The Destro Attitude

[Luuca]

I won't call the warbands of Order on the server taking Keeps and farming renown with little to no opposition the Z word. They are using an in-game utility; the Warband, to do exactly what the Warband is supposed to do. The fact that Destro does not do the same is the issue. What we need to figure out is WHY.

What follows is my opinion of why Destro fails at ORVR. It all boils down to one thing - Attitude.

Destro takes the attitude that Orvr should be small group orientated and anyone who runs with, runs in, or leads a warband is a zergling baddie. Order seems to have figured out that it's part of the game and has no real issues with Warbanding up to get'r done. In fact, Order wears it's large group dominance like a badge of honor. They are literally proud of their ability to come together and dominate Destro. They have some amount of realm pride, community, or at least a willingness to work together.

As a Destro player, I can tell you that attempts to get some of the more skilled and active players to coordinate their 6-mans into a warband setting and take the WBvWB fight to Order in the lakes has been met with, and these are quotes;

"we don't zerg"

"Pug Order would quit after the first wipe and our 4 premades would be left with nothing but empty keeps to take."

"just stick to scenarios instead of hitting (your) head against a brick wall"

"even if u do manage to gather 24 "decent" players, guilds like Orz and Warbuddy will destroy you in seconds like they did back on live"

" I honestly feel like.. ..when we run around with 8 - 9 people it's too many. It makes 6v6s into 9v6s and we just roll over them with numbers. It makes fun fights harder to find"

IMO, this attitude is what's making Orvr into the one-sided nightmare it is now when I play the game. Destro's unwillingness to form a warband using the level capped and skilled players is only the tip of the iceberg. Newer players just into T2 try and form warbands and go out into the lakes to fight/xp/renown only to get massacred by Warbands full of lev capped RR30+ players. That sets the tone for how they view Orvr now and when they hit level cap - creating a generation of players who only run SCs and avoid ORVR.

It's not just Orvr, it's scenarios as well. We run a 2-3 man guild group and get a few decent pick up players to join in a 5 or 6 man SC group most nights. Well, recently, we are seeing dual premade SCs by Order. Again, not saying it's wrong or bad or anything other than great planning and strategy. What do you think happened when I tried to get two Destro 6-mans together to counter the Order double premade? It was like herding squirrels. They didn't want to wait, they left group, they bitched about his, they bitched about that, they didn't want to use voice coms. Some of them just wanted to que, run in, die, rinse, and repeat like idiots.

It was so bad, for the first time since I started playing, I wasn't having fun. I just logged out.

The attitude among the Destro players who could make a real and tangible difference in ORVR is that ORVR is for mindless zerglings and beneath them. If that's the attitude you take, and you want to play the game your way, that's fine, but you can't have that attitude and be successful in this game IMO. The 6-man roaming group is a byproduct of a successful Warband versus Warband environment. Without a main force to meet the opposition head-on, your 6 man will have to do it. That said, many of these 6-man only are the ones begging for AAO. IMO AAO only serves to justify and reinforce their position that Warbands are somehow beneath them.

If the majority of the decent players on Destro feel that warbands are beneath them, then Destro will never have a shot at a successful push in Orvr. Orvr is supposed to be the focus of this game.

I submit that the Dev team should not implement AAO and reinforce the 6-man mentality for ORVR.

I submit that the "OLD" Orvr system was better in that it allowed both the Warbands and 6-mans to "do their thing" and pick and choose their battles. Have a lowbie full Warband and don't want to fight a lev cap warband? Fine. Have a 6-man and want to take on a warband? Fine. Move to the other zone and force Order to follow? OK. Fight at the Skaven tunnels? OK. Did empty keep takes happen? Yes, on both sides. DO keep takes happen now? Yes, for Order.

If you want Open RvR again, you must open up two zones. If you do, the warband that gets wiped will at the very least have the option to go take BOs or try to take the Keep in the alternate zone. As it is now, any semblance of a warband Destro manages to scrape together simply disbands once it wipes. Why? because the players know Order's larger, better organized Warband will simply keep wiping them over and over again until Order locks this zone, and the wiping moves to a different zone. There is no other option or hope.

As it stands now, Destro does not have (nor has it had) a real warband online at any time I've been playing, since the "Great Destro Zerg" of 2105 - 2+ weeks ago. The current system forces all to one area, and kills ORVR for one side or the other. Really, it kills it for both. I believe any order player will tell you he'd rather fight than farm keeps.

OK.. here's in reply to all the responses before you even get started..

"But Luucca, you only run a 6-man, you are part of the problem."
A: Yes, I like to run SCs and Orvr in a 6-man. I truly feel that if Destro could get a solid warband going every night I'm on, it would help facilitate the tactics and strategies my 6-man uses in ORVR. Yes, I'm selfish. I only want a successful WB to help my team out.

"why don't you lead a PuG warband if you want a warband so much?"
A: I tried. Destro players have lost all hope of having a successful warband. Once it wipes, it's over. Players leave the warband in droves. I've tried to convince the active guilds with good 6-mans to WB-Up with me and take the large scale fight to order, and their replies to this are the reason for this post.

TL:DR; Destro is demoralized in ORVR and has an attitude of "WBs are for zerglings" or of "It's pointless". Going back to a multi-zone ORvR system will allow for lessor warbands and 6-mans options as to where and when to fight as well as force the larger force to either play musical Keeps or split their larger force to cover more ground.

[OldPlayer]

Very interesting post. What is your estimation of Xrealmers mentality?

[Soulcheg]

Nerf xrealmers, buff Luuca.



I'm with Luuca at this, btw, for the time i've played since beta - i saw many times that attitude. Nothing good can it bring to Destruction's younglings.

[Luuca]

Very interesting post. What is your estimation of Xrealmers mentality?

I don't believe that Xrealmers are malicious, only greedy and selfish. I believe that they most likely have a favorite class/character that they WOULD play if they felt it was a level playing field, but justify Xrealming because they believe the playing field to be slanted.

IMO most Destro players who are now MAINing on Order do so because they have lost any hope of a successful Destro ORVR effort. They have taken that dispair and justified leveling/playing their Order characters. It is still fun to "win" even if the competition is weak, and the rewards for PVE in ORVR are the same whether you earn them or not - so they get rewarded. Getting rewarded for ORVR is something Destro hasn't had since the afore mentioned "Great Zerg of 2015" even then, their rewards were removed. IMO this event, and the changes to ORVR zone locks set the stage for situation we are in now.

[chozen]

TLDR. A larg amount of players play both sides (not me). You speak of destro as if they are different people from the ones that play order yet they are the same. Plain and simple, people play for fun, if they get zerged over and over then it's not fun.
Something to think about: This is still alpha,There is no reward for fighting overwhelming odds, we are capped at rank 26 so your limited on play styles, class balance is off due to some classes being OP at this lvl, gear is also lacking due to lvl cap, if order players are bored of RVE then roll destro to balance t2 out. If RVR is crap the I que up and pve while I wait.

[Stinkyweed]

I'm a one man wolfpack!

[Azuzu]

We each like different things, that's what makes to world and our little world within a world (WAR) interesting.

Personally, I don't like to run in a really large group. I prefer, DAoC 8v8 style roaming groups. Not everyone got to experience that, so not everyone know how much fun that can be.

I don't think people who run with a huge Warband are bad players. Some people really enjoy the massive large scale fighting that comes with huge Warband vs Warband conflicts. They just have different taste.

I also don't care about taking objectives, especially undefended ones. That's because I play to find good fights. The only reason I like taking a BO or Keep is if I think it will lead to a good fight. Taking a keep doesn't mean much to me, I don't feel a sense like I won if we take a keep from it's defenders. I get my kicks from beating another good group in open field 8v8 (6v6).

That doesn't mean you have to play like I do or like what I like.

[wender88]

I find this post very interesting and striking.
I do very much agree on the part about only having one zone open at a time. I fully understand the desire to "force" people to RvR, but when the lake is dominated in the scale it is atm (and the moral of destruction non excistent) there is nothing to do, other than guarding the mailbox or queue for SC's.

[Abolition]

Attitude is a huge factor. Yesterday when we were trying to secure the BOs to attack the keep and Order started "burning" a BO across the map.

Destro decided to stay at the BO to get their "tick" and as a result missed out on recapping the BO by about 45 seconds (after numerous Destro people basically pleaded in chat that they needed to sacrifice their one tick to kill some Order and get a different tick).

I never played Order to the extent of pugging in ORvR, so I cannot comment on the attitude there, but on Destro side pugging has always had a "childlike" mentality with no vision anything greater than themselves.

[Coryphaus]

Thier is a lot of truth is this op it's not even funny

This terrible 1 lake system needs to go, we need atleast 2 of the 3 lakes open