Just a few ideas for RvR...
I have posted most of these on Postcount, but figured I would throw them out here as well. I don't want to talk items or class balance, I just wanted to throw out some fairly simple suggestions that I think can improve the RvR experience for all players and play styles.
1. Make an area in EV similar to Moy, Trelle, and Folleys. You can put it at the far south end of the island since that almost never gets used. By doing this the solo's would now be able to port to all 4 continents, and it would give any people farming around EV another place to check out. It would also help by giving another method for players to get to EV.
2. Put the old supply crates at the new areas (Moy/Trelle/Follys) and move the current repair supply crates to a more low RR friendly spot. As it stands now I honestly feel bad for low RR toons trying to do supply missions to get their ML's and CL's. Low RR's going to the solo areas to get these crates is like a deathtrap unless they get lucky and lately EV docks have also been tough to complete these missions. The crates needed for this should be moved back into a keep or maybe another area closer to the mazes. By putting them in the solo zones you are asking low RR solo/small man's to run into areas filled with high RR players that have a hard on for getting some kills towards their credit. I'm speaking from experience here as a high RR ranger who will kill anything he comes across for another kill towards my mission credit. Also, by putting in the old supply boxes it would still give players that are in the solo zones something to do while waiting for other players to show up. By the "old supply boxes" I'm referring to the ones that used to be by the keeps that would give alchemy ingredients, wood, scales, etc.
3. Revamp the shard system. Many of these items are completely useless. Get rid of these useless items and put in some more useful items from OW. The idea of these shards was that as low RR players did these missions they may get some items they need for a template, but there is only a few items that most people use now that they can get off of shards (Ring of Granite, Warshadow Bracer, Arcane Weapon) and the rest is pretty much junk. I'm not saying make all OW items available via shards, but you could delete items like Diamond Necklace, Sharkblood Bracer, Megaladons Cloak etc and replace them with OW rings or belts or whatever.
1. Make an area in EV similar to Moy, Trelle, and Folleys. You can put it at the far south end of the island since that almost never gets used. By doing this the solo's would now be able to port to all 4 continents, and it would give any people farming around EV another place to check out. It would also help by giving another method for players to get to EV.
2. Put the old supply crates at the new areas (Moy/Trelle/Follys) and move the current repair supply crates to a more low RR friendly spot. As it stands now I honestly feel bad for low RR toons trying to do supply missions to get their ML's and CL's. Low RR's going to the solo areas to get these crates is like a deathtrap unless they get lucky and lately EV docks have also been tough to complete these missions. The crates needed for this should be moved back into a keep or maybe another area closer to the mazes. By putting them in the solo zones you are asking low RR solo/small man's to run into areas filled with high RR players that have a hard on for getting some kills towards their credit. I'm speaking from experience here as a high RR ranger who will kill anything he comes across for another kill towards my mission credit. Also, by putting in the old supply boxes it would still give players that are in the solo zones something to do while waiting for other players to show up. By the "old supply boxes" I'm referring to the ones that used to be by the keeps that would give alchemy ingredients, wood, scales, etc.
3. Revamp the shard system. Many of these items are completely useless. Get rid of these useless items and put in some more useful items from OW. The idea of these shards was that as low RR players did these missions they may get some items they need for a template, but there is only a few items that most people use now that they can get off of shards (Ring of Granite, Warshadow Bracer, Arcane Weapon) and the rest is pretty much junk. I'm not saying make all OW items available via shards, but you could delete items like Diamond Necklace, Sharkblood Bracer, Megaladons Cloak etc and replace them with OW rings or belts or whatever.
Post edited by RonELuvv on
Comments
In response to #2 - putting objectives at the solo spots just continues to add wank. You already have the same circlejerk going on, now they're just farming mats all the while? The new solo zones are sort of terrible as they are IMO and they should have just expanded upon the maze areas that already existed.
I do agree that sending new characters to the solo areas is a bit nuts. It's like making newbies run through a bunch of hungry lions. That said, the docks still work.
Re: #3 - Yes. They're already adding items apparently that you can get from RvR, but we sort of already have these - they've just fallen behind due to power creep. Buffing or changing the shard items, and perhaps upping the quality of some artifacts allows for gear accessable by more players.
My own ideas about RvR are sort of... something else entirely.
- Restrict fast travel options, make defensive positions actually make sense. Currently people can endlessly run in circles and avoid each other if they want to. You can boat to other realms, port if you have a keep, run through EV, PoC (...if you want to), or swim around the EV island, or straight up port to EV or EV CK. I'd suggest adding capturable gatehouse mini keeps to where the EV milegates are which would require a bit of redesign and reconsideration of the safe port as well as the pathway to go around it. Ideally even if an enemy owns the milegate you can still run around it, but the keep will overlook the path to add some risk to it. This idea might be hot arse, but I just find that there is too much freedom to move around without much consequence. Instead of three realms at war, they're just open bordered vacation lands with occasionally hostile guards.
- Instead of being able to freely boat anywhere, make it so you have to hold an objective to boat straight into enemy lands. A dock, a harbor, captureable beachead, whatever - an interesting meaningful defense point that actually has a purpose and is desireable to take and hold.
- Reconsider the ability to heal people through keep walls. It's an effective tactic to send up climbers to clear the walls, but usually they can stuff healers right up against the wall and heal through. This is something that seemed... off to me. There are a few ways to mitigate this, but not too many that I've seen effectively used. Having a ton of Assassin's and tanks running amok on the walls with healers that you can't easily touch almost negates the advantage of having a wall in the first place, as it doesn't necessarily keep your courtyard safe, while also adding a safe hiding spot for pods of healers. Catapults and GTAoE spells can work, but overall this seems to make keep fights a bore to me. A few breakable doors up on walls could create interesting fighting situations as well, but could become door hopping cheese if not done properly.
Those are my ideas/concerns/suggestions for the moment. People need to be able to escape to survive outnumbered fights, but there seems to be too many ways to skip around wherever and intentionally or unintentionally avoid others. Taking keeps is hit or miss as sometimes there are great fights when numbers are somewhat even, and other times where the defenders are just waiting to die for a lost cause with no real meaningful way to hold out/fight back as their walls are immediately overran and a team of secured healers just outheals their damage done.
Just a few random ideas. Some people may like them, others may hate them depending on their playstyle. I just feel that actual RvR outside of deathmatch style play has suffered over the years and objectives have lost their draw for many people. People don't PvE keeps because they like killing keep guards and clicking their "SWING" button on the ram - they want to draw out action and defenders, but as it stands, is there a reason to run to defend a likely lost cause aside from the obvious for the realm/because it's funny/why the hell not?
wtb clip notes !
1. Make a area like trelle/moy/folleys in the southern edge of EV.
2. Put old supply crates at the new ruined areas and put supplies for quests in an area more lower RR friendly.
3. Update the shard system with newer template items and get rid of junk ones.
Thats about as short as I can make it.
I would suspect that there would be a little bit of a learning curve, people wondering why they can't proceed further in a boat, or can't port past this point because objectives are not held.
People need ways to get around when they're outnumbered. Having ways to get to action is indeed important.
My overall point was make things... mean something again. Last night Hib owned Sursbrook and there was a ton of action between Surs, Bold, and Beno as Midgard owned Beno as well. Once one of the Surs port towers was taken from Hib, action died down. We put a ram up, took it back, and voila - tons more action. Eventually we just didn't have enough people to compete with the 2-3fg of Mids that showed up, but before then was a good time.
Normally that tower means jack, but in this case is was the staging for good **** for quite a few people.
Getting people to engage and make their own action rather than doing circles in random areas with no objectives is a good thing.
In terms of boats, it's more or less the thought that you should have to fight for it. We've got three realms armed with wizards and all sorts of magical badasses and they just let boats roll in endlessly undefended onto their coasts? Just seems odd.
Ultimately anything that is done will be parsed through what Broadsword is willing and capae of doing anyways, so no matter what we suggest were gonna get whatever we get I suppose.
As far as the ahit items, I agree that they can't put all good items in, just more current template items. Nobody runs sharkblood bracer, megaladon cloak, diamond necklace etc. You could easily put in some of the ow items that are not super expensive but are at least usable in templates. For example, don't put in the helms, or the cloaks, or even rings. Instead put in the belts and/or bracers.
As it stands now, the economy is already skewed. It costs 500p-900p for a good template. Making some of ow gear obtainable via shards just makes it easier for new players to get items via the shards that they can actually use and also brings the prices on some of these items down alot. It also helps people with lots of alts to retemplate without having to run raids.
Of course all of this might be a moot point, depending on what they do with this new RvR currency/items that they are supposed to implement.
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Westies was slain by Ron on the official forums.