Thoughts on Fort-wars and Invasions

[_Arwen_]

Preface:

In the following post, I hope to discuss my thoughts, beliefs, and experiences with the current implementation of fort-wars and consequently the invasion system. This is by no means a “this is broken, fix it this way NGD” post, simply a way for me to express my ideas and generate a creative discussion on the topic that the developers may be able to borrow from. I'll warn you in advance that I'm letting my thoughts flow freely on the subject and as such the length of the post may be rather long. Apologies in advanced also for having to split this into 3 separate posts, but I exceeded the character limit per post for the forums...

I also want to point out my experiences are exclusively from the Horus server and as much as I will try to extend my ideas so they work on other servers (Ra mainly), some issues on these other servers may slip through unnoticed. I'll also admit freely that anything I bring up about Ra is purely based on talking with (Ex)Ra players, and reading posts on the forums.

Terminology:

Soldier – I will refer to players as “soldiers” instead of “warriors” to avoid confusion between players and the class “warriors” (Sorry, I prefer soldier over player...)
Attacking/Defending Realm – From time to time the realm I'm referring to by these terms will change. I will always put a “Note:” before I change to avoid confusion.
Implementation - An alternative design for fort-wars
Potential Pitfall - An issue that may arise with a particular implementation

Concerning Fort-Wars:

This section will consist of 3 sub-sections. The first details the problem as I see it, the second and third sections will be dedicated to 2 different implementations of fort-wars. The first, I predict, will be highly unliked and I'm probably the only one that would support such a style, so I've compromised and devised a second less radical fort-wars implementation.

The Problem:

Note: In this section I will refer to the “Attacking Realm” as the realm that took the enemy fort, and the “Defending Realm” as the realm trying to get their fort back.

In more way then one fort-wars come up short the majority of the time. What I mean by this, is, a good percentage of the time soldiers of the attacking realm return to their realm either bored out of their mind since no one showed up to fight, or utterly disappointed since a wait of 20 minutes while the enemy grouped culminated in a 3 minute skirmish as the fort got “zergged”. Often times a majority of the attacking realms soldiers will just log off, go “AFK” or go grind after this. If this isn't the case then chances are the attacking realm attacked the grouping enemy and pushed them back to their save where spawn-camping commences. In this case the defending realm often gives up either by logging off or going back to grind, neither good for the health of fort-wars.

Implementation 1:

Note: In this section I will refer to the “Attacking Realm” as the realm that is trying to get the fort back, and the “Defending Realm” as the realm trying to hold the fort.

Design:


Remove Doors
Remove Guards? (see “Potential Pitfalls” for a reason behind the “?”)
Remove Upgrading
Modify Fort Layout
Allow spawning at bridges

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/1673/fortlayout.png

Reasoning:
Past experience has suggested that forts are flawed in that they provide too GOOD of a defense (this is after 1.0 with upgrades, but also applies to un-upgraded forts as well). This can be seen in two scenarios. First is when the attacking realm is low on numbers. In this instance, the rate at which the attacking realm damages the door is much slower than the rate at which the door heals while the attacking realm is attacking any soldiers that pop out of fort from the defending realm. The second is when the defending realm severely outnumbers the attacking realm. In this case the attacking realm is lucky if they manage to make it to door. Guard Captains also come into play too, but we'll assume for simplicity's sake that if an army is strong enough to take the door down, they can take the guard captain (Again assuming the fort was upgraded).

The main idea behind this implementation is to remove doors, and possibly even guards. I realize removing guards may not be possible due to some issues that I will describe in the “Potential Pitfalls” section. Removing doors causes 2 things to happen. The first is that it forces fort-wars into more of a Realm Vs. Realm, instead of a Realm Vs. Fort with the occasional (boring) area spam from the defending realm. Secondly it allows attacking armies that are smaller than the defending army a slightly increased chance of being able to capture the fort. This also allows hunters to have a much increased role in fort-wars.

Number 4 needs some explanation, this is the second most important design point in this implementation. The problem with removing doors is that mages become extremely vulnerable with their lack of protection spells (Locks especially, but after the nerf to sanctuary this may become more prevalent to conjurers as well). The reason they're so vulnerable without a door is that once the attacking army organizes and rushes into the fort they make a quick left, and there's the ramp to get to the wall loaded with mages. Archers have speed and low profile if needed, but mages are too slow and their main means of escape (mind push) is being nerfed. The solution to this is to move the ramp so its not so easily accessible. The best option here is to move the ramp to the opposite side of the door, but wait there's a tower there how can we put a ramp there? The idea here is to make the tower into the ramp. The balcony on the second level of the tower provides a convenient exit from the stairs in the tower to the wall. This would allow the mages more time to prepare for the incoming warriors, and also allow allied warriors a chance to stop the enemy warriors, promoting teamwork and cooperation.

The above image details the new layout for a doorless fort. The main change here is that the tower is rotated 180 degrees from its current orientation, moved flush with the wall and the door is placed on the balcony side of the tower. The first level (after you ascend the first ramp) has a new door that empties out onto the wall and the rest remains the same. The guards are placed so that 2 are guarding the flag, and 2 are guarding the tower entrance. None of the 4 guards should leave the fort, and the 2 near the flag should protect the flag as a 1st priority.

Number 5 also needs a bit of explaining. With the removal of doors, forts will be much harder to defend since the attacking realm's save is so close they can simply overtake the defending realm with constant re-spawns while the defending realm has to rely on resurrect (with its long CD) or running back from their closest save (also very long). To remedy this, we would allow spawning at the bridge IF AND ONLY IF the fort belongs to the attacking realm. This promotes constant action since the defending realm can't spawn at the bridge when the attacking realm has the fort (even if the defending realm has more players in the fort).

Potential Pitfalls:
As no discussion would be complete only talking about the good things, I'll discuss some potential issues that may arise from a fort-wars implementation like this.

First I'll touch on point 2 which has an “?” after it. The reason this is an optional suggestion is because having no guards at all would make the fort simply too easy to take. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, imagine showing up at a captured fort with a large army, only to find out a conjurer popped in to take it... You wouldn't be happy would you? So to solve this we'd have to leave guards in, but not just that, we'd also need to improve the guards intelligence so its no longer possible for a solo hunter to capture. This means a hunter can no longer tag the flag, then run off to glitch the guards, or run in circles to keep them busy. Basically the only changes that would need to be made is to have the guard tag the flag before running after an enemy, as well as fixing the different glitches that exist. One last issue regarding guards is the guards that stay outside the door, since the door no longer exists these guards should be moved inside so they aren't as easy to kill by “kiting” them, but they must also know never to leave the fort to chase an enemy.

The second pitfall is that the ability to defend with a smaller army is greatly reduced. On Ra, I don't think this will be an issue since the armies there are usually large enough. The problem on Horus is that a good number of times, the defending realm only has 10 (sometimes even less) soldiers to defend with. The easiest way to solve this would be to center an aura around the flag depending on the number of defending players inside the “<Fort> Surroundings” area (ex. Herbred Surroundings). The aura could be, healing, mana, +armor%, mana pylon, etc. The key here is to find the right balance between maximum number of players allowed in the fort before the aura deactivates, and the actual aura itself. A +armor% would probably be ideal.

The third pitfall builds on the previous one, in that since its harder to defend, invasions will be much harder to achieve. While this may sound like a good thing to some (including myself), ultimately it is not. What this would promote (at least on Horus) are invasions where the attacking realm vastly outnumbers the defending realm and as such it makes it hardly worth it to defend the gate. The solution to this is much more than I want to discuss in this section, there will be an entire section dedicated to the fort-war changes impacts on invasions later, but as a quick and dirty fix, you would have to make it easier to make the gates vulnerable (by reducing the requirements needed to put it in that state).

The fourth and final issue is that currently there is no warning that an enemy realm is trying to take your fort when there is no door since the warning is only triggered when the door is attacked. The one and only solution to this is to warn when an enemy enters the fort.

[_Arwen_]

Implementation 2

Note: In this section I will refer to the “Attacking Realm” as the realm that is trying to get the fort back, and the “Defending Realm” as the realm trying to hold the fort.

Design:


Reward attacking realm for trying to get the fort back.
Replace “Iron door” upgrade with “Repair Door” upgrade, and is upgrade 4, 5.
Change “Guard Captain” upgrade so the captain doesn't replace the flag, but the Guard Captain has less HP and does more Damage. Fort CAN be captured w/o killing Guard Captain.
Improved guard AI

Reasoning:
Let me touch on the fort upgrade tweaks first as they make up a good chunk of the changes. The key here is the emphasis on fighting without a door to promote constant action. Often times the hardest part of attacking the fort is getting the door down. This is especially true when the defending realm has loaded the fort with warriors who can keep you stunned, knocked, or dead with their areas. By leaving the door weak it allows it to go down easier and forces the defending realm into Realm Vs Realm instead of just area spamming. The “Repair Door” upgrades are moved to the 2 last upgrades to them a last resort and as such expensive. They work like upgrades used to work where they would fix the door, but they do nothing more. These upgrades would cost 150K gold and 200K gold respectively and are to be used to buy more time for your realm to show up, or during an invasion attempt.

The second change to upgrades is moving the “Guard Captain” upgrade to upgrade 3 and adjusting it so it no longer replaces the flag. In addition, the Captain's HP is decreased and his attack power increased. To go along with this change, the AI for the guards must be fixed. The guards would have to know to tag the flag whenever it has been tagged by an enemy, and would have to be smart enough not to get glitched. These changes achieve two things, first they make it harder to “tank” the captain which allows a conjurer and a barb with a few supporting soldiers to take the captain out by themselves. Second, it makes it easier for an army to kill the Captain while there is a defending army inside. This provides a nice balance between being able to capture a fort with too small a group, and making it almost impossible to capture with a defending army equally sized.

The reward to attacking realm is the other half of this implementation. The objective here is to reward the attacking realm for attacking a fort that the odds are against them for winning. Basically what would happen is there are two milestones each one is separated by some number of deaths by the attacking realm. At each milestone, the fort loses a defense. The exact death numbers would have to be worked out, and would depend on the server (Horus they would be a lot lower than on Ra). On Horus, after 100 deaths by the attacking realm (in the “<Fort> Surroundings”) you reach milestone 1 where the fort in question loses its door. After an additional 50 deaths, the fort loses its guards, returning any gold spent on the Guard Captain (assuming he is still alive) to the upgrader. The benefit of these changes is that it promotes action from the realm who's fort has been captured and rewards them for it. To take this concept a bit further, we could change the requirements to each milestone from pure death count to some ratio of attacker deaths to defender deaths over a certain period of time. For example a ratio of 10:1 over a time period of 15 minutes.

Potential Pitfalls:
The first pitfall here is the potential abuse of the death system. If you go with a system purely based on the number of deaths, you may run into the issue where the attacking realm simply suicides over and over again to get the “reward”. While I'm not sure this would upset the defending realm as it's loads of free RP, but it would certainly ruin the mechanics of invasions, and even fort wars themselves. There are two possible solutions to this, the first and easiest fix is to simply jack up the number of deaths needed. While this is a viable solution, it messes with legitimate situations where the attacking realm is doing their best, but still getting slaughtered. The second, and possibly better, solution is to calculate the ratio of attacker deaths to defender deaths and determine from there. The actual minimum ratio would have to be determined based on realm population. If the attacking realm has a much lower population online than the defending realm, the ratio would be lower. So for example if the attacking realm has half as many soldiers on as the defending realm, the ratio would be 1:20 and if by the time the milestone is reached the actual ratio is greater than that, say 1:30, the total number of deaths needed could be increased by 50. On the opposite side, if the attacking realm's population has equal or greater population online, the ratio would be 1:10 or 1:5 so the deaths would be more evenly distributed between realms.

[_Arwen_]

Concerning Invasions

Note: In this section I will refer to the “Attacking Realm” as the realm that is invading, and the “Defending Realm” as the realm being invaded.

I'm quickly changing my mind that maybe it isn't fort-wars that would benefit from change. Yes, I still believe my suggestions in the previous sections are relevant and would be beneficial to fort-wars and the game as a whole, but I'll tailor this section more towards an invasion system that would work with any 3 implementations (current, suggestion 1, suggestion 2).

Design:

The actual mechanics of Invasions remain exactly the same, but we would add an extra requirement to allow a realm to invade, this requirement is called the “Siege Timer.” The general idea behind this addition is that a realm needs to Siege the opposing realm before their defenses are weak enough to allow an invasion attempt. Instead of being something that a realm can achieve in less than an hour, Invasions are now a long term goal that requires the help of your entire realm instead of just one group of players in one timezone.

Here is how the Siege Timer would work. In order for a realm to be able to attempt to put another realms gate in danger they would need to siege the enemy by capturing and holding their forts for a total of 12 hours. This time can be accrued over a series of days so the only penalty for losing the fort is that you can no longer increase the Siege Timer against that realm. There are 3 Siege Timers, Alsius Vs. Ignis, Ignis Vs. Syrtis, and Syrtis Vs. Alsius. When I discuss gaining time, or increasing the timer, I'm talking about Realm 1 sieging Realm 2. So for example, Alsius is increasing Syrtis' Siege Timer means Alsius holds some of Syrtis forts and they're getting closer to being able to invade Syrtis (or removing time that Syrtis has accrued to their timer).
The Siege Timer acts like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. The rope starts with it point in the very center, and as realm's capture and hold forts the rope is “pulled” towards the realm holding enemy forts See the image below for a “mock-up” of what the timers would look like on the World Map.

Time Rules:

When 1 building is captured, the Siege Timer is increased 1 minute for each “real” minute its held.
When both forts are captured the Siege Timer is increased at a rate of 1.5 minutes for each “real” minute.
When the castle and 1 fort is captured the Siege Timer is increased at a rate of 1.25 minutes per “real” minute.
When all 3 buildings are captured, the Siege Timer is increased at a rate of 2 minutes per “real” minute.

There are certain ways a realm's Siege Timer can be modified to increase or decrease faster, they are detailed below:

Home Defense Modifier:
For each of your buildings that are taken, your Siege Timer against another realm increases at (4 - X)/4 where X = # of your buildings taken. For example if Syrtis captures Samal, and Alsius has Herbred while Ignis has Eferias, Syrtis' Siege Timer against Ignis increases at ½ the rate it normally would (or 30 seconds per “real” minute). Similarly, Ignis' Siege Timer against Syrtis increases at ¾ the rate, or 45 seconds per “real” minute.

Idle Realm Modifier:
To prevent the endless run from enemy fort, to your fort when the realm not involved in a fort-war captures your fort, another modifier exists. When a realm captures a fort of a realm that is currently at war in another realm, the attacking realm's Siege Timer against the defending realm increases at ½ the rate BEFORE subtracting the “Home Defense Modifier”, so yes these modifiers stack.

Shorthanded Realm Modifier:
To promote warzone activity even when you're realm is underpopulated, this modifier (which is a bonus) exists. Using the formula already in place for the spawning of guards at the gate, we can give undermanned realms a bonus for capturing a fort. When a fort is captured, the formula is applied and based on its results we award the capturers 1 of 3 bonus time multipliers: 1.10, 1.25, 1.50 times their base times (after applying the above modifiers).

To make my point more clear I'll discuss the following example, the forts are labeled in the order they were captured.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/928/examplen.png

(Siege Realm VS. Defending Realm)
Ignis VS. Alsius
1.5 * [(4 – 1)/4] = 1.5 * ¾ = 1.13 minutes per “real” minute

Alsius VS. Syrtis
1.0 * [(4 – 2)/4] = 1.0 * ½ = 0.5 minutes per “real” minute

Syrtis VS. Ignis
1.0 * ½ * [(4 – 1)/4] = 1.0 * ½ * ¾ = 0.38 minutes per “real” minute


If, for example, Alsius loses Algaros, Syrtis will no longer get the “Home Defense Modifier” but will still have the “Idle Realm Modifier” and as such will earn 0.5 minutes per “real” minute against Ignis. If Ignis loses both Trelleborg and Aggersborg, Syrtis will now earn 1 minute per “real” minute against Ignis since they will no longer be effected by the “Idle Realm Modifier”.

Once a realm's Siege Timer against an opposing realm reaches 12 hours normal invasion mechanics come into play. A realm must capture at least a fort and the castle to start the Vulnerability timer, once that timer runs out, the attacking realm may break the defending realms door for 2 hours. After the gate is vulnerable, there are 4 possible outcomes:

Outcomes:

Fails w/o breaking door
Fails with door breaking
Succeeds with some gems
Succeeds with all gems taken.

Timer after each:

Siege Timer against defending realm is reduced by 3 hours.
Siege Timer against defending realm is reduced by 6 hours.
Siege Timer against defending realm is reduced by 9 hours.
Siege Timer against defending realm is set to 0 minutes.

Here are alternate explanations (minus the formula's) that may be more understandable:


Basically think of the Siege Timer as a 2 sided progressbar, meaning 0% is in the middle, and 100% on both ends of it. When an enemy holds your forts, the progress bar moves closer to your end, if it hits 100% on your end the opposing realm can start the normal invasion process. (this isn't a complete removal, we're just adding a pre-condition to the current invasion process). By holding another realms forts you can move the progress bar closer to their end. Keep in mind if the progress bar on your side of the 0% you must first decrease it to 0% before starting on the other realms side.



For the invasion section, its a bit hard to follow, but does this sound right?

Between each realm, there is a meter, with the mark in the middle. While one realm has taken another realms forts, the more forts they have, and castle also, the faster the meter goes towards the realm thats being attacked. When the meter reaches the realm being attacked, the attacking realm must capture and hold the castle and: 1 fort for 30 minutes, or 2 forts for 15 minutes, then the door goes vulnerable, and an invasion can be started. This helps encourage fort wars, by for example if the ignis/syrtis meter is getting close to syrtis, ignis would want to take syrtis' forts to get the meter to hit syrtis, so they can invade, and syrtis would want to take ignis' forts, to send the meter back the other way to stop them invading.


Reasoning:
The main reasoning behind the addition of a Siege Timer is to minimize the effect timezones have on invasions. Not only does it prevent 1 timezone from being able to initiate an invasion and carry it out, but it gives the players in opposite timezones a chance to contribute towards the invasion or defense of their realm.

You may think that this new system may actually cause people to ignore fort-wars since they have a full 12 hours where they don't have to care, but once the timer nears 12 hours the “tug-of-war” between realms will actually increase the rate of fort-wars as the attacking realm tries to push the timer over 12 hours and the defending realm tries to reduce the timer.

The ability to reduce your Defense Timer (how close another realm is to being able to invade you) promotes warzone action even in the “dead hours” of the server (probably Horus only). It also promotes war over grinding since even holding a fort for 10 minutes helps your realm. On Horus this means the “off hours crew” for each realm can do more than just defend, they can actively help initiate an invasion. The loss of Siege Timer hours after an invasion has been initiated prevents “all nighters” where the defending realm has to defend 4, 5, 6 hours straight and allows them to either level a bit, or take the offensive since another invasion can't happen immediately afterwards.

Potential Pitfall:
The one concern I would have with this implementation is that it may not be possible for a realm undermanned at all times of day (Alsius Horus, though things are changing) to initiate an invasion. There are 2 fixes for this, first you can modify the “Shorthanded Realm Modifier” so that it gives more of a bonus. Secondly we could change the Siege Timer so there are 2 of them per realm. Basically the way this would work is that Siege Timers only increase in time and never decrease. This way a smaller realm could eventually initiate an invasion, even if it takes a month.

The End:
Well, sorry, when my thoughts get flowing they can't be stopped except for when I need to be somewhere. To prevent this from getting any longer, I won't write a conclusion instead I'll leave you to decide whether you really want to read the entire content or not (I urge you to at least read the Invasions bit if you just skipped to the conclusion).

Comments Welcome.

[Dannboy]

Im not reading all that, its 1 Am over here.
Can you do a "summary" of all that?
Like tell what you want to do in General? ^^
EDIT:
Meh, nevermind

Ill read it tomorrow >.<

[_Arwen_]

Heh, sorry.

Disclaimer: If you're in a rush only read the "Design" sections, the rest is just a discussion about why the change was made. There should be only 1 of them per post and are in yellow (do a search for "Design:" to find them easily)

[AntibioTsu]

Okee, so, I read the whole post .... (impossible, I know :D).

Here's my opinion:

1. I really liked the part which refers to changing the forts. The upgrades are just insane atm, with the Iron Gate and the Capt Guard, which makes capturing a fort very hard, and translates into no wars at all (since after a fail it's common to see ppl quitting). Giving a real mean to the tower would also be good, since it should be a more vital part of a fort. Making it the way to access the wall and turning the balcony to the center of the fort would increase its usefulness greatly. About ressing on the fort... donno really, but it may be an interesting idea to explore.

2. About guards, I would really like them to be more intelligent, not able to glitch (meaning no going through walls and keep attacking, like mobs and pets do) and with less armour - mainly the capt guard. It takes too much time to take a fort atm, and if the numbers on each armies' side are equal, then the one with the capt guard has a HUGE advantage. In the other hand, the Capt helps smaller groups protecting their own fort...

3. And now invasions... hmm... To be honest, I really didnt understand about 80% of what you said, about the new timers and so xD . But the idea I got was that you want to make invasions a more "global" event, and non-static like it is now (only occuring when the enemy has the forts). I think this would be an interesting idea, but imho, removing the whole current Invasion system would be a better solution, or even a serious rework.

Cant really think about anything else to say... because I'm kinda tired and I still need to "digest" some of the suggestions you posted here xD


Overall: it has some good ideas which should be considered and given attention; Awesome brainstorming Arwen ;)

[Bardar]

For the invasion section, its a bit hard to follow, but does this sound right?

Between each realm, there is a meter, with the mark in the middle. While one realm has taken another realms forts, the more forts they have, and castle also, the faster the meter goes towards the realm thats being attacked. When the meter reaches the realm being attacked, the door goes vulnerable, and an invasion can be started. This helps encourage fort wars, by for example if the ignis/syrtis meter is getting close to syrtis, ignis would want to take syrtis' forts to get the meter to hit syrtis, so they can invade, and syrtis would want to take ignis' forts, to send the meter back the other way to stop them invading.

I guess one problem with this, would be syrtis all piling over to the ignis realm to take all their forts at the same time as ignis piling over to syrtis to take their forts, basically creating a stalemate where the next move is just camping and finding out which realm has the most patience.

[_Arwen_]

Okee, so, I read the whole post .... (impossible, I know :D).

...About ressing on the fort... donno really, but it may be an interesting idea to explore.

I'll aassume you mean spawning at the bridge (if I did mention spawning at the fort, I didn't mean it. Basically I wanted to shorten the walking distance to the fort for the attacking realm since there is no door, you can expect a lot more deaths. And since onslaught will be shortened the time it takes to run back will be much longer and you can simply be overwhelmed with respawning soldiers, maybe this option should be determined based on online population.


3. And now invasions... hmm... To be honest, I really didnt understand about 80% of what you said, about the new timers and so xD . But the idea I got was that you want to make invasions a more "global" event, and non-static like it is now (only occuring when the enemy has the forts). I think this would be an interesting idea, but imho, removing the whole current Invasion system would be a better solution, or even a serious rework.

Haha, sorry I have a feeling the image is whats causing the confusion. I had this all pre-typed and decided just before I posted it here that I should include a picture. I realize I didn't really explain the image.

Basically think of the Siege Timer as a 2 sided progressbar, meaning 0% is in the middle, and 100% on both ends of it. When an enemy holds your forts, the progress bar moves closer to your end, if it hits 100% on your end the opposing realm can start the normal invasion process. (this isn't a complete removal, we're just adding a pre-condition to the current invasion process). By holding another realms forts you can move the progress bar closer to their end. Keep in mind if the progress bar on your side of the 0% you must first decrease it to 0% before starting on the other realms side.

Wow I'm sorry that still sounds confusing. I'll try to write something formal up, maybe with some more images.


Overall: it has some good ideas which should be considered and given attention; Awesome brainstorming Arwen ;)
Brainstorming, Brilliant! I've been trying to think of a word to describe what I was trying to do with this post and thats perfect.

For the invasion section, its a bit hard to follow, but does this sound right?

Between each realm, there is a meter, with the mark in the middle. While one realm has taken another realms forts, the more forts they have, and castle also, the faster the meter goes towards the realm thats being attacked. When the meter reaches the realm being attacked, the door goes vulnerable, and an invasion can be started. This helps encourage fort wars, by for example if the ignis/syrtis meter is getting close to syrtis, ignis would want to take syrtis' forts to get the meter to hit syrtis, so they can invade, and syrtis would want to take ignis' forts, to send the meter back the other way to stop them invading.

Almost a perfect explanation with one exception. When you "100%" you can't destroy the door immediately, you still have to capture and hold the castle and at least 1 fort for 30 minutes, or 2 forts for 15 minutes (same as it is now).

I guess one problem with this, would be syrtis all piling over to the ignis realm to take all their forts at the same time as ignis piling over to syrtis to take their forts, basically creating a stalemate where the next move is just camping and finding out which realm has the most patience.
Good point, I would think this is more likely on Horus where each realm doesn't have enough enough players to defend and attack at the same time. I would hope that you would at least have some players that would be willing to try and recapture their own forts.

There's one other variable that I think you're forgetting, the third realm (Alsius in this example). You would hope that the third realm has enough soldiers online to be able to take at least one of the 6 forts belonging to the other 2 realms.

One last way to solve this is to only give the "Home Defense Modifier" to a realm when they capture a fort while one of their own forts is captured. This way whoever was first to capture a fort (syrtis or ignis) would gain time faster than the second realm.

[Wes_]

I like the idea of implementation 1, but perhaps instead of playing without doors at all, the attacking realm should be given the option to downgrade the fort...much like the defenders of the fort can upgrade it.

Some possible downgrades to a fort( using gold ) could include:

1. Not allowing guards to respawn
2. Destroying the Fort Door
3. Weakening the Guard Captain

Hopefully something like this will allow for fort fights to be more entertaining and also more fair considering most fort-wars since invasion patch have been fairly one-sided.


The siege timer sounds like an excellent way to include all timezones into the invasion process. I think adding the siege timer could allow for more warzone action throughout an entire day and at the same time cut down on nightly zerg invasions. Also it seems fairly easy enough to implement, considering it works like the current flag-capture system already implemented in a fort.

[e30G]

I'm not too keen on the fort ideas. I would prefer the forts to be moved to bridges as discussed in another thread (http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum/showthread.php?t=44028). Removing the fort door will make it too easy to capture (like in the old days where 1 level 50 can capture a fort).

The siege timer is a good idea. Coupled with fort-bridges, I think it would add some nice dynamics to the game.

[Seher]

Number 5 also needs a bit of explaining. With the removal of doors, forts will be much harder to defend since the attacking realm's save is so close they can simply overtake the defending realm with constant re-spawns while the defending realm has to rely on resurrect (with its long CD) or running back from their closest save (also very long). To remedy this, we would allow spawning at the bridge IF AND ONLY IF the fort belongs to the attacking realm. This promotes constant action since the defending realm can't spawn at the bridge when the attacking realm has the fort (even if the defending realm has more players in the fort).

That would fit perfectly to the bridge-forts idea.


But I don't like your invasions. One realm would invade all the time, no matter whether it's the under or over manned. (Due to your bonus to undermanned realms)
In order that invasions are balanced and every realm invades sometimes you'd need a perfect balance in those bonus variables, imho impossible to achieve.

[Znurre]

I like the fort design ideas, especially the first one.

The reward to attacking realm is the other half of this implementation. The objective here is to reward the attacking realm for attacking a fort that the odds are against them for winning. Basically what would happen is there are two milestones each one is separated by some number of deaths by the attacking realm. At each milestone, the fort loses a defense. The exact death numbers would have to be worked out, and would depend on the server (Horus they would be a lot lower than on Ra). On Horus, after 100 deaths by the attacking realm (in the “<Fort> Surroundings”) you reach milestone 1 where the fort in question loses its door. After an additional 50 deaths, the fort loses its guards, returning any gold spent on the Guard Captain (assuming he is still alive) to the upgrader. The benefit of these changes is that it promotes action from the realm who's fort has been captured and rewards them for it. To take this concept a bit further, we could change the requirements to each milestone from pure death count to some ratio of attacker deaths to defender deaths over a certain period of time. For example a ratio of 10:1 over a time period of 15 minutes.This got me thinking about something else...
Why don't we reverse this suggestion?

Make it that the realm trying to recapture their fort have to kill a certain amount of enemies to advance to the next milestone.
Why would this be good?

Because usually, the best tactic as a small realm is to kill enemies one and one, and it is very possible with coordination.
The problem is that reinforcements will arrive way too fast so they cannot keep up with the pace.

I know this, since I've always played in the underdog realm Alsius on RA.

So, by making it possible for the realm trying to take back their fort to advance to the next milestone simply by killing enemies you achieve 2 things:

1. In a zerg vs small group situation the bonus would never arise, because the enemies would get killed at once and no reinforcements would have the time to come back before the fort was captured.
The bonus would then only be given to the realm if there were past 100 enemies at the fort, but that is very unlikely and if the realm trying to take back their fort can manage to kill all those 100+ enemies the fort will be theirs anyway, making the bonus obsolute.

2. It will promote fighting for both sides.
And not only this, it will promote defensive tactics from the realm holding the fort (heals, etc) because its the best way to assure that none of its players will die and thus give the other realm a bonus, creating better fights.

Now to the invasion part.

Sorry, but here I have to disagree 100%.
I really like that you are trying to solve the timezone problem, I really do.
But to me, your suggestion will make invasions even worse than they currently are because you only strengthen the bad sides of the invasions.

The waiting.

Other suggestions have been put to improve invasions.
Take a look at those, I prefer those.

Really good job with the fort suggestions though.

EDIT: One thing that becomes more and more obvious judging by player reactions and forum posts, is that the current system is totally flawed and that noone really likes it maybe with the exception of Efrendi :p

[SmUrV]

The fort ideas are great. I prefer open field and hate being closed into the forts. A fort without a door is a fun that actually shows team instead of just buffing/area power. However, the invasion ideas would become extremely tedious and ultimately frustrating.




EDIT: One thing that becomes more and more obvious judging by player reactions and forum posts, is that the current system is totally flawed and that noone really likes it maybe with the exception of Efrendi :p

Even Efrendi and "his crew" get bored of invasions. :)

[Akooo]

Even Efrendi and "his crew" get bored of invasions. :)

Maybe it's because zerging 4 low levels with 15 lvl 50's isn't much of a challenge? :superpusso:

[SmUrV]

Maybe it's because zerging 4 low levels with 15 lvl 50's isn't much of a challenge? :superpusso:

Lol we did it with 12 once. :D

[platyna]

I am strongly against removing the door, door guards and upgrades. Come on, fort war is supposed to be something different than open field battle.

Regards.

[SmUrV]

I am strongly against removing the door, door guards and upgrades. Come on, fort war is supposed to be something different than open field battle.

Regards.


Fort wars are also suppose to be something different from area spamming as well, but look at how most are won.

[_Arwen_]

Removing the fort door will make it too easy to capture (like in the old days where 1 level 50 can capture a fort).

Well the important thing is, the guard's intelligence needs to be fixed so they can't be glitched. I'd imagine you'd need at least 4 or 5 to take a fort with 4 "intelligent" guards.


But I don't like your invasions. One realm would invade all the time, no matter whether it's the under or over manned. (Due to your bonus to undermanned realms)
In order that invasions are balanced and every realm invades sometimes you'd need a perfect balance in those bonus variables, imho impossible to achieve.
You're 100% correct that its not possible to create perfect balance, the point of the Siege Timer is to allow other timezones to have some say in the process of being invaded or invading. I suppose this is more tailored towards Horus where timezones are more of a factor. The problem with the current invasions on Horus is they can be done in 2 hours, I'm talking not just about invading a realm, but opening a portal. In fact, 90% of the portal openings have been done this way. In my opinion I'd rather be invaded once per week instead of once per night. Plus this way the timezone that is "cut out" from these invasions (mostly the European timezones) can actually help us defend without having to turn their schedules upside down. But I agree, the balance will never be perfect.

I like the fort design ideas, especially the first one.
This got me thinking about something else...
Why don't we reverse this suggestion?

Make it that the realm trying to recapture their fort have to kill a certain amount of enemies to advance to the next milestone.
Why would this be good?


Yea, in this section the "Attacking Realm" is the realm trying to get the fort back, so we agree 100% here. This would mean after 100 deaths of the realm that holds the fort, the milestones.


Now to the invasion part.

Sorry, but here I have to disagree 100%.
I really like that you are trying to solve the timezone problem, I really do.
But to me, your suggestion will make invasions even worse than they currently are because you only strengthen the bad sides of the invasions.

The waiting.

Other suggestions have been put to improve invasions.
Take a look at those, I prefer those.

Really good job with the fort suggestions though.
Hey, no reason to be sorry, these are just my thoughts and I don't expect everyone to agree :). Also, I'm not sure the waiting would increase. Since I'd be more willing to rally my realm to take a fort back, or (if it comes to it) the enemies fort to slow the timer if I knew it would help. I'm too used to invasions where you really have no say at all since the enemy comes at you with triple the defender's numbers.

I am strongly against removing the door, door guards and upgrades. Come on, fort war is supposed to be something different than open field battle.

Regards.

They're still something "different" in that you have 4 walls and a tower (ok more like 7 walls) to use as defense. Even though I can "area spam" with my lock, I still find doorless forts more fun to defend, there's a certain satisfaction that comes that you don't get from area spam.

[platyna]

Doorless fort is simply hillarious, what is the point of fort then? Forts are to fortify.

I think fort wars are cool, forts are easy to take anyway.

Regards.

[UmarilsStillHere]

I like the idea of having the ramp to the walls on in the tower, by having a second "bottle neck" section in the fort it would make fights more interesting by giving the attacking (fort holding) realm a chance to fall back to some extent within the fort, Maybe even have a door on the tower, only with low Hp (10k ish) and as has been suggested 1000 times, move the flag into the tower, to do this though something would need to be done with towers and the current game camera, trying to fight in there is madness,

[_Arwen_]

Doorless fort is simply hillarious, what is the point of fort then? Forts are to fortify.

The point of being in the fort is that you are surrounded by walls so you only have to defend 1 entrance, and even then you can move to the tower/wall if then enemy takes over the first floor. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's still considered fortification.

When you're caught out in the rain do you refuse to use an umbrella because it doesn't have a door?


I think fort wars are cool, forts are easy to take anyway.

Regards.
Jump online any time from about 1AM - 5AM GMT and I can assure you, you won't say the same thing... (Syrtis Horus hours obviously, the "tough" hours for Ignis and Alsius are different).

[platyna]

Arwen all IRL forts has good doors. ;)

Regards.

[_Nel_]

Arwen don't waste your time with platyna. :no:
Doorless fort is a good idea for dynamism in the warzone.

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/8310/platynatroll.jpg

[Malik2]

A few thoughts.

I really like the invasion tug-of-war timer idea.

But the idea of having doorless forts without your invasion idea would mean that we would simply be ivaded every night again as defending an upgraded efe has been a big part of what has held ignis off for so many weeks in June. So really if you do the forts you have to do the invasion suggestion as well.

I too have a difficult time wrapping my mind around a door-less fort as a fort should really have doors. At the same time, to bring a fort door down you really need more that arrows and in the old days I used to solo knock down efe's door as a hunter. So real life only tenuously applies.

I do think that if NGD wants to make warriors more vital they would create a skill in one of the weapon trees that acts like a battering ram, multiplying damage on doors, perhaps even in an area. This would seriously change the way fort wars were conducted, make doors less of an issue for Arwen's master plan, and increase the importance of warriors.

Interesting.

[_Arwen_]

Arwen all IRL forts has good doors. ;)

Regards.


I too have a difficult time wrapping my mind around a door-less fort as a fort should really have doors. At the same time, to bring a fort door down you really need more that arrows and in the old days I used to solo knock down efe's door as a hunter. So real life only tenuously applies.


Yea I understand in real life, doorless forts don't make much sense, but I seriously doubt NGD is going for a real life simulation, I mean mages....?

Actually along the same lines as "Real Life" I was thinking what else about fort-wars isn't really believable and I thought about the area spam. In RL if you jumped outside your fort and caused an earthquake, you'd hit your door as well. So that got me to thinking, what if the door acted like an enemy player in that area's can hit it. That way maybe allied area's outside the door could do 50% damage to the door if its in their area of effect. This would also allow allies to position their areas not to hit the door, which in turn would allow attackers a little more time to cancel the area, or move out of the way.

Arwen don't waste your time with platyna. :no:
Doorless fort is a good idea for dynamism in the warzone.


I don't mind people pointing out problems with anything I say, but there needs to be an explanation to back things up. If that requirement is met I have no issue addressing the point.

A few thoughts.

I really like the invasion tug-of-war timer idea.

But the idea of having doorless forts without your invasion idea would mean that we would simply be ivaded every night again as defending an upgraded efe has been a big part of what has held ignis off for so many weeks in June. So really if you do the forts you have to do the invasion suggestion as well.


Yea, if they do any of the fort implementations, they would have to be accompanied by the new timer. However, I think the new timer could be introduced into the current fort-war dyamics.


I do think that if NGD wants to make warriors more vital they would create a skill in one of the weapon trees that acts like a battering ram, multiplying damage on doors, perhaps even in an area. This would seriously change the way fort wars were conducted, make doors less of an issue for Arwen's master plan, and increase the importance of warriors.

Interesting.

I agree here, but I remember reading somewhere about having special warrior weapons that do extra damage to doors. I believe it was in one of SoL's posts. Or maybe, make weapons with fire damage do double to doors.

[e30G]

Instead of doorless forts, I'd like to see scalable walls where groups can sneak up behind the fort and surprise the defenders inside. NGD's tech demo shows it's possible with the new engine.

[Malik2]

I also like the scalable wall idea. A grapple and rope. Stand next to the wall cast the spell and climb up the wall.

An intersting skill idea for hunters or another thing to buy at the stable.

[Malik2]

Yea I understand in real life, doorless forts don't make much sense, but I seriously doubt NGD is going for a real life simulation, I mean mages....?

...

I agree here, but I remember reading somewhere about having special warrior weapons that do extra damage to doors. I believe it was in one of SoL's posts. Or maybe, make weapons with fire damage do double to doors.

I can go with you part of the way Arwen, but the whole point of a fort is to keep people out. And a pretty good door is usually one way to do that.

At the same time I have no problem making doors more vulnerable to attack as you and SOL have suggested or scaling walls etc. And by "have no problem" I mean concerend about the effect of these ideas of small numbers of defenders against large numbers of enemies, but open to the options.

Optimally a farily small number of people should be able to defend a fort against a large number of attackers. Any reasonable defensive fortification should do that.

[_Arwen_]

...but the whole point of a fort is to keep people out. And a pretty good door is usually one way to do that.

I do not disagree with this statement at all, I'm just saying that what makes sense in the real world, doesn't always translate to a game, since the real world is about staying alive, but the game is about having fun (I think some have forgotten this).


At the same time I have no problem making doors more vulnerable to attack as you and SOL have suggested or scaling walls etc. And by "have no problem" I mean concerend about the effect of these ideas of small numbers of defenders against large numbers of enemies, but open to the options.

Yea, I think making them more vulnerable is the ideal option.


Optimally a farily small number of people should be able to defend a fort against a large number of attackers. Any reasonable defensive fortification should do that.

This is what I mean by real world ideas don't translate to games very well. In the real world, easily defended forts are a great idea, however in a game a fort that allows a small army to defend against a large army has the nasty consequence of also alowing a larger defending army to be invulnerable to a smaller attacking army. Fort-wars in RO have started to sway towards this large defense vs small attack scenario because its more fun for the defending realm, and you get more RP this way...

I knew writing this up that it would be hard to convince people of my first fort-wars implementation, which is why I came up with the second one which still has doors on the forts, but also adjusts for a smaller attacking army. You're one of the late night crew (well late night my timezone) so I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from, we can spend hours trying to get Herb back and still never even get to the door, and when we do make it to the door, we just get area-spammed back to CS. I'm sure its this way for Alsius and Ignis too, just different times of the day.

[Malik2]

I knew writing this up that it would be hard to convince people of my first fort-wars implementation, which is why I came up with the second one which still has doors on the forts, but also adjusts for a smaller attacking army. You're one of the late night crew (well late night my timezone) so I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from, we can spend hours trying to get Herb back and still never even get to the door, and when we do make it to the door, we just get area-spammed back to CS. I'm sure its this way for Alsius and Ignis too, just different times of the day.

I can certainly see where you are coming from. But the issue I think is that a larger force will always have the upper hand because of numbers. The night crew has difficulties taking herb because they allow ignis with its larger numbers to dictate the terms of the encounter. Attacking a larger force holding any fort with a smaller force of lower levels should be regarded as kind of dumb. But we do it with surprising regularly and expect a non-logical outcome.

Making forts easier to capture is a sword that cuts two ways. Sure small attacking groups can get an upper hand, but at the same time larger forces will have that much more leverage.

[platyna]

Arwen, I bet so NGD doesn't make IRL simulation, but IRL forts has doors because of same reason as RO forts has them.

And of course there are no mages IRL, but there were similar attacks IRL.
- Sultars terror = boiling oil, greek fire etc.
- Meteors = catapult missiless or iron balls shot from a sling (BTW it would be cool discipline in RO :D)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_thermal_weapons

I wish I could Sultar like that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Roberts_Siege_and_Destruction_of_Jerusalem.jp g

xD :devil:

Regards.

[_Arwen_]

I can certainly see where you are coming from. But the issue I think is that a larger force will always have the upper hand because of numbers. The night crew has difficulties taking herb because they allow ignis with its larger numbers to dictate the terms of the encounter. Attacking a larger force holding any fort with a smaller force of lower levels should be regarded as kind of dumb. But we do it with surprising regularly and expect a non-logical outcome.

Well currently, there's not much that can be done against a larger army. The there are 3 options:

1) Attack the fort and get area spammed then have to run back
2) Attack the enemy army when they show up at your save because you haven't gone back to the fort yet and get farmed.
3) Avoid the conflict altogether.

Without doors at least there would be a 4th and 5th option:
4) Use hunters to camo in and cause a distraction capturing the flag so the main "army" can setup their own area spam.
5) Have a small force capture the fort while the enemy army is at your spawn.

Sure the enemy army would recapture the fort in less than a minute, but at least during that time you may be able to have a somewhat decent battle since you get 4 more guards on your team.


Making forts easier to capture is a sword that cuts two ways. Sure small attacking groups can get an upper hand, but at the same time larger forces will have that much more leverage.

Of course, its hard to make a change that only fixes the problem you intend it to fix, I realize this. Like I said above though, at least we would have more action other than standing around waiting for your zerg to show up, or standing around because there's a zerg in a fort so you have no chance anyway.

I guess my posts gave everyone the wrong idea. These suggestions aren't meant to make the game completely fair no matter the realm or army size, they are meant to promote warzone action and not warzone waiting.

Arwen, I bet so NGD doesn't make IRL simulation, but IRL forts has doors because of same reason as RO forts has them.

And of course there are no mages IRL, but there were similar attacks IRL.
- Sultars terror = boiling oil, greek fire etc.
- Meteors = catapult missiless or iron balls shot from a sling (BTW it would be cool discipline in RO :D)
Regards.

Oil, etc:
Not really a good comparison, oil and fire have a much shorter range than terror. Oil and fire run out, terror cools down after only 3minutes and thats if you don't have multiple mages.

Catapults:
You can't really aim a catapult at someones head though and be sure it will hit them....

Trebuchet's:
You also can't use meteor on a door (or wall), which is one of the main uses of trebuchet's and catapults.

What about typhoon, thunderstrike, whirlwind? I've never heard about a warrior in history knocking down 20 people at once.

[Mattdoesrock]

One problem I see with having no Doors is that it will discourage fighting away from the fort.

Because your fort will be so vunerable to, like you said, Hunters sneeking in and people coming from behind, I can foresee people sticking close to the fort. Which is a shame because the open field battles are some of the best part of fort wars.

[Mikan]

I like the doorless forts, and the new fort layout. This would make forts spectacular to defend, and the battles would be awesome. However, this alone would not be enough... the forts still need to be moved to the bridges and the warzone made much more interesting as suggested in other threads.

However, any of it is extremely unlikely to happen, and here is why...

I don't think at this point NGD realizes how crappy their game actually is to play. It's basically no fun unless you like killing the same players over and over, zerging or getting zerged, and grinding. Furthermore, the general atmosphere of the game encourages little more than "assholery"... where the entire goal of the game is to simply be as big of an asshole to as many people as possible. And well, that's what Regnum has become, and I don't see it getting better any time soon.

Furthermore, you have seen NGD's vision for the game already, it's Invasions. That's it.

Maybe if NGD didn't have a one-track mind with their grand "plan"... I wish one day they would wake up and realize that people complain and critisize them because they deserve it, not because we don't know what we're taking about or because we are out to "get them". As others have stated, there is countless threads on why Invasions and so many other game mechanics are just horrible.

But well, any time a post like this shows up Chilko just responds to it with his "vision"...

Regards.

[Punti_X]

Dorless forts.... pffffft....
C'mon, fort without doors is stupid idea.

[Znurre]

Dorless forts.... pffffft....
C'mon, fort without doors is stupid idea.What a constructive comment.
I don't get this.

You look at the idea and judge it based on what's realistic or not?
Don't you see that Arwen is trying to improve the gameplay that's sadly been hurt a lot lately with all the recent updates.

Who cares if it's realistic or not when you could enjoy the game so much more by implementing some of his ideas?
And, if by any chance realism is not the reason you dislike this idea, please state the reason in your post so people know why you dislike it and so Arwen can improve his idea.
Don't just leave some "this is stupid" post.

[Punti_X]

What a constructive comment.
I don't get this.

You look at the idea and judge it based on what's realistic or not?
Don't you see that Arwen is trying to improve the gameplay that's sadly been hurt a lot lately with all the recent updates.

Who cares if it's realistic or not when you could enjoy the game so much more by implementing some of his ideas?
And, if by any chance realism is not the reason you dislike this idea, please state the reason in your post so people know why you dislike it and so Arwen can improve his idea.
Don't just leave some "this is stupid" post.

We can go even 1 step further by NOT HAVING GATE at realm wall. This would also spice up a game. Or, maybe, it is stupid too?

[Znurre]

We can go even 1 step further by NOT HAVING GATE at realm wall. This would also spice up a game. Or, maybe, it is stupid too?To me, that sounds great.
If I were to decide there would be no great wall at all.

You still didn't tell why you think Arwen's idea is stupid though.

[Nightchill]

i also think that no doors on forts is kinda pointless. i'd just like for forts to revert to the state in they've been before upgrades were made possible and everyone's happy.

also for invasion, i said this somewhere (can't remember where, i'd link to post otherwhise): gate vulnerability timer should start the same moment a realm has castle+fort, not give another 30mins of chance for all the grinders to decide whether they want to log on their alts and help their realm or not.


- Meteors = catapult missiless or iron balls shot from a sling (BTW it would be cool discipline in RO :D)
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03_04/meteorREX2603_468x551.jpg

[Punti_X]

To me, that sounds great.
If I were to decide there would be no great wall at all.

You still didn't tell why you think Arwen's idea is stupid though.

Doorless fort is not a fort. It is supermarket.

[Znurre]

Doorless fort is not a fort. It is supermarket.But isn't gameplay more important that realism?
I cannot speak for you, but most people play games because they are not like reallity.

[_Nel_]

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9946/platynapuntitroll.jpg
Who's next ? :banana:

[_Arwen_]

But isn't gameplay more important that realism?
I cannot speak for you, but most people play games because they are not like reallity.
Znurre, I'm glad to see that at least someone understands the point of the post. Even if you don't agree with all the ideas in it. Punti, please if you're going to continue saying the idea sucks read the second post which details a system that INCLUDES doors. I provided a second implementation exactly for those of you that wouldn't like the first (maybe I should have posted it first).



Who's next ? :banana:

lol, thanks for making my day (again :)).


NC, you're image made me laugh too, thanks :).

[Punti_X]

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9946/platynapuntitroll.jpg
Who's next ? :banana:

LOL :dance:

[_Nel_]

About doorless fort :
[...] Even when such "RvR" happens, all the action is breaking a fucking door... you should put a lockpicking skill somewhere because i'm damn bored to break virtual doors, i guess that NGD is incitating to break doors in real life or something like this. Yet another big fail, with incitation to real life delinquency i fear... [...]
-> http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum/showthread.php?t=46233

_____

Punti, I'm glad on how you took my joke. :beerchug:

[_Arwen_]

About doorless fort :

-> http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum/showthread.php?t=46233


Actually we just had a great Samal war earlier with the door down. Personally I prefer that type of battle where you can't just sit back.

[Edit]
Oops typo "can" should have been "can't" wow talk about a typo changing the entire meaning of your sentence...

[_Nel_]

Hum, you didn't play during the "Trelle Epic Battle" few earlier in this week.
There was no door either and Alsius people are definitely more active than Ignis people. It was a constant battle during... half an hour, certainly more (I completly lost sense of time). I let you imagine what kind of pleasure it was.
I congratulate the Alsius people to make my day with this great battle. :drinks:


An extension of your idea is to add some hotspots at different points on the map, like a vanguard post (or outpost, I don't know how to translate it), with :
- one flag
- a couple of little guards to defend the flag
- a particularly landscape that add makeshift protection : short barricades, trench, rocks, ruins, belvedere, ... a bit like Mount Goblin in Syrtis realm.

It will use to just say :
"Hi guys, we are here and we are waiting for you just to kill you ! :devil:"

[_Arwen_]

Woops sorry, I had a typo in the previous post, I meant I enjoy battles where you CAN'T just sit back, not can... So yea we agree with eachother.

I like your idea, maybe put them in some parts of the WZ that never get visited.