City sieges and Campaign Mechanic

[Tabelrel]

First posting on here, so play nice

I guess like many players i have returned many times to Warhammer over the years. I started off first time on the Eltharion oRVR server, call out to anyone from Nine Inch Nails/Greenpeace if you are on here somewhere, and left in 2010/11. I think those were the days I treasure the most. If I remember rightly it took Destro two weeks to get to the first take down in Altdorf and that was a time where guild leaders would call each other on a Friday night up to plan the Saturday campaign. Back to this point later..

I then had a real life for a couple of years, but couldn't resist (it always pulls you back in, or you get a girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/husband/partner/Orc who doesn't know any better) and came back to no forts, relics (really!!) and IC and Dorf being sieged practically on a daily basis. Endgame content gone, that led us down the Doomflayer and Warpforged route as the only new content to keep people interested. Hopefully we can all agree that totally easy mode city sieges and everyone in Sovereign/silly gear in a few weeks is not the way to go as we know content in this game is fairly much finite.

I personally appreciate the dev's returning this game to, if not the exact mechanic a working approximation of it. They have taken the concept and done what Mythic didn't work out how to do, or GOA's server couldn't do. Cities, I think, should be something that happens every now and again, if you get it right and not just a natural extension of a campaign. Spot on lads, well done. I think they have done a great job with forts and the balance of gear so far.

That said, now to the point of this post, how do you plan to make the city sieges work with how campaigns are now? Hands ups, how many people have spent 7,8,9 hours in KV recently or Eataine. Empire is locked, you need the final zone to get the pairing and the route to the city, numbers are fairly equal and no side can push the advantage or you end up with 6 sieges each on 3 star forts. The only way the campaign finishes today is EU goes to bed because they have a job, people pass out from sleep deprivation at their keyboards, or NA/Oceania come on line to finish the job in the wee hours. If I want Sovereign Gear do we all need to resign, move to New York or Sydney?

If I remember rightly and those with better memories can chirp in here, on the original 2008 mechanic you only had a certain amount of time to take a T4 zone, hence the guild Friday night co-ordination calls. Was it 2 hours? Anyway not the never ending campaign we have at the moment until someone actually succeeds in locking it. I know things were different back then and a lot more organised, less puggy and every time zone had its own server so it wasn't so much of an issue. Being on a global server will i think make a difference to who gets to siege a city and so would like to understand if the dev's plan to accommodate this. Two hours per t4 zone lock these days may be a bit tight with the level of co-ordination to do it but could the campaign reset on an 8 hour window. So 3 resets a day that broadly mirror people coming on line in EU/NA & Oceania i.e 8am - 6pm CET for EU.

And on a parting note I have been trying and it's bugging me now as I can't remember for the life of me, on the EU live server what was the name of that indestructible Iron Breaker who used to just to wander around. You couldn't kill him so everyone used to leave him alone or have a drink with him?

[zachary]

If I remember rightly and those with better memories can chirp in here, on the original 2008 mechanic you only had a certain amount of time to take a T4 zone, hence the guild Friday night co-ordination calls. Was it 2 hours? Anyway not the never ending campaign we have at the moment until someone actually succeeds in locking it. I know things were different back then and a lot more organised, less puggy and every time zone had its own server so it wasn't so much of an issue. Being on a global server will i think make a difference to who gets to siege a city and so would like to understand if the dev's plan to accommodate this. Two hours per t4 zone lock these days may be a bit tight with the level of co-ordination to do it but could the campaign reset on an 8 hour window. So 3 resets a day that broadly mirror people coming on line in EU/NA & Oceania i.e 8am - 6pm CET for EU.

I like the idea of time-limiting T4 zones; otherwise the only way to get back to T2/3 is with a campaign reset. I think resetting the entire campaign is a bit harsh, though. Maybe... if no ram on a door in 2 hrs, reset it back a step toward T2, but if a ram hits a door it gets a 1hr extension to take the keep. So if you're sieged and repulse it, you have whatever's left of that hour to countersiege and get another door hit and 1hr extension. If you don't countersiege, both sides end up back 'down' a tier.

[Tabelrel]

I agree with your sentiments here. Where we are at the moment resetting the entire campaign because say you have locked say Reikland, but KV is in play and has been for a few hours then resetting the entire Campaign because of that seems a bit harsh and why not let it go on to a natural conclusion as its just another Fort and chance of Gold Bag/Invader tokens.

I guess my question was more this. If however, you bring Cities into the equation though that is a different thing. Its EU prime time week night or a EU primetime weekend, Reikland is locked and everyone has been pushing KV or Etaine for hours and its stalemate EU wise where do you go from there? You need to lock a pairing for the City or that's what I understand the mechanic will be then will it just be NA come on line when the numbers are smaller and complete the job and take the city siege? I can appreciate that EU gets the numbers and we are lucky in that regard but less so when it means lock the final zone for a City push. How will that scenario be handled?

Back in the day, the City sieges only really occurred at the weekend as they were time limited to get the pairing or that is how I remember them (could be wrong). If you said a total campaign was 8 hours beginning to end, following the sun, and then it resets then would that give each time zone a chance to take a city, they may fail but you wouldn't get ninja city sieges done in the small hours.

[Rubius]

It's been years, so my memory may be off too, but I believe the timing before a reset of a pairing after a fort was around 3-5 hours. (Back to the middle T4 zone.)

One of the benefits of the timed system was definitely that it helped prevent stalemates by eventually resetting and allowing the attacking teams two options to divide and conquer, if they were coordinated enough.

That said, I do also think that the T2+T3+T4 system currently implemented in RoR is a huge improvement over the limited pairings from live!

We don't fully know yet how they intend to implement things with city sieges, so we'll have to wait and see - but agree with you that letting forts reset after enough time might be a good idea.

[Ototo]

The main gateway is having to lock Forts. We are speaking of a 1-2 hours semi-PQ semi-instanced zone. Sure, it can last 30 minutes if the attack is overpopulated, but not much more of a change.