New Keep Supply Mechanic

[Mossesman]

I've been seeing this quite alot over the last few months. One side will just stay in or near the keep and wait for the opposing realm to either log off or spawn a ram, where they will have a natural advantage as the defender. This does make sense when outnumbered, but I am starting to see this alot more even when the numbers are fairly even. Tonight in particular was pretty bad, with many organised order warbands choosing to wait in the Troll Country keep despite numbers being relatively even throughout the evening.

What I am proposing is a mechanic which encourages more fighting within the zone, and punishes excessive camping within a keep area.

The idea is a mechanic similar to how keeps would be "starved" during a medieval keep siege.

Lets use Praag as an example. One side has many players sat within the south keep. The opposing side responds by taking control of all of the battlefield objectives. With no BOs being held, and thus no supplies being taken to the keep, the players within the keep will slowly "starve". This can be represented via a debuff to players within the keep or changes to the keep itself, which gets stronger the longer the opposing realms hold those objects. For example, these debuffs could be:

• 5 Minutes - 5% Healing and Damage Reduction for one hour.

• 10 Minutes - 10% Healing and Damage Reduction for one hour. Lower cannon ammunition respawn rate / cannon damage reduced

• 15 Minutes - 15% Healing and Damage Reduction for one hour. One less cannon get be spawned. Lower cannon ammunition respawn rate / cannon damage reduced

• 20 Minutes - All of the above + oil damage is reduced.

• 30 Minutes - 20% Healing and Damage Reduction. Cannons and Oil cannot be spawned

The debuffs would only apply to players who are within the keep area.

If the defenders are able to push out, retake the one BOs and hold them for a certain amount of time, then the keep will start to be resupplied and the debuffs will slowly dissapear. The more BOs that are held, the quicker these debuffs dissapear. However, if the attacking side starts a siege before this happens, then the defenders will need to break the siege and repair the doors.

Obviously, the game has a big issue with population imbalance at certain times of the day, so elements of this mechanic will need to change to not punish the underpopulated side. The mechanic could even be disabled if AAO is greater that 60% for example.

The intention of this idea was to be seperate to the existing supply for keep stars mechanic. Open to any suggestions to the idea.

[diedrake]

that is an interesting idea but it should rather be a pendulum type mechanic and zone wide rather then just keep area, and no hour type debuff. my idea is as follows:

0 BO= -10 % healing/damage
1 BO= -5 % healing/damage
2 BO= no negatives/bonus
3 BO= +5 % healing/damage
4 BO= +10% healing/damage

zone does a check every 10 mins to apply bonuses/negative (just like how SoR does its checks for aao)

If a guild claims the zone bonuses are doubled to represent moral of that side but no additional negatives. only thing that would change is at 3 BOs= +10% and 4 BOs= 20%

Also, bring back basic guards for the bos they don't have to be powerful npcs but also keep spawning resources.

the guards would be there so that a single player cannot take a Bo and it requires teamwork to take the bo, example 2-4 players. Caping same time limit to lock for faction.

Another idea is that cannons and other artillery from keeps should be doing way more damage to players as only useful artillery at the moment are cannons to either kill ram or oil. Have the single tgt cannons do something like 4k damage to characters before damage reduction for armor and other bonus, the aoe artillery do 2k damage reduction for armor/bonuses. This would make attackers have to spread out or be more active during the ramming door phase of a keep take. Also would give reason to use artillery pieces over others rather then just having 1 type being useful.

[Aethilmar]

Almost all the realm-wide incentives and mechanics that provide any meaning to fights in the zones is gone. All that is really left are the fights themselves and now you guys are proposing to punish folks for that too. Why would anyone bother to defend a keep (or fight in a zone) where they knew their (hard-earned) power was being suppressed?

You need to take a couple steps back and ask why folks turtle up in the first place and why the attackers feel compelled to stick to single zone instead of taking advantage of that turtling.

You can't force people to fight but you can make them leave.

[Mossesman]

that is an interesting idea but it should rather be a pendulum type mechanic and zone wide rather then just keep area, and no hour type debuff. my idea is as follows:

0 BO= -10 % healing/damage
1 BO= -5 % healing/damage
2 BO= no negatives/bonus
3 BO= +5 % healing/damage
4 BO= +10% healing/damage

zone does a check every 10 mins to apply bonuses/negative (just like how SoR does its checks for aao)

If a guild claims the zone bonuses are doubled to represent moral of that side but no additional negatives. only thing that would change is at 3 BOs= +10% and 4 BOs= 20%

Also, bring back basic guards for the bos they don't have to be powerful npcs but also keep spawning resources.

the guards would be there so that a single player cannot take a Bo and it requires teamwork to take the bo, example 2-4 players. Caping same time limit to lock for faction.

Another idea is that cannons and other artillery from keeps should be doing way more damage to players as only useful artillery at the moment are cannons to either kill ram or oil. Have the single tgt cannons do something like 4k damage to characters before damage reduction for armor and other bonus, the aoe artillery do 2k damage reduction for armor/bonuses. This would make attackers have to spread out or be more active during the ramming door phase of a keep take. Also would give reason to use artillery pieces over others rather then just having 1 type being useful.

Interesting ideas. The only thing I disagree with is the aoe cannon damage. It’s already quite high, especially when used with other aoe cannons. Single target cannons could do with a damage buff though - it would be fun to snipe people with it!

[Acidic]

Have to agree something needs to be done.
One side goes out to fight even at 100+ aao , seeing this as a good rr reward, the other have warband running from 4 pp with justification “something might happen” , we bore them to seige or log off . Aka easy def or pvdoor is only thing they feel need to do.

The above are comments direct from region chat on one side where they clearly do not feel the need to fight until 100 aao or such

[Mossesman]

Almost all the realm-wide incentives and mechanics that provide any meaning to fights in the zones is gone. All that is really left are the fights themselves and now you guys are proposing to punish folks for that too. Why would anyone bother to defend a keep (or fight in a zone) where they knew their (hard-earned) power was being suppressed?

My proposed idea could be changed so it’s a pendulum type mechanic as Diedrake suggested. If one side holds all the BOs, then their keep would start to be supplied. This will result in that side receiving defensive bonuses in the event of a siege (more healing/damage etc). Depending on how supplied a keep is, it could provide addition renown/influence upon a zone lock.

This would hopefully provide an incentive to participate more within the zone, as you would be making your keep stronger, whilst making the opposing sides keep easier to take.

You need to take a couple steps back and ask why folks turtle up in the first place and why the attackers feel compelled to stick to single zone instead of taking advantage of that turtling.

Well yesterday TC was the only zone open at the time, so destro couldn’t move anywhere else.

In a normal situation, yes you could move to another zone and start levelling the keep there. However, due to the geography of some of the maps, it can be very easy for one side to get into their keep. The keep turtling will just continue, albeit in another zone.

I understand not wanting to give up your defensive position within a keep, but I don’t think turtling in a keep until one side logs off or goes to pve in a different zone should be encouraged. It kills RVR, can be demotivating for some people, and ultimately I think it’s not good for the game.