Area Capture System

[anthriel]

Really like the fact that you are thinking of things that take the game far beyond Rok's one dimensional gameplay. In some ways i really like the idea. I've always thought Rok would have done well with a town control type mechanism.

However I don't really like the ways you suggested implementing it because it seems to totally worsen the much needed guild diversity balances (ie it seems everyone would have incentive to join the biggest dominant guild to control all areas so they get exp bonuses etc)... Basically it's demoralising enough playing in a minor guild already where you get thumped day in day out at key battles, OADs, leveling etc - in my opinion adding a system that further messes up guild diversity like this will end up reducing competition rather than creating more (cos it will likely result in a 1 guild game with everyone else quitting - EO is prolly getting quite close to this already and many players have already quit/retired cos of the guild domination issue)

I think the overall idea could be really good though, but I think u need to make it work to PROMOTE guild diversity, not hinder it. Here is an example of how it could be helpful in promoting guild diversity:

- Step 1: Make levelling areas be all under the domain of closest town (eg logging area and Kakegi belongs to Canopia, dwarf mines belongs to drelvar etc.) and introduce a "town hall, castle, mayors office etc type room" to be the capture/control room for each town

- Step 2: Make the reward for holding the town say 1-3% of all gold given out from exping, quests rewards and any commerce done (ie buying/selling stuff from shops, auction house, healing at temples , maybe even bank deposit amounts etc) in that towns area each week (kinda like the guild tax)

- Step 3: each guild can only capture/hold 1 town at a time (ie they have to choose whether they would rather hold Huldar (for dreads), Arkan (for Ref and big cash leveling/quests), Seamoor (which has crap leveling cash but good cash from has the auction house) etc... This will promote Guild diversity cos it means that everyone joins Guild A will leave untapped cash sitting in other uncaptured towns that is potentially available for opportunistic ppl to gcreate and hold. Ie you limit how much benefit the biggest guild can actually get by restricting the reward to 1 town anyway. With this, you would probably go from 2-3 super guilds to as many guilds as there were capturable towns.

- Step 4: find a way to do the siege/capture that promotes active play. Eg it could be within game like charging into a town and storming the castle by killing any defending players/npcs (could be automated without need for event staff) ...Or you could try making it more formally structured by running weekly guild-wars event and first place gets first pick of town, 2nd place gets next pick etc (gives ppl incentive to actually do the event)

The above is just an example. Step 3 is the crucial step/mechanism. Steps 1,2,4 are just ways you can also achieve other aims (eg steps 1&2 give reason for ppl to choose to hold Seamoor area etc, step 4 could help win promoting guild events etc)

Hope that helps. In any case I cannot stress enough the importance of promoting guild diversity rather than hindering it with a mechanism such as this!

[NiteHawk]

- Step 2: Make the reward for holding the town say 1-3% of all gold given out from exping, quests rewards and any commerce done (ie buying/selling stuff from shops, auction house, healing at temples , maybe even bank deposit amounts etc) in that towns area each week (kinda like the guild tax)

That is a pretty good idea. Prob not things like bank deposits though, that's a bit extreme IMO. Things like Eld said as well could help out (unlocks certain shops etc). Long as it's not game changing stuff. I.E. back room of the magic shop having potions that are +5 HP or +5MP more then what they currently sell.

- Step 3: each guild can only capture/hold 1 town at a time (ie they have to choose whether they would rather hold Huldar (for dreads), Arkan (for Ref and big cash leveling/quests), Seamoor (which has crap leveling cash but good cash from has the auction house) etc... This will promote Guild diversity cos it means that everyone joins Guild A will leave untapped cash sitting in other uncaptured towns that is potentially available for opportunistic ppl to gcreate and hold. Ie you limit how much benefit the biggest guild can actually get by restricting the reward to 1 town anyway. With this, you would probably go from 2-3 super guilds to as many guilds as there were capturable towns.

While I really like this idea, it's a bigger system, but I think it's a fairly good system overall. The thing is though there are really only 3 ish 'good' l cities to capture, which are the higher level areas that people spend level 23+ on. The gold difference will be greatly higher and to me the issue is that the bigger guilds will hold them, resulting in way larger gold amounts then other areas. Sure, you could capture Canopia/etc but alot of cities are often passed fairly quickly and obviously have lower amounts. I don't think it would be any more guild diverse. I am fine with the 1 city limit in this case though.

I also think a town capturing system in this sense is a very good idea, and I do want to implement it (and will tbh). But I think this is a weekly thing you can do to raid it or at least at maximum once a day vulnerability timer. I'm for it if people are good with it, but I did really want a system that is more 'active' too on top of this, where changes can happen more often than not. Obviously holding a city it probably shouldn't change holders all the time, maybe once a day maximum or once a week. I think its very cool though.

However, for general areas, you could also take some ideas you talked about here. For example, if people disagree with XP/Gold boosts, area capturing could simply involve what you said here. Having an area means that you gain 1% total gold of any leveling earned to the guild bank of the area holder for example. You can also obviously have a maximum area limit which I still wanted in the other system too, so that one guild can't take ALL the areas, but it would have to be more then 1 area. Or it could be a mix of both with a cap on how many small areas you can take. I want these to change more often then not, something to do rather constantly, even if its a few minutes a day. They shouldn't be free capture, there should be a invul timer once you capture it, but these should be alot faster paced than city holding and require alot less effort. I.E: 1-4 hours.

[anthriel]

- Step 2: Make the reward for holding the town say 1-3% of all gold given out from exping, quests rewards and any commerce done (ie buying/selling stuff from shops, auction house, healing at temples , maybe even bank deposit amounts etc) in that towns area each week (kinda like the guild tax)

That is a pretty good idea. Prob not things like bank deposits though, that's a bit extreme IMO. Things like Eld said as well could help out (unlocks certain shops etc). Long as it's not game changing stuff. I.E. back room of the magic shop having potions that are +5 HP or +5MP more then what they currently sell.

- Step 3: each guild can only capture/hold 1 town at a time (ie they have to choose whether they would rather hold Huldar (for dreads), Arkan (for Ref and big cash leveling/quests), Seamoor (which has crap leveling cash but good cash from has the auction house) etc... This will promote Guild diversity cos it means that everyone joins Guild A will leave untapped cash sitting in other uncaptured towns that is potentially available for opportunistic ppl to gcreate and hold. Ie you limit how much benefit the biggest guild can actually get by restricting the reward to 1 town anyway. With this, you would probably go from 2-3 super guilds to as many guilds as there were capturable towns.

While I really like this idea, it's a bigger system, but I think it's a fairly good system overall. The thing is though there are really only 3 ish 'good' l cities to capture, which are the higher level areas that people spend level 23+ on. The gold difference will be greatly higher and to me the issue is that the bigger guilds will hold them, resulting in way larger gold amounts then other areas. Sure, you could capture Canopia/etc but alot of cities are often passed fairly quickly and obviously have lower amounts. I don't think it would be any more guild diverse. I am fine with the 1 city limit in this case though.

I also think a town capturing system in this sense is a very good idea, and I do want to implement it (and will tbh). But I think this is a weekly thing you can do to raid it or at least at maximum once a day vulnerability timer. I'm for it if people are good with it, but I did really want a system that is more 'active' too on top of this, where changes can happen more often than not. Obviously holding a city it probably shouldn't change holders all the time, maybe once a day maximum or once a week. I think its very cool though.

However, for general areas, you could also take some ideas you talked about here. For example, if people disagree with XP/Gold boosts, area capturing could simply involve what you said here. Having an area means that you gain 1% total gold of any leveling earned to the guild bank of the area holder for example. You can also obviously have a maximum area limit which I still wanted in the other system too, so that one guild can't take ALL the areas, but it would have to be more then 1 area. Or it could be a mix of both with a cap on how many small areas you can take. I want these to change more often then not, something to do rather constantly, even if its a few minutes a day. They shouldn't be free capture, there should be a invul timer once you capture it, but these should be alot faster paced than city holding and require alot less effort. I.E: 1-4 hours.

Sounds interesting and fun - as long as it promotes guild diversity. Imho i think the game dynamic is unfortunately past the point where you can introduce a system that still benefits a dominant guild and just limit their ability to control everything ... I think whatever system goes in will have to actively promote guild diversity and competitiveness for smaller guilds. Otherwise it will just be another reason for 'the rich to get richer' and the 'poor' to feel dis-empowered (leading to more drama and demoralised ppl and eventual quitting, rather than the desired excitement). Peace

[Sicx]

Moved to my own post, as it differs greatly.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1846

[NiteHawk]

Sounds interesting and fun - as long as it promotes guild diversity. Imho i think the game dynamic is unfortunately past the point where you can introduce a system that still benefits a dominant guild and just limit their ability to control everything ... I think whatever system goes in will have to actively promote guild diversity and competitiveness for smaller guilds. Otherwise it will just be another reason for 'the rich to get richer' and the 'poor' to feel dis-empowered (leading to more drama and demoralised ppl and eventual quitting, rather than the desired excitement). Peace

Many systems will favor the high end guilds, even the town capture system as the best towns will be captured by the bigger guilds. So no matter what it poses a problem. The only system I see so far that don't 100% benefit the bigger guilds would be the GW system (Posted an example on Sicx's post viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1846). But even still bigger guilds will have easier times donig things, it's hard to contest that unless there maybe is some sort of limit to how many can enter or defend. Maybe giving smaller guilds an easier time to defend/capture though, not sure yet.

I do like area capturing. I do like town capturing. I think we can do both with a similar system and limit how many you can capture, as you said one town is probably enough. For areas, it depends, 2-3 areas probably.

Area capturing can use what you talked about, giving 1-2% of gold to whoever owns the area. No other bonuses needed. Simple and good.
Town capturing can give bonuses inside that town as you talked about as well. The town itself should still be 'usable' by anyone, but the guild holder should have some benefits.

Having a cap on areas should allow at least some smaller guilds to hold some areas. I will prob start at 3 but then if there becomes a thing where we have a lot of guilds, we can reduce it to 2, then 1.

For warnings the system is a bit different than before so it poses a problem on how warnings should be. No longer is it a guild can capture a ton of areas, so maybe they should get a warning when it is captured, but not during or at maximum, when it's neutral. Tough to say.

[daedroth]

... Area capturing can use what you talked about, giving 1-2% of gold to whoever owns the area. No other bonuses needed. Simple and good.

Do you mean. Player A kills a beasty, player A's guild takes their % and then the area holder gets their %?
As in:
You killed the bandit scout, you get # gold, your clan gets # tax gold, clan AlhpaOmega get # tax gold.

I likes.

[NiteHawk]

... Area capturing can use what you talked about, giving 1-2% of gold to whoever owns the area. No other bonuses needed. Simple and good.

Do you mean. Player A kills a beasty, player A's guild takes their % and then the area holder gets their %?
As in:
You killed the bandit scout, you get # gold, your clan gets # tax gold, clan AlhpaOmega get # tax gold.

I likes.

Yeah obv you can't set tax for areas, and it would be a very low amount, 1-2%. But still something you'd want to upkeep to earn gold. Specially with GWs coming in and the gold needed for building there.

[NiteHawk]

For anyone who hasn't followed the system, no fear, I will short summary it here on how it currently is.

Guilds will be able to capture zones. Zones are one or more areas (If they are too small area wise we combine them). You can capture an zone by killing the Control Shard in that zone. Once you kill the control shard, it takes 2-4 hours for it to respawn, AKA you will at LEAST hold the area for 2-4 hours. You will gain certain bonuses which mostly involves guild gold to be used for guild houses/etc. You can hold 2-3 zones maximum and 1 city maximum. Cities will have a longer respawn time (12 or 24 hours), and be harder to capture. Easy system.

I have some questions though on this, looking for the majority here.
For basic zones:
1. How long should it take until the mob respawns? Aka your safety window after killing the control shard. 2 hours, or 4 hours? Mind you, we want them to be passed back and forth fairly often.
2. Should there be a warning when the monster HP is low (20%-25%), or no warning at all to the guild who owns the zone? Or maby simply when they lose the zone?
3. Should everyone be known in what areas guilds have with a command like /gzones? The benefit of this is you can target guilds, but the negative of this is that it might mean that people might get mad and say 'I DON'T WANNA LEVEL IN AN AREA THAT IS HELD BY XXGUILDXX', even though it makes very little difference to their leveling experience.
4. Instead of /gzones, should whomever owns the zone be displayed on the mob? Aka looking the mob over to view what guild has it. This means you won't see who owns it until it is spawned.. But you can technically attack it then and there, so might be OK to display.
5. How much HP do we think is a good starter? Mind you I will be tweaking this, but I am thinking 10k to start.
6. Should the mob heal to full after 5 minutes of not being attacked, or should the defenders need to actually cast heal/aid on it?

For city capture:
1. How long should it take until the mob respawns? 12 hours or 24 hours?
2. I think city capture should have a warning though. When should this happen? 50% HP?
3. Should this be globally announced when someone is attacking? Aka 'BLAH IS ATTACKING CITY A' meaning others can join in too?


I will also make a discord addition that at least gives info when a zone is taken over. So like a news feed. Not sure on what info it will have yet, depends on what we want released to the public on capture time.

[Folder]

For anyone who hasn't followed the system, no fear, I will short summary it here on how it currently is.

Guilds will be able to capture zones. Zones are one or more areas (If they are too small area wise we combine them). You can capture an zone by killing the Control Shard in that zone. Once you kill the control shard, it takes 2-4 hours for it to respawn, AKA you will at LEAST hold the area for 2-4 hours. You will gain certain bonuses which mostly involves guild gold to be used for guild houses/etc. You can hold 2-3 zones maximum and 1 city maximum. Cities will have a longer respawn time (12 or 24 hours), and be harder to capture. Easy system.

I have some questions though on this, looking for the majority here.
For basic zones:
1. How long should it take until the mob respawns? Aka your safety window after killing the control shard. 2 hours, or 4 hours? Mind you, we want them to be passed back and forth fairly often.
2. Should there be a warning when the monster HP is low (20%-25%), or no warning at all to the guild who owns the zone? Or maby simply when they lose the zone?
3. Should everyone be known in what areas guilds have with a command like /gzones? The benefit of this is you can target guilds, but the negative of this is that it might mean that people might get mad and say 'I DON'T WANNA LEVEL IN AN AREA THAT IS HELD BY XXGUILDXX', even though it makes very little difference to their leveling experience.
4. Instead of /gzones, should whomever owns the zone be displayed on the mob? Aka looking the mob over to view what guild has it. This means you won't see who owns it until it is spawned.. But you can technically attack it then and there, so might be OK to display.
5. How much HP do we think is a good starter? Mind you I will be tweaking this, but I am thinking 10k to start.
6. Should the mob heal to full after 5 minutes of not being attacked, or should the defenders need to actually cast heal/aid on it?

For city capture:
1. How long should it take until the mob respawns? 12 hours or 24 hours?
2. I think city capture should have a warning though. When should this happen? 50% HP?
3. Should this be globally announced when someone is attacking? Aka 'BLAH IS ATTACKING CITY A' meaning others can join in too?


I will also make a discord addition that at least gives info when a zone is taken over. So like a news feed. Not sure on what info it will have yet, depends on what we want released to the public on capture time.

1) Prefer 4 hours. 2 hours goes by fast!
2) I think a warning at 25% could encourage PvP so I vote for this. Assuming the mob has enough HP of course.
3/4) I prefer 4.
5) I don't know the HP of monsters. Is 10k more than something like Mort has? I think it should be enough HP that it takes a few minutes to kill, so people can mobilize to defend if desired.
6) Defenders should have to heal it - we want to encourage people getting out there. Self heals don't encourage that.

For city captures:
1) Hard to say. I'll pick 12 hours for now but may need to see this in action.
2) 25-50%, again assuming the mob has enough HP to mobilize a defense.
3) Might get spammy at 12 hours. Again kinda hard to say without seeing it in action but my first guess is to say the warning at 25-50% HP to the owning guild is enough.

Overall this sounds quite fun, looking forward to it.

[Styx]

Healing it sounds good but if a lobbies lvl 10 cleric gets to healing at 30k exp per heal this will be op. Fair warning on setting exp on stone to be little or nothing