Feedback of AoE Changes / Future Suggestions

[Teefz]

It's not about what Aza (or any dev) likes vs what the players like. Zerging is only fun for the side who is doing the zerging while it ruins the game for the other side. This cannot be allowed to continue or the game will suffer.

I agree although zerging is something you cannot fix, ever.
I was a fan of the aoe changes on paper thinking it would penalise players being stacked together which it does however it is also hugely overpowered and pushes players further towards mindless 1 button aoe spamming.
The problem has been greater increased by having just a single open zone and quite frankly i have grown tired having to make the same points over and over to justify having more open zones to fight in, Az is aware of my thoughts as i have pm him on skype (with no response back).

There have been times in the past where staff members have pointed out how medieval combat played out and compared it to war to justify a change or a reason to go down a certain route, now if you look at medieval combat where keeps are the focal point (same as warhammer) you will notice the importance of chokepoints and holding a defensive position to fight against the odds, the current system tries to push players away from chokepoints and into the open field, players knowing the importance of using los and chokepoints will always look to hold such positions to gain an advantage, when they can no longer do so they are open to be slaughtered by superior numbers.
No more do players tankwall outer/inner doors due to postern availability for attackers and oil not functioning as it did on live, now all players do is hold the lord room where a single mdps can wipe wb's with 1 button aoe spamming, this is very wrong imo.

You need to look back at how war functioned on live (pre removal of keep lords) sure it was not perfect but it worked, then look at how to improve that system instead of the current vision which strives for perfection and anti zerging methods in a single zone which i believe will never work, you cannot change players mentality all that happens is players move to another game.

Couldn't agree more. For me, WAR was always about a warfront in multiple areas/zones at a time. I am sure we are all well aware off that the 'one zone only' was implemented to stop people from dodging fights, stop taking empty zones and reaping the rewards - which if I remember correctly, was totally nerfed anyway as the rewards was significantly reduced. I honestly don't see a problem with people checking/taking the other zones.

And before the question arises: But what if people then don't bother going to defend and just stay in one zone and just let the other faction take the remaining zone(s)? Well then that is their problem - if they wanna have a 'epic last keep def' in one pairing, let them. They lost the other pairings and in the future lost a vital part of the campaign towards potentially sieging the enemy city. That, right there is what WAR is about. Tactics n' S#&%!

As far as the AOE changes go? Scale them the f#&% down already.

[sotora]

It's interesting to see people asking what the aim of this change was when it's been explained already.

Purpose

The purpose of this was twofold:

• To make a start on punishing lack of diffusion (aka blobbing) with an aim to spreading out engagements over a larger area, in a way that didn't require new mechanics

It was asked again because such presentation of goal is vague. "spreading out engagements over larger area" and "lack of diffusion" can really mean a lot. What people were asking (I believe) is what is the actual goal described specific in a measureable way. So I will try to be more specific.

So goal would be changing an ORVR from current state in which backbone of it is WB to a sitation in which ORVR is mainly composed of ~6 man parties battling each other in diffrent parts of map?

Situation in which WB is not needed or desired anymore? Cause main reason for WB is to have a blob of people using their skills in a coordinated manner in a same place to achieve fire focus and wipe opposition force that does not achieve this (whether because of smaller numbers, not correct build/composition and/or lack of coordination).

[roadkillrobin]

A Zerg and a blob isn't the same thing.
Zerging is using numbers to advantage, Blobbing is a formation that can be used at any scale.
a 6man melee train is blobbing on 1 player is just as much of a blob formation as doing it at 60 vs 10 players.



I would say that a scenario premades vs pugs, lvl 32's, unballanced groups, with bad gear and wich half the players won't even leave the spawn is a hell of lot worse gameplay then bombing is. Atleast in ORVR the lowbie pugs can equalize it by bringin more numbers. Thats not the case in instanced based PVP.

[Azarael]

You're still missing something. The rewards were nerfed, but people STILL changed zones en masse. If the reward system changes had fixed that, I wouldn't have been encouraged to lock everyone to one zone.

What would happen would be that one side would find itself in a slightly losing position in zone 1, and would duck to zone 2 to reset. Then the opposite faction would follow the fight. Not only was this cancer, it also didn't resolve anything, as the people who are performing fair and objective analysis of what happened with 3 zones open at once will admit that the zergs would just use the zone with the most action.

With the way I implemented the zone lock, it's not exactly trivial to undo. With my motivation as low as it is, I'm not going to undo that lock just so that the same issues which necessitated the lock in the first place can return.

I find much of these discussions with the Dev's difficult as the dev's state opinion as fact and that is often not possible to digest, agree with, or debate with.

The phrasing of an opinion doesn't matter. I can say something like "large scale is ****" and it's still clearly my opinion. If you want to dispute it, try arguing against what I say.

After all, if your stance will be "if you dont let me do this, i will take the ball and go home" maybe the best is to take a step back and let someone else do things.

I knew someone would read this into what I said.

This has been going on since early December, when the patching slowed down. I'm mentioning it because it's the reality of the situation, not because the response I'm looking for is "oh pls aza don't go we luv u we will forgiv u anything". I'm trying my best to find something in this game that will actually make me want to continue developing for it, and that's for my own sake. This project does not depend upon me.

And i dont mind the changes that much, i would just tweak the extreme cases a bit and tie things to the range of the skill rather than iif it does aoe or not. But you hate something most of your playerbase looks forward to play in, despite what a lot of people come here to say, you can see it everyday, is not just the rewards, you can get a lot more medallions/emblems/inf/rr playing small scale, yet they dont want anything to do with what comes with it and rather mindlessly play in big groups around, thats what they like.

There is people who actively tries to find tactics, work in counters, try new setups and the like for warband play and up, a ton of them, you dont like that gameplay? Thats alright, they do, just like there is people who rather play simple stuff and there is people who cant find anything but endless boredom in that kind of games.

The game is what it is, a niche game that attracts people to its various gameplay and so it happens that a ton of them like the simplest form of battle in it.

You dont need to reinvent the wheel, just incentivize playing other aspects of the game and maybe people will look at them but most likely they play zerging in orvr because thats what they like to do and that is fine.

There is no counter to this argument. If that's what it boils down to then that's that, we're done.

It was asked again because such presentation of goal is vague. "spreading out engagements over larger area" and "lack of diffusion" can really mean a lot. What people were asking (I believe) is what is the actual goal described specific in a measureable way. So I will try to be more specific.

So goal would be changing an ORVR from current state in which backbone of it is WB to a sitation in which ORVR is mainly composed of ~6 man parties battling each other in diffrent parts of map?

Situation in which WB is not needed or desired anymore? Cause main reason for WB is to have a blob of people using their skills in a coordinated manner in a same place to achieve fire focus and wipe opposition force that does not achieve this (whether because of smaller numbers or lack of coordination).

Not exactly. What I wanted was a situation in which a warband would have some incentive to fight another warband as 4 units of 6, rather than 1 unit of 24, with the aim being to introduce some kind of tactical movement to the game rather than this mass and charge gameplay.

I would say that a scenario premades vs pugs, lvl 32's, unballanced groups, with bad gear and wich half the players won't even leave the spawn is a hell of lot worse gameplay then bombing is. Atleast in ORVR the lowbie pugs can equalize it by bringin more numbers. Thats not the case in instanced based PVP.

This compares the extreme worst case of small scale against the general case of ORvR. That's not a great comparison.

[roadkillrobin]

I would say that a scenario premades vs pugs, lvl 32's, unballanced groups, with bad gear and wich half the players won't even leave the spawn is a hell of lot worse gameplay then bombing is. Atleast in ORVR the lowbie pugs can equalize it by bringin more numbers. Thats not the case in instanced based PVP.

This compares the extreme worst case of small scale against the general case of ORvR. That's not a great comparison.

And that worst case, happens more then half of the pops on primetime. It's just as much of a norm that Blobbing Zergs are.

[Aurandilaz]

What about opening all 3 zones, but allowing a ram only in one zone? With the possibility of using ST cannons to wear down a door with calculated use of over 10-20 mins of shooting.

And the zones defending Keep Lord has their stats adjusted, gaining power the more attackers are in other zones. Meaning realm should calculate and coordinate properly, if you try place 90% of troops in Praag and 10% to ninja DW, it would be nigh impossible as the 90% of RvR fllagged people in Praag would give insane boost to DWs defending Keep Lord.

[BreezeKicker]

@Bloodi - you're missing the point I think. It's not about what Aza (or any dev) likes vs what the players like. Zerging is only fun for the side who is doing the zerging while it ruins the game for the other side. This cannot be allowed to continue or the game will suffer.

Now this is not true at all. Yes some ppl will have fun and enjoy themselves when they roll over other faction with 3-4 times the numbers, but at the same there will be ppl that find that situation uninteresting at best, disgusting at worst, for them.

Some will actually prefer to face larger forces while being outnumbered, sometimes not even expecting to fully "win" that engagement.

The most likely to participate in zergs/blobs are people which don't have will/option/access to organize themselves. Therefore most of the overwhelming zone steamrolling trains consist mostly of badly comped, speced and coordinated groups [abundance of DPS heals, DPS tanks, and duel speced DPS, as well as ppl just not giving a damn]. And most of the time the only reason why they are such effective is lack of organized groups to oppose them [I m talking proper groups with proper 2/2/2 setup, specs and play-styles tailored to deal with larger numbers]

The real problem emerges when it is several organized groups deciding to move as one massive blob, then you need another ~equally size counter-blob. Those types happen rarely thought, mostly when it is fight over balance tipping objective or when individual organized group cannot handle a situation on their own [or when there is literally nothing left to do in the zone anymore, and one doesn't want his/her 23 man to just stand there awkwardly]. On top of this organized groups are usually easier to ask to spread as you really need to contact 1 person per group instead of several ppl in pug ones [most of them are likely to ignore it anyway].


And yes ofc some of the abilities will have much more value in large scale than small scale, but the same can be said in reverse. You wont be able to have very single skill or tactic to have exactly the same value or usefulness in every aspect of the game unless you decide to COMPLETELY demolish all but one "true" way to play, be it large scale, small scale or PvE or you doing it on the same principle as punt behavior in PvE vs PvP to every single skill to behave differently in every aspect of the game. Without that you need to accept the fact that there will be a cost of opportunity and some classes/abilities will have different uses and impact weights in different aspect of the game.



Speaking of changes.

Current implementation is way over the top and makes AoE play true to its perceived stigma; aka "mindless 1 button mashing while moving forward". What is more keep takes and especially defenses can be decided by 2-3 MDPs suicide pushing at right moment [mainly of ramps, or poster pushes], they don't even need to have any sort of guard/tank presence nor heals. They go in spam 1 button as long as they can before dying, and if they time it right they can wipe out entire attack/defense force. They don't even need to spec into anything [it does help but is not a requirement]

If I had to point a problem with bomb PTs/WBs, it definitely wouldn't be RDPs AoE as most of the pressure abilities are ~30 ft range [aka pretty much the same as MDPs AoE] putting RDPs close to the front-line where they can be brutally murdered and where they need to relay on their tanks and healers the most [no AoE detaunts, core kit root breakers, and overall lesser def capabilities]. A lot of their DMG potential comes from channels and cast as well, so they are much more vulnerable to cast increases/interrupts. Due to using several abilities there are more vulnerable to lag. And don't forget that it only takes 1 enemy tank to HTL and reduce the hit probability by 15% on 9 targets [and one should have anything from 4 to 8 tanks in WBvsWB scale], 2 tanks to bump it to 30%, and cap it out at 45% by the time you have 3 tanks HTLing. That is on top of 20-30 dodge/disrupt rate you can gain with little to no issue atm. Same cannot be done for parry

If anything it would be ease of morale DMG dumps as that is the only thing that cannot be countered atm, but also cannot be removed w/o replacing it with some other means to break stalments. Ay morale dump are used mostly to break a prolonged fight OR wipe a particular group fast so one can focus on another front, or rush to objective.


Some other things

There is one thing that more ppl need to realize as well - most of ppl involved in zerg forces, most commonly unorganized, are not gonna be in AoE specs, esp on RDPs, as they are high risk specs. So no amount of AoE changes are gonna diminish their killing potential as they are using way more ST tools than AoE ones.

And you as the smaller force cannot win with ST if enemy has twice or thrice your numbers as long as their healers remember that they have a res button, you need reliable AoE [coupled with ST to secure kills] to deal with bigger numbers. They have bodies to spare, you don't.

It was, is and will be possible to deal with larger forces as long as the buff/heal system as a whole rewards you for properly planning out your comp. There is no need to artificially force advantage on individual level, maybe hook it up to specific party comp, otherwise you gonna create absurd moments when 2-3 DPS wipe out 24+ without any support behind them.

The zerg wasn't , isn't and won't be the biggest problem.

The true problem is people refusing to form proper groups and trying to reform everything to suit their own preferred game style.

Live and let live, be glad that you can engage in different play-styles without the need to change the game, stick to scs when you want to enjoy small scale, join RvR to enjoy bigger fights or look for similar minded groups in the field, go do PQ/lair if you want to bash on mobs. And if you really think WBvsWB is mindless, maybe try to come with something to make it more challenging/tactical/strategic instead of simply making it obsolete in favor of aspect of the game that already has other outlets to thrive in.

[sotora]

Not exactly. What I wanted was a situation in which a warband would have some incentive to fight another warband as 4 units of 6, rather than 1 unit of 24, with the aim being to introduce some kind of tactical movement to the game rather than this mass and charge gameplay.

While it is better that actual WB leaders would answer that as I myself usually play up to 6 man (sometimes up to 12 man), one of immediate reaction to this is how that would actually work communication wise? Each party having it's separate voice comm and leaders of parties communicating via text? or 4 leaders of such independant but connected parties being in two voice channels at same time? 1 WB leader leading his party and 3 parties that are somewhere bit further away with limited visibility or even lack of LOS?

I just have a hard time to see this work in actual battle. Sure you can split your WB send 1-2 parties to other part of map to cap BO or something but to split in into 4 semi-independant parties that do their independant but connected maneuvers. Like I said propably people that actually play/lead full WB often would have to comment, but I have hard time seeing how this would work.

And this is not even taking into account actual game mechanics, amount of available leaders, lack of places to make maneuvers due to small maps, natural tendency of people to blob up, choke points, etc

But I might simply be wrong.

[navis]

Watching warbands crumble in 2 gcds to my slashing blade is beautiful.

Devs should remove the ability to even form warbands in the first place, its a cancer on the game. The "open warband mentality" of players just looking for an easy ride, safety in numbers and a free ride on the renown train.

I personally think the solo ganker mentality is garbage, contributes nothing to the respective realm's success, encourages no leadership etc.. Doesn't mean I want to remove it because this game is, IMO, all about having a large variety of gameplay styles which mesh (for better for worse) in the 'open' PvP zones.

[Teefz]

You're still missing something. The rewards were nerfed, but people STILL changed zones en masse. If the reward system changes had fixed that, I wouldn't have been encouraged to lock everyone to one zone.

What would happen would be that one side would find itself in a slightly losing position in zone 1, and would duck to zone 2 to reset. Then the opposite faction would follow the fight. Not only was this cancer, it also didn't resolve anything, as the people who are performing fair and objective analysis of what happened with 3 zones open at once will admit that the zergs would just use the zone with the most action.

With the way I implemented the zone lock, it's not exactly trivial to undo. With my motivation as low as it is, I'm not going to undo that lock just so that the same issues which necessitated the lock in the first place can return.

I agree, that the 3-zone-system isn't optimal either at this current state and time, but I believe, it is still better than logging on and seeing that the only active zone is KV f.x. With this current one zone system, the orvr is so very predictable and at times extremely dull. I completely agree that, this is not only the system's fault, but a large portion to blame is the players and their mentality. I would keep this system until client control and more importantly faction lock/lockout timer. Simply because a lot of those cirumstances that makes the zones predictable and dull is the fact that people swap sides depending on AAO, keep def/attack etc.

Overall Aza, we have to give credit, where credit is due and honestly I think that all the campaign changes you've implemented is working and the system functions decently compared to what tool you have at your hand. Obviously there is a few issues/tweaks that needs to be done, but hopefully we will see that with client control.

And just to clarify, I ain't trying to piss on your parade. Hopefully I do not need to tell you or anyone else associated with this project, how many people are genuinely happy, including myself, with what you guys have done so far and we are looking forward to what this new year brings!