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Army imbalance? Skill/maturity/numbers
Sornin
Member Posts: 1,133
I am curious as to what other people's thoughts are on possible army (Order vs. Destruction) imbalance. Here are mine.
Now, World of Warcraft, which I have played since beta until recently, has taught me three very generalized truths (other games support this, I find, but I will pick on WoW as it is the clearest, most obvious example):
1.) The Alliance has far greater numbers on just about any server, often doubling and tripling the Horde
2.) The Horde has better PvPers (I was Alliance, mostly, so I am not bragging here)
3.) The Horde seems to be, in my opinion, a little more mature (the few Horde characters I had generally had better encounters with fellow players)
Point 1 is fact, evidenced by various census data - the Alliance is unquestionably larger. Point 2 is subjective, but I think most would agree that, when numbers are not an issue, the Horde tends to win the majority of PvP encounters. If you do not, then you are likely on an odd server or only battle with awesome friends that do not accurately display the norm. Point 3 is again subjective, your mileage may vary, but it is not a significant point. However, I do find maturity (not age...totally different thing) and skill to be highly correlated.
The obvious comparison is the Alliance to Order, and the Horde to Destruction. To be succinct, if not a bit glib, good versus evil.
Is good doomed to have well-meaning hero aspirants by the dozen who lack skill be crushed by evil, who seems to draw more mature, more skilled, yet fewer players? What is the reason for this, anyway? Why do people who tend to play on the side of evil also tend to be better?
I have a few theories, but it is unimportant. Basically, I get the feeling that WAR will play out similarly to WoW in that Order will have the numbers advantage, but Destruction will have the skill advantage. The thing is, like in WoW, instancing tends to remove numbers advantages, and since WAR will have a lot of instancing, it would follow that the more skilled army, regardless of size, will win.
Obviously there is little EA Mythic can do if this is the case, as ultimately it is the players who determine which army will win each battle, but I still worry that army imbalance will make the game less fun than it should be.
Hell, after losing Arathi Basin on an Alliance alt of mine eleven times in a row (yes, I feel shame), I can vouch for how unfun it can be.
Comments
Meh the ones who'll act poorly who buy this game will last a week before they get sick of either the constant pvp or they're too thick to realize that it isn't a WoW 2. Though the numbers of what side the majority will play is unknown I really think the there's a shift in population nowadays. So maybe we might see Destruction outnumber Order it's still unknown. It does seem that people are attracted to the "bad side" now then it used to be, or in other games. It might happen or it might not, but really basing it on how WoW works in PvP is a in the right terms in my opinion. Horde might be able to win day in and out in PvP but later on once the server gets a lot older, and from my own experience, the Horde becomes really cliquish almost to the point where it was high school it was just all cliques, and they usually don't work well together. Then there might be a lot of server switches and whatnot and the server becomes balanced or the balance shifts to where Alliance works well and Horde becomes uncooperative.
Everything I've seen so far leads me to believe Destruction will be the more popular faction, but I don't think it'll be as exaggerated as it is in WoW
- Alliance characters in WoW look more appealing (to most people anyway) that Horde characters. All races in WAR look about equally badass. Witch Hunters have a pimp hat and Chaos is, well, Chaos.
- Dogs of War NPCs should balance out the scenarios. As long as their AI doesn't totally suck I think it'll work fairly well.
- People who come over from WoW know that it sucks (as a pvp player) to be on the overpopulated faction. So they'll tend to align themselves with the less popular faction when they start their characters.
.. I could think of more but I think you get the point. At this point, nobody really knows anyway.
Now i played WoW since beta(never liked it only played wth friends) but your mostly right on what your saying but relaly it just matters on the server you know?
and oh my a allie player that thinks this "3.) The Horde seems to be, in my opinion, a little more mature (the few Horde characters I had generally had better encounters with fellow players)" Go you so right there.
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.
QFT, Prettier< Badass in my opinion. And heres to hoping that the Dogs of War don't suck.
I hate to keep draging this through the mud but....
DAoC was a highly competitive pvp game and mostly because of how complex it was to play you didnt have a ton of younger players. But the elite guilds often wanted to play underdog/spoiler role because its more rewarding in the end. Alot of these guilds were midgard/hibernia which had monster races and more resembles the horde. So a bunch of the daoc elite guilds moved to wow and rolled horde. Its a trickle down effect. You get groups of good mature pvpers and they create other pvp players. Just like the alliance players roll alliance for lore and story so alot of them come from story driven EQ.
So the daoc players started out in their late teens early 20's , then played a game for 4 years and moved to wow. That makes them all mid to late 20's now which is why they seem more "mature" (early 20's were copnsitered younginz" on my daoc server /shrug)
This is also why it "seems" everyone will roll Destruction. ALl of the normmal PK'er/Midgard/Horde like to play the badguy role. the common player picking up the box will roll order and the fans of story and all that crao will also roll order.
I agree with your experience that horde dominated pvp and had better teamwork. However I believe the reasons for this are different.
Here is what I personally feel is the deal:
- Alliance had a large distribution of casuals
- Horde had a large distribution of hardcore
Obviously there are more casuals in the world than hardcore, which accounts for why alliance had the greater population but worse performance in pvp.
I tracked the level advancement of several players from release time on my server for the first month, and i noticed that a larger percentage of the average horde player was always leveling faster and higher than alliance. Many didn't seem to ever log out. Alliance had some of these people as well but from my point of view there was a big difference in the quantity. The first players to hit max level were horde (again, on my server). It was far more likely to find horde twinks in pvp than alliance twinks. Again - back to the fact that they played a lot more than the typical alliance and they had the time to twink up.
As for maturity... barrens chat was some of the worst in the game. I think any of the starter alliance areas paled in comparison to it. But this was my experience.
As for age.. im actually going to go out on a limb here and say that there were probably more younger people in horde than alliance. Main reasons being:
- Adults with jobs and other responsibilities simply don't have the time to truly be hardcore compared to a younger person. And horde was definitely hardcore.
- Kids going through their teen years are by nature rebellious and typically want to play the bad guys and rebel against authority
That being said, I think the OP is probably very right in that we will see the same thing playing out with destruction beating Order in most encounters but order beating in population.
Of course, none of this accounts for problems with class/race imbalance. But i'll let the devs worry about that.
Frankly, any post that starts out with a generalized overview of WoW PvP and then uses that to buttress the argument that "Basically, I get the feeling that WAR will play out similarly to WoW...." should be assigned to the dustbin of short-sighted evaluations.
I realize that the current trend of people with limited MMORPG experiences feel that MMORPG history begins with World of Warcraft and that ALL games must now be rated and compared to WoW, but surprisingly this is NOT TRUE.
If Warhammer is to be compared to any game, it should be Dark Age of Camelot -- you know, the game that was the first form of RvR combat created by the same company that is developing Warhammer Online.
What you should realize is that the first thing players decide on is RACE. The better looking avatars will garner a greater share of the playerbase than "ugly" characters.
~ Conclusion: 1) Greenskins and Dwarves will have the lowest realm populations and 2) Empire/Chaos (Human) and High Elves/Dark Elves will have the largest share of server populations.
Next, players decide on CLASS. The more powerful classes in combat will be discovered during beta balancing.
~ Conclusion: 1) Heavy-armored/high health classes (tanks) will be in the majority and 2) high-DPS caster classes (mages) will be next in popularity.
Since both Elf factions and both Human factions -- good and evil -- will be good-looking, attractive characters, these realms will be heavily populated on both sides.
Greenskins and Dwarves will be the lower population realms and therefore will claim to be better at RvR. This will be false.
In the case where good realms slightly outnumber evil realms, the evil realms will always say they lose due to population imbalance. This also will be false.
In the case where good realms are beaten by evil realms, the good realms will always say they are nerfed.
Evil realms will always feel they are better at RvR. However, when they lose to good realms, they will say they were zerged.
Both sides will accuse the other side of being lamers, cheaters and exploiters. This will probably be verified with enough evidence to ban hundreds of accounts.
~ Ancient Membership ~
I dont know about you but I have video of my group beating 24 Hibs with just 8 mids.
I loved fighting zergs.
As for the relevance, whom do you think the game is going to be composed of? What game is going to bleed the most players for WAR? Is it going to be DAoC? Nope. Even if 100% of its population leaves that will be, what, 50,000 players? Not many, at any rate. How about EverQuest 2? No again.
It is going to be composed mostly of former WoW players (I defy anyone to challenge this)! Therefore, comparing it to WoW is the best comparison, as the game is going to be populated by the same people! Will a certain demographic of WoW players show up more in DAoC? Oh, I am quite sure it will. Still, when looking at who will be playing WAR, WoW players who PvP are your best bet.
Also, DAoC had three sides (dynamic balance, anyone?), not two, and none of them were clearly good nor evil, so that removed the moral decision for a large part. WoW is more similar to WAR in these aspects.
WoW and WAR are going to have far more in common in terms of players and faction/realm distribution, the topic I am discussing, than DAoC and WAR, that is for sure. If DAoC was still a major game, and especially if WAR had three sides, I would look more at that, but neither of those things are true. I keep stressing three sides because this provides dynamic balance, in that even if one side is dominant, it must beat two that can work together, at least in a limited capacity. In a two-sided game, there is no allying, no X-factor...the better side is the better side and that will not change easily.
However, amidst your holier-than-thou drivel that smacks of self-importance via "I played things before WoW so I win", you do have some good points. Race attractiveness is important, yes. I definitely feel that the Horde, having no traditionally attractive races until TBC with Blood Elves, did suffer for that (in terms of numbers, at least). The Alliance had Humans and Night Elves( which I think actually both have terrible male models) to attract those seeking a sexy character.
WAR definitely seems like sexiness will be more fairly distributed. The Empire is pretty nice, High Elves will be sexy, and for Destruction, Dark Elves will be sexy, too. Chaos has some physical appeal, I suppose...Marauders are sort of grotesque, however.
I still feel as though Order will be more populated due to morality (people tend to good, as it has more of a heroic feel), and that Destruction will, for various reasons, be more skilled. Like a previous poster mentioned, it is almost as though the hardcore, skilled gamers pick evil/underpopulated sides on purpose.
Will this bear out? I do not know, but in less than a year we will have some idea. Until then, "theorycrafting" passes the time nicely.
While you can say certain people will be more favorable to "nice looking and the good guy's mentality," but there is more to the equation also. Larger factions will be more inclined to simply steamroll the enemy while the smaller factions have to use tactics and actually "think" more often then those who simply rush in and smash and bash hoping the enemy dies before they have to be rezzed. I remember when DAOC came out and on Morgan La Fey server that the Hibbies were the main force and Albs and Middies had to try and work together because so many Hibs there were 50 long before the others were. Once the other two realms got more 50s, a lot fo those early Hibbies stopped RVR (making new characters or going to other servers or selling their accounts on Ebay) because many in that group didn't want balanced and fair fights. The only thing that can stop the PVP is the players themselves. Some people simply do not like to loose or even try fighting when they can be absolutely sure of victories so they just jump to a server that has the faction they want that is winning.
DAOC was very well balanced until the later expansions when they had to introduce new races and more skills and abilities. The orginal version had all three realms having the same skills just different graphics and names for their skills and abilities. I believe Mythic will pull off a solid PVP system for WarHammer. We just have to wait and see how the players on each of the servers act. Some servers will have a more mature, balanced, and solid game play then others will.
Though I have to admit I much more prefer the 3 factions then just two. Two is always point A to point B. When you have three factions those fights can become truely interesting. I personally used to love those large scale battles at the mile gates with 30 people on each side of the game. Once the battle finally took hold and one side was starting to win here would come another force of 30 from the other realm and you had a whole nothing mix of who do that decide to focus more on, how many people you have left to fight both realms with, should you run. All of that made DAOC really interesting to me in the Frontiers from the mile gates to taking keeps. I also enjoy that PVP there as it had more of a point then smash and bash like WOW is. So here is to hoping WAR makes PVP interesting.
It's not deeply complicated that a lot of people who want to play high fantasy games want to play elves. If the character creation enforces an "either / or" choice of sides, then the one with the elves will tend to get more. WAR has picked up on that: where WoW launched with elves on only one side, then added elves to the other side later, WAR is launching with both High and Dark elves, which should even things a little than it might have otherwise.
Bottom line it's not important if the game numbers on each side of the battle are not even, if the game is well designed. People who enjoy a challenge will tend to take the underdog's side, not because it is "evil" (indeed Tauren in WoW are naturalistic, the "good" Night Elves are trying to cheat time and death) but because they want the challenge. The PvP thing in WoW is also a bit of a self-forfiling prophecy to an extent - being outnumbered on a PvP server means that you are going to face PvP pretty constantly, and as a Horde player at low levels 5 minutes is a long wait to get into a battle - so you simply get more practice. The economies are also skewed, so as a Horde player it tends to be a lot harder to obtain items and enchants, so you have to learn to play with what you have. Then when you get the twinky gear ...
I appreciate the OP point of view, but frankly I think the disparity was for one and only one reason: looks.
Most people prefer to play pleasant looking races, horde races are all butt ugly, even the taurens, Alliance races are all nice and cute, minus the dwarf and guess which race is the least alliance played race? dwarves!
more proof to this point: expansion release with blood elf, cute and nice and Draenei, monstrous. And the blood elf are far more popular than Draenei, as much as I have seen of course, and most seems to be ex alliance players.
So Blizzard thought the same, maybe, and did the blood elves/draenei to balance things out? Dunno, but it did somewhat. I cannot say if the balance is perfect or what but my guild has loads of ex alliance players and most of them are blood elves, might be a coincidence but horde is also starting to lose more often in warsong gulch
In the end, if it was the looks, WAR is looking more or less good. WE have 2 ethereal beautiful, 1 tough but nice and 1 butt ugly race for each side (Helf Vs Delf, Norsca human vs Empire human and Greenskins vs Dwarves).
Destruction seems to have a lack of females at the moment with many male only classes (and greenskins lacking them completely), so order might have an edge there, especially as chaos norsca might look a bit weird, especially the zealot and the marauder.
All in all, though, on the look side, WAR is much more balanced than WoW. We will see if the game reach mainstream market and if a a rough balance can be achieved.
"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime"
I dont think the horde were any more mature than alliance in WOW (I Played horde)
Ugh Barrens Chat FTL
While the alliance/horde imbalance can be proven, I'm not so sure you can truly draw any other conclusion about the horde being more/less skilled than alliance at PVP. On my server Horde tended to work together more than a lot of alliance teams since we were outnumbered 2.5/1. When you're that badly outnumbered, you just tend to get to know others and work with them instead of see them as rivals in the faction grind.
However, the one area where alliance had a huge advantage was a larger population to draw raid members from, which meant it was much easier for a "casualcore" gamer to get good raid gear as alliance than as horde. Also, alliance tended to simply dominate world PVP and would often own horde cities before the dishonor rule came into effect.
How this will play out in WAR is anyone's guess - if open area PVP counts for anything, the side with most people will likely have the advantage. If the instanced-based scenarios count for more, then probably the smaller faction will have the advantage. Fortunately, having a large population to run massive PVE raids shouldn't be as much of a factor.
As far as which group will be most popular to more mature gamers, at the local GW store most of the older guys actually play the good side (Empire, dwarves,etc) with teens being in love with Chaos and Dark Elves. I personally think one faction won't dominate over the other because there's plenty of cool classes/races to choose from.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
There was a study done sometime ago that showed most of the alliance players were older than the horde players typically. Dig around in the wow forums for the link
Your views on the horde are indeed subjective. I've been on the opposite side of yours. Depends on the server I would imagine. I've played 3 different ones and almost all of the horde players were much more childish than the alliance players and the alliance players excelled at PVP against the horde.
As to imbalances... I think the Empire will indeed have more than chaos simply because most people don't want to be evil.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
I see your point about WoW players, but it's hardly fair. Given the market, the majority of players on new MMOs have played at least one old MMO in their lives. Given that nearly everyone and their inbred cousin has played WoW at some point, it's almost inevitable there will be a large ex-WoW playerbase in WAR. That doesn't mean they'll be the immature, looks-before-lore/ability, "ZOMG I R Legolad teh Elfin Rangerzorz, lolol I pwn joo" types that you're worried about. In fact, many ex-WoW players have left it because they weren't those types of people. So you may be surprised by the playerbase. I intend to play every race and class at least once myself, and then stick to the one whose gameplay suits me best. Each race having its own uinque classes helps in that. in WoW, NElves were the majority of hunters becaues of the choices, they looked "coolest". In WAR, If you want a Hunter type, it's Goblin Squig Herder or byebye.
Oh and as to the pvp and all that....both sides complain the other side in WoW is the mature one that wins more battles. Playing Horde, I hear my share of complaints about the kiddies on Horde and how Alliance is so much more together (and yes, that was before the BElves)
I found teamwork and maturity to be lacking on horde. I would say that alliance was a bit more mature than horde.
I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, The dreams in which I'm dieing are the best I've ever had.
good thread and posts!..alot of opposing views, and they all seem to look 100% correct - so much randomness in RVR/PVP type games.
As for W.A.R. the game should be as random as any other rvr type game, for the most part....in DAOC, many servers had different results and high populated realms that wftpwn'd rvr from day1 to present.
On one server it would be hibs that owned....on another, mids....and on yet another , albions - likewise. but the nice thing about the daoc set-up with 3 realms that i like..is the interesting( as another poster mentioned) and diversity of gameplay it adds. i wouldnt care if it was only 3 opposing teams with no realms in a game.....soon as that 3rd team is added..all heck breaks loose!
also..the power shifted from realm to realm (whether as a results of population influxes, or patch nerf/buffing) from time to time and from Server to server the outcome was random !:)
I really dont think any single highly-populated server on daoc, possessed any 1 realm that wftpwn'd since the day daoc went public. so much has shifted,changed and been uplifted and switched around...its a fun type of game, sometimes annoying, hence my dislike for shrooms! The power-struggle in a 3 team/realm game is a pain-in-the-arse at times, such as: in DAOC, getting a relic (like a flag in a CTF game) after hours of fighting then just about reaching your destination to place the relic/flag in the winning fortress/keep...then BAM....the third team/realm shows up blocking your progression, but it is fun beyond compare when you have a population that is thriving!
the fight never stops. then after your team is beat down..the third teams runs off with the flag/relic and head back to their fortress/keeps....then BAM..they get hit by the first team but now the first team has reinforcements.
mheheh,.....alot of fun. I enjoy 2 sided conflicts.......but i seem to enjoy the 3 sided "alot" more.
WAR will probably see the same random breakdown as DAOC did, when it comes to players choosing sides.....different servers yielding different results agewise/side-wise/class-wise..and after time goes by they will go up and down in populace also. sure they may have a year or two of certain servers to be dominated by one side...but , it'll change....in time.
alot of great points made about playing bad sides and good sides vs newcomers and elite guilds from other games, have been made on this post. they all ring true.
lets just hope WAR will indeed 'mix-it-up' alot more than previous games have done..
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I would be very suprised if EAMythic messed up so bad with the balancing that it would be unfun to play.
With maturity in Warhammer, I've notice a direct relation to the base visual 'coolness' of races to the maturity of players/guilds. The more 'cool' the race, the lesser the maturity levels of the player(s). (No offence intended to people who are quite clearly not an immature player of course.)
Most obvious is some of the Chaos guilds. They are brilliantly created visually and look very daunting to be up against. You see some of the posts/guilds flying around and its clear that a lot of the 'l337 h4x0rz' types are going for Chaos as a race.
This goes all the way down to the scale to High Elves, which we know almost nothing about, other than immature individuals see this race as a bunch of fancy-pants posh poofs. In reality, although they may not be very tough, they will be masters of hand to hand combat and magic, and will subsequently make mincemeat out of most enemies.
I doubt we will see as many casual guilds in WAR, especially those who don't take part in PVP. Firstly: this is more of a hardcore game, and they are purposely marketing the game as this. Secondly: If you don't do as well or even participate in PVP, the end game parts of WAR will not be as fun, as there is a lot lot more PVP going on. Players won't get thier money's worth if they don't do PVP, and are better of (imo) playing another game that is more PVE based.
To conclude, I believe (and hope) that the distribution of casual/hardcore and PVP/PVE based will be fairly even. If it turns out that more hardcore players go for one side than the other, well I'm sure there will be good guilds on both sides to give the opposition a run for their money.
Also, in WoW there was no evil side, humans enslaved orcs but thrall became a chieftan and helped with freedom, undead are just dead that didnt want to be mindless zombies of the scourge, tauren are flower loving cows, and trolls are just pals of the orcs that helped them with freedom/the battle of mount hyjal.
So basically, you are right to worry that good side will be filled with players that aren't as skilled, but I don't think it is going to be a problem in this game, and also, Horde in WoW are ugly imo, I think all of what I have seen in warhammer looks cool, even if it is evil or good.
Though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
-Sun Tzu, the Art of War
In short, WAR is different in wow.
Neither side is suppose to be good or evil. It's just about fighting.
That being said, anybody who isn't following the game will realize this (and most who are still won't).
I think the game will even itself out pretty well. There aren't going to be the same differences that there are between alliance and horde. WAR is going to be a much grittier game in general (in terms of graphical appeal -meaning both sides are going to look mean-)
I mean I can't make up my mind between dwarfs, chaos, and empire...
Yeah killing folks and chopping up their bodies to throw into a portal is good.
Sorry, I don't buy into the whole "not good or evil". Chaos is obviously the bad guys and very evil.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
here's a noble idea:
Play whatever race/class you want, whatever seems most interesting to you, and actively seek out players of like minded maturity, skill, and involvement. Afterall, the true make/break point of a game is very personal, we all have different tastes and like/dislikes.
The reason younger gamers like to play on the "winning" side, the side with far more people (Alliance for WoW) is a very deep seeded psychological issue... part of the failing social structure that has turned many of the generation into the kind of players we all complain about on forums...
They've been raised with Gold stars and being 'special' and 'unique' and just can't stand the idea of losing, of not being special and the best... they never got a good whoop'n as kids, they started playing video games during the noob-friendly movement as I like to call it, with save points every 3 feet and infinite lives and 30 progressively easier difficulty settings...
It's sad really...
The MMORPG.com staff writer said it best though, the more "old school" gamers who played the 'evil' races in DaoC and WoW etc will mostly roll Destruction while the WoW transfers and EQ / LOTR kids will mostly roll Order, and Order will outnumber Destruction 2 to 1 at best.
But it's ok, I like those odds. Just more stunties for me to kill.
Don't know why you're coming up with theories about WAR based on your experiences in a PvE game with PvP tacked on, but I think there are two major things you are neglecting to factor in here:
1) A healthy chunk of the WAR community will be composed of Warhammer tabletop and pen-and-paper enthusiasts. The game has been around so damn long (since 1983) that you're looking at a bunch of hobbyists who have been immersed in this world for a good bit of their lives and most of whom are all grown up at this point. Sure, age doesn't guarantee maturity, but in general, an older crowd will negate much of the juvenile crap that seems to dominate some current MMORPGs.
2) EA/Mythic brought us THE definitive PvP MMORPG with DAoC. They've been tackling the headaches and balance issues that come with PvP games for the past seven years. That coupled with the fact that Games Workshop who own the Warhammer IP are very protective and selective with their license give me the utmost confidence in this game being as fair and balanced as a current PvP title could possibly be.