Fenris78 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 01, 2020 10:39 am
After few days testing without SoR numbers :
- We spend more time doing nothing but trying to figure how much allies/opponents are in each zone.
- There is actually LESS informations and useful intel in /1 and /t4 chats, since nobody want to spend so much time constantly telling whats is going on and what's they doing.
- AAO is by no means a relevant indicator since its the same ratio 1/4 and 100/400. Without a vague population indicator it's not possible to figure how much ppl are in zones.
- Spending all the time flying around zones, playing hide and seek, asling questions in chat for no answers, using our tp and long-cd teleportation options for mostly wasted effort is not fun either.
- Small group play is widely penalized : you cannot take actions without knowing what's going on, and you don't have always a scout (ie. WH/WE) to send and try to pick info for others. All is left to do is either wandering around with fog of war and blindsides on, or logging off of boredom.
To sum it all, since you dont even have info about allies presense (or not) in zone, you cant coordinate anything, you cannot plan strategies, and your reaction time is about zero in case of mass inc, for siege, etc. especially with the new respawn mechanic (wich was fine with numbers info).
Seeing numbers was fun and game was flowing in a smooth way ; is was still unpredictable because you couldnt always tell is opponent were about to siege with even numbers, you were fearing about a siege at any time with uneven numbers.
You could see unexpected turns of tide too, like winning a defense being widely outnumbered, etc. Numbers were barely an indicator of enemy activity, but more of a thermometer of things and what to expect (but not always).
Small groups could actually act by fighting in non-overpopulated zones and contribute with their actions (wich are limited indeed, but nonetheless essential), and they also could join the zerg when it was needed.
So yes it had drawbacks, like being able to see for instance small group of opponent sieging in other zone, where you knew you could easily scatter them with one warband, but it also allowed tactical moves for allied realm like reinforce the siege by sending more support. It was always a double-edged sword, and I loved it (and I think I'm not alone).
Anyway, there is clearly a balance to find if you dont want to see exact numbers in real-time, probably a population indicator like "small/medium/big/massive" for each side and zone, to help figure out where the action is, without becoming too granular and overinformative (thus last months were actually the most fun I had in the game since a long time).