RO2 Campaign Mode - too unbalanced?

[Kowalczyk]

I don't play RS at all any more, so this is about the HoS Campaign mode.

I have been playing it a lot, and it seems to me it usually is rather unbalanced. I am not going to say which side usually gets the wins, but as far as I can see, the Campaign matches usually end up with one side steamrolling the other pretty quickly. Matches outside of campaign mode seem to be more drawn out and even though they can be unbalanced, I think it happens fewer times.

Reasons I think this happens?
- The big bad team spectate bug. You can join a full team by spectating that team and then join it. It ends up with one team filling up faster.

- Fewer players change teams between matches, so if one team somehow gets a larger proportion of good players, they tend to stay there for a number of maps.

- The above point leads to this one - if you somehow get a player that wants to be TL or SL and they are new, they can end up hogging the role for a number of maps and hindering the team.

- Maps get rotated around, so a map originally designed to be played by a certain team attacking now gets defended, and the teams may not be strong enough for that.

How can we get this to change, and make games more balanced?

It's not easy, but that team spectate bug could be fixed. Also, at the risk of flogging a dead horse ... role Honor limits lol.

Another way is an idea I had, that lets you join a team based not on number of players, but on your Honor level - so for example, a team of 1 Honor 99 player vs a team of 4 Honor 25 players. New players come in, and the system uses their rank to allow which team to join . Yes! I know! Before you go crazy on me, probably the big mistake was to allow bot kills to count towards Honor - too late for all that now. And unranked servers wouldn't benefit from this way either.

Anyway, bottom line is, what is your impression of the balance in Campaign mode? Vote on the poll, and post your comments on anything I mentioned!

 

[mrsirr]

Aww no poll <
But yeah, I think there is a problem with people staying on one team. I dunno how to fix it, and it makes sense, but it does pose a problem.
I'm not sure about your third reason though, that seems to be a thing all the time, if somebody can jump in and take it before the new guy (aww that sounds mean) then, at least for that game, that problem can be averted.

EDIT
woop look at that, a poll materialized before mine very eyes.

 

[Randy Newman]

I would say it varies a lot.

The Axis win at certain times, the allies win at certain times in HOS campaign.


I have seen campaigns that go on and take a big combat power toll such that the defenders manage to whittle the attackers down. Those are the best campaigns.


However, more often than not, one side does steamroll the other at the end.


The main reason for this is one you pointed out: If one team gets a fair number of good players, it creates a snowball effect. I try not to switch teams in campaign and generally stay to the bitter end (if time permits) or fight on to ultimate victory.


I do not know how this aspect can be changed. In campaign, you feel a lot more tied down to your team- a sense of loyalty and a sense that the enterprise is bigger than the ONE match you just lost. In short, campaign mode offers redemption- the chance to come back and pull off something grand.

I don't think you can change that snowball effect without damaging the above aspects of campaign mode. In non-campaign mode you are a vagrant from map to map and this breaks up good players by forcing them to choose every round. In campaign mode, you are on the team you are on by default.


Now that I think about it, inertia might just be the reason that people don't switch....

 

[LugNut]

I see Axis win the majority of Ro2 campaigns, although not to the annoying degree that Allied win in RS. I think there is a slight imbalance inherent to the mode, add in some axis stacking and there you are. The inherent imbalance doesn't bother me, the stacking does to a slight degree regardless of the mode.

I like that the same players are together for consecutive maps, that the best thing about Campaign. Yeah, sometimes you get a failure in a key role, but that's life on a pub server. I don't usually see the same team stick together through an entire campaign anyway, so it's pretty common to see the battle ebb and flow as players join and leave. Steamrolls are common towards the end, because players rage quit on the losing side, while the winners stick around. I'll often see consistently uneven teams on the last few maps.

To improve it?

Fix the spectate/join bug. Make it impossible to voluntarily switch teams mid campaign.

Make choosing a team RANDOM. *Click to join* and you get one or the other.

I'd like to see that in all modes TBH.

 

[Jpz38 Hetzer]

When the teams are even, its pretty balanced. It does how ever, suffer the german teamstack that is present in most of heros of stalingrad. Even if they fix the win loss bug, that would only put a band aid on the problem. Nothin tripwire can do about it imo.

 

[Kleist]

It

 

[Don Draper]

I would like to see pincer movements work on the tactical map. if you can surround a area to be attacked, you gain it naturally. This might speed the campaigns up a bit, because i think this is one of the reasons people jump in and out of the game swap sides etc.. Game takes a while to complete.

 

[Nilsson]

Another point is that some maps dont get played very often.

Station , Grain Elevetor and Spartanovka for example , attacking those is to difficult.

Pavlos and FallenFighters are easier for russians.

So some maps get almost never voted , fixing them or make a Campaign-map that forces playing them could be an idea like more teretories but only one map per teritory.

 

[Nilsson]

I would like to see pincer movements work on the tactical map. if you can surround a area to be attacked, you gain it naturally. This might speed the campaigns up a bit, because i think this is one of the reasons people jump in and out of the game swap sides etc.. Game takes a while to complete.

More areas and cutoff areas dont give you reinf or less reinf , could be an idea. This could also motivate the teams to play maps that dont suit the attacker.

 

[oldsoldier173]

Observations:
I see a German centric player base with a far greater number of 'expierienced' players on the German side.


It is more the map that determines winner and loser, once the Germans get the advantage you can count on Apartments or Grain Tower anytime they get the choice. Open maps are usually equal.


No matter what the skill level it is what the players want to do that again has a higher effect on success or failure. If the 'team' is a bunch of individuals rather than a group effort, odds are they lose no matter what the skill level.


I took a break, games were getting tedious as we were just repeating the same exercises in frustration, the same maps, the same battle development, no real change in the how it happened over and over. And heaven forbid you thought out of the 'box' and tried anything but 'hey diddle, diddle, charge down the middle'.

 

[Rattler]

The good thing about the campaign is that it's not biased. Its all about which maps the teams choose.

 

[Grenator]

Unlike RS, the HoS campaign is pretty well-balanced. It does result in some maps being overplayed (especially Pavlov's, and I've participated in camps where people didn't choose this map out of principle), but it's really a matter of what maps the server admins decide to put into the territories.