Fun is decreasing - lets discuss

[lumpi33]

When I talk to people pretty much all of them agree that the fun of fighting has decreased over the last years.

Lets gather some input/feedback here. Feel free to answer one or more of these questions:
-> What do you think got worse? Or do you think it got better? Tell as what and why. Keep it short. What got worse and why, maybe short suggestion to improve.
-> What do you think is currently hurting the overall fun? You don't like pulls or stealthers? Tell us.

Keep it short. Please stay on topic.

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I do the start.

I personally think that there are some "cheesy" game plays that are really hurting the overall fun for me:

1. Fishing for people with pulls. It's such a low risk/high reward strategy that is very easy to pull off and very hard to counter, granting almost a guaranteed kill in most cases. The pull distance for Maras/WLs is just too far. It feels unfair and not fun.

2. Playing golf with people. Tanks with crazy high defenses walking in knocking someone down and punting it into the own lines. Like with pulls it is a low risk / high reward tactic that is again very hard to counter, almost impossible. Again it feels unfair and not fun.

3. Moral drop farming. This I see a lot in orvr by organized warbands. They wait for their morals, pretend to fall back just to overpower them quickly with moral drops. Again a very cheesy play which can be executed almost every minute. For the casual players just wanting to have fun this feels very unfair and not fun because they keep getting killed without being able to kill anything. Works especially well on destro with their fast moral gains, snare prayer from doks and mara aoe kd.

4. Small scale died off with all the overtuned stealthers everywhere. Nothing to add there. Should be obvious.

There is only one point for me that really made the game better than before:

1. I like the new scenario queue system. Works really well and I think it's the best you can get out of that queue system. Fun in scenarios increased due to more equal matches.

Your turn.

[iagdtod]

Maybe there's just a loss of memory going on? All these tactics you mention have been in the game since I started playing (after all zones were open but before forts were introduced, not sure when that is). I've been golfing people on my chosen for a long time, if you don't pay attention to a tank in your midst then it's trouble. And tanks extra tankiness is offset by the extra stats/abilities that other classes get, I don't see myself as more or less tanky (when I'm in bis) than I was in previous bis gear.

And some of these have improved significantly. Morale drops used to be much tougher to deal with. Mara pull has been significantly corrected from when you could yoink people from way over the map (basically while the channel was going you could back away and they could run away and they'd still get pulled).

And some of the things that you probably would have complained about have been changed already. The icd on infernal wave stopped org wbs from insta infernal wave sorc/choppa wbs. The change to rampage removed the slayer/bw wb meta that destro could only counter by not facing it (not saying there aren't slayer issues now, just referring to this meta).

There seems to be a move on this forum to continually talk the game down and talk about some great time in the past. The game is pretty good at the moment on all your points and has improved over my time. That doesn't mean things can't be improved and that there aren't problems but this seems to be a loss of memory of what has improved.

[Shogun4138]

Its not the game play or classes. This post is just an attempt to nerf classes themselves.

The real issue Imo is that it's been the same zones and same keeps with nothing new. That becomes rather stale after 4 years. At some point balancing has to take a back seat, you will always have the babies that die and run to the forums.

New dungeons are cool but no one wants to do the 4 times on every character they have. Thst ends up doing it 16+ times and then helping others.. It becomes a chore and not an adventure.

- turn BOs into small towers requiring capture
- add new siege
- holding BOs should have an impact
- utilize off zones for new pvp adventures
- maybe make a crypt, burrow, scavenger tunnel pvp area.

Those suggestions are intensive for the Devs ti axcomplish but they have done some marvelous work already. LOTD looks to be highly promising.


Its not the class issues. Its the repeatability issue.

[rorswar]

Its not the game play or classes. This post is just an attempt to nerf classes themselves.

The real issue Imo is that it's been the same zones and same keeps with nothing new. That becomes rather stale after 4 years. At some point balancing has to take a back seat, you will always have the babies that die and run to the forums.

New dungeons are cool but no one wants to do the 4 times on every character they have. Thst ends up doing it 16+ times and then helping others.. It becomes a chore and not an adventure.

- turn BOs into small towers requiring capture
- add new siege
- holding BOs should have an impact
- utilize off zones for new pvp adventures
- maybe make a crypt, burrow, scavenger tunnel pvp area.

Those suggestions are intensive for the Devs ti axcomplish but they have done some marvelous work already. LOTD looks to be highly promising.


Its not the class issues. Its the repeatability issue.

It's both, to be fair. When things are fun, I don't mind repeating them. Yet, the game is the least fun in years.

Most RvR new or tweaked RvR mechanics incentivise blob play. I know this is an RvR game, but the campaign and mechanics have been dumbed down so much that it's like watching 22 five-year-olds play football - they're all blobbing in a tiny portion of the field, with the rest of the field lying empty - as well as all the other football fields. It's no surprise that most organised guilds have quit playing, and those that remain are a shadow of their former glory or struggle to field full-guild WBs.

And thus, people blob harder, since when you're disorganised, numbers matter even more. And those who try to venture outside the blob hit a wall, as certain classes are blatantly unbalanced in 1v1 - stealth classes like WE/WH, rDPS healers like AM/Shaman/Zealot/RP, and some abilities like regen just unbalance some of them even further. So yeah, most of those players who want to get out of the blob are forced back into the blob.

1) Make the campaign matter again
2) Tweak gameplay mechanics so organisation >>> numbers
3) Give various game plays (WB, 12-men, 6-men, solo) a purpose again, rather than just enforce blob play
4) Balance classes accordingly

[arcane600]

Regarding 1) and 2): Just avoid these kind of fights and try to pull the fight elsewhere. Care to capture objectives instead either solo or as a small group. Way more effective anyway than to ping pong battle each other eternally.

[live4treasure]

When I talk to people pretty much all of them agree that the fun of fighting has decreased over the last years.

Lets gather some input/feedback here. Feel free to answer one or more of these questions:
-> What do you think got worse? Or do you think it got better? Tell as what and why. Keep it short. What got worse and why, maybe short suggestion to improve.
-> What do you think is currently hurting the overall fun? You don't like pulls or stealthers? Tell us.

Keep it short. Please stay on topic.

------
I do the start.

I personally think that there are some "cheesy" game plays that are really hurting the overall fun for me:

1. Fishing for people with pulls. It's such a low risk/high reward strategy that is very easy to pull off and very hard to counter, granting almost a guaranteed kill in most cases. The pull distance for Maras/WLs is just too far. It feels unfair and not fun.

2. Playing golf with people. Tanks with crazy high defenses walking in knocking someone down and punting it into the own lines. Like with pulls it is a low risk / high reward tactic that is again very hard to counter, almost impossible. Again it feels unfair and not fun.

3. Moral drop farming. This I see a lot in orvr by organized warbands. They wait for their morals, pretend to fall back just to overpower them quickly with moral drops. Again a very cheesy play which can be executed almost every minute. For the casual players just wanting to have fun this feels very unfair and not fun because they keep getting killed without being able to kill anything. Works especially well on destro with their fast moral gains, snare prayer from doks and mara aoe kd.

4. Small scale died off with all the overtuned stealthers everywhere. Nothing to add there. Should be obvious.

There is only one point for me that really made the game better than before:

1. I like the new scenario queue system. Works really well and I think it's the best you can get out of that queue system. Fun in scenarios increased due to more equal matches.

Your turn.

1. Your tank, if there is any light behind their eyes, will keep an eye out for this and taunt the marauder, interrupting the pull. Or slow the lion, at which point if your warband has any amount of dps it is dead in a second.

2. Your tank, seeing the enemy tank close in like that, will get behind their tank, and a) slow them while the dps, who also isn't asleep, sees the enemy tank and moves away; b) knocks them down from behind and punts the tank either into your group to get killed, or away from your group, preventing the fishing strat.

3. Yes, a core difference between a good warband and a bad warband is whether your leader knows how to predict enemy morale drops / set up opportunities for his own and whether the players can follow the warband leaders commands for such things effectively.

4. No comment, not my horses, not my race.

The summary is, the game is good and fun when people put in effort into it. If they don't, I mean, well, they will lose to people that do. If that isn't fun, then I have two things to say:
1) Why is this theoretical individual playing a game that is inherently based around pvp, a competitive game mode, if he doesn't find competitive aspects fun?
2) Even if this theoretical individual's casual (like extremely casual, because what we're talking about is basic things in terms of effort) preferences end up being catered to, you can only dumb down a pvp game so much before it just becomes a joke and the game becomes an oversimplified grey flavorless colorless goo.

There's a reason why more casual-minded gamers tend to play pve games.

[kleinbuchstabe]

ok, i know you wont like that, but:

1. Guard tank issue. A good tank will realize immediately if his guard target is pulled. He will even realize it before, because he can see the incoming lionpet, or the big beam of the mara. So he can just stay in guard range the whole time. Also the healer could react with shields, focus heal, and so on. Calling pulls (or punts) a guaranteed kill shows 100% skill issue.

2. When you see a tank walking in with the intention to do that... how about stoping him? Hes not CC immune by nature. He can be knockdowned and punted as well, and this should be the reaction. Just stop him and destroy the momentum. Its far away from being "impossible to encounter" or unfair. Skill issue. And if they manage to punt, read 1. again.

3. Using morals at the right time in the right place, is called SKILL. Complaining that poeple kill you with skill, while having the same possibilities that every player has, is not unfair. It is, guess what, a skill issue.

4. Since im a smallscale-only player, i can tell you for sure, that stealthers are not even a threat for a smallscaling group. They are feed. Even when an ambush of 3 WE/WH happens succesfully, then they will kill only one player by suprise effect. After that, they got killed. So its a 1 to 3 kill exchange, and far away from any danger. 1 stealther wont kill anything but weak solo players. To claim that stealthers would kill smallscale is ridicculous. Stealthers ARE smallscale! What kills smallscale, are blobs of 24+ players who are chasing solos, duos and 3man groups. And the refuse to play smallscale at all by the majority of players.

-> What do you think is currently hurting the overall fun?

That the skill level of players went down. Why? Because they only play blob RvR and never learned how to play the game properly. They dont know their class mechanic, are bad in positioning, dont know when to push and fallback, when - or even how to detaunt, guard swap and range, and all the other basic things needed to play good. Instead, they blame all and everything for being unfair and imbalanced, only because they suck and others play better. And at the same time they just refuse to improve, learn, or listen to experienced players how they should play to be better.

[lumpi33]

Its not the game play or classes. This post is just an attempt to nerf classes themselves.

It is not. I just want to see how the people here feel about the game. Don't attack me as the poster. Everybody can have an opinion.

[lumpi33]

Maybe there's just a loss of memory going on? All these tactics you mention have been in the game since I started playing (after all zones were open but before forts were introduced, not sure when that is). I've been golfing people on my chosen for a long time, if you don't pay attention to a tank in your midst then it's trouble. And tanks extra tankiness is offset by the extra stats/abilities that other classes get, I don't see myself as more or less tanky (when I'm in bis) than I was in previous bis gear.

And some of these have improved significantly. Morale drops used to be much tougher to deal with. Mara pull has been significantly corrected from when you could yoink people from way over the map (basically while the channel was going you could back away and they could run away and they'd still get pulled).

And some of the things that you probably would have complained about have been changed already. The icd on infernal wave stopped org wbs from insta infernal wave sorc/choppa wbs. The change to rampage removed the slayer/bw wb meta that destro could only counter by not facing it (not saying there aren't slayer issues now, just referring to this meta).

There seems to be a move on this forum to continually talk the game down and talk about some great time in the past. The game is pretty good at the moment on all your points and has improved over my time. That doesn't mean things can't be improved and that there aren't problems but this seems to be a loss of memory of what has improved.

It's interesting to me that people pretend that things were like the are since the beginning.

Abilities and morals are for since forever in the game BUT RoR is still a lot different to how WAR once was. Just a few things that come to my mind:

1. Tanks couldn't block guard damage with "parry". That is a RoR creation to make 2h tanks more viable. It does make them more viable but also shield tanks a lot more tanky since parry is usually a lot higher and easier to block than "block".

2. Not all tanks had large range punts in WAR. They recently added it to EVERY tank in RoR. Now a more tanks are playing golf.

3. Ranged dps was a lot more dangerous in WAR. BW is now a shadow of itself, SW fester arrow also got nerfed a lot. Just two examples. It makes standing in front for the pulling or running in as tank a lot less risky.

4. Healers are now stronger in RoR. They got new abilities and classes like AM/Shaman can heal faster with their new mechanic. This led again to more suvivable pullers or tanks.

5. AoE damage was a lot stronger in WAR and stackable. That you cannot stack certain AOEs here is a RoR creation. So in WAR they were stackable and did a lot more damage. It was the counter play to blobbing.

6. The disrupt rates are currently much higher than in WAR. There was no cheap deft defender in the early WAR, nor was there willpower giving disrupt, nor was there a weird mechanic that wont let you pierce more than half of the targets disrupt.

7. Stealthers got a lot new tools in RoR like instant disappear, pounce and stuff. They are a lot more powerful compared to other class than they used to be in WAR in solo or small scale.

All these things that were added / changed over the years basically increased survivability of tanks and others, increased blobbing because there is less counter play with aoe, increased the power of morals because it's the only damage that strikes through everything.

RoR is a different game. The abilities and morals are mostly the same but a lot of things around it changed that led to a different game. That being said I think that pulls are THE strongest ability in the game and they are less risky than ever these days, leading to very cheesy fishing game play. Same with moral drops, same tanks playing golf, same with stealthers. The changes that were made led to that cheesy game plays.

[nocturnalguest]

I was about to make a post, but most common things have already been commented by Giladar and klein, so i think ill refrain from dropping a wall of text atm.

That the skill level of players went down. Why? Because they only play blob RvR and never learned how to play the game properly. They dont know their class mechanic, are bad in positioning, dont know when to push and fallback, when - or even how to detaunt, guard swap and range, and all the other basic things needed to play good. Instead, they blame all and everything for being unfair and imbalanced, only because they suck and others play better. And at the same time they just refuse to improve, learn, or listen to experienced players how they should play to be better.

This i second. inb4 Only made perfect thread about degradation of player skills and worded it all just perfectly, its literally absolutely the same discussion. Im gonna even leave a link to this gem of a thread here too viewtopic.php?t=59312

However, i believe that Lumpi did great job with this post, i expect tons of cringe and fun in this thread.