Patchnotes 20/09/16

[Azarael]

[General]

- Fixed an issue with the player and creature inventory packet which would lead to corruption if an empty slot was sent.
- Fixed a bug causing automatic mail expiry to fail and throw an exception.
- Fixed the state information of many NPCs. This will correct their icon display on the map and minimap.

[Scenarios]

- The penalty duration for a recently killed player has been lowered from 5 minutes to 1 minute.

[RvR]

- Fixed an issue in which oil kills would grant full contribution.
- Fixed an issue in which the campaign tracker would display zero rewards for the current zone when another zone sent a campaign status update.

[Rationing]

Added a rationing system to RvR. This is implemented as follows:

Control Factors

Controlling BOs grants supply to the realm. A realm can supply its forces up to a certain % of the enemy realm's force size - for example, if Destruction with 120% supply is facing Order, which is fielding 50 players, Destruction can field 60 players before triggering the ration system to act.

The control factors for rationing are as follows:

0 BOs held: 50% supply.
1 BO held: 100% supply.
2 BOs held: 120% supply.
3 BOs held: 150% supply.
4 BOs held: 200% supply.

- If fighting in the T4 zone closest to the fortress, the defending realm has a 50% supply bonus multiplier. This is to ensure that a defending realm cannot easily be zerged within its last zone, and that things are relatively more difficult for the attackers so far away from their own native zones.

The supply levels for a realm change gradually over time.

A realm can always supply at least 36 players without ill effects, regardless of conditions.

An outnumbered realm holding at least one BO will NEVER be debuffed.

Implementation of Debuff

If the number of players fielded by a realm exceeds both 36 and their supply allowance, the debuff "Diminishing Rations" is invoked. This modifies incoming and outgoing damage based on the following factor:

• outFactor = sqrt(realmPop / Max(36, allowedRealmPop))

where realmPop is the current realm population and allowedRealmPop is the enemy realm's population multiplied by the supply factor.

The incoming damage received by a debuffed player is multiplied by outFactor, and the outgoing damage dealt by a player is multiplied by (1 / outFactor).

A realm violating its supply by fielding twice as many players as it can support, for example, is subject to 41% additional incoming damage and its outgoing damage is reduced by 30%.

Rationale

This was designed to deal primarily with the "retreat to the keep" strategy but it also has implications (both positive and negative) for population dynamics in the RvR lakes, and we will need to observe these. The most obvious result of this change outside of keep attrition is that a zerg is required to maintain BO control to avoid being debuffed when facing a smaller army, and it cannot outnumber the smaller army by a factor greater than 2 without being debuffed.

[Razielhell]

Nice.
Lets see how it goes!

- Fixed the state information of many NPCs. This will correct their icon display on the map and minimap.

This includes Rally Masters,Healers etc.etc.

[kweedko]

In simple words what this system gonna be?

[Azarael]

In simple words what this system gonna be?

If you are not capable of devoting the few minutes necessary to understand the breakdown, then get out of the topic.

[BrockRiefenstahl]

Thiss looks really well thought out!
SO, if the Attackers are not twice as much, they still have to take at least 1-4 ppl for defending a BO, because otherwise (if they lose the BO),they also will be punished with the debuff --> EVEN without being more than twice as much. Seems interesting I hope this turns out as the right knob!

I already thought about a buff/debuff mechanic but this one is much more controlable. Good Job BoyZ!

[sanii]

In simple words what this system gonna be?

Rationale

This was designed to deal primarily with the "retreat to the keep" strategy but it also has implications (both positive and negative) for population dynamics in the RvR lakes, and we will need to observe these. The most obvious result of this change outside of keep attrition is that a zerg is required to maintain BO control to avoid being debuffed when facing a smaller army, and it cannot outnumber the smaller army by a factor greater than 2 without being debuffed.

[Specialpatrol]

Yep, sounds interesting. And could be a domination-breaker. Will be interesting to see in effect.

Though the "retreat to keep" strategy is in my experience often the only one available, when facing heavy opposition. Currently, where Destruction have been dominating massively, it is almost impossible to capture and hold a BO, without having a huge zerg decending upon you.

And constantly being wiped in the open field leads to only one alternative, if you want to keep some sort of moral up on the underdog-side - and that is to retreat to keep and try to break the opposing offensive from there through whichever means possible (funnel defence etc).

(One possible solution to the above could be to reduce the timers on open BOs a tiny bit - making it harder for a given zerg to reach it in time).

[Shadowgurke]

System sounds a bit complex but I think simplified it means: Larger zerg needs supply => hold BOs or face scaling debuffs. Holding BOs means larger force has to split => smaller force can attack BOs and not face the entire zerg

[saupreusse]

Really strong debuff. Let's see how it turns out

[drmordread]

This should be interesting to play test

Let the madness begin!!!!!!!!