My experience and review of RoR

[saupreusse]

Maybe you would be surprised how much effort, planning, composition, character builds, movements, and other staff is there, if we talk about serious WB vs WB play.

You are correct, and I recall the days of organized warband v. warband event play and when such dominated the open realm. Those days appear to be gone, leaving us with this current school-of-fish hot blob v blob action ruling open RvR play.

And what would you say is the reason for this? The changes to the aoe cap? The changes to morale pumps? Don't we still have organized warbands? How exactly is blobbing encouraged now compared to the good ol days? It's an honest question because at the moment I cant really put a finger on it.

[Pahakukka]

Maybe you would be surprised how much effort, planning, composition, character builds, movements, and other staff is there, if we talk about serious WB vs WB play.

You are correct, and I recall the days of organized warband v. warband event play and when such dominated the open realm. Those days appear to be gone, leaving us with this current school-of-fish hot blob v blob action ruling open RvR play.

And what would you say is the reason for this? The changes to the aoe cap? The changes to morale pumps? Don't we still have organized warbands? How exactly is blobbing encouraged now compared to the good ol days? It's an honest question because at the moment I cant really put a finger on it.

1 Thing that comes to my mind is the lack of rvr campaing, there is no need to doubles push zones so no need to spread the warbands/get organized. just 3* so enemy cannot siege (because who wants those damn crests anyway) and circle the MS all day long. God help the poor individual WB who even tries to siege and ruin good WC camping.

[Martok]

And what would you say is the reason for this?

There are multiple reasons for this, and in the realm of actual, open debate we have been discussing this for almost two years now. That fact aside for the moment, first and foremost is the steady, progressive, and unending drive in developmental changes over multiple years meant not only to encourage mass-group play but also the obvious opposite, to cheapen small-group play and outright punish the solo player.

It is true, this game is and always has been scaled around a balanced six-man group. It is the essence of the game. The first death-knell for small scale play was the Unified Coin Theory combined with placing City Sieges on a set timer combined with eliminating any actual need to push zones combined with destroying any need at all to participate in City Sieges combined with rendering Forts Pro-Forma combined with promoting the Religion of the God All Mighty Kill Board (Fleas Be Upon Us) which led to the current meta of 'Get Kills Get Kills Get Kills' at the exclusion of All Else which then led to the current meta of everyone just dumping into one zone and dancing back and forth until one side or the other decides 'screw this' and leaves.

That is where we are.

This topic will, once again, be discussed this Saturday, May 31st, on the Tothmonra Podcast. You want to discuss the finer points of morale pumps, please, sincerely, with all due respect, join the podcast and have your voice heard.

Don't we still have organized warbands?

Which proves what? There are exceptions, of course, but predominantly warbands have become little more than tools for players to join and then be absorbed by the blob.

The above comment was not designed to nor was it intended to disparage any player anywhere on the server. I realize a few guilds still run organized warbands. However I am also aware the majority of the time those organized Guild warbands just wind up as part of the blob dancing back and forth attempting to 'get kills get kills get kills' and little else.

How exactly is blobbing encouraged now compared to the good ol days?

Cited in part above. Some years ago a member of the RoR team, one still active on the server, made the comment right hear on these forums that, quote: "We don't care about solo play." At the time solo and small-scale play were both quite viable and the most fun one could have on the server. However over time that simple statement has, in my experience, driven the design of molding of RvR play inexorably toward its current manifestation.

[leondre25]

Don't we still have organized warbands?

Which proves what? There are exceptions, of course, but predominantly warbands have become little more than tools for players to join and then be absorbed by the blob.

Anecdotal but, yesterday i was running with another guilds warband in discord in eatine. we tried to roam around and avoid the big blob fights in the middle of eatine. but eventually we realize there was no point in any of it as we got chased down by at least 2 warbands and ultimately decided to just join the blob. no more calls, no more plans. just run at each others war camps for an hour before some random spawns a ram in a dead zone and everyone leaves.

[Shogun4138]

Bring back skilled play and reward small man groups.

Get city off of a timer.
Get lotd off of a timer.
Make groups hold BOs
Put mobs on BO's
Give six and below groups bonuses. (Warbands are so desperate for kills they will chase a single player into pve for a kill)

[ShadowWar]

Not sure why you truncated my post but when I said a 'high profile' player recently stated the player base at large asked for this (current meta), I wasn't referring to you.

Specifically because I didn't know who you were talking about and didn't know if you meant me, as we had a similar conversation earlier in this thread (that was removed by the moderator it seems).

Yeah, ok. I, like a few others here, have been a participant on the server since 2016. Which means I have witnessed the evolution of the server over time first hand.

Your attempt of an appeal to authority holds no value or weight to me. I have been around for a long, LONG time on this server, and also on live.

Yeah well that system has been tried before and failed. Perhaps this time will be different.

Keep retakes never were. The BO system has been around for a long time, I believe the game suffers more from a lack of understanding the mechanics that make the battlefield dynamic than anything else. Ask any group of players what the Resource Pool and/or shift is, how it effects the game, or what the difference is between turning in resources at the keep instead of the warcamp, and the majority won't know. Those are all things that small man groups can use to stymie and combat the blob.

Perhaps educating new players on the nuances of ORvR play, and encouraging even more systems would be the best way forward.

[ShadowWar]

Anecdotal but, yesterday i was running with another guilds warband in discord in eatine. we tried to roam around and avoid the big blob fights in the middle of eatine. but eventually we realize there was no point in any of it as we got chased down by at least 2 warbands and ultimately decided to just join the blob. no more calls, no more plans. just run at each others war camps for an hour before some random spawns a ram in a dead zone and everyone leaves.

Some zones suit it better than others. Eataine is one of, if not the most, linear RvR lakes in the game. Most fighting tends to centralize around the middle because it has the most opportunity for turns and flanks thanks to all the buildings.

[georgehabadasher]

Blob fights happen because rewards are almost exclusively based on kills. There is little reason to pursue an objective like capturing a BO or running a box because these offer extremely low rewards compared to killing a player. The only time people focus on BO capping or running boxes is if they are unable to reliably and consistently kill players (lowbies and newbies) or if there is no significant enemy for them to kill (organized or pug warbands ranking zones when there is no opposition).

This is also the reason players tend to congregate in one zone and why fights bounce back and forth between warcamps.

For example, if a player prefers small scale fights and goes to the graveyard or manor in Praag, then that player is generally giving up progression because he is missing multiple fight opportunities in the north. Players still do this because player behavior is not exclusively reward-seeking. However, enough of player behavior is reward-seeking that if we want to change blob fights, the incentivization structures in the game need to change first.

A positive example of this is the recent change to fort rewards. They had been bugged for months, giving double ticks of renown and crests. It was easy to get over one hundred crests. It was even possible, with good contribution, to get as many as two hundred crests from a single fort. The result was a PvD train for weeks when Order was chain capturing forts early in the morning, capturing two to three forts almost every day. After that bug was fixed, that PvD train has slowed down and Destruction has mustered significant defenses. I saw Fell Landing defended successfully by destro, and more recently saw the PvD train stopped in Caledor.

[Nekkma]

Blob fights happen because rewards are almost exclusively based on kills. There is little reason to pursue an objective like capturing a BO or running a box because these offer extremely low rewards compared to killing a player. The only time people focus on BO capping or running boxes is if they are unable to reliably and consistently kill players (lowbies and newbies) or if there is no significant enemy for them to kill (organized or pug warbands ranking zones when there is no opposition).

I think this is the main problem but I would phrase it differently. RvR is (or was / should be) in essence a war sim with clearly defined goals. When campaign was killed all such goals lost their meaning. What we have now is instead some sort of "body count"-logic applied to the war. A clear example of this is the fact that well known and organized guild warbands regularly dismount and even chase solo players down. Back on live, dismounting to kill solo or smallscale players meant warning or beeing kicked from the wb as the wb guilds goal was to push the campaign and not rack up kills.

The main problem in my mind is that rvr is gone and now we only have pvp. Ideally, both rvr and pvp should exist. But to achive this some impopular decisions need to be made. The most importent one is, from a reward perspective, to re-establish the distinction between winning and losing in rvr.

[Sinisterror]

Its also interesting that you get 1k renown in party of 2-6 when killing basically any lvl 22 random. BUT you wont get 1k renown(or maybe barely) when you kill 1v3 in Sc... So not even kills are rewarded really when its not in grp. I was in grp ofc because its scenario but it still was pure 1v3.

In Aor If you did kill 3-4 people Solo in sc that your side lost 500-20. Semi Spawncamped but managed to get away and kill 4 people solo, not 1v4 but did kill 4 alone and i got 11k renown and was the highest renown earner in that SC even though i was the only one to kill anythin on our side and no capping at all.

This is how it should be, people say that this is rewarding solo play which is so stupid take wtf : D What is the other option, to stay in the spawn with others? we did try everything before i wandered off to kill.

Also These goddamn invisible barriers are added in all scs so you cannot even get away, all the incentives in this game is to punish the "weak" and reward the Zerg.

Bo guards needed, Sc guards Needed. Bo 3 min capping/defending needed. 10-15min lock when captured. Effect needs to be actually worth it, so if defending realm has 3 of 5 bo's, its impossible to do enough dmg to keep with the ram. But! I actuially would love if we could dmg the door when the ram is in place.

Some of the best memories wayy back was when i melee healed us to victory becayse the door had basically 0 defensive stats. This was 2008 or early 2009. I think we should respawn in keeps if outer door is Up. And we should add Heroic Defender from Aor to keeps! It was insanely good buff that made all heal/dmg crit and you couldnt be critted against, you had like 50% Speed buff(whole realm) there was more to it but this was the way to do something at keep when your realm was way outmatched.

Im generally against gatekeeping BUT imo there should be City/Fort/Pve/PvP Drops that are Rare but great. Every stage in city, Purple/blue bags should give great rewards like jewelries that are boe, but purples should always have Proc Wpns and only drop in city or in fort etc.