[Implementation Feedback] RvR design

[Vandoles]

Azarael, I am about to break the rules by talking about small-scale balance, but I promise you it fits into the discussion in talking about the whole zone. Feel free to remove my post/ban me, but do please READ it first.

I've read through the previous topic and this topic. I've seen that t4 is becoming more inactive. Practically all of the issues seem to lead from a similar point - people do not enjoy playing the rvr. It is not the system that they don't enjoy playing, but rather the old rvr in the new context. The system seems to heavily benefit ranged ganking classes, stealthers and perfectly composed roaming groups. Hardcore players, who are on top anyways, now dominate laughably much and you're left with a system where you HAVE to zerg or get nothing AND zerging is discouraged.

Now, judging from your changes so far I assume you want a system where the fighting is a fluid, constant war across the zone with all types of rvr going on, culminating in a FIGHT around the keep, focused on the players rather than the doors/lord/parts of the system.

This cannot happen without small-scale balance.

In the end of the day, I will go into the zone, people will be roaming around and I will be instantly killed by a squig herder. Then killed again. Then run over by a WE. If I am destro, I will be killed by an engi or something similar. Then I will proceed onwards and gather a 6-man group. I will be completely run over and destroyed by a destro 6-man. I will want to play a class that isn't the absolute optimal specc and I will get destroyed, blown out and have no fun or want to play the game any more.

This isn't anecdotal evidence. This is the picture for a player in t4. You will run around, praying the next group you run into is shittier than yours or has a less optimal build. You will pray to god the 3-4 hardcore squigs aren't online to gank and grief you over and over again. You will run scenarios and sit around in altdorf, waiting for the zerg to reach such a critical mass you can leech a keep cap, because setting foot inside a rvr lake outside of a keep cap earns you nothing, not fun nor fights nor anything.

I can only imagine it's the same on the destro side, because I have also noticed destro rapidly gained numbers over order as of the patch and the main difference is destro have less ganking and hardcore order players to fear. I may be wrong. I'm talking as an order player who never xrealms out of principle.

Please, if you want to spread the fight, make it more fluid - consider the solo player. Consider small balance. Balance that out and everything will start working, because if small rvr is more fun, people will gravitate towards it and not mind flawed keep sieges, nor will they mind stuck zones or issues with the zerg.

I will get at least 6 squigs calling me a shitty noob that must l2p (holy cow are they organized in defending their class!), but there's other things you can do besides balancing singular classes.

For gods sake, implement odjira if kiters will stay as strong as they are. Buff classes like melee WP, SW and such that are forced into specific builds to do anything and even that isn't fun at all. Improve shamans group potential (at the expense of kiting skill, hopefully, while not making them very weak to mdps) to gravitate more of them towards group play rather than solo.

And please, consider releasing conqueror/invader slightly faster. Higher sets allow players to easily max their offensive stat and focus on defensive ones, leading to much better solo/small-scale play. Annihilator is the set of the zerg.

I have no concrete suggestions I want to add. I just want to implore you to consider more small-scale balance as a philosophy. A lot of great ideas have been floated around to improve that. It will keep players in.

And before any hardcore destro blame me for being biased or tell me to l2p - remember, you need people to kill.

[Vandoles]

The basic principles of the RvR system were simple: a zerg would be able to contest one point efficiently while ceding the rest of the map, in which case the side which was splitting would return resources to have a rank advantage and use cannons and artillery to destroy the zerg.

dur3al and others have made the point (which I disagree with) that it is not possible to stop zerg. It is possible to stop zerg. The reason people zerg is because, as dur3al said, it is a dominant strategy: safety in numbers. The only way to break that strategy is to present a counter strategy which makes massing unviable, and that was what artillery and cannons did. It was exactly the same thing on real-life battlefields, which is where the idea came from.

To support my post, I would like to point out something you yourself said - why people zerg. Safety in numbers.

People zerg, because the safety the zerg gives is literally the only way a lot of classes/speccs/players can ever participate in rvr. Once you break the zerg and present no alternative gameplay for those players, you are left with the one hardcore destro WB and the one hardcore order WB. Who will then have no one to kill and will diminish themselves.

[BrockRiefenstahl]

I was not that often in T4 (so my opinion is mostly T3 and some T2)

As it looks now --> Keep fights are a neverending story and after 2 hours of a complete grindfest (where playerkills don't even give any rewards because they died xxxx times) its just dull and boring. Retapping BOs main Zerg zergs the Keep and so on.

Its just boring. And the most sad part for me is, you can not even go into another zone and look for some smallscale fights or even some solo ganks... (no rewards = no players)

My point is (and I observed this by others too): Extraordinary long dull grinds are boring and at some point many say to themselfes **** it --> its dull, I am going to grind some Scenarios!. (thats what I prefer in first place due to even numbers of players and its more competetive and fair)

Now you can bash me for this PoV, but this is how it feels. This FORCE upon 1 zone and FORCE to stand hours before a gate (its a millimeter forward a millimeter backwards) --> Feels bad and not that amusing. (Well maybe for AoE spamming casters its funny when they see their aoe killingspree...)

[Strykhe]

Well..

I think a really problem for this change come to infinite funnel. (No system work versus a zerg defense or attack, just forgot that).
And i find a supply system really good and he brings something of new.

But, actually, they have many problem with this system.

In first, a weapon siege. Cross the map with weapon is really bad. Just, if you lose weapon on the road, you must go on your keep, on the rider side of map.. It's really boring. If you dont build more weapon, it's one thing, if you need wait 15min, and return on the rider side of map for build a news, is an another thing.. We need to build weapon same on the old system, but, with system of supply. In such a way that weapon doesnt spam, but, you give the possibility to attack one keep with surprise. Surprise is the only system we work against zerg and ennemy supremacy.

In second, the release on keep... This system kill attack. Just, funnel is only on first door, and release on keep is only on first door.. Coincidence ? If you die on funnel, you return to your warcamp, and you stop defend for a moment. This mecanic just really work on live serveur, why you deploy a really complexe system for counter funnel, when the heart problem is the release on keep ? Come back with your feet make lose time to door defense, time for more chance on attack.

And, we need really enter and exit by the door when they are attack. It's really so easy to defend a keep now, all on postern donjon, and stop all defender.. GG, nice strategy.. This strategy work on live, but a choice of two entrance multiplicate the chance to entrance on keep for defend..

Also, open all front, will need to attack and up keep on more map, for split zerg, we need more objectives. With only two keep, one red, one blue, if your faction lose, your faction lose all hour.. We need split ennemy if we are on inferiority. We need to attack a undefended keep if we are fewer.

Last point, need a capture flag, or contest area, for capture a keep. Or reduce aggro zone of boss at only her room. It's really so easy to bring a boss outside for kill us.. We need epic battle, we need to defend a keep until the last men ! And need it's impossible to repair the door when as long as there is an enemy in the keep area.




Wipe on keep attack isnt really a problem. But, actually, it's just impossible to simply attack one keep with a little defense.. It's really bad for game, because, we play full hours for just take and take and.. take, BO.. We need a chance to attack a keep !

The actually problem of RvR is here. The rest, supply, capture BO on loop, etc.. it's really good for push people out of keep. It's a good thing.

Players need a reward for this action. Reward is take a keep after 1 or 2 hours attack. Actually, isn't really that. We play many time for just.. Nothing ?

Mix old and new system, pls !

[Karast]

Is it possible for the devs to change warcamp locations?

For example to move the npc's, the respawn point, and the flight master to one of the PvE camps?

One of the issues right now, and it was and is a big issue with other systems is the often times horrible WC placement on some of the maps. KV is a good example of this, as are a few others. The ability to defend a BO or capture a keep can often be dependent on it's proximity to the WC, and even with the outer doors down, with some keeps players can run in without even being RvR flagged. Moving WC's might be a way to do this, and as an added bonus maybe even increase the lake size in the process.

[stmarrow]

Cause identified and handled.

Hi, Azarael! Was this reply aimed at Faiden's report of doors that respawned prematurely?

We just had the same thing happen to us in High Pass (T3) this morning about 00:30 CET. Order warband CTD'd when destro keep lord was getting low. While regrouping in the courtyard of and trying to bring the new oil down, destro captured the closest BO and brought a single resource in. Doors went back to full as soon as the runner turned in just one resource, and keep ticked safe - despite us attacking oil, PCs and NPCs alike.

[roadkillrobin]

We been experience a problem wich has more to do with the community then the mechanic itself, but as a strong Destruction ORVR guild we see this happen to us all the time. We log in, make a warband, see that Order keep is 4 stars and ours is 1. We are at 40-100% AAO. At this point Order is supose to be the aggresor and try to attack our keep but they don't. Instead they just keep zerging flagged BO's with 3 warbands. After around 3 hours of just BO jumping we have managed to rank our keep up to 3 stars while Order i still at 4. We still have 40-100% AAO and Order just waiting for us to attack the keep. We get bored of the BO jumping and we know we can't attack their keep coz they have assloads of cannons, outnumber us and can hide between keepwalls. So even tho all odds are against us. Order is forcing us to eeither not play or play as the aggressors. I don't think Devs had this in mind when they designed the system. Were the stronger realm take the defensive role instead of the aggressor. I'm not really sure how to solve this problem either, I think there need to a function if you don't utlize your high rank keep status (+4)? within X amount of time (1hour?) the rank gets degradeds to 1 star or something like that. (Collected resources have a expiration date)

[Daknallbomb]

Hmm of u have 40+ % aao no defensiv rewarding.. Bo recap keep def?

[roadkillrobin]

Hmm of u have 40+ % aao no defensiv rewarding.. Bo recap keep def?

The problem is they don't attack the keep or the BO's Even with superiour numbers, havin better ranked keep they are just waiting for flags to light up or keep to being attacked so they can rush them with 3+ warbands to rank up kills and bore us out coz we can't really do anything against those numbers . The system is designed so that the realm with highest ranked keep and numreric advantage is supsoe to be the aggresor. But whats happening is the opposite. There's nothing that regulate so that the realm with higher rank keep and more numbers must attack. So all they do is waiting and farm kills as long as they possible can. until the suposly defensive realm gets bored coz they got nothing to defend and log out. So when the opportunity comes and there's no longer any defenders.they flip the keep and get a massive flip reward from all the collected kills without actually having any keep defence opposition. Having multipe pairings open at the same time kinda regulated this to if they waited to long to attack. The other realm would flip other pairings. But the population doesn't really support having multiple pairings up. So whats needed is a timer on the collected resources. If the keep ranks at a certain rank isn't being used to attack the enemy keep whitin X amount of time. they should just wither away and give the lower pop realm an massive opputinity to counter attack.

[Vandoles]

We been experience a problem wich has more to do with the community then the mechanic itself, but as a strong Destruction ORVR guild we see this happen to us all the time. We log in, make a warband, see that Order keep is 4 stars and ours is 1. We are at 40-100% AAO. At this point Order is supose to be the aggresor and try to attack our keep but they don't. Instead they just keep zerging flagged BO's with 3 warbands. After around 3 hours of just BO jumping we have managed to rank our keep up to 3 stars while Order i still at 4. We still have 40-100% AAO and Order just waiting for us to attack the keep. We get bored of the BO jumping and we know we can't attack their keep coz they have assloads of cannons, outnumber us and can hide between keepwalls. So even tho all odds are against us. Order is forcing us to eeither not play or play as the aggressors. I don't think Devs had this in mind when they designed the system. Were the stronger realm take the defensive role instead of the aggressor. I'm not really sure how to solve this problem either, I think there need to a function if you don't utlize your high rank keep status (+4)? within X amount of time (1hour?) the rank gets degradeds to 1 star or something like that. (Collected resources have a expiration date)

We don't attack because we're mostly pug WBs and if we exit the keep to fight you around BO's we get blown the **** out. If I try to roam I get blown the **** out.

There's no point trying to outzerg you with our numbers over your organization, because you'll outgank us.

That's what I've been explaining when I mentioned small-scale balance. We don't exit our keep, we don't roam, because we get utterly and absolutely destroyed. Yes, now there's a weapon to break the almighty zerg that took over RVR zones. The zerg dominated zones and prevented (most often destro) from being able to play. But now organized roaming and ganking prevents order from being able to play.

So we log on, ask in /t4 whether there's an empty zone to cap and if there isn't, we go sit in a keep to wait for a defense and play scenarios.

Don't underestimate the issue, because soon all the order players (including new ones, who haven't been ganked enough) will understand that there's no reason to exit the keep unless destro has at least 140+ aao.

And before I get told to l2p and that order must organize itself or be content with being shat upon -

How about you change human mentality and the way we think, present proof you've accomplished that and I'll happily concede. Until then, we deal with reality.