The inherent problem of zone-stack caused by AAO and a possible "fix"

[Bosli]

I have been playing exclusively on order for about 2-3 months with a lot of small roaming in RvR and I always try to take advantage of AAO if it is available.
The big flaw in AAO is that it doesn't give incentive to the overpopulated side to split up into the second (empty) zone.

The most common situation when one side has 40+ AAO is they want to be in that zone. However, the overpopulated realm has no reason to enter the empty zone, as it will instantly go to 100-400 AAO for the other team depending on their group size and take way too long for enough enemies to come to that zone chasing AAO, until they benefit from splitting at a certain point. So they won't have anything to fight for some time, and will get extremely reduced RP until the pop starts balancing itself out. Anyone but a couple solos/duos will want to stay in their overpopulated zone with "only" -40 AAO.

To fix that specific but constantly occuring problem, I suggest to add a second AAO-like buff:
If your own realm is stacked in one zone, you should get increased RP for going to the unpopulated zone, independently of where or how many players of the enemy realm are in lakes. This way, small groups can leave the -40 or higher AAO zone, carry a couple boxes for high RP and not get nearly nothing for killing the very few enemies there, and enemy groups will show up because they want to chase the new "highest AAO".

I don't know how you would want those different multipliers to work together, but I'm certain it would be a better incentive for the overpopulated to split than "you get less rewards here, go to the other zone (where you will get literally nothing)".

[Aluviya]

I do feel that the current approach to balancing ORvR is actually heavily biased towards stacking on one side, building a zerg and raiding the underpopulated fort - rather than giving quality incentives to balance the realms. There has been a lot of whining about "xrealming" while systematically denying that premades, particularly 6-man groups, often switched realms based on the situation to make ORvR more balanced. I played a lot with one of these groups back then with Teinhala usually building on the AAO side, and currently, there are zero incentives to play as a 6-man group in ORvR with AAO because you will just get rolled over by the zerg with any slight mistake you make, especially in a melee setup.

RvR needs a whole revision in this regard. But it would require much more than just the rebalance of classes, as this also involves many other mechanisms like CC'ing, escape tools, etc.

[Tisaya]

Premades don't 'balance' anything. All they do is just hunting lone players and running away from anything resembling a danger, having zero effect on the oRvR but running small scale even deeper into the ground

[Aluviya]

Premades don't 'balance' anything. All they do is just hunting lone players and running away from anything resembling a danger, having zero effect on the oRvR but running small scale even deeper into the ground

This is simply an assertion if you do not regard the context they are playing in. The reason 6-man groups can't participate properly in the zones is due to the reasons I already mentioned above (and of course due to the design of how Orvr works meanwhile now giving BO's nearly no reason to exsist). Hence, if you ever meet 6-man groups in the zones, they will, of course, not have many options but to farm soloers in the lakes. There were times when exceptionally played 6-man groups could somewhat engage in bigger fights, but that's really pretty much not the case anymore. You have to differentiate here between cause and effect.

[Zxul]

Premades don't 'balance' anything. All they do is just hunting lone players and running away from anything resembling a danger, having zero effect on the oRvR but running small scale even deeper into the ground

Great summery.

[Bosli]

I do feel that the current approach to balancing ORvR is actually heavily biased towards stacking on one side, building a zerg and raiding the underpopulated fort - rather than giving quality incentives to balance the realms.

My suggestion is not about balancing the realms, but balancing the population in the 2 (3) zones of the same realm.

[CyunUnderis]

I agree with @Aluviya about rework of RvR and to give tools to help against the zerg.

@Bosli, for your suggestion, without adding another AAO-buff, we can just change the AAO to work locally instead for the whole map (same idea as the LotD debuff). So, if one faction is stacked, they'll have the AAO debuff, but if some teams from that same faction are fighting far from the zerg, they can still have AAO against the underpopulated faction.

I'm afraid that, with your proposal, WBs will just switch zones to have the buff and still stack.