7 replies to this topic

[Dark Seraph]

Gentlemen,

With PvP and towers, keeps, king having the potential to be a major part of this game for some, I would ask that you discuss adding/changing a couple things to further enhance the ability for players from both sides to successfully engage in this element.

Anonymous setting:

Surprise is or has been listed as one of the principles of war for many nations throughout history. It is with this in mind that I would ask you to consider and "anonymous" setting. All that I request is that this setting changes your "current location" in the social window to anonymous. While on the surface, it might not seem like such an important item, it has the potential to change the tide of a battle. Forces take time to muster and/or transport from point A to point B. The amount of time lost or gained by an enemy force knowing or not knowing your current and projecting your next location could make the difference between a smaller force being able to successfully raid a larger force or not.

Remove the requirement to take keeps in a specific order:

This follows closely along the lines of what is stated above. I understand that, as a force takes keeps and creeps ever closer to your capital city, it is supposed to give you that sense of impending doom. I believe, however, that this again stifles the ability of a smaller force (which the Kujix currently have) to successfully attack a larger force. Once all towers are taken, it's pretty obviously where the enemy has to go next. By removing the requirement to turn keeps in a certain order you would empower a smaller force to delay the enemy through use of deception tactics and feints, allowing a solo individual or small group to draw away a portion of a larger force from the intended target. It would add a layer of tactics to the current system that is currently not available.

Remove the "attitude" from fortifications:

As a general rule, keep fortifications such as ballista mounts and cauldrons do NOT possess feelings in and of themselves. As such, I would ask that you consider making these fortifications able to be used by either the defenders or the attackers. I would think that, should an assault force take the outer wall of a keep, their members would be more than happy to use enemy ballista mounts and/or cauldrons to advance their attack or prevent reinforcements. A cauldron of boiling oil dumped onto a reinforcing unit riding through the ruined (and taken) front gate of their own keep would not only be the stuff of epic legend, it would remove the "safety" aspect of being a defender. Granted, some might state something along the lines of "Humans and Kujix use different mounting systems for their ballista", but we're talking about fantasy civilizations here that can seemingly cobble together homemade explosive devices. I would dare say that their collective genius would allow them to retrofit their mounted ballista to be able to use the opposing side's mounts.

Normalize the "bodygaurd" force:

This one will be brief. Anyone with 7 minutes of time to ride into both capitals and look at both Vaspar and Breydon can tell you which one is, seemingly by far, better protected. I'd ask that you take a quick look at making these two potentially similar in difficulty by increasing the guard force in the surrounding area of one, or decreasing it around the other.

Comments anyone?

Edited by Dark Seraph, 07 July 2011 - 03:53 PM.

[zerof]

Based on my own experience with taking towers and keeps, the suggestions above should enhance the PVP game play.

It would be nice if player defenders can right click NPC keep defenders ( those stationed away from the current keep invasion) and add them to the party (up to x maximum). These NPC defenders will follow the party leader with some basic behavior controls like the summons. So a lone player can utilize un-aggro NPCs and form a party for keep defense with rakers, herby, and defenders.

Edited by zerof, 07 July 2011 - 05:08 PM.

[Dark Seraph]

Two other potential enhancements I wanted to throw out, in a general brainstorming post:

Improvised Barricade:

Allows assaulters to erect a temporary, low resiliency (10-20k hp) barrier in place of a destroyed keep gate door. Used to slow reinforcing PC defenders.

Outrider:

Upon attacking a keep (exact conditions not thought out yet), a non-aggro outrider (npc defender on a 60% horse) is sent by the defense to the nearest friendly town/tower/keep. If the npc makes it to the town alive, a tower garrison's worth (6 Defenders and a Captain) of additional defenders appear at the keep to assist in its defense (with potentially a time lapse, to account for the return trip of reinforcements).

Edited by Dark Seraph, 07 July 2011 - 04:19 PM.

[Lukather]

Liked the Keep taking order removal, the outrider (nice one!) and of course, changing the number of guards on kinds.

As for an "anonymous" setting, this might easily work against the weaker side, pretty much killing any chance to defend. Perhaps it could be qualified, say in relation to PVP status (not anonymous when pvp+n minutes), or somehow (trickier) by attacking party size (which is actually more accurate description than weak/strong).
More complicated as party can be changed just before/during/after pvp... need to give that one some thought.

Fortification attitude - Ballistas ought to be usable by both sides (let's say it's not rocket science to operate one and that the mount can be rotated), maybe add a flag thingie like the tower top in order to "capture" it. The cauldron, however, is a bit iffy...those things took a while to set up and heat. Usually would have been empty when captured. The temporary barricade though, is a nice addition.

[Nightvision]

We're always looking for ways to improve the PvP experience, and I appreciate your well articulated post very much. One thing that I have to say upfront is that the dev team is currently completely occupied working on the expansion pack, and any changes we make to the system aren't likely to occur before the xpac release.

Taking your post point by point:

1.) Anonymous setting: Something we can certainly do, however I'm not sure the effect would be profound. Since you can't see enemy players in your social screen all we would circumvent by doing this is a somewhat easy way to spy on the enemy using a char of the enemy's faction. It still wouldn't prevent somebody from sending a "Hey, where are you guys? I want to join you." tell to those anonymously located players.

2.) Keep capture order: This goes to the foundation of the Towers and Keeps system and won't be changed anytime soon. I completely disagree that it would give a smaller force some type of advantage. What it would do is make it impossible for a smaller force to defend their territory. I split my large force into two and attack two different keeps at once, now what do you do? Give me one of the keeps and defend the other or split your forces into two and risk losing them both? There are plenty of other reasons why removing the order would be bad, and few good reasons that I can think of to do it.

3.) Allow cross-faction use of emplacements: This idea has merit, but the implementation would have to be carefully considered before making this change. Right now there are several forts that can be attacked using commando tactics, which is our intent and something we wish to encourage. With the forthcoming expansion pack and the integration of the flight system commando tactics will be in play for all the keeps in the game. While I like the idea of a commando force wreaking havoc inside a keep while a traditional force attacks in a traditional manner, I'm not sure I like the idea of that commando force wreaking havoc using the keep defensive emplacements. I'm not sure I don't either, but like I said it's going to bear some consideration before we decide on an implementation.

4.) Normalize bodyguard force: Agree completely. The faction leaders should be difficult to reach and kill, but they should be equally difficult for both sides. This is something we will address and correct, potentially in the next few weeks.

Lastly I want to mention that we're aware of the faction imbalance and have a plan to address that both in the short-term and the long.

[Dark Seraph]

The abrupt respose is wholeheartedly appreciated. After reading your responses, I would like to amend my point number 2 from "the smaller force" to "the attacking force". It won't change the response, but the middle ground, which I will gladly cede (if for intellectual reasons vice actual game change) is that those on offense would have the advantage gained by splitting the defensive force.

If your plan to fix the PvP imbalance is for GM interaction, I would lightheartedly ask that the GMs be forced to wear white cloaks with red bull's eyes on them, because I know who's going down first!!

The only other potential consideration that I could see potentially benefitting the "smaller" force (solely based on my own PvP experiences in game, mind you) would be an extended rez timer when killed by another player.

I look forward to the increased ability for commando tactics as that is, very obviously, my favorite method.

[Issy]

the commando tactics are already setup, they just have to be found.

[Dark Seraph]

Necessity is the mother of invention. They aren't currently necessary to use. Unless bad info has been floated about what is required prior to killing a keep Overlord, they wouldn't be overly useful anyhow imo.