[ORVR] Brainstorming/Suggestions

[Yaliskah]

Hi there !

I'm opening this post to ask you some suggestions cause actually, we scratch our heads.

Some years ago, community was upset to be forced to focus in a single area, and we depoyed a pop scale based system, introducing in the same time some counter measure to avoid zone trading.

Actually, we are looking for non punitive solutions to invite people to split and go in these empty areas.

The purpose of this post is to open a discussion, suggest, argument and give us some ideas we could explore when we will focus on ORVR again, IE, after fort deployment (not so far now).

The only vey blury idea we have actually is to increase all gains/contribution in less populated areas, but we are not sure this will really invite player to focus on.

Keep in mind the purpose is not a global rework of the actual system. Simple = Efficient.

Waiting for your ideas and suggestions

[Tesq]

ppl will spread when the aim is reach capitals and not just get renown, at that point you will see ppl float around to reach end game content and btw for that to happen the current system to open zone cant work to coordinates zones pushes

[Greenbeast]

Hi there !

I'm opening this post to ask you some suggestions cause actually, we scratch our heads.

Some years ago, community was upset to be forced to focus in a single area, and we depoyed a pop scale based system, introducing in the same time some counter measure to avoid zone trading.

Actually, we are looking for non punitive solutions to invite people to split and go in these empty areas.

The purpose of this post is to open a discussion, suggest, argument and give us some ideas we could explore when we will focus on ORVR again, IE, after fort deployment (not so far now).

The only vey blury idea we have actually is to increase all gains/contribution in less populated areas, but we are not sure this will really invite player to focus on.

Keep in mind the purpose is not a global rework of the actual system. Simple = Efficient.

Waiting for your ideas and suggestions

Increase all gains and contribution or at least reduce penalty.
There is no global goal in campaign maybe adding some rewards for looking multiple paring will help.

We switched zones twice during last event. In DW it went well because TUP showed up and we had few decent fights. In Eataine it was 40+ minutes of rvdoor and 3k+ renown for it.

[Wam]

Hi there !

I'm opening this post to ask you some suggestions cause actually, we scratch our heads.

Some years ago, community was upset to be forced to focus in a single area, and we depoyed a pop scale based system, introducing in the same time some counter measure to avoid zone trading.

Actually, we are looking for non punitive solutions to invite people to split and go in these empty areas.

The purpose of this post is to open a discussion, suggest, argument and give us some ideas we could explore when we will focus on ORVR again, IE, after fort deployment (not so far now).

The only vey blury idea we have actually is to increase all gains/contribution in less populated areas, but we are not sure this will really invite player to focus on.

Keep in mind the purpose is not a global rework of the actual system. Simple = Efficient.

Waiting for your ideas and suggestions

I will personally go wherever the most enemies are to kill and fight... for the most enjoyment/fun/battles/challenge/reward/ test of ourselves A.K.A Zerg busting or where enemy threat is to increase our chance of death.

Orvr Stuff/player mentality/reasons for zerg

Spoiler:

When a zone is below a certain number its not fair for them to fight us if we bring a proper setup and focus... and its not rewarding either... so either we as a guild switch sides to boost underdog (and get punished for it) or we just call it... order's been generally outnumbered alot more and not really helping itself being organised either lately... so we boost order and ourselves there for greater challenge from destro (they have more organised guild wbs)... on our lowbies and also the freshness of playing other characters atleast is a bonus. If order begins to dominate too much, maybe we swap back to try balance the scales again.

Today we was outnumbered in praag, we kill people, they go take dragonwake... we go dragonwake we are outnumbered but get there too late and outnumbered to make any difference... we go back to praag... we get zerged alot 5 wb's vs one on few occasions as we search for fights... we eventually help break and grind zerg... eventually destro get tired of dying they go to PVdoor eataine either to avoid us or lag whatever you want to call it... they come back after pvdoor is complete but they are too late to make a difference at south keep in praag just like we was in dragonwake and destro give up. It's always the same pattern from players

Towards end of praag Destro lose their best and russian warband due to time zones... then they have AAO / tired / give up... they could of pushed harder but fell back for faint retreat but its their keep, they need to do something if they want it back.
From my experience Yali most people don't look for the hard fights, despite what they claim, on both sides they look too zerg and get easy gains for minimum effort... if they can't beat/zerg something its rare that people will try to fight and improve. Only enemy guild I can remember doing such things consistantly looking for fights was CNTK from order when they was full wb like a year ago, now they are 1-2 fg so less mass less threat. Bitterstones try a few times too but are hard handicapped by being racial only.

There is two ways to improve, be more optimized (better geared, better tactics/synergy... more vocal, key plays of cc and assist) or get bigger... getting bigger is the easy option and majority use it for ease of convience daily. Most people only care about getting bigger for easy rewards and this snowballs in every zone = more lag, sometimes you do all the right tactics to split enemy zerg but they won't... until you counter them and they wipe a few times and they realise they ain't going to lock zone easy (thats when they either log off and AAO starts to happen or go to a different zone to pvdoor for the easy returns for minimum effort again)

I number check many times during a raid to find where enemy goes and play cat and mouse... if its worth chasing or not...

No matter what you do... you as developers cannot change community/player mentality... its very ingrained... they will always look for the biggest reward for minimum effort it's mostly human nature. I whip my guys for maximum effort for maximum fun so they don't fall into this trap of easy mode zerging. Fight hard die well.

If players/groups/guilds/alliance warbands even got more optimized... maybe they would spread but I still think most would be lured to the big fights and hand hold for most rewards at minimum return of effort...

The best system we have played under so far in my opinion on ROR was only active for a week so would of needed more of test phase to give even more reliable feedback but it was the most fun, it was when whoever had the great idea to change bo flags timers from 6 minutes(6 mins zerg could travel entire zone, 1-3 mins... zerg needed to move fast and couldnt travel entire zone) to 1-3 mins on cap... this made maps more dynamic yes people would generally rush towards these bo points (perfect for ambushes you could predict enemy movement even easier) but you would have to spread out to cover everywhere... and you could still have those epic last man stand moments on bo's if you know a zerg is coming and you have to hold out for 20-30 seconds to lock BO... then you respawn and rush another BO to keep the pressure on the map... with fast movement and no breaks you would pull the zerg all over the map (if they didn't spread out to cover) grinding them down... they then had too spread man power which produced better fights, or just zerg you but still fail with map control.

The bigger problem is lack of leaders on both realms, this is another reason why zerg happens... people tend to follow others (usually follow organised or active/known pug/realm leader) so they can relax and make less decisions... I don't need to talk on region on either side and i am pretty sure we will get a big following (even if we do weird movements and suicide ourselves)... I do not welcome or discourage this because its none of my responsbility other players are entitled to play how they want around me just like I am them, I can understand their reasons following for protection, leach or just simply finding action. 100+ order chased 2 shamans today in praag towards order wc... just because I joked on comms and decided too (to poke my shaman players) that is a lack of leadership problem to mindlessly follow the person in front.

Lag

Spoiler:

Lag is the biggest issue in orvr for the longest time, it didn't use to be so bad with more players over a year ago... rams/keep lords bugging out... I know you probably want to spread people to help reduce lag... making other zones more rewardable for less people might increase "fight avoidance or as you call it zone trading" so getting the balance just right is very very hard for you as developer... as you have to make incentive good enough but fair.

Fortress's will produce more lag no doubt and more zerging... People should naturally split across more zones to try progress campaign for cities and Ninja keeps when guards/scouts are not in position, so both realms will need to develop better communication/spy network to know where to be/enemy movements for blitz attacks on keeps. Another major issue with this depending how it is implemented is also "fight avoidance" one realm might concede defeat/few zones and not "fully defend zones" let the other side lock/progress then they get better rewarded for showing up too fortress defense/city defense... it's hard to balance you have to juggle alot. I don't envy your guys task.

If extra fancy stuff increases lag it is not worth in my honest opinion... game is good, lag and stability not as good as in ror's peak server performance. (healing in lag is nightmare)

Reducing lag should be the biggest goal... today we had turn based combat in praag in open fields around MS... it was even worse than keep lord lag that's how bad it was.

Cheers for reading, Wam ... good luck finding a system that won't be abused

Ps. Maybe improve minimum softcap of renown on keep captures to 5,000 or 10,000 renown even with AAO... what do dev's think is appropiate? remember you still need generally to ram x2 doors and tank lord... you want it enough to make it a viable alternative to main zone if its too unplayable/laggy/too zergy for some... but not too much to make it encourage pvdoor/zone trading / fight avoiding...

3k renown during booster event for 40 minutes is way too low a incentive... attackers get punished for defenders not defending... you can troll enemy side if you wish just by simply not showing up. Second zones need someone to start them, they lack incentive (3k renown with booster is very very low) and then they need someone to react (with campaign progress maybe there will be more reaction) but at the moment there is no real need to react at all, so you could defend by not defending... leave people pvdoor in side zones and they barely gain anything, and you don't have much of a reason to defend if you are busy in another zone. So the carrot and stick could be bigger i.e minimum renown of keeps.

[PeasantsWoman]

A scaling buff/debuff to XP/Renown/Influence gain in the local area when the 'local' population meets certain thresholds.
Local being somewhere around 300ft perhaps.
Then a faction could in the extreme have max AAO for being outnumbered in the lake overall and max buff for low total players in the 'local' area.

[LetsYouDie]

increase renown and contribution multiplier;
decrease renown cap gain

[mogt]

mutiple zones are important for the future, at the moment this rvr system is fine. if we have the forts then it is important for splitting the zerg. in the diffrent zones, this is for stratgeic gameplay important too, many players want the easy way and that is faulse . as eg. the main fight is in praag with the zerg. and dragonwake is open as second zone, then a group or 2 groups go to avelon to prepare the attack for the keep, and then the eneny must split their zerg and if the enemy in dragonwake, then we can to a coordinate attack, in dragonwake and praag, the key word is teamplay and coordination and this many players dont understand because they just see the rr and medals as egoistic way. the players mentality must be change. and this can just the own player. that is the problem

[zak68]

outside praag there are several mobs of different faction battling each other; yesterday night, while city was contested, they all were rubberbanding heavily; could those mobs be disabled/disappear while pvp is occuring ?

[Acidic]

One thing could be to include a mission based task/quest in oRvR on Warband or party.

Queue for quests. Quest to do and stop something smaller such as hold bo for 5 minutes in the next 20 minutes vs ensure enemy do not let enemy hold set bo for 5 consecutive minutes.
Other such quests/tasks would be escort/kill certain NPCs , destroy save game object...

As the reward is quest based and the queue system only active in low pop open zones it should not be Zerg .
This type of system may help focus combat and enhance low pop times as well as adding rewards to get ppl out of Zerg zones.

[live4treasure]

I was going to suggest something similar to what Acidic did, but also suggest that there would be a "main" zone with the most population, and then defined alternate zones with population limiters of something like 50 on each side. You could then have 6 man group leaders take on quests as mentioned above, which wouldn't count their objectives as complete if in a warband or even just be unavailable and cancel themselves should party be made into a warband. It would provide a form of new, fresh and interesting gameplay aside from the zerg v zerg mass pvp. Hopefully it's not too difficult to implement, of course, but this seems like the best solution.

Would be like guerilla warfare, preparing a specific zone for invasion and the opposing side attempting to thwart this.