Feedback: Smallscale PvP

[Aluviya]

thank you for this post. its well written and you put some work into it, so it must mean smth to you.

nonetheless i had to post that my experience doesnt match yours since sc rework: the amount of close engaging matches, that stay exciting until one team reaches the 500points has increased by a lot (and is not nearly as foreseeable as it was).
gone are the days where this was your typical sad sc experience: one team waiting for surrender at 11min mark after losing the first fight.

since you came back after a long break you didnt have to suffer through these sad sc times, but for me and in my friend circle i hear so much positive feedback regarding scs now. before the sc rework it was "a dark place with rare moments of light".

im writing this to ensure that we dont lose or forget the huge improvement this new sc rework has brought in general.

with this point separated i feel your pain when it comes to the level of gameplay quality you see nowadays, but give it some time, bc ror players are still adapting to these recent changes and also bc new players are trying scs now and yes, they sometimes dont know what they do.

if your main point is this lack of quality in teamplay and you miss the premade times and top performance organized fighting, maybe you would be a great person to put the energy into helping players get better. you are a veteran with a lot of knowledge. maybe write a basic guide on small scale or make a video about it, i would surely read/watch it and pass it forward.
more small scale knowledge would make scs even better and probably more exciting and fun, but please dont let us risk losing the improvements we got from this recent sc rework.

I actually agree with you that the new system does a much better job of putting together groups that look balanced on paper. From the outside, seeing two tanks, appropriate healers and a reasonable DPS spread is obviously a huge improvement over some of the compositions we used to get.

My point is that this only gets you so far.

You can have, for example, two tanks, a WL and a WH in the same group and it looks perfectly reasonable from a matchmaking perspective. But what does that composition actually give you if the WH spends the entire scenario doing his own thing, nobody assists the WL, the tanks do not play around Guard properly and everyone effectively plays as separate individuals?

That is where I think our experiences differ. A lot of matches I see now are effectively decided before any meaningful fight even develops, simply because of how the point system is designed and what it incentivises. Part of the team immediately plays around the PvE/objective route, while another part realises there is no coordinated fight happening and that any temporary objective cap achieved that way will ultimately be lost again anyway. At that point, people either give up or go AFK shortly afterwards.

So yes, the scoreboard may stay closer for longer, and the groups themselves may look much healthier from the outside. I absolutely give the rework credit for that. But neither necessarily tells you what is actually happening inside the match.

That is really the core of my criticism: balanced groups and closer scores are not automatically the same thing as better PvP. In fact, I would argue that the current system can allow experienced players and veterans to farm newer or inexperienced players even harder than before.

A system can put together compositions that look perfectly balanced on paper, but if one side has two or three experienced players who actually assist, know how to play around Guard and understand target priority, while the other side consists mostly of inexperienced players doing their own thing, the result can still be completely one-sided.

Just look at the screenshot above. And that is where I see the long-term problem. We have seen this before: if newer or more casual players repeatedly feel like they are simply being farmed, sooner or later they stop queueing. A healthier-looking scoreboard or technically balanced party composition does not prevent that.

Certain experienced duos or trios can already have an enormous impact on a scenario against players who barely coordinate at all. If that becomes the recurring experience for the weaker side, then eventually you end up in the same place as before: the queue slowly dries up again, just for slightly different reasons.

[Inwaves]

I hope I’m not alone in saying that a healthy queue, with PvE-like objective play making up a large part of the actual experience, does not automatically translate into healthy PvP

Idk why they keep rewardingg ppl to play flags, nobody really likes playing flag, there is no specific way to build your character to capture better, its just very boring and attracts lazy and bad players who want renown so they can gear their character,

Being relatively new to the game, this sentiment was a surprise. In other similar games, objective play is often neglected. But in there, it is actually shunned in /sc chat.

Every SC has a concrete winner side at the end, and objectives that give victory points. So guess these are just the rules of this game are they not? Try to play for a win then. Imagine a game of football, where they don't chase some useless ball and arbitrary boxes (that would be some pve nonsense) and instead have a proper 11v11 fist fight.

True story: we're Order, it's Reik Hills and we're farming Destro at respawn. Thing is, Destro aren't even there at large, half of them are running obj. So in reality what we're doing is killing it with like 12v6 numbers, and losing SC. All three order healers beg in chat to stop this and do obj. Some tank disengages and runs towards flag. And gets insta flamed by slayer player for attempting to "pve" instead of "having content".

And meanwhile we have adjacent thread where they say rvr should be less tug-of-war more sieges.

[guessgap]

thank you for this post. its well written and you put some work into it, so it must mean smth to you.

nonetheless i had to post that my experience doesnt match yours since sc rework: the amount of close engaging matches, that stay exciting until one team reaches the 500points has increased by a lot (and is not nearly as foreseeable as it was).
gone are the days where this was your typical sad sc experience: one team waiting for surrender at 11min mark after losing the first fight.

since you came back after a long break you didnt have to suffer through these sad sc times, but for me and in my friend circle i hear so much positive feedback regarding scs now. before the sc rework it was "a dark place with rare moments of light".

im writing this to ensure that we dont lose or forget the huge improvement this new sc rework has brought in general.

with this point separated i feel your pain when it comes to the level of gameplay quality you see nowadays, but give it some time, bc ror players are still adapting to these recent changes and also bc new players are trying scs now and yes, they sometimes dont know what they do.

if your main point is this lack of quality in teamplay and you miss the premade times and top performance organized fighting, maybe you would be a great person to put the energy into helping players get better. you are a veteran with a lot of knowledge. maybe write a basic guide on small scale or make a video about it, i would surely read/watch it and pass it forward.
more small scale knowledge would make scs even better and probably more exciting and fun, but please dont let us risk losing the improvements we got from this recent sc rework.

I actually agree with you that the new system does a much better job of putting together groups that look balanced on paper. From the outside, seeing two tanks, appropriate healers and a reasonable DPS spread is obviously a huge improvement over some of the compositions we used to get.

My point is that this only gets you so far.

You can have, for example, two tanks, a WL and a WH in the same group and it looks perfectly reasonable from a matchmaking perspective. But what does that composition actually give you if the WH spends the entire scenario doing his own thing, nobody assists the WL, the tanks do not play around Guard properly and everyone effectively plays as four separate individuals?

That is where I think our experiences differ. A lot of matches I see now are effectively decided before any meaningful fight even develops, simply because of how the point system is designed and what it incentivises. Part of the team immediately plays around the PvE/objective route, while another part realises there is no coordinated fight happening and that any temporary objective cap achieved that way will ultimately be lost again anyway. At that point, people either give up or go AFK shortly afterwards.

So yes, the scoreboard may stay closer for longer, and the groups themselves may look much healthier from the outside. I absolutely give the rework credit for that. But neither necessarily tells you what is actually happening inside the match.

That is really the core of my criticism: balanced groups and closer scores are not automatically the same thing as better PvP. In fact I would argue and say that the current system allows experienced players and veterans to farm newbies and inexperienced even harder than before.

You can win with a pretty bad composition if people understand their roles, assist, position properly and actually play together. Likewise, you can lose with an almost perfect composition because nobody assists, nobody has a clue how to play around Guard or basic group mechanics, and half the group has no idea what they are supposed to be doing beyond capping a flag.

thanks for clarifying.
i understand your concern better now.

actually i have barely noticed this until reikland hills and the new talabec sc came up. those 2 scs do actually magnify this "new effect of split interest/behaviour".
maybe it is also a cause of a certain sc design: in some scs this problem doesnt show up, because the pvp objective and the pve objective naturally overlap.

anyways its a new dynamic, which i understand can lead to frustration, but maybe can also birth new sc strategies. for sure things got shaken up, which after all these years of sc stagnation im incredibly grateful for.

my way so far to deal with it: i started to communicate a lot more in sc chat and try to get everyone to play a common strategy which is eg in reiklands either all go mid and kill enemy or split and go for outside flags. sometimes it worked, sometimes i ended up frustrated.

[Narfii]

They've said before they won't do content without objectives (which is questionable).

If we're at the point where the community is demanding deathmatch sc, then I think what's better delivered is an Arena with 1s, 2s, 3s, 6s, and 12s.

[Jajcek12]

[/quote]

A system can put together compositions that look perfectly balanced on paper, but if one side has two or three experienced players who actually assist, know how to play around Guard and understand target priority, while the other side consists mostly of inexperienced players doing their own thing, the result can still be completely one-sided.

Just look at the screenshot above. And that is where I see the long-term problem. We have seen this before: if newer or more casual players repeatedly feel like they are simply being farmed, sooner or later they stop queueing. A healthier-looking scoreboard or technically balanced party composition does not prevent that.

Certain experienced duos or trios can already have an enormous impact on a scenario against players who barely coordinate at all. If that becomes the recurring experience for the weaker side, then eventually you end up in the same place as before: the queue slowly dries up again, just for slightly different reasons.
[/quote]

Its not like it happen only on one side, only for " casual" duno what good players duo/ trio will likely play vs 12 only because they have 8 player who do ussles stuff.
It happen for everyone multiple time, when stack in que with players with whom we know scenario will be lose.
It hits players from verious level of competativnes.

[Bozzax]

You cannot force people to learn by making the game more punishing. Players improve by playing, so give them reasons to keep fighting, working as a team and getting better. Carrot > stick.

[Bozzax]

It is you guys that can teach newcomers not devs

[Jajcek12]

Very nice " power phrase"
But moste of the times those are guildles/pug guild/No name guild that avoid any advice and decide to be "casual"
Those who decide to join any decent community got taking care with advices/addon/support, very quick.

And thats why we talk on forum with assumption that devs will see this problem and perform repairstowards it. We seek toward system change ,not social circles changes.

[Bozzax]

Those who join decent communities usually get help quickly. We’re discussing system changes here, not social ones.

[Bozzax]

What can the game itself do better?