AMUN: Vigilance Towers

[Adrian]

Hello everyone,

Finally we are able to present you an initial version of the Vigilance Towers so you can test them and let us know what you think and also give us suggestions. For this to happen, first we must clarify some important points, to which we beg you pay a lot of attention:

- This is a Beta version, meaning that there will be a lot of details to polish (such as errors with textures, 3D models, map edition, collisions, etc.) and mechanics to adjust (timings, damages, defences, distances, etc.)
- We haven't tested with a large amount of players, so it will take some time to adjust the variables in order to provide a more pleasant gaming experience.
- The towers will not replace the forts and castles and they will not represent an objective that gives direct rewards or a time consuming gameplay.

With these points cleared up, we can continue to explain our vision of the Vigilance Towers:

The goal of the towers is to make it more difficult to access the war zones but in a strategic way. By no means they are designed to act like a complete roadblock for bridges (or in other zones in the future) but to pose a dilemma to those that want to cross them.

Currently, fort and castle capturing takes place through a non-warned attack of an army that will have to wait, with their arms crossed, to the owner of that building to come and recover it, if they are willing to. This, without any strategic cost to the attacker. Also, when a single player or a small group of them wants to spread terror upon those that are training, they just cross a bridge and enter a conflict zone that is not defended in any way. This makes no sense, doesn't it?

So, what can the towers achieve to compensate these issues?

- That an army must silently capture a vigilance tower avoiding the guards letting nearby enemies or a whole realm know they're coming.
- That a hunter must be camouflaged to avoid being detected.
- That a group depends on a hunter and their importance and role in war gets to be determinant.
- That those that want to cross the bridge without defeating the guards can do it, but at the cost of the accessed realm to know about it so they can go and find them.

To achieve all of these, adjustments will be needed.

We need you to understand that this addition can be easily neutralised by those that are adequately organised and this is one of its most important features: articulate organised groups.

The gameplay, as it is now, is pretty easy. Depending on how it is used in the tests we will think about expanding it and big changes are not discarded, but always following this main idea that we have explained.

Some ideas that are still to be thought about:
- Allowing one warning that can't be avoided, but just to nearby enemies.
- One guard that can go mounting a horse to go and alert allies, that can be neutralised if caught.
- Changing the shape of the front of the tower to change from open battle to platform/ranged battle.
- Through a calculation of the average population of a realm, the influence of each player depending on the realm can be balanced.

Known bugs:
- Ignis tower lack of collision in backdoor, can jump inside easily.
- Ignis tower inner illumination is not working properly.
- Alsius tower top torch is not properly located.
- Some points of the barricades are not easy to attack.

Below, a quick guide with some details of how the towers function:

[Adrian]

- The towers are located in the extremes of the bridges that act as a frontier between the war zones of each realm. Currently, there are towers only in the bridge between Aggersborg and Herbred, or the brigde between Aggersborg and Samal

- Each tower is composed of a Barricade, three guards in the access to the brigde and two guards up in the tower.

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_guide_1.jpg

- When getting close to the guards of an enemy tower, the General will proceed to let nearby enemies (maximum 250 metres) unless he is defeated before the time visualised on-screen. If you get away quickly as soon as the countdown starts, it is possible that the General cancels the warning.

- If the General is defeated or has issued a warning, the Watcher is the next one that can warn, but this time to all the enemies throughout the whole war zone that own that tower. The countdown can be visualised on-screen. This countdown can only be cancelled with her death, what makes it mandatory to destroy the Barricade to go and defeat her.

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_guide_2.jpg

- Once the General and the other two guards are defeated, the Barricade will be vulnerable and it has to be attacked in order to dominate the tower.

- The Watcher and the guard in the tower can't be attacked until the Barricade is completely destroyed.

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_guide_3.jpg

- Once the Barricade is destroyed, the domination process will begin, in which the presence of enemies and allies will determine how fast the tower is captured or recovered. For example, if there are the same quantity of alive enemies and allies, the state of domination will not advance or go backwards. A player inside the area of the tower (determined by the Barricade) will help the domination process better than one that is a few meters away.

- On-screen, an indicator of who is dominating the tower can be seen. This progress bar will be completed with the color of the realms so it is clear who will be the next dominator of the tower.

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_guide_4.jpg

- Once the tower is dominated, the guards will re-appear.

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_guide_5.jpg

[Hollow-Ichigo]

From playing on amun for 20 minutes, these towers are already a great addition. Bridge wars are so good.

[Pery3000]

Really liking this so far. Quests gonna be counted at these towers?

[Hollow-Ichigo]

The forts capture and switch control too fast, the barricade should be down longer between each capture.

[UlrenAsir]

Just tried for a few minutes and it was really fun.
This will make things more tactical when it comes to do something important in ZG. I really like what is pretend with this.

[-Aniara-]

Yes! Great fun, towers looked splendid and adds a twist to the bridges.

I saw more ppl in 15 min on amun then i have in weeks on haven, happy as can be, cant wait for transfers.

/A

[erzsi]

Like what I see, although:

When you log out on the tower, you log back in right there, on the tower. Of course, while I was on, control was not shifting; it was very static.

If someone puts a Christmas tree (or other placeable item) beside the barricade, can they simply jump on the tree/placeable item and hop over the barricade, ignoring it?

[Adrian]

Thank you for testing! Soon we will open Amun again with changes and fixes regarding what we observed until now.

I will post some screenshots soon!

[Redo_Ger]

At the tower east of Aggersborg on Alsius' side you take falldamage if you leave the bottom door.

the constant teleportation is very confusing, you/ your enemy skip around like crazy. if you accidentally press twice on the wall you get teleported in and out again. also you sometimes get into a loading screen when teleporting trough the wall/doors and sometimes you come out turned around the wrong way.

Also you loose enemies from your selection when they teleport through the wall/doors.

It's very cramped inside the towers and you need 5 seconds to angle your camera the right way so you can see something.

The archer guards have an enormous range, they don't hit hard but it can be very confusing ^^

The flag on the ground and on the top of the towers didn't match up, so it was not clear which realm the tower belonged to.

Was it for testing purposes that the wall taken down in just a few hits?
Will we get more time to kill the guards/watcher on the live servers?

PLUS there was no chat for those of us under lvl60 + WM, I can imagine they would have wanted to know what's up too :D

(Please translate the Watcher in german to something like "Aussichtsposten" or "Beobachter" or else we get a Wächter and a Watcher up there D: )

[Adrian]

Thank you for the feedback. I'll be replying when more people post ;)

Here are screenshots from today's test:

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_screen_1.png

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_screen_2.png

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_screen_3.png

http://download01.regnumonlinegame.com/uploads/towers_screen_4.png

[Hollow-Ichigo]

Nice FoV you got there :p

[Loque]

Guess Amun is only up when you're up. You can't leave it up overnight. Your night is my day so.

[Yasar]

Guess Amun is only up when you're up. You can't leave it up overnight. Your night is my day so.

Yepp, Maybe next Time include the Timezones of the other Servers Countries, so that you don't open a test at 1 am. We waited several hours to test yesterday and nothing happened. We are a little disappointed.

[Sentan]

I didn't participate in testing because I was already sleeping but I have some suggestions/questions based on your guide/description:


would be nice to see some cooldown after capturing the tower. For example if Syrtis capture tower X then barricade grants invulnerability for 120 seconds
does the hunter take part in the domination process while camoed/stalkered?
does the Killer Instinct (marksman WM spell) work while standing on tower?
in my opinion the barricade should be immune to ranged attacks
what gonna happen if the enemy realm kill all guards, destroy the barricade but do not capture the tower and leave it like this; do the guards respawn and barricade repairs itself?


Good job :)

[Pery3000]

Also about PN bridge. Is it possible to fix the hills on the back side of the fort. Players were getting stuck jumping trying to climb over. Terrain is a little rough. Some tree's removed from that fort area would also be nice. It should be more open like PP bridge.

What happens when 3 way at tower? I noticed when Ignis killed goats from behind and took over the capture point. The bar wasn't filling up so that we could cap.

I was expecting a buff or something for taking over the fort capture. Not needed but I guess could be added later.
I assume Barricades will be a bit stronger in live versions?

Others have mainly stated other feedback already so no need to repeat.


Looking forward for these towers to come in live servers. (Now that we have this type of capture. Maybe look into "move the cart" type TDM. Not important would be fun though.) :p

[Lebeau]

Really liking this so far. Quests gonna be counted at these towers?

Yeah!...?

i.e.: will the bridge zones & towers count as being a "fortification", so that we get 20/20 wmc quest credit while fighting there?....

:thumb:

[Roseythorns]

I was expecting a buff or something for taking over the fort capture. Not needed but I guess could be added later.

I was expecting one, also. What kind of buff should it be, do you think?

[Pery3000]

I was expecting one, also. What kind of buff should it be, do you think?

Something similar to relic but not as OP & only stays if In range of Tower. I do think you should be rewarded with taking these towers but that’s not important right now. A simple +10% Main Attribute wouldn’t be too bad. I don’t want it to be broken.

[Adrian]

Hey, we wanted to let you know that we still keep on working on the towers and changes to them and that possibly tomorrow we will open Amun again for testing. We revamped how the towers let the allies know there are enemies around improving the precision of the detection of them.

Tomorrow we will post more about this!

[Loque]

Hope you leave it open all weekend this time when more people can get on to test and not just two hours late night.

[Adrian]

Hope you leave it open all weekend this time when more people can get on to test and not just two hours late night.

We will just leave it open when we can see what's going on (many important reasons to do so). We'll try to do two different timezones.

If we open it today, it will be late like the last time, but hopefully we will do so again tomorrow or on Monday morning as well.

[Roseythorns]

Something similar to relic but not as OP & only stays if In range of Tower. I do think you should be rewarded with taking these towers but that’s not important right now. A simple +10% Main Attribute wouldn’t be too bad. I don’t want it to be broken.

Should others who come along and help man the tower also get the bonus?

In which case, when a realm holds the tower, players of that realm get the bonus within range of it.

I think that range should be maybe 100m, but I like 50m or 75.

[Adrian]

Hey! Even though we finished with the changes we wanted to make, we are dead tired and it is too late here (almost midnight). But tomorrow early we will open Amun.

We need to recover energy to be able to handle a test phase :biggrin:

[Adrian]

People, Amun is open again for a few hours. And tomorrow early for some more as well for those that can't test it now.

These are the changes:

- Added: Safe zones added for towers. Now after logging off inside a tower you will appear outside when logging in again.
- Modified: Players stuck inside a tower not belonging to their realm are able now to exit through the barricade or doors.
- Fixed: Sometimes, banner flag in towers was not being updated correctly.
- Fixed: Texts of warnings from towers.
- Modified: Detection method and warning procedure of tower Generals and Watchers. Now, Generals and Watchers are active at the same time. Generals warn to nearby allies (300m) and Watchers warn all allies in the warzone when you enter the realm successfully.
- Added: Details to all towers such as torches and other visual objects.
- Fixed: Inner part of Ignis tower had texture problems.
- Fixed: Ambient Occlusion in all towers was not properly set.
- Modified: Trees removed from zone of towers between Aggersborg and Samal.
- Modified: Reduced range of tower archer guards.
- Modified: Enhanced health and damage of tower guard Generals.
- And other small details and changes.

Please bear in mind that more changes are to happen and that we will not apply them throughout the map until we have a final version of them.

[Loque]

I got the loading screen many times while crossing the tower barriers, and it seems to happen most when going from inside to outside.

[Roseythorns]

People, Amun is open again for a few hours. And tomorrow early for some more as well for those that can't test it now.

These are the changes:

- Fixed: Sometimes, banner flag in towers was not being updated correctly.
Still not working correctly. I observed at least once in the space of 45 minutes, Alsius captured and the banner flag was still Ignis. This updated after the next recovery.


- Modified: Enhanced health and damage of tower guard Generals.


They're still not tough enough, imho.

[Pery3000]

People, Amun is open again for a few hours. And tomorrow early for some more as well for those that can't test it now.

These are the changes:

- Added: Safe zones added for towers. Now after logging off inside a tower you will appear outside when logging in again.
- Modified: Players stuck inside a tower not belonging to their realm are able now to exit through the barricade or doors.
- Fixed: Sometimes, banner flag in towers was not being updated correctly.
- Fixed: Texts of warnings from towers.
- Modified: Detection method and warning procedure of tower Generals and Watchers. Now, Generals and Watchers are active at the same time. Generals warn to nearby allies (300m) and Watchers warn all allies in the warzone when you enter the realm successfully.
- Added: Details to all towers such as torches and other visual objects.
- Fixed: Inner part of Ignis tower had texture problems.
- Fixed: Ambient Occlusion in all towers was not properly set.
- Modified: Trees removed from zone of towers between Aggersborg and Samal.
- Modified: Reduced range of tower archer guards.
- Modified: Enhanced health and damage of tower guard Generals.
- And other small details and changes.

Please bear in mind that more changes are to happen and that we will not apply them throughout the map until we have a final version of them.

LOVING THE PN tree changes!!!!

I think the recover rate is too high. It only lasts like 10 secs if no one goes in.

The hill at PP if you're attacking from ignis side cant shoot because no longer can shoot through hills. Should be lowered some. And someone already mentioned about the banners be stuck on a certain realm.

[Hollow-Ichigo]

Great job, the war around bridges is finally more fun. And the towers fulfil their role as needed.

best,

[Azirqphale]

Should Killer Instinct not work for Marks on top of the towers?

[Heirro]

the towers itself is fine and wars around them can be fun but i just dont like how its so hard to cross bridges alone unless ur a hunter

[Valour]

the towers itself is fine and wars around them can be fun but i just dont like how its so hard to cross bridges alone unless ur a hunter

That means the update is working as intended, creating action. :sifflote:

[Hollow-Ichigo]

the towers itself is fine and wars around them can be fun but i just dont like how its so hard to cross bridges alone unless ur a hunter

You can run past, the guards aren't strong at all.

[Aver]

the towers itself is fine and wars around them can be fun but i just dont like how its so hard to cross bridges alone unless ur a hunter

Adrian said it was not intended to have big wars around towers, and that you can still cross bridges without a hunter. As Ichigo said, they aren't strong at all.
PS: You might be detected tho, I did not have the chance to try this because when I tried on Amun, it was war, war, war, war everywehre.

[Eizaix]

But the far bridges (PP2,PN2,PB2) are still free of towers,right?
So we would probably have to use those to avoid the camped towers.

[time-to-die]

When is amun Up again? so i can try myself

[Adrian]

Still working on all the remaining locations (12 in total, all bridges). We will try to have a testing version before the end of the month.