Instead of aao...

[Sulorie]

i can remember when i played live years ago that there where champion mobs around the t1 flags, that could be helpfull

Which would punish the underdog, as they can't ninja cap flags.
Giving NPC only to underdogs as additional defense might sound good to counter that but the side effects will be, the bigger side will more likely zerg down flags, because they can't take flags with equal numbers, if they split up.

[engharat]

There's really no need for that. AAO is already the tool that directly profits the less populated faction at that given time, and win or lose, they'll get their bags and their increased renown from AAO.

AAO is very effectively fixing the rp gain. However, it is not working at all for farming the gear, because you typically get 150-200 bonus contrib when you do a good amount of killings but you lose the zone, while you get around 600 contrib when you kill the same amount of people and you win the zone. So, the winning faction is fed with a constant supply of gold-purple-blue bags which makes vanq-invader-sov gearing way faster than the losing faction.
This is particularly evident with the invader gear; winning a fort with while putting a good effort typically gives 4 invader + at least a white bag, so 5 invader medals. Losing a fort is 1 invader plus a white bag if you are lucky. so 1-2 invader total.

[Strakar]

It feels like aao needs to kick in sooner to give any real incentive for more competitive play..
Basically once you get over 20% the zone is lost. With the recent player behavior once it becomes clear one side is going to lose the keep, everyone bails to go another zone. You have two pvdoor zones going with high aao (or just running boxes in zone 2 if NA time). The only ones benefitting from that are small groups picking off stragglers. If aao ramped up more aggressively, like even 1 player disadvantage was 20% and it scaled from there, more large scale groups might go in to defend for the bonus. I'm not sure if aao also includes higher medal drop rates from kills as well, but that would be a nice touch.

I know War said it's part of the campaign, but it's not healthy or fun orvr, it's just item farming.

[Aethilmar]

If you want pop balance then AAO doesn't need fixing. It is only half the solution. The other half is to make zerging down the enemy less profitable for the side with massive numbers.

However balance is not the objective as noted by

Being outnumbered is part of the campaign, it's not a problem that needs to be fixed.

i.e. the system is purposefully designed to flip toward end-game progression aka City

If you need more proof, note how you don't really get significantly extra rewards for fighting in a zone for 3 hours versus just 30 minutes.

[Toshutkidup]

Not sure what game ur all playing, but I do well daily with AAO (2% rr gain a day) and I get at least every color of bag if not 1/2 duplicates. Keep in mind if the population is high the attacking side also gets Diminishing Rations ( wounds debuff). So I see no problem with the system and it’s not a pve point of game so please no mobs on battle field ( besides keep guards / lord)

[Evilest]

There's really no need for that. AAO is already the tool that directly profits the less populated faction at that given time, and win or lose, they'll get their bags and their increased renown from AAO.

Who will get larger rewards by far? The roaming WB getting a bunch of kills here and there? Or the valiant WB that's gonna get crushed like a bunch of cockroaches because they wanted to defend the zone and tried to defend the keep?

[Albane]

How about penalizing people who invade zones with 60% or more AAO? Drop less bags for zergs and suddenly people might switch sides to PvP and not PvE their way to Sov gear.