Five reasons why empty BOs giving rewards is better for ORvR

[th3gatekeeper]

My personal suggestion for this is that BOs should not be click/lockable but rather behave like the objectives in scenarios - that is to be in a constant state of contest (Reikland Factory/Nordenwatch). You would need to up the actuall time cap the flag but it will at least force people to stay/defend an objective instead of just cap and forget , a side effect of it is also that you can't just zerg 1 objective and move the the next , but in order to ensure a keep take you will need to at least leave some defense . I am not sure if anyone else has already suggested something like this and there are alot of details associated with such a system that could be fine tuned but i would love to hear some opinions on it.

I personally like this idea. My previous suggestion was rather to have a fixed 3:00 lock upon capture - rather than a 3:00 wait UNTIL capture. This allows you to hit a BO very quickly, cap it, then move on and its locked for a few minutes. After that time, the Hero/NPCs spawn and act as the defense. This makes BOs very contested. A 3:00 lock is not very long TBH... This forces a level of defense that currently you never see. Maybe even add another Hero or two to these BOs. I think it should be something a 6 man team should be able to do, probably not something a duo or trio party should be able to take with ease - forcing some level of teamwork.

Perhaps the problem is that the current RvR system just isn't fun in and of itself. That's certainly why you don't find me in RvR - I'm both anti-zerg and anti-PvDoor, and all the rewards you can give will never change that, so there is nothing of interest to me as long as RvR plays the way it does now and did in T2/T3. If that's the case, it would behoove us to make it fun first. This is why I said I'm looking for gameplay elements and mechanics.

I feel your stress @Azarael... I am the same way. I hate zerging and hate PvDooring even more. Currently RvR is a necessary evil to get items - which frankly some of the tier 4 influence gear is lack luster IMO and the only thing that is appealing is the new OP Jewelry set from Purple bags. (This is another issue though)

I wrote a post previously about this. You have two issues
1) Zerg.
How do you remove zerging while also not force people to sit at empty BOs all day long "defending". It needs to be FUN first and foremost, like you said.

In order to remove the zerg issue, you need to split everyone up.

In order to split everyone up, you have to make BOs more "worth fighting for" than trying to zerg BOs and take keeps.I wonder if a system that more heavily weights BOs would be better. Such as it more drastically lowers/raises the Doors HP - and possibly even like a Wounds buff in that it could 'heal' the door for the amount.

Combined with the above suggestion of making BOs cap near instantly (once defeating the Heros/NPCs) and only lock for 3:00minutes or something. It could make "defense" on a keep MORE about re-capping/fighting BOs, than sitting behind a wall with Oil.

Same with capturing BOs, if BOs were more stagnant. It would make the entire RvR experience MORE fun if you battled over contested BOs the entire time until 1 team owned them all outright. Then the Keep portion of the assault was much shorter. Right now you spend 15-30 minutes capping all the BOs, you see some opposing faction lock a BO and then you all sit around waiting for stuff to unlock... It shouldnt be this way - just like in SCs, why do people fight all over the maps? Because ALL the BOs are open for capture. I have defeated zergs on many multiple BO Sc maps by just doing a solo/duo "backcap" while the zerg is too busy sticking together to be effective. This is how RVR should be too!

Once a side owns all the BOs, the door should fall much quicker than it does now. Making it harder to defend - making it more appealing to re-capture BOs, "wounds buffing" the door back up (HP-wise) as a solid form of defense. Even if recapped and the "max" HP dropped, the Door retains the HP kept making defense less about hiding behind a wall, and more about BOs. Same with Offense. You will NOT be able to take a keep unless you actually defend some BOs because of this qausi-heal function of "wounds buff"

This would cause a more spread out assault where 1 WB attacks the keep while the other WB has a more "roam" party defending BOs against possible 1WB dropping Oil and what not, while another tries to re-capture BOs. It also allows for a quick 6 man strike team to nail a BO (if not defended) and since you could quickly cap it and lock it for 3 minutes, create an absolute NEED to defend all the BOs....

This also solves issue #2 "PVDOOR" as the attack door phase (again) becomes less about hitting doors and more about BOs. Sure you will still need SOME players on Rams/Canons etc to smack the door down, but you will equally need players who are willing to roam the RVR zone, preventing a re-capture of BOs - thus healing the door making it impossible for the attacking team to bring the door down. Frankly, this makes taking an EMPTY keep a very quick endeavor as there would be no defense for BOs and the door would go down quicker. Which frankly is fine by me as long as rewards scale (which they do) based on defense.

Now, as for the pioneer issue. I think I have a simple solution there. Provide "rewards" for BOs just like in Tier 3 (400 renown 150 influence?) But possibly MORE and have it spread across the entire zone (not including warcamps). Lets say you set the rewards @ 1,000 renown and "400 influence". is the TOTAL reward for a BO.

So 6 players go into a COMPLETELY EMPTY zone, start capping BOs. The 1,000 renown and 400 influence gets SPLIT between EVERYONE in the lakes at the time. 6 in this case. So they each start getting (1000/6) = 166 renown and 67 influence. Not too shabby.

Now lets say a WB starts to form. There are now 15 people in the lakes. Someone takes a BO. It now would be 1,000/15 = 67 renown and 750/15 = 26 influence.

Now lets say two full WBs (50+) are in the zone. Someone caps a BO. It would give 1,000 / 50 = only 20 renown and 8 influence.

So this solves the pioneer issue as it gets people to WANT to start RvR, however once there is sufficient numbero f players the rewards decrease BECAUSE there are more players. But! Think about this...

Once there is a zerg on one side, AAO happens for the opposing faction. They start to say "hey! 400% AAO in Dwarf!" They get 6 guys to go cap a BO and boom. They get (166 renown and 67 influence) EACH * the AAO multiplier (or not.. Just an idea).

So it starts heavily rewarding some defense - not to mention then that ONE BO take royally messes with that 50+ Warbands desire to take the keep by wounds buffing the door. So now half the WB splits off to re-cap the BO, and now has to wait while its locked for 3:00. They kill the Hero quick after 3:00 but alas! Another BO is taken... They start splitting up and by this time, more opposing faction has entered and now its a few parties dropping Oil/defense while another 2 parties are ninja-capping BOs. Now you have a mass battle SPREAD OUT in RvR lakes, not just two big WBs opposing eachother at the keep.

I think this would solve the FUN issue, solve the "lack of rewards" issue, solve the "pioneer" issue, the "PVDoor" issue etc.

You MIGHT want to consider some "faction wide" messages that tell people more info about what is where... If order caps a BO in Dwarf, it spreads that message through ALL the zones in Tier 4 Dwarf. People will get the word out quick and due to the scaling reward system and focus on BOs. RvR will be HUGE!

[Desidus]

How about spreading the Keeps PQ to extend throughout the RvR lake, thereby allowing groups who defend BOs a chance to roll on the bags as well?

This promotes the realm working together and shows recognition that there are multiple avenues needed to push zones ect.

[th3gatekeeper]

How about spreading the Keeps PQ to extend throughout the RvR lake, thereby allowing groups who defend BOs a chance to roll on the bags as well?

This promotes the realm working together and shows recognition that there are multiple avenues needed to push zones ect.

Completely agree. I would also think it would be fairly "simple" (in quotes because its all relative right?) to develop a simplified "contribution" system to the entire RVR lake which would elminiate freeloaders - if you allow anyone in lakes to roll for keep take loot.

Could be as simple as points for BOs, points for Hero/Lord damage (like in PQs) and points for Door damage. With some "nod" towards healers as well (like in PQs) so they get credit for stuff.

But that eliminates AFKers from logging into JUST inside the lake and getting credit. I wouldnt make it super difficult. Simple is better. if a guy takes 2 BOs and then sits on one of them thats fair enough contribution and he should get to roll... If a guy zones in, beats on the door for 5 minutes and helps kill the Lord - give him credit.

But if a guy simply goes INTO the lake - he shouldnt meet the requirements for loot.

[Abolition]

Perhaps having the keep loot rolls stay as they are, but have an additional "zone lock" loot roll, which analyses contribution across the whole RVR zone?
This could scale, similarly to how the XP/RP/INF zone locks do, where the closer you get to the enemies fortress the more loot bags are winnable, and the closer you get to your fortress the less rewards are available.

Thought this could probably result in too many bags being won... but is that a bad thing?

[th3gatekeeper]

My personal suggestion for this is that BOs should not be click/lockable but rather behave like the objectives in scenarios - that is to be in a constant state of contest (Reikland Factory/Nordenwatch). You would need to up the actuall time cap the flag but it will at least force people to stay/defend an objective instead of just cap and forget , a side effect of it is also that you can't just zerg 1 objective and move the the next , but in order to ensure a keep take you will need to at least leave some defense . I am not sure if anyone else has already suggested something like this and there are alot of details associated with such a system that could be fine tuned but i would love to hear some opinions on it.

I personally like this idea. My previous suggestion was rather to have a fixed 3:00 lock upon capture - rather than a 3:00 wait UNTIL capture. This allows you to hit a BO very quickly, cap it, then move on and its locked for a few minutes. After that time, the Hero/NPCs spawn and act as the defense. This makes BOs very contested. A 3:00 lock is not very long TBH... This forces a level of defense that currently you never see. Maybe even add another Hero or two to these BOs. I think it should be something a 6 man team should be able to do, probably not something a duo or trio party should be able to take with ease - forcing some level of teamwork.

Perhaps the problem is that the current RvR system just isn't fun in and of itself. That's certainly why you don't find me in RvR - I'm both anti-zerg and anti-PvDoor, and all the rewards you can give will never change that, so there is nothing of interest to me as long as RvR plays the way it does now and did in T2/T3. If that's the case, it would behoove us to make it fun first. This is why I said I'm looking for gameplay elements and mechanics.

I feel your stress @Azarael... I am the same way. I hate zerging and hate PvDooring even more. Currently RvR is a necessary evil to get items - which frankly some of the tier 4 influence gear is lack luster IMO and the only thing that is appealing is the new OP Jewelry set from Purple bags. (This is another issue though)

I wrote a post previously about this. You have two issues
1) Zerg.
How do you remove zerging while also not force people to sit at empty BOs all day long "defending". It needs to be FUN first and foremost, like you said.

In order to remove the zerg issue, you need to split everyone up.

In order to split everyone up, you have to make BOs more "worth fighting for" than trying to zerg BOs and take keeps.I wonder if a system that more heavily weights BOs would be better. Such as it more drastically lowers/raises the Doors HP - and possibly even like a Wounds buff in that it could 'heal' the door for the amount.

Combined with the above suggestion of making BOs cap near instantly (once defeating the Heros/NPCs) and only lock for 3:00minutes or something. It could make "defense" on a keep MORE about re-capping/fighting BOs, than sitting behind a wall with Oil.

Same with capturing BOs, if BOs were more stagnant. It would make the entire RvR experience MORE fun if you battled over contested BOs the entire time until 1 team owned them all outright. Then the Keep portion of the assault was much shorter. Right now you spend 15-30 minutes capping all the BOs, you see some opposing faction lock a BO and then you all sit around waiting for stuff to unlock... It shouldnt be this way - just like in SCs, why do people fight all over the maps? Because ALL the BOs are open for capture. I have defeated zergs on many multiple BO Sc maps by just doing a solo/duo "backcap" while the zerg is too busy sticking together to be effective. This is how RVR should be too!

Once a side owns all the BOs, the door should fall much quicker than it does now. Making it harder to defend - making it more appealing to re-capture BOs, "wounds buffing" the door back up (HP-wise) as a solid form of defense. Even if recapped and the "max" HP dropped, the Door retains the HP kept making defense less about hiding behind a wall, and more about BOs. Same with Offense. You will NOT be able to take a keep unless you actually defend some BOs because of this qausi-heal function of "wounds buff"

This would cause a more spread out assault where 1 WB attacks the keep while the other WB has a more "roam" party defending BOs against possible 1WB dropping Oil and what not, while another tries to re-capture BOs. It also allows for a quick 6 man strike team to nail a BO (if not defended) and since you could quickly cap it and lock it for 3 minutes, create an absolute NEED to defend all the BOs....

This also solves issue #2 "PVDOOR" as the attack door phase (again) becomes less about hitting doors and more about BOs. Sure you will still need SOME players on Rams/Canons etc to smack the door down, but you will equally need players who are willing to roam the RVR zone, preventing a re-capture of BOs - thus healing the door making it impossible for the attacking team to bring the door down. Frankly, this makes taking an EMPTY keep a very quick endeavor as there would be no defense for BOs and the door would go down quicker. Which frankly is fine by me as long as rewards scale (which they do) based on defense.

Now, as for the pioneer issue. I think I have a simple solution there. Provide "rewards" for BOs just like in Tier 3 (400 renown 150 influence?) But possibly MORE and have it spread across the entire zone (not including warcamps). Lets say you set the rewards @ 1,000 renown and "400 influence". is the TOTAL reward for a BO.

So 6 players go into a COMPLETELY EMPTY zone, start capping BOs. The 1,000 renown and 400 influence gets SPLIT between EVERYONE in the lakes at the time. 6 in this case. So they each start getting (1000/6) = 166 renown and 67 influence. Not too shabby.

Now lets say a WB starts to form. There are now 15 people in the lakes. Someone takes a BO. It now would be 1,000/15 = 67 renown and 750/15 = 26 influence.

Now lets say two full WBs (50+) are in the zone. Someone caps a BO. It would give 1,000 / 50 = only 20 renown and 8 influence.

So this solves the pioneer issue as it gets people to WANT to start RvR, however once there is sufficient numbero f players the rewards decrease BECAUSE there are more players. But! Think about this...

Once there is a zerg on one side, AAO happens for the opposing faction. They start to say "hey! 400% AAO in Dwarf!" They get 6 guys to go cap a BO and boom. They get (166 renown and 67 influence) EACH * the AAO multiplier (or not.. Just an idea).

So it starts heavily rewarding some defense - not to mention then that ONE BO take royally messes with that 50+ Warbands desire to take the keep by wounds buffing the door. So now half the WB splits off to re-cap the BO, and now has to wait while its locked for 3:00. They kill the Hero quick after 3:00 but alas! Another BO is taken... They start splitting up and by this time, more opposing faction has entered and now its a few parties dropping Oil/defense while another 2 parties are ninja-capping BOs. Now you have a mass battle SPREAD OUT in RvR lakes, not just two big WBs opposing eachother at the keep.

I think this would solve the FUN issue, solve the "lack of rewards" issue, solve the "pioneer" issue, the "PVDoor" issue etc.

You MIGHT want to consider some "faction wide" messages that tell people more info about what is where... If order caps a BO in Dwarf, it spreads that message through ALL the zones in Tier 4 Dwarf. People will get the word out quick and due to the scaling reward system and focus on BOs. RvR will be HUGE!

Dont want to just "text wall" quote... But I was talking to more players this morning and we got on this topic, these suggestions I had brought up and everyone LOVED the ideas and get so excited we all started rambling about how cool this would make things for over 30 minutes....

I just wanted to bump this because frankly, the more I think about the zerg issue and the "pioneer" issue, I just cant help but see this as the solution.

1) Fixed BO capture rewards, divided among everyone in the lakes.
2) BOs lock for 3:00 immediately (no waiting) and scales the doors HP immensely.
- To put further thought to this, I think all you need to do is create a "base HP" for the door that is relatively low. Then each BO owned by the defenders, gives a "wounds buff" to the door. Each BO would "double" the HP. So a real basic example: Base HP on the door: 250,000 HP (just picked this out of thin air). If 1 BO is owned, it "wounds buffs" the door another 250k (500k total). If another, it AGAIN wounds buffs the door up to 750k. So this way, its actually not hard to hold 4 BOs and attack a door for 250k damage (maybe this should be less, IDK). But it REQUIRES good defense on the BOs. Keep take rewards need to be LAKE WIDE and not just local. An easy contribution system can be put in place where if you are IN the lakes for a BO take, you get +50 contr. Dealing X damage to the door, rewards in +contr. Being in the WB that kills the Hero, + Contr. Etc. make it easy to get the contr requirements to roll on the bag and get the keep take.

This fixes zerging and fixes noone wanting to take BOs.

[Faef]

Not going to write a wall of text but i had a few simple ideas.

Most other online games or e sports end reward is usually only prestige, league tables and such. I think that still probably appeals to most people. So once you have a stable base game and keep take/pvp mechanics I think this is what should be aimed for. Like some people have already suggested, league tables, stats pages based on char, class, guild, chosen side. Much like Daoc used to do, that weeks no 1 soloer that kind of thing. Maybe a overall rotation of 1 month where which ever side accumulated the most renown in that cycle, thats a win and another point on the overall scoreboard for order/destro. If you really wanted to introduce prizes for any of these things, unique appearance items would seem to make sense to me, but the league would be enough for me personally.

Some thoughts on base game, attacking keeps should reward more than defending, thats obvious given the difficulty, but there should be a small reward and possibly a penalty for not defending.

if you were to use the above league idea based on renown accumulation, heres some example game play mechanics you could introduce:

For attacking undefended keeps (under 10 players defending)

Attackers:

1 x gold bag
+ x amount of renown
1 x removal of any single 5% realm renown gain debuff

Defenders:
For no defence (under 10 players) -5% debuff of realm renown for 24 hours (accumulative per keep)

For attacking defended keeps (over 10 players present)

Attackers:

3 x gold bag
+ x amount of renown
1 x removal of any single 5% realm renown gain debuff

Defenders:

2 x gold bag

This was just an initial sketch on mechanics but you could go further than this and you could obviously introduce such mechanics at ob, zone and pairing level. Alot does hinge on having the website serve up really good metrics though and those should be in place from day one. The realm renown debuff means for each keep lost you have a -%5 renown debuff for any kill, which means you can affect the current overall league game.

With the above, you also need to consider how people will abuse the system, as frankly there is a culture within this game that needs changing also, the want of something for nothing and avoiding fights. To that end, this is where you need to look at the penalty mechanics, say everyone said screw league tables and renown, we are all just going to take undefended keeps and avoid each and to hell with the renown penalties. Once a realm gets to -20% (so 4 keeps taken undefended) they can no longer accumulate any gold bags. This could be a meta game within itself, spreading out the fight, if you can take 4 keeps quickly, you prevent your enemy from acquiring any more loot. You could also make it that it must be the four keeps in question that must be taken back before the additional loot penalty is lifted. So the realm who has the penalty wants to attack to get rid of the debuff and the realm who took them wants to defend to prevent them doing so.

Theres lots of little mechanics that can play off this, anyway, just had a spare five minutes so jotted down some thoughts.

[navis]

A lot of the reasons...

I like almost all your comments except having every zone in T4 open at the same time. I think, we clearly need only one zone at a time open and at the same time (per pairing, like it is now) make sure a zone lock is harder than it is now, in order to improve the idea of the 'campaign' movement. The overall goal being that, eventually, a realm will want to start a push in their own Fortress Zone and push outward (considering future things such as any buffs or transitions gained there such as champion status/siege machine)

[Ninepaces]

some of the suggestions mentioned above that I like:

-minimizing the number of open zones at a time. imo I'd just funnel everyone into 1 t4 zone at a time... fight till its locked than go to another.
-leaderboards of some sort (weekly and monthly), based on zone locks/defenses + player kills + k:d. some sort of formula. imo all 3 of those are important...1 is to encourage keep warfare, 2 is to discourage pve, and 3 is to prevent kamikaze type attitudes and reward people that kill more than they die. (by kills I dont mean deathblows, I mean the same type of "kill" that is in the player kill quests).
rewards can be titles or aesthetic gear, etc. can leave a permanent list of winners on the forum, etc. People like the ego stroking stuff, because once you hit max gear, rank, rr there isnt much else to do (besides playing another character) except comparing e-peens by smashing in other ppls skulls. not everyone plays mmos like this to collect the gear than start an alt... for many the real game starts at character caps. ppl love the prestige.

[Telen]

Anything is better than what we have now

[navis]

A lot of you are addressing XP/RP/Inf/medallions... as did I to begin with. The problem is that all of these elements have an end. Unless there's something in the RvR system that actually sustains it in the absence of things to grind (i.e. it's fun for its own sake), people will stop RvRing. I will admit that this issue is causing me a lot of stress. Understand that it's hard enough to create a system that deals with RvR under populated conditions, without having to then worry about people refusing to enter the lakes to begin with.

I think the point there is that there the location for the best rr/xp/inf gains should be within the areas of keeps and BO's. WHY? Because that's better than the other realms warcamp, and brings the strong idea of re-capture of Objective flags.
There is no end to players PvP farming so might as well bring back the Ojbective Buffs, or something like that.

I don't know how else to make it funner but I suggest separating keeps and BO's and then make sure that just a few small groups can participate in Ojbective Flag type play, in which the rewards come from kills made defending or taking.
Hope that helps... really I do.