I'm not an advocate of get rid of fortresses and while I may not find them enjoyable all the time i see them as a necessary gatekeeper to constant city sieges like we ended up with on live. I believe the removal of fortresses, weren't EA doing that for the benefit of the game, nor the fact they couldn't ever make them work but instead a purely commercial decision to hold onto subscriptions and that was the easiest way. Same with Warpforged/Doomflayer, give the players anything they scream for to keep them happy and the money rolling in for a bit longer. The devs on this server arn't under the same commercial straightjacket and so I hope they will spend time thinking about what is best for the long term viability of the game, not the easiest option.
Which brings me on to we should think a little bit differently about game but generally with its current campaign mechanics. Maybe with a small bit of addition by the devs and it would be interesting to hear from them what is possible with the code base and capabilities they have and ideas from the community. When you play this game and especially the campaign loop it can get stale, especially with large numbers involved and zone stalemates The individual pvp fights are different and I guess they are always the sandbox elemment of this game, no one battle is ever the same, no 1v1 encounter ever the same. That what keeps me interested anyhow and playing.
To kick off on that basis a few random ideas and see what you think. These are just strawmen so happy for anyone to knock them down, just you need to come up with an original suggestion to replace it
. None of these are really about gear progression nor how to get to the city easier or at a reasonable time of day as i think that is a cul-de-sac thinking and in the long run won't improve the game. I think we need to think bigger than that.Stalemates:
1. If your in one of those final zones that never end after x hours, if both sides agree you move to a 6 v 6 champion fight in the new arena. This would use the surrender mechanic from scenarios, based on a simple majority on both sides. The Champions would be selected using the mechanic found in cities. Whoever wins, takes the zone.
2. The Oriflamme. If i remember my French\English 100 year war history rightly, this was the French war banner that when it appeard on the battlefield mean't they were to take no quarter and take no prisoners. Implement this and it means no resurrection on either side, its a fight to the death. Only one side at a time can hold it and it should be limited to certain situations, obviously as your side can die as well strategically you only use it sparingly. Maybe, we could keep fortresses mechanic as is with a bit of fine tuning but also re-introduce the relics. Whoever holds the relic can raise the Oriflamme.
War Does End
Does war have to never end? We have the campaign loop but is it really epic enough to keep people interested long term apart from gear progression? The campaign has no story line to it and is really just rinse and repeat every day or maybe couple of days. Without creating a load of new content put something in game beyond cities and that can change over time i.e. a story. Something that over a number of months fighting can lead to some climatic endpoint. This would take into account all orvr kills, keeps taken, fortresses successfully sieged, ranked matches won and cities successfully taken. All of those feed into a final overall victory for one side or the other. I'm not suggesting gear at the end for the winning side, maybe a cloak that is SLIGHLY better than sovereign but not a game changer or anything else anyone can think of. Just something that makes all these fights mean something in a big overall picture not just get to city for my sov gear.
