AvA ideally should not begin and end just with PvP

Rev Rielle

An article recently on MMORPG.com got me thinking:

AvAvA can encompass so much more than just an almost singular focus on direct player versus player combat. Player verse player combat is enjoyable, and should be at the heart of alliance wars, but variety is the spice of life. It doesn't matter how enjoyable one aspect of a game's play is, if that is the only aspect it will become boring. Additionally; sometimes there is no enemy to face, or sometimes we want to provide more help to our alliance behind the battle-lines, or help our alliance solidify what it has and help strengthen it. Other than PvP right now, there is next to nothing meaningful and substantial to do in AvA to help our alliance.

Primary Structures and added Investment & Interaction

How would this work within the context Cyrodiil? Well one could remove the 'mystical time-only-dependent' NPC activity that improves our keeps/castles/forts when we capture a mill/farm/mine. Why no provide an option so players can be responsible for gathering their own alliance's wood, cooking the food, mining the ore or what have you. Making players actively involved in improving a keep, results in players becoming more invested in protecting/defending/building on it/fighting for it. Provide avenues so that players and crafters can play a role in helping improve defenses/offenses in Cyrodiil (but not to the exclusion of those that focus solely on developing a combat-based character). Perhaps those invested in woodworking can interact at a mill more-so than a blacksmith could, and vice versa at a mine site.

How about in turn making keep defenses and upgrades significant? Investment for reward: If a campaign alliance invests heavily in effort (not just monetary) in improving a keep it should take a comparable amount of effort for an offensive alliance to take that keep. The further away a keep is from an alliances home base; the more challenging it is up to upgrade. An option could be that perhaps significant resources could be carted from the home alliance bases to the keeps or/and from the temples to the keeps (depending upon what the resource is), in turn providing a distance/risk mechanism for enhancing distant keeps in a particular way.

Daily Crafting Missions

Currently, our daily crafting missions in the game are all about providing resources for the war in Cyrodiil. So perhaps actually making that a reality, and not just stopping at the current. largely meaningless, NPC dialogue at the end of a quest that actually has zero impact on the PvP world of the game.

Adding incentive to populate the relatively dead areas of Cyrodiil

How about having us compliment defenses and upgrades by enabling us to mine/chop/gather/etc out in the wilds of Cyrodiil, giving us all reason to head into these relatively quiet areas of the map to help our alliance. Rarer and stronger rocks to mine (or those that yield more quantity etc), and trees to chop etc could be further away from keeps, providing a risk verse reward balance that players would have to weigh up. But have such sights numerous enough to stop any sort of 'choke point' forming. Perhaps supplies could be acquired from the towns and villages in Cyrodiil?

Siege Equipment and Forward Camps/Watchtowers.

Maybe complete reworking of siege equipment is required: Getting rid of the magical 'pull a trebuchet out of my pack' mechanic and actually make 'us' build them in a keep (of have us aid an NPC in building them), and then wheel them out to where we want to use them? Similarly for rams and ballista.

Also, why not provide us with the ability to set up improved forward camps or similar (maybe our own little watchtower), so we can collect some wood/ore/materials/etc, and build siege equipment closer to an enemy's keep. Perhaps one advantage being the reduced travel distance for siege equipment, whilst a negative being the chance of being discovered by the enemy and the relative lack of defense such a place would provide compared to building in a keep.

And of course above all; making sure the reward for effort of any activity is balanced, both in terms of personal as well as alliance-wide reward.

~~~

AvA should not begin and end with direct combat with an opposing alliance player/s. That of course should still a focus (and always will be), but the more variety a game's AvA mechanics are to compliment this PvP nucleus, the healthier the AvA as a whole will be. Both in the short and long-term.

KenaPKK

I like your premise, and I like some of your ideas. However, I have a cake buff running, and ZoS doesn't let PvPers have nice things. >.< Will return to this thread later. Good thought process, though!

tinythinker

Well, if we are talking about AvA changes other than increased performance...

Improving Alliance War Zones and PvP mechanics

• An overhaul to the Alliance War that emphasizes choice and strategy and maybe an AP/XP toggle.
• Add mechanics that synergize Cyrodiil and Imperial City, making all areas of both maps tactical and strategic.
• Add spy missions as well as capture/escape mechanics to Imperial City for more fun for solo players doing AvA and increased immersion.
• Make changes to encourage Alliance and Alliance Campaign pride.
• Make Cyrodiil bigger to have room for more content (including instanced/partitioned content (like PoW camps) and to make controlling strategic locations more of a challenge.
• New PvP achievements (here are a few more) and special rules campaigns beyond just scoring changes.
• Add "moving flags" (supply transports, prisoner marches) to Cyrodiil for small group objectives.
• Invert the AoE caps in Cyrodiil to make AoE be weaker against small groups and stronger against larger groups.

Ghost-Shot

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

Sallington

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

No gameplay change they can implement will matter unless the performance issues are resolved. As long as we're still lagging out and having our sound go away the second any meaningful battle happens, I just won't want to play it.

Ghost-Shot

Sallington wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

No gameplay change they can implement will matter unless the performance issues are resolved. As long as we're still lagging out and having our sound go away the second any meaningful battle happens, I just won't want to play it.

Also this, I guess I was just kind of think about the mechanic in general rather than the whole of Cyrodiil here.

Sallington

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

No gameplay change they can implement will matter unless the performance issues are resolved. As long as we're still lagging out and having our sound go away the second any meaningful battle happens, I just won't want to play it.

Also this, I guess I was just kind of think about the mechanic in general rather than the whole of Cyrodiil here.

Yeah I feel ya. I think that's why any of us are still around at all. It's really easy to theorize what they could do with the base framework of Cyrodil and the combat system. There's so much potential.

Then you log in and play.....and it puts everything in perspective.....and then you weep uncontrollably.

Ghost-Shot

Sallington wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

Sallington wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

No gameplay change they can implement will matter unless the performance issues are resolved. As long as we're still lagging out and having our sound go away the second any meaningful battle happens, I just won't want to play it.

Also this, I guess I was just kind of think about the mechanic in general rather than the whole of Cyrodiil here.

Yeah I feel ya. I think that's why any of us are still around at all. It's really easy to theorize what they could do with the base framework of Cyrodil and the combat system. There's so much potential.

Then you log in and play.....and it puts everything in perspective.....and then you weep uncontrollably.

/ragequit

KenaPKK

Sallington wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

No gameplay change they can implement will matter unless the performance issues are resolved. As long as we're still lagging out and having our sound go away the second any meaningful battle happens, I just won't want to play it.

This.

Rev Rielle

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

Thanks.
I think sensibly there would have to be a balance. For example, the keeps could still function and provide with minimal player involvement, however if players wanted to they could significantly improve/interact/enhance/expand the keep. I wouldn't want to see a system where we were all basically forced to spend a significant amount of time at structure after we caught it before, as that would in the end turn out to be a drain. Rather I'd like to see there being an option there to add variety and gameplay to AvA.

I guess I see captured structures whether in enemy territory or not, turning into something akin to a quest hub (I can't think of a better term for it). These quests would send you out into the AvA zone to collect/do/kill/etc various things that could both (but not be limited to) either improving the keeps defenses or providing support/structures/materials etc. for our alliances offenses.

Rev Rielle

Sallington wrote: »

Ghost-Shot wrote: »

I like the idea, that's actually one of many things that I find interesting in Camelot Unchained is how involved players are with keeps, although in that game you actually have to build the things. My only concern here would be does this game still have the population to add player maintained/upgraded keeps and still have active pvp happening?

No gameplay change they can implement will matter unless the performance issues are resolved. As long as we're still lagging out and having our sound go away the second any meaningful battle happens, I just won't want to play it.

Yes, sadly I agree with this too. It's pretty important to have a good foundation to build such mechanics upon. But there is still value (I think) in thinking about what those enhanced mechanics could be and sharing them among ourselves here on the forums. Who knows, perhaps we'll light a spark in the minds of one or more of the developers that will inspire them to work on some changes to being to approach AvAvA's potential.