Improved keep mechanics

badmojo · April 2015

I believe some small adjustments in the mechanics for keep capturing could really improve the fights we have assaulting and defending them. In my opinion, it's far too quick and easy to capture a keep simply by stacking players on the flag and making the defending players pretty much irrelevant to the situation. I don't think standing on a couple flags should be the determining factor for who controls the keep.

My suggestion is a system of two zones, the inner and the courtyard.

The inner zone (Red outline) would be the important one, the courtyard zone is more of an indicator of the situation at the keep.

The inner zone would act like the current flags, except in a much larger area. Essentially, you would enter the capture zone as soon as you step through the breach. The other significant difference is that once the inner zone has been neutralized(flag turned white) it cannot be captured by either side until all of the enemy players and NPCs within the zone have been eliminated. Similar to how it is now, neutralizing a keep won't remove ownership from the defending alliance, it would simply stop any NPCs from respawning. Players who are in stealth or invisible wouldn't count towards the capture/defense.

The courtyard zone would be similar, but mostly optional. The courtyard zone includes the inner zone, so therefore it will never flip until the keep can flip. But, If your alliance manages to get enough people into the courtyard that you outnumber the NPCs and players in the courtyard and inside the inner keep, the courtyard zone would neutralize and the NPCs would stop respawning. It would stop the silly situations where one faction has a stupid amount of people all over the courtyard, yet the mages on the towers and the guards defending entrances continue to respawn. Also, some flags could be put on top of the towers to serve as an indication of the situations to approaching players.

I believe if we shift the focus from pressing a button(stacking on a flag) to controlling an area, it will create more varied and enjoyable combat experiences. Playing it safe and avoiding combat should not be the winning strategy when capturing a keep, but that's the situation we have currently, and I believe my suggestion would improve the situation.

Thoughts?

Kybotica · April 2015

How w would you deal with people dying, and then managing to run back before the inner zone flips? Would they have to be killed again before a capture would be possible? Would that inner zone need to be devoid of any defenders before flipping, or just a percentage killed from the original number of defenders?

It might work if, say, 40 people were defending Chalman actively when the inner wall was breached. The game logs that number of defenders, and then, once 35 people have died in the inner zone, the zone flips. Or maybe, if you want longer battles, the game takes the number of defenders, multiplies it by 1.5 or so, and once that many players die total in the battle the inner flips so long as it was breached and there were 25% of the deaths inside the inner zone.

Just brainstorming on how to fix the force flipping and lag flipping issues. It would be an interesting concept.

Domander · April 2015

I think there should be 4 points around a keep further away than resources that if held for a certain amount of time will automatically flip a keep. Think of if kind of like starving them out, or maybe some sort of doomsday type spell that destroys all the enemies in the keep. This would give multiple ways of taking a keep. They could also make it so that if all four points are controlled by the owning alliance, the keep can't be taken. Taking a keep the traditional way would require at least one of the points be controlled by the attacking force.

or they could just do something like this with resources, but I think resources are too close to the keeps.

badmojo · April 2015

Kybotica wrote: »

How w would you deal with people dying, and then managing to run back before the inner zone flips? Would they have to be killed again before a capture would be possible? Would that inner zone need to be devoid of any defenders before flipping, or just a percentage killed from the original number of defenders?

You would have to kill them, defenders entering the keep would stop the cap process so it would be important to not only clear the keep but also defend the entrances until it can be captured. I don't really see a problem with prolonging the capture process, as long as NPCs stop respawning once the assaulting forces have gained the upper hand inside the keep. Capturing a keep shouldn't be something done so quickly the defenders have no time to respond and counter the assault. If an alliance can't secure and hold a keep they're trying to capture, they don't deserve it.

I just really hate the current flag mechanic, it breeds boring repetitive PvDoor experiences. Run a person over, 50/50 the walls, wait for the group, get 20 siege up, and boom, free keep before the enemy can even respond. That's not even fun for the ones doing it, I've done it enough to know. Some of my best fights have been around bridges and gates, not being tied down to a flag allows the combat to flow naturally in the battlefield. Why is occupying the upper level in keeps less important than standing on a flag on the ground level? It makes no sense and forces the fight, rather than letting it play out.