Land of the Dead topic again huh
The history of the modern RoR LOTD gamemode have pretty much seen destro as dominating realm for this gamemode since its release. I've personally been speculating that the anti aao mechanic was part of it due to destros advantage in aoe cc and the Diminishing Rations debuff only affecting the damage and healing modifers making the pull+snare+knockdown zerging in destros advantage.
But after playing both sides enough now in LOTD it seems like these are some of the main differences between Order and Destro in LOTD:
- Destro generally win more warband fights on their own and have atleast one dominating warband who can 24vsX
- Destro generally have more smaller outskirts parties who are roaming for kills against the Order outskirt pugs/parties
- Order seem to bring their internal class-balance issues into LOTD. Meaning too few support classes and too many rdps to support them all so they cant stand and fight and instead it ends up being some order pushing in, rdps adding firepower to the fight and then running when the friendly frontline has melted making it seem like half of the forces didnt even help and are fleeing when it really just is a case of not having support for each of the damagedealers.
- Order warbands very rarely are "stacked" or built strongly enough to vanguard forthemselves let alone the rdps tail mentioned above.
I am not sure if the mechanics of this gamemode is making the difference in why order outskirts have been neglected so much. I've seen atleast 3 rounds of LOTD where Order is not even capping their starting BOs and instead go "for kills" Lack of interest in the gamemode, not understanding it, or low morale I dont know...
But below ill try to make a list of the LOTD gamemode mechanics if anyone should be in doubt of how they work:
1)You can only capture a BO if its within a two-BO-chain from your already own objetive chain
2)The 3rd faction patrol mobs attack the BOs controled by the realm ahead in points(mechanic to force winning team to spread out)
3)The three middle BOs at the river center have higher point value per tick
4)You need to kill all the pve mobs on a yellow neutral BO in starting phase before you can cap
5)An enemy stealther can prevent the other realm's capture by standing on the BO range in stealth
6)Guilds can claim and hold a BO to increase the capture duration timer and do upgraded with more guards, and guard-kill-spam intell in guildchat for the controling guild. This is done with planting a guild standard and spending silver scaraps
7)Silver scaraps are gained from capping bos and killing. they are used for teleporting from WC after a wipe to a BO under your realms control at the mirror
8)The other mirror teleports you out of the wc to a random location south for order and north for destro. this serves as an anti wc-camped exit
9)Each pvp kill counts as 1 point for the total point scoreboard towards victory
10)To get inside lotd you need Experdition resources dropped from pvp kills in only oRvR the week between LOTD rounds. They are account bound so people can send them to their other characters to help build better well rounded warbands and setups. the rewards from lotd are likevice accountbound and can be mailed on your accound.
11)Golden scaraps are used for item equipment 2piece sets with cloak and rings. or 250 for a mounth (this mount makes you unable to dismount when dragging siege weapons in orvr so careful!)
12)Winning lotd gives a Golden Cartoshes which has very few uses atm. But the gamemode is fun for realm-priders, roamers, warbanders or smallscalers.
I personally really enjoy the potential of LOTD. But it seem to be abit misunderstand, its not all about blobbing and running 3-4warbands together from one objective to an other. If both realms form fairly decent warbands and groups there can be bigger fights happening at the center of the map, while the outskirts can see alot of action from smaller 6-12mans.
At LOTD launch I happend to be a guildleader over on destro in <Just Respawn> we made LOTD one of our guild goals and gamemodes and had a blast with it. My approach leading there, was that we would cap starting homelands, push to middle and secure an initual clash against Order not by coordinating but just eyeballing where our manpower was needed for the task and assist the realm depending on the situation(either adding to the fight or applying pressure by capping Pools of Reflection) and then later on shift the goals to pushing Order's southern homelands and put pressure on the outskirts drawing out several warbands and string their manpower out and make them missue allocated manpower giving rest of our realmmates better conditions to work with in case we ended up getting zerged 3wb vs 1wb.
Same for my adventure on Order lately. But on a smallerscale. I've been building smaller 6-12mans last two LOTD rounds purely focusing on Outskirts capping as Order was simply neglecting this to such an extend. After the first round, rest of order caught on to this importance and the guilds started making overflow outskirts capping groups aswel and despite still losing the main fights the outskirts capping part got done and it carried the victory.
I hope more people will come to LOTD, play the gamemode with smallergroups in the outskirts and bigger warbands building their warbands so they can fight on their own, but also spend their 24 allocated manpower impact wicely. Dont just aimlessly blob, see where you are needed and help your realms.
The gamemode is pretty fun and when actually being played it can feel very satisfying making moves & countermoves.
