Countering zerging in T2/3

[Dabbart]

If you build it they will come.

Give players a reason to go fight in the more remote area's outside of keep/wc and they will. If there is none, they wont. Why would they? They are there for a fight, rewards, and to enjoy themselves. Provide another quick easy to access and somewhat easy to succeed at avenue that offers the same or better fights, rewards, and general enjoyment and they will flock to that.

Then find the easiest, bare minimum system that allows success and only ever do that. Cause why wouldn't they?

It's no one's "fault". We are in Alpha with brand spanking new incredibly different from what we have now, or have ever had. Aza's break downs make it sound really cool, and in my opinion has taken into consideration quite a few of the main issues that our complaints have raised. The system will work or not. Regardless it will be tweaked changed and updated. That is the reason playing on a Priv Server/alpha is so damned awesome. You get to test out and break/fix/balance the core game mechanics at times.

I just read a lot of people going out of their way to be offended and pick an argument. And when pinned down, lo-and-behold.... They don't actually have an answer to the problem. They just have a different list of what the problems are...

[Vigfuss]

There should be 2 keeps and 4 objectives that should matter in each zone. At this point we have 2 keeps that only matter when one side has more players. BO's are irrelevant, and serve almost no purpose. IMO this should be fixed first.

Solutions using siege weapons will never result in good pvp.
Giving WBs improved AoE is taking a step back to the earliest days of live.

Single target groups need better tools to fight large AoE groups so i come back to DAoC style mezz. I don't expect any one to take that seriously, because it would probably change the game too much, but it's the kind of solution we should be looking for.

[Tesq]

ST will be a thing when you wil have 3 aoe group and 1 st group to take down stuff that g-heals will keep up too easily, the aoe fix will help in that regard as hit nearer 9 ppl mean mostly hit x8 tank and 1 dps so fights should be even more longer now or either the risk vs reward for the good/bad positioning should be better.
let's say you will need st focus and st heal debuff in future for me.

[Vigfuss]

Half of me agrees, the other half wants to go full pan and tell you it will promote organized WB play. But I can't do either of those.

I don't really see the draw for organized WBs, but i know that's what you guys do. I see open WB as a good system for newbies to get a feel for the action and have a bit of impact on RVR, not a way for experienced players to play the game.

It's a gameplay choice, but i don't think organized WB should be the only good choice for ORVR.

[grumcajs]

@ Dabbart

I do not have an answer cuz there is no answer how to change players mentality.

There are some possibilities how to change it but they failed in the past - low renown or no renown for keep take to avoid empty keep takes = players ignore keeps and fight wc-wc

Resource carriers - warbands fight in the middle of nowhere or camp warcamp while few players sending or killing carriers

No zone wide lock rewards to avoid leechers - all players ignore everything and everyone on their way to get to the keep siege to get that tick.

BO lock rewards to promote fighting over them - warbands going BO to BO to get rewarded and stomping anyone.

unless they wanna take huge hammer and just smash that problem that occurs to tiny pieces there is nothing to do. it might work but after few strikes it might completely destroy the game experience cuz players would always try to outplay the game to get the most rewards for as little as possible "work" and risk

[Morbidmind]

I have no idea if its feasible at all but what about something like loyalty rewards for only logging in one faction over a period of time? For instance, you've logged onto the same faction for a week without hopping over, congrats here's fifty emblems or something. Again, I have no idea if something like this is feasible in the game, but I'd think the best way to counter the zerg is to try and get people to stick to one side instead of hopping when opportunity presents itself.

[Malgaroth]

WAR was always about massive scale and that you should find the root of a ploblem what leads players to play only 1 side. Punishing blob isnt the way this server should be heading. It should promote players to actually play 1 side (maybe some bonus renown for kills only depending on how long you are playing only 1 side) though we can see how aao completely failed - players rather roam the zone to gank some soloer and get 3 times the normal renown etc.

Large scale battles are fine. But, just using the site percentages as actual numbers, 71 vs. 29 isn't a fight, it's a massacre and it isn't fun for either side. It might be rewarding, it might give loot, but it's not fun. Force the blob to spread, based on percentages. I didn't say "melt the blob anytime there's a blob" I said "melt the blob anytime it's legitimately overwhelming and there's no point to defense".
And rewarding long term, single realm play just leads to different accounts so they can rack up the kills on both sides and never be seen to be playing the other side.

Maybe it sounds bad but everywhere the side with more numbers have the advantage over the smaller numbers and there shouldnt be any buff/debuffs to help the weaker side.

AAO 200%
enemy "blob" is attacking the keep so they would get reduced wounds etc. and what about players that get ganked 2v6 in the middle of map. they should get reduced wounds too? and gankers should get 2x rewards based on aao?

Yes. Because as you said, this isn't a game for small scale. Don't balance for the single guy, or the 6 man, balance for the realm. And if more 6 man mob squads are roaming the lake looking for free kills and happen to run across each other, more's the pity I suppose.

And yes, it does sound bad. Sounds like bad design that the "weaker side" should be left in the cold for the larger pop to stride over. A keep is supposed to provide defenses. Defenses that even out numbers. If we can't accomplish that with the keep alone, another system needs to be implemented to provide an incentive to gameplay from the defending side.

If it would be possible to recalculate aao and buff/debuff in every specific area of the map - maybe. though how it would be calculated and how often? when u manage to kill enemies in keep, should it recalculate and give you the debuff cuz u would have more numbers now?

Nope, should be based on the lake as a whole. This is game is about large scale clashes, that's where it should be balanced.

And not to mention - try to imagine player that play only 1 side for looong time and do not ever change sides. And now he would be punished for playing his favourite character? Its easy to just pretend every person running in blob is just dirty xrealmer and no-pain-high-gain zerg surfer. Thats why I think there should be more aim to reward players who are fighting and not switching sides than to punish the realm as whole

You mean rewarding the ones who stay and fight....in a way like....perhaps....making defense easier, and providing a larger incentive to defend?
And if that guy has never swapped realms though being the little guy, then he's not going to swap realms because he's part of the bully blob either.

[grumcajs]

Half of me agrees, the other half wants to go full pan and tell you it will promote organized WB play. But I can't do either of those.

I don't really see the draw for organized WBs, but i know that's what you guys do. I see open WB as a good system for newbies to get a feel for the action and have a bit of impact on RVR, not a way for experienced players to play the game.

It's a gameplay choice, but i don't think organized WB should be the only good choice for ORVR.

sry to say but over these years I have learned open pug warbands have actually major impact on orvr campaign. Premades (be it 3 man or 3 grps) are more like so called elite force. they can strike hard and switch the balance of the fight but they have minor impact on zone battle as whole (when on their own). its where pug warbands usualy provide distraction for them to get their kills and allow them to strike hard and bring chaos to enemy formations. I have seen many of these situations where warbands were in clash with no winner and then premade flanked the enemy and pugs were able to push allowing premades to hide in their meat shield before they could get overwhelmed.

same in keep sieges where it was pretty usual for premade leader to announce to pugs to push from front while they hit from postern to route the enemy and break the siege. if pugs havent listen, premade would get kills before retreating back to the keep while keep wouldnt be broken.

premades need pugs cuz they have minor impact. pugs needs premades for doing that precise strikes to switch the balance. thats the symbiosis that works. once premades start thinking about being more important or more skilled, then its just fail

[Dabbart]

@grumcajs: So instead of trying to do something they should do nothing? Nit pick all you want. But if you don't have a counter proposal, then by definition you can never get what you want.

You don't change the mentality. People want rewards, fights, and enjoyment. That is it. Provide a different avenue to achieve those that is A just as if not easier than the current open wb zerg, and B provides the same if not greater access to the players' desires.

Edit: by easy I mean to access. IE you don't have to wait 30min to get a group, have a bunch of friends, etc etc.

You can NEVER let perfection stand in the way of progress. And arguements that it will kill the game, or break anything is honestly ludicrous. The game gets broken all the time, remember when no oRvR was working in t2/t3? They have the power to change or remove any change that they input.

[grumcajs]

@Malgaroth

Its clear we have different pov. Though we agree that 70v30 is pretty much "welcome to our keep, feel free to take it" situation. For defenders it provides just chance to get some kills before they lose the zone.

I think defence might be made easier by making siege engines and doors being able to be damaged only by other siege engines (and doors only by ram). No more just zerg and focus oil, then all focus doors, when oil gets up, fall back, rdps focus oil, rinse and repeat. This might be cool to come with BO importance and 1.4 (or some later patch) where u have siege engine "buff". No buy and carry in inventory. So when enemy ram gets destroyed, they have to send carrier for another ram thus allowing them to be ganked = carrier needs escort = less attackers in keep = higher chance to make some morale push and drive them back. Or maybe even change the speed of the carrier based on aao - more numbers you have, slower your sienge engine carrier will get to a keep.

Just some ideas from my tired mind before I go to bed