Question/Feedback on Zone Control

[Gainsboreaux]

Hi there guys,

New to RoR, long time live player. So far I'm really enjoying the experience and have been able to get a few of my buddies who never had the chance to play live to come join and see what it was all about. This isn't a suggestion or complaint by any means, but there is one change from live that RoR uses that I was a bit confused about and was curious about how other people felt or what the dev's reasoning for the change was. My buddies and I just finished T1 and are in our early 20's now, and obviously we are thrown in with the merged T2-T4 zones. I'm totally used to periods of grinds where you're not particularly useful and that doesn't bother me really. We accept that we're gonna have to just suck it up and grind up to a decent level before feeling relevant in SC's and oRvR. But the mechanic about having to lock T2 before T3, and then pushing into T4 struck me a bit odd.

I am assuming that this change was made to 'focus' the fighting into specific zones. I understand that this would keep the population seemingly more healthy and allow people to find fights easier and all that good stuff. However, this does lead to T2 and T3 zones being locked for what can be rather long stints. I was mainly curious if this mechanic is under any evaluation for potential change in the future, or was pretty set in stone by the devs and the direction they want to take the game.

Again, I am not complaining about the current state. I am aware that one could just say 'well just go fight in T4 zones when T2 and T3 are locked'. I get it, and that's a valid design. But it does mean that level 16's are mixed in with RR80+ even when fighting over T2 keeps, and seems to make the 'relevant grind' mentioned earlier quite a bit longer. I know you can help mitigate this with SC grinding, as 40's are in their own bracket. Before even suggesting changes or giving my own opinion on the matter, these questions are what has been running through my mind since I've gotten into T2:

1) Is the Rank 40 population low enough that it needs its numbers bolstered by T2-3 players?
2) Is the T2-3 population too low, so that these zones would be dead without including T4 players?
3) Could T2-3 be tweaked to include ranks 16-35(ish) - or maybe even 16-39? - and un-couple it from T4 and still have a healthy population in both brackets, similar to how SCs are working currently?
4) Would uncoupling T2-3 from T4 unbalance the T4 pushes and make city raids occur too frequently?
5) Is this even an issue among other players, or am I just on my own here? Is this something that devs are even looking at?

Again, I don't mind having to grind up to feel relevant and all that. But I do remember how the T2 and T3 zones felt back on Live, and I really enjoyed it overall and it seems like that type of gameplay just isn't present in RoR at the moment. My buddies and I are gonna keep playing either way, and are looking forward to getting up to 40, however long the grind takes. I just wanted to get some outside opinions on it. Also, I apologize if this has been brought up and discussed before. I took a glance through the first few pages of the forum, and didn't see a topic about it.

[wargrimnir]

T2-T4 zones are all the same battlefield as far as bolster goes. You should be heading to T4 RvR along with everyone else. The "Tier" moniker is really only useful for determining basic PvE leveling, it doesn't apply to "mid-tier" scenarios either from 16-39.

We field this question every couple of months. There are no plans to revert to the mid-tier lakes. The population wasn't a factor before, it's the mindset that happens when you introduce a mid-tier. Reverting would make people grind to 40 in PvE so they could join the "real" RvR experience faster. The proportion of mid-tier players who would play RvR when it has no significant impact on the overall game meta has never been a majority. RvR being highly sensitive to population density makes having a mid-tier cordoned off from the main game essentially a dead-tier waiting to happen. There would be certainly be some players running to and from empty keeps in empty zones, but the quality of fights compared to the current RvR lakes would be absolutely terrible, and that's not an experience we want to represent.

Bolster is more than adequate (and downright overpowered at times) to be competitive provided you take full advantage of it. Wear gear as close to your level as possible, slot talismans in everything, use stat buff potions. The same thing that you would be expected to do if you were level 40 is required to have a highly impactful bolster buff. There are videos of players minmaxing their gear and violently rolling over people much higher level than them. You get out what you put in.

[Gainsboreaux]

T2-T4 zones are all the same battlefield as far as bolster goes. You should be heading to T4 RvR along with everyone else. The "Tier" moniker is really only useful for determining basic PvE leveling, it doesn't apply to "mid-tier" scenarios either from 16-39.

Not trying to be rude, but I'm not sure you read the post. I am aware of all of this, in fact it was the whole point of my post. Just sounds like mansplaining, lol.

The population wasn't a factor before, ... The proportion of mid-tier players who would play RvR ... has never been a majority.

I'm not sure how both of these things can be true. If population wasn't a factor before the change, why would one assume that the majority of mid-tier players NOT compete in mid tier PvP?

Reverting would make people grind to 40 in PvE so they could join the "real" RvR experience faster. ... having a mid-tier cordoned off from the main game essentially a dead-tier waiting to happen.

From my 6+ years of experience on Live, I can say this was definitely NOT the case. And as I said earlier, you contradict this statement because population, as you say, wasn't a factor before. As it is now, T2 and T3 are 'dead', because they are locked 90% of the time. You can't get any more dead than that. Yes, I understand that by combining T2-4 you increase the number of players in T2/3 zones WHILE THEY ARE UNLOCKED, but statistically it drastically reduces the population of these tiers over time. As I also mentioned in the original post.

Bolster is more than adequate (and downright overpowered at times) to be competitive provided you take full advantage of it. Wear gear as close to your level as possible, slot talismans in everything, use stat buff potions. The same thing that you would be expected to do if you were level 40 is required to have a highly impactful bolster buff.

Just as with other games that use Bolster mechanics, this is slanted towards alts. The fact that a new player has to spend money to get proper gear, talismans, and potions to be relevant essentially embraces the twink culture. I'm aware that there isn't a good way to deal with this and I'm not complaining about the Bolster mechanic. But it's important to understand that your points WILL NOT APPLY to new players who are leveling their first character. In fact, this type of mechanic encourages people to PvE rush a couple of characters first as farming toons, and then level PvP toons, buying/crafting the required gear to be relevant. Again, this is a very common thing for games that use a Bolster mechanic. I have already made my PvE toons and am currently leveling all the trade skills to deal with this badly designed mechanic, even before I read your reply.



With all of that being said, I appreciate your reply and thoughts. You didn't really answer, or possibly understand, my questions. However in a backwards way, you have given me quite a bit of insight into the motivations and mindset of the Dev team that will help in the coming weeks. Despite the obvious short-sightedness of the changes, I am still looking forward to experiencing the game as it is, and like you said, abuse the mechanics that have been changed in order to get an advantage over others.

[Caduceus]

This problem can be divided into a couple of parts, most of which are easily solvable by asking questions to experienced players:

Beginning players tend to:
1. Underestimate the effects of bolstering and assume they will be weak until level 40.
2. Not fully understand how the bolstering system works and how to get the most out of it.
3. Not know how to effectively gear their characters.
4. Not know what gear sets are available and where and how to obtain them.
5. Not slot their gear with talismans, deeming them "too expensive". (this is perhaps culprit #1 when it comes to ineffective characters)
6. Be starved for gold, since PvP yields very little.

All of this can be solved by asking an experienced player the simple question "what do?".

[Gainsboreaux]

Beginning players tend to:
1. Underestimate the effects of bolstering and assume they will be weak until level 40.
2. Not fully understand how the bolstering system works and how to get the most out of it.
3. Not know how to effectively gear their characters.
4. Not know what gear sets are available and where and how to obtain them.
5. Not slot their gear with talismans, deeming them "too expensive". (this is perhaps culprit #1 when it comes to ineffective characters)
6. Be starved for gold, since PvP yields very little.

I'm not sure why the Bolster keeps being brought up. This had nothing to do with my original questions, but I guess this is what most new players have issue with. I understand the Bolster, as this is not the first game to use the mechanic. It seems like this one is more 'busted' and manipulatable than other games, which I assume the devs used to justify their decisions on certain game changes. As I mentioned in another reply, I have started my PvE toons that I will use for crafting/farming to keep my PvP toons relevant while leveling. But again, this has nothing to do with my original post. I was more concerned by the fact that T2 and T3 are completely dead because of them being locked 90%+ of the time. But I know people love their zergs, so I'm starting to understand why the devs made this decision.


Edit for clarity: I don't have an issue with Bolster and I am fully aware of how bolster buffs in general work and can be manipulated. What my original post was about is why the change was made to combine the tiers in the first place. The bolster was tweaked (and potentially broken) when the change to combine the tiers was made, not the other way around. For the fellow mathematicians out there, we understand how bolster becomes broken as your widen the gap that it is applied to. It almost seems to me that the changes to the Tiers were made specifically because the devs wanted a more manipulatable bolster. I have still not gotten an answer as to why the tiers were changed other than how it relates to bolster, because it doesn't seem to have been population based or for fear of dead zones (Locked zones are the ultimate dead zones). From what I'm gathering, the change was made to funnel people all into the same zones to increase zerg size and reduce combat options, but almost in a completely arbitrary way. Seems like it would have been easier to just remove T2 and T3 and have ONLY T1 and T4. This would achieve the same effect as the current design, without the completely pointless requirement of locking T2 and T3 zones.

[wargrimnir]

T2 and T3 are locked frequently because they're part of the overall campaign that leads into T4. When the city is reset after a siege these are first on the list of zones that are fought over.

But you're not complaining or anything, just looking for the obvious short sighted design decisions to criticize, so all is well. We're used to such treatment from valuable players.

[Gainsboreaux]

T2 and T3 are locked frequently because they're part of the overall campaign that leads into T4. When the city is reset after a siege these are first on the list of zones that are fought over.

But you're not complaining or anything, just looking for the obvious short sighted design decisions to criticize, so all is well. We're used to such treatment from valuable players.

Again, that's very obvious and has nothing to do with my original questions. I am not complaining about anything other than the fact that my OP was completely ignored and it was just assumed that I was complaining about bolster and that I didn't understand it. Such attentive customer service should always be reciprocated by valuable players, and should be treated with corresponding reverence.

[wargrimnir]

T2 and T3 are locked frequently because they're part of the overall campaign that leads into T4. When the city is reset after a siege these are first on the list of zones that are fought over.

But you're not complaining or anything, just looking for the obvious short sighted design decisions to criticize, so all is well. We're used to such treatment from valuable players.

Again, that's very obvious and has nothing to do with my original questions. I am not complaining about anything other than the fact that my OP was completely ignored and it was just assumed that I was complaining about bolster and that I didn't understand it. Such attentive customer service should always be reciprocated by valuable players, and should be treated with corresponding reverence.

You're not a customer. You're a guest. We are happy to have you here, as a guest.
You weren't completely ignored, and far from it. Most questions on the forums don't get responses from anyone on the team.
The questions you asked were not answered in order, however you should be able to rather easily glean the information you need from the response I provided. We're not trying to hide anything, this isn't a new topic despite your attempts to find the answers already. It's been debated in the past, and as I said, every couple of months we get someone new who seems to think they have a better idea or have criticisms about the existing system to air. We're aware it's not perfect, but it's better than what we had on live, and that's good enough for us.

[Gainsboreaux]

You're not a customer. You're a guest. We are happy to have you here, as a guest.
You weren't completely ignored, and far from it. Most questions on the forums don't get responses from anyone on the team.
The questions you asked were not answered in order, however you should be able to rather easily glean the information you need from the response I provided. We're not trying to hide anything, this isn't a new topic despite your attempts to find the answers already. It's been debated in the past, and as I said, every couple of months we get someone new who seems to think they have a better idea or have criticisms about the existing system to air. We're aware it's not perfect, but it's better than what we had on live, and that's good enough for us.

Yes, I think I have received enough information to answer my own questions. Here's an example of how to answer questions in a direct and formal manner:

1) Is the Rank 40 population low enough that it needs its numbers bolstered by T2-3 players?

No, the rank 40 population is healty.

2) Is the T2-3 population too low, so that these zones would be dead without including T4 players?

No, T2-3 population is also healthy.

3) Could T2-3 be tweaked to include ranks 16-35(ish) - or maybe even 16-39? - and un-couple it from T4 and still have a healthy population in both brackets, similar to how SCs are working currently?

They could.

4) Would uncoupling T2-3 from T4 unbalance the T4 pushes and make city raids occur too frequently?

Unknown, and perhaps is too subjective of a question to really answer definitively.

5) Is this even an issue among other players, or am I just on my own here? Is this something that devs are even looking at?

Yes, this is an issue among other players, as it is seemingly inquired about regularly. No, devs aren't looking to change it as it's preferred to keep zones locked most of the and remove the purpose of the zones.


Thank you for your responses and I apologize that my use of logical arguments and fallacy debunking triggered you to the point of passive aggressively threatening the removal of my 'guest' status. You can probably close this thread now as I have answered my own questions.

[wargrimnir]

Sassy.