Changelog 4th June, 2016

[Azarael]

I view funnelling as bad because it's a sledgehammer solution, and by this I mean it has side effects. It's actually an existing example of when coercion, or forcing players to play in a certain way, goes wrong. The funnel on a keep door's entrance cannot be avoided except by forcing the postern, which essentially pushes you into a situation where your movement is actively being restricted, both by the very narrow entranceway and by impacting with other players. You don't have a choice to avoid the funnel or any alternative strategy except to retreat, which forfeits the objective, so the game design itself is coercing you without - and this is the important part - providing an alternative strategy for you to use.

The other part of this is that while a funnel may be an effective terrain feature for a smaller group to use against a zerg, it works just as well when a zerg is using it against a zerg, and is so optimal in these cases that "go to keep, we'll farm them at keep" is called with no attempt to prevent the first door from going down.

I prefer strategies which have some kind of counterplay. This is why siege towers, Orcapults and indirect fire artillery (when it has to be towed) were considered as a solution to the keep funneling problem, the idea being that these war machines could be attacked and prevented from reaching the keep en route, but when they reached the keep, you were screwed - exactly as you should be if your entire force camps in the keep while the enemy brings heavy siege to it.

(A minor note that while on the current build, it's not strictly true that funneling has no direct counter, as you can use artillery pieces against it, the bugs with durability prevent this situation from arising at all.)

[Sizer]

Please spare me the "don't make me play a certain way" spiel.

All games have rules - they force you to play in a certain way. They do this to promote depth of gameplay and to deal with issues which would trivialize the game. Not being able to handle the ball in football is a rule, and it exists for a damn good reason. Therefore, the argument is completely meaningless and will be ignored.

The thing about his argument isnt that rules shouldnt exist, hes just unhappy that the rules are what YOU want but not what the rest of the playerbase might want. Of course its your server, but at the same time, its either going to be a private server for the devs to work on their pet projects, or a game for the players to play while the devs work with them to fix the game.

If you want to overhaul rvr, while also retaining players, do it with feedback and in a way that doesnt kill rvr for months at a time - people want an improved game sure, but they also want to have fun now. Is that selfish? Almost certainly. But the alternative is to lose more players ever month. This isnt a moba, rvr will only work with massive amounts of players. Mythic fixed rvr by year 4, but it didnt matter, as there were no players left to sustain it. Itd be a shame to see the same thing happen here.

[Morf]

I like the ideas and it just seems players want an easy system where they can go from bo to bo, keep to keep getting as much rewards as possible for as little effort as possible and having seen /1/2 and t4 chat ingame its all to familiar to see players give up because they lack the intelligence or the will to use any other tactic then to zerg and hope for the best.
As i have said in the past its the players attitudes/mindsets of wanting easymode stuff is what kills any rvr system, just look at the resource carrier system towards the end on live, you saw more players afk at there wc then you saw attacking a keep and often flipped a zone with aoo, not because they coudnt stop the keep siege but because they could still get points for doing jack ****.
No rvr system will work with players who are not even here for the pvp but rather to advance there character.

One thing that would help is fixing oil so it isnt morale damage and can be mitigated, this will help a hell of a lot.

[drmordread]

On a side note(s)
-Any chance of allowing INF and medallions again in SC's, the way it was since launch?

-Introducing again medallion quests with kills from RvR and SC's counting equally?


(YES.... I am an avid fan fan of sc's


Also;
- What is the respawn rate of these towed artillery pieces that can be had by capturing BO's?
- Will the opposing faction know which players are carrying the siege?
EXAMPLE:
My alliance 6 man wants to gank destro grps/players ferrying siege to a keep. Once we kill the players, does the siege dissapear or do we have to destroy it too? And once destroyed, does it auto respawn back at the bo's (or where ever it will spawn) and how much time between destruction of weapon and spawn? (I think 20 min respawn timer of sige weapons to be prime).

[Azarael]

The thing about his argument isnt that rules shouldnt exist, hes just unhappy that the rules are what YOU want but not what the rest of the playerbase might want. Of course its your server, but at the same time, its either going to be a private server for the devs to work on their pet projects, or a game for the players to play while the devs work with them to fix the game.

If you want to overhaul rvr, while also retaining players, do it with feedback and in a way that doesnt kill rvr for months at a time - people want an improved game sure, but they also want to have fun now. Is that selfish? Almost certainly. But the alternative is to lose more players ever month. This isnt a moba, rvr will only work with massive amounts of players. Mythic fixed rvr by year 4, but it didnt matter, as there were no players left to sustain it. Itd be a shame to see the same thing happen here.

I'm happy to listen to feedback, but the caveat to that is that you have to give me something I can work with. A straight opinion tells me nothing. A criticism of flaws within the proposed design is far more useful. If someone offers me a straight opinion, I read it, and then I think: what's your angle? People oppose changes for many reasons, and some of them are very selfish.

I go to lengths to justify everything I do, as I am doing now in this thread, and as a result I have no tolerance for criticism that is not substantiated. That's the covenant I have. Show how I am wrong, and I will correct it. Simply tell me that I'm wrong? Can't really expect much.

Also;
- What is the respawn rate of these towed artillery pieces that can be had by capturing BO's?
- Will the opposing faction know which players are carrying the siege?
EXAMPLE:
My alliance 6 man wants to gank destro grps/players ferrying siege to a keep. Once we kill the players, does the siege dissapear or do we have to destroy it too? And once destroyed, does it auto respawn back at the bo's (or where ever it will spawn) and how much time between destruction of weapon and spawn? (I think 20 min respawn timer of sige weapons to be prime).

They're obtained by consuming supply, generated by BOs, and contribution, generated by battlefield actions. Those rates are something we'll nail down during testing. Siege weapons are towed, so they will show in the world as a following object. Everything else has yet to be fully worked out, including where foremen would be located.

[magicthighs]

people want an improved game sure, but they also want to have fun now. Is that selfish? Almost certainly

The question isn't really if it's selfish, but if these two things can always be compatible. I don't think they always will be when we're trying out changes.

And "not having fun" might just mean people need to adapt because they can't do the same thing they've always been doing.

[drmordread]

I like the ideas and it just seems players want an easy system where they can go from bo to bo, keep to keep getting as much rewards as possible for as little effort as possible and having seen /1/2 and t4 chat ingame its all to familiar to see players give up because they lack the intelligence or the will to use any other tactic then to zerg and hope for the best.
As i have said in the past its the players attitudes/mindsets of wanting easymode stuff is what kills any rvr system, just look at the resource carrier system towards the end on live, you saw more players afk at there wc then you saw attacking a keep and often flipped a zone with aoo, not because they coudnt stop the keep siege but because they could still get points for doing jack ****.
No rvr system will work with players who are not even here for the pvp but rather to advance there character.

One thing that would help is fixing oil so it isnt morale damage and can be mitigated, this will help a hell of a lot.

To play devils advocate, I play just to level up characters. I love seeing purple flowing by and getting a character to max levels with max gear .... and rolling a new one!
Take my WH for example; Got him to 40/40. Medallions are excessively hard to come by so Merc gear is the best I have to settle for. I got it .... now on to next toon.

[wanna993]

Sadly its the players mindset at fault, they always want the easiest way out and max rewards, we must look to guilds to lead the sheep. I know its sad but Plenty a night we have seen all 4 BO's capped and yet the entire set of wbs decide to swap zones for an easier challenge.

Its understandable on one hand given how hard it is to siege keeps atm with oil/door hp etc but on the other its because they simply have no communication and quite frankly have no idea what to do and will crumble after one wipe. Many people loose sight of the fact that wbs require effort to set up and most of the time just get referred to as 'zergs'.. most commonly by lesser sized groups who feel they have more influence but meh its the way it is.

Eh I find that's pretty false. There's maps with 4 BOs and ppl swap because of how broken it is atm to get any keeps. We were stuck in Cale for about 2 hours today because we couldn't get the last keep. Oil wipes melee and door takes a month to down. Besides you have to spend so much energy leading people it's not even funny. It's like most of them can't even read or don't have a keyboard. So many times I've been given lead just because I type a minimal amount to give and ask info. But that's partially what you get when you play online with many regions on the same server. I'm certain at the very least 50% can't speak english on the server.
Balancing keep sieges while waiting for the new system would help, but as it stands you're just banging your head against a wall.

[Azarael]

Hotfix:

- Oil is physical damage
- Removed artillery damage scaling until new RvR system is ready
- Fixed durability of siege weapons

[drmordread]

One other negative I just thought of. The battle over siege weapons. Everyone will want to operate one, with those operating them, getting the lion shares of the kills, rr, inf, and medallions for their group. WB leaders are going to have to begin micromanaging a bit too much to have fun.

and....

With all the aoe siege going off all over the place, stealthers will have stealth broken even more, making two entire classes completely useless in open RvR in the lakes.