Actually, Brian Wheeler has commented about forward camps in other threads:

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have talked about resurrections only be allowed within the radius of the Forward Camp and shrinking the size of the radius as well with increasing the respawns. This is a bit more tricky than it sounds and the programmers want to make sure it's clean as can be before putting it out there.

This is from "Alliance War future plans and update!".

How about " Only people within a certain Radius can use the Forward Camp"

They could do away with Forward Camps but up the availability of Soul Gems in PvP? Ressing becomes important and sieges more tactical.

E.g. if you can lure a group into an ambush and wipe them it will have a strategic impact upon the campaign with those dead having to respawn at a keep and ride back to the battle and the ambushers able to move relatively unhindered.

Also it would mean that we could actually siege keeps i.e. surround them and cut them off. Currently there is no point in doing this because even if you killed all the defenders riding toward it they can respawn at the camp inside the walls. No camps would mean they would need to group up and try and break the siege lines.

Just a thought

eliisra wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

How about ZOS puts a "Special Event" campaign which has no FCs. We try it out for a month, and if people like it, it gets instituted on all campaigns.
This way we can test it out before deciding.

Well, no one would really go there besides NB stealth builds, just like with the proposed "single target only campaign".

I don't agree with that. There are lots of players (such as me) who inside the normall campaign look for 1v1 fights because in general they require more skill than just zerging around, and are imo more fun.

Removing forward camps wouldn't be the solution to fix the problem, but being able to buy different kind of camps such as guild only camps, personal camps and maybe some more, might fix a lot of it.

(and i'm all for a single target only campaign! and a FFA campaign where you can also attack your own faction)

Taking keeps would be to easy then. If the keep is under attack by an organized group, you can't get there in time.

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

They should make it so that you can destroy the FC....

You can... Unless its in the keep and the walls are up and they keep spawning Raids in.

What if instead of FCs as we have them now, we change FCs to group/guild only and then add more locations across the map that players can spawn at like the bridges and the neutral imperial gates. Make these locations able to be captured/destroyed.

Another option would be to place the transitus in the courtyard and enable it to be destroyed. As long as the shrine hasn't been destroyed defenders could spawn there. Then set it up so that attackers can respawn as much as they want as long as they control one of the resources.

FCs don't need to be removed in my opinion. not saying cyrodill is a gigantic world the size of Azeroth..... but its big to the point it can get old having to run back and forth.


just change them. spawn in radius.... group only..... things of that nature.

Th

eliisra wrote: »

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

How about ZOS puts a "Special Event" campaign which has no FCs. We try it out for a month, and if people like it, it gets instituted on all campaigns.
This way we can test it out before deciding.

Well, no one would really go there besides NB stealth builds, just like with the proposed "single target only campaign".

People are lazy by nature and especially randoms. They only want to reach the nearest contested keep quickly (w/o getting jumped), than starts shooting or healing at stuff for AP. I'm not judging or anything, I'm often the same when I'm a random solo'er. It's hard riding far into enemy territory and start action, when you're not with an organized raid.

But agreed about the FC. Something needs to be done. Nothing really matters any more when it comes to faction success, only the bloody camps. Fail to place one and you auto loose the battle. You currently need FC in every single faction own keep, castle or fort 24/7 or you cant defend against blitz squads. That's how squishy keeps are. You even need designated players on camp duty, just teleporting around making sure the camps safe. It's messed up.

This is exactly the problem. The capture of keeps is currently dictated by who has the biggest zerg and is able to keep their camps up. The fact that this zerg is able to successfully defend Black Boot and then bloodport to take Warden 2 seconds latter is wrong. 1 person rides travels to Warden and places camps. The remaining 200 just bloodport.

Beam me up Scotty.

I mostly agree with this - remove the FC's. Fast horse and that assault skill for mobility is enough. Although I have another suggestion to throw into the pot: also put a lock-out timer on placing an FC in the same area as the previous one. Have a ghost circle of the image persist for 10 minutes and when someone tries to put down an FC they get a message telling them how many minutes until next FC can be placed.

I would like to see FCs available only in the radius of an owned keep that you can teleport to and is connected to the main base. This would prevent FCs behind scroll gate and spam spawning zergs deep in enemy territory. It would also make cutting off enemy transit a valid tactic again.

Here's how forward camps should work. When you capture an enemy resource (farm, mine, lumber mill), it becomes a forward camp. That resource now starts harvesting for your alliance rather than the enemy, and what it harvests is used to "resupply" more troops so they can respawn into battle.

Let's just say one resource, a mine, can spawn one player every 9 seconds. If this isn't quick enough, you must capture the other resources. If you do you now have 3 players respawning every 9 seconds (1 from each resource). If this isn't quick enough you can accept a quest to deliver materials between resources. This quest would mostly be for low levels or players who prefer solo pvp. If you start at a mine, then you deliver ore to either the lumber yard or the farm. When you reach that resource, you hand over the ore and accept either wood or grain (depending on which one you went to) and then attempt to deliver it to another resource. Doing so reduces the spawn time at that location for a period of time ( just enough to require consistent but not constant upkeep of deliveries).

The idea is that this trading of materials allows each resource location to better "resupply" the troops it's sending into battle. A solder needs more than just a weapon, he also needs food, so it makes sense that you would deliver grain to the mine location (that is, if you care about immersion and all that). It also encourages attackers to ride circles around the keep, constantly keeping a perimeter up to thwart defending reinforcements who are unable to teleport to the keep. This mechanic basically allows for easy, long-lasting forward camps, with multiple angles of attack, but at the cost of actually doing work rather than mailing something to an alt like the current system. It also serves to split up the attackers when respawning so there can be less of a tendency to zerg and lag.

I've already mentioned that solo PvPers might like this and here's why: defenders of a keep can intercept attackers who are delivering. This would slow down respawn rates while still allowing respawning to a lesser degree; as opposed to the current system where you have a forward camp up with myriads of players spawning at once, or no forward camp and no reinforcements whatsoever. My suggestion allows for forward camps to operate at varying degrees of effectiveness. This way the siege isn't over in the instant you lose an attacking forward camp, but rather you feel your forces slowly dwindle as you fail to maintain material deliveries.

But wait, there's more! How does a defender's forward camp work? The keep becomes a forward camp, but it no longer spits out reinforcements quickly or endlessly. At the start of a seige, the defenders will have a faster respawn time, but they also have to coordinate, split up, and defend a three front attack because enemies will be attacking from all sides. There is a tipping point, however. Eventually, if deliveries are left unchecked, the attackers will have a faster respawn time than defenders. This forces the defenders to leave the keep rather than turtle all day.

I'm not a game dev, and I don't know the Cyrodiil population, so I won't throw out concrete numbers, but the idea is that if the defenders can disrupt the attacker's deliveries 50% of the time (either killing them or slowing them down), then both the attackers and the defenders have the same respawn rate of soldiers per second. The side with the lower respawn rate must rely on soul gem revivals from teammates. In the event of a spawn queue, players dying within range of the forward camp take precedence over those who die outside of the range.

Why do I like this so much? Because it puts more emphasis on smaller battles all around the keep rather than 1 giant mob against another giant mob. Because it allows more time fighting players and less time fighting keep walls. Those things would still be present, but they would be have their place and time, rather than occupying the whole duration of a siege (they would also be adjusted to allow for group play rather than zerg play). The whole delivery system would only require a small portion of attacking force to function fully, so that players can continue playing the way they have been if they enjoy that. It would also give players who don't enjoy the current Cyrodiil metagame a different way to contribute.