Return of Reckoning

Yeah, of course people should noto go afk in RvR zone. But it just happens when they are just standing there.

KikkL wrote:
But its more than just the BO locking.

BO locks due to inactivity, defending, taking.
inactivity lock happens when no one tries to recapture BO. Defending/taking a BO could take another 5min or longer. Its doubtful all BOs would be locked at the same time and BOs would unlock.

The dynamic comes in from, not recapturing a BO(inactivity lock), defending a captured BO from attackers(locks), retaking a previous captured BO from enemy(locks), taking and defending a BO(locks).
And only a locked BO would produce regeneration, supplies, travel access. Players would still need to be spread out to prevent or to enable all of the above.

personally, I think you guys are both right in a sense.

An idea I had posted before, that I think would make this the most fun would be an entirely new system. That is very dynamic, without lock timers.

The BOs would have timers that tick down from 5 or 6 minutes. There is no renown or anything gained until whoever holds it captures when it ticks to 0:00. So hypothetically say it was 5:00. Right now you get renown ticks every 6 seconds correct? Which is 10 ticks a minute. So now we would take 50 ticks worth, and apply it ALL at the 0:00 Mark. Whoever owns it at 0:00 gets all "50 ticks" worth.

What this does is a pseudo lock system taking it when the timer is at 3:51 left for example does nothing unless you hold it until it counts down to 0:00. Then you get 50 ticks worth.

Why this is superior IMO is it allows you to move around or near BOs without sitting on them. It creates opportunity for a smaller force to "ninja" a BO a few seconds before the 0:00 tick and make a meaningful impact for their realm, and get nice renown too. It creates some "last stand" opportunities where you might be defending a BO against a larger zerg, and if you just hold out a few more seconds your realm gets the tick, and noe that zerg has to hold that BOanother 5 min to profit from it, allowing you to recoup and get back there to try and push it again.

So there is no "lock timer" but now you need to be conscious of not just taking a BO, and other BOs, but when you take the BO compared to it's "count down timer".

This also opens up room for "scouts" in warbands who can tell you where and when to ninja unguarded or lightly guarded BOsjust in time for it's "tick". No more feeling "tied" to a BO as long as you either make it BACK to that BO for it's tick at 0:00 , OR make your way to ANOTHER BO within the 5:00 or 6:00 timers to get rewards.

This to me seems like the best of both worlds. Zero lock timer, so any BO is fair game. But at the same time it's maybe considered a "soft lock" system where losing it and regaining it during the 5:00 means nothing... just make sure your realm owns as many BOS as possible as that timer hits 0:00 and you move the needle towards capping the zone.

th3gatekeeper wrote:

KikkL wrote:
But its more than just the BO locking.

BO locks due to inactivity, defending, taking.
inactivity lock happens when no one tries to recapture BO. Defending/taking a BO could take another 5min or longer. Its doubtful all BOs would be locked at the same time and BOs would unlock.

The dynamic comes in from, not recapturing a BO(inactivity lock), defending a captured BO from attackers(locks), retaking a previous captured BO from enemy(locks), taking and defending a BO(locks).
And only a locked BO would produce regeneration, supplies, travel access. Players would still need to be spread out to prevent or to enable all of the above.

personally, I think you guys are both right in a sense.

An idea I had posted before, that I think would make this the most fun would be an entirely new system. That is very dynamic, without lock timers.

The BOs would have timers that tick down from 5 or 6 minutes. There is no renown or anything gained until whoever holds it captures when it ticks to 0:00. So hypothetically say it was 5:00. Right now you get renown ticks every 6 seconds correct? Which is 10 ticks a minute. So now we would take 50 ticks worth, and apply it ALL at the 0:00 Mark. Whoever owns it at 0:00 gets all "50 ticks" worth.

What this does is a pseudo lock system taking it when the timer is at 3:51 left for example does nothing unless you hold it until it counts down to 0:00. Then you get 50 ticks worth.

Why this is superior IMO is it allows you to move around or near BOs without sitting on them. It creates opportunity for a smaller force to "ninja" a BO a few seconds before the 0:00 tick and make a meaningful impact for their realm, and get nice renown too. It creates some "last stand" opportunities where you might be defending a BO against a larger zerg, and if you just hold out a few more seconds your realm gets the tick, and noe that zerg has to hold that BOanother 5 min to profit from it, allowing you to recoup and get back there to try and push it again.

So there is no "lock timer" but now you need to be conscious of not just taking a BO, and other BOs, but when you take the BO compared to it's "count down timer".

This also opens up room for "scouts" in warbands who can tell you where and when to ninja unguarded or lightly guarded BOsjust in time for it's "tick". No more feeling "tied" to a BO as long as you either make it BACK to that BO for it's tick at 0:00 , OR make your way to ANOTHER BO within the 5:00 or 6:00 timers to get rewards.

This to me seems like the best of both worlds. Zero lock timer, so any BO is fair game. But at the same time it's maybe considered a "soft lock" system where losing it and regaining it during the 5:00 means nothing... just make sure your realm owns as many BOS as possible as that timer hits 0:00 and you move the needle towards capping the zone.

A little note on this: for this system to work you also need for all the OB to be ON THE SAME TIMER, that is to say all BO must pay at the same time. If not than you will simply have the big zerg moving from one OB to the other passing by just as the BO is about to tick. On the other end if the timer is the same for ALL BO in a map than the zerg will have to either split or resigh to only get resources from a single BO

Coma wrote:

th3gatekeeper wrote:

KikkL wrote:
But its more than just the BO locking.

BO locks due to inactivity, defending, taking.
inactivity lock happens when no one tries to recapture BO. Defending/taking a BO could take another 5min or longer. Its doubtful all BOs would be locked at the same time and BOs would unlock.

The dynamic comes in from, not recapturing a BO(inactivity lock), defending a captured BO from attackers(locks), retaking a previous captured BO from enemy(locks), taking and defending a BO(locks).
And only a locked BO would produce regeneration, supplies, travel access. Players would still need to be spread out to prevent or to enable all of the above.

personally, I think you guys are both right in a sense.

An idea I had posted before, that I think would make this the most fun would be an entirely new system. That is very dynamic, without lock timers.

The BOs would have timers that tick down from 5 or 6 minutes. There is no renown or anything gained until whoever holds it captures when it ticks to 0:00. So hypothetically say it was 5:00. Right now you get renown ticks every 6 seconds correct? Which is 10 ticks a minute. So now we would take 50 ticks worth, and apply it ALL at the 0:00 Mark. Whoever owns it at 0:00 gets all "50 ticks" worth.

What this does is a pseudo lock system taking it when the timer is at 3:51 left for example does nothing unless you hold it until it counts down to 0:00. Then you get 50 ticks worth.

Why this is superior IMO is it allows you to move around or near BOs without sitting on them. It creates opportunity for a smaller force to "ninja" a BO a few seconds before the 0:00 tick and make a meaningful impact for their realm, and get nice renown too. It creates some "last stand" opportunities where you might be defending a BO against a larger zerg, and if you just hold out a few more seconds your realm gets the tick, and noe that zerg has to hold that BOanother 5 min to profit from it, allowing you to recoup and get back there to try and push it again.

So there is no "lock timer" but now you need to be conscious of not just taking a BO, and other BOs, but when you take the BO compared to it's "count down timer".

This also opens up room for "scouts" in warbands who can tell you where and when to ninja unguarded or lightly guarded BOsjust in time for it's "tick". No more feeling "tied" to a BO as long as you either make it BACK to that BO for it's tick at 0:00 , OR make your way to ANOTHER BO within the 5:00 or 6:00 timers to get rewards.

This to me seems like the best of both worlds. Zero lock timer, so any BO is fair game. But at the same time it's maybe considered a "soft lock" system where losing it and regaining it during the 5:00 means nothing... just make sure your realm owns as many BOS as possible as that timer hits 0:00 and you move the needle towards capping the zone.

A little note on this: for this system to work you also need for all the OB to be ON THE SAME TIMER, that is to say all BO must pay at the same time. If not than you will simply have the big zerg moving from one OB to the other passing by just as the BO is about to tick. On the other end if the timer is the same for ALL BO in a map than the zerg will have to either split or resigh to only get resources from a single BO

Yes. 100%. Sorry If this wasn't clear during my explaination. Thanks for clarifying for me! All BOs would need to be on the same timer. I personally think 5 or 6 minutes is ideal. It's long enough to get nearly anywhere on the map but not too long as to make it seem dull or boring. You want urgency in the timer, so 10 min or longer is just too much, but a 2 or 3 minute timer isn't enough to run to a far BO AND fight to capture within the time frame. Thus I arrived at a 5 or 6 minute timer.

Speaking from a NA playtimes active player on Destruction:

The current system of holding a position by actually being AT the position is most reasonable and realistic. It does the most to spread out the players across the RvR Lake but can not stop players from blobbing up for safety and easy wins over smaller groups - IMO nothing can.

Taking and holding a position, just like in real combat, is boring work. It's long times of inactivity and boredom followed by minutes of sheer mayhem, terror, and combat. If you want a piece of ground, you must have "boots" on that ground to hold it. That is exactly what we have here. Just like in real life, people get lax, distracted, and pay for it (read as afking for FB) with their lives.

I would like to see the current system kept with some modifications. Let me preface this by stating I am not a coder, game designer, nor understand just how possible or impossible these suggestions are, but I think they would help enhance and augment the system to break up the "zerg" mentality and reassure players playing the "support" role by not participating directly in the Keep Take (killing the Lord) of rewards.

1. Extend the "BO zone" in game to include a wider piece of turf around the BOs in the lakes. By expanding the effective BO area, it allows for more open-field fights on, near, or around the BO instead of the concentrated fights at a single point. I'm not asking for huge areas, but in Praag, Martyr's Square for example, the BO area should be the circumference of that whole central courtyard, not just 3 feet from the flag. Make the Kills within these larger BO zones count more than kills outside the BO zone for zone lock contribution. This would discourage non-BO or non-keep zone zergfests (ie war camp camping).

2. Implement the guild standards and the commensurate bonuses in ORvR only.

3. Implement a flag mechanic that allows guilds to claim BOs using their Guild Standard. That is, remove the usual BO flag and make it so the guild banner must be placed and defended to hold the BO. Anyone wishing to take the BO must kill the defenders and take the Guild Standard to make the BO neutral. TO claim it, they must have a guild standard of their own. On the Lake Map, show the Guild/faction holding the BO. Promote esprit de corps within the game, guild, and lake. By implementing this, you would help encourage guild membership, participation, and some guild pride. Casual players who have spent the better part of the last year un-guilded and working for UPS in the ORvR zones delivering boxes to the keep would find that they would want to join a guild and work as part of a team in order to maximise their rewards and thus their contribution.

4. Implement a contribution scale for taking and holding a BO that will allow a group/guild to participate in a zone lock without feeling like they HAVE to be in on killing the Lord, on the ram, kill players at the keep in order to have a shot at a bag. Right now, the Devs are fighting the mentality that holding a BO during the keep siege is wasting time and the player(s) are "Missing out" on rewards by playing their part of keeping the BO for the realm. Not everyone in a zone needs to be on the keep any more - that's supposed to be the point of busting up the zerg - and yet everyone still feels like by playing the part of holding the BO, they are getting jipped out of contribution. This is a big shift in the mentality and a published contribution scale would go a long way to alleviate these concerns, spark an interest in spreading out and claiming a BO for your guild, realm, and contribution to the cause will be rewarded.

5. Implement Guild XP for taking and holding BOs within the lakes. This will have the following effects:
a. Make the gold spent on banners worth it in XP.
b. Promote casual players to join an active, organized guild.
c. Incentivise guilds to claim and hold BOs rather than roam around and gank/get zerged.

6. Implement Guild Banners for Keep Takes - Plant it on the Ruins. Again, an esprit de corps item, but allow the guild with the most contribution in the zone (i.e. held the most BOs, or had the most cumulative contribution from kills, etc) to claim the defeated keep for additional guild XP when the lock occurs.

7. Implement a system that will allow the gold bag winner one the zone locks (if any) to place and leave their banned on their factions un-taken keep for and additional Guild XP bonus. This is, again, an esprit de corps thing, but would promote guild pride and guilds in general. Good advertising = more recruits = more population = more fun.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Luuca wrote:1. Extend the "BO zone" in game to include a wider piece of turf around the BOs in the lakes. By expanding the effective BO area, it allows for more open-field fights on, near, or around the BO instead of the concentrated fights at a single point. I'm not asking for huge areas, but in Praag, Martyr's Square for example, the BO area should be the circumference of that whole central courtyard, not just 3 feet from the flag. Make the Kills within these larger BO zones count more than kills outside the BO zone for zone lock contribution. This would discourage non-BO or non-keep zone zergfests (ie war camp camping).

It means setup BO per BO a specific mechanic. I think it is doable but ahem... setup 60 different mechanic would take some time. Maybe when all deployed and we will have "just" to refine why not .

Luuca wrote:2. Implement the guild standards and the commensurate bonuses in ORvR only.

Everything standard related doesn't really work atm. If if was easy it would be already deployed .

Luuca wrote:3. Implement a flag mechanic that allows guilds to claim BOs using their Guild Standard. That is, remove the usual BO flag and make it so the guild banner must be placed and defended to hold the BO. Anyone wishing to take the BO must kill the defenders and take the Guild Standard to make the BO neutral. TO claim it, they must have a guild standard of their own. On the Lake Map, show the Guild/faction holding the BO. Promote esprit de corps within the game, guild, and lake. By implementing this, you would help encourage guild membership, participation, and some guild pride. Casual players who have spent the better part of the last year un-guilded and working for UPS in the ORvR zones delivering boxes to the keep would find that they would want to join a guild and work as part of a team in order to maximise their rewards and thus their contribution.

In which way does it remove/lift the "sitting" issue?

Luuca wrote:4. Implement a contribution scale for taking and holding a BO that will allow a group/guild to participate in a zone lock without feeling like they HAVE to be in on killing the Lord, on the ram, kill players at the keep in order to have a shot at a bag. Right now, the Devs are fighting the mentality that holding a BO during the keep siege is wasting time and the player(s) are "Missing out" on rewards by playing their part of keeping the BO for the realm. Not everyone in a zone needs to be on the keep any more - that's supposed to be the point of busting up the zerg - and yet everyone still feels like by playing the part of holding the BO, they are getting jipped out of contribution. This is a big shift in the mentality and a published contribution scale would go a long way to alleviate these concerns, spark an interest in spreading out and claiming a BO for your guild, realm, and contribution to the cause will be rewarded.

As said since the begining, everything reward related isn't considered atm. We are not gonna spend hours to calibrate rewards if we have to modify something every 3 days .

Luuca wrote:5. Implement Guild XP for taking and holding BOs within the lakes. This will have the following effects:
a. Make the gold spent on banners worth it in XP.
b. Promote casual players to join an active, organized guild.
c. Incentivise guilds to claim and hold BOs rather than roam around and gank/get zerged.

Check OP, about guilds (which can ofc be amended).

Luuca wrote:6. Implement Guild Banners for Keep Takes - Plant it on the Ruins. Again, an esprit de corps item, but allow the guild with the most contribution in the zone (i.e. held the most BOs, or had the most cumulative contribution from kills, etc) to claim the defeated keep for additional guild XP when the lock occurs.

Same than 5.

Luuca wrote:7. Implement a system that will allow the gold bag winner one the zone locks (if any) to place and leave their banned on their factions un-taken keep for and additional Guild XP bonus. This is, again, an esprit de corps thing, but would promote guild pride and guilds in general. Good advertising = more recruits = more population = more fun.

Thats not really RvR mechanic related. More Guild mechanic related. No really the subject atm, but definitively interesting .

So. I posted the global plan on OP to give you a vision beyond the actual state of ORvR. Some tweaks you suggest can fit with it but probably too complex to be developped right now, most are guildvsRvR based and we will discuss about when we will start to work on guildvsRvR part (which isn't now ).

Btw, none has to sit under a BO atm, we have removed neutral status. So i don't really understand why everybody seems to focus on this detail .

my feedback is ppl should stop give feedback till the 3 different lockout methods will be implemented, Especially be lock with 1 keep+flags is alredy a huge gamechanging factor

Yaliskah wrote:

Spoiler:

Luuca wrote:3. Implement a flag mechanic that allows guilds to claim BOs using their Guild Standard. That is, remove the usual BO flag and make it so the guild banner must be placed and defended to hold the BO. Anyone wishing to take the BO must kill the defenders and take the Guild Standard to make the BO neutral. TO claim it, they must have a guild standard of their own. On the Lake Map, show the Guild/faction holding the BO. Promote esprit de corps within the game, guild, and lake. By implementing this, you would help encourage guild membership, participation, and some guild pride. Casual players who have spent the better part of the last year un-guilded and working for UPS in the ORvR zones delivering boxes to the keep would find that they would want to join a guild and work as part of a team in order to maximise their rewards and thus their contribution.

In which way does it remove/lift the "sitting" issue?

As I stated, in war, there will be the need to take and hold a position for strategic reasons (like a BO) this means some boredom and some fights. My idea of making the BOs guild claimable does not alleviate the sitting on a BO issue, but it does give you a REASON to sit at the BO. Guild pride, Lock contributions, guild XP. Waiting is not the issue. The issue is there is no great reason to wait. The players waiting/holding the BO feel like they are missing out by not being part of the zerg fest at the keep or war camps. Give the players a good reason that helps with zone lock contribution, and guild rewards or esprit de corps, and the waiting/defending becomes desireable. When there is a good reason to do something, like spread out and take the BOs for your faction and hold them defend them against all enemies, you have what you intended, a break up of the blob mentality.

How many oposing guilds would say, look Black Library has Martyrs Square, lets go take it. Simply because they hate us? It would help break the blob up a little and add an element to the game its missing - a reason to stay and to take a bo.

Tesq wrote:my feedback is ppl should stop give feedback till the 3 different lockout methods will be implemented, Especially be lock with 1 keep+flags is alredy a huge gamechanging factor

I totally agree, the final decision should be taken once the coplete packet is released, because of the many factors that will influence the RvR campaign.

However, some smart suggestion are always welcomed.

Luuca wrote: Taking and holding a position, just like in real combat, is boring work. It's long times of inactivity and boredom followed by minutes of sheer mayhem, terror, and combat. If you want a piece of ground, you must have "boots" on that ground to hold it. That is exactly what we have here. Just like in real life, people get lax, distracted, and pay for it (read as afking for FB) with their lives.

Often times what we want in a video game =/= "real life" experiences.

A great example is counter strike. when you reload a mag with 10 bullets left in it, you dont LOSE 10 rounds (like you would in real combat) but it merely just takes 20 off your total to "refill the mag". This isnt realistic. Why did they not make it more punishing to reload your mag and waste bullets? Because it wasnt fun... Nobody want to run into a firefight with 10 rounds and have to reload MID fight, though this is "realistic" its not what players find FUN.

People also dont WANT "realistic" combat where you have spurts of boredom followed with spurts of action. We dont want to spend 15 minutes trudging across a zone, for 2 minutes of super intense combat. Its a video game. People get on for enjoyment. If the project is not delivering enjoyment, they wont play.

At the CORE of any game decision should be the question "Is this Fun". It could be the most genius suggestion and game idea in the history of mankind, but if it isnt FUN, it isnt going to be received.

I HIGHLY recommend giving this a read: I think it would be silly to ignore some of these principles... A big one is #5
"Lesson #5: Don't confuse "interesting" with "fun"".

I think this is something the ROR team should keep in mind when developing this game. It may be genius and interesting and complex and all these things... but if it isnt FUN, then why are we doing it?

Frankly, for me personally, the current system of BO capping and ticks every 6 seconds isnt FUN. It may be "realistic" and it may be genius, and interesting, and all these things, but it doesnt keep me engaged. I dont log in and remember "that one time I defended a BO for 30 minutes".

Hence my suggestion about about the "timers". This is built with FUN in mind, and also is geared towards creating more memorable moments "remember that one time our 5 man team held off a full warband to get that BO tick"

It took me a LONG time and MANY conversations with players while running around the RVR zone to compile all the feedback and thought into that suggestion... And I really think it would do wonders for ROR. Though I do not claim to be the "grand wizard" that knows all and sees all, but based on my experience, and many others, it seems like it would solve ALOT of issues and create more fun for the game. Which is the reason we all log in right? For FUN?