An in-depth Analysis on how to break Keeps.

[Cyrinael]

TL;DR: Attack through one postern is bettern than funneling through main gate.

Preface: The following text might seem to most people like a scientific publication than a traditional forum thread, and while I think that most players will not read it, I still want to lay down my arguments in a structured way in order to allow the minority, who actually read it, to understand how I came to the proposed conclusions.

First things first, I recently returned to RoR and might not have an overboarding amount of experience in fighting keeps (100-200) under my belt like some of you, who are doing this as your daily bread and butter since years. On live servers, seldom we had situations we currently face nowadays. Nevertheless, I think the way it is currently done is stupidly depending on numbers. In reality, the problem is a little bit more intricated than just looking at and comparing raw numbers, but I will not go deeper into analyzing that, since this text here is already a mouthfull to read. Furthermore, I do not intend to call-out any players (especially not warband leaders) or inspire discussion about balance or x-realming!

In my opinion, keep fights can be split into 2 different categories, depending on whether the defenders have the "critical mass" to kill everyone during funneling or not. I will only discuss the the first category here.

As far as I comprehend, these non-trivial keep fights work in the following way [extremely simplified, but stay with me here]:
(1) Attackers wait for the Oil to go down.
(2.a) In the best case, attackers have multiple warbands on each of the postern and main gate and push all entrances simultaneously until one of the faction dies.
(2.b) Normally, all attackers go through the main gate.
(3) Repeat until keep is taken or attacking morale is broken.

This procedure applies to both, attacking the outer and inner gate.

Before discussion why this is a sub-optimal approach, I want to lay down my goals for an optimal attacking strategy aswell.
(1) Maximize player throughput (Get as many players inside as possible in the least amount of time).
(2) Keep the strategy as simple and stupid as possible.
(3) Minimize necessary player communication.

Most will think now, that especially the first two of these goals already apply to the described strategy, but keep in mind, that we speak of cases, where the defenders have a critical mass, therefore coordination at the posterns becomes a necessity. Without communication between the attacking warbands, this is extremly depending on the defenders to make huge mistakes, like breaking the funnel at the main gate or pushing out. Communication is the only relevant kingmaker here, for attackers and defenders alike, and from what I can see, communication is hampered by 2 major factors:
(1) Communication of the warband leaders is either not present or only done via chat, leading to delayed information pipelines, because player numbers, fighting activities and wipes are communicated after they happend leading to unreliable information for everyone.
(2) From what I can observe, we have a huge amount of random warbands, where the players often do not follow the commands of the leader. Thus, noone know exactly how many players are in reality at the postern/main gate. Again, I do not intend to call out players or warband leaders; just analyzing it.

Here is my strategy:
(1) Instead of gathering at the main gate, every attacker gathers at exactly one postern after the gate is open. In the best case the one nearest to the defending faction's warcamp.
(2) After a countdown, the attackers go through the postern and attacks.

"Get the **** out of here, this is just BS and only works on keeps that are not 3-stars", you'll probably think and tell me that a **** stone could come to this conclusion and that it is only a dumb theory not working in practice. True, this does not work on 3+ star keeps, but ask yourself, how many 3-star keeps are actually attacked in ratio to lesser star keeps. A hell of a lot less. Moreover, I have to admit, that I have no solution for 3+ star keeps with critical mass of defenders.

Let me lay down my argumentation, why this is better in almost all respects than the current strategy.

(1) Oil is useless! This is such an important factor, that I truly want to hammer down this fact. The oil timer is the major limiting factor on how long an attack can last! Attacks are all about getting as many players inside as possible in order to deal damage. The oil phase is currently long enough for the defenders to rezz everyone up again, so even if the attackers wipe half the defenders it is completely meaningless since the oil resets the attacks each time. This is also the main reason, why keep fights currently feel like a stomp from eighter the defenders or the attackers. Long-drawn fights are not possible - only a lot of 3 minute fights one after each other.

(2) The time of a player to "get in" through a postern is (almost) 0 and an (almost) infinite amount of players can get in simultaneously. This makes the player throughput (almost) infinitely higher than with every other strategy not involving posterns. I have previously used the abstract term "critical mass" and will now explain what I mean with that: A critical mass of defenders is reached, when attacking players deal less damage than the defending players can heal because they die so fast. The only reason, funneling works is because when a critical mass is reached the attackers are killed faster than they can deal real damage. From what I can see, going through postern is the only way to maximize player throughput and should therefore be the preferrable way.

(3) There is less communication overhead than currently, since players need not be split between multiple places.

Of course this strategy is not perfect aswell and I will also be transparent with its shortcomings I currently see.

(1) Players cannot be rezz'd if they die inside and the push fails. This is also the major reason, why I think this strategy is not used yet. Already with the possibility to get rezz'd at the main gate, most players will stop pushing or turning around once their healthbar drops to 50%. When players are then confronted with pushing the postern, they are even more reluctant to go in.

(2) Attacking players going through the postern are stacking up at the same position. Therefore, until the APs of the defenders are emptied out, attacking players are (possibly) killed faster than when going through the main gate. However, once APs are down attacking players have a huge advantage and the push never has to stop due to the lack of oil!

Happy to discuss this with all who are still reading.