[oRvR zone layouts] and what makes them good/bad
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2024 12:49 am
Hello,
The goal of this post is to possibly provide insight towards the devs in case terrain layout changes ever become possible.
In an attempt to get a bigger overview from the community I'll attempt this topic to see if we can gather some common denominators for what works, what makes an orvr lake good, what doesnt work and for which playstyles the feedback is provided as default.
If contributing please start with something like this as basics:
oRvR feedback
Playstyle: Roaming, ganking, campaign, progression, all
Groupsize: Solo, smallman, group, guild, warband, realm, all
Experience: Newplayer, Veteran
Favorit zones:
Least favorit zones:
Why:
For me personally I will try to give some thoughts about all of the zones and what I think works within a zone, feel free to agree or disagree.
T2:
Shadowlands: 3/5 rating
This zone is a mixture for me. The warcamp distance is acceptable in the northern part of the zone, its very hard to be pinned into the Warcamp as its wide enough to have several exits and the Skaven tunnel to go south-map works fine to spreading out the action.
Landscape in the zone works alright with enough interesting points of interest, line of sight objects and the heatmap from killboard is acceptable but could see more southern work but thats not related to the terrain. The chokepoint in the massive gate in the center and no option of porting from south to north are probably the main weaknesses of this zone.
Ostland: 3/5 rating
Trollcontry Ostland have interesting landscape with both buildings, indoor and outdoor objectives, a forrest with plenty of line of sight objects and hilltops and lower ground options. The warcamps are a tad bit too close to eachother and the heatmaps from kills will often show the closest path between warcamps will see most action. Almost all of the Battleobjectives do see some level of action however despite of this and that makes the zone average for me despite the wc-to-wc fighting.
BV/MoM: 3/5 rating
The tunnels to connect the maps serve for good flanking and breaking visual contact with the enemy for roaming content. The Battleobjectives and landscape are nice in this map however most of the action will be around one tunnel and Tomb heatmap. All of the Battleobjectives see some level of action in most timezones and this map seem like a hidden favorit for smallerscale and flanking manuvers amongst many players, could be due to the tunnels connecting the map and the rich line of sight objective options.
T3
Avelorn: 5/5 rating
This map for whatever reason proves time and time again that in a contested timezone the realm who captures the enemy keep will struggle to maintain and hold 3/4 BOs for the lock. This to me is a sign of a balanced layout. The Battleobjectives have good distance between eachother, the warcamps do not provide a Wc-to-Wc heatmap and roaming between all four objectives seem equal. Many dont think about this zone when they mention their favorit zone, but I personally think this zone is a prime example of what other zones should copy! Good Line of sight options, possibilities for flanking manuvers, open field fights or smaller multi entrypoint objectives on either bridges +water or wooden gateway + sideentrance makes it so a defensive position is not just a garenteed funnel.
Highpass: 2/5 rating
The heatmap issue between Wc-to-Wc is back in this zone, up and down the fight goes and its never a clean wipe as you are in flee-distance to your warcamp and safety for the healerline. There are not too much line of sight in the middle of the map, and the two indoor Battleobjectives become nature funnel chokepoints if you are into that gameplay. Manor is often not seeing action despite being one of the argubly better Battleobjectives with double entry point big landscale some line of sight, but the location of the BO itself is too isolated to be used often.
Badlands: 1/5 rating
The south keep when order has it, is an issue because you can enter the north postern without getting RvR flaged from the WC.
Very rarely are the battleobjectives seeing action and heatmap will mostly be between Blackfirepass warcamps for no reason at all.
The south keep takes up too much space of the map, the tunnels are failing to connect the split map as T2 dwarf does so well.
The landscape is pretty decent but the warcamps, tunnels, keeps and BO locations make the zone bad for roaming but fair for boxrunning for either keep/realm atleast.
T4
Reikland: 1/5 rating
The northkeep is taking up waaay too much terrain. This keep is an issue for pvp outside of ganking when Destro gets north keep, as they get the "toilet" west postern hill which has full high ground advantage over any order forces trying to move southward. Either you have enough manpower to shake off the gank but the gankers run inside, or you get ganked or punted to the water. This supplyline harrashment kills smallscale in the zone and along with heatmap only front of northkeep, or around the two middle BOs this zone automatically turn into zerg on zerg action. The landscape is cool but Warcamp placements, north keep size, and the north keep postern ramp on the west side is an issue. The same issue is not pressent when Order has north keep, as destros warcamp is more south than the ramp leading to east postern. The battle objectives and hills in this landscape are actually good, but the warcamp locations make it so very rarely is there a reason to go Quarry or Manor BOs to find a fight. Warcamp locations make this a bad map. One of the few maps where the inner courtyard have buildings and/or crypt you can enter which would be nice for the main map to use and not just only when a keep is besieged.
Praag: 4/5 rating
The unofficial favorit map. The many narrow streets give the illusion that you can run into the enemy around every corner. And you can. The warcamps have decent distance between eachother despite MS bo often sees most action on the direct path towards wc-to-wc shortest road. But in order to get to MS you will pass atleast 6 side allys which all could be an ambush, a line of sight breaking corner, or an escape route. The options are plentyful and more of the map is used for roaming to an objective or ganking the roads high and low.
Chaoswaste: Rating 2/5
Very flat alternative landscape with minimal options. Warcamps are kinda close to eachother and battleobjectives are near by the keeps which makes them good for boxrunning but not so great for roaming as you are easily spotted and keep-postern hugging is easily a thing.
Theres as little to say about CW as there are options in this zone. One or two more ruins in the center and warcamps with more space between them could change that.
Kadrinvalley: 2/5 rating
In reality its one big racetrack. When you leave your warcamp the mointain or narrow pathway gives you two options. Go left, or go right. The objectives are fine and different enough. But the race-track roundabout determins the action and its a looong walk from DC to Ice if you hear inc.
Destro warcamp being in RvR-flagged range is same issue for Destro holding south keep, as it is for Order holding Badlands keep.
The skaven tunnel gives some options for a big zone like this, the middle pve part of the "donut" takes away alot from this zone.
Thundermountain: 3/5 rating
The center eastish keep is cool in concept but too isolated and easy to blockade when sieging it. The western keep have some of the more cool landscape with lava, buildings up and downhill options. The 3 middle Battleobjectives each have enough distance between warcamps, enough pathways to manuver back and forth between them to include them all and enough world objects to make them enjoyable. And then theres the black sheep. "the far BO" That battleobjective to the east needs help, it takes almost 5minuts to carry a box from that BO to a wc/keep (ive counted) and it sees almost no action. the layout is close to a copy paste of DV BO and it probably should be removed. Think of how much terrain it takes up with the runpath from the WCs north and south to this issolated location. Thats close to half the map just being transportaion roads leading to a BO barely anyone visits.
Black Craig: 2.5/5 rating
This zone in concept is amazing. One keep under ground? How cool!
The distance between warcamps is massive, and the narrow ravines leading towards the BOs from WCs create some of the same situation as Kadrin has. It limmits the options of ganking, traveling unharrashed, or cutting corners to faster get from A to B.There are alot of hilltops, climb spots and uniqueness to BC but very few playstyles like this layout it would seem. It's a zone that doesnt have a bad heatmap, the warcamps are fine in distance but maybe this map could use some Skaven tunnels?
Eatain: 0.5/5 rating
Warcamp to Warcamp heatmap tells the full story. The warcamps and the shape of the orvr lake is everything in this zone. Its a too narrow zone, the warcamps are too close. The zone actually have pretty amazing landscape and options if you had the warcamps to the West and East of eachother. There are enough buildings, fences, bridges and options to make this zone good. its purely down to the warcamps locations.
Dragonwake: 2/5rating
Destro needs a better second option to get towards the westside of the map or keep. Order can use the pve path and easily get close to the East keep, the same is not exactly true for destro and the West keep. The lower bridge, and big bridge are cool but the high difference makes for a "Kadrin racetrack" situation. You either go the left, or the right way but instead of in a valley then on briges with punting into water being a thing. One skaven tunnel on the low flat ground between MM and east keep with a portal towards west zigzag ramp, would serve as a counter messure to the Dragon portal from PE. Sure there is the pve portal but not nearly as good and shouldnt need to run into mobs, to get into orvr imo.
Caledoor: 1/5 rating
Smallbridge fighting must have been a cool developer concept from Mythic but it doesnt make for that good gameplay. Too much of the zone is wasted on highground and waterlevel difference making the options narrow and few. Order Warcamp could use a secondary path down towards barracks/vale just like destro can go 3 exists without haiving to cross a chokepoint. Vale and barracks are good BOs. Strand can be easily capture by Order flying to DW and running into Cale. Warcamp locations seem to be an issue but the main layout of the zone makes it very hard to think of alternaties.
Final conclusion for me:
For me what makes a good zone is options. A decent distance between the warcamps, and iron out any of the clear realm advantages in layout with the Keep locations/warcamps. I do believe a teleport orb in elf zones, a skaven tunnel or two in some Dwarf zones and relocation of Warcamps could drastically improve most of the zones. With maybe a world object or two for some line of sight in barren landscapes could help with options.
The goal of this post is to possibly provide insight towards the devs in case terrain layout changes ever become possible.
In an attempt to get a bigger overview from the community I'll attempt this topic to see if we can gather some common denominators for what works, what makes an orvr lake good, what doesnt work and for which playstyles the feedback is provided as default.
If contributing please start with something like this as basics:
oRvR feedback
Playstyle: Roaming, ganking, campaign, progression, all
Groupsize: Solo, smallman, group, guild, warband, realm, all
Experience: Newplayer, Veteran
Favorit zones:
Least favorit zones:
Why:
For me personally I will try to give some thoughts about all of the zones and what I think works within a zone, feel free to agree or disagree.
T2:
Shadowlands: 3/5 rating
This zone is a mixture for me. The warcamp distance is acceptable in the northern part of the zone, its very hard to be pinned into the Warcamp as its wide enough to have several exits and the Skaven tunnel to go south-map works fine to spreading out the action.
Landscape in the zone works alright with enough interesting points of interest, line of sight objects and the heatmap from killboard is acceptable but could see more southern work but thats not related to the terrain. The chokepoint in the massive gate in the center and no option of porting from south to north are probably the main weaknesses of this zone.
Ostland: 3/5 rating
Trollcontry Ostland have interesting landscape with both buildings, indoor and outdoor objectives, a forrest with plenty of line of sight objects and hilltops and lower ground options. The warcamps are a tad bit too close to eachother and the heatmaps from kills will often show the closest path between warcamps will see most action. Almost all of the Battleobjectives do see some level of action however despite of this and that makes the zone average for me despite the wc-to-wc fighting.
BV/MoM: 3/5 rating
The tunnels to connect the maps serve for good flanking and breaking visual contact with the enemy for roaming content. The Battleobjectives and landscape are nice in this map however most of the action will be around one tunnel and Tomb heatmap. All of the Battleobjectives see some level of action in most timezones and this map seem like a hidden favorit for smallerscale and flanking manuvers amongst many players, could be due to the tunnels connecting the map and the rich line of sight objective options.
T3
Avelorn: 5/5 rating
This map for whatever reason proves time and time again that in a contested timezone the realm who captures the enemy keep will struggle to maintain and hold 3/4 BOs for the lock. This to me is a sign of a balanced layout. The Battleobjectives have good distance between eachother, the warcamps do not provide a Wc-to-Wc heatmap and roaming between all four objectives seem equal. Many dont think about this zone when they mention their favorit zone, but I personally think this zone is a prime example of what other zones should copy! Good Line of sight options, possibilities for flanking manuvers, open field fights or smaller multi entrypoint objectives on either bridges +water or wooden gateway + sideentrance makes it so a defensive position is not just a garenteed funnel.
Highpass: 2/5 rating
The heatmap issue between Wc-to-Wc is back in this zone, up and down the fight goes and its never a clean wipe as you are in flee-distance to your warcamp and safety for the healerline. There are not too much line of sight in the middle of the map, and the two indoor Battleobjectives become nature funnel chokepoints if you are into that gameplay. Manor is often not seeing action despite being one of the argubly better Battleobjectives with double entry point big landscale some line of sight, but the location of the BO itself is too isolated to be used often.
Badlands: 1/5 rating
The south keep when order has it, is an issue because you can enter the north postern without getting RvR flaged from the WC.
Very rarely are the battleobjectives seeing action and heatmap will mostly be between Blackfirepass warcamps for no reason at all.
The south keep takes up too much space of the map, the tunnels are failing to connect the split map as T2 dwarf does so well.
The landscape is pretty decent but the warcamps, tunnels, keeps and BO locations make the zone bad for roaming but fair for boxrunning for either keep/realm atleast.
T4
Reikland: 1/5 rating
The northkeep is taking up waaay too much terrain. This keep is an issue for pvp outside of ganking when Destro gets north keep, as they get the "toilet" west postern hill which has full high ground advantage over any order forces trying to move southward. Either you have enough manpower to shake off the gank but the gankers run inside, or you get ganked or punted to the water. This supplyline harrashment kills smallscale in the zone and along with heatmap only front of northkeep, or around the two middle BOs this zone automatically turn into zerg on zerg action. The landscape is cool but Warcamp placements, north keep size, and the north keep postern ramp on the west side is an issue. The same issue is not pressent when Order has north keep, as destros warcamp is more south than the ramp leading to east postern. The battle objectives and hills in this landscape are actually good, but the warcamp locations make it so very rarely is there a reason to go Quarry or Manor BOs to find a fight. Warcamp locations make this a bad map. One of the few maps where the inner courtyard have buildings and/or crypt you can enter which would be nice for the main map to use and not just only when a keep is besieged.
Praag: 4/5 rating
The unofficial favorit map. The many narrow streets give the illusion that you can run into the enemy around every corner. And you can. The warcamps have decent distance between eachother despite MS bo often sees most action on the direct path towards wc-to-wc shortest road. But in order to get to MS you will pass atleast 6 side allys which all could be an ambush, a line of sight breaking corner, or an escape route. The options are plentyful and more of the map is used for roaming to an objective or ganking the roads high and low.
Chaoswaste: Rating 2/5
Very flat alternative landscape with minimal options. Warcamps are kinda close to eachother and battleobjectives are near by the keeps which makes them good for boxrunning but not so great for roaming as you are easily spotted and keep-postern hugging is easily a thing.
Theres as little to say about CW as there are options in this zone. One or two more ruins in the center and warcamps with more space between them could change that.
Kadrinvalley: 2/5 rating
In reality its one big racetrack. When you leave your warcamp the mointain or narrow pathway gives you two options. Go left, or go right. The objectives are fine and different enough. But the race-track roundabout determins the action and its a looong walk from DC to Ice if you hear inc.
Destro warcamp being in RvR-flagged range is same issue for Destro holding south keep, as it is for Order holding Badlands keep.
The skaven tunnel gives some options for a big zone like this, the middle pve part of the "donut" takes away alot from this zone.
Thundermountain: 3/5 rating
The center eastish keep is cool in concept but too isolated and easy to blockade when sieging it. The western keep have some of the more cool landscape with lava, buildings up and downhill options. The 3 middle Battleobjectives each have enough distance between warcamps, enough pathways to manuver back and forth between them to include them all and enough world objects to make them enjoyable. And then theres the black sheep. "the far BO" That battleobjective to the east needs help, it takes almost 5minuts to carry a box from that BO to a wc/keep (ive counted) and it sees almost no action. the layout is close to a copy paste of DV BO and it probably should be removed. Think of how much terrain it takes up with the runpath from the WCs north and south to this issolated location. Thats close to half the map just being transportaion roads leading to a BO barely anyone visits.
Black Craig: 2.5/5 rating
This zone in concept is amazing. One keep under ground? How cool!
The distance between warcamps is massive, and the narrow ravines leading towards the BOs from WCs create some of the same situation as Kadrin has. It limmits the options of ganking, traveling unharrashed, or cutting corners to faster get from A to B.There are alot of hilltops, climb spots and uniqueness to BC but very few playstyles like this layout it would seem. It's a zone that doesnt have a bad heatmap, the warcamps are fine in distance but maybe this map could use some Skaven tunnels?
Eatain: 0.5/5 rating
Warcamp to Warcamp heatmap tells the full story. The warcamps and the shape of the orvr lake is everything in this zone. Its a too narrow zone, the warcamps are too close. The zone actually have pretty amazing landscape and options if you had the warcamps to the West and East of eachother. There are enough buildings, fences, bridges and options to make this zone good. its purely down to the warcamps locations.
Dragonwake: 2/5rating
Destro needs a better second option to get towards the westside of the map or keep. Order can use the pve path and easily get close to the East keep, the same is not exactly true for destro and the West keep. The lower bridge, and big bridge are cool but the high difference makes for a "Kadrin racetrack" situation. You either go the left, or the right way but instead of in a valley then on briges with punting into water being a thing. One skaven tunnel on the low flat ground between MM and east keep with a portal towards west zigzag ramp, would serve as a counter messure to the Dragon portal from PE. Sure there is the pve portal but not nearly as good and shouldnt need to run into mobs, to get into orvr imo.
Caledoor: 1/5 rating
Smallbridge fighting must have been a cool developer concept from Mythic but it doesnt make for that good gameplay. Too much of the zone is wasted on highground and waterlevel difference making the options narrow and few. Order Warcamp could use a secondary path down towards barracks/vale just like destro can go 3 exists without haiving to cross a chokepoint. Vale and barracks are good BOs. Strand can be easily capture by Order flying to DW and running into Cale. Warcamp locations seem to be an issue but the main layout of the zone makes it very hard to think of alternaties.
Final conclusion for me:
For me what makes a good zone is options. A decent distance between the warcamps, and iron out any of the clear realm advantages in layout with the Keep locations/warcamps. I do believe a teleport orb in elf zones, a skaven tunnel or two in some Dwarf zones and relocation of Warcamps could drastically improve most of the zones. With maybe a world object or two for some line of sight in barren landscapes could help with options.