Overarching balance changes

[peterthepan3]

All classes should be able to perform in all scales with specific specs catered to either environment. Hybrids are a bit iffy: A dps am - a very potent dot caster in solo/smallscale - can't really perform in wbs but they can if healing spec, whereas a dps zealot is very good in wbs - not so much 6v6, but they can be very viable as a heal spec. Dps wps and doks should be able to function as an mdps in smallscale to a degree, but in large scale fall off a bit - which is fine given their healing alternatives

Dps archetype classes should be able to perform in all scales as that is literally all they can offer.

[roadkillrobin]

It's pretty evident as we see how much better classes wich get 0 picks in 6v6 groups become ALOT betteer once you scale up the battle.

The same way that it is pretty evident how classes which get ALOT of picks in 6v6 groups become worse once you scale up the battle. (Esp. in the dps slot)

Can you use WLs, WHs in your warbands ? Sure ! But they are worse at their role as they don't have nearly the impact the others have.

Can you use Maguses and Engeneers in 6v6? Sure ! But they are worste at their role as they don't have nearly the impact the others have.

And i'm not arguing that mythic balanced around any particular bracket at all i just think they took a more free approach to what they were balancing to , they saw fit to make certain classes better at smaller scale encounters and some others better at larger scale encounters. And from that ,one could freely point out how they regarded both styles as worthy of being balanced around.

Im strictly talking about 6v6. Theres never been any kind of support for it in this game more then special events. Making Ballance changes to suit for 6v6 is just as bad as making it for 1v1 imo. WE, WH, WL works perfectly fine in 12-24 man. Their single target specs start to suffer when fights starts to revolve around fighting against superior numbers in a blob however all 3 classes have a build that works for it. WL is the ONLY class that doesn't bring anything unuiqe to a bomb group. But thats more due to bad design then anything else (Morale Draining tactic for WL pls) The group limit of 6 is moast likley based on instanced PVE. Everything points towards it. SC being 12 Warbands being 24. Make a 12man Premade vs Premade Scenario and you see how more classes gets picked to cover more ground. The current 6man meta is based around 6v6 and pugfarming and doesn't even include 2/3 of the classes in the game. Its very very evident that its not ballanced. Coz the core of the game doesn't support it.

[Tesq]

The thing is, that this game was never designed for 6v6.

The building blocks of wbs are parties of 6 players. Heals, debuffs, buffs are all ST, party (6) or aoe. I'd say it was very much designed for one or more parties of 6 that would face of one or more parties of 6.

Claiming 6v6, 6vX, solo or XvX wasn't part of design is stupid.

I could claim then that it would be better as fact balance ST in 6vs 6 and aoe in larger number but then
it would not really matter cos when you have 8 ppl st focus someone he's gona die anyway with 8 heal debuff on him.
Dosen't really matter and balance the game in 6vs 6 will not equal to balance the game in wb scale either, it will balance only 6vs6 and it mostly likely regard the ST rotation which are the problem of most of classes that have problem in 6vs6. Basically ppl are askign for a balance to small skirmish which is fine but ask that to be the base to work for every type of game is bullshit for me.
There are things in this game that count on number to be balanced, the very first one is your front line.
In 6vs6 you do not have a front line if you play with 2 rdps . In wb vs wb you have even playing with 8 rdps ->8 tank that soak 8/9 target of enemy aoe. The mobility of melee is thinked for fight in bigger brawl and to no make melee impossible under the kite of the rdps. This talk about balance 6vs6 may only end with balance some classes that actually really need that attention but nothing more it wont translate in wb vs wb balance just because the effectiveness and the number affected by stuff like CC increase/decrease is totally different in sc than Orvr and have a total different impact without talk about how much setback work differently in small enviroment vs bigger scale.

The fisrst thing to fix would be make all classes playable in every enviroment, in that regard bg and wl in wb need a look and st magus/engi need one in small skirmish.

to those that are saying costantly that BO/SM were underestimate in live you are wrong, KB now interrupt here and they got the KD lowered in the path they were as that buffed, in live the BO/SM aoe KB was good just to give immunities so we are alredy playing in a different meta with alredy 1 new factor to take in account when balancing stuff. And wonder what in 6vs6 you kB 6 ppl while in 6vs x you KB 9 ppl, difference are real in how much stuff impact in small or bigger skirmish.

[Penril]

Why should I roll a class that is only good at XvX but bad at YvY? Maybe I like to do XvX atm but in the future I might want to try different things. Wouldn't it be better to just roll a class that is good at everything? (XvX, YvY, ZvZ, etc).

[mursie]

Spoiler:

Im going to comment on this one since I have been in this position having just recently played. Note though, this is going severely off topic, but yet somehow it feels the topic of 6v6 just cannot be avoided.

I started this game around 2 months ago and we wanted to play some rvr (really couldnt care about scenarios), we rolled a comp that involved a bright wizard (but we also had 2 tanks). Some time later we learn that rvr is kinda not super active due to incoming changes np, so we decide we are going to dabble into scenarios, and inc massive melee train spam. So we go okay okay, we are going to reroll the BW into a WL because the other player was a WH. There is some intermediate pause while we wait for the reroll and the gearing etc. After about 1.5 weeks a WL is now ready to go. We also learn that IB just isnt so great for 6v6 because you really need that 2nd tank damage, so the IB has to turn into SM, bit more of a pause while all this is happening. Okay, all is ready to go.

Now just getting a 6v6 is in itself a hastle, people dont have similar play times, or people have to reschedule on a set time due to unforseen circumstances etc. We put in a lot of effort into contacting various guilds and trying to sort out a 6v6, but ultimately over the span of 2.5 weeks we managed to get a total of 4h of 6v6? So to put things into context, more or less a month of total time was spent between rerolling comp and trying to organize a 6v6, and our total playtime in a month was literally 4h. Now 4 of our players of the 6 have never played warhammer before (not even live), so to realistically compete to the maximum of our ability, we need way more playtime than that, think hours of daily games.

We also realized another problem, our WH/WL setup was nice, but still not optimal. Why go through such effort of spiking when other groups running either double slayer or double marauder can literally just spam damage through guard and force the kill (as you yourself have said is possible). Reality was to real edge yourself into the top 5 premades, just being good wasnt enough, you also needed the exact fotm comp. Sure you can be competitive without it, but the difference between having just 1 heal debuff which can be parried vs 2 heal debuffs which cannot be parried (slayer has much anti parry) is enormous, after a lot of video analysis reality was our WH couldnt maintain the heal debuff while being himself perma trained, resulting in weak overall pressure outside of our spiking.

So now we look at the situation and its like, okay, if we really want to be the best premade, we have to reroll again, but realistically were looking at playing a couple of hours of this content per month which investing disproportionate effort. And then you realize, its just not worth it. I understand for those of you who had characters already capped at 32/35/rr40 its easy to finish a reroll, especially for those of you who love warhammer for warhammer or are kept in by nostalgia. But for new people looking to get into it, nothing binds me to warhammer, I came to find some good pvp and I realized the barrier for entry required too much mundane tasks to involve myself for what is more or less a dead scene, where people trying to bridge a 1-5 year experience gap dont even have the platform to practice in.

So tl;dr, its not that people give up too fast, its that there is no space to practice in, playing 1h a week just doesnt cut it. And then the fact that the game balance is just not where it needs to be for 6v6 means you need to play what works instead of what you want to play, and that sometimes means starting again, and since this game is not designed for accessible pvp, there is some grind involved in that setup. If it were like MOBAS/FPS/GW2, where you simply swapped to what works without doing things you dont want to, then sure the concept of a thriving 6v6 scene might work, but ultimately this game just isnt made that way.

your posts are brilliant. well said.

[roadkillrobin]

Why should I roll a class that is only good at XvX but bad at YvY? Maybe I like to do XvX atm but in the future I might want to try different things. Wouldn't it be better to just roll a class that is good at everything? (XvX, YvY, ZvZ, etc).

Yes ofc asuming XvX, YvY and ZvZ all are formats thats supported by the game and are ballanced. Wich neither 1v1 or 6v6 are.

[Penril]

Why should I roll a class that is only good at XvX but bad at YvY? Maybe I like to do XvX atm but in the future I might want to try different things. Wouldn't it be better to just roll a class that is good at everything? (XvX, YvY, ZvZ, etc).

Yes ofc asuming XvX, YvY and ZvZ all are formats thats supported by the game and are ballanced. Wich neither 1v1 or 6v6 are.

1v1? Agreed.

6v6? Source please. Specially since Mythic itself (with approval from EA/GW) implemented Ironclad, Eternal Citadel (the most played SC whenever it was in the rotation; all the other SCs stopped popping), and Caledor Woods/GoE 6v6.

They did it. Not the current RoR devs. So stop with the "this game was never meant to be balanced around a 6-man" bs.

[roadkillrobin]

Ive allready explained that man. They were all special events. Neither was up for more then a couple weeks.

[Penril]

Ive allready explained that man. They were all special events. Neither was up for more then a couple weeks.

Again: Source please. Specifically from one of the original WAR devs, clearly stating "this game is not meant to be balanced around a 6-man, and it's ok that some classes will underperform in that setup".

They weren't special events. Some of them were permanent after 1.4.5.

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Game_Update_1.4.5.

Spoiler:

ScenariosEdit
The line-up of scenarios that are permanently available has changed. The new list is as follows:

Tier 1

Nordenwatch
Battle for Praag
Gates of Ekrund (6v6)
Tier 2

Nordenwatch
Mourkain Temple
Gates of Ekrund (6v6)
Tier 3

Nordenwatch
Mourkain Temple
Gates of Ekrund (6v6)
Reikland Factory
Tier 4

Nordenwatch
Mourkain Temple
Gates of Ekrund (6v6)
Reikland Factory
Caledor Woods (6v6)
Grovod Caverns (MP)

That's TWO permanent 6v6 SCs we had at some point in T4. So back to my question: why roll a class that is good at YvY* but sucks at XvX*, when I could just roll a class that is good at both?

*1v1 doesn't count.

[Jaycub]

Ive allready explained that man. They were all special events. Neither was up for more then a couple weeks.

They didn't want an outlet for non hardcore 6v6 players to experience it, because it would expose the big elephant in the room about class balance at that level being in tatters. The difference between those who are hardcore and organize 6v6 GvG fights and those that would que up for 6v6, is the hardcore players more or less excepted the meta and built groups around it. If you had a permenant 6v6 scenario on live, there would end up being a total murder mayhem on the forums about how certain classes are dogshit in that arena.

Mythic wanted to drown out class balance issues in noise from large scale fights, and gigantic gear gaps.

Edit: guess I wasn't around for 1.45