Fun is decreasing - lets discuss

[gisborne]

WE NEED reset server, would be fun and back revert to 1.4.8

It would only be fun for 3 months until everyone finished their new gear grind and you're over your nostalgia kick. You see that all the time with older games.

[gebajger]

WE NEED reset server, would be fun and back revert to 1.4.8

It would only be fun for 3 months until everyone finished their new gear grind and you're over your nostalgia kick. You see that all the time with older games.

It would be way more fun than this mess of a 'balance', forced pve, etc. And not only for 3 months.
Jumping on the bandwagon saying pink glasses, etc is the easiest thing to do.

[Rapzel]

Overall defensive stats are way to strong.

Every defensive stat is weaker than its offensive counterpart.

Ex: It takes 9 itemization points to get 1% defense strikethrough. It takes 18 itemization points to get 1% to all defenses.
Ex2: Main stats give power + strikethrough. Toughness just cancels power, but gives no counter to the strikethrough.
Ex3: Offensive crit and defensive crit cost the same. Defensive crit has a cap (the attacker's crit rate) while offensive crit has no cap.
Ex4: Initiative gives less value than other stats. 100 initiative gives 5% crit reduction = 50 points, 3% parry = 27 points, 3% dodge = 13.5 points for a total of 90.5 points. In other words, it's cheaper to have the individual components than initiative.

You make it sound like offensive has an advantage over defensive. It might be true only looking at stats contribution and that's what you are been talking here.

However. In general it is MUCH easier to gain defensive than offensive. In group play a simple guard alone takes 50% damage off a target and after that you still have detaunt, absorbs, heals, disrupt/dodge/parry, out of range, invisibility and stuff. You have very cheap renown abilities to boost your defense but for example no renown ability to increase strike through. There are also much stronger defensive abilities/tactics than offensive. A shield channel alone blocks almost everything. In RoR it is not easy at all to kill a target of a 2/2/2 group that knows how to play. In warband play it is getting even worse because then you have 8 healers watching.

From what I see in orvr when TUP or Formosa and some others is that they barely ever die and finishing their session with hundreds of kills. Their tanks are almost unkillable. They cross guard, stagger, punt around, holding their morals back so they can always just walk away. Since you can't kill their tanks, you are also having a hard time killing their dps and their healers are so far behind that you can't even reach them or put pressure on them.

Even if they are good players and in BIS gear, it is game breaking from my point of view. Dying is part of the game. When you can't kill them even with much higher numbers then something is wrong. In situations we have right now where the pop is rather low such a warband will just dominate everything and will lead to people switching sides or logging off -> ergo, action is dropping like a stone. Then they switch sides and do it again so basically the pug players are getting farmed again.

This is catering to a minority of elite players and screwing over pugs, solos and casuals in a big way.

What makes this situation worse is that catching abilities are stronger than escaping abilities. Like the snare proc of the DoK can hit you from 100ft away, so everything near 100ft of a destro blob is in danger. Same with stagger or ranged snares. It destroys any solo, small scale play because they can catch you that easy. Guess why stealthers are that famous? They have a great toolkit but most importantly they can escape these situations.

You might think that it has been always be that way. This is only partly true. Yes, the abilities are there forever but the way the game is played has changed. Guilds like TUP farming pugs in such an excessive way, their side switching, the stealther dominance and such has led to a pretty toxic environment. I see a lot more cheesy game play with how they play, how they prevent keep takes, how they optimize their setup for maximum pug farming power (like their SW warband on order, or their mara/choppa kd/snare/pulling on destro). In solo/smallscale you see something similar. Multiple tanky def WEs popping out of nowhere and getting away with their cheesy escapes. THIS IS NOT now the game used to be.

Their softening of the lock out, their crazy overbuffing of stealthers, the weird disrupt changes and such all made that situation worse. People are feeling it but don't seem to know what has really changed.

And btw I also think that the tank and especially healer overhaul made it worse. e.g. the additional heals and faster heals on AM/Shaman just made tanky warbands even more survivable while casuals just getting burst down. So it played into the hands of the premades again.

Guard gives defensive stats?

If you nerf defensive stats, it will make PUGs die even faster against organised. I don't know if you have managed to figure it out yet but skill in anything thing in life is rewarded. In this case if you play better you gain more rewards.

People figured out a cookie cutter build on when solo roaming, regen WE in different forms have been a thing for ages, be it sac stab or whatever.
You think BAL was more fair on live?
You more or less died in the opener of WH.

A lot of changes have punished organised play, driving that part of the community away from the game. When there are PUGs on one side and organised on the other this is what happens. We kept warning you, but you didn't want to listen

[lumpi33]

A lot of changes have punished organised play, driving that part of the community away from the game.

Huh? Can you name a few of the "lot of changes" that have punished organised play?

[wonshot]

While this is not too conntected to the questions the OP is asking, ill still bring this up as I think it has relevant and support the poll.

Alot of the streamers on RoR over the twitch drop event, gave me a good chance to listen in and hear the general mood. The old guard of streamers who have been here for years and decade(s) honestly sounded like they were beyond burnt out. It was just a constant string of complaining about others not running boxes, pushing zones, only kill farming.
The newer streamers who seemed to be more NA based also seem to have slowly lost the smell of new car after getting 80, pushing 100 LV runs, or lost interest in RvR as a whole. And are now streaming other games like GW2, Albion, WoW and whatnot to get entertainment and pvp fix.

That to me is telling. That both the old guard sticking it out, despite hating the state of the game. But the newer cycle of streamers/players getting their first 1-2 characters to 80 and then leaving as the main replay loops are not enough to sustain them any more.
This is purely my observations, and I could be massively wrong. But as someone who watches alot of RoR streams just to see what the community is up to, I found this to be outstanding and very notisable that there is a big wave of unhappiness with how the game is being played. Both between streamers, community ingame and showing in this poll.

Yeah its summertime, maybe other games had new expansions seasons or whatnot. But doesnt that underline the issue. RoR either doesnt get the right updates, or not enough of them.

[tsyuryu]

biggest problem i think is at some point you burn out of playing on the same map over and over, i wish we could move wc around to switch where most of the fight happen or even expand rvr area into pve area

[lumpi33]

biggest problem i think is at some point you burn out of playing on the same map over and over, i wish we could move wc around to switch where most of the fight happen or even expand rvr area into pve area

I don't think it is a burn out issue. Some of us are playing on this private server for 5 or even 10 years without getting burned out.

Things are just going downhill and you notice that. What I mean? Take for example Daewuur or ToShutKidUp. Both are running solo most of the time. Since years. The recent changes to stealthers and dps healers and such made it a lot harder for them to get fights. Tosh is still playing his slayer even while it is at an all time low. Solo play is at an all time low. They are still here but I'm 100% sure that their fun took a hard hit.

People keep saying that "this is not a solo game". THEY ARE WRONG. No Mythic dev has ever said that about WAR. The WAR slogan is "WAR is everywhere", not "WAR is there if you have a group". People who know DAoC also know that everyone had a place there, not just groups or warbands. DAoC was Mythics first MMORPG so WAR is basically a successor.

Some people just like to play solo, others small scale, others like blobbing. It has always been this way. Why would you mess it up for some of them? Yet, somehow here we are.

[westguy]

I think an easy way to freshen the game up without major revamps or changes would be to add more different looking items… it kinda sucks that there are really only like 10 different appearances for all the gear. Everyone knows fashionhammer is the true endgame so give us more ways to look cool while we krump!!!

[kleinbuchstabe]

Again, i can only disagree with almost everything you said...
I will try to explain why, one by one.

You have very cheap renown abilities to boost your defense but for example no renown ability to increase strike through. There are also much stronger defensive abilities/tactics than offensive. A shield channel alone blocks almost everything.

- You were proved wrong with that allready, with the simple math of RR abilities. Also every offensive stat increases the strike through of parry/dodge/disrupt and block. The decrease of armor, resistances, parry etc, are delivered by skills, often basics skills, not even mastery. And if a shield channel would not block/dodge/disrupt almost everything... how useless would it be?

In RoR it is not easy at all to kill a target of a 2/2/2 group that knows how to play. In warband play it is getting even worse because then you have 8 healers watching.

From what I see in orvr when TUP or Formosa and some others is that they barely ever die and finishing their session with hundreds of kills. Their tanks are almost unkillable. They cross guard, stagger, punt around, holding their morals back so they can always just walk away. Since you can't kill their tanks, you are also having a hard time killing their dps and their healers are so far behind that you can't even reach them or put pressure on them.

- You are blaming players for playing good here. You even describe what they are doing right...
Tanks who use their utilities and time their m4 wisely? Healers who heal on max range to not be an easy target?
hm... i would call it "well played". They know how to play this game, thats it.

Even if they are good players and in BIS gear, it is game breaking from my point of view. Dying is part of the game. When you can't kill them even with much higher numbers then something is wrong. In situations we have right now where the pop is rather low such a warbandWhen will just dominate everything and will lead to people switching sides or logging off -> ergo, action is dropping like a stone. Then they switch sides and do it again so basically the pug players are getting farmed again.

This is catering to a minority of elite players and screwing over pugs, solos and casuals in a big way.

- Im sorry to tell you again, but: "When you can't kill them even with much higher numbers" then its obviously a skill issue. It appears that they do everything right, while the Pug blob who never learned how to play, does everything / many things wrong. So they win by skill, not by any imbalance. If they encounter another organized warband with discord, like unreal or whoever, the outcome would not be so clearly one-sided. Cause then they encounter enemies on a similar level of skill and organisation. What will result in an interesting fight for both sides. Against pugs, organized warbands of skilled players are just underchallanged, because of skill disbalance. And the reason why they are dominating is very simple: not enough good players / org. warbands to encounter... only pug fiesta.

What makes this situation worse is that catching abilities are stronger than escaping abilities. Like the snare proc of the DoK can hit you from 100ft away, so everything near 100ft of a destro blob is in danger. Same with stagger or ranged snares. It destroys any solo, small scale play because they can catch you that easy. Guess why stealthers are that famous? They have a great toolkit but most importantly they can escape these situations.

- I also disagree here. There are a lot of escape abilities, imo almost too many
Most "catching abilities" can be defendet. Escape abilieties are just a button press. Juggernaut of every tank, chase of every melee dps, some even with immunity like WL, SH/SL can jump back, We/Wh can jump back with stun, and on top everyone can skill a speed proc with RR points. The only classes without escape abilities are BW/Sorc (at least BW still has a knockdown) and Dok/WP, wich indeed feels a little bit disbalanced.

- For your example of dok snare proc in destro blobs... it would be necessary to have a dok in every group, and all of these doks decide to use the snare covenant. Thats not happening. Maybe only in organized warbands, who have this intended setup and use it as a strategy: But then again, we are talking about skill. In pug warbands, i never saw a chalice dok with the snare cov.

- Stagger or ranged CCs are not destroying smallscale... they are tools for smallscale, f.e. to kill the tail of a wb, or split up a superior number of enemies to kill them one by one.

Im sorry to say that, but what you try to condemn here, all in all is painting a picture of skill issue and the refusal to "get gud".
The only point i would agree, is the increase of cheesy gameplay. F.e. people who only kite around their save-spot like keep or warcamp, and refuse any real fight. Wich would be ok if they are outnumbered, and this is their only chance to survive. But it happens on equal numbers, it just became a "playstyle" wich i find super lame and boring. Please people, stop doing that. I dont expect honor, but lets do real fights and play the game.

[wonshot]

....The only point i would agree, is the increase of cheesy gameplay. F.e. people who only kite around their save-spot like keep or warcamp, and refuse any real fight. Wich would be ok if they are outnumbered, and this is their only chance to survive. But it happens on equal numbers, it just became a "playstyle" wich i find super lame and boring. Please people, stop doing that. I dont expect honor, but lets do real fights and play the game...

Im of the understanding that RDPS premades in a 1-3-2 setup inside scenarios or RvR roaming, started becoming a thing, when objectives lost their importance.
When you no longer need to stand on a the flag in Caledoor woods scenario, and happily give it up to the enemy, then you dont need two tanks for a 2-2-2 anymore and can let the enemy capture the flag np.
Same for RvR. when its no longer a matter of objectively winning or losing, whichever side holds Matyrs Square BO in Praag, then you can easily affort to kite and push/pull gameplay, as the incentive purpose and reason to "die for the objective" is missing from the game.

When objectives no longer matters, then the purpose and a reason to die fades, and anti-fun kiting gameplay is born. Because you no longer need to push into the enemy to win, you can just let them kite into range of your safety near a postern/warcamp. And then turn&burn any overextenders that over chased.

Imho this mindset and playstyle can only be changed via dev patches to the game system.