on my server it's 50/50 order takes keeps during peak hours we take keeps prime time. yea i dont agree with order has weaker healers there pretty even minus dok and wp the wp is a stronger healer. and iron breakers hahaah dude there mean as hell and have some of the sickest buffs 400 will power buff put that on a healer with 600-700 will and watch what happens lol. i cant speak for other servers but on mine order has alot of healers and destro is starting to get more t4 and it's not like when game first launched and empire is fighting chaos in sc's it's everyone fighting everyone at first i could see ppl getting pissed about empire not having a tank. cause it was annoying in khaines when de fougth he who had sw and de had doks lol. but (on my server) there is a good mix minus all the evil BW i hate you all but you make the game fun for me on my mar. they have already said that they are adding inf for orvr for gear thats comming 1.1 i think that will fix alot of the issues with it yea i do agree with poster who said what about t1-t3 they need to fix this or new ppl who just start war will get frustrated and quit. but im sure that they are aware of the issue and are working to fix it. they do want there game to do well and remember ppl game only been out for lill over a month. best launch imo even compared to WoW that so many of you love. i have faith in mythic dont get me wrong there is stuff they need to fix but comes with time if your one the the ppl who cant wait then play somthing else till this game has been out for a while and has year or so of tweaks.

The thing I don't understand about the complaint with server imbalances is that it is allegedly a double edged sword, meaning that both sides lose out on something. Wait a minute! That's almost the very definition of balance! If people are Destruction and are tired of long waits, they could just roll order. And if order has this force of need pushed on them, I think you'll get a stronger more focused community because of it. It may be more hope than actual logic, but I think everything will turn out all right.

It is class/sides inbalance in WAR sadly , it is because "mirrior" classes on both sides are not really equal , compare WE kiss system with WH bullets system for example , MR as mdps class and its "mirrior' WL with buggy in 2 seconds dying pet / skills ect.

There is ofcourse one class on Order site which appeling a lot of destruction players ...BW... but this leads to even more imbalance as 50% Order population are BWs wihile other 40% is other dps and 10% tanks /healers  , in T4 its great disadventage for Order in SC and in orvr i can't ofcourse talk about all servers but on mine in sc we are getting constantly steamrolled by destruction tanks with loads on WE/MR at their backs.

I'm almosy toally agree with article. Except healers - order have really great healers.

And it seems all those naysayers here operate only "omg! l2p noob!" and picking to words. They know author right and they have no arguments against it so the resort to trolling.

There are disbalance issues in favor of destruction - this is a statistical fact. Go argue with that little trolls.

The OP is soo... last tuesday.

I mean that was a "game-breaking issue of the day" a few weeks ago...

Another "game-breaking issue" that made the game beyond redemption and any hope of saving was the lack of regional channels...

Please get a bit more up to date. Today's "game-breaking issue" is low overall population on servers.

Meh...

Funny how most of those "game-breaking issues" tend to disappear in a week or two after being detected. Really funny. I suppose in a few months we'll see "game-breaking issues" like "vendor red sometimes comes off pinkish" and "PQs don't drop purplaz for everybody all the time".

FYI My server (Karak Norn, EU) was severely imbalanced for a few weeks after release. Us order guys couldn't even ENTER the RvR zones because there were always 10+ destros swarming right at the entrance to our warcamp screaming bloody murder. While I was doing T2 we actually begged the destros on the server forum to leave us one keep so we can maybe have some fun - if you take all our keeps none of us won't get any RvR because it would be pointless.

And now, after an immensely long time (one month FYI) our server is imbalanced again... With Order completely pwning face. I can't recall a scenario in the past 3 days that we lost. I really feel sorry for the destro guys - maybe we should let them have one or two just to boost their morale a bit, no fun fighting against opponents who are resigned to loosing. In T3 destros are lucky if they have one keep. T4 is still a bit slow because it seems we are a bit slow-leveling server overall but imo destros are going to have their hands full when T4 starts filling up.

In short, the server balanced itself. I have a few guys in my guild who played destro then decided to go order because of all the problems destros had for being overpopulated. Now I'd say we are 50-50 balanced pretty closely and it will stay this way... if the destros manage to pull themselves up. In fact I fear we might end up being an order overpopulated server because destros are really loosing badly atm.

I'm not going to repeat a lot of the good comments many have made, aside to say that, yep, I agree - THE issue is server pops. Most of the open beta players seemed to dive on the servers they were on previously and once headstart was over we had 500+ waiting lists for a time. Then GOA tried to fix it by cloning loads of characters to other servers to encourage movement and then tried adding a 20% boost to Order (mainly) renown and XP on low pop servers. The result is that we've now got a far wider and thinner spread of all players.

Sure, there are some servers bucking the trend, but there are too many English servers with low to med pops in the evenings. Frankly, there just seems to be way too many servers. The free transfers should help, and I know I'll be consolidating many of my alts onto busier servers, but I just wish they'd get on with it. I've always felt uneasy about the way game itself splits pops across many armies, zones and tiers, and low pop servers really isn't helping to maintain the kind of game experience Mythos clearly had in mind.

On a positive note, I had my first big RvR bash on Sunday night and although 100+ players slugging it out looked like a slideshow at times on my PC, it was a pretty amazing experience.

Originally posted by Aguitha

Population imbalance is an issue, but IT'S NOT the major one.

The major issue is SERVERS POPULATION.

----snip----

I am going to quote a post from the first page here because Aguitha obviously has nailed down the actual problem.

A population spread of 40/60 on a 6000 pop server is not going to impact the gameplay on the same grade as a 40/60 population spread on a 2000 pop server. Sometimes I have the feeling that people are actually trying to imply that Mythic is ever going to achieve a 50/50 server population spread. A think that, in my opinion, they will never be able to achieve this, and I do think that Mythic is fully aware of that. All they can do is to give incentives to players to choose the underpopulated side, but this is never going to give us 50/50 servers.

And to Mr Asaf Younsian I would like to say the following:

Please, next time you write something about population imbalance issues in a game, whether it is WAR or another one, please first sit down and look out for the real issue at hand. Then think about the best way to solve it and then try to write about this. Also, please do not try to be the alarmist/populist type, we already have way enough of those freaks on the MMORPG forums here. If you would like to be a "game journalist" then please take a step back and write your articles in a neutral and moderated way. It is my believe that articles written by a staff member of a site, even on MMORPG, should be a bit of a higher level than your average daily forum post.

Your article also has some false informations and inconsistencies in it  (the part of Order having the weaker healers was one of the more funny ones, closely followed by that Altdorf comment).

Regards

An MMORPG reader and WAR (Order) player

I would say that the person writting this should head back to WoW, with the frequent referance to the game it looks like they miss it.

Oh when you get back to WoW plz be sure to drop a ton of Chuck Norris referances and Grind that Honor from months on end to get your Arena gear.

Originally posted by FuriCuri

I'm almosy toally agree with article. Except healers - order have really great healers.

 

And it seems all those naysayers here operate only "omg! l2p noob!" and picking to words. They know author right and they have no arguments against it so the resort to trolling.

 

There are disbalance issues in favor of destruction - this is a statistical fact. Go argue with that little trolls.

Not to mention that it clearly starts to show that most things are bugged for Order.

They now have basically locked down VP in Tier4, because Order wasn't able to lock Tier4 down, while Destruction could do it within couple hours!

How do you mean it's mostly the Destruction side of things that have clearly been tested in Beta!

But still I don't fully agree with the article. As the main problem is the server population, not realm population!

Here in Europe we have over 27 low pop servers atm that need to be dealt with ASAP!  And I frankly doubt that opening up server transfers is going to help. It will only make things worse and they will end up losing more subscriptions in the end, then if they do forced server mergers!

Cheers

[quote]

And I frankly doubt that opening up server transfers is going to help. It will only make things worse and they will end up losing more subscriptions in the end, then if they do forced server mergers!

[/quote]

You missed the fine print where they basically said "free server transfers" will pretty much restricted to transfering to and from specific servers with specific populations. Basically it would be server mergers, just sugar coated a bit. i.e. i'm pretty sure they will do what Blizzard did with their server migrations in the line which will read like :

"Free transfers from Server X  are open, you can transfer to Servers A,B or C, transfers will be open between date 1 and date 2 but can be closed at any time if the population cap are reached" .

Originally posted by templarx

Well all you people can try to defend WAR all you like here, but the fact of the matter is, this game is 110% dependent on Population Balance. If there is an imbalance, the game is screwed...there's no "uhm and aah" about this, this is reality.

We can go on about why there's population imbalance , whether it's the fact that Order is simply visually unappealing or whether the late upsurge of Horde players in WoW resulted in a more "comfortable" feeling with playing Destruction is also irrelevant.

 

I am playing Order, and if there's a 40+ sized Destruction  warband in any given area and only 20 Order, you can smoke any kind of crap you like, Destruction WILL NOT GET A FIGHT.  Order WILL resort to "guerilla" or "avoid the zerg" tactics and simply well, avoid the fight.

The part that the Author did not touch on , which is surprising to me is another Population Imbalance which Mythic imposed on the game. That is of course TIER based populations.

Has no one ever thought what T1 is gonna look like in 3 months time? Heck what about T2/3 ? How will any new player or "alt-aholic" play WAR in 3 months? If you leveled too fast you probably hit T4 with nothing to do, if you leve too slow you will sit in T1 with nothing but quests to do....

 

 

This is exactly the kind of whining that I hate. The game is not solely dependant on a perfectly matched population. They could be perfectly matched and if destruction has a well-organized alliance of 10 large guilds, while order has a loose alliance of 10 large guilds, one will certainly win... the organized one. I will acknowledge the population differences, you can't deny that... but seriously? Stop saying that it's the one thing that will make or break this game... that's retarded.

as for the t1-3 argument, all I can say is PFFFFT the one thing that's missing from this game is /xpoff so you can keep alts at lower tiers. That's the ONLY thing they need to do. If you think mythic is responsible for making sure there's tons of random low level players... you're mistaken. MAKE A FRIEND OR 2. You can level your tier1-2-3 with them... this could even be a guild event. Be creative! Mythic's job is not to babysit you and make sure your individual needs are met... sometimes you actually need to work at it.

Hi guys, Arinas here (the OP).

Just two quick points to add that might make some more sense to the article:

• I wrote it almost a month ago (was posted only now due to some editorial reasons, which is cool), before the experience and renown bonuses were in place, that's why it seems a bit "Last Tuesday". Regardless, the issue still exists, only on a lesser degree.
   
• When I referred to Order's healers, I was saying a very simple thing. They aren't underpowered in their abilities - We all know they are simply mirror classes of their Destruction counter parts. What I did say was that they are LESS ATTRACTIVE visually.

I still stand by my point - Destruction is just cooler. And apparently, in an MMO, that's a very big thing.

Thanks,
Arinas
 

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

The citys have never been captured to this day. Never. Please to learn the system.

This is not true.  Altdorf has been captured numerous times on a couple of different servers.  I can't link anything for you right at the moment, but you can PROBABLY find that information on the main WAR site.  I know ONE of those times was on Averheim server, because that was MY server, and indeed Altdorf WAS taken, albeit, if I remember correctly, it happened about 2 am when there weren't many people on to defend.  But then....with a game that depends so HEAVILY on population to work correctly...that's going to happen a LOT eventually.

Originally posted by Arinas

Hi guys, Arinas here (the OP).

Just two quick points to add that might make some more sense to the article:

• I wrote it almost a month ago (was posted only now due to some editorial reasons, which is cool), before the experience and renown bonuses were in place, that's why it seems a bit "Last Tuesday". Regardless, the issue still exists, only on a lesser degree.
   
• When I referred to Order's healers, I was saying a very simple thing. They aren't underpowered in their abilities - We all know they are simply mirror classes of their Destruction counter parts. What I did say was that they are LESS ATTRACTIVE visually.

I still stand by my point - Destruction is just cooler. And apparently, in an MMO, that's a very big thing.

Thanks,
Arinas
 

Just a Note on the LESS ATTRACTIVE thing, thats all from your stand point, what is Attractive to one person is not to another, to claim this is psychosomatic and just reinforces your view that Destruction looks better because you think it looks better.

From my stand point the Dwarfs look cool as hell and the High Elves can look good too, you seem to think that everyone has a view of dark oppressive visuals as being what they want this is just not true.

 

This post is much akin with all those but the Graphic look like WoW post that just got hit at trolling.

As for the population issue yes T1-2 are empty because people have leveled out of it, and yes there is more destruction than Order right now but this is only the first month give the game at least a month or 2 longer to get stable population before crying pull the plug.

Sorry but as far as I'm concerned you did a very poor job of reporting on the state of War.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but the fact remains - Destruction outnumbers Order.

As per the city captures, like Girlgeek said, they will happen a lot more often. Mythic's bonus system worked great to inject a lot of people into T1 and T2 - Question is how many of those will survive to ultimatly try and balance the population in T4.

Just kind of browsing through this post and the replies, you know I have noticed the well organized Destro thing myself......why is that, heh....... most Destro players ( I have seen from other postings regarding multiple servers) seem to deffinetly get what Warhammer is about.......

It is most annoying seeing the players actually not only THERE in the contested area, or beseiged area, but they are all standing about waiting on their scenario queue to pop.

Here, Ill share the macro I made for such occasions when trying to rally folks to step outside their afk'dom and hit teh RvR lake that was streaming with opposition and heretics to burn with you all:

"Attention Scenario Whores!!  Welcome to WAR!!  This is actual real RvR,  please direct your attention to the message that informed you that THE ENEMY IS A STONES THROW AWAY!  See the bar below your minimap, it should have MUCH more BLUE!  If your waiting here for your W ow O nly T akes L ittle K ids to release, please log out and wait in a F2P, but if you want to go to WAR!  Send a tell"

/chuckles......something to that affect anyways, teh WoTLK jib was deffinetly in there though! =P

I really do not know how to respond to this. I play on Wulfenburg (I think thats the name, sorry, only been playing 3 days) for my Order characters. It seems that there are issues everywhere for the game, but my take on the whole subject is this (and I think someone else already mentioned this): if the game seems unbalanced, then a specific or specific set of issues will appear among the masses but whats appearing is a random number of issues everywhere, which to me shows that there is a balance of issues on both sides, which in turn tells me that the game is on its way to balance.

I am still looking for a server to play my Destruction characters on but I am unsure what server has a lower Destruction popluation vs Order population so I can help with population balance issues. On the subject of classes, what I think needs to happen is that there is still too much spamming of skills/abilities in the game and auto attacks (unless your a witch elf or some class that his a high attack speed) are totally useless, which I stated was an issue in beta.

I think skills need to have much longer cooldowns but heal/deal more damage from the longer cooldowns. There are plenty of skills that each class has so in a given situation, you are not waiting on cd's on skills (except in maybe the lower tiers but that will disappear quickly). If you want to keep the low cd on abilities/skills, lower the action point regeneration. I am just trying to find ways so people just dont spam constantly, why is there even an autoattack in the game if almost all your dps comes from abilities/skills? Take the engineer for example, his single shot ranged attack (forgot the name) deals a considerable amount of damage (thats maybe because I am playing in t1 scenarios and classes really do not have gear yet) so if I can just spam that single ability, I am generally on top of the damage chart.

Either way...

Zyllos in T1 there is alot of ability spamming as you have very few abilitys, this drops off in t2 and more so in T3 as you have to use your ability in concert with other abilitys to get best effect, I play DPS and a healer, both I find have about 4-6 main core skills that I use then 4-7 others that help/debuff.

I absolutely agree about the destruction characters just being cooler.  I'm the type of person who chooses characters basically solely by aesthetics, and I usually can't stand the "Rawr, I'm so evil" vibe of the bad guys in MMOs.  In WoW I couldn't roll a horde for more than a few days.  However, I found the opposite to be true in WAR, where I couldn't stand playing as Order.  I don't know what exactly the reason is, but they're just not as appealing.

And yes, it didn't do Order any favors when the PR guys simply couldn't shut up about Destruction, Destruction, Destruction.

However, I refuse to believe that any class imbalance is the cause, since the classes are all almost exactly mirrored.  All RvR I've been in has been pretty fairly distributed in wins and losses.  If your experience has been different, then I'm not sure what to say... All those fights you were in did have one thing in common...

You should have stayed on Skull Throne. It was no different than the queues at in the beginning in WoW on most servers. I can remember being 800+ in the queue for Bleeding Hollow when WoW launched.

There are no queues for Skull Throne now and the ratio of Destruction to Order is 1:1 to 1:0. Pretty much even. We aren't experiencing these long queue times for scenarios on either side, for scenarios.

This was the scene last night in T3. This was while waiting for the PQ to reset.

We had a great time and in between PQ resets, we battled for the keep and BO's. I hate it for those on low pop or population unbalanced servers. But, I think some of that frustration could have been avoided by just being patient. The queues to log in on Skull Throne, lasted maybe two weeks and I haven't had one since.