IceHole wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 6:47 am
I have been playing a long time, and don't really post a whole lot. But I honestly think how you are all discussing trying to "fix" the perceived problem is all wrong.
Balance should always ebb and flow. The meta will change over time, and should constantly be shifting around as changes are made. We just came off of a shitty 2 years or so without a single balance change, or combat related bug fix and its been bad. Now that things can and are being changed, we are going to see things shift. That is a good thing. Even if it makes you feel weaker using whatever class it is you are playing.
Now for what the REAL issue is in my opinion. Population balance. Right now the biggest issue is that population swings are huge. There are multiple reasons for this, and it isn't class balance at all. RoR rewards "winning" in a HUGE way.
Nerf "winning" and you solve a lot of the issues with RoR. Humping empty zones and PvDoor are SUPER rewarding. RoR shits out Warcrests for taking empty zones and forts. This is encouraging 2 types of behavior: Xrealming, and simply logging off. Players might as well play the side that they are going to make the most progression on (afterall, if the pop is ****, might as well be getting paid to play), or just log out and not play. No reason to play when you are just going to be getting farmed by 5x your numbers (Sorry, I play Late night NA time, its easily 5x).
So how do we fix this? A few things need to change. Reward structure needs to be adjusted for both "winning" and "losing". When 80 people storm a fort and 10 defenders are there, maybe the 10 defenders should have more than 4 white bags to roll on. Maybe they should get more than 10 crests for putting up their "best effort" defense. You know the side with 80 has 3 gold bags, 8 purple, 10 blue, 10 green, 10 white (whatever it is just some random counts), and getting 60-90 crests for the empty fort.
We are just encouraging bad player behavior with the reward structure. And encouraging the zurg to zurg, and not incentivizing players to participate on the outnumbered side. AAO helps, but ultimately doesn't really matter. Renown isn't the limiting factor in progression (At least from my experience, it is always crests. But again, I am late night NA, when Order is a mega blob and Doors are their primary #1 objective).
How how much do we increase awards? How do you balance them? I don't know. Maybe for a fort, the total rewards are based on the total number of participants, not the participants from one faction. Zone capture rewards should be roughly equal between winning and losing. Encourage people to stay and fight.
Give people more options, because right now its:
1. Get farmed, but make a ton of renown for what kills you can manage.
2. Cross Realm and get paid.
3. Log out and come back when things are actually fun.
Wishlist:
1. Remove AAO delay. The 15 minute thing is garbage. (And make AAO significantly increase crests drop).
2. Buff defenders rewards for Zones/ forts.
3. Nerf Empty zone rewards (potential for abuse here, but the only real way to abuse is to just not play. If people are not playing you have other issues) War Torn applies to zone rewards?
4. Add LotD debuff to groups > 1.5 wb in RvR when other side has AAO > 20%.
5. Show exact player counts in RvR lakes/ surface this info to players. (Feel like you are outnumbered? Are you really, or is it just in your head).
6. (the super long shot) Just remove Warcrests and the concept of warcrests altogether. Just let RR determine what gear is available. Keep Crests for consumables, special liniments, pots, etc.
These sorts of things don't magically "fix" the issues. But I think they help make players feel like they are able to make some sort of progress no matter the current faction balance.
Just my $.02
- Ice_Hole of OMG Im Drunk
Choose what you want...... (Actually: 24.02.2024 07:50 268 Players T1 60% Destro T2+ 55% Destro. No Destro is not clear better then Order...... No no...... Order has less Players and more new Chars played in Destro..... In the Future it will be......... Think