Patchnotes 20/09/16

[navis]

[quote="bloodi"]Well if the intention of the changes is to just discourage funneling, making the debuff work only around the keep would be the best option imo.
/quote]
Actually that would deal quite well with the problem of players getting boo'd on for sitting around in warcamps or roaming, taking BO's or just ganking, sc's etc. I don't know if they have taken the warcamps into the equation for the new system, I'm sure they did.

[warkaiser]

Have to sa I personally love this change, or at least the intent behind it. Surely it might take some tweaking to get things just right, but the overall concept is something that was sorely needed and one of the things i miss about RvR near the end of retail. When they implemented the whole BO control for resource carriers system, it gave much more purpose IMO to RvR instead of it just being Doorhammer. People had to keep control of BOs and build up resources to take keeps while also ensuring the carriers made it through safely. This helped break up the zergs a bit and allowed smaller groups / roamers to take down a party or 2 at a time instead of a full WB or 2. Guerilla tactics were a big part of RvR then.

Though this system isn't quite the same as that, it might add just enough purpose to maintaining control of BOs that a party or 2 of roamers can have a much more important role to play. While their out taking BOs from enemies, theyre also contributing to taking / defending the keep by gaining a debuff for the enemy force.

Keep in mind too that this is't just a bonus for defenders. I've been in many situations where although fewer in number, we are dominating the larger force enough that we can just about take their keep, but being outnumbered AND trying to deal with the NPCs is too much too finish it off. This might just turn the tide of those types of battles giving us enough of an edge that we can finish taking the keep against a much larger force.

Funny thing I can see happening now is a reverse x-realming problem. Now instead of people relogging to join the zerg and get rewards, theyll be leaving the zerg to join the outnumbered side in hopes of aking advantage of AAO Debuff for some fast rewards and end up removing the AAO and debuff in the process. I can already see people QQing that they want others to switch back because they ruined their AAO.

[Akalukz]

A bit of feedback.

Would be nice if you could change the Icon from the same one as AAO to something different.

It was easy to identify the incoming damage increase. But i didn't see anything about outgoing damage decrease.

Also, would like to see the debuffs/buffs moved to the BO and Keep areas, this will protect the integrity of the solo ganker / small scale fighting

The buff info is in the client. That means the icon, buff border, name and tooltip entries cannot be changed.

Diminishing Rations has two entries: the first is for the zerg warning and the second is for the incoming damage debuff. I cannot use it to display the outgoing damage debuff.

The recent changes, as part of the reward calculation mechanics, contain various measures to ensure that players who fight off BOs and Keeps but whose actions contribute to taking or holding them are rewarded appropriately, mostly through the defense tick and personal capture reward. I do not wish to force people to fight directly on BOs, especially if it is optimal to fight elsewhere.

thanks for the info.

[Penril]

Tested the new system last night. It seems good on paper, but unfortunately the community doesn't help (as usual).

We were playing Destro in TM. Order had the larger numbers (we had around 60% AAO on average while we were there, and the population ratio was like 57% for Order). We decided to wait for Order to cap KP, and then burn Gromril Kruk so they wouldn't have time to take it back. We took the flag, waited for 2 minutes aaaaand... nothing happened. No Order showed up.

Apparently the Order zerg didn't want to split its forces, so they decided to stay together at KP. After that they probably headed to GK (we went back to the 3 west BOs and around the Destro keep looking for them but couldn't find any enemies) and, I assume, wait 12 minutes there (ALL of them) to take the BO back and then attack the keep.

Then someone announced in chat: "we are attacking Order keep in Praag, need help". I noticed our AAO dissapeared, and I assumed Order had left the zone and went to Praag to defend. However, I decided to check the realm ratios again and it was now Destro 59%. I can only assume several Order players noticed an empty keep was being attacked in Praag and decided to log on their destro alts for an easy flip.

With this kind of players, no RvR system in the world will save this game.

[Gobtar]

Spoiler:

Tested the new system last night. It seems good on paper, but unfortunately the community doesn't help (as usual).

We were playing Destro in TM. Order had the larger numbers (we had around 60% AAO on average while we were there, and the population ratio was like 57% for Order). We decided to wait for Order to cap KP, and then burn Gromril Kruk so they wouldn't have time to take it back. We took the flag, waited for 2 minutes aaaaand... nothing happened. No Order showed up.

Apparently the Order zerg didn't want to split its forces, so they decided to stay together at KP. After that they probably headed to GK (we went back to the 3 west BOs and around the Destro keep looking for them but couldn't find any enemies) and, I assume, wait 12 minutes there (ALL of them) to take the BO back and then attack the keep.

Then someone announced in chat: "we are attacking Order keep in Praag, need help". I noticed our AAO dissapeared, and I assumed Order had left the zone and went to Praag to defend. However, I decided to check the realm ratios again and it was now Destro 59%. I can only assume several Order players noticed an empty keep was being attacked in Praag and decided to log on their destro alts for an easy flip.

With this kind of players, no RvR system in the world will save this game.

Part of Penril's 6man, one of the thing that seemed like an intuitive change is shorten the BO timers. I assume the Keep Door is linked to number of BOs as well.

Raising the importance of controlling BOs means there should always be forces to take them and defend them, even while a keep siege is under way.
however taking 2 BOs stops a keep seige and promotes a zerging defence of the BOs as a mass mob.

Leaving the Keep means you forfeit attacking/defending rolls as well, so players have to be willing to sacrifice rewards for the good of the realm, which is unlikely to happen.

Hope these are helpful

[Akalukz]

seems being rewards 3-4 times per bo is a it over much tho.

Rewards - taking flag
Rewards - Capture flag
rewarrds - flag available for recaputer

Is this correct? Seems this leads to bo merry go round. Was in TM last night probably around same time frame as Penril's group. Was very weird to have AAO but see very little order players.

[Jaycub]

If you guys were playing in NA, population becomes a huge factor. No point in trying to take a keep unless you have at least 2 warbands because all it takes is one or two decent 6 mans and you won't be able to take a keep.

This patch has also made people a bit X-realm happy, pretty much the second we catch wind of a keep D we swap to whatever side and get easy RR. And even before this patch I don't think anyone in our guild ever wanted to attack keeps, it almost always was way too much effort for what we got out of it, compared to just queing scenarios or hopping onto a keep defense. And the biggest thing, the fun factor of attacking... beating on doors, worrying about BO's and how to defend them and if who goes and if you leave will the pugs wipe and dealing with RDPS 6 mans on the posters/walls it's just a mess.

On the flip side you have the fact that taking undefended keeps is pretty fruitless as no chest or very low RR tick not even worth the time beating on the doors. Which creates like a paradox where when you have maybe only a warband to attack you don't want defenders, but at the same time not having defenders makes the whole thing worthless.

I think RvR is just dysfunctional if the population is too low.

[Asherdoom]

If you guys were playing in NA, population becomes a huge factor. No point in trying to take a keep unless you have at least 2 warbands because all it takes is one or two decent 6 mans and you won't be able to take a keep.

This patch has also made people a bit X-realm happy, pretty much the second we catch wind of a keep D we swap to whatever side and get easy RR. And even before this patch I don't think anyone in our guild ever wanted to attack keeps, it almost always was way too much effort for what we got out of it, compared to just queing scenarios or hopping onto a keep defense. And the biggest thing, the fun factor of attacking... beating on doors, worrying about BO's and how to defend them and if who goes and if you leave will the pugs wipe and dealing with RDPS 6 mans on the posters/walls it's just a mess.

On the flip side you have the fact that taking undefended keeps is pretty fruitless as no chest or very low RR tick not even worth the time beating on the doors. Which creates like a paradox where when you have maybe only a warband to attack you don't want defenders, but at the same time not having defenders makes the whole thing worthless.

I think RvR is just dysfunctional if the population is too low.

i couldnt agree more. Population in NA time is non existan especially in T3

[Vigfuss]

I know for a fact that there are people who were not playing tonight(experienced players), because of this new debuff. It breaks the game at a fundamental level.

During prime time today we spent almost the entire time in TM, the one active zone, and we found only zergs and random groups. A few halfhearted pushes towards a keep in either direction, and a few skirmishes over BOs.

It seems to me this debuff just takes the fighting spirit out of everyone. Winning or losing has much less meaning with this in the game.

offtopic:
I've tried enabling the vanilla UI and I'm still not able to see this new buff/debuff on my UI. Not sure why, i have to keep asking other people, and yes bugtracker, i know.

[Azarael]

seems being rewards 3-4 times per bo is a it over much tho.

Rewards - taking flag
Rewards - Capture flag
rewarrds - flag available for recaputer

Is this correct? Seems this leads to bo merry go round. Was in TM last night probably around same time frame as Penril's group. Was very weird to have AAO but see very little order players.

Nope, it's not correct.

- No rewards when flag is available for recapture.

- Rewards for taking flag are split into base and personal reward.

- Base reward is modified by population factors both immediate and delayed as well as by the reward pools shown in the top right and by the number of kills made near the BO (within its quadrant), and as some may have noticed, the reward is hammered into oblivion if you're capping in a dead zone. This reward pool is exhausted when a BO is initially flipped.

- Personal reward is based on kills made within the BO quadrant. This pool is also exhausted when the BO is initially flipped (or on def ticks if you own the BO).

Because both of the previous pools are exhausted when the BO goes into the contested state, the second, lock, tick for the BO is crap unless the BO comes under attack during the contested state.

As for the people angry about the debuff: there are two choices here. I let solo roamers and 6 mans roam around looking for their balanced fights in complete isolation and subject everyone else in the campaign to auto loss because of population issues, or I try to counterbalance the population issues and people deal with the fact that the outnumbering realm will be expected to use their general numerical advantage constructively rather than going into numerically balanced engagements and complaining when the enemy has an advantage. I think people are too quick to forget that the lenience of the debuff is such that if you're holding 2 BOs you won't get debuffed until you're outnumbering the enemy by 50% anyway, which is still a huge advantage... but it seems that a lot of people aren't thinking about the macro and are only thinking about their own solo or 6 man roam.

Also, I don't think I understand how exactly a mechanism to diminish the impact of having superior numbers - an uncontrollable factor - diminishes winning or losing. It's actually the opposite way around. A win through having more players on your side is meaningless. A loss through being outnumbered is meaningless. You lost to a game design flaw, nothing more. Under a realm balancer working ideally, you are judged as two realms of equal overall power and only under such conditions does a win or a loss have worth behind it. A game should never be designed to progress only when one realm is allowed to have an uncontrolled and essentially random advantage over the other.

Feels like some people think that a perfect solution exists, but are unable to propose it.