Hrm. Taking a page from the PotBS playbook I see....
 

Hot damn, that is some serious BS.

ck-Yeebo
 

A little part of me shriveled up inside me when I read those last two words. How cruel of you, or perhaps, how cruel of Mythic. I really thought they were going to do something about this, maybe they still will.
 

I've read some feasible suggestions on this very blog on how this imbalance problem (if it can be catagorized as such) could be tackled. Undoubtedly Mythic will have thought hard and long about this potential issue, and apparently they do not see an immediate solution other then just removing info on realm balance.

With PVP/RVR being a key feature, could this be a potential game breaker? It will be interesting to see how this will evolve in a live situation...
 

Maybe I'm just naive, but couldn't the reason for the removal of the /count command be that It would put even further stress on the servers, and make It harder for them to get the stress data they want?

Correct me If I'm wrong, but I'd imagine that a few hundred players using the /count command on a highly populated servers would cause some serious extra workload.
 

Good point haggen. Although it would mean that Mythic implemented the /count command in a way it could almost work like a dos attack. Its possible though.
 

I'm guessing the count command will put trivial stress on the server. The server probably keeps a running total of players as they log in and out, and /count just reports those numbers. If it actually performs a count each time, then that's just dumb.

I'd say that RvR balance is still possibly the most important challenge Mythic need to overcome to ensure the success of this game. Zerg victories soon become dull, and no-one enjoys being steamrollered by vastly superior numbers.

Also, early balance problems will be exasperated as those on the losing side are tempted to reroll or switch server. It's going to be interesting to see what Mythic's plans are in this respect.
 

One way to balance things is to have the reward for dominating in PvP be access to unique PvE content otherwise locked out. That should mean people in the winning side drop out of the battle, and go do that instead.

Can't be the only solution, but could help.
 

I'm guessing unwise is correct though, I just didn't think of it in that way :)

the removal of /count and the Order/destruction count from the server selection could also be a experiment from their side to see If people have a larger tendency to join the underdogs when they don't know which side is the underdogs.

I just find It hard to belive that they're trying to hide the innate realm inbalance issues from the players. But then again, maybe I'm just naive :)
 

Not that I disagree with you, but here's my experience after a marathon session of WAR. I spent the day leveling and RvRing with 2 of my friends, and we chose Order. Of course, our side was heavily outnumbered, but we still won 6 out of 8 scenarios we played, and I don't know why, but Order held its own through out the world's RvR areas. We checked all 3 areas, and in each we'd often find the battlefield objectives of the RvR area held by Order. We had a crazy amount of fun, and yes we were outnumbered, but it didn't seem to matter that much. Once a fight gets over roughly 40 x 40, it becomes a bit of a see-sawing (fun as hell) stand-off anyway.

I'm sure I had a different perspective of the night's exploits than someone running around solo did, though. The 3 of us rolled a tank, a healer, and a damage-dealer just to cover all our bases, and we found that just through coordinating on Ventrilo, the 3 of us could completely turn around a pitched open-world battle.

Take that for whatcha will. :)
 

Lol - What you don't see can't hurt you... Brilliant!

Unfortunately this temporary solution won't hold out for ever, but at least it will shut the bloggers up until they can fix the server imbalance problem.
 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the possibility that the removal of /count, while not solving the problem clearly, perhaps reduces the ability of people to deliberately join the numerically superior side.

A contributory factor in realm imbalance is the desire of most players to be on the winning team. Removing /count perhaps helps alleviate this problem somewhat, at least for those not bothered enough to do more detailed research.
 

Lol the /count was put into beta for RvR testing. The idea was for beta testers to take the responsibilty for balancing the servers themselves.

Didn't work of course.
 

I smell AoC myself.
Why have a way to count total players?
People will start going to all the forums stating "Mythic has this many scrips in WAR" based on that count.
Then when that count goes down..

DOOM!!!!

Then we will start seeing "Myth-fail" logos on peoples forum sigs, etc.

This may be a GOOD thing.
 

And so it begins lol. Next you will hear how it is Rock Paper Scissors and you cannot expect to beat all classes.

Well I'm in WAR beta & the Eldar beta with teh NDA still and I'll tell you now, there are classes that are just play fodder for ALL classes and if you chose them by mistake, get ready for a bad RVR experience.

It if very frustrating considering I had high hopes for WAR. oh well I'll be playing anyway but not as the fodder.

And here is s tip, pick an OP class if you want but don't get upset when they get nerf balanced in the next few months because it will happen.
 

Soru has a great point. In Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™, whichever side of the PvMP fight is winning gets access to the Delving of the Fror. Some nights, the creeps just say, "Let them take a third keep. We'll wait five minutes for them to pour into the Delving then wipe the map."

That does not work very well in reverse, because creeps don't care all that much for PvE content.
 

And here is s tip, pick an OP class if you want but don't get upset when they get nerf balanced in the next few months because it will happen.

I never get why someone would complain about something like this, if a class is overpowered, of course it will get balanced in some way if the game is being managed well.


Well I'm in WAR beta & the Eldar beta with teh NDA still and I'll tell you now, there are classes that are just play fodder for ALL classes and if you chose them by mistake, get ready for a bad RVR experience.

Or just wait for a bit until they get balanced (How quickly and well the balancing occurs will be a main way to judge how successful the game will be.)
 

@dillon

I'm not complaining but I've seen it time & time again. There is a major flock to the BW right now because he is pretty powerful. This will cause an uproar from the uninformed, or the ignorant when he loses that huge advantage.

But you are right, the next 3-6 months after live will determine their outcome. I'll dabble at launch but the only way to see if the game will remain viable is to see what happens later.
 

"WAR" is looking to be a crap mmog, goofy marketing, poorly planned development... we'll see how it turns out...
 

There will be at least one big patch before release and it will include major balancing. They have already mentioned changes to the nukers, to the stealthers, to engineer, magus, squig herder etc. Now isn't really the right time to start talking about balance.

As for /count, I don't believe any game leaves that kind of thing in for release. It is a beta tool. I'll be impressed if they keep the actual total server population numbers for release.
 

I'm not complaining but I've seen it time & time again. There is a major flock to the BW right now because he is pretty powerful. This will cause an uproar from the uninformed, or the ignorant when he loses that huge advantage..

Ah, that makes more sense. (Fortunately there are no official forums for Warhammer for these sorts of complaints to get focused on, though it does seem quite likely that a lot of community forums may have trouble with this sort of stuff.)
 

This post is a tad on the reactionary side, don't you think? Maybe Mythic wants to take the preview weekend as an opportunity to see how the sides balance out when people don't know exactly how stacked they are? I know that's a crazy idea and all and it's obvious that secrecy is going to be their only tool for trying to solve the realm balance issue.
 

If people choose to join the winning side, it would be funny if /count returned incorrect results.

If Destruction is higher pop, report Order as having the population, and watch people switch to Order in an attempt to join the winning team.
 

Well, it's not the only tool, but it's the only one that's gonna work for a 3 day beta event. ;)

Seriously... realm balance isn't a population issue. It's an overall realm effectiveness issue. It's something that has to be addressed over time with exp incentives to the help the weaker side toughen up faster.

You also mitigate against realm-morale loss by splitting up the battlefront so the no realm can dominate every aspect of RvR.

In WAR, if you can be defending all the keeps all the time, holding all the battlefield objectives all the time, or dominating in scenario play. Pick two.

If worse comes to worse, there's a realm-based pop cap. But these preview servers are set to too low an overall cap for that to kick in, I think.
 

They could balance it out by having completely open pvp vs any faction. Some guy keep taking all your quest foozles? PK him, problem solved.

I think the issue here is this game has a macro-tactical mentality that is heavily influenced by ability players, number of players and organization of players. 3 elements that are damn hard to remove without turning the game into pew pew lazer boredom. Where they should succeed in balancing is that many of the players do infact enjoy an easy fight, or a difficult one so pick accordingly.

My personal experience with game balance is that there is always a wildcard element and someone who picks a class and sticks with it and learns its in/outs will be rewarded eventually. Long live pallies. lol

~ten
 

It is a really big problem, and not just for RvR. On the server I have been playing on this weekend, there are so few Order players that you cannot complete the public quests. Usually there are only 1-3 people trying to do the PQ which means you can get through stage 1 only.

You can still grind stage ones to fill up your bar and buy your rewards from the rallymaster, but you can't actually finish the PQ and kill the end boss, and roll for that loot. :(

They need to cap Destruction, period. If you have a queue to log into Destro chars, perhaps you will bag a clue and make an Order one.
 

Also, them removing the /count is sort of a joke. It is EASY to log into a server with a level one character and look at the world maps, and figure out who is controlling everything. Which on my server this weekend is Destruction - they own EVERYTHING.
 

I am disappointed that Mythic is simultaneously ignoring one of the biggest lessons it learned from DAoC and also ignoring one of the main things they got right.

1) 3 Realms - This was vitally important to any hint of realm balance in DAoC. When one realm was overpopulated (usually Albion) the other 2 could have an uneasy pseudo-truce.

2) Different classes for the different sides - This is a nightmare. This was the source of 90% of the game balance problems in DAoC. The only way to have class balance between the realms is to give them both the same classes.

-Cambios
Blogging about Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds:
http://www.muckbeast.com
 

This change might not have been made with ulterior motives. If you leave the /count information available, within two weeks there will be a site up that reliably reports what the average population online by faction is going to be on any given hour of any given night. That information could have substantial and distorting tactical effects on keep warfare, even on servers where everyone knows that one side always has the advantage. (E.g. the graph might show that the already outnumbered Order side ALSO tends to turn in by midnight, encouraging an attack at 12:30 AM. Without /count, you'll just know that SOMEONE goes to bed at midnight but you won't know who.)

That said, this does remind me of how Blizzard removed the time zone stamp from the realm select screen, because people presumed (incorrectly) that central time zone servers were centrally located geographically and thus the best compromise on ping time. The result is that you have to go to a third party database to find out what the server time is if you care. Also, some folks on my server commented that they chose it at launch because they were on the West Coast and wanted to be with other players from the same area in order to coordinate raid times. That went out the window, and now most servers have to deal with players spanning all the time zones.
 

Why not implement an automated server-wide stat bonus to the less populous faction which varies in proportion to the population imbalance? If there are five Destruction players for every four Order players, than give a +20% armor and damage bonus to Order so that 5 vs 4 is a fair fight.

Once Destruction players start noticing that Order classes are substantially buffer than they are, they'll switch sides quickly enough. Of course, once the population even out neither will be getting a bonus, and everyone's happy.

This is pretty standard fare for Warhammer tabletop, in which the larger armies tend to have weaker units and the smaller armies tend to have stronger ones.
 

In the last month of the european beta the numbers on the english-speaking server were pretty even, 55% vs 45%. Usual pop around 300 per side, a bit more around peak hours. Normaly to the favour of destruction, but the last weekend to the favour of order. Eventually order managed to siege the Inevitable City and some seriously fun streetfighting took place. A good revenge for the traditional underdogs.

And I claim as I always do. During beta the badguys are in majority, in live the goodguys will be. As happened with for example WoW-beta vs live.

If the balance on my server in live will be like it was in beta, I'll be all happy.
 

Oh, and I forgot: You do get a bonus to your XP-gain if you are on the underdog realm. Won't make you fight better, but will let you fight the big fight sooner.