Campaign Dominance
A number of the PvP campaigns are dynamic, active and effective. The keeps and Emperors change factions regularly and there is a significant level of PvP. Some are not – they are permanently dominated by one faction and are essentially dead because of it. Now you could argue that this is fine because that faction obviously got organised and took over the campaign – and to an extent that is true. They put the work in, they get the rewards… however it is not a good state of affairs for the game as a whole.
A campaign that is dominated by one factions tends to cycle through this:
• Players from other factions within that campaign try to retake keeps / organise resistance, but get wiped by the dominant faction as they have no mobility (no keeps = no mobility) and are fewer in number.
• Greater numbers + no mobility means that zergs will tend to race to the only source of combat and wipe out the fledging resistance.
• Players of other factions move away from the campaign because it is locked out by the dominant faction and there appears to be no way to fight back.
• More players of the dominant faction join the campaign because they are dominant and hence have domination buffs, can also farm IC / Cryodiil in relative peace, and have the best chance of survival / winning. This reinforces the dominance and continues a cycle of player movement (dominant faction players arriving; other factions leaving).
• The remaining players of other factions become fewer and fewer and cannot effectively make a difference – even against nearly empty keeps (need more than one person generally).
• The players in the dominant faction stop PvPing there as there are no opponents, leaving the campaign dead.
Potential solutions:
Any potential solution must not penalise the dominant faction (who have put the effort in to dominate), but must encourage players to take the fight to the dominant faction and break the dominance. Thus the following solutions are proposed:
• Change the AP mechanics such the fewer keeps and resources you have, the greater the AP gain you make when you take one, until it is normalised when you have the same number as all your home keeps / resources. Keep track of resources and keeps separately for this calculation.
• Rather than providing a bonus when you have all your home keeps, provide an underdog bonus based on how many keeps / resources your faction holds (fewer keeps = bigger effect). So if you have zero keeps, you have enough of a bonus to compete against those who hold all the map.
• Alternatively remove the keep bonus system entirely.
• Provide a bonus to AP for people to assign to specific campaigns based on the current population and keep dominance in that campaign (e.g. +50% AP gain when your faction has no keeps; +15% AP gain per level of population difference)