(Mythic) origins of balance

[Shadowgurke]

I am so sorry guys. I don't mean to portray anything I say as gospel truth at all. Its 100% theory. I know nothing. Stupid forum communications. This is like some weird lesson on grammer.

Everything I say is theories. Purely.

If you would have formed your arguments more in that manner and less as if you were the only player with access a secret technology then your feedback would have been nicer as well.

I think this forum is pretty open to theorycrafting if you present actual ideas rather than weird concepts.

[roadkillrobin]

I think people think of stuff in different manner.
I get laughed at when saying DPS Zealots is a 100% viable spec for RVR aswell.
Some people think of this game from a 6 vs 6 or small scale perspective. And to them a dps Zealot would be just a waste of space. And I agree.
But when we look at what dps Zealot does for a wb thats very focused on AoE it's a completly different thing. They bring good utlillty with AoE healdebuff, AoE Armordebuff, AoE Corp Ress debuff. The dmg isn't that great. But the debuffs will give you another edge.

If i'm allowed to generalize a bit. I think NA time zone players tend to look at this game from a ST assist point of few, while EU seems to be a mixed bag. When theorycrafting with WB's I always look at it from a AoE point of view. And i think this is vere alof of the missconcpetion in this thread are.

The Greenskin Racial wb i've been discussing is all about focusing AoE on a area. also called a bomb group. (Zerg by some). So I did some research. I found a couple o things.

1: Greenskins are very good at building Morake
2: They all have great Morales
3: They have good armor penetration with WS buffs and their magic dmg corp can be debuffed.
4: They can easily keep another wb in one spot with acess to shitloads of AoE Snares.
5: Discorvered Recently that they a basicly Immune to Hold The lIne stacking.
6: WP wich is by far the moast played order healer can't cleanse Bad Gas
7: There's ALOT of Synnergies with Chop Fasta within the greenskin tribe.

So what i Did with this. was that i constructed a WB utilizing their str.
I'm not saying it's stronger then a cookiecutter build. But I also think that you really underestimate it. I havn't even experimented with the Shaman Morale feeding yet coz it's not availible until r37 and BO's m3 is at 36. But i can tell you that SH's build morale superfast even without the Shamans.
So imagine this. 7.5 undefendble AoE dmg from 3 SH from Wind up da WAAAGH while your healers
can't group heal coz they have Bad Gas on them, What follows next is a shitstorm of lotsa Choppins and Big Bounces.

[Cimba]

I think people think of stuff in different manner.
I get laughed at when saying DPS Zealots is a 100% viable spec for RVR aswell.
Some people think of this game from a 6 vs 6 or small scale perspective. And to them a dps Zealot would be just a waste of space. And I agree.
But when we look at what dps Zealot does for a wb thats very focused on AoE it's a completly different thing. They bring good utlillty with AoE healdebuff, AoE Armordebuff, AoE Corp Ress debuff. The dmg isn't that great. But the debuffs will give you another edge.

They laughed at us too when we ran a 12 slot with dps runi (like 5 years ago). Until the point we wiped the floor with them.

But thats the entire point... a 25 page thread full of theory without a single point of experimental data to check if it actually works. Our OP complains that people don't go crazy about his ideas and sign up in masses for his warband. Well thats the problem if you don't have any kind of notoriety.

[roadkillrobin]

I've done alot of "experimental data" on a Herder for a couple days now. And I also have tons of experience playing with Bomb groups and can easily say that the SH melee bomb spec is REALY close to be on par with Bomb BW/SORCS. You loose some of the dmg on armored targets. But 'm really confident that with the 4th tactic slot and enough weaponskill you gonna hit all non tanks as hard as BW/Sorcs. On Squishy robe classes you actually hit harder.

[footpatrol2]

Sorry to bring up this dead thread. I Responded to mursie and want to share it with the community. This was continuing this conversation. If there is continued no interest in this subject I'll let this post die again. I've put a hell of a lot of time into this particular post so take that as you will.

I’ve been holding off on this because you (mursie) put a good question up on my idea. Why is saphery designed the way it is.

Theory. 100% not fact. (Warning Wall of Text)

Thesis

I’m going to list why I think we didn’t understand mythic’s version of balance. I will give a brief description of what I call cycling. I will provide a brief definition of synergy. I will make a argument that racial groups were not supposed to mix heavily in lower tiers. Extremely quick broad generalization on HE warband playstyle and DE warband playstyle. Give a brief explanation on how a DE warband and HE warband would handle the battlefield of Saphery. I will end with some conclusive thoughts.

Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

I’m a nobody. I’ve just been thinking on this for a very long time and couldn’t see it when I was playing on live. You guys helped me look at this game in a different way. My problem I was working on was trying to figure out why there were seemingly useless abilities on classes. I assume that mythic put abilities there for a reason. Have you ever worked on a problem and couldn’t figure it out. You then went to lunch and broke your concentration and came back and was easily able to figure out what you were working on? This is how I feel. I don’t know if I’m correct which I was hoping to get feedback from you guys.

Why we didn’t see

Here is why I think we missed out on mythic’s version of balance (including me). Please know that there is a thing called group think among human beings. It’s extremely important to our survival because we can learn from others without having to go through their experiences. It can also be intensely destructive and limiting. In the 1920’s during WW1, the United States figured out about this phenomenon and was able to use this to rally its people to war. We call it today propaganda. Advertisement is based on this phenomenon. Everyone on the planet thought that the world was flat due to group think. We had many mathematicians prove that there was curvature to the earth but wasn’t accepted universally until much later. Group think is/was so powerful that the community actually killed these mathematicians that were trying to show a different perspective because it argued against the status quo.

My conscious mind recognizes that I am seeing a advertisement and dismisses it. My unconscious mind does not. It picks up everything and stores it. In my opinion we base our decisions from a platform resting from our unconscious mind. I dunno, maybe we don’t (Theory/guess). What I am saying about Warhammer online is I think through group think within the competitive community we created our own propaganda that wouldn’t allow us to explore wild ideas of what we could do in this game. I can’t speak for everyone but to me these ideas are radical.

The majority of players coming to Warhammer online at the time of release were either dark age of Camelot players or wow players. I never played DAoC but I played wow. In Wow the classes are identical and the race barely matters. In addition, the pvp community at the time was based around small scale pvp and not large scale RvR. It is my opinion that this mentality carried over into Warhammer online and still persists. Mythic fans prior to release was extremely persistent on this game being a RVR game and not small scale pvp or 6 man.

My quick definition of cycling.

If I see a ability that is say 30 sec’s long with a 1 minute cooldown. I know through smart play I can have two different players in a group timing that ability to keep it up at all times. I did this with mountain spirit in my dwarf groups. That’s my quick definition of cycling.

Here is a quick example of what I keep calling synergy.

According to google:

Synergy is: the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations (players) , substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

If I use two hoeth swordmasters in a group and cycle whisper winds (synergy) I will be able to keep whisper winds up as long as the hoeth swordmasters are in combat. The Hoeth Swordmasters are also keeping targets passively AoE spirit resist debuffed and dropping some spirit resistance to near zero through heavens blade. I can then use a Vaul archmages and be able to spam Energy of Vaul (spirit damage AE lifetap Heal) with a /assist macro to a Hoethswordmaster (synergy). This is my quick definition of Synergy and I keep referring to this because there is in my opinion an overwhelming amount of synergy within racial groups especially when the racial morale gain tactic was available.

Brief Lore History

Warhammer online is a game based on fantasy battles. If you note, all the battles happen at completely different locations that if in the Warhammer world near continents away from each other. Why should players intermix from a lore perspective? (opinion) I feel that mythic made a rushed decision and said yes to the community on intermixing of the races at earlier tiers. They felt that they did such a great job on building racial synergy that they could allow intermixing to happen and it would be fine because players would just get it. In my opinion this was a critical design mistake.

I only said that players in tier 4 would intermix because it would have been tactically interesting to start seeing your own playstyle used against you. I have changed my position on this due to Mursie’s question. It is my new belief now that t3 was the introduction to complete mix of classes.

If you look at t1 and t2 from the pve side there are no mixing of the NPC races predominately at least in release. This is not the case in t3 zones. You even have a BO in saphrey that is a Orc landing. The entire zone is inter-mixed races. From a Lore perspective NO other races are allowed to enter the HE lands. It would have to be a dire case for non elf races allowed to enter ultheran. In addition to help support my argument at level 19 each class will receive a resistant tactic. This tactic in my opinion was suppose to be used to help mitigate other racial groups 6/12/24 man. Level 19 is just prior to entering t3.

Short description of HE DE warbands.

If I’m correct (theory), a DE warband’s defense is its offense. (opinion--->) I feel (opinion) I figured out the playstyles of HE/greenskins and dwarves/chaos. I have yet to fully unlock DE/Empire but I have idea’s. HE are all about open spaces, kiting and dancing in and out of max ability range. HE also can drop your resistances to zero. (Guessing) DE warband Acts similar to the Bomb groups of the current meta but on the warband level. If you come within this distance of me I will destroy you. HE has better mobility and control of movement with snares and tanks with the use of wings of heaven. DE has the best Hold the Line tanks in the game to mitigate HE ability to drop spirit resistances to near zero and potentially stronger punch. You don’t know how they are going to strike due to WE. Please note the HE and DE tanks are both the magic tanks and have potentially the best HTL tanks and are perfectly suited to fight against each other.

Please note: In order to counter HE spirit resistance debuff (wrath of hoeth+heaven's blade) you'd have to stack spirit resistances well beyond the softcap to have any meaningful mitigation and even then your barely mitigated anything. This was done in my opinion by design. Those abilities are suppose to stack in debuffing. You could use HTL techniques to mitigate the spirit damage coming at you. Which in my opinion is why DE lacks any consistent resistance buff as a race. Your suppose to mitigate through HTL which they are the best in the game at doing.


Avelorn and saphery

Lets look at the Rvr lakes of Saphery.

Note: I’m giving this a shot but I feel now that there would be intermixing initiated at tier 3.
Maiden’s landing should be owned by DE warband. Since a DE warband’s defense is its offense and Maiden’s landing is open terrain but funneled. This allows for better defense against a WL assault. a Heavy Sorc warband would be more ideal in this location. You can focus all your damage on the neck of the bridge.

Wood chappaz camp I am confused on to be honest. I now believe that there would be intermixing of the classes in tier 3.

Sarl’s Darloin, and the spire of teclis are subject to very open spaces. This allows HE to use their playstyle to their advantage. In particular WL have the ability pounce. There are rows of seating and pot plants surrounding Spire of Teclis. I don’t know but suspect that the WL will be able to pounce over those obstacles where regular players may be stuck on them.

This is a side note:

Please look at the natural pairings.

HE vs DE
Dwarves VS Greenskinz
Empire vs Chaos

I wish I could link a excel file to you guys. I could show you in detail their damage type pairings. This visual aid really helps explain things more. These pairings are perfectly suited to counter each other and have tools in dealing with each other racial strengths. If someone can explain to me on how to show excel files I'll provide some tables.

If there is no interest in this perspective I'll let this thread die again and change my approach. In that 6 man meta thread I started to notice that a portion of the community only looked at this game from a 6 man perspective competitively and I wanted to point out that it was competitive at 12 man which really opens up the builds available which in addition allows these racial groups to be competitive.

Opinion
The point of this post is just to point out what mythic was thinking (opinion) and how the game was balanced (opinion). With this perspective you can explain why all the abilities exist and tactics exist (opinion). (Opinion) I think its important to know the games original intention.

I am not saying that the game HAS to move in the racial groups direction. I am merely pointing out that I believe this was mythic's original design intention and thought we'd find the natural synergy. Ultimately this was a bad design because we the playerbase didn't see it. Moving forward we can do whatever we want. I would be extremely sad if the game changed without being able to fully explore racial group game mechanics.

If players have played the warhammer fantasy tabletop game in a competitive environment you will know about a phenomenon called skew lists. Meaning that the skew list is EXTREMELY good at one aspect of the game in the tabletop but has weaknesses on other phases of the game. These racial groups (in my opinion) are similar to skew lists. These racial groups also have unique ways to mitigate their weaknesses that are not so traditional.

Do you feel I made enough of a convincing argument or do you need more? I could expand more. I could literally write a book. I've been sitting on this awhile but was hesitant to post this.

[roadkillrobin]

Yeah there are traces everywere of racial synnergies that wasn't really explored and dumped by the community. This is a tricky part with game design, especially for PVP games. The player community are gonna play what works for them rather then how it's intended wotk. And i think thats what happened. Devs probobly noticed this and embraced it rather then trying to force thier vision of how the game was suposed to be played to the community. This proboby happened as early as Beta tbh.

As for abillties that are now seen as useless. People need to understand that this game was inteded to be oRVR and PVE focused game. Many abillties in the game were intended for Dungeons and Quesing. Some abillties hasn't been reballanced since launch even tho the game have had MANY abillty, tactics and morale changes and class nerfs etz. Many of those tactics and abillties have traces of Racial WB synnergi iin them

[footpatrol2]

An additional sidenote and interesting observation:

Look at the greenskinz vs dwarves. They are naturally paired against each other. Note the dps shaman. He strips blessings from targets. Look at the runepriests they give blessings to their groups.

Look at HE vs DE. They are naturally paired against each other. Note the Dps AM strips blessings. Look at the DoK they give blessings.

I wish I could show the tabled data
Zealots and WP cleanse Hex's and Curse's (natural pairing)
RP and Shaman's cleanse Ailments and Curses (natural pairing)
Dok's and AM's cleanse Ailments and Hex's (natural pairing)

You can make tabled data of all the main damage types of the races and compare them against each other (physical/corp/spirit/elemental).

You can make tables of what types of damage it is such as (ailment/hex/curse) for each race and its not random.

You can make tables of striping abilities for each race also. I bet its not random. (haven't done this yet)

(Opinion) If you make tabled data and look at it objectively its easier to see what mythic was trying to do.

[Vayra]

Like others have said, it's cool that you are enthusiastic and want to try something new. But listen to us, we have tried pretty much every possible combination up through the years, and we have settled on the objectively best compositions through a lot of trial and error. When you are fighting in the lakes your racial warbands might do OK against unorganised opposition, but it would be destroyed in 5 seconds flat if it faced up against for example Red Guard or Crimson (the top 2 order guilds in EU from live), no matter how good your players are.

I understand you played on US servers, so you wouldn't have as much experience with the optimal rvr groups that you would see on Norn. If you don't believe there is a difference, look up some of the city tests from just before the first nerfs to BW/Sorc, those nerfs were a direct response (pushed out within 2 weeks) to the US players (including devs) getting buttraped by proper bomb squads.

What I'm trying to say (along with everyone else here) is that you're wrong, you haven't come up with some amazing new build that will redefine the meta. What you have is an interesting idea that I'm sure is fun to play, but won't hold a candle to a proper organised WB.

[footpatrol2]

(Opinion below)
I'm not saying that what i'm doing is the best optimal choice anymore. What I'm pointing out is the original game design. The players did what they wanted with it and mythic responded.

Can these racial groups compete against the majority of premades out there? Yes. Key word is compete. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It really depends what was brought and skill level of the players.

Will racial groups beat the internet elite gamers? Probably not.

Realistically how often will I run into these internet elite gamers? Probably not often...
I'd probably lose to them even if I brought a mix group...

Most players are not tournament quality. I don't consider myself that. Maybe you do Vayra? I consider myself a decent player. I suspect I play against generally decent/bad players and not tournament quality for the majority of the time. Sometimes I like to put on my competitive hat and I'm sure you do also. That doesn't make me a tournament quality player nor you. Were probably both really bad in comparison to tournament quality players. But that doesn't mean we are not having fun right?

Different
Moving Foward
If I'm correct with these racial group idea's... are we as a community/dev's going to push away from racial groups and continue with mixed groups and continue trying to balance the game for mixed groups.

Or

Are we going to encourage more racial groups and work more on increasing there synergy to encourage it more?

I'm pretty sure I know the answer which makes me sad...

Note: I don't even think a lot has to be done to make these racial groups extremely competitive since it was designed this way. You probably only have to make minor tweaks. To continue to try and balance it for mix will probably require way more work.

Eventually the dev's will be done with Tier 4 and city's. They will then refocus their efforts to class balance they will likely also tweak class balance along the way to Tier 4.

[Vayra]

Realistically how often will I run into these internet elite gamers? Probably not often...
I'd probably lose to them even if I brought a mix group...

RIght now? Pretty low. Back on live, I faced off against them almost every night with my own top tier warband (The Unnamed), and when T4 is introduced I'm sure we'll see a rise in organised WB play again, which I'm greatly looking forward to.

As for what the original design is, I've yet to see any actual sources for your claims that the game was intended to be played with groups segregated by race. And having played since closed beta I have no recollection of any such indication being made at any point by EA/Mythic.