and we just scramle for moments of a good time.

When the Campaign was there, and meaningful. Atleast some guilds cared and pushed for their realms. Maybe its a lost relic of the times, or maybe it can be restored. That in my eyes fully lands in the hands of the Devs (as they clearly havnt listened to rvr feedback yet from the community)

[Shogun4138]

The game is boring now. 3 to 4 years of the same zones, same keeps, same blobs.

Pve Dungeons that would be cool until you have to do them x4. Just like rvr, keep doing the same thing, over and over.

Suggestions for rvr get drowned out by people crying for balance. So the game stagnates in pvp because people just want to hit 3 to 4 buttons and damage 24 people.

The Dev team has missed the mark. Content keeps people. Pvp content the most and a sprinkle of pve.

[nebelwerfer]

great thread op

[chookette]

Take these two scenarios:

That in my eyes fully lands in the hands of the Devs (as they clearly havnt listened to rvr feedback yet from the community)

Yes, in the end, only the devs can decide and act.

But we can help them by making the issue easier to read and understand. The more clear, concrete and numerous user feedback we provide, the easier it becomes for them to see whether this is a real, recurring concern shared by part of the community.

The idea is not to pressure them or turn this into drama. It is to make their job easier: explain what we observe, in which context, with concrete examples, and how it affects the RvR experience.

If we want the topic to be taken seriously, we should give them clean, readable and constructive feedback. That is probably the best way to move the discussion forward.

[chookette]

If I had to pick a top 3, I wouldn’t jump straight into “nerf the blob”. To me, the blob is mostly a symptom of a system that too often rewards density, easy farming, and “follow the crown”.

1. Make the campaign matter again.
And this is not an idea coming out of nowhere: it lines up directly with the 2026 dev roadmap. The devs themselves acknowledged that unified currency made part of the campaign feel less meaningful, because many players now focus mostly on farming crests rather than pushing keeps, forts and cities.

So before touching classes or starting a holy war over AoE caps, I’d start there: make campaign progression more important, more readable, and more rewarding than staying in the same meat grinder for 45 minutes.

No need to remove kill rewards. But the best long-term gains should come from helping your realm win the war, not just from following the biggest bowling ball.

2. Turn BOs into the real anti-blob system.
This idea has already been brought up in the thread, especially by Alubert, with the idea that a realm staying in one big blob should not be able to lock a zone easily. And wonshot is probably right when saying that BOs are one of the best angles here.

If a realm puts 80 players in one place, fine: they should be strong there. But they should also risk losing the map everywhere else.

BOs should force decisions: split, rotate, defend, bait, flank, punish. Not just “everyone stick to the bus and press W until the server falls asleep”.

Big fights should stay, obviously. They are part of RoR’s identity. But the map should punish lazy density and reward smart movement.

3. Help pugs and new players organize, instead of turning them into blob fuel.
Hazmy raised an important point: a lot of blobs also happen because weak, badly composed, or low level heavy warbands don’t really have better options. They can try to organize better, kick low level players, or attach themselves to another mass. And obviously, the easiest solution is the meatball.

So the goal should not only be to punish blobs. It should also be to help players do something else.

Better open warband structure.
Clearer composition indicators.
Better support for low-level players in RvR.
Stronger incentives for proper groups, proper leaders, and warbands that actually play objectives.
And maybe also bring more life back to scenarios or smaller formats as learning spaces.

Because if pugs have no structure, no learning path, no reward for splitting, and no reason to play cleaner, they will always choose the warm safety of the big pile.