During my time on the server I’ve been involved in the warband scene on the destruction side so have that in mind when you continue reading. I've been leading warbands weekly, taking keeps, losing keeps, winning forts, losing forts, arranging duels with multiple guilds and players, you name it. One could say I’ve done it all from a warband perspective.
During this period of time patches have changed the flow and balance of the game, both in a positive and negative way. Every balance change has its toll but can we see a pattern over the years?
I dived into the archives of the forum and looked up all the patch notes since I started playing. Note that below I’ve listed the changes that affected the flow of the game, or the balance of the game from a warband perspective. There are multiple changes that affected both Order and Destruction in different ways over the years, like size of the doors, terrain and buffs to single target damage but have in mind the warband perspective of this post.
If you find any patch note that I’ve missed and major changes that needs to be included here. Feel free to inform me and I can edit the post. If there's any conclussion you can draw from this limited amount of sources feel free to add them to the discussion.
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What conclusions can we draw?
The melee Squig Herder is common in the discussion over the years. It’s an overperforming class that got some tweaks that buffed them and sometimes nerfed them over time. Let’s see where it stands with the latest changes.
Another class that has been a hot topic over the years is the White Lion, but due to its single target potential its changes do not really affect the warband scene that much. With other words, I have a hard time seeing the effect of the various White Lions changes. For example there is a nerf to White Lion's superior slows from 10 to 5 seconds. 1/7 - 2020 (viewtopic.php?f=42&t=39466)
[*] Destruction changes are more likely to be reverted than Order changes.
[*] There are more changes affecting the core gameplay of Destruction than of Order. (Morale drain nerfs, morale pump nerfs, morale damage nerfs.)
[*] Beside the rework of the Marauder it’s hard to find a buff to abilities of Destruction that can affect their playstyle in a positive way. There was an attempt with the Chosens Dire Sheilding tactic but it got reworked and nerf a week later. SH has some changes, both ranged and melee, that might fit here.
[*] On the other hand we can see multiple abilities on Order getting buffed like the build up grenade from Engineer, the new reworked WW on Swordmaster and morale drain on the Shadow Warrior.
[*] When there is a nerf to Order there’s most likely a nerf to Destruction in the same patch. When there is a buff to Destruction there’s most likely a buff to Order in the same patch. Only on a few occasions can we see that a faction gets favourly buffed, this is mostly tied to the reworks. You can see a small buff to engineer and Ironbreaker that lacks equivalent buffs on Destro side. But on the other hand you can see the attempted buff to Dire Shielding and the various buffs/nerfs to melee SH here.
I sincerely believe that the elephant in the room is the 24-man AoE cap that was implemented as a test 19/10-2019. This fundamental change to the core mechanics of the game changed the flow and balance of the game in so many ways. In the end, I think Destruction got the better of it and from then on their gameplay around pumping and draining morale while controlling the enemies got way out of hand. What we have seen over the past years with the changes to various destruction classes, some attempted buffs but mostly nerfs, is the result of a faction overperforming not because they have better classes per mirror, they have better and more tools to wipe out a 24-man blob. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve enjoyed the pace of the game with the 24-man AoE cap and the full damage from morales, but the fundamentals and core of this game was not meant for it.
We are now in a scenario where the devs are trying to change the classes and the strenght of the factions into the 24-man meta and that's a very heavy burden. It does not only limits what you can do with the classes and factions, it also forces the game to be and more mirror based to avoid unbalance. Which in the end leads to the scenario we're in now, one faction feels pointed at and most nerfs are happening to their faction.
What could have been done differently instead of aimlessly trying to change the classes to fit into the 24-man cap meta?
If a 9-man, or 12-man or even a 15-man AoE cap was tested before touching the fundamentals of each faction or class, we would have more information on what abilities that overperformed (morale drain, heavy AoE CC etc) or what classes underperformed (SW, WE, WH). Even a 24-man AoE cap with a 9-man cap for damage morales could be something that helped us find the elephant in the room. Perhaps the easiest solution to the problems we face with buffs, nerfs and unbalance that causes tention between players, factions and developers is to revert the 24-man cap and test some kind of modification of it?
Sorry for any misspelling or patch note misses, it's getting late in Europe.
(Edited clarification of the Marauder changes and revert)
