Core problems:
- Back capping leads to way too much running back and forth with no real fighting or fun
- Kitey and speed tanky style builds who never really engage others are rewarded by the back capping game mechanics
- PVEing is OP, one team having a PVEr is a MASSIVE advantage
Solutions:
- Each army can now only capture the point closest to their spawn that they don’t own. This means that you can only capture the closest point when the game first starts, once you own that point you can now push for the middle point. This will prevent back capping and mean players can only cap the point in front of them instead of skipping it to go stand on the farthest away point to distract everyone and waste their time running.
- Automatically give a respawn at the first closest point to each base when it is captured. This will help cut down on the running and downtime in between deaths. Only the team with the base closest to that point gets the respawn, it is given immediately upon capture.
- Completely remove PVE from OPR. The only PVE that should stay is Baron. Things like battle Bread, zephyr cakes, potions can be removed or stay I don’t think it matters too much. If they stay make them purchasable through battle credits the same as in war and invasions.
AGS, you have previously said when designing content you have a guiding principle of “find the fun”, the current implementation of OPR completely misses this principle for a few very easy to solve reasons.
OPR is the main PVP end game for 90% of the playerbase, with the other 10% having wars to supplement along with their OPRs. The main reason I hear players say they don’t play or enjoy OPR is because the game mode supports griefing and they don’t get as much PVP or fun fights as they would want.
Back capping playstyle is probably the least fun and most frustrating to play against. It is the main reason I hear people say they hate the game mode. When your team is winning there will almost always be a player back capping your first capture point. To properly defend against this you must spend a minute or two running all the way back to the point to try stop the person from capturing the point. The problem is these players almost always run away for ever with some build tailored and dedicated to back capping while most players have a build made for having fun pvping. They then come back and capture the point. This means you either just spend the whole game running around not fighting at all because the back cappers typically have 20% haste. You can choose to either have to stand on your first capture point doing nothing to defend or waste even more time and keep chasing after players who have no interest in fighting. These games typically happen when one team is winning, the other team has extremely kitey players back capping constantly without fighting to try to get free point ticks, this is not fun gameplay.
The second factor that makes OPR not fun is PVEing. PVE is extremely over powered and something no one really considers fun. If a team has a PVER farming mats they can easily give their team a massive advantage through a respawn, permanent 9% empower and fortify, and an uncapturable point because the doors are impossible to kill if someone is repairing them and killing kegs. This mechanic means whichever team is lucky enough to have someone who doesn’t care about having fun who would rather just PVE having a massive advantage. I have personally seen many games where you have 12 people hitting a single door that is being repaired for 2-3 minutes which results in an instant loss because some guy on the other team chopped trees for 15 minutes instead of having fun and PVPing.
To properly defend against this type of play someone has to quite literally sit at the first point doing nothing to deny the back cap or PVE the whole game, both of which are not fun and not something people want to do in a pick up style game mode meant to get people into PVP quickly. These mechanics would be okay if OPR was a fully premade competitive mode, where you can hand select your roster and assign people to unglorious but necessary roles. Similar to in war where people are assigned to door repairs, blowing horns in a fort fight, or defending sidepoint split pushes. The problem is that OPR was created to quickly hop into queue to have some fun PVPing with some friends, no one is assigned to or wants to do these meanial but crucial to winning tasks.
Does what I describe to you really sound like a “find the fun” situation for you AGS? Remember, this game mode is PVP end game for 90% of the playerbase. These players join “PVP end game” OPR to have some fun PVPing, but end up getting a running simulator chasing a team with permanent 20% haste who runs away and back caps the whole game never actually fighting, or a game where you are crushed and losing hitting doors while they get repaired because some guy farmed trees and buffs for 15 minutes. Once again, I understand what AGS was trying achieve by creating a mixed PVP/PVE game mode, but it just doesn’t fit this style of quick pick up game fun.
I know there will be some feedback that says if you want to just PVP quickly join arena. Arena has a plethora of problems including the fact that 3v3 type modes are usually more competitive play modes rather than a pick up game style PVP mode. There will also be people disagreeing with this feedback saying back capping and PVEing is fun, I can assure you this opinion is a tiny minority of players, most don’t enjoy this type of running and not fighting style of OPR. Yes I understand OPR was designed to be a PVPVE game mode, I am suggesting that is not fun and it shoul be changed, so don’t tell me this is what the mode was designed to be as that is irrelevant.
