New invasions mechanics

[impp]

The ability for small groups to scale the wall anywhere when the gates are vulnerable - say it takes about 15mins to get over. The reverse of knocking down a door, instead building a "siege tower" or ladder? Get a few warmasters across to teleport more, you could build up a nice little invasion group to support gate-bashing from the inside.

Oh and how about making the walls attackable from the inside?

[Topogigio_BR]

Originally Posted by S_N_I_P_E_R

With making a realm invulnerable, instead of doing this why not make the castle and only the castle invulnerable if the realm has no gems, this way the main fort an secondry forts will still bring action to this realm.

So say alsius has no gems, Imp will be invulnerable to attacks (maybe a visable barrier around it), but Trelle and Aggs will still be attackable. This would in the case of Horus still give alsius a reason for war instead of mass grind.

SNiper i think when NGD says invulnerable, it means even if you lost the 3 forts timer on gate dont starts.

[doppelapfel]

Lets wait for that teleportstuff, if it means you can go from one fort to another very fast i dont mind having to keep al forts for an invasion.
I really like your plans to make forts unattackable if a realm has no gems, this will increase the number of bridge- and open fieldfights which are usually fairer and a lot more fun.

[Znurre]

On amun, the warzone gate goes down in 3 hits from a barbarian.
Is that intended?

[ieti]

Whole Invasion idea is flawed. Most flawed thing are realm walls.

- Remove realm walls.
- Move gems into cities.
- Make lower than easy do not give XP, RP.
- Reinforce cities.
- Reinforce gem pillars into cities.
- Make cities capturable.
- Remove saves and move them to cities.
- Give XP bonuses for capturing city.
- Make all equipment, mounts tradable - even xim, master ones.
- Hide bosses when realm, city, forts in danger, captured.
- Remove XP, RP from enemies when gems, forts captured.

There can be alot more ideas.

Bold ones are especially to fight boss camping and streghten realm as a whole.

[Znurre]

Also, at least in Alsius there are now guard patrols outside cities.
If the walls were torn down, these guard patrols could patrol between cities and escort newbies so they don't get killed too much.

[Skargod]

If it will be that easy to interrupt the invations and get the gate closed then please fix the bug that everyone can jump over the big wall of alsius. Its still possible on Amun.

ty ;-)

[HuntShot]

Originally Posted by Skargod

If it will be that easy to interrupt the invations and get the gate closed then please fix the bug that everyone can jump over the big wall of alsius. Its still possible on Amun.

ty ;-)

They can do what!?

[Skargod]

Originally Posted by HuntShot

They can do what!?

They are able to climb over the realm wall!

[bois]

Good to see invasions is on the front burner. Where to begin...

Before I even start to comment on the new mechanics I better get these thoughts out of the way :
Firstly, we simply do not have enough information to properly assess this new move by NGD.
I don't know about teleportation and its mechanic so there is no way to assess its impact on movement around the battle field.
Importantly, I don't know anything about the new forts and castles and I believe that this is crucial to the NGD plan working they way they want. NGD sees the whole picture (which probably works) we see fragments.

So we are left with an incremental update that seems tailor fit to the RA experience and appears to scale poorly across servers. The thing weighing most on my mind is that for NGD to implement Invasions the way they are seemingly going, they need to implement the whole mechanic forts, castles, wishes, the whole thing in one update. There is no way in my mind that this can go piecemeal and look totally solid.

In my imagination, this partial invasion update will leave gaping holes that really would be filled in by subsequent patches. Unfortunately, we may be left for a couple months in chaos until the tie-in patches come.

On to the update.

One save.
I am fine with it. It makes transiting the war zone a little more perilous and as such players need to think "we" instead of "me" a lot more. The game needs this. I do not know about the teleportation spells so I have no idea how this will work. I will wager that these are short range. Commuting around the warzone will be a little more taxing but, it extends the warzone without actually increasing its size. The environment just got a whole lot bigger. Camping will be reduced at saves (possibly). Eventually I see the guard going. I would use -xp, -wmaster coin and -RP as deterrents.

[B]Become vulnerable when the realm looses control of all its fortifications for 15 minutes (any enemy).[/B]
I am okay with this with reservations. On the up side, vulnerability become much more common with the threat of invasion becoming much less scripted. This is a good thing.

The bad thing is that this is an incremental update and inherent flaws in the current forts and castles will lead to potential harassment and abuse. New forts and castles and their mechanic have to be known and weaknesses eliminated for this to go well. I can see frustration creeping in when an army has to leave for an outpost to kill 3 people. Very common on Horus right now. Forts need early warning upgrades, longer to take by commando forces and AI or mechanic that is a little smarter especially around flags. The fort taking can be slowed by internal AI performing slowing CC attacks. Lastly, the upgrade must be addressed if only temporarily. In effect , you could see 2 enemies attacking one but, one will have 2 structures and one will have one. Theoretically all can be upgraded to lvl 4 causing imbalance. My suggestion is that if 2 enemies attack, AI upgrades are downgraded in at least 2 of the 3 structures , basically the castle and the fort of the enemy holding 1 structure. A maximum of lvl 3 fort is possible in 2 structures. The other can go to lvl 4.

If the defending realm retakes one fortification the vulnerability ends.
This is fine based on the new mechanic.

If the gate was broken and the defending realm retakes one fortification the gates will re-appear.
This can work. Ignis has bashed the door from the inside already with current mechanics so it can be done. What has not been mentioned is the amount and type of AI that will exist at the main gates. In all honesty, I would have preferred 2 gates (per realm) that are fairly weak and tiny border gauntlet towns sitting behind them (inner realm)with few structures and very little AI. The available AI is evenly spread outside and inside the gate. This will spread the war which is what you said you wanted. The war will not be the gates but the gauntlets that sit behind them. Much more interesting that way. Maybe in another expansion. Again, this is dependant on the new WZ fortifications.Also, the weakness of the gate is crucial to the balance of this.

maximum invasion time will be of 2 hours. Sure, you could add this but based on you new mechanic this should be rendered obsolete. If an army can't take one of its forts back it surely can't hold the gate for 2 hours. The gate is much weaker so it is either take a fort or get overrun and invaded.

New invulnerability rule:

Bad idea. It has been proven that apathy steps in once you have nothing to lose. This will backfire. I say, as others have said, make the gate invulnerable. The others do not have reason to invade anyway. Start all the forts for this gem-less realm at level 2 . Level 3 if underpopulated . That way war can still be waged and the defenders have a locked in advantage. However, it can't be all positive. So, your normal XP from mobs is only 60% and the XP you get from enemies is only 85%. Your war-master coinage is also reduced (-50 coins per quest) and your top 2 inner realm bosses will not spawn until you get at least 1 gem back or the portal gets opened. So, you either do it yourself or you help the opponent to open their portal.

This brings me to my last point. The wishes really need overhauling. New mechanics will be enough to drive fury and as such malus wishes will not be needed. Remove the XP malus and replace it with either a magnanite or bonus quest for war coins available to all who enter once they are level 35 and above.

Yes , excessively long but you should be used to me making these by now.

Regards
Artec

EDIT: please note the figures I presented are just hypothetical and not what I actually envisage. Malus should not be so harsh. Feel free to offer 'real' numbers if you wish.