In this topic I will mostly focus on the game-state during EU primetime where both realms see several guilds logging in running guild warbands/groups and the action often being fairly balanced to the point of zonelocks not happening. I am merely focusing on this timeslot as it sees the most action, and most even fighting. NA has it pros and cons, and same for KR primetime.
I will mostly focus on the Heatmaps from the killboard, try to highlight some points of what may drive the guilds/players to behave as they do, and then come with some examples of what could potentially be done if we as a community or the Devs want to try and lead the playerbehaviour as clearly the latest Battleobjecive adjustment didnt change much in terms of the primetime action over the last handful of years.
Below is a small sample size of the last 1-3 weeks of EU primetime Heatmaps, too many praag duplicates to include them all. And any zone that flipped into NA timeslot where a siege then eventually happend and moved the heatmap to a single point at the besieged keep are not included as thats outside of my talking point of "roaming" action and playerbehavior during the "star-building-phase" of a zone lifespan.
https://imgur.com/a/iFTFDWy
1) What do the heatmaps show us?
Pretty much all of the heatmaps paint the same picture, the maps with a close-by enemy warcamp leads to a back'n'forth between warcamps.
The maps with more narrow Eleven bridges and steep valleys make maps feel even more cramped and tiny and forces the action to on few option narrow paths as we see it in DW/Cale. Where as Eatain when on more flat ground will see bad heatmaps between the Warcamps on the center BO.
Bigger rvr lakes like Avelorn, Praag, CW, Reikland have some terrian or structual difficulties but despite being community favorits they still often end up in the Mainroad push-pull fights between warcamps
2) So why is that, what drive players to behave like that?
While rvr hosts everyone. No matter the gear, experience, groupsize or intention one thing seem to be common.
- Players go where they think they can progress, or where they think they can find action
If players assume or know the enemy players will keep shuffling back and forth on the mainroad, you are techincally losing uptime during a guild-event raid if you break off and go to the colder parts of the heatmap in the hopes the enemy will break off too. As the rest of your realm might stay and fight, and you then just lose out on uptime for fighting.
If the progression is the only carrot and incentive to go away from Matyrs in Praag, but you are running on BiS RR80 characters then honestly the main incentive for you to break off, is if the enemy does it first or out of boredom I guess
The campaign has lost almost all appeal for veterans. The realm pride is shrinking year by year with no further content to staying on one main character and working with your realm, instead majority now is crossrealming(not winnerjoining! dont get them mixed up) to simply get action and variety. So barely any guilds are making events to logging on for the evening to push a zone and collect bags or celebrate the campaign progression.
So I think its important to look and understand the playerbehaviour of those that drive the action and Can push the zones if they commit and chose to do so.
3) How do we do that then?
The brutal honest answer is to shift away from "kills" being the succes messurement if this game wants to continue being a Campaign driven gamemode. Ingame scenario scoreboards was a perfect addition, Killboard served as a fun thing. But the only thing that motivates players right after a guild event is uploading the screenshots of the stats of kills, healing, protection and in the grand sceme of things it didnt matter at all what zone was fought over as it was just the random playground for the night.
- How about if a road is being used too often and by too many, the roads becoming in poor condition and you will move slower by constantly taking the same path.
- How about if BOs were locked, and each realm could see how many enemies were attacking a BO by reintroducing BO-guards that doesnt give +combat and morale gain advantage. Capping a BO locks it, but it also shows how many are on a BO by having the BO claimed by a guild/alliance and they get "guard-spam" of how many attackers are in the area (daoc/live aor mechanic)
- How about Local-AAO while fighting on BOs to better relfect Difficulty/reward. So if you fight on a BO with 24 and they send 48 against you, you would get double the rewards for the few kills you might make. And they would get less because it was an easier fight for them by outnumbering you.
- How about Kills not counting on Killboard/scenario scoreboard if you dont hold atleast two of the new 20min Battleobjective buffs. Now watch all the guilds roam like crazy lol, and we didnt even have to touch on rewards we just had to pressure the "success messurement"
Not all zones are equal. Some have really poor layout, bad Warcamp placements, imballanced keep/BO placement. But atleast can we do SOMETHING about RvR after its been neglected and the main gamemode of this server is in a declining state.
In the past we had experimental phases with Healers, with aoe cap. Why is it that we dont see any real attempt on improving the MAIN thing this game has to offer? Keeps and zonelocks also need attention but lets take one step at a time and work on the rvr zones while they are in the star-building phase.
Thanks for reading
