Return of Reckoning

Hail all,
this is an issue i have spoken about with a Gm in game, after speaking to many pug order players who would win 1 lose 47 or lose 56 straight 500-0 to the same 2 rank 80/90 destro premades and perma quit game .

These are my observations for someone who plays the event scen every week for 1 year on 3 toons, dps, healer, tank, occasionally in guild premade or order premade but more than half i Pug solo

This weekend i played 3 days event scens, my dps won 6 lost 27, my tank won 1 lost 32, my healer won 2 lost 23. destro won 500-0 70 times out of 91, Total kills Order 388, Destro 2496 . I got to event reward 2 (linaments) on my dps, and event reward 1 (renown pot) on my tank and heal, all weekend the pugs i was with only took all 5 bases one time, we almost had it two times but destro surrendered to stop us getting the 5 base achieve.

Observations about Event Scen weekend in general:

A. when the event scen is a no brains no tactics King of the hill type scenario, all rush to centre stay packed together and spam heal and spam damage destro win 90% of scens , 75% 500-0, they get 15000 renown, order get zero renown, destro can farm 150000 renown per hour Order are lucky to get 350 total. Destro rank 80 premades win close to 100% 500-0 50 kill to 0

B. when it's an event scen that requires brains, tactics, movement, mobility, using the map, splitting up , then destro tend to struggle and will maybe only win 40 to 60% of scens. Destro rank 80 premades win maybe 80% but only 5% 500-0, if any

Now even though there are 3 types of scens, the event scen every week strangely seems to be almost always the destro bias king of the hill stomping
Type 1. king of the hill eg praarg, eg tol amroc, eg college of corruption eg mounkain temple eg black crag eg caledor woods
Type 2. 3 or more multiple bases to cap at same time eg dragon bane, eg gates of ekrund, eg logains forge eg nordenwatch eg undercroft
Type 3. flag running - eg phoenix gate, eg serp passge eg talabac dam, eg stonetroll crossing

we went thru a period where the event scen was king of the hill 15 weeks out of 17 which was destro bias and when i confronted a Gm on this she said that couldnt be so and she would check and get back to me to prove me wrong,,, so this suggests to me gms themselves have not kept track of how many of each type of scen are being chosen for the event scen it should be 33% 33% 33% but its not, it 90% 5% 5%, which is simply not fair nor should it be allowed to happen. The Gm strangely never came back to me to tell me i was wrong about this but then strangely after having this conversation with the GM for the next 3 weeks event scens for the first time ever were not king of the hill....

Now, if you are a fair minded person who values community and competitiveness over short sighted self gain, there are FIVE problems with king of the hill
1. the losing team usually gets stomped 37kills to 0 500-0 and has to be farmed all game or find hiding spots. the entire scen is usually decided in the first 45 secs ( outcome of the first fight)
2. its a total waste of 10minutes u will get ZERO renown
3., and zero progress towards the event
4, one or two good players make zero difference and have zero impact, u cant do anything different or go anywhere to get points or take out 1 or 2 isolated destro solo coz they are all together. u have to face the entire premade and take 13000 dmg insta kill sorc quad crits soon as u stick your face out (notice how Sorcs and RShs have multiplied like cockroaches/rats now the gms/devs have decimated white lion? Just like in nature, you remove the natural predator and the vermin flourish)
4. 90% destro win. not healthy in a 2 faction game

Now with ALL the other event scen types if you are losing it DOESNT MATTER for 5 reasons
1. the losing team can still be competitive, these scenario types are almost never 500-0, they are usually 500-270 to 490
2. even when outmatched, u can still take other bases., get the flag, kill flag holder, and gain points even if you are losing the main battle, instead of sitting at base avoiding destro zerg, you can take objectives elsewhere so your time is not wasted , u still accomplish something
3. even if you lose u will still get 1000 to 3000 renown for contribution and progress the event by taking bases, getting kills at outer bases etc
4, good players can take and hold outer bases and even get a few solo or small grp skirmish kills, 1 good player can even win the entire game, in phoenix gate ive seen FMJ premades lose to order PuGs many many times because they over confidently farmed the order graveyard while a lone white lion ran in flags behind them and won the game for order, also seen this in serp passage
5. its 50% destro win 50% order win, imagine having a 50% win in 2 faction game?? How DARE you want competitive games with a 50/50 win chance. I bet a few people may need to have a sit down just processing that.

Conclusion: the losing team can still fight hard to the end stay focussed and engaged all game stay involved and get a sense of accomplishment for their efforts as they are rewarded for doing stuff, their actions have positive result even in defeat. This also stops arguing toxicity and abuse in scenario chat the fact points are going on the board and every1 is still involved and giving their best.

The Way Forward:
i would suggest that the following options below need to be considered to improve the game and stop the despair during the event scen
Option 1. Remove king of the hill from event scen weekend, it can be in the list for all days but just not the event scen anymore
Option 2 (which i prefer) rotate the event scen to a 3 weekly rotation, 1 week its a king of the hill,1 week, its multiple bases, 1 week it is flag or keg carrying

no more 12 weeks of king of the hill in a row, it may stop more order perma quitting game and stop demoralised order running to destro. it may improve game balance and we have fun and competitive scenarios more regularly

Im sure there are many players including many fair minded destro who would rather win 3 games 500-470 and lose 5 game 470 - 500 in an epic cliff edge scen a hard close fight than win 10 in a row 500-0 or lose 10 in a row 500-0.., all good community focussed people would no doubt agree, id hate to be one of the short sighted 'self > all' people who think winning 500-0 50 kills to 0 all day log is actually 'good ' for the game.

Your thoughts would be appreciated

'Swords In the Wind!"

The Mel.

A. when the event scen is a no brains no tactics King of the hill type scenario, all rush to centre stay packed together and spam heal and spam damage destro win 90% of scens...

B. when it's an event scen that requires brains, tactics, movement, mobility, using the map, splitting up , then destro tend to struggle...

If you want to convince people of something, maybe don't call 50% of the player base simpletons. If Order are such big brained megaminds, I'm sure they can collectively figure out a way to win a zerg. Maybe by using their impressive

brains, tactics, movement, mobility

Thank you for explaining so clearly and concisely some of the frustrations of the weekend scenerio events. You obviously did your homework and put a lot of thought into the problems at hand. I realize that there will be a lot of people who don't think that there is a problem, but I assure you that I was not the only one who was extremely frustrated over the weekend. Numbers don't lie, and numbers indicate that Destro is growing and Order is shrinking. Hopefully the GMs will take your ideas and thoughts into consideration and make some changes before the game becomes any more unbalanced.

I like your idea of the 33/33/33 split. It makes things more even and fair, which is all I am looking for. Some of the most exciting sc's that I have been in have been 500-400 or 450-500, making even losing fun.

Thanks again for your well thought out post!

Big brains lost 55 scs running solo yet somehow expecting different outcome in sc 56. Kind of funny and sad at the same time.

Anyway to some extent it happens on both sides. And since i like my mouse and keyboard, i have to log out after like 10 loses to preserve them in good condition

Again if one side is forced to create groups to even get a sniff at a pop maybe that differance in organisation ie mostly good comps (2/2/2) vs 3 engies, 1 slayer, 1 dps am and 1 2h WP pay off.

Try male a dess toon q solo for 4 hours and come back and rewrite the entire post. Yep I played prder last 1-2 days so it is fact checked.

billyk wrote: Mon Mar 08, 2021 8:04 pm I've said the same as OP time and time again. The reason for this phenomenon is that Destro classes are mechanically better than Order classes, thus, in a knock down drag out combat, Destro will come out on top. The skill levels are actually better on Order, that's why Destro struggles in situations that aren't head-on collisions. They can only zerg. And because this game is zerg-friendly, Destro has no real need to actually develop skill, they will usually win anyway.

How to spot fresh xrealmers from Destro to Order: They try to zerg and get torn apart like soft bread. Order CANNOT win in a zerg to zerg combat, the devs made sure of that by constantly buffing Destro classes and nerfing Order classes. Therefore we can assume this situation is what the devs want, so OP's ideas will likely fall on deaf ears.

Ignoring the fact Order was constantly running into same premades CHECK Blaming it rather on all destro classes being op CHECK

I played T2 destro scens and T4 order this weekend. My destro pugs did much worse, I think I won over 50% on order. Can't blame on gear in T2.

Assuming you don't want to run your own pre-made, second option for pugging is find something else to do for 1-2 hours if you're getting stomped. You are probably going to face the same group, try again later. Same when you're winning, keep running until circumstances change.

This sc was also particularly hard to max rewards because of the capping requirements, some weekends just don't bother. I got to renown pots on 3 chars in about 3 total hours of play time, given relatively quick queues. That seems reasonable.

The GMs have the data for these events. I've posed the question whether they could publish that data and we can stop speculating over what we all probably suspect is true. I wish they would release said data and we can discuss as a community how we can improve play for both factions. Other MMOs allow their community to see leaderboards, server scores, overall scenario scoring, mmr, ranked season results etc

I suspect the rate is very similar to city scores. Shame they can't rotate the city scenario for all the reasons you have presented here

Meliannia wrote: Mon Mar 08, 2021 5:38 pm
B. when it's an event scen that requires brains, tactics, movement, mobility, using the map, splitting up , then destro tend to struggle and will maybe only win 40 to 60% of scens.

Anything but fight...well... random yolo-dps have more options to win vs organized grps when they dont have to fight them...WOOT! Thats a whole new discovery...really devs sure appreciate this observations since no one could have noticed this in the past.


My only obervation is that you have played 89 scs this weeked => thats a lot of time spend playing, but still you didnt spend a little time to make/join a proper grp....also, looking your winrate with different archetypes its clear that when you play a support role your team suffers more => probably not guarding/healing properly...the worst winrate is playing tank lmao...

Between all these posts about the weekend event, there is a troubling reoccurring theme, that being order players do one thing, destro players do another. I think one important fact is that there are not order or destro players but ReturnOfReckoning players that have characters on both factions, sure you will be more passionate about one and people's playtime on each faction will vary.

My example was I did 10 sc on my dok, soloq, won 9, order surrendered 6. On my SW, played 10, lost 10, order surrendered 8.

Are you suggesting that when RoR players play destro characters they have a different mentality, play style, attitude etc then when they play their order characters that they suddenly forget how to win and need to 'git gud'?

Or does it just highlight more that some game mechanics and classes available to the RoR player better suit one faction more then the other in certain game content?