Incentivizing taking keeps

miahq · January 2015

It seems a common criticism that after a while taking keeps just becomes a grind, and there's little incentive for a lot of people to take and hold them. Unfortunately that's also the crux of the AvA idea. So I'm curious what some people would like to see that would get them interested if they're not already. Or if you already do take keeps, still what would you like that you think might encourage people to really fight to own and hold on to them. For me, off the top of my head there are two things:

1) let interiors upgrade from controlling resources. Right now they're mostly empty and rather bland. They basically serve as little more than a place to stand around-- stand mostly because of the lack of chairs.

2) improve the towns, more people and stuff, and tie them in more as part of the story. Right now, to me at lest, they almost seem like an after thought.

3) a bit more variety in the terrain. By that I mean for instance, I can understand the use of choke points, but do they all have to be gates? Maybe one of the keeps in the mountains actually on an incline? Or if it's by the water a moat? A thick forest? Rugged mountains?

4) since these are soldiers fighting for their factions, why not pay gold as a reward/salary based on how many keeps are held by your side and how many ap you have? ... Not as a % of action points! but say if you're in the 1000s you get 500% base, 10,000s gets 800%, etc? hat way you tie it to a very real, tangible reward other than buffs. And it would help those people who spend all their time in pvp, so they'd have money for things like soul gems (so that god willing, we don't have to see a return of forward camps).

Vizier · January 2015

1. Townships held should buff the controlling faction If they control the nearest keep. There should be a debuff if not held. Give them flags to control, same as keeps and resources.

2. More unique terrain features that have impact on strategies to take or hold them would be welcome, but ONLY if there is relative balance in difficulty for each faction's home and inner ring keeps.\

3. People would be more invested if keeps were exceedingly difficult to take. Larger, stronger walls, less effective siege, longer sieges with more resources invested in taking them. A system change such as this would need to introduce alternate methods of taking keeps such as scaling ladders, grappling hooks etc. with limited numbers able to use them. Maybe introduce sewer systems that enemy might try to infiltrate etc. It would be interesting to see a siege hold all day only to have the outer gate flung wide by an infiltration team that took the gatehouse or something... epic.

miahq · January 2015

The more complicated you make the layouts the more npc guards you necessitate-- though I'm not saying I disagree. As for actual siege, frankly maybe making siege weapons (especially trebs) more costly maybe would help. Because the walls, frankly if they're so weak I think it's because often they don't have time to completely cycle through the buffs before it's attacked again. The same few places really take a beating.

Scaling the walls, I honestly thought that would be an interesting ww skill. But yes, ladders especially were very common and could be implement I'd imagine. Especially since there is also oil and archers/mages there to knock off what are essentially prone targets.

I do love the idea of the towns being pulled into the larger pvp, that's something I'd really like to see happen, but to me right now the towns just aren't much to talk about. They almost feel as though they were just an after thought.

The landscape, to some extent I don't think you can really avoid some unbalance. Mountains in the north for instance, where there aren't any in the south to speak of. But, rather than invent terrain to match the difficulty of taking a mountain keep, you could add moats or simply a bit of a tougher design for some to balance it out a bit. Or it could be that one side is blocked by a forest and it forces you to put siege closer on that side. Frankly, there's a lot-- A LOT-- you can do to make each keep more unique and interesting. It's own challenge.

Regardless, I think they need to do something. The more I talk to people the more it seems the majority just isn't interested in the AvA. They're just looking for more a fps style game and don't care about the keeps or the rewards-- I mean one person gets to be emperor for a bit, not a big deal. What are they going to do when literally half the pvp base are ex-emperors?

My point being, if they want to keep the AvA idea alive and not let it devolve into a fps style melee fest, they need to do a lot more to incentivize people to want to get involved more in the keeps and the larger story of the pvp zone.