Degradation of average player skill: why the Scenario system rework is urgently needed

[Stimpz]

I did often say it and say it again. The best time I personally had with scenarios was with duo Discordant Skirmishes. It had a lot of good fights because most people wanted to have a healer or a tank in their group to queue, and so you often had good, balanced teams.

[Rapzel]

I've said it over and over again in my streams. " gotta give people a reason to die and keep dying" right now the game overall doesn't give any reason / motivation to most players to keep at it. That's sc's and orvr.

I like this observation. Putting orvr aside for a second, I feel like the days of "close" scenarios are gone; it's either stomp or be stomped.
I swear that it wasn't that way in the past. People would (most of the time) respawn and rush back into the fight to try and turn things around, because scenarios often felt very winnable. Not sure if it has something to do with the gearing/career balance having made things a lot more snowball-y, or if it has something to do with the matchmaking system but the fact of the matter is that scenarios feel like a coin-toss nowdays. You very rarely get scs that both sides view as winnable after the first couple engagements.

If it was due to gear, live would have been even larger stomps.
The 6 man community is dead, the average puggy got what they wanted. Turns out what they wished for wasn't healthy for the game.

The community apparently wanted a game where AoE is supposed to do more damage to a single target than single target abilities. The game supposedly had a too high TTK, this was solved by no stacking damage reductions and nerfs to defensive stats to make it easier to kill healers. Add the vitriol, weekly "premades ruin weekend event" forum post and the fact that small scale continually got beaten on (2H guard changes, getting hit with the bonus malus in ORvR, list is long) I am not very surprised this drove a lot of small scale players away from the game.
The hemorrhage of small scale made even more leave, there's barely any full 6 man queuing weekend event anymore, funnily enough weekend event became the clown fest we warned solo weekend event would become, prior to the solo queue existing.

Queuing city siege as a 6 man is doomed since solo q is separated and you need to keep track of who queues what side and when.
I am not surprised players eventually got bored of mindless AoE spam in SCs.

Those close SCs you used to see were due to individuals and small groups. They knew how the mechanics of the game worked, they did apply debuffs in a certain order, to protect the "valuable", debuff. What SCs are now is a meat grinder and the side with more AoE wins. The devs decided they wished to focus on the large scale ORvR and ignore small scale content, now we're paying the price.

The degradation of skill, does not come from some scenario match maker. It is as simple as the skill cap was lowered and we ended up with 3 button AoE spam.

[Culexus]

100% agree with everything said about scenarios. The rework can’t come soon enough.

Honestly though, I think even with a rework, things won’t change much. The mentality of how players approach MMOs has changed significantly since 2008, with the grouping and community aspects of MMOs being replaced by players seeking a more casual solo experience where they can play the game as the main character without having to put any effort into working with others. This is seen every weekend in the weekend sc event, where players will suggest every change under the sun to fix scenarios, with the only thing that's never on the table for consideration being them joining a group.

There were plenty of terrible players on live with this mentality as well, and they would herd together into blobs for protection and easy kills just as they do now. The difference is that there was a thriving MMO community on live, and while the lakes were full of blobbing pugs, there were also loads of guild warbands roaming at the same time, taking on the blob and looking for fights against other guild warbands. How many guilds in RoR can field a full guild warband? Are there any?

This I think is the biggest issue. Without a community of active guilds, there is nothing to pull new players from the 'main character' mindset of modern gaming, to the old school MMO community mindset this game needs to work and be experienced at its best. Without the guilds to create the community, we're left with nothing but the giant pugblob hellscape we have now.

Don't get me wrong, there are still some great guild leaders out there running warbands, but as they have to rely on /5 to fill them, they never know who they're gonna get. The best thing about guild warbands is that you have a community of players who know each other. Players know the warband leader is knowledgeable, so they will listen and follow, and the warband leader knows they can trust the members of the warband to follow instructions and do their jobs, so they can lead without having to babysit. The community then comes within the guild, as you improve by fighting together week after week, develop friendships, and form rivalries against other guilds. Players have forgotten what MMOs are all about, especially sandbox MMOs like RoR: the community. Mechanic changes can only do so much if every new player thinks they are the main character of the game and they shouldn't have to work with others. Mechanics bring players to the game, but it's communities that keep them logging in.

There are mechanic issues such as the scenario rework that can help of course. There are also other issues, like a player can get to BiS without ever having to press an ability due to warcrests, or the fact that killboard drove a bunch of veteran players insane, thinking everyone on the server has their k/d ratio set as their homepage. But honestly, even if all these are addressed by the dev team, if there isn't an organic change within the playerbase that brings the old MMO mentality back to the game, I don't think it will make much of a difference.

[Toshutkidup]

100% agree with everything said about scenarios. The rework can’t come soon enough.

Honestly though, I think even with a rework, things won’t change much. The mentality of how players approach MMOs has changed significantly since 2008, with the grouping and community aspects of MMOs being replaced by players seeking a more casual solo experience where they can play the game as the main character without having to put any effort into working with others. This is seen every weekend in the weekend sc event, where players will suggest every change under the sun to fix scenarios, with the only thing that's never on the table for consideration being them joining a group.

There were plenty of terrible players on live with this mentality as well, and they would herd together into blobs for protection and easy kills just as they do now. The difference is that there was a thriving MMO community on live, and while the lakes were full of blobbing pugs, there were also loads of guild warbands roaming at the same time, taking on the blob and looking for fights against other guild warbands. How many guilds in RoR can field a full guild warband? Are there any?

This I think is the biggest issue. Without a community of active guilds, there is nothing to pull new players from the 'main character' mindset of modern gaming, to the old school MMO community mindset this game needs to work and be experienced at its best. Without the guilds to create the community, we're left with nothing but the giant pugblob hellscape we have now.

Don't get me wrong, there are still some great guild leaders out there running warbands, but as they have to rely on /5 to fill them, they never know who they're gonna get. The best thing about guild warbands is that you have a community of players who know each other. Players know the warband leader is knowledgeable, so they will listen and follow, and the warband leader knows they can trust the members of the warband to follow instructions and do their jobs, so they can lead without having to babysit. The community then comes within the guild, as you improve by fighting together week after week, develop friendships, and form rivalries against other guilds. Players have forgotten what MMOs are all about, especially sandbox MMOs like RoR: the community. Mechanic changes can only do so much if every new player thinks they are the main character of the game and they shouldn't have to work with others. Mechanics bring players to the game, but it's communities that keep them logging in.

There are mechanic issues such as the scenario rework that can help of course. There are also other issues, like a player can get to BiS without ever having to press an ability due to warcrests, or the fact that killboard drove a bunch of veteran players insane, thinking everyone on the server has their k/d ratio set as their homepage. But honestly, even if all these are addressed by the dev team, if there isn't an organic change within the playerbase that brings the old MMO mentality back to the game, I don't think it will make much of a difference.

I generally agree with you however I would "argue" one point. To me it's not so much that "players " have changed it's the motivation or reason to play has changed. Back on live it was $15 ( USD) per month to play this game. Time and money was precious, now it's free, no commitment or time restraints. Now I'm NOT ARGUING To MAKE IT PAY TO PLAY. But I am saying that is also one aspect that has changed as well as other changes prior.

[maduk]

As someone who started playing last week and got his main (AM) to 38/40 on sunday (weekend was damn juicy) through SCs (mostly soloq), I had a blast in the mid tier SCs. Played 140 SCs over last week. I didnt touch RvR because a lot of the comments here in the forums saying that low levels arent as welcome as I would like it and the gear disparity making it quite the challenge. Also I'm not fond of the boring blob vs blob gameplay (for what I experienced so far). In SCs you get this too but most of the time enemy dps can still get into your face and beat you up.
I dont know when I will tip my toes into 40+ gameplay because I'm not to keen on farming out all the PvE stuff just to apparently be a punching bag when I step into RvR. So now I made a WH to relive the mid-tier SC goodness.

The mentality of how players approach MMOs has changed significantly since 2008, with the grouping and community aspects of MMOs being replaced by players seeking a more casual solo experience where they can play the game as the main character without having to put any effort into working with others.

IMO the approach didnt change, but people having way more other games to possibly play. Also most newer MMOs are just a checkbox simulators with little to no content. Which people are getting bored of, seeing the resurge for "classic" MMOs.

[Ninjagon]

Yes, I agree with Onlymelee.
Healthy scenarios are crucial for the RoR community.

I am still curious, who was the person responsible for barriers like design in SC (which 95% player base strongly dislike) and if that person is devs-active at all now.

Please for a good start:
- change that horrible barriers/no guards - no renown SC design
- adjust the matchmaking so there are similar numbers of healers/tanks/dps on BOTH sides
- rename "discordant SC" to "solo SC" and boost it with weekly SC event rewards

[Florian90210]

This predatory change with barriers in SC ahead of farm event was just disgusting.
I blame players too, instead of protesting by leaving SC and not queue for some time they stay to feed premades.
T2 SCs are super fun because most of the time there are no premades, so if devs really want to make fun experience for everyone, that is key. Matchmaker should not put premades in priority, let then sit in queue for a while waiting for other premade. If it takes too long then you can put them atleast against geared 2/2/2 pugs.

[TrainInVain]

+ 1

This game has such great a variety of SC types. IMO improving the queue system would go a long way toward player retention and returning players

[nocturnalguest]

This predatory change with barriers in SC ahead of farm event was just disgusting.
I blame players too, instead of protesting by leaving SC and not queue for some time they stay to feed premades.
T2 SCs are super fun because most of the time there are no premades, so if devs really want to make fun experience for everyone, that is key. Matchmaker should not put premades in priority, let then sit in queue for a while waiting for other premade. If it takes too long then you can put them atleast against geared 2/2/2 pugs.

there is no need to restrict grouping up (nor restricting solo/pugs tbf). premades and pugs and all this story is not a real issue (and never ever has been). thru years of weekly "premades vs pugs" threads its clear as night and day that there are no "premades" currently playing this game even, there are various "groups" of various levels of skills, and mostly, e.g. in 9 cases out of 10, those groups are not ranked ready.
it was also many times discussed that the main culprit and issue is a stomp. to fight stompy nature of sc&game mechanics its logical to introduce some kind of "comeback" mechanics which would help the underdog to fight back against the odds.

also very nice suggestion and mechanics are described here by buerdig (viewtopic.php?t=59312&start=20#p582213), finetuning aka-Saga like mechanics into SCs making it step by step more challenging for good group and easier for bad group/solo heroes/pugs could be best possible solution. can see it also benefiting "downtimes" outside of EU prime when there are literally no other people to form SC out of.

waiting in q is no go. it has been tested, discussed and i believe majority of team&community are strongly against it for obvious reasons.
however tho, MM cant work like it works right now, thats insane, opening new instance each time 6men presses "join q" button and on top of that pulling literally everything that is in q in that particular moment without any checks (and in q its obvious that there are random solos and pugs and duo/trios literally whatever, which leads us to another refined proposal which none disagree with - introduce ranked alike UI so at least people may influence their pug composition and seeing that e.g. there are currently not a single healer/tank in q for a realm).

[Hazmy]

there is no need to restrict grouping up (nor restricting solo/pugs tbf). premades and pugs and all this story is not a real issue (and never ever has been). thru years of weekly "premades vs pugs" threads its clear as night and day that there are no "premades" currently playing this game even, there are various "groups" of various levels of skills, and mostly, e.g. in 9 cases out of 10, those groups are not ranked ready.
it was also many times discussed that the main culprit and issue is a stomp. to fight stompy nature of sc&game mechanics its logical to introduce some kind of "comeback" mechanics which would help the underdog to fight back against the odds.

also very nice suggestion and mechanics are described here by buerdig (viewtopic.php?t=59312&start=20#p582213), finetuning aka-Saga like mechanics into SCs making it step by step more challenging for good group and easier for bad group/solo heroes/pugs could be best possible solution. can see it also benefiting "downtimes" outside of EU prime when there are literally no other people to form SC out of.

waiting in q is no go. it has been tested, discussed and i believe majority of team&community are strongly against it for obvious reasons.
however tho, MM cant work like it works right now opening new instance each time 6men presses "join q" button. thats insane

While I understand what you mean by saying "no premades" I don't think that's generally fair to say. I would assume you say it in the terms of actual skillfull premades existing who use all mechanics, are on discords etc, which is true - not many of them if any at all queue up.

It's more of a natural result of the years of skill degradation that Only has described, that now if you make a group of 6 - play the correct careers, use aoe builds, guard each other, that is already an overwhelming force against 90% of the opposition that will queue against you. There are also still massive skill gaps between /5 lfg premades too.

Personal example.:
Whenever I level a character with my guild we usually do it together, and the last time I leveled my Choppa we went undefeated for days on end farming 20-30 kills / match, no deaths in mid-tier with no effort or any special coordination. People logged off, logged over to curse us and so on. Were we actually playing skillful? No, not even close, we were full yolo - but it was a premade stomping midtier SCs for almost a week with barely any losses.
Is that a problem? I think it is - should we stop? Not a solution, since many do the exact same thing just to play the game with friends or level faster. Yet it chases players away in massive waves.

The average skill level has dropped so drastically, that unfortunately there is definitely a problem of solo players vs premades at the moment - and It needs to be addressed + also implement a comeback mechanic as you mention, I fully agree, but unless that comeback mechanic is brutally advantageous, I am not sure it's even enough with the current discrepancy.

I have already talked with Only about this in length in the past - I think this problem is so massive already, that it will need months if not years to fix the skill level gradually.