ORDER: NA PRIME+ Suggestion

[Luuca]

ORDER: NA PRIME+ Suggestion

Not sure if this belongs here or not, so Devs can move if needed.

I would like to start a discussion about improving the level of play and organization for Order players during the NA Prime and NA Late Night play times. This is not a demand nor an edict to anyone or any guild active on the server during these times; rather an open discussion of how we can organize ourselves in order to improve our results in SCs and ORvR. Below, I will present some basic observations and assumptions I feel hold true for our player base in those times, and open up for discussion an idea I have that may or may not make sense.

Observations:

-The number of Order players in the NA time slot is low and disorganized.
-Order is self-segregating our forces based upon guilds.
-Order has a handful of fairly tight knit small guilds, running 6-man or 12-man or 18-man Warband sprinkled with PuGs.
-Order has a fairly large number of sub-40 players who join PuG warbands nightly

I believe the Top 5 negative effects include, but are not limited to, the following

-Insurmountable imbalance in ORvR for one side or the other
-Slow or infrequent Scenario “pops”
-Insurmountable effectiveness gap in Scenarios between Pre-Made 6-man groups and PuGs
-More frequency of multiple “Duo-groups” of the same Guild/Coms in PuG SC
-Longer time-to-lock for each ORvR Zone


-Order guilds should retain their unique leadership, identities and playstyles.
-Active and Less active Order guilds would benefit from an overarching Guild Alliance across all guilds

Suggestion:

If you assume the above are true, or at least true alongside other issues created by the low NA Order player population, I would recommend the following solution be discussed and some version of these be implemented during the Order NA Primetime and Late Night Playtimes.

Create an Overarching NA Order Guild Alliance

This overarching and inclusive Order Guild Alliance would make it easier for players across the Order NA Playtimes to become more active with players they may not usually play with and eventually become better acquainted (comfortable) with other active groups during their normal play times. The overarching Guild Alliance would be need to be open to any established and active Order guild of at least 6 active players during the NA playtimes of 5pm EST to 1pm PST. By leaving our egos and individual prejudices at the door, and agreeing to work together, we will eventually take the /5 “post and pray you get a group” out of the equation and start coordinating the more active players into groups with decent group comp and available coms.
Once we remove the barriers created by the Guild unit, and facilitate an easier, more reliable, and trusted resource for finding a decent group or filling in an already decent group, I believe that all of our active NA Order players will begin to better work together and will enjoy exponential gains in-game.

The real issue is going to be dropping our pride and prejudices in the bin and grouping with players we may deem as “consummate PuGs” or “less skilled”. I remind everyone reading this that we were all new and horrible at some point, and that none of us are perfect. If we can somehow pull off this NA Order Alliance, and bring organized large-scale fights out to ORvR and SCs, we may well be able to turn the tide of the traditionally Destruction dominated time slot.

Why I believe it will work:

Currently the advantages of being in an alliance with other guilds that play in your timeslot are as follows;

-You can see how many players are online within your alliance at all times
-You can see how many from each guild and even their classes
-You can use the /Alliance chat channel to put out a call for a specific class or role needed to fill out your group
-You can use the /Alliance chat channel to put out a call for more players when forming a Warband for ORvR
-The players and guilds within your alliance are known “good” players and acceptable for grouping
-There is a certain level of trust and comfort when playing with alliance members that they will play well, stay on task and with the group, and be in coms.

By creating a massive Order NA Alliance open to all existing guilds with at least 6 active players in our time slot, we reap all the above benefits with the possibility of the 6th benefit becoming true as time goes by and players get to know each other and their playstyles.

This expanded pool of players will help NA Order to better organize groups, coordinate efforts, and take back some ground from the usually larger Destruction forces.

Please let me know your thoughts and opinions on this if you play in NA Prime+ timeslots. If you are a NA Prime Guild leader, and would like to discuss this over Discord, hit me up in game on Accuul or Polka.

Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

[Dabbart]

So... Zerg more? Joking....

Good idea. I mean, obviously we have /t4 and /2 and /5 and you can search online players to find people, and not everyone wants to read the chat of some players(self targeted), and correct me if I am wrong but I thought most of the largest NA guilds were already in a big alliance? I seem to recall Zaxxond being booted over a large alliance drama...

But still a good idea in principle. Alliance chat feels different than /5 and you can boot the twits. The introduction of Realm Captains will help this a lot imo though. Alliances are a clunky way to do it. Maybe just a non-guild Discord that is separate for NA Order? Or is it being game depedant for PUGs a crucial factor?

Either way, gl. Fights like we had 5-8pm PST last night are great. If we could extend that a bit regularly, it would be excellent. NA time is recovered from the DDOS, but it’s still not at the lvl it was. More late-night Waaagh would be great.

[drmordread]

I like the suggestion of an overarching alliance to allow small guilds to at least throw grps and warbands together. Damn good idea.
Sort of like the generic guild all new players could join back on live.

[dansari]

Personally, I don't think it's destruction dominated at all. Take a typical Thursday night: around 7-8p EST people start logging on for weekly rvr. A ton of order "pugs" log on, resulting in aao for destro (let's say 40-80%). Order will start going through zones. Destro start logging in around 9:30 EST.The guilds who play both sides will regularly swap to reap the benefits (Lords, fusion), which equalizes the population. This, coupled with other good NA players (DROW, Hym's fifth guild <3, whatever becometh of rocks, etc), and how normally destro is defending rather than attacking, gives an advantage. Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be easy to take a keep, but it's sooo much easier to defend and rack up kills, especially if the population is even.

The way to counter this is kinda what you're going for: enable the order "pugs" to be more than casual players. But that kinda depends on if they even want to change, and it's highly likely that a very small percentage of them even read the forums. Idk.. I'm rambling. More power to you

[Zaxxond]

So... Zerg more? Joking....

Good idea. I mean, obviously we have /t4 and /2 and /5 and you can search online players to find people, and not everyone wants to read the chat of some players(self targeted), and correct me if I am wrong but I thought most of the largest NA guilds were already in a big alliance? I seem to recall Zaxxond being booted over a large alliance drama...

But still a good idea in principle. Alliance chat feels different than /5 and you can boot the twits. The introduction of Realm Captains will help this a lot imo though. Alliances are a clunky way to do it. Maybe just a non-guild Discord that is separate for NA Order? Or is it being game depedant for PUGs a crucial factor?

Either way, gl. Fights like we had 5-8pm PST last night are great. If we could extend that a bit regularly, it would be excellent. NA time is recovered from the DDOS, but it’s still not at the lvl it was. More late-night Waaagh would be great.

Please stop the disinformation about Zaxxond being kicked from an alliance. This is second time in under week you've mentioned me in forums so are you trolling or just being a ****? I can't tell anymore. FYI - I simply left 2 guilds that were in alliance and they voted not to let Zaxxed into their alliance when Zaxxed was guild level 1. So what did I do? I got together with like minded guilds who are fun and great players, and we formed Empire Blaxxed (Guardia Imperial, Blazing Suns and Zaxxed)


To Luucca's point.

I don't believe a large scale alliance would work because it's been done already with varying levels of success. The biggest problem for large alliances is the inability for all guilds to agree on 1 form of universal comms. For example the Black Crow alliance (when it was largest NA Alliance) guilds were on discord, vent, TeamSpeak and game vox and there was constant disagreements over what comms to use when X guild leader was leading the alliance warband. This didn't happen every time, but it happened enough to stunt the flow of the very necessary communication for warbands to successfully operate in the zone.

This may not be an issue for NA Destro. I've noticed on streams that the NA Destro warband leaders are more active in say and appear to be overall more coordinated.

This is only a suggestion so take from it what you will. The pug players on both sides and even the smaller guilds that don't have very many active players need to start consolidating into guilds or join more active guilds that fit their play style.

I agree in principle that more organization is needed in NA Prime. But I also believe that most players just want to login and play, group and do what they want to do in game.

[Zaxxond]

Personally, I don't think it's destruction dominated at all. Take a typical Thursday night: around 7-8p EST people start logging on for weekly rvr. A ton of order "pugs" log on, resulting in aao for destro (let's say 40-80%). Order will start going through zones. Destro start logging in around 9:30 EST.The guilds who play both sides will regularly swap to reap the benefits (Lords, fusion), which equalizes the population. This, coupled with other good NA players (DROW, Hym's fifth guild <3, whatever becometh of rocks, etc), and how normally destro is defending rather than attacking, gives an advantage. Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be easy to take a keep, but it's sooo much easier to defend and rack up kills, especially if the population is even.

The way to counter this is kinda what you're going for: enable the order "pugs" to be more than casual players. But that kinda depends on if they even want to change, and it's highly likely that a very small percentage of them even read the forums. Idk.. I'm rambling. More power to you

Dan,

Is your alliance still running WB's on Thursday?

[Spacecraft]

Zaxx and guilda join the crows wgaf. Should be no Drama i think you fit in anyway. Your on sods discord anyway.

[Xergon]

Sadly i have to agree, im from EU but i played lately a lot during NA prime, and Order organization in RvR is just terrible... Basically i haven't seen any premade WBs, only premade 6 max 12 man. Besides Avo, Livetoserve or Chezy there is no PUG leaders, and even when they lead Order still struggle, like how hard it can be to lock zone in ChW when there is 70 Order against 30 Destro... it was super messy and i hope to never experience it again...
I think it has to do also with players attitude, ppl tend to follow zerg not WB leaders (i experienced it my self) and it doesn't help.
No idea what solution will work, but hope something will change.

[dansari]

Spoiler:

Personally, I don't think it's destruction dominated at all. Take a typical Thursday night: around 7-8p EST people start logging on for weekly rvr. A ton of order "pugs" log on, resulting in aao for destro (let's say 40-80%). Order will start going through zones. Destro start logging in around 9:30 EST.The guilds who play both sides will regularly swap to reap the benefits (Lords, fusion), which equalizes the population. This, coupled with other good NA players (DROW, Hym's fifth guild <3, whatever becometh of rocks, etc), and how normally destro is defending rather than attacking, gives an advantage. Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be easy to take a keep, but it's sooo much easier to defend and rack up kills, especially if the population is even.

The way to counter this is kinda what you're going for: enable the order "pugs" to be more than casual players. But that kinda depends on if they even want to change, and it's highly likely that a very small percentage of them even read the forums. Idk.. I'm rambling. More power to you

Dan,

Is your alliance still running WB's on Thursday?

Da. Normally Avo will have a group and some of SoD will join TW to form a band. Last night was solid. We had fights all night and minimal push/pull bullshit.

[MedV]

I agree with the OP. I came back after a long hiatus and was surprised at the organization of Order. No open WBs but plenty of small 6-12 man groups roaming for random kills and not joining the siege. Ive also noticed that almost everyone i see is in a different guild than the next.

I do believe an overarching Guild Alliance would be a great idea. Currently PUGS lack the motivation and I totally understand most people do what they want and why do they care? They think their actions wont effect them in the future. However, in a Alliance WB most people follow bec they dont want to be known as the person who doesnt follow commands. Even I find myself wandering a bit when in a PUG going with the flow, but when in a Guild WB I make sure im always doing whats needed because I have a subconscious need to show others my abilities, as Im sure alot of you do as well.

Off topic... LOVE the new Keep Lords not resetting anymore, the DEVS are gods. And I also love seeing huge RR numbers even though im above rr 40. Downsides of the Updates since I left, are the Draw timers (Ended up playing 6-7 hours in 1 zone and when it flipped i got a message that the XP number was too high and I wouldnt be given the full amount) and also that bags do not have end tier gear if below lvl 40. Using an account thats 30/43 ive been told countless times to just Power level so i dont kill myself when I get a gold bag in RVR though it goes against what i believe the devs want. I understand both sides and I completely understand the reasoning behind these changes... im just salty after getting a purp bag in t4 and running around the room thinking i got Subj and when I opened it i had the choice of 5 solider medallions or 2 gold.