Suggestion: Improvements for PvP Capture & Scout Quests

HeroOfNone

This is a suggestion on how to make the Capture and scout quests more tactical and achievable inside PVP.

The Problem
I'm sure most of us have had the same lukewarm feeling when we have come up to the quest boards, your own up to 2-3 keeps in the zone, and they want to send you to capture something way over to the other side of the map. sometimes you can keep spamming the boards and it will give you a different one, but most of us won't see those keeps captured unless we hope campaigns, unless we wait a week, or if we wait several hours. Hell, sometimes you won't see your alliance capture a keep all night. If a group were to capture these keeps immediately this would lead to a tactically worthless target that takes away from the campaign most times, so why keep sending us there? To top this off, in low population servers, this becomes a grinding run for the dominate faction to just constantly flip and reflip for AP anyway, so any farming this is trying to reduce is quickly negated.

Solution
I have several suggestions but most center around the capture and scout quests should be 1 to 2 hops from the furthest keep that you have. This makes the most sense tactically as a quest to help your alliance and the best way to reward new PVPers with what is the most important.

Balance
Since we're increasing the turn in by tying the quest closer, let's consider a few ways to keep folks from farming it. these could be independently added or removed as needed.

- The furthest keep gives the quest - this is to keep the amount of hops and loading screens down but also presents a different challenge . If you go full out to the enemy keep and take it, but they circle around and take your keep, then you can't turn it in. This could either require you take the keep back to turn in the quest or it could result in a failure, giving less reason to move to it
- Keeps outside the circle are only given once a day - This is to prevent farm flipping the keeps and constantly working toward useless objectives.
- Resource capturing and scouting are given once a day - Similar to the above, this will prevent repetitive farming.
- Keeps and resources at enemy home keeps are only given if they own a scroll - This will not prevent folks taking all the keeps and trying to camp spawns, but we shouldn't be giving them a reward for a useless keep when they don't have anything useful.
- Quests can't be shared - If you're going to take the other keep for AP, take it under order of your superiors, not another player. this will also prevent folks from subverting the once per day rule.

Reward
Let's go over the rewards for capturing keeps, which us pretty crap unless defended, and the quest, which seems high on the exp gain.

- reduce the EXP increase the AP and gold ratio - this is an alliance war objective, its not something to help you level up. In addition, the amount of AP we get for capturing a keep is pitiful compared to the status and the importance that it has in PVP. Regardless if the keep is filled with enemy players or not, taking it on with a moderate sized group can take a while and still requires some coordination and grouping. folks are not going to be able to grind this out quickly for a farm. It should be noted though that quest rewards for resources should go down slightly, but with the AP being what it is and the EXP dropping, due to the increase in their use and due to how fast they flip.
- If not AP, then Siege is rewarded - If more AP can't be rewarded for fear or emperor farming, then give out siege weapons as reward, which will push on the campaign. This may also get folks to use some of those lesser used siege items (lightening balista) and give new players a siege weapon when they are low on AP.
- Optional increased reward for capturing surrounding resources or outposts - coupled with the above, add in capturing one or two of the surrounding resources after capturing a keep. In addition this would incorporate the outposts, which have been left out of the quests.


Thanks for reading, let me know what you think folks. If you agree there is a problem with the current system but don't necessarily agree with the solution let ZOS know what you'd like to see instead! If you like all of the ideas here, please reply as well to show your support.

DeLindsay

I always find it funny when the capture quest IS our Keep lol, but at least it makes the quest easy then hehe. I like this idea +1 from me.

HeroOfNone

Maybe with the recent improvements to player xp we can look more into improving the pvp quests as well.

Enodoc

I remember waaaay back suggesting some improvements to the AvA quests. I'll see if I can find my post...

Edit: Here we go:
On Mission Boards and AvA Dailies
As opposed to just capping any old keep with no quest for it, make it easier to get the quests.

Enodoc wrote: »

[...]make it so you can turn them in at any keep quartermaster, and make them available from Mission Boards in keeps you own, rather than just the ones at the gate. Then, once you've finished one, you can turn it in and get another one straight away without going back to base.

This would increase the accessibility of those quests, making actually taking them more favourable.

Warfront Missions for Keep Defence
I'm sure High Command would want us to keep hold of those we control, in addition to getting more.

Enodoc wrote: »

The basic premise of the idea is that the Warfront Missions Board could also give out missions for Keep Defence, as well as Keep Capture. I'm not sure how Warfront Missions as they exist currently are allocated, but Defence could be based on number of resources controlled by the enemy around a specific keep. For example, the more resources that AD controls around Fort Warden (itself controlled by EP), the more likely that "Defend Fort Warden" pops up on the EP board (unless EP just claimed it from AD).

Enodoc wrote: »

I was thinking a bit more about how the game would allocate a Defend mission; Siege Weapons are recorded by the system as soon as they're deployed, I think? So if the game notices a load of siege engines popping up around a keep, that would be a good instance to initiate a defence of that keep. (Likelihood of that quest appearing would still be based on number of resources, as above.)

It could also be the case that, if you go to a keep under attack, the Quartermaster of that keep could give you directly the quest to defend that keep. (Compare this with my idea of being able to pick up a Warfront Mission at any keep, and turn it in to any Quartermaster; that's in another thread somewhere.)

Enodoc wrote: »

Of course an issue with the suggestion of having it as a Warfront Mission would be that, because of the random nature of players, there's no guarantee that an attack would ever occur. Although this could be alleviated based on, in addition to the number of resources controlled by the enemy around a specific keep, whether the game has just given out a Capture mission to another alliance. For example, say DC owns two of the three resources around Alessia (owned by AD), and DC are being given "Capture Castle Alessia" from their board. That would make "Defend Castle Alessia" a high probability on the AD board.

This would make defending keeps more profitable than it currently is. Being able to take the Defend mission directly from the Quartermaster would also help anyone who just turned up at the keep.

Priority Order for Warfront Missions
AvA quests seem to be allocated completely randomly. As you said, being told to capture a keep on the other side of the map when you own nothing in between is pointless.

Enodoc wrote: »

In my opinion, there should be a precedence of keep missions, detailed below (assuming your alliance owns nothing at the top of the list, and everything at the bottom), in which the ones higher up in the list are more likely to be given:

1. Join an in-progress Assault/Defence (inner wall above 50%)
2. (Re-)Capture Home Gate Keeps
3. Defend Home Gate Keeps (enemy controls 2 or 3 resources)
4. (Re-)Capture Home Hub Keep
5. (Re-)Capture Home Ring Keeps
6. Defend Home Hub/Ring Keeps (enemy controls 2 or 3 resources)
7. (Re-)Capture Home Outer Keep
   At this point, your alliance owns all of their Home keeps, and none of the Enemy keeps. No bonuses are given for controlling Enemy keeps if you don't control all Home keeps, so recapturing Home keeps should have mission precedence over capturing Enemy ones.
8. Capture Enemy Ring Keeps
9. Defend Home Outer Keep (enemy controls 2 or 3 resources)
10. Capture Enemy Hub/Outer Keeps
11. Defend Controlled "Enemy" Keeps (enemy controls 2 or 3 resources)
12. Capture Enemy Gate Keeps
13. Defend Home Keeps (enemy controls 1 resource)
14. Defend Controlled "Enemy" Keeps (enemy controls 1 resource)

Missions which are automatically cancelled

Enodoc wrote: »

• If you have a Capture quest, and the keep is captured without you being there, that is cancelled.
• If you have a Defend quest, and your alliance captures one of the resources around the same keep, that is cancelled.
• If you have a Defend quest, and the enemy doesn't turn up for [an amount of time], that is cancelled. (How long would someone wait at a keep for?)
• If you leave Cyrodiil, all Warfront Missions are cancelled after [an amount of time], as the situation will likely have changed before you get back.

Edit: Also, quests which are not possible would not be assigned at all (eg, there would be no Capture Missions if you own all the keeps, no Defence if you own none).

To address your own suggestions, I think it's good that scouting quests sometimes ask for you to go all across the map, as scouts are supposed to go deep behind enemy lines. It would reduce the worth of the quest I think if it was only applied to nearby keeps.

Capture quests only going 2 or 3 keeps past your furthest is a good idea, and is similar to my priority list. I think there should still be precedence on Home keeps over anything else.

XP shouldn't be reduced. Some people want to level up through PvP and standard XP rewards (at lowest) should be given for all AvA activities. I like the idea of having siege weapons in the rewards.