Do AoE Caps need a Rework? 24/All

[b00n]

Hello,

talking about RvR on a large scale, especially the so often discussed battles for keeps and forts, I would like to address a problem with the strength of the currently implemented aoe caps.

Background:
Currently there are 2-24 caps and there are "all" within a certain range.

Examples:
24-AoE: Slayer ability Flurry with Tactics is increased to 24.

unlimited-AoE:
Slayer ability ImpendingDoom: "...deals xxx damage to all enemies within 30 feet."


Problem:
There are abilities that scale with the number of enemies, and others that are set to static values.
The static values are probably the intended values for design reasons, while the unlimited variant is a design flaw to me.
While with small server population the values work fine, here we get a serious factor when the player count grows.

I conclude that the unlimited ones should be limited to 24.
Mainly because there are only some classes and skills that benefit from this, while others don't have such options at all.

Regards

[Omegus]

The unlimited/unspecified ones are 24 people. Flurry is singled out because the tactic changes the ability from a smaller AOE (3 people) up to 24 (the main cap).

[madrocks]

Aoe cap was increased back in Fall 2019.
That should have never happened.
It just caused zergs to be more punishing and threw all kind of unbalance into the already bug infested ability system.
Aoe cap of max 9 targets was appropriate and needs to be brought back on the table.
One might argue with a lower aoe cap balanced warbands might not collapse, that is true, but the removal of aoe anti-heal mechanics and moral bomb nerf are to blame for it.
Sadly I know there are some stubborn figures behind the curtains, that don’t even play the game, putting up quite a resistance to this argument.

[Tesq]

In my opinione - YES - it was a big mistake.

the original inention of the aoe increase to 24 was to allow to coutner the zerg....flawed logic which can be debunked with a simple example.

A wb vs B and C wb

9 cap example
A wb aoe can hit 9 ppl B and C aoe can hit the same 9 ppl if you position well. This mean your positionin can allow you to soak dmg if you are inside the aoe range even with all wb; since 8 tank and 1 (def)melee will fill the aoe cap.

24 cap example
A wb aoe can hit 24 ppl B and C aoe can hit the same 24. This mean your positionin won't allow you to soak dmg because if you are inside the aoe range 8 tank and 1 (def)melee wont fill the aoe cap

Thus this was a mistake, a change pushed by bad wb leaders and someone who didnt play extensivly in live.

In live there was no aoe cap and was the reduced to 9..... Now , or everyone was drunk when this was done or someone here made a mistake big time.
This change also made worst the funnel sich....and not only the open fight sich which they would require 2 diff balance... In live block door was a viable strategy...

[wonshot]

Some of the arguements against the increase in aao cap, act as if the zerging wasnt bad back then (pre 2019). Even when you had acces to morale bombing without the Morale-per-sec-barrier and aoe healdebuffs on demand the zergs were still a massive issue. It was very very rare you could actually zergbust back then. Yes it was slightly easier, but for the reasons mentioned above, not because of the AAO cap was 9.

The downside of a smaller aao cap, is that people can hide in their zergs and expect the incoming aoe damage to get spread around in the realmmates you are hiding inside and thus creating a safety in numbers. Now imagine how this would feel if AAO cap was returned to 9, with no aoe healdebuffs and no moralebombing

Healers in citysieges and topend warbands right now can keep up with a 24aao cap, this is why the Staking ability was introduced for citysieges so that a snowball effect could occure when evenly matched warbands would clash, because of how fast and potent recovery is in this state of RoR. If 24aao cap was so insane as people make it out to be, why are noone going with 4 aao groups instead of 1-2 Singletarget groups(?) Because aao is manageable. Even that brief window of time were aao cap was increased and without morale limmitation stacking, players started doing counter-healbombs with Syphon and could manage the aao cap.

Dont get me wrong, id really like for some zergbusting tools, or mechanics to actually make the orvr action to spread out over Battleobjectives. But I truthfully dont see what reducing, or increasing for that matter, the aao cap would do.
This game has one natural aao cap, and thats all it needs: Collision. There is only so many Blackorc models you can fit into the range of a 30ft aoe ability after all.

Ironicly enough the only real zergbusting tool in the game right now, is aao canons as they scale based on number of targets hit. Want their aao cap reduced too?

[madrocks]

I agree Tesq, the examples you point out are simple and accurate.
I also agree on your warband leader comment.
Adding to it: lack of creativity of many frustrated warband leaders back then and the very elaborated flawed “feedback” they gave led to this disaster.
Good led and composed warbands (even pug ones) were quite capable of zergbusting, been there, seen it, done it.

[normanis]

Some of the arguements against the increase in aao cap, act as if the zerging wasnt bad back then (pre 2019). Even when you had acces to morale bombing without the Morale-per-sec-barrier and aoe healdebuffs on demand the zergs were still a massive issue. It was very very rare you could actually zergbust back then. Yes it was slightly easier, but for the reasons mentioned above, not because of the AAO cap was 9.

The downside of a smaller aao cap, is that people can hide in their zergs and expect the incoming aoe damage to get spread around in the realmmates you are hiding inside and thus creating a safety in numbers. Now imagine how this would feel if AAO cap was returned to 9, with no aoe healdebuffs and no moralebombing

Healers in citysieges and topend warbands right now can keep up with a 24aao cap, this is why the Staking ability was introduced for citysieges so that a snowball effect could occure when evenly matched warbands would clash, because of how fast and potent recovery is in this state of RoR. If 24aao cap was so insane as people make it out to be, why are noone going with 4 aao groups instead of 1-2 Singletarget groups(?) Because aao is manageable. Even that brief window of time were aao cap was increased and without morale limmitation stacking, players started doing counter-healbombs with Syphon and could manage the aao cap.

Dont get me wrong, id really like for some zergbusting tools, or mechanics to actually make the orvr action to spread out over Battleobjectives. But I truthfully dont see what reducing, or increasing for that matter, the aao cap would do.
This game has one natural aao cap, and thats all it needs: Collision. There is only so many Blackorc models you can fit into the range of a 30ft aoe ability after all.

Ironicly enough the only real zergbusting tool in the game right now, is aao canons as they scale based on number of targets hit. Want their aao cap reduced too?

why not increase aoe cap to 48 or 72? if its mean to be 12 men can fight against zerg? so clases with bigger aoe shine more than athers even more?

[normanis]

In my opinione - YES - it was a big mistake.

the original inention of the aoe increase to 24 was to allow to coutner the zerg....flawed logic which can be debunked with a simple example.

A wb vs B and C wb

9 cap example
A wb aoe can hit 9 ppl B and C aoe can hit the same 9 ppl if you position well. This mean your positionin can allow you to soak dmg if you are inside the aoe range even with all wb; since 8 tank and 1 (def)melee will fill the aoe cap.

24 cap example
A wb aoe can hit 24 ppl B and C aoe can hit the same 24. This mean your positionin won't allow you to soak dmg because if you are inside the aoe range 8 tank and 1 (def)melee wont fill the aoe cap

Thus this was a mistake, a change pushed by bad wb leaders and someone who didnt play extensivly in live.

In live there was no aoe cap and was the reduced to 9..... Now , or everyone was drunk when this was done or someone here made a mistake big time.
This change also made worst the funnel sich....and not only the open fight sich which they would require 2 diff balance... In live block door was a viable strategy...

its simple with aoe 24+ make zerg even bigger. because they dont have balls leave wc without 2-3 ather wb. isnt it makes lagfeast bigger if i hit 24 targets than 9? system need read info from 24 targets same time than previous from 9? (my guessing about lag)

[Tesq]

Spoiler:

Some of the arguements against the increase in aao cap, act as if the zerging wasnt bad back then (pre 2019). Even when you had acces to morale bombing without the Morale-per-sec-barrier and aoe healdebuffs on demand the zergs were still a massive issue. It was very very rare you could actually zergbust back then. Yes it was slightly easier, but for the reasons mentioned above, not because of the AAO cap was 9.

The downside of a smaller aao cap, is that people can hide in their zergs and expect the incoming aoe damage to get spread around in the realmmates you are hiding inside and thus creating a safety in numbers. Now imagine how this would feel if AAO cap was returned to 9, with no aoe healdebuffs and no moralebombing

Healers in citysieges and topend warbands right now can keep up with a 24aao cap, this is why the Staking ability was introduced for citysieges so that a snowball effect could occure when evenly matched warbands would clash, because of how fast and potent recovery is in this state of RoR. If 24aao cap was so insane as people make it out to be, why are noone going with 4 aao groups instead of 1-2 Singletarget groups(?) Because aao is manageable. Even that brief window of time were aao cap was increased and without morale limmitation stacking, players started doing counter-healbombs with Syphon and could manage the aao cap.

Dont get me wrong, id really like for some zergbusting tools, or mechanics to actually make the orvr action to spread out over Battleobjectives. But I truthfully dont see what reducing, or increasing for that matter, the aao cap would do.
This game has one natural aao cap, and thats all it needs: Collision. There is only so many Blackorc models you can fit into the range of a 30ft aoe ability after all.

Ironicly enough the only real zergbusting tool in the game right now, is aao canons as they scale based on number of targets hit. Want their aao cap reduced too?

aoe is managable in city because thats a 24 vs 24 "scenarios" made for guild vs guild fights, BECAUSE THEY FEAR TO WIPE VS THE ZERG OF ORVR. They run 2 st groups...does anybody run 2x st groups in oRVR ? i dont think so...

i doubt you cant say and prove it's different. The fact is ppl in 24 vs 24 can spread around nullyfy the aoe the same way they did with moral nukes....
city used to be 36 vs 36 in live and was even way bigger pre 1.3.4 or whatever rework.

the major problem wasnt the 9 target cap that allow to hide in the zerg; it was the removal of kite tools that allow wb to kite large numbers, made em overextend then counter push. One of such tools removed was the shaman/am group heals on the move (and not the area effect heals they have right now). The current way the group heals work is not the same of back then (need to stop even with 5 stack fire the spell then can run), also as it was pointed out some classes had a 6 sec res. You remove the characteristic of what made possible counter teh zerg and then tell it was the same back then, no it wasnt.

other bad mistake in class balancing made the rest. One of such is the nerf of dok/wp aoe detaunt because shield dopk/wp were too strong in ranked....
A "backline" back-then with 4 dok/wp bombed by aoe (in sov meta) was stable now with a 24 aoe cap and no aoe detaunt you can only run because everything get bombed by aoe but your tank can guard only 1 between you and a dd.... meanwhile dok/wp are still static healer with book/chalice...

this all happened due the x' dev keep balance the game for small segment of it instead balance classes for

oRvR
-open fights
-bottleneck fights
-siege fights
-transition phases

the worst part of all this it's i played sov meta in live and in wb we runned 1 st focus party IN ORVR, so at the peak of def meta in warhammer, pre warpforged **** with stagger of still 9 seconds, there was a place in orvr for st builds... where is the place for st builds in oRvR now when there is a 24 aoe cap meta = ?

[Akilinus]

Only zerglings would want to revert back to the old 9 aoe cap.
Where they can benefit even more than they already do from blobbing up.

Class balance is absent when you roll over the enemy with 2x the numbers.