Azarael wrote:The cannon changes should be taken only as one half of the whole. They were intended to be a fallback for any failure on my part, mechanics-wise, to split players up through BOs and supply returning. I've adjusted the lock timer mechanics further to this end.
Currently I think no matter how much you try, you'll not be able to completely disperse players throughout BOs and, in a manner of speaking, break the zerg.
Because its not about game mechanics. People will follow other people and try to use them as meat-shields/diversion - no matter which open oRvR game or mechanic is in place. Its about effectiveness in being able to succeed in killing someone.. so unless you roll a fully solo build, or very good risk/reward class, such as a range dps (currently), or stealth-er burst class, you
will follow a zerg in order to be able to kill something and fulfill your role.
If I had to suggest something to help into breaking this, the only thing that comes to mind is if you needed to capture & hold an amount of BOs simultaneously in order to give big rewards -
forcing group of players to split up to achieve an objective.
So in an example lets say you've 4 BOs and you need to capture and hold all of them in a window of 2 minutes (estimate, to give some window for reinforcements to arrive), and you've 4 warbands worth of players in one side, and 2 warbands on the other side.
For the high population side, ideally they'd put 1 warband to capture/hold each one BO.
- The counter-play for the less populated side is that they can send their 2 warbands to one of the BOs - and prevent that being captured/held by effectively outnumbering their opponent.
- The counter-counter-play for the high population side is splitting their numbers even more by having half-warband defending each BO, while the rest will roam between in order to try and assist the BO being attacked as quickly as possible, failure in doing so, will see that BO's defenders wiped and the BO lost/locked, now having to wait a certain time until they can do so again - also giving the less populated side more opportunities to repeat their strategy in another BO all the while benefiting from AAO.
- The counter-counter-counter-play for the low population side is splitting their warbands in 2, attacking 2 BOs at the same time increasing their odds for success, or making half a warband attack somewhere as a diversion (or having their best players in it) while the rest effectively attack the unsuspected BO.
- Etc.
This way I think you'd be satisfying everyone:
- The people who enjoy rolling in organized guild warbands, since they'll more often find fights with equal guilds.
- To the guys who enjoy playing solo and rolling with a pug organized warband still feeling very important in accomplishing the objective while communicating with the other warbands and will most likely meet equal opposition.
- There will be plenty opportunities for ganking in a 6 man or less (& solo) as I explained above the higher population side requires to split up quite a lot in order to succeed. While the gankers and 6 man groups from the zerging side can be on the roaming duty effectively killing off the low population side once they hit an BO.
- A kite group (pretty much 9 out of 10 premades out here) will be useful since they're the perfect decoy in attracting attention while some other group is pushing for a BO, they'll feel like they're not only farming kills but participating into the oRvR to their faction, if the opposition defending the BO gets to thin by sending people to another BO, they could actually wipe them and take the BO themselves being even more effective to their realm and reaping the rewards from the BO itself.
If anything i'd leave Keeps out of the equation as a sort of
super difficult objective, which is the spawn for everyone in the zone (and can probably have a sort-of portal where all the players from the low population side can go to to defend) which is
not involved in the zone locking/rewarding system but if the high populated side still wants to give it a go for some other reason (rewarding very high amount of rp/inf/medallions/titles/cosmetics) they're free to do it at their own peril facing risky cannon/pve odds.
This to me also adds a different flavor to oRvR, imagine back in the day in World of Warcraft that you had your huge cities but you couldn't attack it (off PvP), but in this case you have this super difficult place that if you are strong enough (zergy enough) you can actually take it, but not being part of the general zone locking system reward etc.
So now you can actually boost the defenders ability to defend by a lot, giving the underdog side the help they require when facing higher odds, without being afraid to lock the oRvR into that single spot while also not punishing and keeping the higher population side from their rewards.
So now you've tackled a couple oRvR issues:
- Range being a monster in keep fights.
- Funneling doors.
- Zerg.
- Making BOs meaningful and effectively force oRvR to be about the
zone, not about the keep.
- During low population times, people will still be able to lock zones (even if there is no fighting to be had) - these people shouldn't be punished and should still find a way to progress, even if less due low contribution from kills for e.g..
- Promote communication (promote friendship and encourage people to talk with each other), as I showed in the example above, communication will be key in taking a zone, people will even go in as scouts to see enemy movement (promoting splitting).
- Promote realm pride.
- People will make use of the entirety of the terrain to their advantage, groups will even more often use PvE routes to reach BOs unsuspected.
- Fighting all around, as WAR should be, all the while having niche play-styles such as certain groups preferring to fight/defend certain BOs that its terrain friendly with their play style.
- In my opinion, you'll also address cross-realm in a sense, let me explain:
Its about trying to create a 50/50% fight scenario, even if the populations are 150/50, while having good rewards in taking/defending BOs instead of only in the final zone capture.
While the less populated side in this system will hardly ever be able to lock a zone, they'll still get their reward from attacking BOs, and if they frustrate the high population long enough, what will happen (what always happens in RoR) is that people will start changing sides, but as in the example, high population don't bring that huge advantage, and when population shifts, the impact won't be so big as it is now.
- No snowballing with higher numbers into the objectives.
Of course this is an example and I haven't thought about many side effects that i'd be happy to think over if people indulged me, but yeah.. that's how
I would like to see oRvR.
Azarael wrote:I can't overemphasise that the unintentional indestructibility of cannons changed things quite significantly, and that I expect today's play to differ a fair bit from yesterday's.
Fair enough, we'll see how things do play out this time.