Current Issue: T4 Endzones are unappealing to defend
When does "throwing mentality" start?
Generally whoever wins the middle zone changes the dynamic of the campaign in his favour, once you get pushed to your endzone the realisation slowly trickles in that if you defend this endzone you probably won't see a fort that day if you stick to your playtime, but you don't want that. Successfully defending the Endzone means reverting campaign progress, it's no fun since you feel like you are missing out by winning.
Basically what this means is:
Throwing Zone mentality starts already at the beginning of the Endzone. Maybe it doesn't show in chat or every player instantly but the snowball start to roll and grow already from the start of the Endzone. But Why?
Counterpushing is a slugfest
Set youself in this situation as an example, you are a destruction player ,lost praag after a bit back and forth, and the active zone is chaos wastes now.
You can
A) lose CW and have a chance to get into a fort defense for 4 Medals
or
B) slug down the overwhelming attacking forces (the reason why you lost praag) and make their supply buildup painful and repel their keep assaults until you can countersiege. Finally you won CW receive you 1 Invader token, but you wanna go to fort, well now you are back in praag the place that decided the dynamic multiple hours ago, you get tired the warbands change and the counteroffensive is exhausted before it started, because even if you win praag in a reasonable time, you still have the Reikland zone to take, in a reasonable time, as well but chances are praag gets an influx of fresh players from other timezones so there's good reason to assume the zone will become a back and forth slugfest again. In the end you will find yourself either back in CW where it all started and finally give in or in reikland with no energy left to push this endzone let alone an additional hour for the fort that follows.
option B sounds exhausting doesn't it.
How to fix?
Counteroffensive mechanic
The basic idea behind this mechanic is that the counterattacking faction overruns the attacking faction because they had to overextend their supply lines into enemy territory resulting in an instant takeover of the middle zone.
For example, you are a destruction player again and in CW, if you win this zone, praag will be overrun/skipped because order supply lines are stretched and the next zone will be reikland, and reikland is an endzone which means if you win that zone as well there will be a fort straight after.
Illustration for better understanding:
Spoiler:
How does the payout compare
Sure you could lose CW and go fort for 4 medals,
OR you could win CW get 1 medal, win reikland and go fort for 4-6 medals.
That's not too bad of a deal especially since your faction is in high spirits from the recent win.
Going to Reikland instead of Praag from CW signals "HEY Fortattack, phat loot, after this zone" which will keep the counteroffensive motivated.
But most importantly you don't regress the campaign, sure the "time till fort" is increased in this calculation but so is the reward for that fort since you are now the attacker with a chance for 4-6
(+1 from previous endzone def)
This kind of mechanic is already kind of implemented in successful fort defenses where the active zone pushes back to the middle zone. Ofc it would work here under different parameters since you have to actively win the endzone instead of not lose fort.
Disclaimer: The following idea stems from my absolute lunacy and shouldn't actually be considered.
Spoiler:
As always please tell me your thoughts on this idea.
