Feedback of AoE Changes / Future Suggestions

[bloodi]

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.

Its not about reading into it, its basically what you said, if you are unable to break zergs, you dont want anything to do with the game. That is ok.

If you cant find anything else to motivate you everywhere else in the game, best is you take the step back, engaging in a holy war to teach the masses "proper gameplay" by punishing them for playing what the want to play will lead you nowhere and will only get more vitriol towards you, this is not a diss against you, is just how things are.

We talked about this, you are not going to be in any book of design for changing the way WAR is played, all you get from this is experience, something to put in your resume that moist people will probably dont even know what is about and lots of anonymous hatred, i surely will not be the one to tell you to stay because you will be loved, even if i think you do a good job.

But look at your replies about how people needs to change mentality and think if you may not be the one at fault in that, when you are trying to tell people what they should like, you have a problem.

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

Sadly is what it boils down to, i can give you examples in other game genres where the simplest game is always the one more populated because after all, is a game, some people love complex deep games where they can improve and grasp all the nuances, others rather play something simple to blow steam off while pressing some buttons, the later group always outnumbers the former by a large amount.

Even though i think this game can have space for both, if you feel like you are unable to improve one while crippling the other, then maybe not touching anything is the best idea.

[anarchypark]

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.

Can it be like this?
to join the warband you have to be in group
so making group will become first step of rvr
it will reduce open wb zerg and break down leading roles to group leaders
then you might see more group plays
give more power to group leaders like locking group in wb so leave it as whole if group leader decide
premade wb won't have problem with this method
and it might force pug wb act like premade, from start as making itself

Open wb is easy mode, root of mindless Zerg
it provides quick rvr access, it happen to be 20dps wb though, they can't spread out with 2 healer or 2 tanks
what's 6dps grps use beside leeching renown ( if renown was shared in wb, they might have use )
managing open wb is also burden, reduce it by giving grp manage to group leaders

[Telperien]

If u think about it, its not so bad idea after all. Base unit as a 6 man, if it has at least tank and healer - leader can join other "balanced" parties to form WB.

[Tamarlan]

If u think about it, its not so bad idea after all. Base unit as a 6 man, if it has at least tank and healer - leader can join other "balanced" parties to form WB.

This would kill one of the coolest and casual-friendliest features of the game. I talk about the option to login, join an open WB, have fun and logout after an hour. Really don't like the idea.

[sotora]

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.

Zerging is only a problem on a "tunnel maps" best example being infamous KV. On more open maps - you can easily punish zerg with smaller group, especially those pug open WB everyone here uses as worst thing ever. You can see it practically everyday when premade(s) mercilessly farm brainless pug zergs.

[Collateral]

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.

This comment is so epicaly stupid I can't even describe it. Did you even think one second before writing this? Players looking for an easy ride, are you kiding me?? How about players that have 1-2 hours a day to play the game, or even 1-2 times a week. Or people that are just not into such hard core gameplay and just want to enjoy playing with more than 5 other people?

'A free ride on the renown train' lol give me a break. When a whole warband kills a 6man or less they get barely any renown, it's laughable. We as a warband don't even bother chasing or dismounting for anything less than a 6man, and even 6mans themselves, unless they engage us (which is so incredibly boring and annoying with the retarded CC in this game I just want to smash my face on the table).

If anything, I would say that your stance on this subject is 'cancer' to the game.

People naturaly converge to form a mass, as is clearly visible on this server, and any other game or real life situation. It's our NATURE to feel safe in big numbers, because we ARE safe (or at least we should be). Aza wants to make RoR a total war game from what I can see, which is kind of wierd to me honestly. Total war games are SO much more simple than this. Why you ask? Well beacuse there is not nearly as many variables to the equation. In TW, all units have base stats, some of them have them higher, some lower, and it just turns into a rock-paper-scissors game. In RoR, you have 4 different classes with different abilities, 2 different factions with different 'flavour' to them, and 3 different subfactions within every faction, each having a different flavour themselves. And on top of that you have base stats. These classes are kinda meant to be mirrors, but they are not. While in TW, you have many (not all) units that are simply shared between factions, it's just on the player how he uses them. And I believe I don't even have to mention the training these soldiers have. Of course it's easy to manouver thousands of people when they know how to do it. By your reasoning Aza, with all due respect, you already assume people have 'military' training, at least a basic one. Of course I don't mean real military training (although I imagine it could help haha), but an ability to obey orders and listen.

People come and people go. Our guild has seen all kinds of players. We are most certainly not the best ones individualy, but we can listen and cooperate. And when you have average/good players cooperating like that, they become a force to be reckoned with. But that takes time to learn believe it or not. And with people constantly coming and going, it will become impossible to have a 'trained' fighting force of the magnitude of TW games you seem to expect.

I hope I don't have to explain this any further, you can see my point.

So imo, this game simply can't become TW Aza, ever. This is an RPGMMO, period. People feel different while playing it, people play it differently. They don't play it like an RTS games, because they are not meant to be played as RTS games. How you should go about changing all this stuff? I'm sorry but that's beyond me. You clearly have your problem which you are set on fixing, but your sollution is simply a wrong one I'm afraid.

I don't want to discurage you, none of us want it. And it's sad for me to hear that you want to give up on this project.

[adei]

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.

This comment is so epicaly stupid I can't even describe it.

You could have stopped there, it was an obvious troll/bait that needs no further comment.

[Fractus]

I'm guessing here, but Aza's main aim as a project is to see if he can improve system design in the long run to = more fun. Not briefly boost in game rewards or make the population bigger directly, but simply directly give more fun to the game-play and directly remove less fun game-play. (the old saying make it fun and they will come)

I also suspect what Aza has spotted is what is coming to the server soon, especially now some folks are nearly RR80, and also what Cegee got exactly right, where in the short term you can revert band-aid revert a population loss making patch, but long term if one side always wins all the time in a 2 sided game, most people migrate over to the winning side, it was order before and now its destro, and before long you end up with one side not bothering to make a warband (this is already starting to happen, see server status T4) and the other sides warband taking keeps all day with no resistance, which is back to PVE game, which is not the fun that ORVR players seek. Either patches or "elite" guild burnouts will create the switch between who is winning.


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So back to Aza trying to get fun into the game, and balance, i'd like to note its pretty damn good whats been put in place so far.

Fun will mean different things for different niche groups, and people have rightly spotted there are people who enjoy different aspects of this broad game and the design it has taken from the work of the development team, so first you would need to assess what those different groups are and their habitual play-styles.

Without data to analyse i would make the below assumption on player types from my experience and noticing "who's online":

1. Highest RR players (130/800 of the population, guesstimate)

Spoiler:

- Mostly long term players who mostly do organised/coordinated SC's with some regular if not daily 6-24 man alliance based coordinated ORVR in primetime mostly.
- Tend to not play low level alt's much or explore different area of the content as much as other player types.
- Average hourly playtime 5-20 hours a week
- Average session time 4-8 hours
- Average class skill level high
- Average tactical and game mechanic knowledge - high
- Length of time active on server 1-2 years

2. Mid range RR players (200/800 of the population, guesstimate)

Spoiler:

- Mostly in guilds doing more ORVR and some SC's, sometimes filling High RR players 6-24 mans and often joining winning open warbands in ORVR at various tiers (T2/T3 merge was genius), likely some of these will have a lvl40 character on both sides.
- Do tend to play alts and likely have a few lvl40 characters. Likely to explore more of the games content PQ's (thank you Razielhell), Lairs, stories, titles etc.
- Average hourly playtime 2-12 hours a week
- Average session time 1-3 hours
- Average class skill level mid to high
- Average tactical and game mechanic knowledge - low to mid
- Length of time active on server 3-12 months

3. Low lvl RR players (470/800 of the population, guesstimate)

Spoiler:

- Usually either alts of mid range RR players or new players to the server, tend to have 1 high level character and a few alts, playstyle is a combination of PVE/SC's/open warband ORVR where available.
- Average hourly playtime 3-10 hours a week
- Average session time 1-4 hours
- Average class skill level low to mid
- Average tactical and game mechanic knowledge - low
- Length of time active on server 0-6 months

So breakdown of play-styles below:

AA - ORVR coordinated/organised regulars
AB - ORVR open warband not really coordinated
BA - Scenario's competitive scene pre mades
BB - Scenario sometimes group together/randoms
E - PVE specialists and lets face it nearly everyone enjoys non PVP content.


And the aim is to increase fun for these 3 main groups and these 3/5 playstyles:

1. Rewards organisation and coordination, not an OP class or equipment or level of characters.

Spoiler:

- For example the fun element for player group 2 in playstyle AA on a 2 hour session is benefiting from having had to put little time in game but still being part of an organised team to win over equal numbers via an alliance warband needing to fill some spaces.
- An improvement here could be to buff hold the line to include parry, thus rewarding further coordination on a tank wall, also prolonging the fight meaning more time fighting, more abilities can be used and therefore more engagement.

2. More engagement as a class and as a party/warband = more fun

Spoiler:

- For example the fun element for player group 1 in playstyle BA on a 1 hour session is entering a scenario against an equal 6 man pre-made and having a genuinely good challenge and close fight, the old "that was a good fight".
- An improvement here if its at all possible would be to have 2 further options to queue for scenario's, 1 as queue to enter 6vs6 only scenario, so limit this to only allow one 6 man party vs one 6 man party, more chance of engaging challenging fights where skill and coordination are also rewarded. Also if possible 24vs24 only scenario, so warband vs warband scenario's, this will also help educate and improve player coordination.

3. Not the same place fighting all the time (Variety)

Spoiler:

- For example the fun element for player group 3 in playstyle AB on a 1 hour session would be joining an open warband in Eataine and following them to get inside the Manor BO and hold inside the door and have a long enough fight to use over 10 abilities and think about what abilities help the team, feeling like they are learning/skilled and part of a team.
- An improvement here could be to add more fortified locations in the ORVR zones, at choke points or on BO's, you always know if you defend Kuvlovs in Praag and stay high inside you will have a good fight, longer engagement and need to act well as a team.

5. Rewards guilds and therefore boost players who coordinate together

Spoiler:

- For example the fun element for player group 2 in playstyle AA is to all have the same uniform and look good and feel part of a team, Ley you have the best screenshot i don't have, yes Bitterstone Thunderers!
- An improvement here could be to restrict any lvl40 characters from entereing T4 ORVR zones if they are not in a guild. This may not be popular but will push players into guilds where communication/leadership, education and coordination are better than without being in a guild, which will help reduce mindless playstyles and increase skill and tactical engagement.

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I feel if you can analyse changes in player retention, and can move more from player group 3 into player group 2, you will have a more stable player base that is easier to balance, and more fun.

More of player groups 1 and 2 in ORVR will mean more ORVR tactical gameplay such as staying on the ground floor of a keep using Magnet/rift to pull groups of enemy down in a keep siege and stopping the enemy healers being able to revive them to reduce the defending population.
Or one warband defending engages the enemy on the outer stairs to hold them in place, while 1 warband drops down at the front door to hit the enemy in the rear and the 3rd warband uses to inner stairs to flank the enemy attackers.
I've seen a lot done but it requires as player retention, and as Grurfarg has said currently people come and go.

Again any data i can help analyse or use I can be, please feel free message me.

[dailus]

Hi to all, my anti "zerg" proposal is quite simple and straight to the point.

Set up a Zone population limit. Like 2 full wb's against 2 full wb's(48 Destro vs 48 Order) this will block in some way the mass crossrealming too.

When that condition reach his max, active the "next" zone. Fill it, go to the next one.
Maybe a zone can be overpopulated for an open RvR Event like the one on Eataine or the one on Reikland days ago. I have been in both and they were great! Grats for that effort to you all!

That way you can avoid things like mass crashes, mass zerging like 4 wb's (without any skill or coordination) killing around any Guild/Alliance Premade wb (Full geared, well-coordinated and experienced on the game), huge lag peaks and other unrelated bugs without mention that the "sieged" realm can be regroup and start holding the bo's, counter attacking, play smarter and retake the zone.

Plus add rewards for all, this can be changed too imho, so each member or let's say 32 of 48 (3/4) can win certain loot if they siege and lock the zone.

Make the aao % increase WAY HIGHER! I mean, if a well capable and coordinated Guild/Alliance wb feel that can stand against more than 40 people, well make them earn more RP from that heroic move and high risk of being constantly wiped.

Release the AoE target limits, no need to buff or nerf the damage from those skills. Just releasing should be enough. That will encourage smart playing to not just stack as a whole compact group instead of manage location, flanking and certain war knowledge.

Make those AoE skills lose like 5% of the total damage if hit a tank and it block the attack... Come on! For the sake of the light sabers... How can be possible that a mdps bypass like of 4-6 tanks block or parry while they hold the line and do the same damage like if they were not defending that blow. This will encourage people to play better as tanks and motivate mdps to aim for the weak points of the group.

P.D. Make some good trophies or rewards to barter for Seals of Domination so players like to be more active on locking the realm and fight harder to make it.

Best Regards.

[roadkillrobin]

The problem with a system with population zone caps have the same problems scenarios have. Wich is that PuGs, 32's with bad gear and random group compositions and much slower communication acessabillity will be paired against premade warbands at equal numbers. The benefit of a open map system is that if the oposition is to powerful, bringing more numbers works as a equalizer. A problem acures when the RVR design is to linear and the entire realm can just go from point A to B to C etz to win. By having muliple objectives thats in constant need of maintanence that all can score a win for the realm you also gona get realm disparsion and less blobbing. The problem is not the combat mechanic of the game rather then how the objectives in RVR dictates a linear progression.

If you go to Page 1 I have sugested ORVR system that stops that linear playstyle wich can be easily modified for different variations of it in each zone so that each zone can have it's own flavour.