Current RvR design is a reason of zerging

[Komode]

Hello, guys. I just want to help and gonna speak briefly as its possible. This topic is not about aoe cap changes though ill tell you smth about it. Ill state true facts from Warhammer Online RvR history, its gonna be exciting and useful info, i promise.
Why rvr is zergy and how it was solved earlier.

Its zergy not mostly cause of people mentality but present RVR design. Just think about it and remember when back in 2016-17 there were timers on BOs, conditions to access keep siege and lock the zone only after some time of controlling all objectives. That system was motivating people to control different BOs and locations in the zone. It was forcing people not only to split up but also coordinate very hard. Even 6men were involved to RVR succesfully, scouting BOs, killing roamers who were trying to check them.
There were warband vs warband fights near and on different BOs and small scale even cause BOs were really important. You barely could control all BOs at once if you`re travelling around map like a big zerg, which meant no zone control -> no lock -> no rewards. Yeah, there always were guilds who tried to make big blob but at least there were some options where to fight and against whom. ATM people barely notice such thing on battlefield, cause nothing forces people to spread around the zone. BOs are not mandatory to control all the time -> No impact on zerg amount.

Why aoe cap increase is not a solution to decrease zerg?
Cause of cap increase you buff damage output roughly (zerg`s damage aswell so fights are just faster), gimping healing output of combat unit (24men) cause aoe group heal is still 6 targets, gimping tanks role to absorb aoe hit cap, forcing people to spread out and not stack HTL (which is mandatory atm cause of classic dps classes meta). OR just use some warband for meatshield and another one to apply your damage. Adorable combat tactics yeah? But this is how it works atm.

Why spreading out is not effective?
To spread out effectively you need space in the zone, you need options to cleanse or avoid CC and snares, roots and atm there are no such options, you cant cleanse snares (lots of dots on the targets when fight comes, aoe cleansing is totaly random, costs GCD when you was need just to spam a groupheal). Also keep in mind colission and zone design with funnels, bridges, choke points, stones and other small stuff).
There are no speed buffs in the game to disengage effectively like a warband or "remove collision" buffs. So if people drop snares on you in large scale fights, you must fight.

Blobbing is not an issue till its too large comparing to another blob. Its formation. Its all about game design, abilities design and "absorbing hits by your tanks design", guard ranges. You need to stack your damage at spot effectively to kill things, this is completely ok and always was like that. You need to stick to your tanks or dps to tanks for not getting caught. Its a proper formation in that game according to abilities mechanic. HTL range, guard range, aoe damaging abilities range, group heal range.

So!
Amount of people blobbing is an issue and to solve this i suggest to implement component from old RVR system with timers on BOs, mandatory control of BOs to attack keep and for instance 15 mins BOs control timer to lock the zone. Just like it was before some years ago.

Something on the battlefield should motivate people to split in organised units. And it was already working much better then now, if you remember.
Now you just take 4 rdps, 2 healers, dump m4s from range, having fun using other wb like a meatshield.
Spreading out like a warband is not possible in zergy fights, so why should any guild wb take a role of meatshield? Is it funny proper gameplay? Not sure about it.

Old combat system was not very casual, but more "controlling objectives" based, which were bringing more small scale and variety to RvR. Its a fact. What if just take that part from old system and add it to present RvR?

You need to solve abilities balance and amount of members in 1 party/wb issue to balance everything around larger hit cap, or just bring back a tool which was working fine already earlier to make game more interesting.

Thanks!

[Acidic]

Agree with you reasoning of why the hit cap only speeds fights up, however not convinced as to the solution you propose.
I think the inclusion of game objectives and something above 2* so siege with entire zone does leave things to be desired and adding objectives and mini games around bo enabling siege is a good thing to keep small scale going while siege door hitting is happening. But to require too manny ppl to do side tasks could affect low population times negatively.

I would suggest that the way to impact the blobbing is to have a mechanism where by the stacked damage output is affected.
This I know I have said before but what the heck , soap selling is a thing
A) moral gain is inversely affected by player concentration
B) aoe damage (not convinced on single target) should not stack ie only a limited amount of one type of spell cause damage to player over a time (example after 4 same spells hitting in x second , you become immune to more of these for a time)
Both of the above limit damage output and as such reward from blobbing.

[carlos]

B) aoe damage (not convinced on single target) should not stack ie only a limited amount of one type of spell cause damage to player over a time (example after 4 same spells hitting in x second , you become immune to more of these for a time)
Both of the above limit damage output and as such reward from blobbing.

Are you only referring to spells?

Not trying to bait but a WL, who as it is now got little to offer in a WB, will have absoutly nothing to offer if this would be implemented.

[Acidic]

B) aoe damage (not convinced on single target) should not stack ie only a limited amount of one type of spell cause damage to player over a time (example after 4 same spells hitting in x second , you become immune to more of these for a time)
Both of the above limit damage output and as such reward from blobbing.

Are you only referring to spells?

Not trying to bait but a WL, who as it is now got little to offer in a WB, will have absoutly nothing to offer if this would be implemented.

Not sure I understand your comment but will try elaborate.
Each hit of aoe skill (yes I mean all things) player effectively gets a debuff lasting x seconds, these debuff last y seconds) when the player debuff stack hits x the player no longer takes damage from that skill .
Ie if being hit by 6 socs spamming same single skill only 4 would be doing damage if the stack limit was 4 and debuff only lasted a second. Can’t see where WL even comes into this.
But best to comment on OP suggestions. Not meaning to highjack the thread

[Collateral]

Firstly, good to see you again Larkuz

It's true that the old bo mechanics helped spread people out, everyone from that time should remember the amount of roaming groups and warbands, which was pretty high. In turn that means the quality of rvr will be higher as well. But, you also have to remember that tiers weren't merged. That means there were first of all less people in a given zone. I can hardly remember times when each side had 5+ wbs, that happened on some events or holidays etc. Now it's a norm almost.

I admit that I was wrong about the increase of aoe cap, as it was something I kept recommending, among other things (of course, I'm not the only person the devs seem to have listened to). Although I never would've increased it to 24, that's just way too much. My idea was always around 16 or so. But apparently it doesn't solve the zerg problem. Tbh I mentioned that aoe cap alone won't do much of anything when it comes to zergs, there's too many other variables.

I still stand with what I said countless times. The biggest problem is the merged tiers imo. If instead tiers 2 and 3 were merged, and went up to lvl 39, things would be different. The mid tier wouldn't be as dead as before, since initially they were all separated. And including players rank 39 (could be up to rank 36 as well, depending on gear lvls and what not) means the pop wouldn't be extremely low, and low rank players could coalesce around them without feeling useless, as opposed to facing rr 80 players now.

Implementing stuff for testing is good, and I'm super glad the devs recognise the problem and are willing to solve it and listen to the community. But I think it can be done better. Implementing such a big change during a 2x event will greatly impact the outcome of testing. Perphaps the devs did it on purpose to test it in the biggest zergs, but knowing the average population numbers, and doing it during 2x event is bound to have an outcome people wouldn't expect, and that can't really be relied on.

[Yaliskah]

"Current RvR design is a reason of zerging"

Yes and no.

If you were absoluetly right, during fort phase 2, population would try to spread equaly on 5 objectives to control them, which is obviously not the case. Is that bad game design? In this precise case, condition to win it clearly to spread and control. Point is when a side starts to mass his forces, to have weight, the other side adopt the same strategy.

But you can say, "yes, thats true for phase 2 in fort. Right now, the subject is ORvR". Then lets talk about ORvR. Few month ago, we deployed a tick system, directly linked to zone control. NO BO : NO RANK. result (except the AFK BO complain) : still zerg (but probably less i admit, (but you know "afk" BO meme and whine), crushing players and letting few behind them to keep it or letting fish keep it. > ATLEAST, faction were playing on the whole map.

Adding a timer? why not, it will reduce the amount of objectives and concentrate even more players around remaining objective (best exemple : keep siege), result : zerg.

So, well. Let say our choices are bad, and take a look in the past. before rework and merging. BOs were locked. And surprisingly, a whole faction was gently waiting the other siege it to crush it, letting the other doing the job in the zone. In which way was it so different? Oh and about T2-3, "you probably the "Bring back rats, cause it is not playable during NA time". You probably don't care, but some players do.

let's go even further in the past, Live server. Dunno on which server you were, but on Athel Loren, Zorgus, an order bright wizard federated a whole faction to zerg anything. BO were loked with timer -as you suggest- and there was no parry to this.

Can go even further in the past if you want, pointing those Bright wizard spamming Scorched Earth, leading the warband procession and deleting anything on their way.

See? Whatever the fact i can point, whatever the design, zerg is always here. Why? Because it is an open world. And the number wins, unless you use a dirty tricks to avoid it. Need some other facts to prove it? simple, Who siege a keep when pop is outnumbered? no one. Why some still try to play in smallscale in the game and succeed as much as possible to do something? Why ppl don't spread on non populated areas, even everybody cried to have it?

Because it is freaking reassuring to follow the path of least resistance. I don't even repproach this way of playing (thats not mine), if some enjoy to be no one in the mass, i fully understand it. Purpose is not to destroy it. Purpose is to let any other topology of player to have a place in the game. Nothing less, nothing more

If you were right, saying it is absolutely not a player choice, on each zones, you would have only 2 blocks. Which is not the case, according some players still trying hard to stay away of the mass and trying to do their job since years, with some cap limitations until last week.

In the end of the day, whatever the design, it is mostly a player choice.

[GpuSW]

i like to zerg
its a problem for you?

[heybaws]

"Current RvR design is a reason of zerging"

If you were absoluetly right, during fort phase 2, population would try to spread equaly on 5 objectives to control them, which is obviously not the case. Is taht bad game design? In this precise case, condition to win it clearly to spread and control. Point is when a side starts to mass his forces, to have weight, the other side adopt the same strategy.

Fort phase 2 system is good because, ofcourse, people still have a right to mindlessly zerg, but if they do, system will punish them for that. Both attackers or defenders will suffer if they will concentrate they forces in 1 blob, and thats great. Thats what Larkuz suggesting to implement in ORvR zones, if you dont split - no lock for you. That will grand losing side (thats is probably outnumbered) to tie the fight in that zone, to achieve something. Now if you dont have same numbers you lose, not because enemy players are better than you, but simply because its more of them. And nothing you can do with that in a current RvR system. Now most of the times you can't even make a last stand on 1 BO, simply because mindless zerg wants easy renown so hard, that they just avoid you and lock 3 other flags and run inside warcamp. 4 BO timer lock will bring some additional fights, where defenders can decide which BO with which strat they want to defend.

[Acidic]

In the end of the day, whatever the design, it is mostly a player choice.

Would say “regardless of design it’s down to player choice.
This is why removing the reward from Zerg by reducing its ability to kill help focus the mind and chose something else. Right now (especially with 24 cap) there is no need to chose
Note: can not say this often enough , great that you guys are up for trying things. Not everything needs to be theoretically proved before a test. Alfa means you can be random

[Yaliskah]

Thats what Larkuz suggesting to implement in ORvR zones, if you dont split - no lock for you. That will grand losing side (thats is probably outnumbered) to tie the fight in that zone, to achieve something.

This is preciselly what tick system tried to do. Seems it was not appreciated.