Quick changes long rant to keep most of the player base interested
Summary:
I love this game and am grateful that Broadsword is holding it together. I've played off and on for well over a decade but over the last six months and especially since this patch there's suddenly become a big disparity IMO that needs talking about. I like solo/smallman, and zerg surfing. 8maning is harder for me because I can't commit to a set time and even when I'm playing I sometimes have to afk. I've played a lot of toons over the years but have been playing animist, smite cleric, tic and thane most recently. That said, fighting in Hero's zerg has been weak fights especially lately, but still lots of rps. It's more a bunch of us fighting for scraps. That makes me sad as every time we destroy the other realm (especially mid) and they get no rps I know that sooner or later they will stop coming out to defend, and I've started logging on Mid or Alb (if hibs fight albs) as a result. People say "well form a BG on mid". We've been doing that for months and its just an RP donation.
For instance last week Hibs across all time zones took the top 21 of 25 slots in RPS made and basically as many RPS as all of mids and albs combined. Having run with Hero a bunch he admits he prefers attacking mids, because a coordinated defense by Albs is much more difficult to overcome and we often wipe vs albs while almost never by mids. This is also why he has like 120k more mid kills and on any given week around 2x the number of mid vs alb kills.
If the assumptions I lead with above are true, I opine that Mid is the problem. It's gotten so bad that even when there is a Mid zerg (Anna playing today) he won't port to a defended level 10 keep (Fens) because we won't get any rps and it will just feed hibs/encourage them. So, Hibs take mostly empty keeps, farming the ~10 mids who will defend, over and over (while they die over and over), and the rest of the mids/albs roam around trying to avoid larger numbers and find smaller numbers, meanwhile everyone has speedwarps and speed 6 so fights don't generally happen unless you know its a wipe or get caught unlucky. This can only go on so long before even die hard players say, "what's the point"? I bought and used a 50% rp potion but got one kill off of an AFK toon on my dps heavy thane with a duoing shammy, all afternoon, thats it, meanwhile the hib bg killed us over and over. On Hib the two of us would have collected 60-100k ea per our average duo for an afternoon based on the past few months.
It's not lack of action it's lack of ramp/burst DPS.
I say this given Thanes are Mids highest ramp/burst DPS class when played r8-9+ with a good template and lots of damage passives. Back in the day Hibs were gimped a bit on DPS because they got baseline stun. Now hibs have animists and bains with the most DPS in game and ment/eld/chanter all produce similar dps to mid's highest dps toons. Mids used to be the only realm with celerity, now everyone gets it. Same for most abilities. Mids are partially at fault for Hib/Alb boosts over the last several years IMO. (Xyorman's zerg is responsible for some of this from what it seems, as they were very successful at organizing and coordinating and requiring members to play the right class (thane, pac healer, etc) as a result, to keep albs from leaving (Billings left anyways) albs got a bunch of giant buffs over a few years and mids just couldn't compete). Smite clerics with dps similar to thanes but also good heals/damage mitigations and mez/stun. Tics wiping whole zergs, cab/necro trains, Pallies with god group AF and group heals better than an average druid or healer with only 1.0 spec points, and enough points to engage you or 2h your pet in one swing if needed. This is why Hero much prefers attacking Mid. The action starved people log on mid to defend, but generally its just a donation and loss of supremacy pot x number of deaths. We form a group of 8 on mid with 3 healers and while we may not die, or not die often during a siege, we won't get any kills or maybe one, before the 8 of us are swarmed by 50. You can't even get kills with oil anymore as siege mitigation means you hit casters for what, 800 and they are grouphealed for that much before the other oil that was timed hits them.
It's not just sustained DPS, either it's the ability to ramp dps. My animist is delicious. I can cast 6-8 bombers on a target in range before (sometimes) it or its support realizes they need to heal, and then switch to my debuff dd. If you let me ramp cast on you even if your healer class is on it, they likely have to rez. Can' do that on Mid. When I started playing a bomber class (animist) I was really surprised the bombers were only on Hib, as ramp dps seems like something non-baseline stun realm would get. Tic works the same. With stun immunity my tic will amp on a hib caster and profit, more often than not, even if they have heals. That doesn't work on any class, playing on Mid.
This matters because if a realm can't get rps (Distinction: they don't need to win, just get rps during the fight), they will end up going away. This causes many times where Mids won't defend, and even Hero logs early because there is no action. THIS IS BAD PEOPLE.
Suggestions to give players a small reason to defend on mid.
1) Remove mid's AOE stun and make Healer baseline ST stun a 9 sec duration like all other stuns. Possibly let Pac healers keep their Insta AOE stun, 10 min reuse (but reduce radius). That makes it little different than say Minstrel R5 or Theug, etc. There's no real way to balance normal AOE stun, and while it's mostly been nerfed to the ground since release (100 radius now, max 16 targets), it's still useless or OP (see ST resetting aoe stun). As is its a "bargaining crutch" for class balance even though its almost never used. For certain types of fights if Albs/Hibs don't have x number of tanks they will just not do it; as a result they take their ball and go home and nobody fights.
Instead, make aug healers 50% (half) as good as smite clerics. No warlord, no pbaoe mez, no pbaoe snare, no insta pbaoe dd, no spec group or ST heal. No Holy hand (target heals enemy for 100 hits/swing), no radiant reflection (10% all damage reflection), no root/snare removal, no extended range AOE. GIVE Healers a 214 Spirit DD 2.8 cast at 46 Aug (Clerics get it at 44) and Ascendance at 50 Aug, and no lower level dd's (or any of the other stuff I listed. Healers would have the exact same CC ability as smite clerics if they had any DPS, a quarter of the utility, and still really bad heals vs decent heals for smite clerics.
2) Give Mid a bomber class/ramp class so groups don't have to coordinate 6 toons or 3 debuff toons to get a kill (rps). Thanes are likely the highest DPS class and they can't do it even with purge up and getting the jump on a caster with a mid assist. Getting some kills during a siege where every group attacking has several heal classes is key to keeping people interested in playing the realm with lower numbers. Heal lock had a ramp dot that was even in its original form less effective than bombers or tic ramp... but it was nerfed.
Give bombers to BD's unused spec (suppression), making Suppression 50% as useful as Arb animists, and remove the low delve aoe dd+ snare from suppression. Don't even worry about giving them the massive bomber 449 Delve! or the highest delve aoe in game (178!) or the dd+ 10% debuff or insta con debuff or 8x 204dd shrooms which all increase burst DPS significantly. If that idea won't fly, give RM's better damage. They are the red headed stepchild of the primary caster class, or make SM's an actual class people can play for zerg. I can pull up a list of abilities and Sup SM is pretty down there compared to any of the other pbaoe classes. It was already said that Locks have a lower delve pbaoe but I think that's fine, they have utility like necros/bains.
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Assumptions:
- At least half of the player base enjoys or participates in large scale fights if the action is good, both keep siege/open field.
- This game is so much more fun if there is action, vs if we are running around popping potions/charges refreshing map and looking for fights.
- The best fights are where the loser still gets some kills/rps before the finish/wipe/win, as otherwise there's no benefit vs going to the winning side.
Points: - Mid is the problem/weakness/easy rps. Hero knows this and farms them hard (2x kills of albs routinely).
- Even when defending Mids don't have the DPS to kill vs any group with 2 heal types absent a well coordinated debuff train (higher level play, not enough players can do this on any realm to make a difference). Albs with caster boosts do just fine vs hibs.
- This results in hibs fighting over scrap kills on Mid keeps or zergs just trying to ignore each other.
- This results in fewer meaningful fights, less action, and people leaving the game. Vicious cycle.
- Making several small changes on Mid would increase the willingness of players to play mid, people for albs/hibs to fight and get RPS off of, and increase game satisfaction for all players, especially the enemies of Mid.
I love this game and am grateful that Broadsword is holding it together. I've played off and on for well over a decade but over the last six months and especially since this patch there's suddenly become a big disparity IMO that needs talking about. I like solo/smallman, and zerg surfing. 8maning is harder for me because I can't commit to a set time and even when I'm playing I sometimes have to afk. I've played a lot of toons over the years but have been playing animist, smite cleric, tic and thane most recently. That said, fighting in Hero's zerg has been weak fights especially lately, but still lots of rps. It's more a bunch of us fighting for scraps. That makes me sad as every time we destroy the other realm (especially mid) and they get no rps I know that sooner or later they will stop coming out to defend, and I've started logging on Mid or Alb (if hibs fight albs) as a result. People say "well form a BG on mid". We've been doing that for months and its just an RP donation.
For instance last week Hibs across all time zones took the top 21 of 25 slots in RPS made and basically as many RPS as all of mids and albs combined. Having run with Hero a bunch he admits he prefers attacking mids, because a coordinated defense by Albs is much more difficult to overcome and we often wipe vs albs while almost never by mids. This is also why he has like 120k more mid kills and on any given week around 2x the number of mid vs alb kills.
If the assumptions I lead with above are true, I opine that Mid is the problem. It's gotten so bad that even when there is a Mid zerg (Anna playing today) he won't port to a defended level 10 keep (Fens) because we won't get any rps and it will just feed hibs/encourage them. So, Hibs take mostly empty keeps, farming the ~10 mids who will defend, over and over (while they die over and over), and the rest of the mids/albs roam around trying to avoid larger numbers and find smaller numbers, meanwhile everyone has speedwarps and speed 6 so fights don't generally happen unless you know its a wipe or get caught unlucky. This can only go on so long before even die hard players say, "what's the point"? I bought and used a 50% rp potion but got one kill off of an AFK toon on my dps heavy thane with a duoing shammy, all afternoon, thats it, meanwhile the hib bg killed us over and over. On Hib the two of us would have collected 60-100k ea per our average duo for an afternoon based on the past few months.
It's not lack of action it's lack of ramp/burst DPS.
I say this given Thanes are Mids highest ramp/burst DPS class when played r8-9+ with a good template and lots of damage passives. Back in the day Hibs were gimped a bit on DPS because they got baseline stun. Now hibs have animists and bains with the most DPS in game and ment/eld/chanter all produce similar dps to mid's highest dps toons. Mids used to be the only realm with celerity, now everyone gets it. Same for most abilities. Mids are partially at fault for Hib/Alb boosts over the last several years IMO. (Xyorman's zerg is responsible for some of this from what it seems, as they were very successful at organizing and coordinating and requiring members to play the right class (thane, pac healer, etc) as a result, to keep albs from leaving (Billings left anyways) albs got a bunch of giant buffs over a few years and mids just couldn't compete). Smite clerics with dps similar to thanes but also good heals/damage mitigations and mez/stun. Tics wiping whole zergs, cab/necro trains, Pallies with god group AF and group heals better than an average druid or healer with only 1.0 spec points, and enough points to engage you or 2h your pet in one swing if needed. This is why Hero much prefers attacking Mid. The action starved people log on mid to defend, but generally its just a donation and loss of supremacy pot x number of deaths. We form a group of 8 on mid with 3 healers and while we may not die, or not die often during a siege, we won't get any kills or maybe one, before the 8 of us are swarmed by 50. You can't even get kills with oil anymore as siege mitigation means you hit casters for what, 800 and they are grouphealed for that much before the other oil that was timed hits them.
It's not just sustained DPS, either it's the ability to ramp dps. My animist is delicious. I can cast 6-8 bombers on a target in range before (sometimes) it or its support realizes they need to heal, and then switch to my debuff dd. If you let me ramp cast on you even if your healer class is on it, they likely have to rez. Can' do that on Mid. When I started playing a bomber class (animist) I was really surprised the bombers were only on Hib, as ramp dps seems like something non-baseline stun realm would get. Tic works the same. With stun immunity my tic will amp on a hib caster and profit, more often than not, even if they have heals. That doesn't work on any class, playing on Mid.
This matters because if a realm can't get rps (Distinction: they don't need to win, just get rps during the fight), they will end up going away. This causes many times where Mids won't defend, and even Hero logs early because there is no action. THIS IS BAD PEOPLE.
Suggestions to give players a small reason to defend on mid.
1) Remove mid's AOE stun and make Healer baseline ST stun a 9 sec duration like all other stuns. Possibly let Pac healers keep their Insta AOE stun, 10 min reuse (but reduce radius). That makes it little different than say Minstrel R5 or Theug, etc. There's no real way to balance normal AOE stun, and while it's mostly been nerfed to the ground since release (100 radius now, max 16 targets), it's still useless or OP (see ST resetting aoe stun). As is its a "bargaining crutch" for class balance even though its almost never used. For certain types of fights if Albs/Hibs don't have x number of tanks they will just not do it; as a result they take their ball and go home and nobody fights.
Instead, make aug healers 50% (half) as good as smite clerics. No warlord, no pbaoe mez, no pbaoe snare, no insta pbaoe dd, no spec group or ST heal. No Holy hand (target heals enemy for 100 hits/swing), no radiant reflection (10% all damage reflection), no root/snare removal, no extended range AOE. GIVE Healers a 214 Spirit DD 2.8 cast at 46 Aug (Clerics get it at 44) and Ascendance at 50 Aug, and no lower level dd's (or any of the other stuff I listed. Healers would have the exact same CC ability as smite clerics if they had any DPS, a quarter of the utility, and still really bad heals vs decent heals for smite clerics.
2) Give Mid a bomber class/ramp class so groups don't have to coordinate 6 toons or 3 debuff toons to get a kill (rps). Thanes are likely the highest DPS class and they can't do it even with purge up and getting the jump on a caster with a mid assist. Getting some kills during a siege where every group attacking has several heal classes is key to keeping people interested in playing the realm with lower numbers. Heal lock had a ramp dot that was even in its original form less effective than bombers or tic ramp... but it was nerfed.
Give bombers to BD's unused spec (suppression), making Suppression 50% as useful as Arb animists, and remove the low delve aoe dd+ snare from suppression. Don't even worry about giving them the massive bomber 449 Delve! or the highest delve aoe in game (178!) or the dd+ 10% debuff or insta con debuff or 8x 204dd shrooms which all increase burst DPS significantly. If that idea won't fly, give RM's better damage. They are the red headed stepchild of the primary caster class, or make SM's an actual class people can play for zerg. I can pull up a list of abilities and Sup SM is pretty down there compared to any of the other pbaoe classes. It was already said that Locks have a lower delve pbaoe but I think that's fine, they have utility like necros/bains.
Comments
Healers do NOT need anything. They are fine as is. The utility overlap in Mid may not be as well designed as Hib or Alb but that's been a problem since release. We do not need a repeat of the horrid class balance patches that decimated the population in recent years. Bonedancers do NOT need more DPS. They already have the utility to be a massive interrupter. The biggest issue plaguing BDs is pet pathing which won't be solved without redesigning the class.
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
You mention coordination with debuff trains "as it should" but again this is higher level play and requires more than just voice chat. Most players can do voice chat but coordinating deeps and directions is difficult for most, I've found, and if you want to make a pickup group its not going to happen. Another reason I usually small man vs form a group is that it's just so hard to get people spun up. This argument ignores that this whole new patch is trying to get people to start playing. You want to increase the learning curve for more RPS for you and your 8man casting couch friends. I want to decrease the learning curve for more action for everyone. A debuff train will still make your group superior, don't worry. Feel free to make a video of asking in region for random people you don't play with on a normal basis and then having the debuff train/coordination actually work. Debuff train is also not a valid argument as its something each realm gets (although even you agree mids have less absolute damage output from even that).
I will add that I see you getting rps in hero's zerg but never defending mid EU time/ in anna zerg so I caution again that this is good for hibs as well as getting mids to defend vs superior numbers would increase action.
DAoC has never been casual friendly in RvR. It's a competitive environment and very niche as a result. Zerging is the closest you'll get to casual but an organized zerg will always best a disorganized zerg.
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
Hero regularly wipes the MID US BG on saturdays because he runs 50-60+ two hours before we even get our groups up and get started, and we usually only have 30ish when we form up and run out to find tons of Hibs in our path. Hard to defend keeps when all you need to do with numbers is MOC push bomb lord room as soon as you log in and can't even get your set groups together lol.
No class changes need to be made because EU mid cannot organize itself.
Mid US primetime while a public BG now this is also very very recent. They run TS3 only and prioritize their alliance and guilds over everyone else. Communicating is key and it’s a lot more difficult because the Meta is Discord now.
Class wise I’d put Healers at the very top, but unsure about “burst dps” disparity among the realms.
Hero’s and Vamps pouring over the walls again a recent meta change from the past.
GL
https://divoxutils.com/users/user_2ZTPHy8tjVF9LWMgujSZfCY9Mos/characters
While you might have fun you don't realize that you along with Hero have destroyed the game for so many. It's sad.
50 supp is probably the most popular spec on BD, it is definitely #1 in 8 mans.
You are asking to make changes to classes because the mid zerg isn't able to caster debuff train targets down? A caster nuking without a debuff will never kill anything, regardless of the realm.
Hero steamrolling the other BGs is sad and tbh I'd be ashamed running in his zerg knowing that.
What is so wrong with just learning the game mechanics instead of looking to change them? Assisting and debuff a target isn't rocket science, someone explains it once you get it.
If more people prioritized their alliance and guilds we might not be in this mess. Also who cares which voice comms are used? It's all free to download and most players will jump through hoops to copy .ini files or get a custom ui, or script spells together, but won't get in TS lol.
Also exclusion by the RVR alliance in Mid has been “fine” but it doesn’t overall help the realm. (Much less coordination again)
I’m glad that you run a primetime US open BG but let’s also be open and honest it’s most likely not a realm disparity.
GL
https://divoxutils.com/users/user_2ZTPHy8tjVF9LWMgujSZfCY9Mos/characters
Disagree with you that mid had no burst damage your tank train is second best in game to hib tank train which is the meta in game at moment.
If you can’t kill stuff on mid you ain’t playing right.
Your problem on mid is you got a spineless leader who won’t even aj hero or hit him in open field.
Albs have been bottom of food chain for a while every patch necros tics and even reavers got nerfed I was even told by someone in the know that the devs have given up on reavers in groups because we just don’t know what to do with them I mean seriously.
Hib is with out doubt the easiest realm to play from setting up a group to outright dps healing and crowd control.
The reason why Albs kick hero’s butt eu time is we have had his crap every day for the last 10 years and we know when to pick our fights with him.
And when we do hit him we usually win.
Mids need to stop whining get a better bg leader with balls and attack you sound like pussys not Vikings start hitting hero instead of the Albs when there’s a 3 way and you might see the realm balance change.
Didn't mean to come off defensive, was more reffering to the point about Hero killing the action. NOBODY is "excluded" from the US BG, it's public and all are welcome to join. Yes we form our first two groups from guild and the next two from alliance, but isn't that how it should be??
<claps hands to make another EU BG leader appear>
EU Mid won't communicate with each other on a realm scale to defend, all the groups just go do their own thing and say nothing, that's pretty much the issue. As far as what the EU Mid BG does I cannot speak much to that as I don't play often during that time.
This can be overcome with more equitable population. But as I've observed many times, people simply log across to Hib during the Herorius TZ. It's the simple thing to do, and all humans prefer pleasure to pain. I'm not going to criticize them. I'm the fool trying to tough it out and am having far less fun than they are, with only the rare sparkle of catapult-aggedon to gain any RPS from.
And the bit of criticism I'll offer as well that many Hib groups are "running 8 and not zerging". But they're in the same zone as Herorius and know they only have to survive 1 or 2 minutes because the BG will rock up after seeing the hammer or cup or the first spam.
Sure it is not easy to defeat a very experienced leader with motivated people that know how to follow orders, but then again the problem is not classes.
Unless they do something to prevent people from jumping on the bigger zerg bandwaggon, you will always have that problem. But you can't really prevent players from doing what they want when they are paying 15$/month to play a game.
So unless you make an outrageously big underdog bonus, why would anyone leave the Hero zerg? You get more RPs frying your brain in that zerg than trying to put up a resistance. Humans are naturally attracted to the path of least resistance, and I'd say zergers are even more inclined to that behavior than other playstyles, mainly because they usually consist of casual players with limited playtime that just want to enjoy a relax gaming session.
You look at the RP leaderboard from last week and a huge portion of the top 100 are Hero hib zergers. So the current RP system rewards the bigger zerg. Don't expect mids/albs to feel motivated to defend vs Hero then.
Realms have pros and cons. Saying "Hibs are OP and the devs know it" is just plain stupid. Hibs are really good in keep/siege game and hib tanker is a very strong comp. Albs shine in open field/8 man, actually in 8 man Alb is completely OP when good players are on that realm. Mids are the middle man, they are good at everything and have the deadliest caster trains. Mid caster groups dish out incredible damage.
I mean the whole point of that OP is to say : players in a zerg are casual players that don't know how to assist and debuff/nuke a target, so let's make some changes so we can kill stuff without assisting or a debuff. That's fundamental game mechanics that have been there for 18 years.
And I honestly can't believe someone came back with the "Let's give Healers a spec nuke" argument. I thought Muylae looked stupid enough when he first proposed that, didn't think someone else would have the courage to propose that again.
Just go sub-46 aug like almost everyone does, and problem solved!
@Shoke You can say I'm stupid that's fine. This is the internet. But you provided zero basis as to why this is a dumb argument. Please respond to this question:
Does giving healers at 46 aug a 214dd and at 50 aug ascendency make them more powerful than smite clerics or mentalists? If you say yes for some odd reason feel free to post all the spells/utility a healer at 50 aug or 46 aug would have access too, vs a smite cleric at 50 smite or 44 smite. Same with Ment. Smite healer would be an extremely watered down version of smite clerics, which is the point I'm making- there's no parity with respect to this very useful class archetype for solo/smallman/zerg. The argument for smite healer made much less sense before smite clerics got long duration mez and de-root.
@Menos It's not about winning, it's about getting some kills before wiping. Without that action will soon disappear which is bad for all.
Taking risks and winning / dying is fun.
PvEing keeps because half your BG will log if they die once isn't fun.
@Brut you make good points and again I'm not talking about open field and especially 8man where I believe Mids and hibs with chanters are very strong (though necro groups are also fotm). I'm talking mostly about defending keeps where much of the potential action happens and where Broadsword seems like they tried to put more of a focus over the last year. Tank burst damage doesn't work vs superior numbers attacking your keep. Tanks get killed quickly trying to run out and kill healers/casters, even in a train.
My suggestion is simply to buff casted dps on certain class types so that it's possible for one or two characters assisting to get a kill or two while defending, before they lose the keep. Without that keep taking becomes mindless as even returning players get disheartened with their inability to get any rps during a keep defense. I don't have this problem on smite cleric or wiz defending alb keeps:)
I disagree. I believe a few spells will make defending keeps worthwhile which will mean that keeps aren't just pve'd which will mean that both sides have more action.
It's a community issue that we can't solve at this point with throwing another leader there simply because there won't be enough people even with a dedicated 8man helping, to avoid simply donating RPS. It's not an issue on Albs and they don't have the pve keeps issue because they can already do this with their caster dps.
But what are you trying to accomplish? What will a 46 aug 214 DD do anything for midgard? You are asking to be a Thane with heals, why not just play a Thane if you want to kill people? If you want to melee and heal, play a valk, if you want to just heal, play a Healer. Why do you want to change?
Your proposal solves absolutely nothing, you are asking for changing a class for the sake of changing a class. Your argument is that a 46 aug healer will not be useful, so why even make the change? A healer is already a super powerful class, why strip it down to make it look like a bad smite cleric, what's the point? I suppose that your 214 DD would scale in different levels of Aug spec? So if I spec 40 Aug (typical aug healer spec), then I would have like a 179 DD? So I could moc and clear my pets in 1 nuke? You see the can of worms you are opening?
My argument isn't that you are stupid, I don't judge individuals, but the idea that you put forward in your post isn't solving anything, it will just create a giant mess. That's why the idea is stupid, because you obviously didn't spend more than 2 minutes thinking it through.
Can't you see how bad this would actually be? You are asking for a class to be able to kill things on its own? If you place that in a 8 man context, mid would just need to have 1 of that class to blap stuff? In a siege environment, I could put 3-4 of that class in a group and insta kill heavy tanks? You see how bad that would become?
You can't balance a game around people that don't want to learn basic game mechanics, or that are in a context where they can't win because they are heavily outnumbered.
Changing a class won't change anything, because you are putting a band aid on a problem by making a class stupid OP (because yes to be able to kill people on your own in a keep siege environment will need your changes to make that class OP).
What BS needs to do is penalize people for joining Hero and dramatically buff the RPs of the underdog realm(s). They took out underdog pop bonuses for some very obscure reason (amongst other really strange unrequired changes they made when launching EC), so players don't have any reason not to steamroll other realms with the Hero BG.
I agree with @Shoke that the under population bonus needs to return so players have an incentive to play an underpopulated realm. The populations between the realms are usually close during US prime but they are typically skewed towards Hib during EU. Add some consistent BG leaders in Alb and Mid who are not afraid to /release during EU prime and you would eventually see the population spread out evenly.
"The type of of dev communication of 30 mins a day updates mentioned here just isn't feasible." - Carol_Broadsword
"Our Studio. Our Rules." - http://www.mythicentertainment.com/
Oh and free charge and vanish.
Sure, I get that. But they can only fix classes, they cannot fix people. The problem is that there is one guy who is dedicated to leading his realm to victory and a lot of people who trust him, are highly motivated and follow his orders. Take Hero out of the equation and the situation would be completely different.
So direct that speech to Hero and convince him that if he doesn't let people win every now and then there will at some day be no more people to fight against. I absolutely love what he does, but then he probably does it a little too well.
I've seen some games with a translator, would that help any? Or simply the addition of more players and eventually we will get less of a language barrier.
That would be a solution, if Broadsword would integrate a sophisticated translation like DeepL into the game people could actually talk to each other much easier.
Promise that the population will more even out. (Or at least make the mids willing to keep fighting the zerg) win-win.
@shoke I think the point she was trying to make is that the proposal for high level aug healer would just be a watered down smite cleric. It's an interesting comparison, and while she asked for you to comment on whether it would be more OP than smite cleric, I note nobody responded to that. It would obviously be a very weak smite cleric (but with speed which WASN'T noted), so there's that.
If you read her original post she also says there would be no scaling down of weaker dd's, just the level 46 version, so I guess she probably did at least consider the can of worms you propose.
"why not play a thane if you want to kill people. If you want to melee and heal, play a valk". Hm...
Thane doesn't have near the utility of my smite cleric. At least from personal experience I eat them for lunch, so I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Mid definitely has the short end of the stick between thane/smite cleric. Valk/Pally is also laughable. Have't seen a valk in anything but a solo situation (where they aren't actually that OP either) in a very long time. We ran one in a zerg surf 8man simply for the r5 but that's about the only reason to do so. Pin is good but you lose a lot. Do I think healers need a dd? No, but I don't know how to fix this disparity without putting thanes over the top. The whole concept is an interesting idea and something I've struggled with as well. How do you incentivize players to play the weaker side.
Great to hear. How has the Mid action been over the last week?
I understood the original post. Again, what are you trying to accomplish. A smite cleric is good in solo/smallman, but sucks everywhere else. So you want to play something similar, but worst? I don't get the purpose of the change, and change for the sake of changing in a game where balance is fragile is a dangerous move, that's what I was trying to say.
Valks are strong in 8 man, and the only thing you lose going for pin is a d/q shear, which isn't that useful. I don't think valks are good in zergs, they don't bring that utility at the zerg scale. I don't get your argument there.
Why do you think there is a disparity? This post started by saying that Euro timezone sucks because Hero runs the hib zerg and that getting an assist train together was too complicated for casuals. You will never solve anything by buffing random classes, you need to dramatically buff underdog RPs if you want to maybe see an opposing BG.
Thanes were buffed recently. The Mid energy train already deals massive damage, if you buff Thanes you break the game.
Are buffing underpop RPS the way to go? Is a realm loyalty bonus the way to go? If I read it right the OP is saying neither, let people play how they will but you need to make it so that a solo/duo can at least get a kill or two- on any realm- while defending otherwise in the long term the game must change. If that's it, I'd agree that its easier to get rps as a solo /duo while defending vs a zerg. Then we have to talk about what the game is (lots of casuals) vs what it should be (strong guilds/dedicated players playing one realm).
By the way I think the spreadhealing stuck to keep walls is just plain stupid, having R12 AoM9 heavy tanks running on walls is also stupid.
However, to be able to allow a class to solo/duo kill stuff in keeps would require that class to have absurd dps. If you take that and bring it to any other aspect of the game (solo, smallman, 8 man, zerg open field) then that class becomes broken.
A good example is the heretic. People weren't playing them a whole lot, so now they became stupidly retarded. Now half the alb zerg are heretics.