Return of Reckoning

Hi,

This thread will discuss in-game changes that I believe would improve the overall competitive spirit and gameplay in RoR. The cool part - since this game is being openly modified by the devs, sticking to the "live script" is not necessarily required.

Please Note - Up front I thank and appreciate all the work the devs are putting into the game. Please do not read this post as a "whine" thread of complaining and bitching. I'm actually just trying to put together things that I think would really improve the play of the game. Whether they happen or not - I have and will continue to play this game - Waagh on!

1. Making RvR happen. How do we do it? With large populations, I think it happens naturally. With low populations, I believe it requires somewhat of an snowball effect to take place. So with this in mind I propose the following:

A. Keep takes with little to no resistance - A keep take by a faction should reward one medallion when there is little to no resistance. This creates the incentive to always go and rvr out in the lakes regardless of population. Currently, I think there is a bit of an apathetic appetite to rvr in low pop times because the effort provides little to no reward. Even just one medallion is an opportunity towards gearing...so that alone now provides the incentive to take objectives when population is low. In low pop times, just getting rvr to happen can somewhat snowball from 3 ppl to 6 to 12 to 24 and before you know it, a warband is moving through zones again.

B. Keep takes with resistance - This is the best case scenario. RvR has happened and you successfully took a defended keep. Three medallions to the victor for a well fought battle.

C. Successful keep defense - We need people to show up for keep defense. This has to be more profitable than just zerging the zone that the opposing faction is not in. Zerging unopposed zones would lead to 1 medallion as noted in (A) above. Thus, a successful defense should reward two medallions.


2. T1 should be zone locked if you cap all 3 BO's. Have it unlock every 15 mins. T1 is fast pace and quick to level out. Let's be honest - even if someone in T1 wanted to abuse xrealming for quick locks on the zerg side...doesn't matter since by lvl 12 they are chickened out. But honestly.. I can't tell you the # of times the zone is 3 bo capped by a faction and they are spawn camping the other side and the zone won't lock. Let's make T1 a fast paced, constantly moving, pvp zone. I love the way T2 is moving every 30 mins - make T1 do the same.

3. Posterns in T3 for both outer and inner walls need to become operational. These are key for defense to take place. With the lack of incentive to defend, plus the extremely difficult measures required to even get into the keep to defend, the lakes are quickly becoming a "no-resistance" keep take wasteland.

The remainder of my points are "nice to have" options that would be really nice QoL upgrades:


3. Can we get pots that persist? Maybe that's to much to ask. But with all the drops/disconnects etc... pots with a 60min timer that persist would be great. (this is a "Nice to Have" QoL improvement. Not fundamental)


4. Gear stats need to be re-worked. Why are mdps walking around with end game sentry gear that has willpower on it? Ouch. Ick.


5. Would really be nice if renown specced abilities would persist in your ability pane (i know it is "claimed" they do persist but things like vigor seem to fall off. Further, in your abilities page - the last tab - renown abilities specced will show up when you actually spec into them..but are gone after your next login.)


6. Can we get defensive abilities to show up in character sheet - I'd like to know its actually working: Deft Defender / Reflexes / Defender abilities



MORE TO COME!!!!

mursie wrote:
4. Defense ticks for Keeps needs to go way way up. When a zerg beats on mandred doors for over an hour, if successful, they will walk away with 10K+ renown and ridiculous XP. Guess what the defenders get if they successfully hold the keep from being taken for over an hour? 400 renown.

Hmm - which would you rather have? 10K+ renown or 400? This is why xrealming to the zerg faction is happening. The defense ticks need to go up. WAY up. They should be in-line with the ticks for opposition (if not slightly higher). In my opinion... maybe a 55/45 split (i.e. if renown for taking is 10K then renown for defending from take would be 11K)

I slightly disagree with your statement that regarding defensive ticks.
I am not sure if you remember, but we had multiple threads on the forums a few weeks ago saying that the reward for taking a defended keep needed to be buffed (it was 400-1200 rp, I believe), because everyone was xrealming to the defending side to farm XP, RP and INF. It was hardly worth taking a keep as the attacking side.

Now it is very much worthwhile attacking, and it is worthwhile defending.

If you are defending for an hour, the defensive side should have killed a lot of the opposition, gaining XP, RP and INF with each kill. A single attacker may die upwards of 5 times while attacking the door, while pushing up the ramps and while attacking the keep lord.

On the flip side, the attacking side may have killed some of the defenders, but probably not very many. Once the attackers get into the keep, each defender will die once, maybe twice, and this is the reason that the offensive keep tick needed to be buffed from what it was (and I applaud the devs for doing so).

Increasing the defensive keep tick to be on par with the attacking keep tick will result in huge xrealming to the defending side, as not only can the defending side farm insane XP, RP and INF from kills, but they'll get a monster tick at the end of it, too.
An increase in a defensive tick would need to ensure that the defending side does not end up with a huge percentage of the population.

I agree with most of your other points:
Potions that persist would be nice, in light of the number of DCs, however as you said this would be a nice QOL change and isn't a huge deal.

Gear stats do need to be reworked. Not only Sentry gear, but also some of the RvR Influence Rewards (looking at you - Bright Wizard itemization). The Sorcerer's RVR INF gear is way ahead of what the BW gets.

To be fair I've made crazy renown guarding a bomb sorc at keeps the level just tick up to the point where its a little bit silly 3k per kill 20+ kills = ranks. so probably keep defence is fine.

Toldavf wrote:To be fair I've made crazy renown guarding a bomb sorc at keeps the level just tick up to the point where its a little bit silly 3k per kill 20+ kills = ranks. so probably keep defence is fine.

Yeah getting kills as the defenders, especially with AAO, is just ridiculous gains.

mursie wrote: 6. Can we get pots that persist? Maybe that's to much to ask. But with all the drops/disconnects etc... pots with a 60min timer that persist would be great. (this is a "Nice to Have" QoL improvement. Not fundamental)

It's not just an improvement, it would work like on live. The only question is its technical implementation, apart from this there is nothing to discuss.

@Abo - Yes, organized defense groups (especially those with great aoe dmg potential ) will definitely make a great amount of renown while defending a keep. But the vast majority of pugs, both taking and defending, are not experiencing this type of gain.

At the margin, the well geared, well organized, and skilled players will always make great gains. But the zerg itself, the pugs, how do they make their renown? I think it is logical to conclude that pugs take the path of least resistance. The path of easiest gain. This game is about team play and coordination. But not everyone has access to organized teams. Hence the term "pug" or pick up group was formed. Pugs, try as they might, will never come close to actually competing with organized team play. Hell, a pug group is lucky if it actually has a healer in its group (how many pug groups have you been in where parties 2, 3, and 4 of the wb have 0 healers and party 1 has 3).

I digress, but the point is this: To encourage the pugs to play at equal strength requires equal incentive regardless of position taken (taking or defending keep).

In its current form, if you are a pug, defending a keep has little to no value to you. You are not part of the small coordinated bomb group that is soaking up renown mowing opposing pugs at very key choke points in the keep. You are just the fodder of the few kills that keep attackers get on the way in. So - what is your alternative? Log onto the keep taking faction of course, where not only can you zerg down the keep....but you'll be rewarded with great renown for doing so...regardless of whether you actually did anything of merit to take that keep.

Anyways - your point is valid and I don't disagree with it. I just think it is referring to the margin player that will excel regardless of stance taken. But the goal here is to have epic keep battles...not - log off faction A to zerg on faction B renown train. How do we get epic keep battles? well, we can hope that small organized groups will be on and willing to defend a keep (although to be honest...i've seen that just demoralize the opposing attacking pugs... when one six man obliterates 24+ wb... nothing will make a wb drop group faster). Conversely, we could try to incentive players to play their faction of choice and have great rewards for either taking a keep or defending it. I'm sure I have oversimplified just how complicated this actually is to achieve. But in its current form... the pugs, in my opinion, would much rather log onto the zerg train for big renown gains...than sit in a keep defense...praying for a scrap of the action and then concluding 400 renown tick.

Updated this post as the devs have done a great job. My first three points have now largely been addressed. As such, I've updated the new pressing issue - making rvr happen at all times of day including low population times.

Abolition wrote:If you are defending for an hour, the defensive side should have killed a lot of the opposition, gaining XP, RP and INF with each kill. A single attacker may die upwards of 5 times while attacking the door, while pushing up the ramps and while attacking the keep lord.

On the flip side, the attacking side may have killed some of the defenders, but probably not very many. Once the attackers get into the keep, each defender will die once, maybe twice, and this is the reason that the offensive keep tick needed to be buffed from what it was (and I applaud the devs for doing so).

If a keep defense goes very well with a lot of numbers, they will get plenty of medallions from the kills. Getting an extra 1 medallion each is pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

On the flipside, if you are a small force defending against a zerg, it gives you the incentive to try to defend the keep against hugely overwhelming odds. I know that AAO is good incentive, but AAO doesn't reward extra medallions and many people are 40 or will be soon enough; the RR cap isn't changing any time soon.

9. Can we get defensive abilities to show up in character sheet - I'd like to know its actually working: Deft Defender / Reflexes / Defender abilities

Next update, because my god am I tired of hearing that these skills "aren't working".

Azarael wrote:

9. Can we get defensive abilities to show up in character sheet - I'd like to know its actually working: Deft Defender / Reflexes / Defender abilities

Next update, because my god am I tired of hearing that these skills "aren't working".

everytime you visit the renown trainer there should be a big red message on the screen telling you to use .getstats to see that they are indeed working