Invasions... Possible, simple solution for NGD

[survive]

Deletions in Red
Additions in Blue

After 2 wonderful years of RO, and 1 annoying year of Invasions... the question has come up in numerous conversations to me and onemyndseye/Elusis, and been the debate of many:
...phone conversations
...our clan chats on RA and Horus
...general chat on both servers
...private chats with other clan founders
...ungodlly amounts of forum threads
...conversations on Mumble, IRC, and Messenger, between allies, enimies, friends and foes alike

What to do to fix Invasions and all the problems incurred... screw Invasions entirely? That has been my stance for some time, but... it is not likely NGD will remove them... so how can WE, the customers of RO, change the scheme of invasions, and make them work for all players, realms, and servers? There have been some great ideas put forth, but all would require extensive work by NGD to manufacture and implement... so how do we get them to change their implementation to better serve the players of RO?

This is the idea, me and Elu came up with in a 10 hour phone conversation and debate about positives and negatives incurred in Invasions.

I know this will get flamed, oh well, i am looking for solutions, so please stay on topic.

1) Add one fort/town in each realm: Ideally this would be located at Gypsy camp for Syrtis, on the Southern rise outside the Ignis gate, and just east of Alusis gate at the foot of Wall Mount.
... this fort would be slightly larger than the others in size (but not a castle), with no tower (a fortified merchant encampment)
... it would include 1 of every type of merchant, and would include ALL makes of supplies
... it would include 1 of every trainer
... it would include 1 farrier for horse rentals (explanation to follow)
...X... it would include 1 Save Pillar ...X ... deleted
... it would include (hopefully) non-glitchable walls

2) Remove all Save Pillars from war zone. X...(Exception being, the above mentioned town fort) ...X ... deleted
... this would make the penalty for death in the warzone a true penalty
... would put more emphasis on "Camo Corpse" and "Burn Corpse", making them both more valuable spells
... if you die, you ressurect at "Gate Save", not at wall
... X... if you die, and your save is occupied, or gate is vulnerable, you ressurect at your "Gate Save"...X ... deleted (explination to follow)
... all, in realm saves, remain as they are, with the exception of; Medenant Save, and Raeria Save... both would be moved to the back side of their respective cities
... "Gate Save" would be placed half the disatnce between the current Raeria Save, and the Gate for Syrtis.... this same equal distance would then apply to Alusis, and place their "Gate Save" between Birka save and the Gate (the same distance as the Syrtis one), and Ignis would have thier "Gate Save" located between Medenet and thier gate (the same distance as the Syrtis one). Therefor all "Gate Saves" are equa-distance to their perspective gates.
... Save camping is eliminated!!!!
... option "where to ressurect" is eliminated, if you are in warzone, you ressurrect at "Gate Save" save, if inside the realm, then whichever save pillar was your last selected save.

3) Horse rentals for gold are re-implemented, with the following exceptions and benifts
... horse rental is 6 hour rental, for the price of 30,000 gold (it is a rental)
... premium horses are still available at the current 1.08 state (it is a permenant mount, a purchase, not a rental)
... the deletion of save points in warzone make fast travel alot more nessecary, and promotes the need to buy permenant mount (NGD happy), but does not allienate those that need a horse quickly and for a short period (players happy)

4) No more player upgradable forts/castles (see further explination below)
... no more fort occupation, for farming purposes by upgrading forts

5) To invade you must capture and hold 4 forts belonging to the realm you are invading
... all forts are level 1 fortifications as of the 1.08 update
... all castles are at level 3 fortifications as of the 1.08 update (with exception in a Invasion)
... ... X ... as you capture a fort or castle, all others raise 1 level in defense (the realm is on alert)

...invading force occupies 1 fort or castle, all others move to level 2

...invading force occupies 2 forts or 1 fort & the castle, remaining fort moves to level 3

...invading force occupies 3 forts or 2 forts & the castle, remaining fort, castle or fort/town moves to level 4

... as an invading forces occupies ALL 4 forts/castle/fort-town, Invading forces occupy and are able to use defending realm's Fort/Town for defense, rest, and Save Pillar....
... reclamation of defending realm's occupied forts, will result in reduction in defensive level of all defending realm fort's defensive level
... if one realm occupies 1 fort, and another realm occupies 1 fort, and so on... the same ramp up of defenses occurs .... X ... deleted
... if defending realm has lost all forts/castles/fort-town, the fort town is occupied by the invading realm, fort/town is level 2 (definition as of 1.08 update), all defending realm's forts held by invading realm are at level 1.
... defending realm, on loss of all forts/castles/fort-towns, will receive the following to replace gate guards (eliminating the logging off bitch, by either slander or deed):

2 Guard Captians

2 level 3 Barbarian Guards

2 level 3 Knight Guards

2 level 2 Archer Guards

2 level 2 Mage Guards

4 level 2 Archer Guards (1 located in each gate tower corner)

... with a successful occupation of 4 forts by 1 invading realm, to 1 defending realm, the defending realm's gate will become vulnerable immediatly
...... X ... ONLY the invading realm will be able to attack and damage the gate ... X ... deleted
... gate is vulnerable until a realm fort/castle/fort-town is reclaimed
... once gate is destroyed, any realm may cross in and out of destroyed gate's entrance into defending realm's, inner realm
... once gate is destroyed, realm is breahced for 45 minutes
... at the end of breached gate timer, castle and fort/town would revert to defending realm ownership, ... X ... and correct defense level depending on occupations ... X .... deleted


We, (Elusis & I) having debated this extensivly over the past 9 months, and constantly making adjustments for: new situations, server population problems, embalanced realms, player tendencies, off-peak realm times, RO mechanics, NGD workload, player ideas, player desires, and good old fashioned bitches & moans... I decided to post our incarnation of Invasion system for inspection.

That being said, we came to the conclusion that this is: a fairly stable, player friendly, balancing, FAIR, and not unreasonable chore for NGD to implment into the current game mechanics to enrich the game-play, teamwork, and overall performance of RO's Invasion system, for everyone.

No flames needed, criticisms and inputs welcomed.

If the overall view is a favorable one, i will move this thread to the suggestions forum for NGD to consider.

Thank you all for taking the time to review this outline, and I hope it can help make the game we all love, a bit better for all of us.

[Recoil]

Originally Posted by survive

... Save camping is eliminated!!!!

Funniest read all day, go on.

[survive]

thank you

but it has been a bitch and moan, and in former times, more of a problem than it is currently, but.. whether by individuals or groups, this would completly eliminate the problem of save camping...

until they get in-realm

[Mattdoesrock]

Woah, what an indept, intelligent and well thought out idea; I really like it.

Could you maybe draw up a rough map, detailing where exactly these fort/towns will be, as they seems so important to the general idea.

[survive]

thank ya Matt... and ok.. map....

here is a quick and dirty

Black marks denote "Gate Saves"
Red mark denotes "Fort/Towns"
Approximate locations... equal distance for all realms and saves, and a little tweaking so as not to have to adjust landscape too much for terrain irrgularities

[bois]

I offer a counter proposal:

http://www.regnumonline.com.ar/forum...ad.php?t=48403

..and yes I know my ideas remove invasions altogether.

Looking at your ideas:

Adding a town is okay but I am not in favour of packing the single location with merchants, trainers and the save. Farrier is fine and so would be blacksmiths and quest giving NPCS.

Reason is that there is enough dead zones in the world without forcing everyone into one area of heavy activity and leaving the rest practically unused.

In a grinding sense why should I have to run a huge distance to this village, depending on where I am to dump junk items that I pick up. This is of course assuming you intend of removing the markets as well.
I base this assumption on the fact you want to eliminate save camping and logically that should include market camping too.

Placing every kind of trainer in this town will potentially allow /reset_powers to be abused and will simply result in NGD nerfing it. That would be something very unpalatable for every player in RO.

Finally on this section , what would stop mobs of hunters hunters from village camping ? I mean they know everyone most likely will use the village and would simply wait on the outskirts and pick people off.

Next section:
Contemplate this : one save and you have to take Imperia, Shaanarid, or Eferias back with a medium to small force vs an equal sized one in the castle.
After the first few deaths who would be encouraged to travel the massive distance over and over to take the castle. The stress involved in such an undertaking will frustrate players more than enhancing game experience in my opinion. Sure you can take the teleporter but frustration will surely grow in such a situation. Such a thing may just force players to stay at their wall/ last fort at gate and try to defend from there.

Save camping:
Simple to eliminate
1. 5% necro for each kill at save and /or,
2. Kill at save results in a drop (rock of shame ) that makes you overburdened or maximum weight limit. It cannot be dropped but you can pay a NPC 100k gold to take it off you.

Horse rental I am for but I doubt NGD will revert that one.

Fort Upgrades I am not for as I believe defence of any fort should be the domain of players and not the system.
I would suggest the fort stays at lvl1 but the surrounding terrain made more difficult (who builds a castle or fort on a piece of open access flat land?) to access the door and make the fort /castles bigger, move the flag to the top of turret and have an open courtyard suitable for battle on that turret (like NGD 2.O tower clip). Put a mini gate to break as access to the turret. Added to that just give the regular guards there the occasional area they can drop. That should be quite challenging .

Finally , the placing of guards at the great wall should remain as implemented . I assume that by losing 4 forts it suggests that the defending realm is underpopulated and cannot defend its wall but this may not actually be so.

Alsius Horus has proven a few times that they can lose all their forts /castle yet muster enough to defend their gate effectively. Placing so many guards without taking into consideration the population lurking inside may not be the best way to go. Will these guards drop areas?

With all of this said I congratulate you on a very well thought out and presented idea. It shows promise and with a few tweaks here and there I believe it can be quite viable.

Edit: This is quite an interesting proposal however, I wonder about the placement of the town and how you intend to implement the transfer of power of this fort by the invading realm. Would the NPCS inside change sides as well or just disappear leaving guards? NPC changing may provide too much of an advantage to invading forces with easy armour repairs and reset powers.
I would like to hear your ideas on this.


Regards
Artec

[lore87]

I remember the only city fight I had, at Rearaia (on RA) during the making of the RO 2009 trailer. It was great
anyway, +1

[chilko]

i think that your proposal is way too hardcore and makes the whole system much more complicated.

we are more in line to what Bois is saying (not the removing the system altogether) but we will do a major update to forts/castles by the end of the year along those lines

[survive]

Originally Posted by bois

...and yes I know my ideas remove invasions altogether...

Not gonna happen, wishfull thinking. NGD has business obligations, and Invasion gameplay is a part of it.

Originally Posted by bois

Adding a town is okay but I am not in favour of packing the single location with merchants....

Not a town in structure sense, but a open market... collection of the merchant booths we see all over warzone... 3 merchants, next booth same... very open, fortified by walls, surrounding.

Originally Posted by bois

In a grinding sense why should I have to run a huge distance to this village, depending on ...

this thread is not going into the small changes needed to gameplay balance, like: drop rate, drop quality, class balance... so forth and so on... i do see some would be needed first that springs to mind is heals spell's cast time, and mana communion... but that is a whole other matter discussed plenty everywhere else.

Originally Posted by bois

This is of course assuming you intend of removing the markets as well...

No. no intention of eliminating markets. (shopper beware, as it were )

Originally Posted by bois

...will potentially allow /reset_powers to be abused...

No reason to, it is the same lenght of time, and what? 100m away from current re-skill area? just saves people returning to inner-realm to re-skill. And NO desire for re-skill to be taken away.

Originally Posted by bois

... one save and you have to take Imperia, Shaanarid, or Eferias back with a medium to small force vs an equal sized one in the castle. After the first few deaths who would be encouraged to travel the massive distance over and over to take the castle...

1) No one took away your teleport, the castle is the fortification quickest to get to from this area.
2) The same aurguement can be said for taking a castle, making 'Camo Corpse' and 'Burn Corpse' very influential... and there has been talk on the forums of 'Death', being the ultimate cost, and ressurcting you to the noob zone save. While understanding the reason behind this, we thought it was too drastic, and simplified the model to use the concept, but not make it discouraging to the point of rage/emo quitting.
3) Buy horses, NGD thanks you.

Originally Posted by bois

I assume that by losing 4 forts it suggests that the defending realm is underpopulated and cannot defend its wall but this may not actually be so.

Not exactly... but the defense takes into the account that population will not affect it... it is less than we recieve now, but more diversed.

Originally Posted by bois

...and how you intend to implement the transfer of power of this fort by the invading realm. Would the NPCS inside change sides as well or just disappear leaving guards? NPC changing may provide too much of an advantage to invading forces with easy armour repairs and reset powers.

NPCs would disappear, leaving only the level 2 guards.

[survive]

Originally Posted by chilko

i think that your proposal is way too hardcore and makes the whole system much more complicated.

we are more in line to what Bois is saying (not the removing the system altogether) but we will do a major update to forts/castles by the end of the year along those lines

First off, thankyou very much for the reply and viewing the content, Chilko.

That being said... i would like to know how you mean 'too hadcore', for my own better understanding.

And while meaning no disrespect to you, or NGD, the developers, or Mods as a whole.... My intention is to the state if gameplay, and what the customers, want and think in reguards to Our Vision, of what RO is to become, because, we are the ones who untimately decide if you rise or fall. I see your "Visison" of what you want RO to become, but surely you have seen that RO has grown and become it's own animal, that what NGD wanted from the beginging, and what RO has become and will grow to be, can not be force-fed to its customers.

I would never want to make it too difficult to obtain from a programming point of view, ergo no proposal to move Effie to Algros... ridiculous amount of work, and not feasible on those lines.

Although I feel that in the requard of "too complicated", it is in no means more complicated, much less in fact, from a player's perspective. (unless you were again referring to the programming aspect, in which case, disreguard)

As i stated, no disrespect, no anger or malice, just my opinion on your comments, and me speaking honestly, as I always do.

Thanks again for the post, suerte.