Return of Reckoning

I will take the liberty and express the main theses and the reasons why, in my opinion, the situation turned out to be the same as it is now.
We need to recall the history. I've been seeing a similar dispute between developers and the community for several years now, in various aspects. And here's what I would like to note: the developers do not always understand what the community wants, the community does not always understand what the developers can do.
All such thoughts and ideas (about the organization of the RVR) were already discussed a year or two ago, probably even earlier, but at that moment in time I did not read this forum (at the dawn of ROR), although I heard from veterans that disputes about how it should be to organize rvr were then, and they were still much hot and ardent. Several developers even quit due to disagreement with how the game got going.
Before the appearance of forts, the RVR was chaotic in the sense that there was no ultimate goal of capturing all the zones and reaching the forts, the element of farming was also present, but in a much lesser form. People fought for zones for no particular reason, simply because they fought. The difference in equipment wasn't that huge, and didn't really matter. The highest pve set was a beastlord, in order to get it you had to work too (find a group, choose a time, kill the enemies if they were there at the boss), but you didn't need to farm dungeons for weeks like now, best rvr set was conq. Any person who yesterday had created a new character , today having taken level 40, could already join the rvr battle quite competitively.
Then since the introduction of the forts, various sets and new equipment began to be introduced rather quickly, and instead of fighting for pride, people began to fight for gear. After the introduction of cities, the situation became even more complicated, a sovereign appeared and everyone began to farm cities according to CD, not really worrying about the usual rvr. Rvr as such has lost its meaning, since the faster the city happens, the faster people farm the sovereign, ordinary zones even began to interfere with farming to some extent.
Then many so-called TOP guilds had farmed their sovereign for the main characters, and at last , when they taken it , simply paralyzed the whole campaign, often stopped the rvr in the middle zones, and prevented the cities happening, so that other members of the community who were not part of their guild could not farm their sovereign ... It was quite egoistic, but quite logical and correct from their point of view. Then everyone got tired of it, and the situation was let go, the cities began to happen mainly on that realm at the moment there was a zerg (as, in general, according to the logic of things, this should have happened from the very beginning, if the situation was not controlled by those interested people).
If earlier destro was overpopulated, and aldorf had 1 star all the time, now the order is overpopulated, and IC also has 1 star all the time.
the fundamentals of the rvr have not changed for a long time If earlier, from time to time, various ORVR systems were tested, I remember there were even NPCs on BO at one time, etc., now, due to the mountain of various structures (forts, cities) over the ORVR, now it is not so easy to do this, because of the possibility of breaking down everything. there were even proposals to completely separate the forts and cities from the orvr at one time.

Justina wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:20 am o) Make less played classes interesting again. Thinking about DPS RP/Zealot here. Just a few tweaks here and there and they would be ready to roll.

i think we need to encourage people to play more tanks and proper dps, not dumpy selfish dps healers

Well said.
I experienced that there is legit one thing that people really hate, thats a stalemate. They hate it because there is no reward for it.
Would change eventually if royals would drop. Or royals be included in a weekly, daily quest...

Kaelang wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 2:26 am ..The problem typically stems from player behaviour - and that people will always find the optimal way of doing things to get rewarded. We could theoretically implement a plethora of RvR 'fun' things to do, but unless we attach something shiny that's the 'new BiS' people won't be interested. Currently, the oRvR is zergy - however this isn't necessarily new, it's always had an element of zerging. But if we delve deeper into reasoning as to why people are zerging, it comes back around to the ease of it all, and the quicker rewards...

I agree with this.
But if the players will naturall flock to the path of least effort, then the systems can still be adjusted to make the least effort "harder" to improve the effort required, right?

Zonelocks right now are more rewarding if you run boxes and ram the doors, which funnel the majority of the players towards joining the ram zerg and leaving the BOs ignored when a Ram is currently spawned in a zone. Yes you can get bagrolls if you are fighting and succesfully killing in the zone, but speaking of experience when you have a "killer" warband or group out and a ram is spawned either from your own or the enemy realm all players on both sides will flock to the besieged keep, and roaming dies down. Simply because there is no system that promotes activity in the rest of the zone.

During the periode of a zone there are a few phases.

1)Zone opens
2)Realms build stars towards 2 stars ( small to medium activity)
3)If a realm reach 2 stars and feel they have dominance they spawn a ram (medium to high activity)
All BOs go neutral and both realms go to the one keep (high density in one area activity)
Keep siege (compact activity)
Depending on succes on the siege the phase3 might happen again but the other realm taking a turn at spawning a ram if they succesfully defended
4)Lord is killed (pve activty no pvp)
5)capture 3/4 BOs. (highest activity lots of fighting over BOs but shortest periode of them all)

As i tried to highlight here, the periode of a zone where we see most activity is actually in the end of the zone. The climax when all players flood out use the entire map, all 4 BOs matter equally and fighting breaks out all over the map. Yet this phase is usually only 2-4 minuts long and then we go right back into a short to medium activity phase after a zonehop.
This could maybe be stopped by having BOs having a locked timer after being succesfully capped, so this last phase of the zone is lasting longer untill 3/4 BOs are controled.

I understand that RvR is for everyone, casuals, hardcore, soloers, smallscalers, gankers, 6mans, smaller guildgroups, closed warbands, open warbands, campaigners, alliance warbands etc.
There should naturally be something for everyone to do during oRvR. But right now, when a keep is besieged only the large groups have their use. Smaller groups can maybe gank a latercomer but they dont find fights are find themself being that useful. As everything is happening around the walls and in a scale where they are unimpactful.

Right now the orvr systems just doesnt promote people fighting or hold the BOs (enough) Yes I agree that promotion must come from a carrot for this playerbase. But if we look at the rewards for orvr alot of it is funneled into killing the lord, based on pervious contribution in the zone upuntill the lord kill.
How about breaking the rewards up into shorter bursts of progression?

Whenever kills happen on a BO area the BO will acculumute the renown gained and after holding it for X minuts it will burst out a tick of bonus renown based on how many kills or boxes have been succesfully turnt in from this BO in the keep/warcamp.
This promotes holding the BO and fighting/defending the BO. for attackers this will give them targets to attack and hit plus clear supply lines to gank and promote smallerscale fights on the roads from BOs.
So how do we stop the BOs loosing value during a keepsiege? We introduce a mechanic where BOs are tied to the Ram. Each held BO will empower the ram damage for the attackers, but also make the ram more vurnable if the defenders hold more BOs

Example:
Order siegeing destro
order holding 1 bo: 25% out of 100% normal ram damage as we see it atm
order holding 2 bo: 50%
order holding 3 bo: 75%
order holding 4 bos: 100% (current ram damage)

But if destro are holding any of the BOs
destro holding 1bo: 25% increased damage to the order ram
destro holding 2bo: 50%
destro holding 3bo: 75%
destro holding 4bo: oil can now damage the ram

Now we have an example of a sytem where pvpers have something to do in the zone if they run smallerscale or dont want to play the keepsiege, they can hold value in a system where BOs matter and will attract players from both sides.

Alot of the current progression comes from killing the lord, running boxes etc. That is fine for gearing and bags. But I also think the rate of how renown is obtained need to be looked at. the Lord tick from killing keep/fortress lords are too big compared to just killing players, and it promotes a more pve/objective focused mindset. Royal and invader shards dropping more often is fine, but the renown gain from kills could potentially be turned up to promote hunting for kills. Maybe even the buff that already exsists (field of glory i think its called) might need to get a smaller adjustment. Gear bags coming from zonelocks, im fine with that. But what happend to actually grinding the scenarios, pvping in orvr and learning to play your classes while you obtain Renown. instead of this system where people just run boxes and ram keeps to rr80 and then donw know how to detaunt.

I agree that the playerbase is to get blamed for some of this. But so are the current systems for not promoting pvp enough and instead funnel (force) the action into zergs, simply because its too rewarding. We see it with the quotes from the builders. There are plenty of people longing and wanting to fight, but if the systems only promotes action at the keep and the zones are pretty much over after the lord is dead, despite that is the most fun and buisy periode of the zone periode then some of the systems probably need changing.

Detangler wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:17 am This is the problem with oRvR right now - too much reward for losing/throwing/zerging down near empty keeps.

My suggestion:

Loser of oRvR zones get zero contribution toward zone flips. You get defender rolls when you successfully defend keep attacks, so it balances out.

Winners of oRvR zones that have > 100% AAO odds for the enemy get zero contribution toward zone flips. Mindless keep assaults need to be more harshly discouraged so NA Order doesn't just roll to city every night.

So - I agree, but I also don't think this is a solution.

It's actually pretty interesting how your view on this is that losing zones is too rewarding, as opposed to winning zones being too rewarding. Sure, the rewards for losing can be construed as too much, which suggests people will then stop trying to Realm Pride because they know they're getting a reward regardless.

However, on the flip side - the zerg meta suggests that the rewards for winning are too much. Because people are flocking to join the zerg fest just to mindlessly push a zone vs an underpopulated faction.

As you can see, this opens two avenues to investigate, from seemingly one point. Which is why these things really do take time. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said it's interesting to see you bring up that losing RvR rewards too much and you think that is the root of the problem. I can't help but think it's the other way around to an extent.

madrocks wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:42 am

Nah guys, you ain't hearing ****.

We pointed out this issues back in 2018 when you released Vanquisher (still the only realy good set out there btw for most classes) and everyone jumped on the easy bag whoring bandwagon going PvDoor for half a year straight.

You ruined the orvr game step by step with unecessary changes based on nonsense or shortfused decisions.

<snip>

Also, get this competitive **** out of your head. If you really wanna grow this game you will have to get more coders on broard, face legal issues with the owners and stand your ground as other EMU projects did.

So, I respect the time and effort you put into the post. But I can't help but think you're overlooking how deep the problem is. Yes - balance changes do effect the meta. Your three examples are all directly linked to balance changes. Were they perfect? Probably not. Did they change the meta? Definitely, it changes consistently - a meta is essentially a byproduct of active development.

Now, I'm not going to talk to the changes in the examples you made - not out of ignorance - but because I don't think that this is necessarily the problem here. But I can agree to a point that it is a problem.

You suggested that the changes to balance and meta ruined oRvR. Are you suggesting then that the core gameplay of oRvR, keeps / forts / cities etc is fine - it's balance that is causing it to stagnate?

I'm not being condescending here - my role as a CM is to start conversations and gather feedback. I don't want to be seen as ignorant to anyone's points either - it's pretty hard to strike controversial conversations on the forum with a coloured name without people seeing it for more than what it is.

Also - to address the final comment. We've never said we're not hiring anymore developers - we welcome applications on the forum.

To 'grow the game' we do not need to 'face legal issues' and 'stand our ground'. We are operating fine as it stands all additional developers would do is provide quicker development. There's absolutely no need for us to start rocking the boat and risk legal problems because a handful of people are angry at a patch.

Kaelang wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:13 pm

Detangler wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:17 am This is the problem with oRvR right now - too much reward for losing/throwing/zerging down near empty keeps.

My suggestion:

Loser of oRvR zones get zero contribution toward zone flips. You get defender rolls when you successfully defend keep attacks, so it balances out.

Winners of oRvR zones that have > 100% AAO odds for the enemy get zero contribution toward zone flips. Mindless keep assaults need to be more harshly discouraged so NA Order doesn't just roll to city every night.

So - I agree, but I also don't think this is a solution.

It's actually pretty interesting how your view on this is that losing zones is too rewarding, as opposed to winning zones being too rewarding. Sure, the rewards for losing can be construed as too much, which suggests people will then stop trying to Realm Pride because they know they're getting a reward regardless.

However, on the flip side - the zerg meta suggests that the rewards for winning are too much. Because people are flocking to join the zerg fest just to mindlessly push a zone vs an underpopulated faction.

As you can see, this opens two avenues to investigate, from seemingly one point. Which is why these things really do take time. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said it's interesting to see you bring up that losing RvR rewards too much and you think that is the root of the problem. I can't help but think it's the other way around to an extent.

I don't think bag rolls on zone flips has too much/too little reward, I just don't agree to rewarding PvE behavior in a PvP environment. The system now encourages players to zerg keeps with overwhelming numbers, as it becomes guaranteed bag rolls even if there are very few defenders around. This is a problem.

I know at one point that taking empty keeps gave no zone flip reward for the attackers. I am suggesting that when you have 100+ attackers and 10 defenders that it should be treated as an empty keep once the numbers become too skewed towards the attackers. Defenders stand no real chance of defending a keep, so why reward players for PvDoor? Discourage this behavior, encourage players to switch sides to the underpopulated side - bring back short duration renown gain buffs for players that swap from the overpopulated to underpopulated sides again.

Detangler wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 2:20 pm

Kaelang wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:13 pm

Detangler wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:17 am This is the problem with oRvR right now - too much reward for losing/throwing/zerging down near empty keeps.

My suggestion:

Loser of oRvR zones get zero contribution toward zone flips. You get defender rolls when you successfully defend keep attacks, so it balances out.

Winners of oRvR zones that have > 100% AAO odds for the enemy get zero contribution toward zone flips. Mindless keep assaults need to be more harshly discouraged so NA Order doesn't just roll to city every night.

So - I agree, but I also don't think this is a solution.

It's actually pretty interesting how your view on this is that losing zones is too rewarding, as opposed to winning zones being too rewarding. Sure, the rewards for losing can be construed as too much, which suggests people will then stop trying to Realm Pride because they know they're getting a reward regardless.

However, on the flip side - the zerg meta suggests that the rewards for winning are too much. Because people are flocking to join the zerg fest just to mindlessly push a zone vs an underpopulated faction.

As you can see, this opens two avenues to investigate, from seemingly one point. Which is why these things really do take time. I wasn't being sarcastic when I said it's interesting to see you bring up that losing RvR rewards too much and you think that is the root of the problem. I can't help but think it's the other way around to an extent.

I don't think bag rolls on zone flips has too much/too little reward, I just don't agree to rewarding PvE behavior in a PvP environment. The system now encourages players to zerg keeps with overwhelming numbers, as it becomes guaranteed bag rolls even if there are very few defenders around. This is a problem.

I know at one point that taking empty keeps gave no zone flip reward for the attackers. I am suggesting that when you have 100+ attackers and 10 defenders that it should be treated as an empty keep once the numbers become too skewed towards the attackers. Defenders stand no real chance of defending a keep, so why reward players for PvDoor? Discourage this behavior, encourage players to switch sides to the underpopulated side - bring back short duration renown gain buffs for players that swap from the overpopulated to underpopulated sides again.

I agree with this - pushing empty zones, zerging completely underpopulated lakes for free rewards / easy cities should be discouraged. But if we reduce the rewards for zones locking overall then we risk people going back to city logging because they don't see the point in pushing zones / doing orvr.

There needs to be a balance between a successful push and successful defence. But the variables come into play when we look at zone population in terms of factions. And it's this micromanagement which is where the difficulty lies.

ok, i want to give my own feedback to this topic.
I think the biggest problem is that rewards for endgame(royals) drop on the wrong content.

open rvr is the heart and soul of this game, but when i play in the lakes i only get 1 maybe 1,2 royals per hour. Compare that to city siges where you can get up to 20 royals for 2 hours of gameplay.
As everybody says, players always take the easyest way to sucess, and the easyest way is to join some city alert groups on discord and just log in for citys.

my suggestion would be to reduce the royal drops in city sieges, and instead give a 24 hour buff that increased the rewards you get in rvr.

my suggestion:
increase the overall chance that a players drops currency on death in rvr (that should be the mayor source of currency).
for city sieges: normal rvr bags drop in city sieges, maybe reduce the number of bags in sieges. No royals for winning a stage.

instead you get a 24 hour buff that gives a chance that when you get a royal(or other currency) you get 2 instead.

your realm has won more instances of the city siege: buff gives 10% chance to get 2 royals (realmwide) (good for realmpride)
you have won your instance: buff gives additional 10% chance to get 2 royals
you have won stage 1 of a 2 star city buff gives additional 2% chance to get 2 royals
you have won stage 1 of a 5 star city buff gives additional 5% chance to get 2 royals
same for stage 2 and 3.

so after a perfect city (5 star, you won all stages, and your realm won more instances) you would have a 35% chance to get 2 royals instead of 1 from player kills.



and also a suggestion for warband BO play:

if a zone has a population of 24+(or maybe 100+) players one BO spawns a "big supply" box. The BO that spawns the big supply is marked on the minimap. (maybe some indicator like "Big Box spawns in 1 min").
When a player picks up the big box he is marked on the minimap and you cannot mount while carrying the big box(that way it is more easy for other warbands to reach the big box in time).
and for rewards, when the box is delivered to warcamp or keep the whole warband gets good renown, and when the box carrier is killed (box only dropps on death) the box stays on the ground for 30-60 seconds and anybody who klicks it gets some renown.

We absolutely need to make Objectives relevant for the whole zone at all time.
A way need to be found to make Objective holding meaninful (and impactful), to "prevent" a bit the "mass zerging" effect over underpopulated keeps/realm.

1. BOs should need to be held at all time to make supplies worthy. Rewards from supplies will now depends on number of controlled BOs when dropping a supply (warcamp flags still provide half benefits, of course) :
- 1 held BO = 30% rewards to players (renown/xp/contribution) = 30% supply value to up the stars
- 2 held BOs = 60% rewards / value
- 3 held BOs = 90%
- 4 Held BOs = 100%
This should encourage players to actively take more BOs, while not having to control the whole 4 to get "max" rewards.


2. Supplies should provide small amount of RP / XP to players actively controlling objectives. Amount can be based on their contribution to the controlling / retaking / fighting for BOs :
- Recently Contributed to 1 BO capture = 25% of rewards
- Contributed to 2 BOs = 50%
...and so forth.

The bonus can decay over time, ie. you should not be able to afk over the same BO the whole time if you want some piece of the cake. We can imagine 5 minutes +25% buffs wich will not refresh themselves unless you fight/retake corresponding flags (one buff per unique flag).
This way it will encourage people to stay active over the zone, while not feeling totally useless when they cannot "ninja" a supply (less frustration since you'll get small rewards and small contribution over the time you defend an objective).


3. Supply picking should provide rewards for escorting box runners, not only the group, wich leads to unhealthy behavior (supply stealing, ninja, etc.), very detrimental and unfair to everyone taking part of flag control.
Simply buff nearby players (100ft radius ?) when somebody is picking up a supply :
- The buff will last for 6 minutes, same as supply timer, and will be given by the supply holder to ppl around
- Buff will not be refreshed/applied more than once by the same player / same supply before successful supply drop (to avoid exploit)
- When the player drop the crate (on a flag), all matching-buffed players in the vicinity will lose the buff, and gain rp / xp / contribution accordingly ; all supply-buffs from same player are removed regardless of the distance (not providing rewards if too far away).
- Optional : The buff can be higher when acquired near a controlled flag (as opposed to kill-generated crates), or the other way around if you want to promote fights and roaming

This way you will promote escorting crate holders, without discouraging holding the flags (since everyone near flags will get some of the rewards as well, cf. previous point), while discouraging predation and selfishness for ressources.


4. Holding BOs should have more influence over the siege, for example (see Bombling suggestions earlier on for more options) :
- 1 held BO = +25 / -25% damage / resistance to siege weaponry / doors / Lord
- 2 held BOs = +50 / -50% damage / resistance to siege weaponry / doors / Lord
- 3 held BOs = +75 / -75% damage / resistance to siege weaponry / doors / Lord
- 4 Held BOs = Attackers can now use/spawn oil / Defenders got unlimited ammo for cannons - Bonuses are immediately lost if not all BOs are under control of course.

Or something like that. It should promote the active control of BOs during siege, either by small groups wich couldnt reach the keep, and this way scatter a bit the zerg instead of stacking everyone in the keep's vicinity to gank everyone getting close.


5. Holding BOs should have more impact over players, like giving defense bonuses and/or health while fighting near a flag. Bonuses will scale down the more people defending (ie. you'll get a neat bonus solo / small group, but none as a warband or more).
Taking and holding an objective should provide slight defensive boosts, to help small groups fight and defend. Retaking a well-held flag should require a bit more strenght than currently, not making solos and groups invincible but a bit harder to kill near a flag.

This way it may also promote strategic moves to retake BOs while sieging, since letting defenders or attackers in control of too much objectives will get very impactful at any given time.


Hoping those small suggestions could make a way in some aspects of the RvR, wich is becoming slightly less fun than before (before the supply mechanics introduction I mean).
Cheers and take care

Kaelang wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:13 pm

Spoiler:

So, I respect the time and effort you put into the post. But I can't help but think you're overlooking how deep the problem is. Yes - balance changes do effect the meta. Your three examples are all directly linked to balance changes. Were they perfect? Probably not. Did they change the meta? Definitely, it changes consistently - a meta is essentially a byproduct of active development.

Now, I'm not going to talk to the changes in the examples you made - not out of ignorance - but because I don't think that this is necessarily the problem here. But I can agree to a point that it is a problem.

You suggested that the changes to balance and meta ruined oRvR. Are you suggesting then that the core gameplay of oRvR, keeps / forts / cities etc is fine - it's balance that is causing it to stagnate?

I'm not being condescending here - my role as a CM is to start conversations and gather feedback. I don't want to be seen as ignorant to anyone's points either - it's pretty hard to strike controversial conversations on the forum with a coloured name without people seeing it for more than what it is.

Also - to address the final comment. We've never said we're not hiring anymore developers - we welcome applications on the forum.

To 'grow the game' we do not need to 'face legal issues' and 'stand our ground'. We are operating fine as it stands all additional developers would do is provide quicker development. There's absolutely no need for us to start rocking the boat and risk legal problems because a handful of people are angry at a patch.

Thank you for the answer Kael, I am aware of your role and you are doing a great job.
I am also well aware of how deep rooted the problem is by now.
My guild and me have actively tried to change player mentatily in the past, day by day. We consumed so much time into it, not even funny. I've grown and thrown my reputation for this.
The frustration is not coming from nowhere, I get misunderstood on a daily basis since I've no filter what so ever, don't tollerate useless button smashing, lack of situational awareness and most of all easy mode playstyle meaning crossrealming to the more organized realm of the day.

On to your questions and, oh boy! Good luck reading this.
You suggested that the changes to balance and meta ruined oRvR. Are you suggesting then that the core gameplay of oRvR, keeps / forts / cities etc is fine - it's balance that is causing it to stagnate?

The balance changes are inevitably connected to the core gameplay and how it plays out but of course they are not the only problem why orvr is in this state.
The core of the gameplay is fine to a certain extend, there is some serious tweaking necesarry.
Down below in the "ordered" list more about mechanic tweakings.
Orvr participation like the good old conquerer times - as Detangler points out, is not there anymore (outside of player events), because obviously everyone wants BiS as fast as possible. That's only through many orvr bags + city.
The one way or the otherc, they will get their city. By either throwing or riding the bandwagon on the overpopulated realm.
Orvr is losing it's taste because there is no reward for just "priding" around as a realm.
As example: the killquestst are not giving Royals, they provide that questionable currecy, seals of the paragon, that gives us access to gear that will not be used and weapons that can't be traded to better versions or a RR % increase potion that is legit pointless after rr 80. Am I wrong?
There is also this royal shards, 5 to 1 trade is ridiculosly high. Ja, ja, it's BiS slot gear but this is to high.
Trust me, I've extensively tested this and the progress is way to slow. Like meaningless slow unless you solo play. And you know what I do, I log in and run an organized warband to provide content and I try to go for kills more then for a siege for later on explained reasons.
It's so meaningless slow that it makes more sense for a gear oriented player to flip on the overpopulated side, just tag along in an open warband and get a roll, fort and then city, wich they might lose but still have a chance of a bag. In the end it was winning all the way before, right?
It's not that complicated to understand the root of this mindset.

If you aren't bored to death by the obvious yet. I will point more feedback down below, you can chose to keep reading that textwall or not. I am at a point where I don't care if someone listens, like an old veteran giving you an endless storytime.


1. Fashion of the month is a thing, meaning: when one realm gets nerfed and the other gets buffed, the weak minded go and play the stronger one. In the end they want to win, and since zerg surfing is rewarding, gg ez. This changes staff did to destro can't be done in a moment like this, not to mention that they were in part wrong and in part way to strong.

2. Removing tools that help smaller groups to overcome the bigger groups hurts the orvr and makes parts of the core gameplay obsolete/unplayable.
I understand that it would not make a difference when oraganized warbands clash on each other in 3vs1 ratio.
But that is not the reality, warbands are in all kind of states most of the time.
Some of the once so called "Pug Killer" abilities/tactics/classes in a state they were, were also the bread and butter to carry the pugs or offer an alternate gameplay.
I mean, the way orvr is played now is not pug killing?

3. Warband management, there is no working Warband Assistant fuction. I really don't understand how this is not been the first thing to be fixed, hacked, whatever you do there.
I mean a healthy warband - a well composed warband, is the absolute basic of orvr.
There is no way balance will ever work out when warbands are kept unchecked and open.
There is no way to get good new leaders when there is nobody fuctioning as an assistant.
You can remove and enable all kind of abilities/mechanics, it will never matter with half assed warbands attempting a siege or go to fort.
A warband leader can't do everything, they burn out, unless they just feed the opposing realm day by day with open nonsense.
The avarage organized pug leader lasts 3 month they told me when I started leading.
Kicking people to compose a better class synergy leads to hate tells of all kinds. I mean I have a red pepper over my screen by now to counter all the malocchios this people have given me. There is a reason why I use autoband when leading the pugs, it is slightly flawed because it doesn't check what tank/dps/heal type it should keep or kick, but it's a big improvement neverless, at least it sends an automatic tell to people why they got kicked. Imagine they still send a **** tell..
I also don't understand why a private warband is not displayed to everyone as private so they have to send a tell to enter but are still aware that there is a warband in range.
There is also no way to remove the pugs from this game, some people just don't want to run with discord and join a dedicated guild.


On to the keeps..


5. The postern door
I can have a good warband on a postern door with good aoe DPS and I will gank 100+ people swarming it.
Why is that? Because of how the postern door works, right?
You know it, you click it and everyone else that clicks lands on the same spot. Your stacking with bodyblock leads to disaster.
Solution to that would be to remove the door once the outer/inner has fallen and with a keep not being 4/3 stars.
You know, open postern like in fort, but AFTER the main gate is broken.
Another solution: add a couple more random spawn points around that postern, this would keep the postern mechanic unique to campaign keeps.


6. The critical mass on a funnel
That brings us back to the balance changes I pointed out. The critical mass is to strong because of the increased aoe cap on specific abilities.
Some abilities and their procs are just overperforming and can't be countered properly as certain classes are in a safe space, almost unreachable.


7. The random oil and overall siege spawn
A good oil spawn is part of the defense. I've witnessed one to many times some random gobbo runnin up and dropping oil at 5% of the door just to screw over the entire realm.
Obvious sabotage by a stunty in disguise.
Overhelming forces can be tamed with coordinated artillery, but when every schmock just spawns an aoe cannon and then abandons it or just shoots on the masses uncoordinated, it's a waste of ammo and a waste of time to the ones trying to coordinate a proper defense.
It is also a waste of time fo those running boxes to repair the door and supply ammunition.
Solution could be: if a keep is claimed by a guild, only the owners should be able to spawn siege. That would force interaction of the guild with the realm. It's an mmo, it's all about interaction with the other player that shouldn't involve breaking their legs because they are throwing the keep indirectly due to their nonsense, or directly because they want to force a fort/city by sabotage.


8. Keep Ruins
There is the rare case of a ruin to be retaken and the opposing realm kept out, obviously because the defending realm got their **** together.
There must be a way to reward this efford and repair the keep, like all 4 BOs and keep ruin flag for 2 minutes as an example.
Anyway, there used to be an old mechanic for this..


9. The value of the BOs during an active siege
With the respawn changes, keeps got more interesting, a defender has to be more dedicated and aware of possible decoy sieges.
The introduction of the flight master connected with the keep is great.
It does actually give the BOs during the siege an important meaning: you can still get troops in whith the box-flightmaster mechanic while the enemy is covering the postern.
Small scale teams should cover the BOs during a siege to enable/stop troops to get in.
So with a bit of creativity there is still room for small scale parties to be meaningful in the orvr lakes and find content.
A slight increase of the repair amount of the door per box would force atackers also to focus more on the BOs and therefore split the zerg.
But this mechanic is still being tricked or simply skipped on certain maps, there are some keeps in the campaign that need some invisible walls on the pve borderzones because players can still enter an outer postern without being flagged. I see this as an exploit, I can point them out to you if necessary.


10. Ram
The ram. I am really happy you made that healing ability work. Not that I supported this ram jump suicide manouvers because they were legit mechanic abuse, but the ram HP must be lowered just a bit, so the attacker is forced to heal it if the defender decides to bring high risk on attacking it.



Still awake? On to forts shall we?



11. 5 minutes preparetion time
This is really bad. I mean REALLY bad.. it used to be 15mins and the warbands that participated in the fort were SPOTLESS. Proper 8/8/8. Not some half assed open trash with 2 heals and 3 tanks that dares to complain in /1 after the inevitable loss.
People were well aware and present, they had their bio break and could explain their wives/husbands why they have to waste another 50 minutes in the game before dinner.
Tactics could be explained in region chat etc. It's a fort, not some random keep in Barak Varr.


12. The manticores/wyvern/gyrocopters for upper flor push
A m a z i n g.
Pair this with the skaven globe and its ggwp. There needs to be tweaking though.
First of all, to haul a warband on the upper level in the fort means removing that warband from the main force. Thats already a huge risk/push delay.
Having the manticores dropping one randomly all over the upper levels is bad too, they should either drop the attackers only on the 4th floor or there should be more manticores, like 9.



Cities.. yeah. Well I never liked this concept because it's this fake rng Q and fastest progress to BiS only supports the actual trashy state of the orvr campaign.
You either meet some solo q pugs/random open wb stuff or you meet a hard counter with stacked classes to what you fielded. So it's stomp or get stomped, or if you have a proper guild like FMJ you meet a good counter. Thats super rare.
I rather enjoy ostland and have a unnecessary slower BiS progress or I would rather play deathroll vs Mrmoneybagz.
See city how you rolled it out is basically a scenario with 3 stages, if it would have been 6m Q only that then gets formed into a warband, then you would have true rng and give the randoms also more of a chance and probably really good fights or chat drama. Both great.
It would most likely also encourage people to play more scenarios outside of the event, as scenario play in an organized group mirrors the last instance of orvr.

Anyway, if you truly want to balance out the classes and the game you need to get at least 48 people on a separate testserver and test things out under optimal and suboptimal conditions.
This cityscore/sc score statistics can't be you measuring bar, you are better then this.