 Well, I have to say my vacation was fairly decent. Spent a lot of time drinking, made my way down to Key West for their Fantasy Fest, went snorkeling a handful of times to check out the various sea-life. I spent a lot of time out of the sun though, you can get burned pretty easily down there if you're not used to the light. Coming home to WAR was disappointing at first. The first night I logged in guildies were absent. I think there were about 5 online. I solo'd my way through scenarios to rr55 on my Engi and finally polished off my full Invader set. Yay 10ft range bonus! Alas, no one to share it with. Monday was another disappointing day as I logged in to find 5 people yet again, which dropped of to just me and one other within minutes. Where had everyone gone? We usually field at least 20 on weekdays! This was probably when I noticed that Altdorf was sitting at two stars...I found out some time later that City Sieges had been more than rampant, but the defenses had been solid... during prime time at least. The de-ranking of the city came from late-night/early morning sieges. Somehow, Destro is able to field 4 warbands at any given time of the day, and used this to spank Altdorf silly. I kinda understand where everyone went. The same place everyone goes when they're losing against a force they can't fight on even ground, somewhere else. Well, at least last night our glorious guild leader returned from about a week of the flu and pushed the buttons to get us into the premier alliance on Badlands. Ah, what a fresh change of pace. Immediately we went from 5 online to about 20, and out alliance numbers changed from our guild plus one or two other members, to around 90. There was a huge RvR push as we started coordinating multiple warbands, we pushed out of Kadrin Valley and Eataine (Empire had been locked down previously to this), and even took the Elf pairing all the way up to Caledor before the Destro zerg was summoned. I found a new addon earlier called Whom. It gives a count of how many players were online for each tier and spits out the totals for you. At the height of our push, Whom was reporting 112 r40's and 34 T4 (r31-r39) players. At the same time however, the keep spam was showing 130 Destro, and they were also flipping a second zone at the same time.
What are we supposed to do at that point? When it's taking us every available player to fail at defending a single keep, and another zone is dropping almost uncontested, morale drops VERY quickly. Sure, the fights were good and hard, but there was no progress, and very little in the way of slowing down the opposing side. While Order on Badlands can show up and rock it out when we really try, it didn't take more than an hour before Destro could outzerg us and flip the tables. I believe Altdorf was under siege shortly after I logged out for the night.So it's a mixed bag for me. New alliance, lots of people to run with on one hand, then getting outzerged and consistently losing on the other hand. It's a breath of life for our guild, and Order on the server that we settled into a much larger alliance, I just fear that that breath may be getting knocked out of us awfully fast. I don't really mind being outnumbered to be honest. Scenarios pop faster, there's always a fight waiting for you, typically the amount of bad players on the opposing side far outnumbers the good. For the sake of Order as a whole however, I get a little worried.Highlights last night include soloing a Chosen, Sorc, and Marauder at the same time in Dragonwake with my Engi. Getting pulled off a keep and dying in mid-air to a zerg. Killing off a line of 20 Destro that were running up to defend a Keep we were attacking. Soloing multiple Witch Elves that kept trying to gank me (thank you 3s KD on self-destruct). Still racking up top damage in most of the scenarios that I run, without any specific assistance... The list goes on, I enjoy my time in WAR very much, even if we are losing as a whole. Then again, that's the real issue isn't it? This really is a Realm v Realm kind of deal now. If your faction isn't playing up to par, no one is going to survive. You might be the biggest badass on the field (not saying that I am, plenty are better), but it's still just a drop in the bucket when facing a hoard that outnumbers you by at least 20. WAR has very little room for meaningful personal achievements, everything is overshadowed by the fact that if your realm is losing, than everyone is suffering. This is something that I really don't have an answer for, some sort of balancing for an outnumbered realm is obvious. The feeling that one man does not make a dent however is a product of design. If it were intended, it was done very well. So a breath of life for my guild, and myself to a degree. I'll always enjoy being a wrecking ball on the open field and being crafty enough to solo classes that I probably shouldn't. There's plenty of opportunity to enjoy the game, but also enough to get tired of it. RvR isn't everyones cup of tea, at least not out on the battlefields. Too many people in one area and it just turns into a sea of bodies dying back and forth until one wave crashes over the other and victory finally rushes in. I am content. We're on a losing slide at the moment which causes more people to disappear, but at the same time, it's just another crash of the wave. The tides rise and fall, winning comes and goes. It might end up being like this for a month or two, but it won't last forever. It never does.
I've been slacking on WAR blogging. I think my head has been spinning over the transfer from Praag to Badlands, not sure what to make of 1.3.1 either for that matter. Forums have been blazing with whiny Destro players about how bad their classes are. Granted, some are actually bad. The cesspool of vitriol however is a cancer among our dwindling population. It's really discouraging to see a post near daily about someone leaving for a different game. It's not a lack of material that I'm facing, but a large amount of things that I don't really want to talk about. I've been active on the official forums and keeping up with the blog community. I was at the new Keep testing for the last two assaults, and the antics of Mythicben and Mythicjames. This game has really turned into a living organism that I have under a microscope. I guess the biggest thing that I've been doing is trying, with a couple others, to quell the anger over the Praag-Badlands-Dark Crag transfers. People use Warheap as a means to justify their anger towards Mythic because they show BL as having a significantly lower ACTIVE population of Destro. I see this and it's just the same cycle the game has been going through since launch. If people win too much, or lose too much, they're going to leave. Both sides of the coin suck because you don't have anyone to fight in a meaningful way. The Tyranid Swarm (i.e. Zerg), prevails over all. There's few points on each server where balance is attained, and the people revel in the victories of the day, as the future becomes uncertain. These days, many servers see the future as an enslavement beneath the Order zerg as it will forever and always win. The mentality here is a mistake. The short term vision is too prominent. The long term, regardless of faction, is ever changing.It's a matter of scale, and when the balance tips too far, that scale doesn't matter any more. There needs to be a mechanic to tip the scale up slightly for the losing faction to give them hope. A few are too small that have been introduced, and work in the wrong manner. Currently, when factions change in power it's a combination of two things, one larger in contribution than the other.
First, the winning faction is so dominant that the losing faction leaves the battlefield save for a few dozen hardcore, and typically win the day. This puts the server into faction farm mode. Some good battles are had, but ultimately less players from the losing faction bother to fight unwinnable battles. Progression from this leads to less winning players over time bothering to log in for their umpteenth consecutive fort or city push. Second, and to a much less degree, you have even more hardcore players that love to fight as the underdog. They switch factions, giving up all the loot they have gained over the months, and push a downtrodden and morale broken team to start winning. These players are leaders, and are fearless. Understanding losses over time build experience, and small victories in the right light build a positive attitude. Leaders like this understand the Tyranid Swarm. They understand that you have to be a winner, and prove it, to lead a faction to dominance.These two things change servers. However, the cost is a slow bleed. Players who would typically log off and play an alt become complacent over time. One too many times, and they'll log off for good. Some players simply love their faction, and can't stand to be 'eternally' doomed to losing. Lacking the long term vision and an understanding of the patterns in place, they will also log off for good. Swearing to themselves they'll be back for more. Finally, a larger and larger amount of people from the losing realm, as opposed to doing something more constructive, will demand heads to roll for their blatant failures. This is the worst circumstance, as many people can relate to feelings of inadequacy and go along for the ride. Tossing in their hats and spewing any form of hate that will get their point across. These people are few, but effective. They are joined by some that have an interest in the game, and want to be constructive. Unfortunately they all get tossed into the mix.It's a dangerous game to try and appease everyone. It's infinitely more dangerous to attempt balance when your classes are not mirrors, but your players assume they should be. Should an Engineer and a Magus do the same moves with different names and graphics? Is the White Lion and Maurader a mirror? Perhaps WL and Squig Herder? No no, the Shadow Warrior and SH is a mirror... or is it? There are no mirror classes. A BW and Sorc are similar, but not the same. A DoK and WP are similar, but not the same. A Chosen and KotBS are similar, but not the same. Tactics are different, abilities are different, trees are different. There is not one class in this game that is mirrored with each other. It's by design. Can a Sorc out damage a BW? Maybe, but not every time. There's enough variation in just ways to USE a class that could easily change your damage output. Let alone the fact that all their abilities don't match up. How about looking at the DoK and WP for a second. They have many similar abilities, but in their mastery trees are two that I found interesting. Sigmar's Shield and Devour Essence. They each cost 9 points in their respective trees, and drain their mechanic pool when in use. However, they do very different things. The Empire version turns the target into a pulsing self-heal on hit, and drains the WP of Righteous Fury per hit, whereas the Dark Elf ability turns the target into a pulsing 10' AoE lifetap healing the target for half the damage done, but drains a constant amount of Soul Essence over the duration.This is something I find common for a lot of conflicting abilities. When faced with these Destro almost always gets the more offensive version of the spell whereas Order gets the defensive version. Is this not balanced? In this example above, I would argue that Destro gets the nod. AoE lifetap > self heal on-hit. The self heal is a bit stronger, but the lifetap does damage and healing. Interesting though, the cost of it is greater for Destro, as it will drain Soul Essence to 0, where the Order cost is dependant on it going off. Subtle difference there, no? It's not perfectly balanced, it's not mirrored, but they make for a good example of cost and benefit.Shaman and Archmage got balanced recently, lets take a gander at that. First, 9 points into the damage tree, then 13 points. Shaman - 9 - Gorks Barbs Archmage - 9 - Scatter the WindsBoth Heal debuffs, but Destro damages the healer, where Order damages the player. I'll give that to Destro. Indirectly nailing healers is better imo.Shaman - 13 - Da Waaagh! Is Coming Archmage - 13 - Dissipating EnergiesBoth target based dots. Destro gets the spread around the damage, where Order gets an AoE. This one is all Order for the 30' AoE, but the Destro one has great potential. Four abilities, none mirrored, yet still balanced.This post is running a bit long. I'm not really sure how to wrap things up aside from this is what's been going through my head lately. I think the solution to be made isn't on the classes themselves, but how RvR should change for a losing faction as a whole. Even buffing the losing faction by overbalancing classes isn't going to make them win against the Tyranid Swarm. They'll still be outnumbered. If anything, it would indirectly help by attracting players that would switch to try out these classes again. It's just not the kind of change that will work both ways. A better solution would be a faction-wide buff not unlike the renown bonuses for underpopulated servers. Or, alternatively, NPC reinforcements to the lakes to even up the numbers to a degree. Focus firing on classes to bolster a faction outnumbered just doesn't make sense. Fix them, by all means, but people need to wait for their balance to come. It's just not an immediate solution.
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