It has been a long time since we first introduced you all to the Ability System Rewrite that has been hard at work for over the past 2 years, and now that it is complete you’ve all been able to experience the massive effects it has on our ability to make changes to the Project, namely to modify abilities faster and alter the balance of Return of Reckoning on a larger scale.
In this post we would like to elaborate further on the goals behind the Balance Change that is taking place currently and introduce you to the people who are leading the charge in this large undertaking, to improve the game for us all, and improve core mechanics to be more up-to-date to today’s standards.
We even have a rough roadmap for you!
The Return of Reckoning Balance Group
At the helm of our Balancing Group is Dalen, our Code Developer responsible for the whole Ability System Rewrite and the main developer behind the changes that we would like to achieve for the game by the end of this whole process.
Along with being a developer, he is also a long-time and experienced player of RoR with a vast knowledge of the many mechanics and careers, allowing him to have a broader overview of all the changes and how they potentially affect not just parts of the game, but also the project as a whole.
As head of the Balance Group, Dalen makes the final decisions, but our main direction is a result of a full collaboration between the Balance Members and no changes generally go live unless there is full understanding between everyone and there are no critical disagreements!
Next to Dalen, the Balance Group consists currently of 2 additional long-time players directly working together and assisting the project with their extensive knowledge of RoR and all its areas, with also over 10+ years of experience individually and with reputation within the community as experienced and talented players who understand the deeper mechanics behind the scenes, with which they initially earned their spots on the Balance Group.
Current Players in the Balance Group:
- Bejkon
- Zumos
Originally formed before the Ability Rewrite, the Balance Group has gone through some changes in members and alterations over time, but it has now proven to be a stable and productive team that is capable of working together, debating constructively and changing their approach if there are clear disagreements.
Next to working together - the Balance Group also regularly reads the forums, monitors in-game progress/stats/graphs and gathers feedback from the community to be able to make adjustments and make sure we are on the right track.
We also hear you all, and we would also like to open up more communication about Balance, creating a brand new forum, expanding the Balance Group, but we would like to return to this topic at a later date, as we want to approach this carefully to make sure we add to the group’s efficiency and not hinder it, as we’d like to keep to our regular updates and maintain a steady pace towards our long-term goals. In the meantime, your continued support and feedback is greatly appreciated!
We will share more information about these plans in the future!
A More Diverse Balance
The Group’s main philosophy with the ongoing Balancing process is to create an enjoyable gameplay to as many as possible, where every career and every specialisation has a good place of its own, for a wide range of playstyles. To achieve that goal, we want to offer every career an option for both a viable Party and Warband specialisation, allowing them to join and feel useful in any group or content in RoR from Open RvR Battles, Keep or City Sieges, Roaming and Scenarios!
If everything goes according to our plans, over the next many months we will balance careers in terms of power, synergy with each other, overall group utility, their mechanics and many other important factors in preparation for the future and this development path we’d like to take moving on!
Many of the changes might not immediately be perfect, and it will be a bumpy road, but we will continue to review recent live data and make adjustments as necessary, while also revealing more and more information about our long-term plans, so that our decisions make more sense to you all!
Balance Roadmap
As shown on the image, our initial goal after the completion of the Ability System Rework has been to modify abilities and mechanics in the game that were in dire need of changes in order to fit our current goals, and prepare them for fine-tuning later!
This meant giving attention to Careers that have been left behind for too long, and making sure they are brought to a fair level next to others, such as Black Orcs!
After years of neglect for the Black Orcs, we are happy to bring them back where they deserve to be in both small and large scale. With We’z Bigger and Linecracka! they have gotten a unique tool for warband play and their excellent damage output and new knockback will now make them a great pick for small scale teams too.
Currently we are in Phase 1 of the Roadmap working on core adjustments for Tank Careers, after which we’ll move on to Phase 2 and also start working on Healers! This is to make sure that we are creating stable foundations for the rest of the Balancing, by adjusting Support Mechanics first, then move on to DPS Specialization Reworks, and fine-tuning of damage numbers!
At this stage core mechanics such as Snare Effects were also looked at, which the Balance Group agreed should be standardised and their potency reduced, in order to allow much more mobile and dynamic combat experience. For that, a lot of Crowd Control Effects were modified, together with a buffed up Juggernaut for Tanks, aiming for a more engaging gameplay. We are currently tracking feedback about how it affects both Warbands and Small Scale groups, and how you all feel about it!
Due to community feedback, it’s also been our goal to enable Careers much earlier in the levelling process and give them their Core Tools as soon as possible, to help balance low level group content and encourage new players to learn Career mechanics from the get go. For Tanks, this change was to give them Guard from Level 1 already!
For the time being, we try to mostly concentrate on mechanical changes and feedback about them. That’s not to say we don’t look at feedback about numerical changes, but those are a lot easier to change compared to larger mechanics, that we first wanna make sure are received well.
Now, you probably have noticed that all of our current patches were also accompanied by additional adjustments to even Damaging Careers despite us still being in Phase 1, this was to address critical topics or abilities we thought needed modifications for the time being, but know that we haven’t started the real balancing of Damaging Careers just yet, and we know some changes will require compensation based on your feedback and our data.
Please note, that these changes are not meant to be final, but are the first version of adjustments in order to move closer to the Balance Group’s Final Goal that we’ll try to execute over the course of the following months, through testing, reviewing data and incorporating your feedback. This means just because we’d leave Phase 1 or Phase 2 - we can and probably will still tweak those archetypes as needed!
By the end, we also intend on taking a look at All Careers with multiple Archetypes such as Warrior Priest of Sigmar for example, to completely re-balance both their Healer and Damaging Specialisations and fit them into these Archetypes with proper Morales, Utility Abilities or access to Charge Movement Ability
But this is all just the start and the foundation for more exciting changes we are planning for Return of Reckoning, now that the Ability Rework is finally done. In the near future we plan on revealing even more details and information about changes we’ve been working on and cooking in the background!
Please be excited!
Look forward to more news soon…!
Thank you for reading our announcement about our balancing goals so far. We hope we were able to give all of you insight on how the process is worked on, what our philosophy is - and also give hints towards changes in the near future that we are very excited about.
We will continue to work hard on providing the best experience possible for you all, and continue to communicate our plans, answer as many questions as we are currently able to regarding this update.
For now, we would also like to thank you all for your feedback on our Discord and Forums, as we are actively reading them and find them incredibly useful - and we’re currently thinking about how we could improve this feedback process even further!
Thank you, everyone, for reading all this!
WAAAGH!
The RoR Team
