Is PvP flagging discouraged intentionally?

@Duke Avery , @Bow Vale , @Vallo Frostbane , I agree that conflict is needed, and some kind of factions would be perfect. I apologize if I come across so very frustrated as we have been over this so many times over the years. Perhaps some things might change for the better yet. Lets hope there is some kind of conflict planned. I would love a battleground scene that you had to que up for, and battle for resources. It would limit the players per scene and keep the battles even.

 

There is a difference though in 50 people standing around emoting or saying sth and 25+ people fighting and casting.

 

It was hinted by @LordBritish that guilds will have to get out there comfort zone.. but of course we don't now exactly what that is going to be. I know he wants to spark more conflict into this game. I guess it is just a question of how its done and when.

 

I wouldn't like what we usually have as a battleground in other games, player skill limits/no reason to fight apart from leader board and points, not what i like or what i would partake in with much enthusiasm....i mentioned a que and scene limits as i do think there has to be a limit due to server/game tech.

However SotA has mixed game modes before and whats not to say it cant be done again with a form of battleground/present scene that can be controlled by a faction and fought over but with limits to players in there A battleground light but with proper rewards, not something that is easy to invoke maybe and not something you can do every day, requirements to put a territory into siege, say controlling x,y,z or old and loved UO mechanics, steal the sigil and hold for 12+ hrs. Theres many options to bring more meaningful pvp into the world and i hope they don't take what they see as the easy route, battlegrounds with player skill caps or throttling as they may be fun for a month but that's it really and it still favours the best players, not incorporating the lesser players into the system and thus they wont play and we be left with only the top 1% partaking.

 

Battlegrounds need very intense playtesting and a lot of design effort put into. They just do not have enough people.
Check the Battlegrounds we have already. Zero people play in them, because you gain nothing and it is just not rewarding enough. This was advertised as sandbox, and not a theme park. Now we already lost more than half the population because there was no sandbox content in the beginning... Imagine if you now start to transform the game into a theme park... I can only speak for myself, but this would have nothing to do with an Ultima game anymore.

 

The combat system doesn't support this style of battle though...

If you have big faction on faction matches, you'll have 95% of participants being mowed down by the top 1% like so many blades of grass. A level 110 combatant can oneshot multiple level 60s with AoE attacks.

 

Lets just say you are correct...By limiting number in scenes a faction/guild can then place/encourage there players based on their abilities and whats important or not. Say we have a siege of a faction hq, each faction is limited to 10 players in that scene, its important to control said area and they have their best 110+ adventure level players in there. Other players of less combat skill can then be used to attack scenes of less importance (see my other post), including them in the gameplay with a important task which will aid the main siege players. SotA will never have hundreds of players fighting all in one scene, the tech isn't capable of that, yet or never, if they go that route it will end up like Warhammer Online ( the siege battles there were a joke and not fun, or even GW, not fun from my opinion). What SotA should attempt to do with its instanced world and tech limitations is make things more about tactics and quality of planning and logistics over mass zerg. Include players of all levels, some lesser combat players can maybe spec into a buff tree running buffs for a party, others healers, others scouts, others crafters, others logistics, others spies, others cheerleaders(bards). Theres lots of ideas to include and encourage lesser combat players into helping a faction with things apart from straight combat. My issue with battlegrounds as i stated further on and also what Vallo said, incorporating that style of play into SotA will make it a theme park and not a sandbox and in all honesty they boring as heck after a while, especially as there you will have the top players still wining time and time again even if other players are buffed or themselves throttled.

 

This all could easily be fixed by doing something such as sorting people into scene instances when they have a PvP flag on by adv level.

Lvl 60 is flagged PvP, walks into Owls, joins and instance with others lvl 40-80

 

Would be a game breaker for me. I don't see anyone ingame already. Also it would break the sandbox totally.

 

Your post outlines an excellent system for group versus group scenes limited by persons.

I used to play a game called Infinite Black. It is completely open PVP. Among the things rival Alliances would do is attack one anothers garrisons (headquarters). These encounters were limited to 10 attackers. The best guns/ dps were used for this; first come, first serve. As an additional tactic during these garrison engagements, a fleet would be on standby during these garrison engagements to intercept the enemy Alliance should they arrive to defend their garrison. There were rewards such as Combat Points (only earned via PVP) good for gear trade ins and also occasional Experience Point bonuses for participating. These incentives helped the back and forth battles between large, organized groups to continue on and on.

The below pictures show what this was like. The pink hexes are destroyed enemy garrisons. The 10 person fleets in a hex are the gun fleets poised to attack garrisons, the much larger person fleets are the interceptors.





An interesting thing about the above game: the level progression and character benefits for gaining levels (hit and miss chance, HP, etc.) as well as gear providing small, incremental gains are similar (I sometimes feel that either SotA was modeled after the above game or we live in times where this is a popular template).

Again, all of this was (and is) done in an open PVP environment that attracts players from all time zones, all around the world. Now, if SotA could make room for the above dynamics...

 

I could totally see them design sth like that in territory control.
I played a game where guilds were able to build their own castles etc. Depending on the size they build, determined the maximum attackers and defenders a siege could have, to balance vs zerging guilds.

Also every guild could only have 1 castle, which kinda helped avoiding that. Guilds could still build alliances to get as much high level players as possible for an attack.
However declaring a war was also costly and you didn't do it just for the lolz, and it took several successful sieges to conquer the land.

 

What Vallo says sounds a bit like Shadowbane which had limited number of towns on the map. Many possibilities could open once guild warfare is introduced and I would just suggest a few castles spread out about the continent to be contested for on a weekly basis. You first take the castle from an NPC force and then once you have it your guild gets gold and resources if you can hold it until the week expires. You can even set two hour blocks in which the castle you took will be open for enemy attacks on a daily basis. Lets just make it easy and affordable for PORT to make it happen.

 

It could be a feature to build upon. Frankly I hoped CPs would be like that, right now they are just useless content IMHO. Inefficient and annoying... just like Random Encounters ^^

 

All PORT needs to do is put it on trial during a release. One Castle per region (4), load it up with lvl 6/7 mobs that have to be cleaned up. Set duration that it must be held (24 hours to a week) and have it grant whomever can hold it x amount of gold/silver ore, gems etc on a daily basis for a maximum of a week before it refreshes back into an NPC controlled castle. Defender must set a time for attack (2 hour window) daily. Not too complicated.

 

Interesting post thx

 

Frankly my guild and I expected sth like that tied to local economy etc. And that you could build castles etc. Thats why we pledged after the 2mio KS goal checked...

Btw thats exactly the point where a dev could come and aswer.. dont worry guys we got you covered. Just wait. But that never happens... I guess there are some wishlist threads for butterfly headphones that require more attention.

 

Just throw in some catapults while at it to defend and attack it and you got a war worth fighting with resources worth holding as well as bragging rights.

 

Since the first time I saw this, I've wanted to shoot someone through the face with it.

 

exactly. I wish we knew the plan so we could understand and give our thoughts on the direction of it. Instead we can each give our input and just give our own theories of what we think will work. So far though in all the years I have been here getting our collective pvp minds to agree on anything is a hard job. We all see things that are deal breakers.

 

Duke Avery, That is a start, I would rather have a catapult that can break a castle wall and leave a nice big opening for the troops to rush in and take it over .