Idea(s) to assist lower population factions

Kybotica

Just had a potentially cool idea.

What if they could allow you to set up a sort of "mercenary guild" for PvP players?

You'd be able to purchase a stall based upon the AP your guild members earn (the game would track total AP earnings guild-wide, which would be "spent" on bids, but only be spent if you win the bid), which would then appear in the lowest population or lowest scoring faction's home area for a week. (Similar to the guild merchant stalls)

The stalls would have an option for another guild in a different faction to place a "bid" on hiring your guild's services for the duration of your guild's stall purchase. They would only be competing with their faction and the opposing one (or, you could restrict it to the lowest pop faction, or the lowest scored faction, in a given week), and once they buy your guild's services, you are flagged as an "AD/DC/EP Mercenary" for the duration of the week, and your members would spawn in the purchasing faction's zone to fight against the other two factions within the given campaign.

Whether the buyers must use gold or AP or something else, and how much the Mercenaries get for their services, I don't know. I think you'd need to cap the number of hired guilds for any faction to a small number, maybe one or two, per week lest you throw the balance too far off. I also think the hired guild would be restricted from any emperorship titles when hired, but would maybe gain PvP gear bags (the ones usually purchased with AP) as rewards for exceptional performance. If the idea stuck, there could even be a separate mercenary leaderboard that tracks AP gains during "hired periods", with special rewards at the end of a campaign.

This would give some of the larger guilds on high population factions a chance to keep earning AP, fight new players, and would also bolster the lines for the low population factions. It could lead to interesting guild dynamics within the current PvP system.

I am of course just brainstorming here, so feel free to agree or disagree, or to expand upon this idea. I know there could be potential for trolling or abuse, but it would iron itself out as guilds make a name for themselves as mercenaries. The ones who troll wouldn't be hired, and the ones that perform would become in-demand to assist lower population factions. If based on scoring, it could turn the tides of a campaign in the direction of any faction who hires the right guild.

If you have any other ideas to help with campaign balancing, also feel free to post them here.

Honfold

A long time ago when AD had the oceanic pop I suggested that factions receive less ap if they outnumber the other factions. It would look like this:

If every faction is the same they all revieve 100% ap.

If EP is locked while AD and DC are at 3 bars then EP receives 80% potential ap.

If AD is locked while EP and DC are at 2 bars then AD receives 60% potential ap.

If DC is locked while EP and AD are at 1 bar then DC receives 40% potential ap.

If EP is locked, Ad is at 3 bars, and DC is at 2 bars then EP gets 60%, AD gets 80%, DC gets 100%.

Lowest pop always gets 100%.

I'm on my phone so sorry for any errors.

Aquanova

Honfold wrote: »

A long time ago when AD had the oceanic pop I suggested that factions receive less ap if they outnumber the other factions. It would look like this:

If every faction is the same they all revieve 100% ap.

If EP is locked while AD and DC are at 3 bars then EP receives 80% potential ap.

If AD is locked while EP and DC are at 2 bars then AD receives 60% potential ap.

If DC is locked while EP and AD are at 1 bar then DC receives 40% potential ap.

If EP is locked, Ad is at 3 bars, and DC is at 2 bars then EP gets 60%, AD gets 80%, DC gets 100%.

Lowest pop always gets 100%.

I'm on my phone so sorry for any errors.

I don't think EP in general would approve of this suggestion. We can't help that we have a large pop that wants to play pvp, so we shouldn't be penalized for it. Perhaps they should increase the AP for lower pop factions instead, as an incentive for them. This could extend to "rewards for the worthy " and give those lower pop factions better rewards, maybe the odd pvp vender bag loot? idk anything to compensate for for their lower numbers.

Honfold

Aquanova wrote: »

Honfold wrote: »

A long time ago when AD had the oceanic pop I suggested that factions receive less ap if they outnumber the other factions. It would look like this:

If every faction is the same they all revieve 100% ap.

If EP is locked while AD and DC are at 3 bars then EP receives 80% potential ap.

If AD is locked while EP and DC are at 2 bars then AD receives 60% potential ap.

If DC is locked while EP and AD are at 1 bar then DC receives 40% potential ap.

If EP is locked, Ad is at 3 bars, and DC is at 2 bars then EP gets 60%, AD gets 80%, DC gets 100%.

Lowest pop always gets 100%.

I'm on my phone so sorry for any errors.

I don't think EP in general would approve of this suggestion. We can't help that we have a large pop that wants to play pvp, so we shouldn't be penalized for it. Perhaps they should increase the AP for lower pop factions instead, as an incentive for them. This could extend to "rewards for the worthy " and give those lower pop factions better rewards, maybe the odd pvp vender bag loot? idk anything to compensate for for their lower numbers.

I understand that no one is to blame, and my suggestion is not malicious. However people need to be encouraged to avoid stacking sides. The problem with giving the low pop a bonus is that even if I receive 1000% more ap it is still going to suck getting into 1v5 fights whenever I pop out of stealth and it won't help at all when the keep I'm defending gets zerged.

Aquanova

Honfold wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

Honfold wrote: »

A long time ago when AD had the oceanic pop I suggested that factions receive less ap if they outnumber the other factions. It would look like this:

If every faction is the same they all revieve 100% ap.

If EP is locked while AD and DC are at 3 bars then EP receives 80% potential ap.

If AD is locked while EP and DC are at 2 bars then AD receives 60% potential ap.

If DC is locked while EP and AD are at 1 bar then DC receives 40% potential ap.

If EP is locked, Ad is at 3 bars, and DC is at 2 bars then EP gets 60%, AD gets 80%, DC gets 100%.

Lowest pop always gets 100%.

I'm on my phone so sorry for any errors.

I don't think EP in general would approve of this suggestion. We can't help that we have a large pop that wants to play pvp, so we shouldn't be penalized for it. Perhaps they should increase the AP for lower pop factions instead, as an incentive for them. This could extend to "rewards for the worthy " and give those lower pop factions better rewards, maybe the odd pvp vender bag loot? idk anything to compensate for for their lower numbers.

I understand that no one is to blame, and my suggestion is not malicious. However people need to be encouraged to avoid stacking sides. The problem with giving the low pop a bonus is that even if I receive 1000% more ap it is still going to suck getting into 1v5 fights whenever I pop out of stealth and it won't help at all when the keep I'm defending gets zerged.

I understand that, but what else can we do? Role new AD or DC toons? I don't think anyone who's already VR lvl wants to start again. Their maybe some who don't mind, but the vast majority won't. The only solution would be to allow us to change factions like we do campaigns and that's easier said then done since the main story line has and Cadwells silver and gold have particular levels attached to them per your faction which the game would have to account for. Even the choices you made in those story lines would have to be re adjusted some how.

Honfold

I don't know why they haven't made paid character transfer a thing yet its not like pop balance just became an issue.

Karamis_Vimardon

Guilds are associated with faction, can't see why characters can't be X faction for PvE and Y faction for PvP if the player chooses so.

tinythinker

Kybotica wrote: »

If you have any other ideas to help with campaign balancing, also feel free to post them here.

Here are a few of mine from another thread. I have only listed the bullet titles, not the description of the details (which are in the other post) nor how they could work together. I didn't want to hijack or spam this thread with lots of text.

The basic idea is to still have incentives for trying to capture as much as possible while making the attempt to do so and to hold large gains more challenging:

- have stronger keep walls/gates and more/stronger NPCs guards at all times.

- have something like a low pop bonus for stronghold defense

- have a domination penalty.

- have additional domination penalties on a timer.

-make strongholds worth more points on the campaign scoreboard/worth more AP if captured or defended the longer they are held.