A potential solution to RVR

[Fallenkezef]

The more you fix, the more people will abuse. The more complicated a system, the easier to break.

Best system is one that rewards fighting and punishes taking empty zones.

[xanderous]

Artificial systems of forced equalization is what this game needs less of.
The faction balance is a self regulating system, when it's left entirely up to the players - since most would quickly lose interest in taking empty keeps and fighting 10 to 1 - so they'd quit/join the opposition. Countless examples of such behavior, which is not limited to WAR alone.
Besides, the game already provides you with enough choke points, where you can fend off greater numbers, to a certain extent. All proposed solutions can and wll be gamed/abused to their fullest, resulting in some rather unwanted behavior, like mirror-hopping to find the one where your faction is dominating, or stuff like bombing wound-debuffed/perma-slowed pugs in an even more slaughter-fest fashion - rendering them unable to take down a premade warband with 3 pug wbs.
It's like throwing a wrench into the machine, where everyone would be worse off a result.

Self regulations? left entirely up to the player? That is not the current state of the game at present, what i mean is, the game has been dramatically altered to give us what we have now, all i am suggesting an alternative or at the very least open up the discussion for soluttions, to avoid players becoming disenfranchised. In regards to what you said about choke points, not really if you look at most of the zones, they aren't that large, especially the lower tiers which now support higher tiered players, warbands are littlerly smothering those zones at present.

My suggestions aren't related to 6 man premades but large scale warbands vs warbands, at present there is nothing in place to restrict one faction from overwhelming another faction with sheer numbers, back on live, siege engines were much more powerful and so were abilities in general. I fail to see how a system that is so out of whack that actually brakes the server on regular instances as something to be celebrated as working intended.

Best system is one that rewards fighting and punishes taking empty zones.

warbands at present are doing just that, taking empty zones because all zones are open for taking.

[Scrilian]

I would take a bit of player discouragement over a forced equalization any day of the week. Heck, if for some players the feel of fighting versus overwhelming numbers doesn't get them excited, then maybe it's not the game for them.

Without multiple servers, faction transfers and other conveniences - Player population acts as a self regulating contained eco-system and should not be meddled with any artificial systems, that would be abused and serve no-one in the long run. Players left alone following their self-interest would often choose the side, where they would have the most fun - and there's certainly no fun in zerging enemy 10 to 1 and taking empty keeps.
Systems like "removing X wounds" if enemy has 50 more population in the zone would ruin the challenge for some underdog guilds who actively seek it. And, without a doubt, these are much more valuable to the game/server and community as a whole than any hurt feelings a random new player, who just got zerged upon entering the active rvr zone, at least for me.
Limiting the allowed number of players within the zone is another gigantic can of worms, that would create more issues than it actually solves.

There's also certain aspect of player "quality" that is overlooked in your broad generalization, and even though I can agree to a certain extent that WAR is a numbers game - it doesn't not come in any of your equations by stating that side with "more warbands" will always run over side with "less warbands" - which is certainly proven not to be the case.
Damn, sometimes, quality aside, one strong leader and a few clever ambushes are enough to turn the tide in a mostly pug-vs-pug 300ppl+ multiple warband warfare.

As for the rvr maps/zones - all are different, some have plenty of tools for splitting big blobs, some don't and that's fine. Over the course of a week I usually experience different types of RvR, like cat and mouse in Barak Varr and it's portals, endless funneling of High Pass/Talabec or waves of zergs in Thunder Mountain and Kadrin Valley. Nothing game/server breaking to be found here.

[facundo7777]

in my opinion Devs should think about 2 changes.
1) experiance, rewnown and rewards should be more based on time spend in single zone rvr fight. (2,3 hours of playin to earn "nothing" makes me upset sometimes)
2) i am agree with xanderous that some t2 maps are to small for big zerg fights. So maybe let us play only in t3/t4 zones?

[lastalien]

1) experiance, rewnown and rewards should be more based on time spend in single zone rvr fight.

Bad idea.

You should do something useful and it does not depend on time. The killing, capture points, capture the Keep, but it should be evaluated. Time is meaningless to estimate the magnitude of the contribution.

[cutcha]

If there are any plans of changing the actual mechanics, i would first recommend to put up some test environment like locking greenskins+dwarfs and new rules just work here and you unlock it, if you want people to test it.

If population in one zone is a huge problem for the server, you could probably split population over the tiers:
- t4 BO gives the most profit for the crucial keep fights. warbands are roaming to hold these BOs
- t3 BO gives less profit, but if some groups or even solo/duo players manage to hold these BOs, your realm will feel the difference
- keep fight at t4

[Deadkiller]

So with the current state of competative RVR we appear to have hit somewhat of a downward spiral in regards to several disadvantages that really disenfranchies the community so i'll be laying this out with possible sollutions that i think would resolve if properly implemented.

Even with good morale set ups, it's still very difficult to take down enough players when one side is throwing constant numbers at you, when that happens its not about playing smart, it just becomes a numbers game. I would like to add that the system that removes contribution for changing characters is not a solution either because the state of the factions wll be already at their disadvantages, people won't log those factions toons with that in mind, they will just stay on the side that has the most success.

Introduction: Now hear me out because i don't want this to sound like its coming from an emotional response to my own experiences when playing in RVR lakes, its constructive feedback, I'm not interested in things like realm pride, i like both factions and have a great deal of fun when playing in warbands. Now from what i have come to see recently is when one side is dominatng with drastically higher numbers. Typically people like to take advantage of the current AAO system, more renown, higher contribution, (in theory) good stuff, but this is not a particularly good fit in regards to ecouraging players to the take a leap against an opposing oppisition, this is not something i care much for, while motivated by trying to attain higher values in those areas is intriquing for progression, it is at the expense of fun when it turns into a demoralsing grind with restrictions based on success rate in batles.

Now to create an example of why i think there needs to be a change implemented to resolve this i will list some scenarios that highlight what my issue and i believe is a common problem to how the current RVR is functioning.

Example: Lets say one faction is dominating the other, to toss a random number out there, 100 order vs 50 destruction in Barakvar - Now due to the size of the map there is very little room to move about to avoid such high numbers, this results in a sittuation where the faction with less numbers are constantly forced into fights, they simply aren't going to be able to hold a battle objective, perform kiting statagies or just generly evade focus from enemy warbands resulting in a easy lock for order. The zones were not made for these current level brackets that we can now operate at level 40's.

Problem: There is no mechanic, presently in the game that can used to effectively restrict a 2-3 warband push when one faction is severaly outnumbered, this is a really big issue because when it becomes a numbers game and the numbers aren't avaialble to put up a fight, you have to change stratagy, there has to be another option beyond simply trying to fight extreamly higher odds when kiting and picking battles goes out the window as an option.

Suggestion 1: Players of faction 1 that are outnumbering faction 2, will have their wounds reduced to compensate for their ability to deal out more damage due to their higher numbers.
Advantage: This would allow for significantly effective moments such as when organised wrbands perform morale bombs to devistate the higher population of players who are simply running together in their big clumps, forcing those players to think about their positioning and also remove the mentaility of feeling safe in those big clumps.

Suggestion 2: (If possible) When one faction is outnumbered, apply a slow debuff to all players of the high population, this would only take effect when too many players are gathered together, an example being, lets say a warband is chasing another warband but there is a group +12 allied players helping them pursue, resulting in having their movement speeds reduced, this would help outnumbered warbands kite and avoid being mowed down by overwhelming numbers.

Suggestion 3: (This one is not going to get much likes i know) Place a cap on the amount of players who can enter one RVR zone, ok so this needs some explantion, at present al zones are unlocked and can be taken, the problem is if the amount of players on one side is too high then the result is an easy lock, opposing side gets disenfranchised and hopes for a bag when they lose the zone.

If we placed a cap on how many players can enter one rvr lake for that zone, specically scaled it so that one faction does not heavily outnumber another, the scaling players would most likely be needed to be teaked to find that sweat spot but i really think this one would have several advantages beyond just combat. These advantages would be...

Less over populated zones,
Increased performance and reduced lag
zone populations would be spread out evenly
Better odds at winning rewards for both sides based on reduced amount of players competing for them in a single zone

Now of course there are disadvantages one of the obvious being If a player could not get into that rvr zone then they would be forced to go to one of the other zones to fight in. Perhaps your guild wb is in a zone already and now you can't join. Also puts into question how would this be enforced, do we turn players into chickens when they try to enter, port them back into their warcamps, apply a damage over time on them when flagged for rvr in that zone. Would really be up to the people in charge to decide what would be most efficient.

This would have to be scaled correctly based on percantage numbers of faction vs faction, i am not saying if there 12 players in the zone vs a warband that this should be an option, more so if say 1 warband vs 2 warbands.

I am also of the opinion that players particapting in a long rvr session of 2 - 3 hours in one zone should have a chance to roll for a bag even if zone does not lock, players should be rewarded, not punished for perseverance.

Share your thoughts...

so you prefer to support xrealming?

wtf such **** i have seen rarely.....

for me is the change first step to goal to kill xrealming, decdide one site and stay on them, i guess thats what the devs want what is very good in my eyes

if the xrealm will be gone i guess the numbers on both sides will be similar or near similar!

the high difference between the numbers is just from xrealming in my eyes, people like the easy way, so if my current side loses lets change to wining side rofl ( i have no clue how people get fun with that but thats other story)

[Luuca]

I like how he's worried about disenfranchised players on a free to play game. If the current flow of the game, in ALPHA, isn't to your liking, just give it a week, it'll change again.

Long, rambling suggestion threads like this are pointless. The OP does not have the insight the Dev team has in the overarching schema of the RoR game. Again, RoR game.. not WAR.

I learned a while back to just sit back and try to enjoy the ride. I run in small groups and occasionally get rooked into warbands or leading warbands late night NA. the only thing you can do is do whatever you can to have fun and get kills while trying not to die.

If you are not having fun, it's on you.

[roadkillrobin]

The best deal for less numbers was always keep defences and BO defence ticks combined with AAO. This allowed for a smaller group of people to hold strategic points against much higher quantity of enemy players. I think every zone has some kinda chokepoint. But you need to make those BO points crucal to win the zone or else you can just ignore it. And keep defences are way to profitible even when you're on the side with moast numbers, resaulting in a zone progression standstill were both sides just want to defend.
Solve these issues and you got a purpose defending with smaller force.

[xanderous]

so you prefer to support xrealming?

wtf such **** i have seen rarely.....

Nothing about what i wrote suggests i support xrealming, i suggest you attempt another read.

I like how he's worried about disenfranchised players on a free to play game. If the current flow of the game, in ALPHA, isn't to your liking, just give it a week, it'll change again.

I like that you like i am worried about players becoming disenfranchised but on a serious note throwing the word alpha around is pretty redundant at this point.