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:

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

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.