Return of Reckoning

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 5:15 am**

Someone is going to win the zone and someone is going to lose. That's fine. It is a PvP game after all.

What is not fine is that once you reach a certain critical mass on the outnumbered side there is pretty much nothing to do except dodge zergs until the keep falls. And that requires significantly more effort than playing on the inevitable winning side and the rewards for that effort are generally poo even with AAO factored in.

The game could use some set of mechanics that give the losing side some sense of agency and rewards commensurate with the pain they have to endure getting zerged down by multiple warbands.

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 5:22 am**

Garamore wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 9:27 pm If people spent more time joining active guilds with good leaders and less time whining on forums there would be more wbs in the lakes and better balance.

Active guilds with good leaders does not recruit certain careers on Order, for the reasons everyone know

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 6:25 am**

Again

1. Open up all zones
2. Make attacker lock by controlling all objectives and keeps thus split zerg (x minutes and reset if bo is lost)
3. Tone down solo classes we/wh by removing the extra stealth elixir

Profit as a small force isn’t limited to stand in one predetermined spot and be steamrolled

Profit as 1-3 players of multiple classes can successfully guerillawarfare

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:25 am**

There are actually 2 zones, but 95% of population plays on the same one. I don't see what opening a third one (or all areas why not) could change to this, unless promoting pve door.

Reasonning the game from the perspective of the reward : Well how many millions of warcrest could be enough to find being zerged pleasant ? But going this way would lead to a game were losing becomes more attractive than winning. Strange concept. In the opposite, reducing the reward level to the number of players in the winning faction might make sense. But this remains questionable and probably abusive(denial of victory strategy, loser disconnect just before lock : winners wins nothing). Reasonning a game from the perspective of reward leads nowhere. Or, a slot machine is the must in terms of gaming and the solution to all problems.

This said it has been tested, defenders were better rewarded if they were able to avoid fortress defense > XRealm to the "losing" side, and no more fortresses. A nice ping pong game :p.

Buffing underdogs : This would be interesting at some point, but unless you consider everyone is the same perimeter at the same instant, such kind of solution becomes disputable too. Imagine 200 destros vs 5 orders at martyr square in praag and in the same time 3 destro vs 8 orders at south cemetary. Even i could understnad the buff at martyr square, i don't see the motive at cemetary. So unless you introduce a AAO based on your very close environment (and you would know at instant T there is an ambush somewhere, or a group of WH/WE), it becomes unfair too and leads to an avoidance strategy. Not solving the imbalance of factions. Not saving the losing faction to lose.

Imo, and unlike live, the game should offer to players a large scale of options. It involves a drastic reduction in supply drops on kills (cause actually there is no reason to hold a BO to generate supply, it goes faster to fight on a straitgh line between WC for that), a dynamic objective Battle mechanic, influencing the campaign at any time during it. As an exemple, there is one option faction choose depending the situation : how to lock an area. Now IF those objectives had a real impact and a vital interest (generate supplies, random or specific buff/debuffs, dynamic impact during siege (a bit like fortress phase 2), If a dominated faction was able to retake a lost keep, IF guilds were strongly involved in campaigns... maybe ("maybe") the Xrealm would be something less attractive for some. But even if. Who can say if it would solve the imbalance? i don't think so. It would force to split population on a specific area Under penalty of losing or getting bogged down, but are player ready for this ? Nothing is less sure. But hey... remember the waithammer concept. Full wb waiting under a BO for a 1 renown point every 5 seconds.

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:53 am**

agemennon675 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 5:22 am
Garamore wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 9:27 pm If people spent more time joining active guilds with good leaders and less time whining on forums there would be more wbs in the lakes and better balance.
Active guilds with good leaders does not recruit certain careers on Order, for the reasons everyone know

Its always been that certain classes make the best groups/wbs. If leaders don't recruit to that then you will have a harder time against one who does. If you want to play the weaker classes then you will find it harder to win and people just need to accept that. Yes the devs could change stuff but then we would just swap to whatever is the new meta and do that. People need to be flexible with that classes they play to get that balance.

A lot of the whining on here and discord is people bringing a spoon to a gun fight and wondering why they lost.

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 11:32 am**

Garamore wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:53 am
agemennon675 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 5:22 am
Garamore wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 9:27 pm If people spent more time joining active guilds with good leaders and less time whining on forums there would be more wbs in the lakes and better balance.
Active guilds with good leaders does not recruit certain careers on Order, for the reasons everyone know
Its always been that certain classes make the best groups/wbs. If leaders don't recruit to that then you will have a harder time against one who does. If you want to play the weaker classes then you will find it harder to win and people just need to accept that. Yes the devs could change stuff but then we would just swap to whatever is the new meta and do that. People need to be flexible with that classes they play to get that balance.

A lot of the whining on here and discord is people bringing a spoon to a gun fight and wondering why they lost.

Imagine such day when any ofleaders will not online. No Garamore, Ocara, Zorbax or Grufrip, Bombling, Rolgrom & Ninjagon.
So what all of 300-400 people will do? Looks like they completly brainless ,willingless mob who cant take any initiative.
Really RoR is on such stage where, only leaders , organisation, waarbands, discord is mandatory to have fun?? is that the one proper direction for game ? When server will be closed because "no leader on-line"?

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 2:41 pm**

Today I had a fight 2 groups order against 2 groups destro...only 4 from destro fight. The rest only looking. After this, every side goes their ways. There is nor more to say.

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 3:43 pm**

Spoiler:

Yaliskah wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 9:25 am There are actually 2 zones, but 95% of population plays on the same one. I don't see what opening a third one (or all areas why not) could change to this, unless promoting pve door.

Reasonning the game from the perspective of the reward : Well how many millions of warcrest could be enough to find being zerged pleasant ? But going this way would lead to a game were losing becomes more attractive than winning. Strange concept. In the opposite, reducing the reward level to the number of players in the winning faction might make sense. But this remains questionable and probably abusive(denial of victory strategy, loser disconnect just before lock : winners wins nothing). Reasonning a game from the perspective of reward leads nowhere. Or, a slot machine is the must in terms of gaming and the solution to all problems. This said it has been tested, defenders were better rewarded if they were able to avoid fortress defense > XRealm to the "losing" side, and no more fortresses. A nice ping pong game :p.

Buffing underdogs : This would be interesting at some point, but unless you consider everyone is the same perimeter at the same instant, such kind of solution becomes disputable too. Imagine 200 destros vs 5 orders at martyr square in praag and in the same time 3 destro vs 8 orders at south cemetary. Even i could understnad the buff at martyr square, i don't see the motive at cemetary. So unless you introduce a AAO based on your very close environment (and you would know at instant T there is an ambush somewhere, or a group of WH/WE), it becomes unfair too and leads to an avoidance strategy. Not solving the imbalance of factions. Not saving the losing faction to lose.

Imo, and unlike live, the game should offer to players a large scale of options. It involves a drastic reduction in supply drops on kills (cause actually there is no reason to hold a BO to generate supply, it goes faster to fight on a straitgh line between WC for that), a dynamic objective Battle mechanic, influencing the campaign at any time during it. As an exemple, there is one option faction choose depending the situation : how to lock an area. Now IF those objectives had a real impact and a vital interest (generate supplies, random or specific buff/debuffs, dynamic impact during siege (a bit like fortress phase 2), If a dominated faction was able to retake a lost keep, IF guilds were strongly involved in campaigns... maybe ("maybe") the Xrealm would be something less attractive for some. But even if. Who can say if it would solve the imbalance? i don't think so. It would force to split population on a specific area Under penalty of losing or getting bogged down, but are player ready for this ? Nothing is less sure. But hey... remember the waithammer concept. Full wb waiting under a BO for a 1 renown point every 5 seconds.

I'm by no means a veteran player, but in my opinion and experience drastically increasing rewards for playing outnumbered would at least tackle the current issues if not solve them entirely. Even 2-3x, maybe even 4x times what you get from AAO now, plus, maybe, some additional crests. The reason why I feel this way is because, even though I'm not a veteran player myself, I've played with more experienced players and I know for a fact that there are players out there that can find a way to play most situations in game. I've played in small groups with Slayers that know how to play at the outskirts of a 2x WB blob, poking and prodding, harassing, and getting kills while doing it. I've been in situations where small group of 6 in the right geography (say water+some LoS) can successfully engage WB+ force and if not outright always win, then throw the bigger force in such disarray that with a little assistance it can be wiped. I've been in doomed keep and fort defenses where if people organize themselves in a properly and are reactive, they can hold off a vastly superior force. And I've tagged along with organized WBs that consistently seek out difficult fights and consistently win them.

I'm sure other people also have similar experiences. The problem is that aforementioned modes of gameplay require skill, experience, but most important of all - focused effort, engaged mode of playing. The current incentive system, however, doesn't reward it sufficiently. Not only because playing disadvantaged situations is risky and therefore inconsistent, but also because if you do fail, you are not rewarded at all. And so, the majority of players understand this either intuitively or explicitly, and flock to creating and playing situations that are efficient and safe (=overpop and zerg, winning side xrealming being a sub-case of these), which, in turn, leads to formulaic and stale gameplay for everyone. I am sure if the rewards for seeking out creative, risky and engaging ways of playing the game were better - way better than they are now -, not only more people that already know how to do it would engage in them, but also more people that are just discovering the game would try to give them a chance and learn how to play in that way. And, thus, there would be a viable alternative mode of playing the game for both experienced and new players and, with that, the prevalence of issues that stem from mass blobbing would be mitigated (exactly because more people would see it as viable to not blob; see that it is not hopeless; that, in fact, there is something that they can try to do even if it is risky and, that if they succeed, the effort it took to execute it will be well - maybe even better - rewarded).

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 3:47 pm**

Bozzax wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 6:25 am Again

1. Open up all zones
2. Make attacker lock by controlling all objectives and keeps thus split zerg (x minutes and reset if bo is lost)
3. Tone down solo classes we/wh by removing the extra stealth elixir

Profit as a small force isn’t limited to stand in one predetermined spot and be steamrolled

Profit as 1-3 players of multiple classes can successfully guerillawarfare

I think #3 is one of the biggest, underappreciated mistakes the development team has made. I'm not 100% convinced of this conclusion, but I've definitely noticed a dearth of soloers and small group play since coming back to the game, and I think this theory has some explanatory power and I'm curious what others who have played on the server since its inception think.

No one worries about WH/WE imbalance because they're very well-tuned in group settings, but a short perusal of the accumulation buffs they've received for solo play over the years is startling. The fact that they're so overtuned, especially in escapability, discourages other classes from soloing. Even if another class is beating the WH/WE, it's extremely hard to secure a kill, unless the WE/WH overcommits or makes a mistake. This leads to fewer soloers (except WH/WE).

In a rough analogy to an ecosystem, fewer soloers means less food for the next biggest fish - i.e., the small groups. Small groups used to get some free renown from killing soloers, earned some renown from fair fights with other small groups, and became renown pinatas for larger groups. Now, they run into almost no soloers, making it less attractive. That leads to fewer small groups and a negative feedback loop. Fewer small groups means less food for full groups. And so on and so on, all the way up the food chain. In short, the strength of WE/WH solo has poisoned the whole food chain. One of the reasons the game has a population crisis.

For those interested here's an incomplete list of all the buffs that WE/WH have received. I've listed the name of the patch note thread.

Spoiler:

Some highlights include:
-A charge that doesn't break on ability use (unlike any other mdps charge).
-Their range snare becoming unavoidable. (Listed as experimental but never reverted)
-Multiple attacks made undefendable.
-Their 100% disrupt ability changed to also block dots already applied. (unlike any other 100% avoidance ability)
-Their self-punt made undefendable and stagger duration doubled.
-Stealth duration removed.
-Sever blessing changed to build bloodlust/accusation.

Posted: **Fri Dec 08, 2023 3:52 pm**

There is plenty of precedent to the 'dynamic impact' as you refer to it. DAoC did the exact thing as I recall. Heroes of the Storm has objectives that operate in the same way, designed to make up for a gap in man-power or just player power at a given moment.

You are also worried that it would be hard for the game to accurately read number differences. I agree with this, though I think that just operating from SoR numbers is accurate enough; however, the 'dynamic impact' systems (probably) don't need to care about player population. Control the objective for x amount of time and you can reap its benefit. The time factor is what is important here, because a zerging force will be forced to deal with it within a few minutes or will be forced to play against it on the battlefield. Players will solve that themselves.

A. Zerging force reacts to 18 man on opposite side of the map controlling BO which will summon Karl Franz to the battlefield. Option 1 is to send a portion of their numbers to deal with it, leaving AO (Area of Operation) Alpha with a smaller force, which is potentially fightable for the undermanned side. Option 2 is the entire force tries to migrate to AO Beta where the objective is and their heels are nipped at as they leave, either causing them to be too late or sacrifice a fair amount of their forces on the way as an opportunity cost.

B. Zerging force doesn't react and simply has to plan to fight Karl Franz and his platoon of Gryphons as well as the enemy force.

Even more importantly, there is an overwhelming precedent in real world history, it's called Guerilla Warfare, something that has been studied deeply in Military Science. Guerilla Warfare has time and time again proven that an Overwhelming Force isn't quite so overwhelming. A lot of what the 'elite' players do when fighting against a much larger force is Guerilla Tactics. Ambush, fight when there is extreme tactical advantage, bait the enemy into traps and mistakes, use the environment. If you then take out 1 or 2 warbands, you've evened the scales and can then wipe what remains, we do it all the time.

In this example, think of 'dynamic impact' as part of the environment.

Return of Reckoning

Xrealming has completely ruined this game

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