Community Poll Breakdown: Week of March 20th

[Ariwyn-WHA]

Welcome to the Weekly Poll Analysis! This is a new feature implemented by Warhammer Alliance, and looks at the previous week’s poll and at the results it had. Recently, Warhammer Alliance has been posting polls in conjunction with WAR Vault, providing us with a broader scope of user opinions. This analysis will look at both polls as separate entities, and then together as a general playerbase. Since this is the first of a series, please feel free to make suggestions for future posts!

Last week’s poll, posted March 20th, asked you “How Much Has the Introduction of the Slayer/Choppa Affected RvR?” Options included: “It has greatly affected RvR,” “It has somewhat affected RvR,” “I’m unsure of how it has affected RvR/Waiting and seeing,” “It has only affected RvR a little,” and “It has not affected RvR at all.” The total number of votes between Warhammer Alliance and WAR Vault was 526.

Unfortunately we at Warhammer Alliance (WA) had only 220 votes (come on people, we need more votes!), but they yielded some interesting results. Overwhelmingly, you voted that you were waiting to see how these two new classes would affect RvR. This option held 78 of your votes, totaling 35.45% of the total votes. The “second place” options were very close—51 of you, or 23.18%, voted that the Choppa/Slayer somewhat affected RvR, and 50 of you, or 22.73%, voted that they have greatly affected RvR. It’s interesting to see how close those two are, given the substantial difference between “greatly affected” and “somewhat affected.” Following behind in fourth is affecting RvR “a little” with 23 votes (10.45%), and in fifth with 18 votes (8.18%) is that the classes have not affected RvR “at all.”

Comments on Warhammer Alliance seemed to cover a little bit of each topic. Some responders commented on faster scenarios, to new utilization of other classes. Others remarked that although it seems like there may be large changes now, later on things will probably balance out. It's important to note what class the person is while reading the comments as well. Tozen, who has a Magus, but is also playing a Choppa remarked:

Exactly. As soon as the Choppa hits T3 it becomes food for both ranged classes and tanks while AoE healing WPs negate its damage. I'll probably stick things out to T4 just to see if Git to the Choppa' makes a big difference, but I can safely predict that the Choppa is not going to make a significant change in RvR (which is probably a good thing to be honest).

Chuck Bronsun, an Ironbreaker, mentioned that the classes are greatly effecting RvR because its deterring players from other classes:

It has greatly effected RvR mainly because there is now one more class people would rather play than a healer. Not sure about the rest of you, but both of the servers I currently play on are desperately lacking healers on the Order side of things in every tier.
With the game not doing so great these days with subscriptions, people don't need another reason to bail.

Although not many people commented on WA, those who did gave great insight to the result of WA's polling.

Warhammer Vault’s (Vault) poll was similar in some regards, yet strikingly different in other regards. Vault had 306 total votes, with the leading response (91 votes) being that the classes “somewhat affected” RvR. In a relatively close second was “wait and see,” with 84 votes, followed by “greatly affected” with 76 votes. Interestingly, in fourth place was “not affected at all” with 41 votes, followed by “somewhat not affected” in fifth place with 14 votes.

Bearing in mind that Vault’s poll had 86 more votes than WA’s at the time of this article, there is some interesting data here between WA and Vault. WA voters believe that they need more time to decide how these classes will affect RvR, most probably because at the time of posting, as Siberwulf points out:

Um, the class has been open to the general public (not live event completers) for all of...3 days.

However, more Vault users seemed to notice immediate effects from the classes, since they predominantly voted that it had somewhat affected RvR. Perhaps one of the reasons voted that way is because, as Nnucifera put it on WA:

The only affect I've seen of the new classes in RvR is there are so many of them (Tier 3) that there's not enough of the other classes to go around. Like, half the warband will be choppas then we'll be lucky if we get a healer or two. Not to mention a majority of the players don't know what they're doing. Was hoping the retards would be weeded out before Tier 3.

I know I have seen my fair share of Choppas and Slayers in scenarios, and it seems like I’m not the only one!

The most interesting factor of this week’s poll is the discrepancy between WA and Vault on the “not at all” option. It seems that most voters on WA believe the new classes will have an effect over time, and in some way—whereas a significant amount of Vault voters saw otherwise. According to my calculations, 8% of WA users claimed the classes wouldn’t change RvR while 13% percent of Vault users claimed the same. This 5% margin shows a distinct difference between the thinking of WA’s userbase and Vault’s userbase.

When the results of the votes are combined, we can see the large impact that WA’s number one and Vault’s number four has. The combined percentages (based on the number of votes) are 31% for “Waiting,” 27% for “Somewhat,” 24% for “Greatly,” 11% for “Not at all” and 7% for “a little.” Simply put, it seems that this poll was too early for a concerned playerbase to adequately respond and surmise how these classes will make an impact.

Next week’s analysis will cover a poll about AoE, which came out merely hours before the 1.2.1 Preview! It’ll be interesting to see how the upcoming changes affect the results of the poll. Please make sure to go vote and comment—perhaps your comment will show up in the next analysis.

[Pinnick]

Awesome info... nice job on this.

[Siberwulf]

I still say it is too early. The Bandwagon rollers will always fubar the balance in the first month or so after release. That always happens as people try the class out and see if it is worth their time to play. I just rolled my Choppa last week because I knew the Scenarios would be 90% choppas and that poor shaman who gets insta-gibbed. He probably quit the game after that run, which makes me a Sad Panda.

Is there any way we can run a poll about whether or not Black Guards or Knights have changed RvR? They've had ample time to let the Bandwagoners get back on their mains, and now just the really committed ones are left.

I wish the person who made the polls took time to think whether they were practical. I would love to see Ariwyn's analysis on something more pertinent to the game as a whole, not something just seemed like a hot button (yet seemingly irrelevant) topic.

Some questions I think that would provide some better results:

• Do you feel your class has the necessary capabilities to effectively compete in a Fortress Take?
• Would you recommend your class to a new player?
• What do you think the most pressing issue is in WAR right now?
• How has the server consolidation affected your gaming experience?

Those are some pretty big questions and sure to spark some good discussion. Asking whether or not a three day old class is affecting the game as a whole is.... silly.

Edit: No problems with the analysis.

[spoonlamp]

Great to see this kind of analysis published, many thanks to all those involved. On a silly note -
'...Although not many people commented on WA, those who did gave great insight to the result of WA's polling.

Warhammer Vault’s (Vault) poll was similar in some regards...'

...poll vault...

...hurr hurr...

[Ariwyn-WHA]

Just wanted to address a few things.

Firstly, thank you so much for your appreciation of the analysis. I spent a lot of time on it and am glad to see that people not only read it, but enjoy it. If everyone hated it, it could get bunked, so positive responses are appreciated. Plus I enjoy when people like me

Secondly, I don't have too much pull when it comes to the selection of questions. My personal vote for this poll was "Wait and see," because I, too, felt this was too early to respond to. Our AoE question for this week just got "fubared" because of the announcement of 1.2.1. Hopefully in the future, our collaborative questions with Vault will be more pertinent and discussion-worthy. But in the meantime--please go vote and comment on the AoE poll to make my job a bit easier!

Thirdly, the whole..."(Vault)" thing, totally didn't realize that. I put it in the parenthetical to show how I would be addressing the website from that point on, much like I did with Warhammer Alliance (WA).

I'll see what I can do to help poll questions etc., but if you have any commentary about the analysis--things you like/didn't like, things that could be approved, please let me know. Don't forget--this is ultimately for you guys.

Thanks again!

[NiklasSteinhauer]

I voted in this poll but was never really able to post what I truly thought about it.
Despite someone mentioning above (I would quote, but I'm at work so I'm having to be sneaky)
Someone says that there is no affect due to Bright Wizard's AOE and WP AoE.

Edit: Found it:
"Exactly. As soon as the Choppa hits T3 it becomes food for both ranged classes and tanks while AoE healing WPs negate its damage."

Not to start a riot (Paramore, lulululul) but I want to say that
DoK's and Sorc's are just as bad on the other end.

I'm not saying its worse, its just.. a similar feeling, and let me tell you
Choppa's really affect Order on our server, we have 1-2 groups of 4-5 choppa's
(running a premade) that I like to call the "Choppa Pain Train", no matter
how many heals, or warrior priests, or bright wizards we have, we just get
demolished by their Choppa Assist trains, worst than other
assist parties I've seen in this game, and these guys are in blues,
maybe some higher end RvR gear, I am hating to see what they are like
when they receive LV gear, or equivalent (there is one Choppa on our server
with 4 Darkpromise already, and he's very nasty).

The only problem is, on my server, there is an abundance of Choppas
compared to Slayers in Tier 4, so we can't run a "Slayer Pain Train" to counter,
nor do I think that us, as Order truly understand the capabilites of Slayers
due to not many making it to Tier 4, or no one power leveling Slayers
like they did for Choppas (world first R40 Choppa was on Iron Rock, I think).

So, finally, I say at this point in time, on my server, it has affected us, Order.