Zone Control Issues - Other Side Boycotts

[Slayerik]

Why are these equations so cryptic?  It doesn't make any sense to me.. We're going to figure out how to game your system in a week anyway, quit trying to be so secretive.

Also, I'm a lurker from 2005.. check my profile... (please don't ban me)

It's saying something that it got this guy out of the shadows after a 3 year lurk. Impressive! And he didn't even address this to MARK!

You, sir, are nowhere near ban-worthy!

[belabor]

Why are these equations so cryptic?  It doesn't make any sense to me.. We're going to figure out how to game your system in a week anyway, quit trying to be so secretive.

Also, I'm a lurker from 2005.. check my profile... (please don't ban me)

It's saying something that it got this guy out of the shadows after a 3 year lurk. Impressive! And he didn't even address this to MARK!

You, sir, are nowhere near ban-worthy!

Hold on.. I'm still writing a three page thesis that will start with MARK MARK LOOK OVER HERE MARK LOOK AT ME

[HaemishM]

We might just keep you. 

[Slayerik]

Well played, sir. Well played. 

[Comstar]

It took CRS 5 years or so to balance the sides in WW2OL to allow the Allies to start winning at pretty much 50% of the time, and that's long after many 1000's of allied players quit in disgust. Having 3 years of being told by *CRS* it was lack of leadership and superior tactics and strategy didn't help either.

One thing puzzles me though: it sounds like different servers have *both* sides being able to engage easy-mode depending on the server population: am I correct in thinking that both order AND chaos have the numbers advantage on different servers? If so, I don't understand what's making the difference?

[Trippy]

This here is a great example of where Mythic's philosophy of beta testing completely falls on its face.  

Actually this sort of "stalemate" condition was a known issue in Beta, though it was typically because one side had the numbers advantage so it had all the BOs but the other side was winning enough of the scenarios to keep the zone from flipping.

What I was getting at is that they didn't do anything about it.

That is true.

[Wasted]

On the other side on my server (darklands) we had some pretty epic t3 battles last week and it was great. 

Wondering how much of the t4 problems is all the people that rushed there are impatient for the rest of us to catch up.

[Vinadil]

Its more a matter of the change between T3 and T4.  In T3 if you capture all the BOs and Keeps in a pairing then you will get a nifty little message that says, "Order now controls yada yada."  It comes with a RP bonus and a full morale bar and a buff I think.  This happens on a regular basis on our server as T3 lands change hands quite often.

In T4, however, it has been the case that Both sides have held an entire zone for more than 24 hours and not seen it unlock anything or even more over to full control.  In our case we waited almost 3 days with complete control over Thunder Mountain and... nothing.  Perhaps it IS just a population thing, but that would not be true on the servers where their T4 population numbers in the thousands.  I think something just got over-fixed.

[nighthawk999]

This is happening on our server too.

We're Order side, as a server the population on Order side has levelled a lot slower than the norm and Destruction has the numbers advantage by a long way. We've around 20-30 people who can participate in T4 including a big batch of low 30's. For the last two weeks the map has been blue and the only oRvR that happens is the odd BO flipping and that's about it.

Pretty disappointing all round, the response we get from the people we know are hiding behind their warcamps is that they'll come out when they're ready. So we're back to patrolling and levelling up in the dull PvE grind.

All they have to do to keep the zones flipping over is take a couple of BO's every night and it seems to take forever to flip over =/

Lame.

[Kail]

On the other side on my server (darklands) we had some pretty epic t3 battles last week and it was great. 

One of the things which I hadn't considered but which has been nice for RvR has been the addition of regional chat.  Normally I just switch it off (WARE IS MANKIRKS WIFE LOL etc.) but now there's actually some organization going on there in T1/T2 on the servers I play on, rather than just wandering groups occasionally bumping into each other.  Order has actually taken over the zones a number of times, which almost never happened before.

[rk47]

My guild took T4 keeps at darkland last night. I think around 4 of them. Ghost town.

[waylander]

Well if anyone sees any updates from Mythic about how they are going to address this, please drop a link. I think its obvious from this thread that this is more than a coincidence, and if the opposing realm isn't going to show up to provide us with more VP's to flip zone control then something has to be done sooner rather than later. Right now it makes no sense to bother with BFO/Keep capturing when the other side can simply boycott, and leave you with a permanent stalemate.

[tazelbain]

My guild took T4 keeps at darkland last night. I think around 4 of them. Ghost town.

What guild did you move to?

[rk47]

Messed around with local guild. There were some RVR going at peak hour. Something that I never get to play around in Ulthuan cause it's not my local time server, I soloed most of the time in Ulthuan cause I had no choice.

[Erdrick]

Just got on skull throne a few minutes ago to see that they now own Praag. I have no idea how they took it but I guess it is still technically possible to take a zone.

[Vinadil]

Yep, dunno if there was a stealth patch or what, but it took us about 10-15 minutes after capping all of Thunder Mountain to open up Black Crag (Dwarf Tier) tonight.  We took all the BO/Keeps in the Crag and still had a good ways to go to push that one to flip when we called it a night.  But, at least we see that it is possible... we are just not entirely sure what we did differently this time.  We had people running PQs and maybe 5-6 scenarios popped all night, none of them were "dwarf" scenarios though.

[Phred]

On our server, most of Destruction is of the opinion that Order are 'not playing' or are 'care bears who won't RvR' when Order are the guys who are in some form of RvR all the time. The problem is, we can only keep about one quarter of them engaged at any given time, so the majority are of the opinion that we're quitters.

I really laugh when people expect me to believe someone organized a boycott or whatever in an MMOG. You can't even organize a 5 man pickup group most times.

[Kail]

Possibly off-topic question:

Tonight I was running through some T2 scenarios as Destruction, and a few times, right before the end of the match timer, Order dropped about 2/3 of their players and we got the "Scenario is unbalanced, closing in 60 sec" message.  Thing is, we still won the matches, since they dropped with like ten seconds left on the clock.

I'm wondering why someone would do this; is it some kind of weird Victory Point thing?  As far as I know, win or lose, you still get a whack of XP at the end of the match, and I can't think of a reason to play for 14m50s and then drop out in the last ten seconds.  Anyone know?

[Venkman]

Probably just dumping so they can quickly queue for the next one.

[Righ]

I'm wondering why someone would do this; is it some kind of weird Victory Point thing?  As far as I know, win or lose, you still get a whack of XP at the end of the match, and I can't think of a reason to play for 14m50s and then drop out in the last ten seconds.  Anyone know?

Probably to avoid leveling out of the sweet spot at the end of a tier.

[Venkman]

They won't get the XP if they quit a scenario early? I never bothered watching but had assumed you gained all the XP you're gonna gain from just killing players at all.

[Beign]

They won't get the XP if they quit a scenario early? I never bothered watching but had assumed you gained all the XP you're gonna gain from just killing players at all.

Right, I think you get the XP gathered during the fight for the kills but you dont get the bonus xp for finishing the scenario.

[Venkman]

Ok that makes sense then.

This is similar to another thread here where people informed me this same practice happens in WoW BGs (not the XP part but the sitting-at-tier-cap part). Same question applies: why do people do this? Are they farming Realm Rank in the low tiers because the pickins are easier (lower levels with fewer/lesser abilities)? I can't see the answer being "for fun" because for the type of people that do this I gotta imagine that eventually runs dry in a week or so...

[Tmon]

Heck maybe they just like being the top dog in the scenario, there are drops and such so there are rewards for farming scenarios.  The difference is that in WoW BGs give no xp so once you cap the tier you can stay forever.  In WAR they will eventually out level the tier and become bottom fish again, but probably well equipped bottom fish who have a ton of hours playing together so they will be able to zoom up to the top of the tier and squat there again.  Not my idea of fun but I can understand the attraction.

[Warskull]

The negative side effects of a side boycotting PvP are absolutely huge.  Not only does this prevent you from capturing a zone, it basically turns the game off as they refuse to queue for scenarios.  If there is no other side there is no game.

I think a good way to handle it would be have the system work as it does now, except holding most of a zone should generate victory points.  For example if you hold both keeps you start getting VPs and the longer you get them the higher the rate at which you get VPs goes.  If they can grind scenarios or something to match it, fine.  However, the longer a side has dominance over the open rvr zone the harder it will become to match until it becomes impossible and they take the zone.  You could even pause the point generation if they attack a keep.

Also being on this server, they literally stop participating in all forms of PvP post T2.  It will hopefully improve as the masses start hitting t3 and t4.  However, at the moment if you want to PvP this forces you to reroll and go back to T1.  They simply cut off all your methods to generate VPs by refusing to participate.

Hades, you consider coddling the goons?  Send them nice cards with rainbows and unicorns on them saying "nice try" after you destroy them.

[tazelbain]

This is the same issue on our server. I tried out t4  last night.  Boy taking out all the keeps and BO in t4 is surprisingly boring with no opposition.  It feels strange because taking a BO in T3 can easlly get a full wb in response.

[Righ]

Hades, you consider coddling the goons?  Send them nice cards with rainbows and unicorns on them saying "nice try" after you destroy them.

/hug them before they release for the achievement unlock. Oh wait, wrong game.

[Drakkus]

I know that sounds lame, but this is what's happening on my server. Ever since that stealth raid on the Capital City and Mythic's adjustment, the norm now is for the other side to:
If they don't hold any Keeps and BFO's (meaning we own the zone).

Speaking as someone on the other side who is here for the PvP, it's pretty much lack of people / apathy. It's mind boggling that the goons of all people would have numbers issues, but every time someone tries to get a T4 warband going, it breaks up after a single loss, if it even gets anywhere at all.

I honestly think that most of the goons just don't like PvP.

I'm really hoping mythic realizes the current system makes no sense, and just makes victory points a straight bonus over time for holding BOs/Keeps. Some of us want the zones to cap as much as you guys do, since a fortress fight is the only thing that will get people out of bastion or off their alts.

Friend of mine actually mentioned that they tried to intentionally *lose* a zone to you guys today, by stripping naked and suiciding, but it ended up having the opposite effect? (VP *increased* by suiciding) This is second hand, hades would know about it more than I would.

[rk47]

i left open rvr when it gets too laggy for a tank to do anything. but usually my server dragonwake and praag is pretty active. Thunder mountain is a ghost town however. Overall I think both sides are not making any gain towards the end game capital siege.

Mythic plan of playing both sides to cockblock each other from the end game is definitely working, cause I don't see any variation except constant cap and recap. When you see 20 guys defending a keep, it's best to walk off rather than donate RP to them. You'd need at least 3-4x the numbers just to break down the first gate. And there's no way you can take out the Keep Lord with 3-4 BW just DoTTing our tanks like crazy.

[Skullface]

i left open rvr when it gets too laggy for a tank to do anything. but usually my server dragonwake and praag is pretty active. Thunder mountain is a ghost town however. Overall I think both sides are not making any gain towards the end game capital siege.

Mythic plan of playing both sides to cockblock each other from the end game is definitely working, cause I don't see any variation except constant cap and recap. When you see 20 guys defending a keep, it's best to walk off rather than donate RP to them. You'd need at least 3-4x the numbers just to break down the first gate. And there's no way you can take out the Keep Lord with 3-4 BW just DoTTing our tanks like crazy.

You know it's bad when two full warbands are running around T4 capping stuff, and one is following 20 minutes behind the other just to recap as they go.

By the way, does anyone else feel like the lack of oomph with the siege weps are a big reason why attackers can't do shit if five lowbies show up?

Or am I the only one who feels frustration that my big ass ballista can't peg motherfuckers to the wall when I hit them?

[rk47]

well on my server they do definitely fight each other nightly on most T4 spots for zone control. but as i;ve said, none could lock it down. not enough scenarios pop up and weekday keep defense is just not gonna sustain itself. Some attacker siege equipment pads are placed too far from the wall, preventing it from helping much. They really need to buff the attacker siege weaponry imo. Overall, I just leave when there's a lack of direction going on. Just random street gankings of 20 v 20 catching random stragglers while trying to ninja BO was fun for 20 mins, after that; not so much.

[waylander]

Last night we were taking back keeps in Dark Crag. I won 1st in contribution, and then placed 12th in the roll. A random pug who tagged along won the awesome bag, and after that we all said fuck it and went to PVE. Without players to fight against in scenarios or keep taking, zones aren't flipping so RVR has become a snore fest.  The Goons running around naked was interesting, but in the grand scheme of things other things were going on that simply weren't feeding VP's to the Order side.

Honestly I feel that Order has so much stacked against it in PVP class balance (as in no one plays Engineers, Archmages aren't fun to play), zones that won't flip, Destruction can somehow take back zones without fighting, etc that many people are losing the will to play this game much sooner than what we saw in AOC.  I think after WotlK releases population imbalances are going to get even worse, and without players to fight it all just creates a fast downward spiral.

[Lantyssa]

Honestly I feel that Order has so much stacked against it in PVP class balance (as in no one plays Engineers, Archmages aren't fun to play), ...

Engineers suck to solo with.  The turret won't hold aggro, but half your abilities have a five foot minimum range.  While I've never gotten kicked from a group with mine, I can't imagine any other class being so useless when one could get just about anything else, at least in the early levels.  In large scale battles I have done well, but the day-to-day is where you level, and they simply aren't worth playing there.

[Pringles]

Honestly I feel that Order has so much stacked against it in PVP class balance (as in no one plays Engineers, Archmages aren't fun to play), zones that won't flip, Destruction can somehow take back zones without fighting, etc that many people are losing the will to play this game much sooner than what we saw in AOC.

This happened to our guild, and lot of people have left. We picked order to try and have a challenge, little did we know developers and the game in general would be working their hardest at every corner to screw us over.

[rk47]

Honestly I feel that Order has so much stacked against it in PVP class balance (as in no one plays Engineers, Archmages aren't fun to play), zones that won't flip, Destruction can somehow take back zones without fighting, etc that many people are losing the will to play this game much sooner than what we saw in AOC. 

I'm sorry. What? Class by Class comparison suggests Order is superior when it comes to Ranged engagement versus Destruction melee-centric classes. The problem starts for Destro when the close combatants couldn't get close or unable to coordinate a charge. Which happens 75% of the time in scenario hence my friend quitting. He got tired of being laughed at for charging in first on his Chosen and dying alone while the rest of the melee just stood behind the healer like retards, letting the Bright Wizards Tab-DoT away to 250k dmg. If it's a matter of organized RvR, guess who has easier time organizing it? Definitely the side with Range and when they're defending a keep, good luck in taking it. We'll just get dps'ed to hell. The only thing Order has against them is class appeal, not statistics; hence the population imbalance.

Shadow Warrior vs Marauder : We know how that happens in the trailer. Marauder is easier to level but who gives a shit. More or less equal in their given role.
Engineer vs Magus : After the fix on the Rift pull, Magus is no longer special. With his demon being gimp, Engineers have better survivability and better pets in RvR.
Ironbreaker vs Blackguard : N/A. but IB is raping face (See: Chosen)
Swordmaster vs Black Orc : Orc advantage here being able to heal in combat but Swordmasters are hard to kill too. Not very clear winner.
Gryphon Knight vs Chosen : N/A. but Chosen aura doesn't really give much in RvR yet, needs clearer role. Attack landing that is determined by INT for a tank = disrupts. No good.
Witch Hunter vs Witch Elf : One has a ranged finisher, the other has melee proc attacks. Witch Elf melee superiority here, but you can't run from a Witch Hunter.
Bright Wizard vs Sorc: In terms of efficiency, the BW rape faces with so many instant attacks going for them, Sorc needs time to cast and hence more vulnerable to focus fire when poppin out to cast. The BW has little problem. Pop in , Dot DoT Detonate, pop out. Grats 2k Dmg to a grp in 3 second cast.