THETA and META

[Glorian]

Foot's always spoken a lot of sense in his walls of text. It's just that the majority of the playerbase aren't willing to experiment/go out of their tried-and-tested comfort zones, tbh.

...,

By experiment/go out of comfort zones, I mean exploring possibilities that WAR has. Testing synergies, testing class comps, using tactics that may appear useless but, if used in s what we all want, right?

Well I want to smash destro while being in a dwarf warband with lore friendly names, uniforms and roleplay macros. But each to his likings.

[Fallenkezef]

...,

By experiment/go out of comfort zones, I mean exploring possibilities that WAR has. Testing synergies, testing class comps, using tactics that may appear useless but, if used in s what we all want, right?

Well I want to smash destro while being in a dwarf warband with lore friendly names, uniforms and roleplay macros. But each to his likings.

This game is nothing without lore

Zulunbaki! Grungron thrung!

[Shalktonin]

Remember the battle of Haz Drazh Kadrin!

[footpatrol2]

Why this game pushed away from racial groups.

Spoiler:

When Mark Jacobs was part of the AoR project, mythic supported racial groups. When Mark Jacobs left AoR, around patch 1.3, the support for racial groups left with him. When Mark Jacobs left there was a fundamental design shift on the direction of this game. The Main Boss got fired and a new boss was hired and Told SAVE sub's. This started with a whole new renown rank system. Mythic at the time was bleeding sub's and was desperate. Mythic turned to the community on suggestions on how to re-balance the game. The community don't care about racial groups or morale gain rates. I did, but I'm only one person... Mythic had to re-balance the game for mixed. The fundamental balance was based on racial not mixed. Ever since patch 1.3 Mythic has been actively trying to re-balance/re-purpose the game for mixed and not racial.

If you follow my posts you'll notice I reference patch 1.3 quite a bit, I do this because the game state at patch 1.3 was really good for racial groups. Was it perfect? Hell no. But the game was more balanced at that state then any other gamestate after/before.

Some of the racial groups have remained relatively intact. Some of it has not. Dwarves and Dark Elves have been hit the hardest, specifically Dark Elves. Empire/High Elf's/Greenskinz/Chaos right now are valid strong racial groups although clunky because of Mythic/RoR rebalancing the game for mixed groups and RoR's slow morale gain rates.

The question would be what remains of previously good Dark Elf racial synergies?

Not much. Dark elves are probably in the worse gamestate atm. You got handicapped proc meta which super hurts the BG in a big way. Monstrous Rending + proc meta = Nasty. Most of the tricks have been removed/changed.

The lack of resistances is a bit of a mystery

Dark elves are suppose to get their resistance buff via 1001 blessings. It is their Strength/Weakness. They could upkeep 1001 blessings single target morale pump (old) forced motivation tactic. 1001 blessings is fundamental to dark elf groups. Dark elf classes are also balanced with the idea that most of the time they will have 25% morale block/parry/dodge/disrupt which stacks with tactic and ability.

Spoiler:

Referenced via Prima Guide

The point of me making Black Toof Clan is to show the community via example of what these racial groups can do. Even with Greenskinz, I am handicapped with incorrect morale gain rates/RoR changes. There is very unique cool tricks with racial groups. The actual Tabletop army theme's has a TON of cross over into AoR.

The hope and desire is that if I can get the community behind me, maybe we can restore the majority of the cool tricks that these racial groups can do, which will make this game vastly more diverse and interesting.

Here is a declined balance proposal I made on what I think needs to be done to get racial groups back up and running.
viewtopic.php?f=97&t=21332
Obviously it doesn't HAVE to be exactly this.

[Bozzax]

Proof ... should be fairly easy to find an article or interview mentioning the epic war btw racial wbs or races. You know somthing that backs your claims to know what MJ intended

Ofc you can make a group with 6 of same race but it proves nada.

Not even your beloved moracle tactics gave bonus to a WARBAND (only group level).

Different startingzones well there were races and race themes but this is hardly proof either.

[Druin]

So you put 6 classes of the same race into a party, get your faster morale gains, and then press that morale button. With all great synergy and stuffs.
But how does that make for better or more skilled gameplay than we currently have?

[NSKaneda]

But how does that make for better or more skilled gameplay than we currently have?

Buffs and debuffs have better synergy in racial groups simply because they compliment each other (you can have all of your important stats buffed in 1 rotation without repeating them and with timers that were/are in sync), utility skills are repeated across racial boards (for example /nerfed/ Shatter Limbs on SL, Bad Gas on SH, Corrupting Horror on Ch), healing is (or rather: was) more effective on same race thanks to race-specific tactics and racial vs racial group gameplay on the field is in sync with pairings (one group debuffs vs other group buffs. Think Green vs Dwarfs or Elves vs Elves in terms of prolonged and even fights).
Then there are various builds of each class which can make up for a complete warband, balanced in offence and defence at the same time (skilled gameplay, yo! ).

Pure green and pure dawi regiments prove the concept right (even if it is for the sake of ancient game concept archeology). Sure, they have their problems (Dwarfs melt against chaos) but being able to play in WHFB-style, for me, brings true joy of Warhammer.
I'm not saying to enforce racial grouping but to give it a chance and much needed love.

[Aurandilaz]

So you put 6 classes of the same race into a party, get your faster morale gains, and then press that morale button. With all great synergy and stuffs.
But how does that make for better or more skilled gameplay than we currently have?

"Currently have" being take best 1-2 picks of race (take Sorc and heal DoK - flush WE, dps DoK and BG down the drain), Chaos (take Mara, heal Zeal and Chosen - glance at magus and dps zealot and laugh internally), visit Greenskin camp (reserve spot for BO, tell the Squig to press that one aoe button and tell the Shaman and Choppa they are not meta enough for WB).
Very skilled.

This being Warhammer and not your typical MOBA game, some of us actually have a deep love for the lore and actually enjoy the occasional roleplay, it sucks when your beloved race has been nerfed to oblivion when you think of Druchii warband potential, but then glance at Asur warband potential and realize some kind of Spirit damage synergy still remains, Dawi still have decent synergy though somewhat gimped, Chaos strong as ever (though also nerfed), Empire still being maniac thanks to BW-Kotb-WP (though poor WH) amazing in general, Greenskins also nerfed from grace though remnants remain.

Why should picking FOTM classes from each racial group be inherently superior choice compared to running a racial group with racial synergies?

Considering each class has 3 masteries, there should be 3 viable mastery builds for each class, and some builds that only shine when they are brought to a racial synergy group. In comparison we on the other hand have strongest classes running their latest FOTM mastery builds and never experiment with lesser builds, not to mention just outright not touching the "2nd best" builds or less FOTM classes.

[peterthepan3]

So you put 6 classes of the same race into a party, get your faster morale gains, and then press that morale button. With all great synergy and stuffs.
But how does that make for better or more skilled gameplay than we currently have?

"Currently have" being take best 1-2 picks of race (take Sorc and heal DoK - flush WE, dps DoK and BG down the drain), Chaos (take Mara, heal Zeal and Chosen - glance at magus and dps zealot and laugh internally), visit Greenskin camp (reserve spot for BO, tell the Squig to press that one aoe button and tell the Shaman and Choppa they are not meta enough for WB).
Very skilled.

This being Warhammer and not your typical MOBA game, some of us actually have a deep love for the lore and actually enjoy the occasional roleplay, it sucks when your beloved race has been nerfed to oblivion when you think of Druchii warband potential, but then glance at Asur warband potential and realize some kind of Spirit damage synergy still remains, Dawi still have decent synergy though somewhat gimped, Chaos strong as ever (though also nerfed), Empire still being maniac thanks to BW-Kotb-WP (though poor WH) amazing in general, Greenskins also nerfed from grace though remnants remain.

Why should picking FOTM classes from each racial group be inherently superior choice compared to running a racial group with racial synergies?

Considering each class has 3 masteries, there should be 3 viable mastery builds for each class, and some builds that only shine when they are brought to a racial synergy group. In comparison we on the other hand have strongest classes running their latest FOTM mastery builds and never experiment with lesser builds, not to mention just outright not touching the "2nd best" builds or less FOTM classes.

From a WB PoV, I can see where you're coming from, but nearly all of those classes can have a spot in a 6man if played properly. Double Magus/Mara/Chosen/Double Zealot is a comp tried-and-tested (good times, tankbeardz), DPS DOK/BG/WE is another crazygood comp, etc. Some racial synergies are better than others, though (and I agree with pretty much all you said concerning that, Asur>Druchii)

I think Druin's point was that, while racial pairings/racial synergies could be a cool thing, and there is definitely evidence leaning towards the idea that original WAR devs did hope to incorporate racial groups in some guise, it doesn't really change the gameplay that much from what it is now, i.e. build morale, dump, rinse-repeat.

Thus, would it really warrant the time/expenditure changing everything to facilitate to the idea of racial groups if the basic gameplay (who can get morales faster) would remain the same? That's what I got from it, anyway.

[NSKaneda]

I think Druin's point was that, while racial pairings/racial synergies could be a cool thing, and there is definitely evidence leaning towards the idea that original WAR devs did hope to incorporate racial groups in some guise, it doesn't really change the gameplay that much from what it is now, i.e. build morale, dump, rinse-repeat.

It gives you the option to go beyond morale bombing thanks to absorb bubbles, morale drains, AP drains+regens, CD increase/decrease, mass debuffs, area denial gameplay and melee skill bombing.. Racial simply gives more options to build around.
Sure, game post 1.3.6 moved towards unified gameplay that culminated with AM/SHM mechanic changes in 1.4.* and one can utilize that as well but you'll end up with repeated and/or missing utilities and less burst across the board. And there are ways to counter morale bombing that are not limited to morale drains.
Sure, racial gameplay requires more coordination from warband and target focusing. But that's easy with VoIP + /assist macro