Suggestion for a change in the flag system.

ToRelax

This text is from one of my posts in @ZOS_BrianWheeler 's siege weaponry thread and can be found here.
I decided to make it's own thread on it, since it would be hard to follow the discussion over several hundred posts.

Now the flags, these are the only situation in that one realls has to stack up players, wich is a problem with the flag system itself, not anything else.
As far as I currently understand, every players or guard NPC turns the flag by 1 "unit" every "round" (not sure about the intervals here) as long as the keep is flagged. It may also be that it only requires a wall to be under 50% or another value, independent from the siege status you see on the map or that turning a flag can flag a keep, doesn't really matter to the argument at hand.
Now every enemy player and NPC guard reduces the amonut of units the flag is turned per round. I am not sure how 3 faction fights work exactly though. There also may or may not be a cap on the amonut of units the flag can turn per round, but most likely no cap on the amount of players contributing to it by nullifying the presence of enemies in the flag area.
So that's the basis I have that I try to argue from. It would be nice if we could have more insight here if possible.

My goal would be to change it so that 1.) stacking more numbers on the flag is not always beneficial and 2.) that the keep can not be turned while the defenders are still alive on the flag, while trying to make the change as simple as possible to make it happen as likely as possible.
So I would first set a cap on the numbers of players that can contribute to turning flag for an attacking force. I am thinking 6 would be a good number since someone told me that may be the limit of units turning per round currently, so it may be easier to code idk. At least it is not too small or large I think. Incidentically, a ram works about the same way, although it requires a limit of 3 players on the ram, wich I don't think would be a good idea for a flag. However again, it may be easier to code something similar then, especiall if an UI element like at the ram is implemented that shows an attacker wether he is contributing to turning the flag.
Then I think the flag should not turn towards an attacking force if at least one defending player or NPC guard is alive in it's area. However, it may make taking a keep too hard when outnumbered if the flag would turn back too fast or you couldn't stop it from happening. So I think it would be a good thing to let attackers at the flag negate the effort of up to 6 defenders to turn it back. With the cap for the defenders still being at 6.
If an UI element similar to the ram one is implemented, you could then use the red manlike symbols, appearing when 2 or less players try to operate it, to symbolize the amount of players who's effort in turning the flag their direction is currently negated by an enemy.

A few examples of how I imagine this to work so far:
- 4 DC players and 1 NPC guard inside an EP keep -> flag will not turn at all.
- 4 DC players and 1 EP player inside an AD keep -> flag will turn 3 units per round to blue.
- 16 DC players and no EP in an EP keep -> flag turns 6 units per round to blue.
- 2 DC and 8 EP in an EP keep -> flag turns 4 units per round to red.
- 12 AD and 48 EP in an AD keep -> flag will not turn at all.

Now this logic doesn't nessecarily include 3 way fights on a flag.
I have no idea how this is currently working really, so I might be very far off with something that is relatively easy to implement.
Generally, I'd like to keep the cap of 6 for all factions. If possible I would now add the two lower numbers together against the largest one, again with a cap of 6, and only in the occasion that the largest number of players/guards belongs to the faction the flag is currently turned on or that the flag is neutral (also neutral because it could end in a loop otherwise, wich would be kinda weird). Note that the flag still won't turn another colour if the largest number happens to own the keep, however it could stop the flag from turning back to the current keep owner.
That brings up another case, that a flag is turned to the color of an "attacker" who is not highest in numbers. In that case, the defenders and other attacking force should combine to turn the flag into neutral, where the above rules apply again.
In any other case, I would simply take only the larger enemy force into account.
This could without too much of a drawback also be extended over the special case I explained above. It only has to be made sure there's not a loophole allowing a 3rd faction to turn a flag their in their favour while defenders a alive, or to field more players than the rest.

So again, some examples, using the special case rules:
- 4 DC, 3 EP and 2 NPC guards at an AD resource -> If the flag is yellow, will not turn at all. If the flag is blue, it will turn into neutral with 1 unit per round. If the flag is red, it will turn into neutral with 3 units per round.
- 5 DC, 3 EP and 2 NPC guards at an AD resource -> If the flag is yellow, it will not turn at all. If the flag is blue, it will not turn at all. If the flag is red, it will turn into neutral with 3 units per round.
- 2 DC players, 3 EP players and 16 AD players in an AD keep -> If the flag is yellow or neutral, it will turn yellow with 1 unit per round. If the flag is blue, it will turn neutral with 4 units per round. If the flag is red, it will turn neutral with 3 units per round.

I would also increase the flag area slightly so that the fight can spread out better, and players are less forced to stack up on the flag so they can all be hit with AoE (6 targets hit is still a lot in my book).

So that's it mostly. The important part is the 2 way fight and the complicated one the 3 way fight, really. A comment from ZOS on how the system is currently working, and wether you are planning on any change or how likely one would be would be appreciated.