Population Imbalances

[BarrooM]

Hello!

Came back to WH RoR after the WoW pserver I was playing on announced a shutdown. This game will always hold a special place in my gaming heart since the official beta and launch of retail.

I came with a few friends that have played before and a few that have not played before. For the past 4 nights we have been on (mostly NA Times) Destro seem to be locking down every zone making it difficult do get any oRVR objectives and rewards completed. Most of the time Order is sitting at the Warcamp entrance getting camped by 2x, 3x the numbers. This is T1 zones. We've tried to break out and hit objectives as a small group and end up getting zerged no matter how sneaky we try to be. It's causing a lot of frustration, especially from the guys that have never played this before, so much so, that I think we are getting to the point of "F this mess" levels. I looked at the data from the population graphs and it does look like Destro does have the #s advantage.

Coming from retail WH, it was always an issue, but I do not remember it getting to this level of frustration. Re-learning this game has been a challenge in and of itself compounded by the oRVR pop issues we are running into. Do any of you have suggestions on how to deal with it? Make it more fun? Should we be doing PVE/SCs instead? Back in the day, you could put together a nice little 6 man group that could "Zerg bust" or at least take on 1.5x/2x your numbers and win or at least come close to winning.

Should we re-roll destro for easy gearing? Any suggestions on how to make the RR grind more bearable? Or will this be the case for T2,3,4? I heard some say that the population shifts, but I have not seen it in the week I have been back playing. Again, T1, and multiple (5) characters. Both on EU TZ and NA TZ. Pack it up and go play something else?

[rorswar]

There is no easy solution, as it's an RvR game with two realms, so it'll naturally get imbalanced. Mark Jacobs himself said at some point that balanced RvR games need 3 realms, but I suspect he was rushed by EA and never got there.

The new lockout system, I feel, makes things worse. Before, you could swap and get a lockout, but still earn rewards. Now you don't get a lockout, but earn nothing. I suspect this was done to stop PUGs from swapping, and to encourage organised groups to swap - I don't see that happening. Although most players have toons on both sides, it's rare for them to be BiS on both sides, so not earning rewards for 90 minutes does matter to most.

T1 is, of course, not representative of T4, although I can't speak of NA times. However, the game has been severely dumbed down, made more PUG-friendly, whilst introducing blob features like the crowns that WB leads can turn on to make them visible on the map. There are few organised guilds left that can field proper WBs, and where they still exist, they typically don't swap sides to "balance the lakes".

In all honesty, the games has been going downhill for a few years now. It still has its moments, but it's predominantly a PUG fest that encourages people to blob together and dominate a side, which then logs off in frustration. The dominant side then Player-vs-Doors some zones, until they get bored and logg off. And the cycle continues.

Of course, this is made worse during low pop times, where 2 full groups can completely swing a zone.

[Shogun4138]

Destro just started dominating NA in the last few weeks. Before that, it's been order for a year.

It's due to people switching sides and dominating. A third realm would help.

[BarrooM]

There is no easy solution, as it's an RvR game with two realms, so it'll naturally get imbalanced. Mark Jacobs himself said at some point that balanced RvR games need 3 realms, but I suspect he was rushed by EA and never got there.

The new lockout system, I feel, makes things worse. Before, you could swap and get a lockout, but still earn rewards. Now you don't get a lockout, but earn nothing. I suspect this was done to stop PUGs from swapping, and to encourage organised groups to swap - I don't see that happening. Although most players have toons on both sides, it's rare for them to be BiS on both sides, so not earning rewards for 90 minutes does matter to most.

T1 is, of course, not representative of T4, although I can't speak of NA times. However, the game has been severely dumbed down, made more PUG-friendly, whilst introducing blob features like the crowns that WB leads can turn on to make them visible on the map. There are few organised guilds left that can field proper WBs, and where they still exist, they typically don't swap sides to "balance the lakes".

In all honesty, the games has been going downhill for a few years now. It still has its moments, but it's predominantly a PUG fest that encourages people to blob together and dominate a side, which then logs off in frustration. The dominant side then Player-vs-Doors some zones, until they get bored and logg off. And the cycle continues.

Of course, this is made worse during low pop times, where 2 full groups can completely swing a zone.

Bummer on the downhill aspect. It's still a fun game, even leveling stuff to 15 and then deleting, re-rolling. I am still holding out hope my pals won't give up and we can do some of the higher content. Interesting on the Order -> Destro domination. Thank you for the great feedback!

[Toshutkidup]

Three factions or 5 doesn't really matter if playerbase as a "whole" just wants easy zone locks to get easy 10k RR or whatever and not really do anything. IMO that's all it's really about and factions wouldn't help, the orvr campaign is just in a garbage state and no one cares beyond what's my kill total and KD.

[Aethilmar]

Should we re-roll destro for easy gearing? Any suggestions on how to make the RR grind more bearable? Or will this be the case for T2,3,4? I heard some say that the population shifts, but I have not seen it in the week I have been back playing. Again, T1, and multiple (5) characters. Both on EU TZ and NA TZ. Pack it up and go play something else?

If gear is your sole motivator for playing, then you should probably swap to the zerg side. Then you'll be faced with swapping again when the tide changes. But, like I said, if gear is what motivates you then go for it.

As for "the grind", it is pretty easy these days. I just started a new (shield) BO a few weeks ago back when Order was crushing Destro on NA times every night and AAO was ranging from a mild 40% to 100% plus. And I played him solo most of the time. He is now 33/49 with 2 Annihilator and 3 Conq from bags and 3200 crests waiting to be spent.

This is not me bragging I'm an awesome player. I have plenty of evidence I am not. This is me stating that even a solo shield tank can easily earn a ton of renown and crests just by paying attention and looking for good opportunities to stick in (read pile on). Partial tags of players who die are worth hundreds of renown. If you have a group of friends this should even be easier.

Are you going to die? Yes, a lot. Does that materially affect your ability to earn a lot of renown and crests. Not so much.

All the new folks need to stop worrying about dying and focus on making sure the other guy goes down with you.

[rorswar]

Bummer on the downhill aspect. It's still a fun game, even leveling stuff to 15 and then deleting, re-rolling. I am still holding out hope my pals won't give up and we can do some of the higher content. Interesting on the Order -> Destro domination. Thank you for the great feedback!

I don't mean to discourage you. The game has a lot of fun elements to it, but for oldschool warhammer online players it's a shade of its former glory, I'd argue.

Also, if you think T1 is painful, wait until you leave T1. T1 is disorganised chaos, but can still be fun. If NA is as low pop as you say, you probably can forget levelling through T2-3 with scenarios, and thus will have to hit T4 RvR when you're R18. Sure, you get bolstered, but you'll end up dieing... a LOT, as the gear + renown points + career points gap is so big. Some people don't mind. A lot of the old Warhammer Online players don't care, as they play for nostalgia.

However, if your new friends struggle with the situation in T1, they'll rage when they're freshly R18 and hit T4. I've had the same: I brought in some many friends that never played WAR, but nearly all of them ran for the hills. On the plus side, when you're RR60 or so can get Vanqquisher and be at least somewhat competitive. RR60 isn't too difficult to hit - with a decent group, some renown pots, and you'll be RR55+ by the time you hit R40.

It's also difficult to find good RvR MMOs. I've dabbled with some others over the years, yet keep coming back. So there must be something about RoR.

[Rubius]

If you're constantly outnumbered in T1, playing Ranged classes can help counter this a little. (Focus your fire on a single target, burst them down, kite to safety, and rinse/repeat.) Since you're outnumbered, your group will also get significantly more Renown and other bonuses, so you'll level quite a lot faster.

Remember that there are always multiple exits from a warcamp, and in T1 some maps have two different zones connecting to the RvR lakes, so you have many options to bypass a blocking warband and look for smaller groups.

Tier 2 (level 16+) is also currently heavily Destro populated during NA times. There are a few groups that fight to break the tide, so joining up with or supporting them is what I'd recommend once you get there. This population advantage during NA is a general trend that has been ongoing for a while now. You can see all the data on population graphs on this handy site that a player named Wholdar built: https://maartenson.net/ror_graph.html

[nocturnalguest]

Accurate population numbers you can check here - https://maartenson.net/ror_graph.html

It however doesnt mean anything at all. Its always down to where are most skilled veterans are playing. Proper organised warbands of people who know what they are doing can completely turn the tide to a point of totally shutting down other side.

You can have a look into whats actually possible and all those are total meme warbands
viewtopic.php?t=60139
viewtopic.php?p=573234#p573234
viewtopic.php?p=573180#p573180

Click here to watch on YouTube

I took part in two of those videos and very very quickly there was just nothing to fight. If those werent meme warbands to just have some giggles and that would be totally serious organised 24 warband there would be nothing to fight within 15-30 minutes.

As for NA times, sutiation is indeed dire. Considering you are completely new (AoR exp is somewhat irrelevant atm, way too much changed here in RoR), you are better off to ride the tide and reap rewards. This way you will learn much lesser but at least its not gonna be so painful.

Best learning ground is playing SCs (if they pop at NA, i dunno, some say they dont).

Its incredibly hard in comparison to WoW PvP, combat mechanics here are more strict and dire, close to no selfsustain on classes, everything is down to how your team can synchro swim, its not so much upon your skills or your team mate but upon your team as a whole. Dont listen to those who say that oRvR is 3 button skilless play, because if you consider toptier gameplay (which is atm close to none existant) then its way more complex than that however what you can encounter at the moment is definitely really low quality. Shadows of former elite groups somewhat are still here, but playing very rarely (if even playing at all) and mostly just for fun. As a clear example, majority of current population just dont know how to spread and move at all hence in two of those videos above axe slam or rune of battle even become possible.

There are still good guilds of skilled players, at least for some time i strongly advice to join something and join as many guild discords as you can. In those discords you can find tons of guides for how to build/gear/what buttons to press/whatever and at first soak up that knowledge and try to join some serious organised action (thats gonna be possible at cr40 tho).

As for leveling go till cr40 as fast as you can, you can always catch up in renown currently. Why? Because ~5-6 years ago we've had lots of good pug leaders herding the cats 24/7 who were not so very strict and could take few lowbies. Currently everyone runs with addon which usually kick lowbies.
Also a good advice is to form your own pug warband with your mates. Dont take it to the heart and focus yourself into not giving a flying F if you are leading bad, doing mistakes etc. It just doesnt matter at all. Form and go fight. Your warband will not be strong, you will wipe, but its way better then just get rolled over by a zerg as duo/trio/lowbie 6men nonstop.

Good luck, you will need it

[Fey]

If you stick with the game you will not regret it. This game has the best MMO pvp hands down.