Siege & RvR Zone Idea

[Hazmy]

Siege & RvR Zone Idea

Faster and more Dynamic RvR

A couple of other forumers seemed to have liked my idea regarding Sieges in the other topic, so I will just post it here to see what others think and also promote talking about it. It's also my feedback to the RoR Team to consider for their RvR rework.

Currently many players are annoyed with random rams, sieges and wanted to increase the price of spawning a Ram. I think that's going the wrong way about it. Failed Rams are not a problem but a symptom of a bigger issue in the lakes.

It is too bothersome and ill-advised to siege in the current state of RvR, where majority never want to do it either due to the heavy defense-biased mechanics, difficulty, lag or any other reason, but mainly the difficulty of it. It takes too long, kills content in the lake, whether it fails or succeeds the opposite side tends to log out and that's harmful to the game.

Even if we argue whether Sieges are truly defense-biased or not, my main feedback is that zone defenses shouldn't be as big of a deal as they are right now and I would rather have defenses very hard but keep the game rolling, than defenses being over-supported that keeps both factions hostage to inaction and lead to boredom.

I don't want to go too deep into it in this suggestion, but I believe the current Keep Defense design is not future proof anyway and the higher the population goes the more impossible it will become for sieges to happen or be fun whatsover. So I think it needs to be changed to something else, preferably sooner than later.


Major Proposed Changes

Instead I would make Sieges easier and smoother to happen, to keep RvR rolling and active, with any or all of the changes below:
- Lower Door HPs significantly.
- Remove Keep Upgrades?
- Increase Oil Coldown by a lot, or make it a limited time use.
- Revise Siege rewards completely.

Door phase is arguably the least exciting part of a siege and likely should be shortened. Keep Upgrades can be a fun interactive option for guilds, but I believe Oil Control is too powerful as it is. Oil as a mechanic needs to be reworked in some way. Making it have charges would introduce a strategic element but also a come-back mechanic for failed sieges if defenders run out of oil.

Finally PvDoor needs to not grant the extreme rewards as it does now, Sieges should remain an option for the factions to invite action back and rally their side!

I would change the whole RvR zone-mechanics:
- 1 Star Keep to allow Sieges
- 2 Star Keep disables Enemy Keep Oil
- 3 Star Keep already Locks the zone if you own all 4 Battle Objectives

While 4 and 5 Star zones happened even recently in the lakes, it is usually a result of extreme stalling on both sides and I also think is a sympton of Sieges being terrible. Compressing the Zone Progression will increase activity and the pacing of RvR and would also allow splitting into multiple zones due to easier sieges & lockdowns.

The new 3 Star lockdown would especially create a sense of urgency in the lakes and encourage control of Battle Objectives more - while at the same time warbands would have the choice if they want to do a Siege or battle for lake control.

Alternatively, even if we keep all Defensive options for Sieges, the 3 Star Lockdown would promote splitting forces between Siege and Battle Objectives and instead of the current "all-in" blob fights at sieges, forces can be spread on multiple areas in a zone as well as at a Siege.

I think Sieges should be a lot more common and a less terrifying gameplay experience. Keeps and Forts should constantly be happening as part of the game, and smoothly, not some extra content most are afraid/bored of or can't be bothered to do. Would attacking be potential easier? Yes, but it will be easier for both sides, and the point is to encourage content happening, not discourage.

If such change would dramatically decrease Sieges from happening, it could also be always revised and give bonus incentives to do them.

WAAAGH!

[diedrake]

I do like your ideas a lot, especially sense the game was never ment to have such high population, which population is good dont get me wrong, but it also makes the rvr lakes very stagnant during main primetime, EU times.

My suggestion though, keep keep claiming a thing and rank ups such as:
Defence upgrades:
-increased door hps
- faster oil spawn
- upgrade guard numbers and threat ( such as basic guards can get to hero++)
- upgrade keep lord ( something like hero +++)

The hero ++ sugestions would be for maxed upgrade

Offence:
- more seige equipment able to be spawned
- increased damage for certain types of siege engines
- increase number or reduce time limit for rams to be spawned.

Also was thinking of bos having greater influence but i think that has already been tried.
Example
Defence has 2 bos: increased damage the npc defneder have or something like that
Offence has 2 bos: increased ram does on doors maybe?

Idk feels like during seiges 1/2 the population on both sides seem pretty much afking.

[saupreusse]

Star system:
I agree with the 3 star zones, as I consider 4 and 5 stars to be mostly unachievable if the zone is played 'normally'.

Door HP:
I agree that it can be horribly boring to ram in doors for 20 minutes, even if both sides are somewhat equal in numbers and there is a bit of action around posterns.
I would also suggest to simply buff the ram damage for every BO held by the attacking realm.
High HP gates usually aren't the deciding factor if a siege is successful or fails, but they can make the game very tedious.

Oil/keep claiming etc:
During high pop times taking an inner keep can become extremely difficult because of defense mechanics such as oil and locked posterns.
My suggestions are
- add siege towers if possible
- add fortress griffons for attackers to normal keep sieges
- maybe play around with oil numbers
- remove the ability to lock posterns

There is one more thing to consider:
If we make keep sieges easier, we also have to add a mechanic that allows a smaller force to be able to defend keeps against a zerging realm.
- link sieges and aao
- oil deals more dmg if the defending realm is outnumbered, based on aao
- add defender griffons to normal keep sieges, that allow outnumbered defenders to
Easily join the keep fight and/or set the respawn point inside the inner keep for heavily outnumbered defenders - scaling with aao.
- the ability to lock the postern should only be available to a heavily outnumbered defending realm.

Campaign:
Our/My suggestions covered two problems.
Making keep sieges easier and linking BOs to keep sieges thereby giving them a bit more meaning.
But there is still one more thing that we didnt talk about yet, and this is probably the most important point. All of this is irrelevant as long as we don't have a campaign. This is the one most important thing we got to fix. Without a campaign and a campaign goal there is no meaning to it all and people will just zerg for the easy crest drops.

[Nameless]

Mostly i like these but one major problem with making the zone rotation faster is the feel of loosing. Faster sieging, faster zone exchange, more tense feeling of loosing which maje ppl log off.