Is reward model driving current population inbalance

[Bignusty]

Funny that you are mentioning that Evil. It was your 2wb+ blob that was literally destroying pvp for hundreds of players this sunday prime in praag. For hours.

I was working Sunday night so I wasn't there to see it with my own eyes , but does it not sound strange that 50 players have the potential to bully "hundreds of players"? I mean according to certain destro players, order premades destroyed the weekend SC for them the whole Sunday.

People couldn't even leave the warcamp. You were non stop roaming near the order warcamp, killing everything that tried to go out with a very abusive tactic. Push, kill, fall back, let people come out, mSH m2 snare, rush in, mara aoe knock down, gtdc spam, burst everyone down in seconds, leave a few minutes and do it again.

Okay so here what you are implying is that it is not a balance issue, as one might think when 50 players can easily take on 100+ players. Instead it is a "abusive tactic" that is applied, this lines up well with the destro perspective that Order premades abused them in the weekend SC.

It's one thing when premades are strong, but what your premade and buddies were doing was on another level. It is abusive to the maximum and game breaking. Hundreds of people had to suffer from that game play. You and your buddies destroyed the pvp evening of a ton of players. That had nothing to do with just playing premade and having fun. That was abusive to the maximum.

You admit again it is not a balance issue, it is "abuse".

It's at the point were devs have to step in and nerf the power of premade warbands. What these premades are doing is basically "bombing" people with melee aoe. "Bombing" and "Pulling" people into that was nerfed long ago for exactly that reason. Yet for melee blobs they don't mind. For years now. At the same time nerfing every counter play, like rdps aoe into the ground.

Ranged kite warbands are still doable on Order. Counter play? What game are you playing? Age of Empire has this sort of balance where x counters y which in turn is countered by z.

If and read if ranged order completely countered destro melee, then I guess that requires destro ranged to counter Order ranged, or am I wrong? So for you it should be that to achieve a balanced game;

1. Destro melee counters Order melee
2. Order melee counters Destro ranged
3. Destro range counters Order range
4. Order range counters Destro melee

Do you understand how ridiculous it would be to balance an MMORPG around "range" and "melee" wbs? The game works around playing well, if you keep getting farmed in the same choke 100+ vs 50 then fight somewhere else, and don't run into the same trap over and over again. Nightmare would have farmed you just as easy if you played destro and they were on their Order toons. You have already admitted to it not being a balance issue but rather "abuse" and a skill issue.

Melee aoe bombing, pulling and premade survivability in general need a hard nerf. I don't see that happening with the proposed ability overhaul. There are some fixes to pulls and melee aoe but not to premade survivability. Without nerfing survivability they will keep doing the same with classes like bombing/infernal wave sorcs and mSHs. What is order going to be using after the melee aoe nerf? BWs without infernal wave? Engis without magical damage? Sws without mSH beast mode? WLs without aoe kd? Slayers without chop fasta and pulls? Lol. Well played destro, well played.

What is premade survivability? How does it differ from PUG survivability? Nerfing "survivability" will make the puggies die even faster so what is it that you are trying convey. The ranged nerfs are stupid indeed, majority of the changes makes no sense when it comes to ranged careers (but we both know why all ranged careers are neutered and other over performing careers are not even touched), but first of all it has nothing to do with the topic and should be discussed in another thread.
When was the last time you saw a 24 man infernal wave spamming wb? Seriously, you are really grasping for straws here.

Looooooooollll what a big troll "Destro melee counters Order melee" "Order melee counters Destro ranged" Order melee counter everything why you think that all big Order warband playing 1 BW then full slayers? Cause slayers have Rampage and this abilitie melting everything in their road. I dont want to debate but it wont finish as long you want to funnel something protect main top floor etc etc something that destro melee doing? You r gonna to be melted and it won't finish before this stupid abilitie isn't move at least 11 points like GTDC or completly reworked.

[Fatpig]

Funny that you are mentioning that Evil. It was your 2wb+ blob that was literally destroying pvp for hundreds of players this sunday prime in praag. For hours.

Looooooooollll what a big troll "Destro melee counters Order melee" "Order melee counters Destro ranged" Order melee counter everything why you think that all big Order warband playing 1 BW then full slayers? Cause slayers have Rampage and this abilitie melting everything in their road. I dont want to debate but it wont finish as long you want to funnel something protect main top floor etc etc something that destro melee doing? You r gonna to be melted and it won't finish before this stupid abilitie isn't move at least 11 points like GTDC or completly reworked.

Well rampage wasnt' doing too well with the melee blob on Sunday was it. Probably because people were being yanked into the destro thresher.
I actually enjoy some of the big fights, when you get flanked (or you flank them), blobbing doesn't matter then, its tactics. But AOE pulling, undefendable pulls and AOE KD, all melee based, do make a massive difference when you are talking organised teams.
Big issue (for order) really is most of the organised groups are on destro side, so on certain nights, they just steamroll.
Funny thing is you know when certain guilds will call it, and when other guilds will come online, so you can see the balance changing

[Gegga]

another "we are getting **** on and its not our fault" thread, nice!

[lemao]

Get gud issue again

[wonshot]

if we are gonna keep it just slightly on topic, of the reward system and what effects it has on player behaviour

One issue with orvr is that if we have the strict "only the winning side is getting rewarded" model, then people truely will winnerjoin Xrealm bandwagon (talking in general population here not crossrealming fighters)
An other issue would be where there is "no reason" to play the objectives, as we see in scenarios where majority of winning sides dont bother too much about capping or scoring but instead focus on kills. As that is more rewarding in Realmpoints & crests if you succesfully farm the other side.

So where is the middleground for rewards, how do we have a system where people are incentivied to show up and defend a keep outside of EU primetime for Destro. While at the same time when order population is mainly pug or outnumbered in terms of premade warbands quality, to make those players not having to bunker up inside a keep when its technially even numbers leaving destro to be insulted thinking "no aao, why are you hiding" while order not standing a chance due to lack of organization.

The model right now, is a mixture of "here you get rewards for playing, eventually so dont worry if you get farmed it will take longer" mixed with "well if you want to win, put in more effort"
The issue being, that the effort is just not really put in, because of how free the rewards are. And if this were to change a big portion of the casual nostalgic playerbase would probably quit and an MMO without a healthy population is dead in the water.

- EU prime order-only guilds struggle against destro-only guilds and rely on Crossrealmers to make the night good for them.
- LOTD order-only guilds are miles behind in organization and relies on external region leaders to herd them.
- Outside of EU prime order is chainlocking forts and pushing IC 9/10 times.
- Formosa timezone is uncontested for order realm.

So here we are, with a system that says its okay to suck but please try to get better, but not really. And both realms are proven capable depending on whos playing and when.

[Acidic]

if we are gonna keep it just slightly on topic, of the reward system and what effects it has on player behaviour

One issue with orvr is that if we have the strict "only the winning side is getting rewarded" model, then people truely will winnerjoin Xrealm bandwagon (talking in general population here not crossrealming fighters)
An other issue would be where there is "no reason" to play the objectives, as we see in scenarios where majority of winning sides dont bother too much about capping or scoring but instead focus on kills. As that is more rewarding in Realmpoints & crests if you succesfully farm the other side.

So where is the middleground for rewards, how do we have a system where people are incentivied to show up and defend a keep outside of EU primetime for Destro. While at the same time when order population is mainly pug or outnumbered in terms of premade warbands quality, to make those players not having to bunker up inside a keep when its technially even numbers leaving destro to be insulted thinking "no aao, why are you hiding" while order not standing a chance due to lack of organization.

The model right now, is a mixture of "here you get rewards for playing, eventually so dont worry if you get farmed it will take longer" mixed with "well if you want to win, put in more effort"
The issue being, that the effort is just not really put in, because of how free the rewards are. And if this were to change a big portion of the casual nostalgic playerbase would probably quit and an MMO without a healthy population is dead in the water.

- EU prime order-only guilds struggle against destro-only guilds and rely on Crossrealmers to make the night good for them.
- LOTD order-only guilds are miles behind in organization and relies on external region leaders to herd them.
- Outside of EU prime order is chainlocking forts and pushing IC 9/10 times.
- Formosa timezone is uncontested for order realm.

So here we are, with a system that says its okay to suck but please try to get better, but not really. And both realms are proven capable depending on whos playing and when.

First, thx for keeping on topic.

In my opinion one of the big issues is the impact of blobbing. (Blobbed pugs don’t count, on,y organised imbedded in a blob)
When any sides organised warband has following (intentional or not) the game becomes not fun for the pug bands that try run on their own. So sorting blobbing should fix game experience as destro has pug bands , semi pug and some organised giving order bands a chance to kill things.

To me if there is a significant downside on blobbing (reduced crests, rr, damage ..) the organised warband will likely be much more active to avoid having followers and start to police their warbands to not have followers unless needed (other side blobbing)

[Zxul]

Something which wasn't mentioned so far here.

Think of live- pug could very much fight back there. Core issue of RoR- here it was decided that it is a team based game, and you must team up to achieve anything. Solo oriented abilities/builds were nerfed, while team oriented abilities/synergies were buffed. With the expected result, that unless you play in a very specific way- 2/2/2, max team play and synergy- you can't fight back against someone that does.

Simplest example, see the st rdps builds, and all the nerfs which they got. In RoR sov st rdps won't be able to solo burst a guarded and healed ruin mdps- which would counter melee train and premades very nicely.

It isn't about l2p, getting good, etc- it is about in RoR all the ways of play and builds which could counter the premades were intentionally nerfed, with the expected results that we see today.

[lumpi33]

To me if there is a significant downside on blobbing (reduced crests, rr, damage ..) the organised warband will likely be much more active to avoid having followers and start to police their warbands to not have followers unless needed (other side blobbing)

I don't agree with that. Forcing people into something with punishments never works. Nothing wrong with blobbing and big massive fights. When there are kills on both sides then everything is fine and people will try again and have fun. When only one side getting kills and the other is getting steam-rolled over and over again then there is an issue. That's exactly what I am seeing ingame. When there are strong premades on one side they roll over everything with the other side barely getting any kills. That's demotivating and frustrating. Then people start to stand around in warcamps or keeps, log to the other side or log off.

The game is really fun when there are no roaming premades around. As soon they start with their farming it is all going downhill. It's the root of all evil. It's the reason for people logging over, resulting in pvd, it's the reason for people standing in warcamps or keeps not going outside, it's the reason for people logging off. Im really surprised that nobody wants to see that or can see that.

You don't have to put big rewards into the game or remove them. All you have to do is put in back the fun for the casuals and they will keep playing it and tell their friends to play it too. That's how you build a population. Not with your usual "git gud" and screw solo or pug players. There will always be good and bad players, solo, small group and warband players. That's the way it is in every MMO. Warband play is only ONE aspect of the game, not the only one. Stop trying to pretend that it is otherwise and stop trying to force people into that play mode. With a healthy balance between pugs and premades everybody will have more fun. You can't tell me that it is fun for premades to roam empty zones with nothing to kill. Well guess what, you caused that.

So, how to fix that? Nerf the power and impact of premade warbands. It's that simple. I've already posted how.

[wonshot]

To me if there is a significant downside on blobbing (reduced crests, rr, damage ..) the organised warband will likely be much more active to avoid having followers and start to police their warbands to not have followers unless needed (other side blobbing)

A part of me wants to believe that if AAO was local (say same regional split as Enemy zonekills, or functioning as Diminishing Rations debuff in lotd for area scanning) then you would actually only be rewarded for the people who were relevant in the fights.

For example:
Destro organized warband feeling strong and succesful, they break off the blob wars in praag at MS and goes to Manor.
Here they run into first an order 5man of boxrunners. The destro wb will get high anti-aao for ganking a medium fish.
The dead 5man orderboxgroup calls in region and 2 order warbands comes to Manor to deal with the destro24man.
Destro kills 10 out of the 48 before they go down, and get high aao rewards as they were outnumbered 2:1 but get matcing rewards for their efforts. While the outnumbering force of 48order players would only get half value from their 2:1 outnumbering victory.

The main issue with this, would ofc be when fully BIS warbands roam around and every kill is sacret for the Gods of the killboard.

[Skullgrin]

In answering the initial question, yes the reward system is the source of the problem. The thing is, you are all looking at the Renown rewards, when you should be looking at the weekly Influence reward system. All of the current player behaviors can be explained by it, at every level of play from solo up to warband.

I could provide details that would break it all down, but the last time I did that I was accused of criticizing the devs personally, rather than being constructive. So I'm just gonna leave that alone and let you all hopefully figure it out.

Besides, I personally take advantage of the flaws in the current system to burn through the weekly ORvR event. I completed it all in less than 3 hours this week. Why should I want it fixed when all it will do is make things significantly harder for solo players, but only marginally better for warbands?