Break the blob

[BoriqOne]

Blob is a simtom. The approach to class balance over the past 4 years has killed the variability of gameplay. Now you can be an idiot, press 2 buttons, run after the crown, and benefit from it. Those who dare to run solo will encounter broken WEs and SH. On 1.4.8, you could assemble a group of different classes on both sides and enter a 400% buffed area, comfortably killing 100 enemies per hour while fighting warbands. Currently, this is only possible on the side of destruction, and only against a very stupid order.

The balance of the sides should not depend on AAO; it should depend on the online ratio of the server as a whole. The lethality of artillery in fortresses should be increased, and the hard mode of bosses in castles should be enabled. It is possible to give the weak side a bonus of +20% damage if the online ratio is 5% lower.

Pretty much this. Good post.

Yeah, I agree. Playing solo is much much harder these days. Especially on order.

The most toxic thing for me at the moment is the destro melee blob running in, mara using aoe kd, choppas doing their get to the choppa pulls, doks running their snare aura so that you are basically instantly snared without even being targeted and they just mow over you. Before you are out of the kd and pull you are already dead or snared. That's such a cheap combo for blobbing. They have also the edge on catching others. Mara pull is just superior there. Just charge and pull, no slow/buggy pet. SHs having double speed buffs from run away and Flee. Dok giving everyone a chance to snare on every hit. WEs with pounce. Then there are the tanks with their shield channel. And so on and so forth. They have a MUCH better toolkit. It's not even close. I play both sides and on destro I barely ever loose a blob vs blob fight. You just let the melees in the front disable everything and mow over them.

I'm telling you, that Mara aoe kd without target limit on a charging class and Dok snare aura for the whole group makes a huge difference, even when nobody wants to admit it. Crazy that only one side has it. And that's before even starting to talk about that op squig pets or WEs.

Bottom line is: On order it is A LOT harder to get away from a destro group/wb/blob.

I agree 1000,000 %.

[Akalukz]

Break the blob, bring back the worst thing ever. Unbreakable Mez - 6-9 Sec. You will see people spread out then.

The increased AoE and AoE cap because people learned to blob or leadership changed or whatever. They did the increased these things as band aids, and not the root cause. They need malus of some sort for being stacked too strongly together.

[live4treasure]

The reason people blob in this game is because losing in this game is 95% of the time not fun and winning is at least 50% of the time fun. It's the reason destro stacks 2-3 warbands vs order on occasion, sometimes with multiple premade ones, even if the only opposition on order at the time is just pugbands. It's reason why order pugs try to form big blobs. It's the reason why some guilds who claim to balance the sides log onto the already winning side, and only balance if they know they have a chance against whatever premade happens to be online.

People legitimately don't care about the rewards, as long as they can win. So the only method to break the blob is to make it so that blobs do not contribute to winning. If you do that, though, then your average new player/casual player/guy that came home and cracked open a cold beer and just wants to chill, which constitutes the overwhelming majority of the playerbase, will be unable to exist, because one good premade will kill him and all his friends alone - and as we have already established, losing isn't fun.

You could enforce a maximum amount of players that can exist within a zone, perhaps, so that after that amount is filled up, overflows will have to go to another zone. You can even make it smart, allowing the side that lost the previous zone a slight increase in player count in the next one. But that has it's own problems. For example, you could end up in a zone without a single tank or healer, and with players that do not care enough to swap, and are happy to mindlessly get warcamp farmed. The fights may become even more uneven, and thus even less fun. You can have guilds colluding to fight each other in specific zones, which, frankly, isn't actually a bad thing; but then it creates a degenerate loop where if one guild is especially strong, everyone is going to just dodge them, or instead stack on their side because losing sucks. Nothing new, already happens.

In short, there is no solution to the blob. It's a purgatory you are all doomed to.

Actually there is one solution. Go que city for a genuinely fair fight of 24v24. No one does, though, because people do not want "fair fights", they just don't want to lose, because losing sucks.

[nocturnalguest]

Woah, lots of words here, managed to read thru a thread finally. However im surprised the most important things are missing, people discuss alot of things here, tons of "fake news" as usual but i guess its important to leave some notes:

1. Main culprit for blob is reward system being fully tied into only 1 thing - kills. First major step is diversify reward system. Thats what really worth discussing.
2. AoE Cap. 9 target = more blob. Reason to move it into 24 was to reduce blobbing and its working much better then 9.
3. Reliable AoE IHD of big values are removed.
4. NPC tools to deal with massive numbers are nerfed (aoe cannons) to a state of being no option.
5. Morale cap introduced.

If you want to break blobs brutal way then all you need to do is to just remove morale cap. If you want to break blobs smartly then rework oRvR and mainly its reward system, it has to be untied from kills.

If it would be on me, id pick morale cap removal. People nowdays dont know how to move or spread out (since competetive city sieges aint a thing anymore) so it will bring tons of fun for organised groups and huge frustration for pugs (cause they will be deleted in a blink of an eye and it will be completely impossible to hide inside "numbers"). Organised small numbers will kill unorganised big numbers. 1 proper morale drop minus 24 clueless folks. #Fun

It leads into much more demanding player skills to play oRvR (basic movements/spreading/dodging bombs) which in reality will turn into rivers of tears on forums (like oh no, mara aoe kd op, choppa pull op, X op, Y op, Z op!!!1) however in general i believe such harsh actions are to be taken, cause current oRvR gameplay is way too zombielike

Edit

Spoiler:

The reason people blob in this game is because losing in this game is 95% of the time not fun and winning is at least 50% of the time fun. It's the reason destro stacks 2-3 warbands vs order on occasion, sometimes with multiple premade ones, even if the only opposition on order at the time is just pugbands. It's reason why order pugs try to form big blobs. It's the reason why some guilds who claim to balance the sides log onto the already winning side, and only balance if they know they have a chance against whatever premade happens to be online.

People legitimately don't care about the rewards, as long as they can win. So the only method to break the blob is to make it so that blobs do not contribute to winning. If you do that, though, then your average new player/casual player/guy that came home and cracked open a cold beer and just wants to chill, which constitutes the overwhelming majority of the playerbase, will be unable to exist, because one good premade will kill him and all his friends alone - and as we have already established, losing isn't fun.

You could enforce a maximum amount of players that can exist within a zone, perhaps, so that after that amount is filled up, overflows will have to go to another zone. You can even make it smart, allowing the side that lost the previous zone a slight increase in player count in the next one. But that has it's own problems. For example, you could end up in a zone without a single tank or healer, and with players that do not care enough to swap, and are happy to mindlessly get warcamp farmed. The fights may become even more uneven, and thus even less fun. You can have guilds colluding to fight each other in specific zones, which, frankly, isn't actually a bad thing; but then it creates a degenerate loop where if one guild is especially strong, everyone is going to just dodge them, or instead stack on their side because losing sucks. Nothing new, already happens.

In short, there is no solution to the blob. It's a purgatory you are all doomed to.

Actually there is one solution. Go que city for a genuinely fair fight of 24v24. No one does, though, because people do not want "fair fights", they just don't want to lose, because losing sucks.

Absolute truth. All actions to break blob will hurt that guy who came home and cracked open a cold beer. Thats gonna be the victim.

[Dwarni]

Make RvR zones instantiated like scenarios and limit them to 1-3 wbs on each side max (depending on the zone, t2 RvR should support only lower player numbers and t4 more players)

[Akalukz]

Bring back uncapped morale and get rid of morale pumps. Make it all equal for both sides to build morale.

[Gracely]

I'm an order only player and I can honestly say, revisiting for this past year, I've never been in an order blob but have been rolled over and over by destro blobs. You can't staop players wanting to change sides, I'm not against it, but if it gets too much I just log. There has never and will never be a solution to the destro blob.

[Tushi]

Everyone who comes in here and complains about 1 side blobbing and claiming the other side doesn't, should have some sort of flair to show that their opinion on any topic is basically worthless and should be ignored.

[Akalukz]

It 100% is time based as to which side is blobbing. Both do it, to think that it's a destro or order only thing is silly. now during your "time" to play it may be primarily one sided.