Gear "grind"

[dansari]

In reference to the "gear grind," I think all you would need to do is introduce the ruin fragment system into conq:

1. Gear progression.
New bag system
Gold bag - Conqueror piece or 40 conqueror medallions
Purple - Subjugator piece or "Purple Fragment" - two purple fragments = “Mark of the Conqueror” - new currency item to trade for a Conqueror piece.
Blue - Genesis or "Blue Fragment" - five blue fragments = conq mark
Green - Green Fragment - seven or eight green frags = conq mark
White - White Fragment - ten white frags = conq mark

This ultimately doesn't change the rate of conq items in the game, imo. It simply gives players a way of seeing tangible progress towards end-game gear. It absolutely helps a casual player see their progress and feel like their time in a zone was worth something. It also doesn't take away any of the RNG from the campaign, which the devs have continued to state that they want incorporated into the gameplay.

To address the RVR campaign, I like what gate proposed except I don't think there should be a "defensive" tick in any situation until the zone is successfully captured, and I'm not sure the "negative points" are worthwhile. I also think you need a finite time for the zone to be locked, so:

2. Updating the RVR campaign
New BO system: just like Nordenwatch, or any capture the flag scenario.
Each zone now has, say, 1,000 points to capture it. Each BO gives 1 point every 30s. That's 120 points for holding a BO for an hour, and 480 for holding all four for an hour. Holding all four BOs for a little over two hours would then be enough to lock the zone. Normally I think you would see a lock in about 3 hours on average just from BOs, by holding 3 for three hours nets you 1080 points (120*3bo*3hr). BOs would impact the keep lord's hp. Holding all four BOs applies a 50% wounds debuff to the keep lord; holding three applies a 25% debuff. If the defending realm holds three BOs, their lord’s avoidance increases to 100% (or maybe 80% but the lord damage is increased by 25%?) until the attacking realm can retake a second BO. Capturing the keep should grant around 300 points to the attacking realm; defending should grant maybe 150? Here's where you could implement a "negative point" structure to give the defending zone an opportunity to take the zone back.

With each 30s tick, the BO grants a small amount of renown to all defending players in 100ft (as well as any players within their warband - maybe on a smaller scale - 50 renown to the players in the area and 25 to the rest of the warband). This again encourages your warband to split up and hold two, three, four BOs to maximize renown gain. Attacking players should get a % of the renown from capturing a BO, i.e. BO is held for 30m by order, and has generated 50 renown every 30s (50*2*30 = 3000 renown), then destro captures BO, and gets 25% of the generated renown: 750. Then the clock is reset so if order take it back within 5 min the renown gain would be negligible.

Supplies should also grant renown warband wide, but I think this is where 6man groups should still excel - supplies should grant a large reward for being stolen by the opposing realm by granting a large amount of renown (and maybe a conq medallion for the group if stolen?) That way 6man groups still have a place and warbands will need to choose between defending their BO or transporting supplies, potentially against deadly 6man groups that can win 6v12, 6v18.

To encourage players taking the keep instead of just sitting on BOs, you could take away half the bags if the zone is flipped via BOs, and grant full bags if the zone is flipped through a keep take, but it should only roll on the successful capture of a zone.

What all this accomplishes is:
- All but guarantees players who have about 3 hours to play the opportunity to lock or defend a zone.
- Gives people who might not ever see top contribution a progression towards obtaining BiS gear.
- Encourages fighting the opposing realm through either the stealing of supplies or capturing of BOs.
- Grants renown warband wide so you don't feel like you are missing out if party 3 is running the supplies and you're in party 4.

[Luth]

on a sidenote: I'm glad Marc landed on his feet and can't wait till he opens the CU and can keep to his vision and not be pressured by outside forces to make rvr version of wow.

Just a small hint/correction: mythic entertainment was high likely sold to EA, because the owners (a handful of persons) had a monetary benefit from the deal, not because the "bad monster" EA wanted to rule and destroy them.

MJ admitted to this on the old city state entertainment page:

Spoiler:

Mark Jacobs co-founded Mythic Entertainment and made some kick-ass games like Dark Age of Camelot. Then he traded the company and his soul for a bunch of shiny beads.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120131134 ... /the-team/

The text was changed:

Spoiler:

Mark is the co-founder of CSE, and its Lead Designer. He was a pioneer in online gaming having created one of the world’s earliest MUDs, Aradath. He was also the founder of Mythic Entertainment, which creates two of the highest rated MMORPGs of all time, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and he is credited with over two dozen titles overall.
http://citystateentertainment.com/the-team/

[K13R]

on a sidenote: I'm glad Marc landed on his feet and can't wait till he opens the CU and can keep to his vision and not be pressured by outside forces to make rvr version of wow.

Just a small hint/correction: mythic entertainment was high likely sold to EA, because the owners (a handful of persons) had a monetary benefit from the deal, not because the "bad monster" EA wanted to rule and destroy them.

MJ admitted to this on the old city state entertainment page:

Spoiler:

Mark Jacobs co-founded Mythic Entertainment and made some kick-ass games like Dark Age of Camelot. Then he traded the company and his soul for a bunch of shiny beads.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120131134 ... /the-team/

The text was changed:

Spoiler:

Mark is the co-founder of CSE, and its Lead Designer. He was a pioneer in online gaming having created one of the world’s earliest MUDs, Aradath. He was also the founder of Mythic Entertainment, which creates two of the highest rated MMORPGs of all time, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and he is credited with over two dozen titles overall.
http://citystateentertainment.com/the-team/

Oh I'm sure it's well documented why Marc sold just like it's well documented why the doctors sold Bioware and why respectively all 3 are not at the companies they founded(ever read ea louse blog) http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto ... ement-2803. Publically you'll never learn the real "story" as the industry is very how we say incestual and it's not good for business nor long term employment.


On another note I'll give a piece of advice to these devs that I received "You can design the most wicked game with the best systems ever, hell you can design a VR program where the end user gets to **** Jessica Alba in the ass and I guarantee one of those assholes are going to log out and go to the fourms and complain that there weren't enough tears" Moral of the story END users Suck

[lilsabin]

lol , the guy who started this thread was banned , looooool

[th3gatekeeper]

In reference to the "gear grind," I think all you would need to do is introduce the ruin fragment system into conq:

1. Gear progression.
New bag system
Gold bag - Conqueror piece or 40 conqueror medallions
Purple - Subjugator piece or "Purple Fragment" - two purple fragments = “Mark of the Conqueror” - new currency item to trade for a Conqueror piece.
Blue - Genesis or "Blue Fragment" - five blue fragments = conq mark
Green - Green Fragment - seven or eight green frags = conq mark
White - White Fragment - ten white frags = conq mark

A system LIKE this would be awesome. I think DEVs are afraid that if you can reliable earn currency towards your intended item, itll cause players to get these items faster than they might via RNG and thus ruin the "carrot" the DEVs have.

The reality of this though, is that players can do this in SCs and MANY players play a ridiculous amount of SCs because of this.

Personally, I would rather them just make it easy on themselves and make Subjugator weapons cost X # of medallions (maybe 600?) as well as Genesis pieces cost medallions each (maybe 400?) something like that... Then bags can merely just give an allotment of medallions. Thats my personal preference, but they could mimic the Ruin PQ setup and just increase the number.

To address the RVR campaign, I like what gate proposed except I don't think there should be a "defensive" tick in any situation until the zone is successfully captured, and I'm not sure the "negative points" are worthwhile. I also think you need a finite time for the zone to be locked, so:

See, I think you need to give players a reason to mount a solid defense... Changing loot would be ONE way, but if you keep the current loot system, where bags pay out on zone lock, then look at it this way. Say I was running a small 6 man. I was first in the zone and capped BOs+supplies agaisnt a zerg. We have 100% AAO. Why would I WANT to defend the keep? Right now, I can let them lock the zone, I get my top 6 contribution spot and get my bags...

"Players will DO the fastest route to desired goal" (most of the time). Where this breaks down? Well... the players that ALREADY have the loot that still do RVR.

Unless defending helps you "progress" towards the "loot goal" there is no incentive to defend a keep... In fact there are substantial RISKS to defending. You could be successful and kill the "drive" for the offensive force who logs out and boom. NOw you get NO bags (ive seen this happen)... So if someones ONLY goal in RVR was to get a Gold or Purple bag, why would they defend? People will do what you reward them to do.....

Why I said a currency grind would fix this? Well... If MEDALLIONS where what you need for say, a subjugator weapon or Genesis piece.... well... getting kills during a keep defense = getting medallions = progress towards your stated goal. So a currency grind where bags = medallions = gear WOULD make it so a keep defense is a solid thing.... But without doing this, and if they want to keep the bags=RNG items type approach, then you HAVE to do a defensive "lock tick" to payout smaller # of bags... otherwise why would anyone do it?

2. Updating the RVR campaign

Spoiler:

New BO system: just like Nordenwatch, or any capture the flag scenario.
Each zone now has, say, 1,000 points to capture it. Each BO gives 1 point every 30s. That's 120 points for holding a BO for an hour, and 480 for holding all four for an hour. Holding all four BOs for a little over two hours would then be enough to lock the zone. Normally I think you would see a lock in about 3 hours on average just from BOs, by holding 3 for three hours nets you 1080 points (120*3bo*3hr). BOs would impact the keep lord's hp. Holding all four BOs applies a 50% wounds debuff to the keep lord; holding three applies a 25% debuff. If the defending realm holds three BOs, their lord’s avoidance increases to 100% (or maybe 80% but the lord damage is increased by 25%?) until the attacking realm can retake a second BO. Capturing the keep should grant around 300 points to the attacking realm; defending should grant maybe 150? Here's where you could implement a "negative point" structure to give the defending zone an opportunity to take the zone back.

With each 30s tick, the BO grants a small amount of renown to all defending players in 100ft (as well as any players within their warband - maybe on a smaller scale - 50 renown to the players in the area and 25 to the rest of the warband). This again encourages your warband to split up and hold two, three, four BOs to maximize renown gain. Attacking players should get a % of the renown from capturing a BO, i.e. BO is held for 30m by order, and has generated 50 renown every 30s (50*2*30 = 3000 renown), then destro captures BO, and gets 25% of the generated renown: 750. Then the clock is reset so if order take it back within 5 min the renown gain would be negligible.

Supplies should also grant renown warband wide, but I think this is where 6man groups should still excel - supplies should grant a large reward for being stolen by the opposing realm by granting a large amount of renown (and maybe a conq medallion for the group if stolen?) That way 6man groups still have a place and warbands will need to choose between defending their BO or transporting supplies, potentially against deadly 6man groups that can win 6v12, 6v18.

To encourage players taking the keep instead of just sitting on BOs, you could take away half the bags if the zone is flipped via BOs, and grant full bags if the zone is flipped through a keep take, but it should only roll on the successful capture of a zone.

What all this accomplishes is:
- All but guarantees players who have about 3 hours to play the opportunity to lock or defend a zone.
- Gives people who might not ever see top contribution a progression towards obtaining BiS gear.
- Encourages fighting the opposing realm through either the stealing of supplies or capturing of BOs.
- Grants renown warband wide so you don't feel like you are missing out if party 3 is running the supplies and you're in party 4.

My only concern with this new system, is how much re-coding they have to do. The reason I proposed what I did, is because it uses the exact same mechanics already being used. Also, while SC BOs are fun, I think it lacks "dynamic" gameplay. As a small 6 man, if you go and grab 1 BO and hold it for 45 seconds while the enemy team runs to that BO, you get (on your system) just 1 point... That really doesnt do much...

On the other hand, if you are awarding %s to lock, every 5:00, then this becomes a dynamic situation. You might see a BO flip with 4:00 left. Well, youve got plenty of time to capture that back, so you can strategize. If you are a smaller group, you might intentionally WAIT to flip a BO until its got 30 seconds left (from that 5:00 ticker) to surprise the enemy. It creates these "dynamic" situations where as soon as the 5:00 ticks down, its almost like a mini-round... where you regroup, re-strategize, and there becomes a "timing" aspect of not just "to take or not to take" but WHEN to take.

Why I think this is important, is it becomes difficult for a larger force to hold BOs. You will likely want "scouts" (WE/WH classes) or smaller roaming groups within a warband to tell you where people are going. If all it is, is a "points" thing, then nothing stops the zerg. You get your 1 point, they come in, crush you, and move on - in 1 big blob. There is no "defense" needed... Since the difference between holding it for 30 seconds or 50 seconds doesnt mean much.. In a system like I proposed. You WILL see people waiting to cap until the last few seconds, OR sticking around to mount a defense during the last few seconds. The "value" of those few seconds before the 5:00 timer hits 0:00 is immense... So it creates these "mini-rounds" where people re-allocate their forces, split up, scout, patrol, TIME caps, etc.... Versus a mere points system none of that matters all that much...

I think the "-%" thing is important, not only because its what the system CURRENTLY does (so its easy) but you need a way to STOP an opposing force from locking a zone. What happens if 90 minutes into a RVR zone, Order has 900 points and destro is finally mounting a defense? Destro has 200 points... Well Order really just needs to zerg defend 1 BO and they will lock the zone.... There is nothing Destro can do to "hinder" them locking it.

Also, what happens over night? When its 10 vs 10 or something... The zone will lock when it probably shouldnt... This is why I think you still need to keep the "Keep/Lord take" function in the lakes. That is the "pinnacle" of RVR IMO. It needs to be a "more epic" finale of the RVR lake experience.

So if 1 side "loses" the BO battle... they can still mount a defense... almost like a "last stand"... its a "last chance to hold the line".... However why would anybody do this on the current system? They would rather just cap BOs while Order zergs the Lord, then get contribution towards their loot.... This is why the system I proposed was very well crafted. Once Order wins the BO game - gets zone to 100% lock, the BOs lock. So the ONLY chance DEstro has, is to defend the keep. This is why you need to give a defensive "tick" as well, otherwise the Destro that have earned highest contribution - will WANT to do the defensive tick because they have highest contribution... Otherwise, if you dont offer that, they will sit out by the warcamp, let Order win, and get their bags....

I really think the system I proposed, actually does what everyone wants it to do.... It splits up zerg, it allows a smaller force the ability to precision strike JUST before the 5:00 ticks down. It gives incentive to fight back... It deters Xrealm, etc etc....

[dansari]

I see what you mean about the mini rounds, but I'm​ not sure that helps split up the zerg. Wouldn't you still just have one or two blobs that that mass on bos every 5 minutes?

[wargrimnir]

I think we've heard enough "Suggestions" on this topic.