Why do you think that WH Online (Mythic) didn't was successfull?

[Sedok]

When footpatrol agrees with you, you know there is a flaw with your argument.

Back then, there wasn't a target limit on AoE skills. So a few BWs spamming AoE could easily wipe whole destro zergs in keeps/forts (remember, there wasn't an outer ramp so players had to funnel through one tiny ramp, getting completely obliterated).

But yeah keep going on about how BWs/Sorcs were absolutely fine in the first few years of WAR.

Penril, I never said BWs were perfect or didn't have problems, I'm saying that they were no where near as bad as they are made out to be. BWs in the first year could be CC'd and destroyed before they could even do anything. Resolute Defense didn't exist back then (nor did the CC immunity either remember) and no SM used Crashing Wave for the Immunity. Annihilate could be interrupted, BW could be KB'd as R&D popped, Marauders could knock down the entire bombing party, etc. The tools to deal with them were there, but players chose not to look for them. Did the damage on those abilities need to be reduced/did they need a drawback to their use? Yes, and the changes Mythic made (Annihilate and SE consumed combustion) were well thought out, but people still whined about them afterwards endlessly.

I've found perceptions of class balance in WAR to be extraordinarily biased, because they let the salt get to them that day and now hate the class that was used effectively against them. I was watching a video a few weeks ago with a guy remembering WAR and when he got to the class balance topic, do you know what example he used? He got pulled by a Magus into an AoE pit and was killed; he bitched for a good minute about it. Is the Magus's pull an OP ability that needs a nerf? You still see this on RoR, where people will complain about anything and everything; a few weeks ago someone was complaining about the Engineer's Spanner Swipe in Advice chat for crying out loud. The default mindset of the players is more of a problem than the actual class balance.

Let me put it to you this way: Right now, no one is complaining about the mobile artillery in ORvR. What happens when the Bitterstone Thunders finally realize they can take 2-4 of those in their gunline, coordinate the volleys and land 3-4k hits at 225-275ft with an AoE slow? You better believe you'll hear the people bitching about them to kingdom come. Does that mean the cannons themselves are OP and need a nerf? Or should the players respond to that meta by finding an appropriate counter to it?

...why would you ever use warpfire over lash? Lol.
Your argument essentially boils down to 'the rebel alliance should stop whining about the deathstar and think of a way to counter it! It's not op'

Because it originally did 2x the damage of lash, and under the effect of a Chosen, the damage type was irrelevant.

And don't be reductionist; using your own analogy, find the thermal exhaust port!

I think mythic messed up also listening to the community. Some things were definitively broken but a lot wasn't but got changed anyway for the worse due to community outcry.

Agreed. I still remember the outcry over Regenerative Shielding and Zealot's not having an equivalent to it. What was brilliant about that, was that the armor meta had already passed. Mythic had nerf'd armor stacking a year before and people were stacking Toughness/Fortitude then, but every Zealot was complaining that they didn't have this ohmygodsoOPWTFgimme! tactic. What's funnier is that the -10% Armor Penetration on that wasn't a flat value; if a dps had 33% AP from WS, the buff would bring it down to 29.7%, not 23% (I think its still like this on RoR). Ironically, they complained about that instead of the major difference between Rune of Fury and Ritual of Innervation, an imbalance which still exists on RoR (Zealots have to slot RB, as their AP ritual procs off attacks, while the RP can forgo RB because their's procs off ability use).

[Penril]

BWs in the first year could be CC'd and destroyed before they could even do anything.

Please tell me what was the counter when you had several tanks blocking the one way up in keeps (there was no outer ramp) with several BWs out of LoS using AoE.

[thetrueninja12]

Anybody remember the egregious optimisation issues that the game shipped out with? While not enough to sink the ship, it certainly weighed it down.

[Dreadspectre]

Anybody remember the egregious optimisation issues that the game shipped out with? While not enough to sink the ship, it certainly weighed it down.

Yeah I seem to recall unless you were on a super rig large scale RVR ended up being a slideshow heh.

[thetrueninja12]

Anybody remember the egregious optimisation issues that the game shipped out with? While not enough to sink the ship, it certainly weighed it down.

Yeah I seem to recall unless you were on a super rig large scale RVR ended up being a slideshow heh.

Which leads me to my next point. RvR. Dare I say it, the entire concept is inherently flawed, especially when you design and balance your combat abilities around small group skirmishes as opposed to large scale raids. Being shot down instantly in a large group setting is the antithesis of fun, and further puts emphasis on having the bigger army. There's just simply not enough mechanics that allow for smaller groups of players to outplay larger ones.

[Sedok]

BWs in the first year could be CC'd and destroyed before they could even do anything.

Please tell me what was the counter when you had several tanks blocking the one way up in keeps (there was no outer ramp) with several BWs out of LoS using AoE.

You really want to base your entire argument on that one example? In that environment, defenders are supposed to have the advantage, it's their keep and its going to be bloody fight dislodging them from it. You also have classes working together in that scenario, so using that as a baseline for class balance is naive. Lastly, the major problems in keep and fort sieges during that time were poorly designed terrain and engine/collision issues, not class balance. Actually staying connected during those fights was way more of a problem than getting hit by Fiery Blast in a choke point. Crash roulette was a real thing.

Either way, a guild on Volkmar figured it out how to reliably break those shield-walls a few days before Mythic temporarily disabled collision. You get your Shamans (1-3) to spec for Geddoff!, have your tanks and mdps start to charge, then have the Shamans target the right corner of the second part of the ramp and blow a hole in it. Tanks and mdps exploit it, widen it, wipe the cutoff Order on the left, then slice through the middle of the room. The Order on the ledge fall into the Destro coming up the ramp, and the rest are pinned in between the far wall and the ramp to the third floor.

That strategy was what led to people switching from blocking the ramp from the first floor, to blocking the one to the third floor. Awhile later, Mythic then added the outer ramp, which was a good change, but it required multiple coordinated groups to defend each entrance, something the players weren't willing to form up for.

[Penril]

That one example was probably the most important part of the game. It all came down to keep sieges (no keep siege = no flip = no campaign progress = no forts = no city siege).

I'm a native Volkmarite. Destro at that, and don't remember seeing that strategy being used "reliably". Sounds like theorycraft that was just made up to try and counter my point. What I DO remember is ninja'ing keeps: sending 6 players to another zone to break down both doors (6 players wouldn't count as an attack for SoR so the enemy didn't find out until it was too late), then announcing it in T4 chat so people would fly and quickly kill the lord. THAT was the reliable strategy.

Oh well. BWs/Sorcs were fine at release; we all just needed to #gitgud.

[CzarRedwall]

No expansions, no hype. Bad marketing, lack of development. Niche playerbase, not enough attention to 'casuals' (aka the majority of gamers). Combine this altogether and you have a formula for failure.

The game needed more appeal to a broader audience. A problem with being RvR focused is that you rely on others for advancement in the game, even at early stages. If a solution to this problem is to simply farm mobs because there is less material for the player to engage with (i.e. pve content, quests, dungeons), then you're going to scare off players and keep the ones who are 'dedicated' and wouldn't leave even if the game sucked.

[Sedok]

Which leads me to my next point. RvR. Dare I say it, the entire concept is inherently flawed, especially when you design and balance your combat abilities around small group skirmishes as opposed to large scale raids. Being shot down instantly in a large group setting is the antithesis of fun, and further puts emphasis on having the bigger army. There's just simply not enough mechanics that allow for smaller groups of players to outplay larger ones.

This is completely wrong. Mythic designed the classes with large-scale RvR in mind, that's why you have the BW and Sorc in the first place. They were there to give small groups enough firepower to tango with larger warbands; the nerfs to their AoE, and later on the Slayer and Choppa, solidified "zerging" as the dominant strategy. That's why the AoE target limit was unlimited as well; there's no point in a 12-man trying to jump and bomb a 48-man if they can only kill 9 people at a time. Low TTK is also a necessity in RvR, not only for the sake of the game engine, but also so that fights actually end. A high TTK with a 5sec CD in-combat ress on healers would be absurd in 100 vs 100 environments.

This design philosophy isn't wrong, but when Mythic decided to have both ORvR and Scenarios in their game, the dug their own grave on that matter. There is no way you can balance both; as abilities that are necessary for ORvR are going to be OP in Scenarios, and abilities that work well in Scenarios will be underpowered in ORvR.

[Sedok]

Sounds like theorycraft that was just made up to try and counter my point.

Even if that was true, my point still stands: the tools were there for the players to use, but they chose not to look for them.

What I DO remember is ninja'ing keeps: sending 6 players to another zone to break down both doors (6 players wouldn't count as an attack for SoR so the enemy didn't find out until it was too late), then announcing it in T4 chat so people would fly and quickly kill the lord. THAT was the reliable strategy.

Aye, I remember this, as it was the first time I got really disillusioned with the attitudes of the players. They would rather PvE a keep, than actually fight their opponents. Same thing happened when Mythic overhauled cities; on Azgal, Order pushed city during the day to farm empty instances, and Destro did the same in evening. Then they would go on the forums and whine how "crap" the new system was, even though the

Oh well. BWs/Sorcs were fine at release; we all just needed to #gitgud.

Mate, I've stated multiple times what my point is and its evident that you are not listening. The class balance was not nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and much of that perceived imbalance falls on the player's mindsets about the game, how it should operate, how classes should be, what they should do, etc.

I gotta eat, good talking with you man.