AranStormah
11-19-2008, 01:08 AM
The XP bonus, Boons and Keep Lord loot is a nice touch to get people into the Lakes, but the areas themselves need lasting appeal to keep people there. Either through added utility and means of entertainment or more streamlined action. Reward is also an issue. Below I go brainstorming a bit on the different aspects of the RvR Lake. Feel free to add your comments and ideas to the thread, but please keep it civil.
Battlefield Objectives Boons
BO Boons are a great idea, but they tend to go unused because they fade away upon death, and the BO's themselves are often out of the way of the Keeps, where the action is intended to focus.
In that regard, I suggest applying the Boons to anyone inside the Lake. This'd give BO's greater strategic value as they'd aid greatly in Keep sieges where other players are defending, without requiring people to run circles to talk to NPCs for the Boons. Upon leaving the Lake, the Boon could settle on the standard 30 min timer it currently uses, to still give them some use in PvE.
A Keep's purpose
The Keeps themselves are in need of something unique to make people want to own them. Unlike PlanetSide, which had alot of utility for Bases and kept promising Base Ownership without ever being able to implement it, you have Keep ownership, but no immideate purpose to the Keeps.
Removing Renown Vendor and Trainers from the cities would aid somewhat in this. If Keeps were the only place to use these vital NPCs, that would give people incentive to want access to a Keep.
For utility and some uniqueness, it'd help a long way to add more sort of deployables to Siege Pads.
Utility Siege Pads
Weapons of War are interesting and certainly fun to play around with, but they do one thing and one thing only, and that is deliver some direct damage hurt.
I propose adding more buyable equipment to deploy on them. Things I can think of are Airstrike Package (1), Medic Tents (2), Dungeon Siege Pad (3) and Dogs of War Package (4)
1) Airstrike Package
These would be for the Keep Owners and work like the Airstrikers in that T4 map (Lograns Runs?). You'd deploy a mounted NPC on the Siege Pad, it'd have a quest which allow you to choose any of the BOs in the Lake, you pick a target and it goes there and drops something like an AOE DOT or swipes over a few times doing an AOE Knockback.
Alternativly, you could make this a player controlled flying mount for the Lake only. That'd certainly make them very popular indeed. People would deploy the Airstrike package at the Keep. Mount a gyrocopter or wyvern, then gain a limited duration freeflight over the Lake. The mount could have a very limited number of bombs to drop, that'd either cause damage or knockbacks. After spending the bombs it'd have to return to the Airstrike pad at the Keep to restock. If it's duration runs out it'd despawn and the player would tumble down on the ground.
It's purpose would be mediocre area denial or minor crowd control, with player-entertainment as the secondary purpose. People would want to put gold into the merchant-sink to buy this, and they'd want to come to keeps to use it. I don't know how it should work in terms of being targetable by the opponents.
2) Medic Tents
These would only be deployable by the attackers on the Siege Pads. They'd allow respawning on a timer equal to that of scenarios, or longer. This would make groups with few to no healers more viable, it'd make combat more concentrated and it'd provide an incentive for the defenders to get some damage out there to destroy it. This'd also cut down on the unnecessary run from the distant Warcamps that people tend to be forced into.
3) Dungeon Siege Pad
If you add a basement to Keeps and allow the guild that owns the Keep access to a Siege Pad in that basement, this could be used to add on-demand utility to the Keep.
The pad itself could be used to deploy a respawn point with the same mechanics as the Medit Tent (2), a benificial buff or HOT to all defenders or a manner of barrack that spawns additional NPC infantry to aid in defense of ground floor Keep room.
Allowing attackers access to the Dungeon Siege Pad would give them a secondary objective once the Keep Door is down. Instead of zerging into the Keep Lord room, they could go down there and disable the defenders utility. Maybe even capture it as their own to help in the siege?
4) Dogs of War Package
Deploying a Dogs of War package on a Siege Pad would spawn either a NPC to aid in the siege or defence of the Keep. To not make Weapons of War redundant, these'd have to be weaker than the cannons and ballistas, but with the added perk of not requiring an operator.
Deploying a DoW package at the Keep would spawn immobile archers with single target dps or immobile healers to spam mediocre heals on targets in line of sight on the wall.
Deploying a DoW package on an attackers Siege Pad could either spawn a weak healer NPC with a limited range of movement to get in range of the attacking players, or a NPC with a ladder that'd be scripted to run up to the wall, set down a ladder, climb the wall and then attack anyone in sight up there. Imagine a group of 4 attackers deploying each their wallclimbing NPC and have all 4 NPCs climb up on the wall and cause a little bit of mayhem before they died.
To prevent NPC spam, when the NPC dies it'd break the siege pad with the DoW package.
Keep Lord Combat
To an innocent bystander, Keep Lord combat could currently look bugged. A semi-coordinated band of attackers will go to a balchony where the Lord and his champs are unable to go without reseting. This, together with the respawning NPCs at the ground floor room and outside which are ignored when the door is dead, leads to a messy impression.
I propose regular NPCs that are killed do not respawn while the Keep Door is broken. The attackers simply run out of their range or drop them in a few seconds if they're coordinated so it wouldn't make a big difference. The Keep Lord and his champs should be allowed to go anywhere on the Keep without reseting. This to avoid abuse and promote fighting in the Lord room, overall giving a more consistent impression to bystanders and participaters.
Also, to make matters more interesting, I think that when the Keep Door is broken, a Champ should start patroling the balchony, but that's just me and I can see how you'd want a defending player to fullfill this purpose instead.
Defense XP/Renown
Taking example from PlanetSide again, I think that defence XP and Renown should be gradually pooled based on how many attackers are in the Keep's Sphere of Influence (the reach of the area where you have the PQ-message "Defend/Attack the Keep"). This'd take count of how many unique players are killed every few ticks within the Keep's SOI to assess how fierce the fight is, and add to the pool based on that activity.
When all attackers are wiped and out of the Keep's SOI the pool would be rewarded to the defenders as a mission accomplished. The pool would be capped, so it couldn't go outside of unrealistic proportions. This'd provide incentive to show up and defend, particularly when the odds are bad, because your reward will be that much better for being able to chase away the enemy.
Battlefield Objectives Boons
BO Boons are a great idea, but they tend to go unused because they fade away upon death, and the BO's themselves are often out of the way of the Keeps, where the action is intended to focus.
In that regard, I suggest applying the Boons to anyone inside the Lake. This'd give BO's greater strategic value as they'd aid greatly in Keep sieges where other players are defending, without requiring people to run circles to talk to NPCs for the Boons. Upon leaving the Lake, the Boon could settle on the standard 30 min timer it currently uses, to still give them some use in PvE.
A Keep's purpose
The Keeps themselves are in need of something unique to make people want to own them. Unlike PlanetSide, which had alot of utility for Bases and kept promising Base Ownership without ever being able to implement it, you have Keep ownership, but no immideate purpose to the Keeps.
Removing Renown Vendor and Trainers from the cities would aid somewhat in this. If Keeps were the only place to use these vital NPCs, that would give people incentive to want access to a Keep.
For utility and some uniqueness, it'd help a long way to add more sort of deployables to Siege Pads.
Utility Siege Pads
Weapons of War are interesting and certainly fun to play around with, but they do one thing and one thing only, and that is deliver some direct damage hurt.
I propose adding more buyable equipment to deploy on them. Things I can think of are Airstrike Package (1), Medic Tents (2), Dungeon Siege Pad (3) and Dogs of War Package (4)
1) Airstrike Package
These would be for the Keep Owners and work like the Airstrikers in that T4 map (Lograns Runs?). You'd deploy a mounted NPC on the Siege Pad, it'd have a quest which allow you to choose any of the BOs in the Lake, you pick a target and it goes there and drops something like an AOE DOT or swipes over a few times doing an AOE Knockback.
Alternativly, you could make this a player controlled flying mount for the Lake only. That'd certainly make them very popular indeed. People would deploy the Airstrike package at the Keep. Mount a gyrocopter or wyvern, then gain a limited duration freeflight over the Lake. The mount could have a very limited number of bombs to drop, that'd either cause damage or knockbacks. After spending the bombs it'd have to return to the Airstrike pad at the Keep to restock. If it's duration runs out it'd despawn and the player would tumble down on the ground.
It's purpose would be mediocre area denial or minor crowd control, with player-entertainment as the secondary purpose. People would want to put gold into the merchant-sink to buy this, and they'd want to come to keeps to use it. I don't know how it should work in terms of being targetable by the opponents.
2) Medic Tents
These would only be deployable by the attackers on the Siege Pads. They'd allow respawning on a timer equal to that of scenarios, or longer. This would make groups with few to no healers more viable, it'd make combat more concentrated and it'd provide an incentive for the defenders to get some damage out there to destroy it. This'd also cut down on the unnecessary run from the distant Warcamps that people tend to be forced into.
3) Dungeon Siege Pad
If you add a basement to Keeps and allow the guild that owns the Keep access to a Siege Pad in that basement, this could be used to add on-demand utility to the Keep.
The pad itself could be used to deploy a respawn point with the same mechanics as the Medit Tent (2), a benificial buff or HOT to all defenders or a manner of barrack that spawns additional NPC infantry to aid in defense of ground floor Keep room.
Allowing attackers access to the Dungeon Siege Pad would give them a secondary objective once the Keep Door is down. Instead of zerging into the Keep Lord room, they could go down there and disable the defenders utility. Maybe even capture it as their own to help in the siege?
4) Dogs of War Package
Deploying a Dogs of War package on a Siege Pad would spawn either a NPC to aid in the siege or defence of the Keep. To not make Weapons of War redundant, these'd have to be weaker than the cannons and ballistas, but with the added perk of not requiring an operator.
Deploying a DoW package at the Keep would spawn immobile archers with single target dps or immobile healers to spam mediocre heals on targets in line of sight on the wall.
Deploying a DoW package on an attackers Siege Pad could either spawn a weak healer NPC with a limited range of movement to get in range of the attacking players, or a NPC with a ladder that'd be scripted to run up to the wall, set down a ladder, climb the wall and then attack anyone in sight up there. Imagine a group of 4 attackers deploying each their wallclimbing NPC and have all 4 NPCs climb up on the wall and cause a little bit of mayhem before they died.
To prevent NPC spam, when the NPC dies it'd break the siege pad with the DoW package.
Keep Lord Combat
To an innocent bystander, Keep Lord combat could currently look bugged. A semi-coordinated band of attackers will go to a balchony where the Lord and his champs are unable to go without reseting. This, together with the respawning NPCs at the ground floor room and outside which are ignored when the door is dead, leads to a messy impression.
I propose regular NPCs that are killed do not respawn while the Keep Door is broken. The attackers simply run out of their range or drop them in a few seconds if they're coordinated so it wouldn't make a big difference. The Keep Lord and his champs should be allowed to go anywhere on the Keep without reseting. This to avoid abuse and promote fighting in the Lord room, overall giving a more consistent impression to bystanders and participaters.
Also, to make matters more interesting, I think that when the Keep Door is broken, a Champ should start patroling the balchony, but that's just me and I can see how you'd want a defending player to fullfill this purpose instead.
Defense XP/Renown
Taking example from PlanetSide again, I think that defence XP and Renown should be gradually pooled based on how many attackers are in the Keep's Sphere of Influence (the reach of the area where you have the PQ-message "Defend/Attack the Keep"). This'd take count of how many unique players are killed every few ticks within the Keep's SOI to assess how fierce the fight is, and add to the pool based on that activity.
When all attackers are wiped and out of the Keep's SOI the pool would be rewarded to the defenders as a mission accomplished. The pool would be capped, so it couldn't go outside of unrealistic proportions. This'd provide incentive to show up and defend, particularly when the odds are bad, because your reward will be that much better for being able to chase away the enemy.