What do you think about new forts?

[Anpu]

I m curious what others think about new forts. Are they improvement, what should be changed and what you like in them and what not.

I personally think that even though they look like improvement, its half baked stuff. Maybe I had high expectations from those concept arts, but I thought they ll be bigger, more space inside. I dont like that Agger and Trelle look identical, as well as Herbred and Algaros (forgot to visit Meni). While some forts had nice touch like tree and roots in wall, as well as wall patch behind Samal, I dislike ruined style of wall, floor. I didnt have chance to check forts in war, but it seems to me that wall is way too high for archers to hit anything close to wall. Also, Samal archer guards were hitting me (from fort going out) until I lost visual with them. I hope that ll be tuned down.

Don't get me wrong, new forts are nice eye candy, but I think they are not completely ready and that some part on work on them was bit rushed. I believe NGD wants to test stuff on live servers, but why can't you just invite people to test server to test out new features before pushing them to live? Experience would be much more pleasant for all on live servers.

At the end, congrats for trying to improve outdated parts of game. (clan system next, please)

[-Logan-]

It's about time they changed them, even though I expected the forts to be bigger and have some new mechanics. I'm actually surprised that they were rushed, I don't know how long they've been working on them, but I'm guessing they started around the time they released the concept art. I thought that this was what NGD was working on most of the time but it seems like just an average revamp.

I don't like that secondary forts (Algaros, Trelleborg, Menirah) had their unique designs scrapped. Chilko said it was to not cause imbalance, but, I think a little imbalance is needed here. If each fort had a totally unique design, it would give each fort a different strategy for fighting, which is fun for me and gives me a reason to visit different forts. Herbred could have a pro-archer design for example, and Samal could have a pro-warrior design, I'd love that.

There are minor differences, like the extended tower in the Syrtian design, but the forts are all pretty much still the same, just different textures. Oh well, at least they'll be better then the current forts.

[NSer]

Fairly, i don't care. Only worries me that locks will useless at fort walls

[Znurre]

An improvement for sure, but they are still way too easy to protect making fights static and boring.

[Aries202]

Maybe forts shouldn't have doors.

I like the new forts, NGD said somewhere they'll be working on Castles later, who knows maybe the secondary forts will get a new also. I think it's fine, the space inside the fort. There's a lot of levels in the fort meaning the fights will be in different levels of the fort.

Have to kill the GC, then climb your way up to the flag.

I would say though, we should be able to carry the flags, maybe when you kill the GC he drops your flag, and you replace it with the one ontop. That person carrying the flag shouldn't be able to attack(like a gem)

[Seher]

The new forts are designed in a way that allows removing doors. That's why I like them :P

(There's still that bug though, the last step in the tower blocks you)

[bois]

I highlighted each section as it another one of my tl;dr type posts.

I like them. It seems fairly obvious that NGD wanted to launch something for the anniversary and this is it.

Personally I did not expect them to be much bigger. I did expect the wall to be higher and more space to move around.

Different fort designs :I think the forts are attractive. While I would have liked different designs for every fort, from a business standpoint it is not very cost effective. Sure these things are nice but if they are not going to yield a profit in the short to medium term I see no problem mirroring the forts for now. From a programming perspective I prefer that they deliver these and make sure they are working well, collision is fine ,capture mechanics and so on are working well. Delivering 9 different structures in one update or even 6 would put too much pressure if lots of fixes are needed. At least with the mirrored ones, 1 fix solves problems across multiple structures. Keep in mind that other forts designs are not scrapped entirely, just shelved.

Interior Space: I like the space inside. It gives the melee the advantages on the gate/aproach and the rangers a slight advantage on the inside. I see something for everyone there. Camera angles are improved because of more space and as such battles should not end up as the choked ones that we have on the staircase now. The spiral staircase is a little more conducive to battle as well. I find the layout of the whole interior is an improvement.

Save location to fort: With that said, I do think that the save is a little too close and is too much in favour of the home team defending the fort. My feeling is that in battles where the invaders outnumber the defenders by a little, the defenders will have too strong an advantage coming back from such a close save. It should be drifted back a bit.
New animations for door strength The fort doors seem to be the same strength as before. This is fine. However, NGD could have made new door animations for 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 health. If they could not do this then at least put a health bar for it.

Fort capture system :Second issue is the mechanic of fort capture. I mentioned it in threads before but I really think that the idea of clicking the flag and waiting on a timer is a bit antiquated. Make a smaller flag at the top that a player can grab and have to carry downstairs to the GC hall. To complete capture you place the flag in that holder. When you have the flag you lose self buffs and basically need your colleagues to cover you. I say this because unless the fort is level 4, the flag is unprotected and the fort can be ninja captured by 1 hunter even easier than before. Make it so that they lose advantage if they want to ninja it. It also give a new dimension to war in that it becomes a team sport to get the flag home and the players can have very interesting battles to stop the opponent on its way both up and down. The battle for the fort is not so much the door any more.
If the bearer runs outside, the flag returns to the top. If the bearer dies then the home team can grab the flag which then returns to the top.

Distance you exit from fort: I would have liked to see players popping out of the fort landing a bit further out. Something like what used to happen at Imperia back in the day. Areas would not be as easy to spam and you would need to turn and make a step or 2 back to land them. Additionally, if you select a player, once they are behind the door you lose focus on them. I did not check this but if it is not happening , it should.

I think people were setting their sights way too high on this one. I on the other hand adopted a much more conservative outlook hence I am not disappointed.

I say good looking so far NGD.
BUGThere are still a few bugs like the collision problem with the base of the rear round towers at Menirah and Samal, Aggers too I believe. You can hide in the wall both inside and outside of that round tower. It should be addressed before it goes live.

My take using warlock, marks, knight :I looked at the structure of the external defences with my marks, warlock and knight. At range the archer (marks) has the advantage from wall. Hunter with short bow might struggle here. Warlock will struggle to deliver crushing areas in time from wall. Once the melee approaches and gets close, archers, mages lose any advantage. It is up to all melee to battle for the gate. Any warlock or conjurer will have to risk going outside if they want to battle here. For this reason too I would like the player popping further out. The warlock and conjurer will now not land in the middle of those hitting the gate.
Inside, the mages should do well here. Archer both mid and long range should do well too. Melee will be at less advantage provided they can be slowed and picked off from vantage points that would take time to reach.

All in all it is an improvement. It may not be perfect but it is a big step up from what we have now.

Regards

[DemonMonger]

I like the forts

Attacking fort from outside = knights + barbs advantage
Defending fort from inside = archer / mage advantage

[standistortion]

They look great and are well thought out with regards to cameras, moving, areas of attack, tactics and much more but I think ranges might need to be adjusted, at least for mages.

There are a lot of other changes I would like to have seen instead of the forts, bugs that need fixing, clan system and user interface improvements etc but happy. The AI also seems to be changing a lot atm and I'm confident many areas are getting attention.

Thanks a lot, nice work.

[Zordak]

I like the designs, though the base plan could differ a little for each realm. Now they are only differently textured.
We will see what they do to the castles...

There should be clear visible obstacles at places from where you cannot target people outside the fort. Currently, there is a horizontal "wooden" bar at samal on the tower next to the gate. It looks invitingly transparent as if you should be able to cast shit across it, but apparently its magic-proof.
The transition to the area above the gate from where you can cast towards the outside is seemless, I find this very confusing.

All the other concerns (holding the new stairs favouring warriors *a lot*, how will areas work with the z-component-change in them?) I have will require the designs to go live...

Z.